A.Z. Foreman is an amazing linguist who's not only an expert in reconstruction who can personally pronounce even dead languages like a native speaker, he's also a translator and poet in his own right. Even just this little bit is amazing, maybe the best translation of the Shahnameh I've yet seen.
Exordium
Now in the name of God all things extol,
The Lord of wisdom and the human soul,
Beyond which there does not exist a thing
Our minds can ever compass, Sovereign King
Of all that is, of every name and place,
Guide and sustainer of the human race,
The cosmic Lord who wheels the stars of night,
Who gave the sun, the moon and Venus light,
Above all name or thought or signifying,
High artificer of the underlying.
You can't make out your Maker with your eye
However much you strain it. Do not try.
Minds can't grasp Him. He is the overall
Being unnameable, unplaceable.
It would take more than sapience to attain
Things so beyond this elemental plane.
Our minds with every word in their command
Have only words for what they understand,
So none knows how to praise Him as He is.
Just bind yourself in reverence. You are His.
He measured out the intellect, defined
The soul of man. How would a measured mind
Contain Him? Could the implements of thought
Or soul or language rightly praise what brought
Them into being? You need but confess
That He exists, and speak no idleness.
Seek the right path. Have reverence and awe,
And go about with care to heed His law.
This is the fact: to know is to be strong.
And knowing God will turn the old heart young.
But words can never pierce the veil we see.
Our mind will never touch His quiddity.
In Praise of Reason
Now that I see the chance for it arise
Here let me talk of reason to the wise,
For it is greater than God's other gifts.
Better its praise than justice. It uplifts
The heart. It is life's vanguard, guides the vexed.
It is your aid in this world and the next,
Your fount of grief and joy, the origin
Of every moment that you lose or win.
If it goes dark, even the brightest soul
Will never live a day of feeling whole
Or happy. So a man of eloquence
Once said to nourish our intelligence:
"Whoever does not pay his wisdom heed
Will slice himself to shreds with every deed,
Wise men deem him an idiot and a danger
As his own people turn him out a stranger."
In this world as the next, it keeps you free.
The man whose reason breaks finds slavery.
For reason is the sole eye of the soul.
The eyeless in this world have no control.
It was created first, before all else,
To brace the soul and the three sentinels
Called eye and ear and tongue. These are the three
That bring about all ill and good you see.
Who can praise soul and reason fitly here?
Even if I were fit to, who could hear?
Since we're unfit to speak about all this,
Let's hear instead how God made all that is.
You, authored by the Lord who willed the days,
Don't know this world's overt or covert ways.
Let those who know show you the way. Go on
Throughout this world, and talk to everyone.
And when you've heard all wise men have to say,
Still don't stop learning for a single day.
Then, when you reach the high word-branches, know
That knowledge cannot reach the root below.
The Creation of the World
You need to know the truth, as we begin,
Of this world's elemental origin,
When out of nothing God created matter
In order for His potency to matter.
From it, the stuff of the four elements
Came in no time and with no toil. Immense
Fire arose shining, burning into birth,
Then wind and water flowed upon dark earth.
First, fire was blown to motion. Hot and high
It blazed till there was such a thing as dry.
Then it was stilled again as cold took hold,
And the first moisture grew out of the cold.
The elements existed now, and curled
Together so to form our fleeting world.
Combining and compounding genera
Formed the high orders of phenomena.
So came the skydome spinning black and blue
With wonders at full tilt, forever new,
Revealing stars and planets and their signs,
Each in its place, befitting His designs.
The spheres were shaped inside each other, cast
In motion as the structure set. At last,
With sea and desert, dale and mountain height,
The earth shone like a colored lamp at night.
The mountains loomed. The waters coalesced
And every sprouting plant reared up its crest.
But Earth itself received no place on high.
It was the darkling axis. In the sky
A starfield's wonders blazoned overhead
Lighting the earth up with the sheen they shed.
Fire surges up. Water pours down. The sun
Goes round the earth to make its daily run.
Grass sprouted up with the assorted trees
Happily pressing their heads upward. These
Just grow and do not move, for they lack all
The animacy of an animal.
Animals soon appeared. Those moving things
Tamed growing plants beneath their legs and wings.
They eat and sleep and rest, and so they thrive.
Their satisfaction lies in being alive.
No speaking tongue, no seeking mind, they're free
To gratify themselves on grass and tree.
They do not know if they do good or ill.
The Lord asks nothing of them. Grants no will.
He is almighty, all-knowing and fair,
So nothing's hidden from Him anywhere,
Yet none of His creations comprehend
The way the workings of this world will end.
There, I saw hope barbed like barbed wire
And I said to myself: It is the truth. Hope must be
Like barbed wire to keep out our despair.
Hope must be a minefield.
Yehuda Amichai, from “Ein Yahav,” trans. A.Z. Foreman
Dark Night of the Soul (Spanish: La noche oscura del alma) is a poem written by the 16th-century Spanish mystic and poet St. John of the Cross. The author himself did not give any title to his poem, on which he wrote two book-length commentaries: Ascent of Mount Carmel (Subida del Monte Carmelo) and The Dark Night (Noche Oscura).
Quotes Worth Sharing, Episode 70 Dark Night of the Soul (Spanish: La noche oscura del alma) is a poem written by the 16th-century Spanish mystic and poet St.
