To What Is Being Wrought Because of a Beauty Mark
If you sing a coy lover’s beauty marks, say:
One of her moles took over the world,
One rules over the hot, rose-covered plain,
And yet another enthralls the one who loves.
One of her moles calmed the ocean,
One tipped over creation’s tower,
Another busted the silver market,
And yet another emptied a mine.
One of her moles joined the clean and unclean,
One tamed the wild mountain doe,
Another was given a red ruby ring,
And yet another struck gold.
One of her moles entertained guests,
One caught the bargainer’s eye,
Another filled the city square of Tiflis,
For another, they stampeded the stores.
One of her moles took the light of a star,
One confounded lack and excess,
Another possessed the ashyg and his saz,
And one stole the heart of Sayat-Nova.
Poem of the Body
Let there be praise to the creator, to God, who makes existence,
When I was water, when I was earth, I splashed into the crimson sea,
When wind fanned the fires of the pen, I fell to parchment,
By God’s will, I turned up in the city of nowhere.
My third month passed, my glowing mother knew,
At sixth months, her scarlet belt gave me refuge,
At nine months, I called on my God for help,
I was born, I got a slap, my eye opened, I fell into spring.
My first year passed, I had the holy oil’s virtue,
At two years, I gave up my mother’s breast,
At three years, I cried, confined to my crib,
At four, I toddled, my feet trampled the ground.
My fifth year passed, I found my mouth, found my tongue,
At six years, my gums gave way to new teeth,
At seven, I had done with eating wet meal,
At eight, I woke up, I fell into spring.
My ninth year passed, I was still confused,
At ten years, I ran about wildly,
My eleventh year passed, because I would be tame,
Next year, they turned me over to a master.
My thirteenth year passed, I learned my whole art,
At fourteen, I gifted my master a robe,
At fifteen, I splattered white and black.
Seventeen: mine was no epic tale,
At eighteen, I saw the rose in the garden,
At nineteen, I traveled to Ethiopia and India,
At twenty, I traded my rubies with merchants.
Twenty-five years, I entered and stared at the market,
At thirty, I became like a dragon, I writhed,
At thirty-five, I did nothing but write and erase,
At forty, everything went to the birds.
My forty-fifth year passed, I was up-to-date, well-informed,
At fifty, shame nourished my face,
At fifty-five, I often sighed with regret,
At sixty, I stopped paying heed to old men.
My sixty-fifth year passed, I often said “alas,”
At seventy, the glimmer disappeared from my eyes,
At seventy-five, I went mad. I was also an idiot.
At eighty, I stood belly deep in the grave.
My eighty-fifth year passed, illness fell on my body,
At ninety, I was sick of it all,
At ninety-five, I became a thousand-year-old hyena.
I am a sinner, and a slave: don’t let me keep you waiting.
What man is without sin? Wait for Solomon to say.
When time is up, who asks Sayat-Nova?
The world lasts but a moment. Why do you trust it?
Two Poems
Sayat-Nova
translated from the Azerbaijani by Peter Orte and Murad Jalilov
Read the original in Azerbaijani
Listen to "To What is Being Wrought because of a Beauty Mark" read in the original Azerbaijani by Peter Orte:
Sayat-Nova was an 18th century Armenian ashough, a “troubadour” from the Caucasus who took on the persona of the mad lover. Among ashoughs/ashygs, he is unique in that he composed songs in all three of the major languages of the South Caucasus (Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian), a linguistic and cultural versatility that made him a symbol of internationalism in the Soviet Union. Beyond whatever ideology they have been used to buttress, however, his songs have unmistakably poetic virtues. They are full of playful wit, tension, resolve, and depth. It is for this reason that he should be read. For the translator, his work presents a number of challenges. First, the relevant manuscripts must be deciphered: Sayat-Nova recorded his Armenian poems in the Georgian alphabet and his Azerbaijani poems in the Armenian alphabet. Second, the poems contain ambiguities and grammatical irregularities that call for a translator’s interpretation. Finally, many effects are obtained by playing with the conventions of a distant tradition and by creating tension between the literal and the figurative, which calls for knowledge of cultural context. The Azerbaijani poems translated here come from the book Sayat-Nova (Azerneshr, 1963) edited by H. Arasly. The first poem praises a beloved’s beauty mark, which scholar Charles Dowsett, in Sayat-Nova: An 18th-Century Troubadour (Peeters, 1997), characterized as a piece of “hyperbolic jest.” To convey this sense of humor in English, we have departed from the literal text. Whereas Sayat-Nova uses only one verb (bend etmek—to capture or captivate) with an assortment of objects, we vary the actions accordingly, and translate the toponym Aran (now Azerbaijan, plain) as a pun. The second poem included here, “Poem of the Body,” contains a difficulty in its title. Working with the original manuscripts, Dowsett transcribes the title as Sujudname (poem of religious prostration), whereas Arasly titles the poem after a recognizable genre, Vujudname (poem of the body or existence), which chronicles the life of the body from conception to death, and in certain examples, up to the day of resurrection. If Dowsett is right, surely Sayat-Nova was playing on this tradition in a characteristically individual way. In addition, there are several places where the poem calls for interpretation, none more important than the final line. Dowsett has it as “A curse upon fidelity!” and explains: “there is no reward for good faith or honesty in this world.” Our version conveys an equally plausible meaning.
Sayat-Nova was an 18th century ashugh who continues to be a major figure in Armenia, where people still remember his songs. Much of his biography is speculative, having been inferred from his poetry. He was born around 1712 in the city of Tbilisi, prior to the Russian annexation of Georgia. A dyer by trade, he eventually became a master musician and poet attached to the court of Heraclius II. For unknown reasons—he may have fallen in love with the king’s sister—he was exiled from court and forced to join the holy orders. He married, became a priest, and, following the death of his wife, joined a monastery. His days as a minstrel were over, but he did not abandon poetry. Along with preserving works of classical Armenian literature, it was during these years that he recorded his own songs in a unique manuscript. He is thought to have died a martyr during the invasion of the Qajar emperor Agha-Mohammed Khan in 1795.
Peter Orte grew up in Minnesota and, having come by circuitous routes, currently lives in Massachusetts, where he teaches Russian language and literature. from 2012 to 2015 he lived and worked in Baku, where he first became acquainted with the work of Sayat-Nova. He has written several articles on Russian and Azeri literature and translates from the Russian and Azeri.
Murad Jalilov is a PhD student at the University of Kansas. He received his bachelor’s degree in Political Science and English from Emporia State University and Master’s Degrees in Slavic Studies from the University of Oregon and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on the literary relationship between the Russian Empire and its periphery, with a particular focus on Azerbaijani literature, film, and folklore.
