Literary Hub Revisits Twelfth-Century Poem From Iran

Theodore McCombs draws Literary Hub readers' attention to a poem from twelfth-century Iran that is more relevant than ever. The poem, "The Conference of the Birds," by the medieval poet (and pharmacist), Farīd Ud-Dīn Attar, is "a Sufi allegory for the soul’s journey to the Divine, with the Simorgh cast as the great king of the birds of the world." But what makes it so relevant? Let's sneak in here:

The birds look to the hoopoe, King Solomon’s favorite avian courier, to guide them on the Way to the Simorgh’s home on Mount Qaf. The birds present their fears, excuses, longings, and attachments to the hoopoe, who upbraids them to demolish their egos and fall into an ecstatic, irrational love with the Divine. The hoopoe illustrates each lesson with a series of parables on this not-quite-sane, often shocking love: there are kings who fall in love with male servants; there’s a Sufi sheikh who apostatizes for love of a Christian girl; there are blood-tears, and flayings, and every manner of holy fools ecstatically degrading themselves. The Way, Attar wants us to understand, is not confined by logic, worldly prudence, or even religious orthodoxy. Every form of ego must be sacrificed, even the conceit of rectitude.

The hoopoe’s lessons unnerve the birds so violently, some die on the spot. The remaining birds journey through countless ordeals and allegorical terrains with names like the Valley of the Quest and the Valley of Poverty and Annihilation. In the end, out of 100,000, only 30 pilgrims reach Mount Qaf. Purified and chastened by the journey, they behold the Simorgh: only to see their own reflection in the lake waters. Attar reveals his clever twist of language: si morgh, in Persian, means “30 birds.” All the birds are the Simorgh; Simorgh is them. Borges admired Attar’s economy of narrative: “adroitly, the searchers are what they seek.”

Sholeh Wolpé’s stunning new translation—the first in over 30 years—renders Attar’s engaging, singular voice with wit and flourish. As medieval Islamic allegorical epic translations go, The Conference of the Birds is also highly readable. Wolpé provides section outlines and headers to orient readers; she also makes the brilliant choice of presenting the parables as prose, emphasizing their substantive themes, while the birds’ speeches remain in a clear and lively verse. The first native Persian speaker and first woman to translate Conference, she renders genderless Persian nouns like “Simorgh” (and “God”) without that irritating Western resort to the ‘default’ masculine. (In the original mythology, the Simorgh is quite clearly a female deity.) Most importantly, Wolpé offers Attar’s masterwork not as a curiosity from a bygone age, but as a text of living wisdom whose message is always timely.

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