Synopsis "Morals Book or Pand-Nama of Saadi Shirazi"
MORALS BOOK or PAND-NAMA of SAADI SHIRAZI Translation & Introduction Paul Smith Saadi of Shiraz (1210-1291), a contemporary of Rumi who influenced him, was another Perfect Master Poet who expressed himself in the ruba'i form as well as hundreds of ghazals in his beautiful Divan that often also contained images from dervish dancing. Saadi was a great traveller who spent forty years on the road throughout the Middle-East, North Africa and India and many of the incidents he experienced he wrote down in his two most famous works when he finally returned to his beloved birth-place... The Rose Garden (Gulistan) and The Orchard (Bustan). Saadi's mystical love poetry, his ghazals, although almost unknown in the West, are loved by his fellow-countrymen almost as much as those of Hafiz whom he greatly influenced. Saadi composed in rhyming couplets or masnavi form a famous Pand-Nama or 'Book of Morals' in the style of 'Attar who was the first to do so. "Concise and elegant the work is most popular throughout the length and breadth of the Persian-speaking East. This may indeed well be the case, inasmuch as, in addition to beauty of diction, it is written in a metre which flows in easy cadence, and fixes the words of the poem on the mind. Hence the lines are committed to memory to an extent not surpassed by any work in the Persian language." Arthur N. Wollaston. Here is the first translation in over a hundred years in the correct rhyme-form for the first time. Introduction: Life & Times & Poetry of Saadi; Selected Bibliography; Appendix: Pand-Nama of 'Attar with selections. Large Format Paperback "7 x 10" 214 pages. COMMENTS ON PAUL SMITH'S TRANSLATION OF HAFIZ'S 'DIVAN'."It is not a joke... the English version of all the ghazals of Hafiz is a great feat and of paramount importance. I am astonished." Dr. Mir Mohammad Taghavi (Dr. of Literature) Tehran."Superb translations. 99% Hafiz 1% Paul Smith." Ali Akbar Shapurzman, translator of many works in English into Persian and knower of Hafiz's Divan off by heart."Smith has probably put together the greatest collection of literary facts and history concerning Hafiz." Daniel Ladinsky (Penguin Books author). Paul Smith (b. 1945) is a poet, author and translator of many books of Sufi poets of the Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Turkish, Pashtu and other languages... including Hafiz, Saadi, Nizami, Rumi, 'Attar, Sana'i, Jahan Khatun, Obeyd Zakani, Mu'in, Amir Khusrau, Nesimi, Kabir, Anvari, Ansari, Jami, Omar Khayyam, Rudaki, Yunus Emre, Baba Farid, Shah Latif, Mu'in, Lalla Ded, 'Iraqi, Ghalib, Nazir, Bulleh Shah, Ibn 'Arabi, Ibn Farid, Rab'ia, Majnun, Mansur Hallaj, many others, as well as his own poetry, fiction, plays, biographies, children's books and a dozen screenplays. amazon.com/author/smithpa
