The Collected Lyrics of Hafiz of Shiraz

Peter Avery's late friend, the great Iranian scholar Parviz Natil Khanlari edited what to date should be accepted as the most reliable Divan-i Hafiz. It is the lyrics, Ghazaliyyat, in this Divan that Avery has attempted to translate; there are 486 of them. A primary aim has been to render them as literally as is possible in the English, with extensive footnotes. Avery has also wished to produce them in colloquial English, but of couse, poems of this kind are susceptible to several levels of interpretation. Avery hopes that he has at least succeeded in conveying some sense of this poetry to the reader who lacks knowledge of Persian - they without doubt represent some of mankind's greatest literary achievements. Iranians call their great poet the Lisanu'l-Ghaib, 'The Tongue of the Invisible'. Thus are his poems' divinity recognised. They are even used to this day, as was Virgil, for the purposes of divination. Almost every contemporary Persian household still keeps a copy of the work for this purpose.