Est-cel’arrogancedetabeauté,Orose,quine
tepermetpasdedemanderdesnouvellesdurossignolamoureux?[...]
Lesbellequalitesdel’amesontlespiègesd’unvin
coeurinstruit:onneprendpaunoiseauprudentavecdesfiletsetdeslacs.
andagain:
J’aimeunebeauté,commelarose,estsous
l’ombraged’uncouvertd’hyacinthes;sesjouessont
aussiclairesqu’unruisseau;seslèvresderubis
respirentlaplusdoucehaleine.
Quand elle etend sur ces joues le piège de ses beaux cheveux, elle dit au
zephyr:Gardenotresecret.
Sesjouessontunies&agréables.Ociel!
Donne-luiunevieéternelle,carsescharmessontéternelles!^33
In Byron’s poem we have the comparison of the Beloved’s eyes to a gazelle’s dark
eyes. In Persian mystical poetry the gazelle is ‘shy and fugitive’; it ‘escapes every
attempt at capture and yet can easily catch the heart of ... the lover’.^34 Jām-i Jam
(Byron’s ‘jewel of Giamschid’) is commonly known in Persian mystical poetry as ‘a
symbol of esoteric knowledge ... and it came to represent the glass of enlighten-
ment’.^35 Byron’semploymentofḤāfiẓ’sallegoricalimageryisnumerousandvaried
- all part of his extensive knowledge of Oriental literature. Shelley, on the other
hand,wasaPlatonistlikehisAmericancounterpartEmerson.
WeknowthatShelleyreadJones’Works.Heorderedthemwhenhewasresiding
inItaly.^36 AlmostallShelleycriticsacknowledgehisdebttoSirWilliamJones.^37 John
HollowayhassuggestedthattherewasPersianinfluenceontheearlypoemssuchas
‘The Indian Serenade’ and ‘From the Arabic’.^38 Sataya S. Pachori argues that ‘The
IndianSerenade’isanimitationofoneofḤāfiẓ’spoemswhichShelleywasfamiliar
with, and that in the poem ‘Shelley ... may have borrowed the idea of the mystical
unity in lovers from Ḥāfiẓ and Jones. In order to achieve the divine unity, the
Shelleyanserenaderhastorenouncehisphenomenalselfandretainthenoumenal
one.’^39 Shelley, like many other Romantic poets, was a Platonist. He translated
Plato’sSymposium(and several other dialogues), and was also influenced by the
German neo-Platonists and transcendentalists. In his short essayOn Love, Shelley
writes:
[Love] is the bond and the sanction which connects not only man with man,
but with everything which exists. We are born into the world, and there is
something within us which, from the instant that we live, more and more
Ḥāfiẓ’s Romantic Imagery and Language of Love 285
