Rumi's deevané shō

Hello and welcome to our part 5 discussion of Rumi’s poem ‘deevāné shō!’ In this lesson, we’re going to be going over the last two lines of this beautiful poem! So at this point, I want to play the entire poem as read by Fared Shafinury- but as you’re listening, I want you to repeat the lines with him, as much as you can. Hopefully, at this point, you’ve been memorizing along the way and can say most of these words. And I want to just say that one thing about Iranian culture is that people traditionally have so many of these classic poems memorized. And once you memorize them, you’ll find that they become relevant in more and more day-to-day situations. You’ll be able to relate to life occurrences in different ways, deal with situations differently, by recalling these lines and reciting them. And ultimately, you can use them generally when communicating in Persian as well- many of the words and phrases in classical Persian poetry are the same ones used in conversation today, so you’re just building the vocabulary you can use in everyday conversation.

So with all that said, let’s listen and recite along with Fared:

heelat rahā kon āsheghā, deevāné shō deevāné shō

vandar del ātash darā, parvāné shō parvāné shō

ham kheesh rā beegāné kon, ham khāné rā veerāné kon

vāngah beeyā bā āsheghān ham khāné shõ ham khāné shõ

bāyad ké jomlé jān shavee, tā lāyeghé jānān shavee

garsooyé mastān meeravee mastāné shō mastāné shō

All right!! So hopefully at this point, you understood everything except for those very last two lines. And let’s just listen to those last two lines again- see if you can pick out any of the vocabulary before we go over it:

'bāyad ké jomlé jān shavee, tā lāyeghé jānān shavee

garsooyé mastān meeravee mastāné shō mastāné shō'

So just as we usually do, let’s start with the command. So the very final command in this portion of the poem is ‘mastāné shō’. ‘mast’ is the word for ‘drunk.' mast

(mast)

and ‘mastāné’ is the word for ‘intoxicated’ or the ‘state of intoxication’. mastāné

(mastāné)

and ‘mastāné shō’ is  ‘become intoxicated.’ mastāné shō

mastāné shō

So let’s go back to the first sentence. Let’s listen to the full sentence again

‘bāyad ké jomlé jān shavee, tā lāyeghé jānān shavee’

So let’s first go over the command word in this sentence, which we hear twice, actually-- ‘shavee’.

(shavee)

This means you shall become shavee

(shavee)

So it’s similar to ‘sho’ or ‘become,’ but it’s set in the future. Let’s look at the rest of the line to see it in context. So ‘bāyad’ means ‘must’. bāyad

(bāyad)

and ‘ké’ means ‘that.’ ké

(ké)

Next, the concept of ‘jomlé jān’. So you have probably heard the word ‘jān’ before- it comes up all the time in conversation. It means ‘life’ or ‘soul.’ jān

(jān)

And this often comes up in conversation as a sort of term of endearment. Like if you say someone’s name, you follow it up with ‘jān’ as a way of, for instance, calling them ‘dear.’ So like if someone’s name is Sara, you say ‘Sara jān,’ meaning ‘Sara dear.’ 

But like I said, it means soul or life. jān

(jān)

and ‘jomlé’ in this case means ‘all of’, ‘the entirety of.’ jomlé

(jomlé)

Or like ‘the sum of.’ ‘The total of.’ jomlé

(jomlé)

So then ‘jomlé jān’ means the ‘entirety of life.’ ‘All of existence.’ jomlé jān

(jomlé jān)

so then ‘bayād ké jomlé jān shavee’ basically means ‘you must become all of existence.’ Or, more literally, ‘it must be that you become the entirety of existence.’ ‘Become one with existence, with living.' Let’s repeat this together- bāyad ké jomlé jān shavee

(bāyad ké jomlé jān shavee)

next part is ‘tā lāyeghé jānān shavee.’ So obviously we have the word ‘shavee’ again in here. Again, meaning ‘you shall become.’ shavee

(shavee)

‘tā’ is the word for ‘to,’ as in ‘in order to.’ tā

(tā)

‘lāyegh’ means ‘worthy.’ lāyegh

(lāyegh)

Now this next part is fascinating. It’s saying ‘lāyeghé jānan.’ Now, before we had the word ‘āshegh,' which means ‘love,’ and then we learned ‘āsheghān,’ and that means ‘the lovers-’ so it’s plural. So then ‘jān’ again means ‘existence’ or ‘life.’ ‘jānān’ then means ‘the living,’ ‘those who are of the spirit,’ ‘those who are one with existence.’ jānān

(jānān)

And again, think of the way we use the word ‘jān’ in conversation- to call someone ‘jān’ is means they are ‘dear,’ so ‘jānān’ are ‘the dearest,’ they are ‘the ones who are one with life and with being.’ jānān

(jānān)

so then ‘lāyeghé jānān’- so to be worthy of those who are living, of those who are one with existence. and ‘tā lāyeghé jānān shavee’ means ‘in order to become worthy of those who are alive.’ Now let’s look at this whole line again- 

‘bāyad ké jomlé jān shavee, tā lāyeghé jānān shavee’

So you must become the entirety of life, in order to become worthy of the living. The way Fared translated this in his version is ‘do not just mingle with the Spirit.’ ‘Allow the Beloved to flow through your veins’- and this is a beautiful way to translate this as well. Another way to put this is ‘you must be all love in order to be worthy of the beloved.’ ‘jān’ is synonymous with ‘love,’ ‘jānān,’ are synonymous with ‘āsheghān,’ or ‘the lovers.’ So ‘to be love, you must become love.’ So let’s repeat this together- ‘bāyad ké jomlé jān shavee, tā lāyeghé jānān shavee’

(bāyad ké jomlé jān shavee, tā lāyeghé jānān shavee)

All right, let’s listen to the last line- 

garsooyé mastān meeravee mastāné shō mastāné shō

Now, let’s go back to our command again- we learned this at the beginning of the lesson. ‘mast’ is the word for ‘drunk’ and ‘mastāné shõ’ means ‘become intoxicated.’ mastāné shõ

(mastāné shõ)

we see the word mast in this line with ‘mastān.’ So again, this is similar to ‘āsheghān’ and ‘jānān.’ ‘mastān’ is plural and it means ‘those who are drunk.’ So ‘those who are intoxicated.’ mastān

(mastān)

‘garsooyé mastān’ means ‘in the direction of the drunkards.’ garsooyé mastān

(garsooyé mastān)

and ‘garsoo’ is not really a word we use in modern conversation. We do hear ‘bé soo’ and it means the same thing. be sooyé

(be sooyé)

However- there are a few different ways to say ‘in the direction of.’ You could say be ‘tarafé’ and that literally means, ‘in the direction of.’ be tarafé

(be tarafé)

‘taraf’ means ‘direction’ and ‘bé tarafé’ means ‘in the direction of,’ so you’re walking toward them. However, ‘soo’ is more active. ‘gar sooyé’ means you’re ‘searching for and seeking out.’ So maybe this is the most accurate way to say it- ‘when you seek the drunkards.’ So ‘gar sooyé’ means ‘in search of,’ or ‘in seeking of.’ gar sooyé

(gar sooyé)

garsooyé mastān

(garsooyé mastān)

So ‘seeking out the drunkards.’ ‘Searching for them and seeking them out.’ And finally, the word ‘meeravee’

(meeravee)

And this is the present tense continuous of ‘to go.' ‘meeravee,’ meaning ‘you presently go,’ meeravee

(meeravee)

So again, this is in poetry, it’s drawing out the word, but in conversational Persian, this would simply be ‘meeree’

(meeree)

you go. And it’s the informal you- ‘meeree’

(meeree)

But the way it looks in written Persian, and the way it appears in this poem is ‘meeravee’

(meeravee)

So ‘gar sooyé mastān meeravee’ means ‘when you go seek out the drunkards’, ‘gar sooyé mastān meeravee’

(gar sooyé mastān meeravee)

And finally the command- ‘mastāné shō’

‘mastāné shō, mastāné shō’

‘Become intoxicated, become intoxicated.’

Incredible. So, that last line, he’s saying, ‘you have actively searched for these people, the intoxicated ones- don’t just seek them, become them.’ And what is this state of intoxication? So this is a huge concept in sufism- just as ‘craziness,’ or ‘deevanégee’ is this egoless state, and a desired state of being, so is the state of being ‘mastāné,’ or ‘intoxicated.’ It’s ‘being intoxicated with love, being one with the universe, being with the 'lovers'’, the ‘āsheghān.'

And remember that in the last part of this poem, the command had been to become a chalice for the wine of love- ‘vāngah sharābé eshgh rā, paymāné shō paymāné shō.’ So keep that in mind when we’re talking about the drunkards- they are drunk off of ‘the wine of love.’ ‘sharābé eshgh.’

So in these two last lines, again, he says first you must become ‘jomlé jān,’ and you must become ‘mastāné- ’ so we can assume that these are both similar states, and again similar to the state of ‘deevānégee,' ‘being mad.’ 

let’s go over these last two lines once again together. 

bāyad ké jomlé jān shavee, tā lāyeghé jānān shavee

garsooyé mastān meeravee mastāné shō mastāné shō

All right! And that is the very last two lines of our poem! At this point, let’s listen to Fared recite the whole thing one last time. Try to recite it with him:

heelat rahā kon āsheghā, deevāné shō deevāné shō

vandar del ātash darā, parvāné shō parvāné shō

ham kheesh rā beegāné kon, ham khāné rā veerāné kon

vāngah beeyā bā āsheghān ham khāné shõ ham khāné shõ

bāyad ké jomlé jān shavee, tā lāyeghé jānān shavee

garsooyé mastān meeravee mastāné shō mastāné shō

And that is the end of the portion of the poem we’re learning! At this point, I want you to memorize this poem, to take in these words, to say them over and over again until they become a part of you. As you memorize it, the meaning will evolve, and you’ll be able to personalize this poem to your own life situation. That’s the beauty of Persian poetry, and of learning them in this way.

And that’s it for this lesson, and for our study of Rumis’ ‘deevāné shō!’ Thank you for listening, and until next time- khodāhāfez from Leyla!