Sālhā del talab-ē jām-e Jam az mā mīkard is a ghazal by the 14th-century Persian poet Hāfez of Shiraz.
Although the Divan (poetry collection) of Hafez, which was organised after his death by his friend Muhammad Gulandam, is arranged by the usual method of alphabetical order of the rhymes, it is possible to make out to a certain extent which poems are early, middle or late.
Arberry believes that Hafez's philosophy of unreason would have provided him with spiritual comfort in a period of history which witnessed the terrible devastations and massacres of the Mongols.
[6] Similarly, Dick Davis notes the diverse themes in this ghazal: "In its mixture of various religious groupings, and its mingling of references to both secular pleasures (the wine, the beauties of the last stanza) and mystical insight (Jamshid's cup, Hallaj's martyrdom), and in its recommendation that one look inward for the truth (the pearl one has lost) the poem is typical of Hafez's polyphonic/polysemous poetic strategies.
In Sana'i's mystical narrative poem Ilāhī-Nāma or Elahi-Nameh, one of the six sections tells the story of a king's son who wanted to possess the cup.
His father tells him the true spiritual meaning of the cup, which is that to attain eternity, he must leave behind the world, as Kay Khosow did, and annihilate himself.
Arberry compares ghazal 1 (Alā yā ayyoha-s-sāqī) verse 5:[12] The "Magian Elder" is literally a Zoroastrian wine-seller (since Muslims were not allowed to sell wine); but in Hafez's poetry it stands for the Pir ("Elder") or Murshid ("Spiritual leader") who helped Sufi disciples in the path leading to union with God.
[16] Later in the same Sura (verses 85–99) God reveals to Moses that during his absence the Sāmirī (or Samaritan) has led his people astray by having them worship a Golden Calf.
Hafez here appears to conflate the stories of the magician (sāherī) who competed with Moses and the Samaritan (Sāmerī) who led the people astray with the Golden Calf.
Verse 8 refers to the Sufi mystic Husayn Mansur Al-Hallaj, who was tortured and hanged for heresy or blasphemy in Baghdad in 922.
The idea that the gallows which killed al-Hallaj lifted its head proud as well as tall is implied in Arberry's translation: "That friend ... glorified the tree that slew him for his crime.
Several translators have made versions of this ghazal, among them Walter Leaf (1898), John Payne (1901),[24] Arberry (1947),[25] and Dick Davis (2008).