P186

(in an Allegory of Winter and Spring)

Here good men in cotton tunics and white belts, there Negroes with red lips and black hair as pitch.

P225

POEM IN PRAISE OF TELEK EL ME'ALl MENOUTCHEHR SON OF QABOUS. (1)

The poet portrays the sad aspect of winter and urges his hero to celebrate Bahmanagan (2) by drinking wine.

1. Behold, from the mountains arises the cloud of Mazandaran (3), it remains looks like a huge serpent with tortuous folds.

2. He looks like a pregnant negress whose belly grows bigger when she is about to give birth.

3. She gives birth to a bald girl like old men; cotton-headed(=white headed) decrepit.

4. There is only this cloud and the mother of Zal-zer(=father of Rustal; born with whire hair) who have ever put to the world such children.

5. These girls came from the sky very small, very small as cotton flakes.

6. At their bedside, crows sat like nurses with black veil.

7. You would say that in the garden, on a snowy day, there was a row of pines and a row of mountain cypresses.

8. On the vineyard path we see a large number of their sisters with black boots and a veil the color of jasmine (white).

9. And under this veil they all wear a silk dress from the head to thighs.

10. But seeing these crows perched on the pines you would say that these sisters have black helmets on their heads.

11. The land from Balkh (4) to Khaveran (5) is like the factory of Samarkand (6)(=paper factory from cotton).

12. Everything in this factory is Negroes and paper-makers.

13. What do these Negroes have to be both manufacturers of paper and paper buyers? (The snow is compared with paper and the Blacks are the crows who bring the snow which melts under the sun) ……………………….

P227

(the poet is going through a desert at night)

The soil of this desert was like Hell in its scorching heat; its grasses had turned black like the hair of Negroes.

P263

(in an Allegory on a Barrel of Wine)

I saw a large mouth under his head and a throat under his mouth.

She had a lip thick like that of Negroes, like the lip of a hungry camel.

…………………….

The point of his pen on the body of his pen is like the head of a negro on the body of a blond.

P269

(when visiting a vineyard)

When he opened the door and looked at these little girls he saw them as black as negresses; each had both black cheeks; everywhere a child shining like the planet Venus and like the Moon; a child as yellow as straw, her head bowed with shame, her face darkened by awareness of the fault committed, each with a fat belly and lips swollen with disdain.

P272

(the vineyard in autumn)

These little girls were born to a negress, they had much looked upon the humble and the noble; their mothers had not entrusted them to nurses, she had never put them out of their cradles; the little ones had fallen on the edges of their cradles, a green fan in their hands every year.

P299

(a group of drinkers)

And this raven like a negro degreaser attached to the twigs of hyacinths and squills.

(1) TELEK EL ME'ALl MENOUTCHEHR SON OF QABOUS: Falak al-Ma'ali Manuchihr ibn Qabus was the ruler of the Ziyarids (1012  – c. 1030) ruled north Iran.

(2) Bahmanagan : feast of Bahman (=the 11^th month of the old Zoroastrian calendar) Bahman is one of the archangels of Zoroastrianism. The festival was maintained until the Mongol invasion by Iranian Muslims.

(3) Mazandaran: Mazandaran Province, is an Iranian province located along the southern coast of the Caspian Sea.

(4) Balkh; Balkh is a town in the Balkh Province of Afghanistan.

(5) Khaveran: is a city in Fars Province, Iran.

(6) Samarkand: Samarqand, is a city in south-eastern Uzbekistan.