or, I remember my first “fall in Love”

I thought that it is time to have a look back at my memory and dare to write another capital; in the name of the first love.

It is surely not something new but it is always a brand new feeling for a young one which would never forget. I am not a romantic archetype as I have uttered now and then. But I had a dramatic childhood, therefore, became very sensitive and I had worked on it all through my life. Though, this trauma still remains.

At the beginning to recognize my feelings towards the opposite gender I fell in love with many girls; for example, I remember one of my cousins (I had a lot of them) whom I had played a lot of times with, once when I had been visiting at my uncle’s, wanted to play with her and run to her room, there I saw her sleeping; in a white gown with her long hair falling on her shoulders; I fell in love with her at once, though it didn’t last a long time and in the next day I had forgotten her! 😁😳

And there were many young actresses in the movies whom I fell in love with; I even fell in love with Brigitte Bardot though she was some older than me.

I had also kissing plays with my other cousins as we saw in the movies but, I should tell them another time.

In the time after my father’s death, mother tried in every way to get money, one of them was to rent the ground floor, and it’s occupied by a young family (a young man with his young wife and a newborn child) and there began my first sex affair!

    She was crazy; the young beautiful girl liked and wanted me very much! Every little moment I could get to their apartment, she embraced and hugged me heartily, I was just a child those days and didn’t know anything about sex or maybe I did? There was something to attract me to see her, being near to her. Once I was again alone and run downstairs on the yard to look through their window, in which was looking through their sleeping room, and recognized them lying on their bed, and playing with their newborn baby; when she saw me called me in immediately, I get inside at once! She got me to the bed, let her husband enjoyed playing with the baby and hugged me to her almost naked body, kissed me tight and what else I can’t remember or was not aware of it.

You might think of child abuse but I don’t think so; she had never tried to make it secret with me. I think she was one of very seldom woman or a human who didn’t believe in any social morality or any forbidden zone for free feeling and free-living, I suppose her husband even knew it and accepted it because in this evening he was playing with his baby happily and even when he was very amused calling us to see what the baby already was doing, and we’re too busy to observe any of their action, wasn’t very important for him and he continued playing.  Maybe it was because of me, being a child and not a serious rival! I’d never know, but once she got farther and on a hot summer day when we were all swimming in the pool in our yord, she, swimming towards me, and saying clearly laud “making love in the water”, hugged me and began to kiss me! There, mother cried out that it’s enough for us children and must get out of the water!! I think she wasn’t aware of what she was doing, she might be too honest of course, otherwise, she could do it hidden to me anything she wanted, if she minded something badly!? Mother was a free thinker, but unfortunately not so far, and threw them out of the house, and our affair has been ended so soon.

After that, mother thought it’s better to rent the upstairs because we could use the garden more easily, and she had rented it to a very normal family; but, they were often being visited by a young girl, a very beautiful one, and of course, I fell in love with her too! And Al didn’t want to ignore her as well; we weren’t therefore always a good playmate! For the first time, we became competitors!! She was a nutty girl I must add here and be enjoying a game to turn us both crazy at the beginning, but in the end, she was suddenly crazy after me. Shirin was her name and One evening, we were in the yard and I heard them discussing loudly on the balcony, and I looked up, saw her beautiful face, keep staring at her, she looked down at me, and she kept staring too, I can clearly see her on the balcony upstairs how she almost eats me with her beautiful eyes.
She came down and told me that we should play; a hidden game. You know, one closes the eyes and the others try to hide somewhere. it was obvious there would happen something and it happened; I found her in a small room in the backyard and when I got her she was so agitated that she hurt herself on her arm. I was so sorry but she laughed and said: kiss it! I was shocked at a moment and in the next moment when I did want to kiss her arm, she withdrew it. What a dumb was I!

Anyway, after that, some weeks later they moved out and I had never heard of her anymore. I don’t know why but it was my first deeply falling love and I’ll never forget it, as I might say; No no, here’s looking at you kid, we have always Paris.

  

Oh yes, you must just remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh, The fundamental things apply
As time goes by
Never forget your first love. because it is one of the most important events in your whole life. Have a nice weekend dear friends. 🙏💖🙏

Hello dear friends, I don’t know if I have enough time till my leave to find all these wonderful and great genius women who are not actually hidden but that the society is so blind or rather dumb to disclose them to the poblic.

At least, I must be lucky to find out them. Here is another Brilliant one:

I don’t know if you know or have heard of this amazing woman. I didn’t; till Mike Ben, a FB friend of mine caught my attention on this fascinating Dame whom every man (including me) could fall in love with her. She’s not only a great painter but also a writer and poet.

Here, some dropping words about her life;

In her own words… Dorothea Tanning was born in 1910 in Galesburg, Illinois and attended Knox College in her hometown before studying painting in Chicago (haunting the Art Institute where she learned what painting was.)   In 1941, now in New York, she met the art dealer, Julien Levy, and his surrealist friends, refugees from Nazi occupied France. Late in 1942 Max Ernst visited her studio, saw a painting, (Birthday), and stayed to play chess. They would have 34 years together, at first in Sedona, Arizona (a mere outpost at the time).  Here she would continue to paint her enigmatic versions of life on the inside, looking out: The Guest Room, The Truth About Comets, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Interior with Sudden Joy, Insomnias, Palaestra, Tamerlane, Far From. By 1956 Max and Dorothea had chosen to live and work thenceforth in France. Though Paris was headquarters, they preferred the country quiet lure in Touraine and Provence. These years included, for Dorothea Tanning, an intense five- year adventure in soft sculpture:  Cousins, Don Juan’s Breakfast, Fetish, Rainy Day Canapé, Tragic Table, Verb, Xmas, Emma, Revelation or the End of the Month, Hôtel du Pavot Room 202.

Max Ernst died on April 1, 1976 and Dorothea faced a solitary future. “Go home,” said the paint tubes, the canvases, the brushes. Returning to the United States in the late 1970s, and still painting, Tango Lives, Woman Artist, On Avalon, Door 84, Still in the Studio, Blue Mom, Dionysos S.O.S., she gave full rein to her long felt compulsion to write.  Words, poetry.  Written, read, heard.  Would she join these voices even then?  Her poems have since appeared in a number of literary reviews and magazines, such as The Yale Review, Poetry, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, The Boston Review, The Southwest Review, Parnassus, and in Best Poems of 2002 and 2005. Her published works include two memoirs, Birthday and Between Lives, a collection of poems, A Table of Content, and a novel, Chasm.

At present Dorothea Tanning lives in New York City, breathes words, as well as air, and looks at her paintings with amazement. It is 2009.
 

About the artist: Dorothea Tanning died at her home in New York City on January 31, 2012.  She was 101 years old, and had just published her second collection of poems, Coming to That (Graywolf Press, 2011). 

Still later, when I was more in touch with
the world, they told me, “You have a future.”
I thought that over. Even if I believed them,
what did my little future, whatever that was,
have to do with the real thing, whatever that is?
—from “Waiting”

Let’s enjoy her paintings with the beginning of her self-portrait; Birthday.

Artist, Once https://poets.org/

Dorothea Tanning – 1910-2012

That was in a room for rent.
It had a window and a bed,

it was enough for dreaming,
for stunning facts like being

at last, and undeniably
in NYC, enough to hold

enfolded as in a pregnancy,
those not-yet-painted works

to be. They, hanging fire,
slow to come—to come

out—being deep inside her,
oozing metamorphosis

in her warm dark, took
their time and promised.

Fast forward. Trapped in now,
she's not all that sure.

Compared to what entwined
her mind before the test,

before the raw achievement
pat, secure—oh, such bounty

to be lived, yet untasted,
undefined—all the rest...

Sources:

https://www.dorotheatanning.org/dorothea-tanning

https://www.dorotheatanning.org/

https://www.graywolfpress.org/themes/oc_patterns/logo.svg

Hi dear fellows. Let me first drop some lines as a prologue before begin to report our trip;
As a novice in the matter of writing, I look always for gathering some idea for my weekend post. I am getting used to doing it (it seems to become a ritual for me). Therefore, I try to begin on Mondays because I need time! though it sometimes stuns me to see some friends who simply post a video-clip or share from the WEB a quote with a title; The Quote of the Day, and that was it! I can’t, I don’t know why but I can not do it so simply. Surely I use also the WEB but when I want to tell something, must be composed a part of my own thoughts too.
Anyway, this time I was in Bonn and I couldn’t get ready to prepare something or even not a free mind to catch up with an idea. And when we came back home I was so rigid that I couldn’t fix the days till today I worked up and I had a feeling like a pupil who had not finished his homework and must appear in the school!!
Now at least there was a trip and I can tell thereabout and share some pictures with you, I hope you’ll enjoy it.

A few days ago, my wife and I were in Bonn not only to visit the former capital city of Germany (BRD the west part) But surely to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Ludwig von Beethoven; one of the greatest ever in the classic music.

The truth is that we wanted to travel to Berlin as we’d planed last year to get my interview with the US Embassy for getting a visa for me if you might remember it. It has been cancelled because of the Corona emerge and we have just thought to change this meeting to few-days travel in Berlin to meet also the ex from my wife! But Berlin became a Hot-spot, therefore, we made an immediate change to Bonn, also towards Beethoven, an unbelievable chance.

I love him and his works; especially his once and for all Concerto Violon which He had composed only one (many other compositors have more than one Concerto Violon) but this is a remarkable one.
And we had met the Rhein and her beauty, we had also an unexpected encounter with Beavers who walking cooly around.

And we took a look at his house or museum, we were not allowed to take any pictures, therefore, I had to steal one from the WEB! It’s his piano, so small but what the masterworks he’d created with it; even later when he was deaf.

There some more, have a peaceful weekend 🙏💖

And yet, let’s have the great piece; with a woman as the soloist, what else.

I just can’t stop thinking admirably about this woman. She, with her infinite courage, had fought for her idea till to the end, alone.

Her unlimited view on ethnicities, religions or creeds is stunning me; she had a wider look at the problem of the human judgement than her fellow colleagues. As we might know this point of view is lacking in our society, either those days or now. And it causes a big problem in many countries on Earth.

But honestly, to reach such a point of view looks like idealistic, a dream! Although, she had done it and was so fearless to talk about it.

Her breakthrough was her participation in the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the organizer of the jews death-transport to the Gas-Chamber, who was captured so refined by Mossad (the Israeli secret service) in 1960 in Argentina and transported to Israel for the trial. She had been invited by a famous Magazine to make a report on this Process. But what she wrote in her announcement was not what the peoples expected for; it was a superhuman report as I might call. She had not, as the others did, observed this occurrence superficially (as the motto; everything runs perfectly).

“After Germany’s defeat in 1945, Eichmann was captured by US forces, but escaped from a detention camp and moved around Germany to avoid re-capture. He ended up in a small village in Lower Saxony, where he lived until 1950, when he moved to Argentina using false papers he obtained with help from an organisation directed by Catholic bishop Alois Hudal. Information collected by the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, confirmed his location in 1960. A team of Mossad and Shin Bet agents captured Eichmann and brought him to Israel to stand trial on 15 criminal charges, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the Jewish people. During the trial, he did not deny the Holocaust or his role in organising it, but claimed that he was simply following orders in a totalitarianFührerprinzip system. He was found guilty on all of the charges, and was executed by hanging on 1 June 1962.^[c] The trial was widely followed in the media and was later the subject of several books, including Hannah Arendt‘s Eichmann in Jerusalem, in which Arendt coined the phrase “the banality of evil” to describe Eichmann.^[6]” From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann

She had looked at this man; Eichmann, psychologically and understood something which the others never wanted to understand; the main purpose of engendering such a creature.

She said in the opposite of others, that this man was not a monster but a very simply naive man who did his orders from above; the real monster is the ideology behind him. That is that, what makes monsters from the normal simple people. It was, of course, a hammer on the heads of all conservatives in every group.
I believe her wholeheartedly; if we take a deeper look at all these monsters in history, for example, the Nazi regime one by one; we can find a lot of ideots there. Hitler himself in his ideas, may be a mad but genius one. But the rests were ill-minded poor creatures who wanted only to keep and cast their power.

Here is the final act of a movie which I watched some days ago, a well-made production by Margarethe von Trotta. A fascinated speech by a fascinated woman.

The definition of the crime of the Nazi is not only the crime against Jews, it is the crime against humanity. Induiality means to be somebody.

Is it still I that burns there all alone?
Unrecognizable? memories denied?
O life, o life: being outside.
And I in flames—no one is left—unknown. —Rainer Maria Rilke, Komm Du (1926), trans. by Walter Kaufmann (1975)

And after all these she became alone; here she tells about the loneliness;

Just as terror, even in its pre-total, merely tyrannical form ruins all relationships between men, so the self-compulsion of ideological thinking ruins all relationships with reality. The preparation has succeeded when people have lost contact with their fellow men* as well as the reality around them; for together with these contacts, men lose the capacity of both experience and thought. The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.

Let’s say happy birthday to this great musician, thinker, human; John Lennon. He’d be eighty years old if a mad and ill-minded man didn’t kill him forty years ago.
As I can remember, Al and I were listening to the Beatles, we have been grown up with them I’d say, it wasn’t usual in Iran in those days (60s).
After their separation, we kept buying every single which the fab-four had alone produced, but I should say that between John and Paul, we were more inclined to John than Paul. As I believe (and I might not be alone) their separation had shown that the Paul was more the body and John was the soul of Lennon&Macartney. I mean even in their way of compositions.

That’s for sure that their songs were not the same as they made music together; and when we nevertheless bought all of their LPs, I felt Paul’s working as a businessman to sell his songs but John was trying to make music!

Anyway, I think that he (John) can celebrate his birthday because he is and remains alive; in his songs in which we listen to every time. Happy Birthday John. 💖💖🙏💖💖

“Imagine”
(from “Imagine: John Lennon” soundtrack)

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today… Aha-ah…

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace… You…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world… You…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

I’d like to paint the way you write; says Cezanne to Zola.

I think there fits also the other way round; I’d like to write the way you paint.

It’d be a short post (because my lovely granddaughter Mila will come soon?)
I have watched this movie yesterday, though I have recorded some weeks ago and it was so wonderful that I wanted to share it with you, might be interested to see it.

I was fascinated by this movie, not only because of the amazing atmosphere at the end of the 19th century’s but also to see these crazy and unpredictable genius whom I saw them all in my life in my family!

Let’s meet the genius again in a very sensitive version 😊have a wonderful weekend 🙏💖

Or; ~ And Goddess made Woman in her own Image

What we as human search and find but sometimes, through our ego get some certainties, puzzles me always. We must know that we don’t know first, then when we think twice, we might guess the answers and look through it again and again to find the right one!

Here I just want to present a pure beauty of the creation on this earth; we must be stunned now and then how far can the elegance go. This created art is fascinating, a beauty itself;

With many thanks to Marie Grillot http://Marie Grillot · Égypte-actualités for her amazing description of this find. Translated from French. via https://egyptophile.blogspot.com/

This sculpted portrait of Queen Tiyi, great royal wife of Amenhotep III, mother of Akhenaton, seduces us with its beauty and gentleness. The sculptor who made it seems to have barely scratched the white limestone with his finest chisel, to turn it into a work of art imbued with femininity and perfection.

The queen is shown in profile – the left – and wears a ceremonial headdress. Her tripartite, smooth wig is surrounded by a diadem adorned on the forehead with two uraei which stand out in relief: one wears the red crown (decheret) of Lower Egypt, while the other wears the white crown. (hedjet) from Upper Egypt. The back of the tiara is embellished with an intricately carved falcon which spreads its long protective wings. Between his talons, he holds the shen sign, symbol of eternity.

The wig is surmounted by a mortar encircled by seven-disc uraei, the first three have suffered: their upper part is missing. This modius is surmounted by two tall ostrich feathers of which only the base remains.

The queen’s face is perfect: her almond-shaped eye surmounted by a beautifully arched eyebrow, her nose of ideal proportions, her delicate ear, near which – a charming detail – appears a short lock of hair and her mouth whose lips full seem to sketch a slight smile.

Her shoulders and her breast are soft and round. Of the flagellum – fly swatter – which she held in one hand, only the upper part is now visible. Its long curved stem opens onto a lotus.

This portrait aroused as much wonder as admiration, sparking just as many interesting analyzes and studies!

“It is executed in a more traditional style than many of the images we know of it. It represents one of the peaks of the art of official portraiture. In a play of flexible and elegant lines, the artist idealized the facial features, the upper lip a little heavy, the fold of the mouth with sagging corners (Woman in the time of the pharaohs – Six works of art from the Egyptian collection of the Royal Museums of Art and History).

“The style is of rare elegance, particularly as regards the face. It will be observed that making use of a relief barely three millimetres thick, the sculptor manages to render both the gaze (shadow amassed towards the front of the eye), the palpitation of the nostrils and the sensuality of the mouth “. (Pierre Gilbert, in “Ancient Mediterranean”).

“The smooth whiteness of the bare limestone softens subtle indications of the queen’s age, such as the very slight puffiness on the cheeks. Her hair is smooth; the artist may have intended to paint the details” (Arielle Kozloff in “Amenophis III, the sun pharaoh”).

“Tiyi’s recognizable features are also reminiscent of those of her husband. It was the custom, in Egyptian art, to attribute to gods and humans something of the physiognomy of the reigning king, which was the best pledge of union between the ones and the others. But here, the resemblance has undoubtedly more significance. The understanding often marked by Amenophis III between him and Tiy is reflected in the face of this one, where the resemblance becomes a sign of reciprocal amorous happiness (The Reign of the Sun Akhnaton and Nefertiti).

This magnificent relief comes from the Theban tomb of Userhat, guardian of the royal harem of the temple of Amenhotep III, located in the necropolis of el-Khokha. In the “Annals of the Antiquities Service of Egypt, Volume IV, 1902-1903″, Howard Carter – who was then inspector of the Theban necropolis – reports that he went there to see this tomb that ” the Omdeh of Qournah “indicated to him. If it has already been looted, he nevertheless notes that: “The reliefs are of remarkable work and as for Tiy, I do not remember having seen a better portrait of it!”

In his report, he also publishes the full relief, representing the queen, who was sitting behind her husband during a ceremony.

How to explain the fact that this portrait of the TT 47, was then cut out, to have only an almost square shape (height 41.9 cm – width 40.3 cm)? Then outraged, overloaded with inscriptions carried in black on the cheek, neck, torso and a shoulder, and deprived of some hieroglyphic signs, erased, levelled with the mortar?
How to explain that this relief is then found at Drouot in Paris, on April 10-12, 1905, in the catalogue of the sale of Paul Philip, a collector who had excavated the site of Heliopolis?

It is thus “curiously” presented under the n ° 91: “Fragment of a bas-relief of the Ptolemaic period in limestone and representing one of the Ptolemies. The king is wearing the headband held rigid at the back by the goddess of victory in the form of a bird of prey and at the front by the two uraei. Above this first headdress is placed the shouti crown (crown of the double feather) truncated, and adorned at the base uraei. A cloth also encloses all the hair. The hand holds the heraldic lotus. A demotic, almost indecipherable inscription has been traced with kalam on the face, neck, chest and arm “.

It will be acquired for a modest sum (180 F) by Jean Capart, deputy curator of the Royal Museums of Decorative and Industrial Arts of Brussels, who is then responsible for building a rich and representative collection of Egyptian antiquities.

How can we believe that Jean Capart did not immediately recognize a typical piece of the art of Amenhotep III? And that, according to Jean-Michel Bruffaerts: “It is the French Egyptologist Georges Daressy, assistant curator at the Cairo Museum, who was the first to suggest that this relief could date, not from the Ptolemaic period as claimed by the Catalog Philip, but well of the XVIIIe dynasty (New Kingdom) “?

Thus, two years will pass before Jean Capart realizes the true “origin” of his acquisition: it was indeed part of the relief photographed by Carter in the TT 47!

Looking at it from then on with a new eye, with increased attention, he will decide to clean it, to remove the ‘filthy’ black inscriptions which deteriorated its purity …

The relief will be restored with care, the queen will regain her lost “status” for some time and will become the “star” of the Egyptian collection of the Brussels museum.

Why not end with the words of Jean Capart: “The fragment of relief of Queen Tiyi cannot fail to strike our visitors. It will show them, several centuries before the first gropings of Greek art, an ideal of beauty and learned processes to translate it, which all those who claim to judge in an impartial manner the artistic evolution of humanity no longer have the right to ignore any more “.

Marie Grillot http://Marie Grillot

Sources :

Capart J., 1904, New acquisitions. Egyptian section. Antiquities of the Thinite Period, Bulletin of the Royal Museums of Decorative and Industrial Arts
Capart J., 1908, A portrait of queen Tiyi, in: Bulletin of the Royal Museums of Decorative and Industrial Arts
Carter H., 1903, Report of Work done in Upper Egypt (1902-1903), in Annals of the Antiquities Service of Egypt 4, p. 177-178, pl. II.
TOPOGRAPHICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANCIENT EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHIC TEXTS, RELIEFS, AND P AINTINGS I. THE THEBAN NECROPOLIS PART 1. PRIVATE TOMBS, BY THE LATE BERTHA PORTER AND ROSALIND L. B. MOSS, B.Sc. (OxoN.), F.S.A. Assisted by ETHEL W. BURNEY
SECOND EDITION REVISED AND AUGMENTED – OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS © Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1960 Revised edition first published 1960 by the Oxford University Press Re-issued by the Griffith Institute 1970
http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/topbib/pdf/pm1-1.pdf
Catalog of an Exhibition of Ancient Egyptian Art, London, 1922 – p. 63
https://archive.org/details/catalogueofexhib00burlrich
http://www.kmkg-mrah.be/fr/éggypt
Pierre GILBERT, Ancient Mediterranean and Humanism in Art, L’art Témoin 2, Editions Desoer, Liège, 1967
Jean Capart and Queen Tiyi, “the Mona Lisa of the Cinquantenaire”, Jean-Michel Bruffaerts
BULLETIN of the ROYAL MUSEUMS OF ART AND HISTORY PARC DU CINQUANTENAIRE BRUSSELS van de KONINKLIjKE MUSEA VOOR KUNST EN GESCHIEDENIS JUBELPARK BRUSSEL, TOME / DEEL 80, 2009
https://jeancapart.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/TAP-2009-Jean-
Woman in the time of the pharaohs – Six works of art from the Egyptian collection of the Royal Museums of Art and History – RMAH November 30, 1985 – February 27, 1986
Amenophis III, the sun pharaoh, RMM, 1993 (Arielle Kozloff)
The Reign of the Sun Akhnaton and Nefertiti
Exhibition organized by the Ministries of Culture at the Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels – January 17 – March 16, 1975 (Pierre Gilbert)

When Queen Tiyi was presented as “a Ptolemaic king” …

Hello, my dear friends. Let me again have a review on the history of art in my birth land, not only because of my pride in this matter, I just think it is an interesting issue. Though, we have a quote saying; I am the one whom Rostam was the legend! Which means that one utters himself proudly because of his historical legacy. 😅😂

“Rostam was one of the heroes in the Persian Saga in Shahnameh by the Persian poet Ferdowsi” (I will come to this Myth one day.)

Anyway, it gives me even a sad feeling; in the old Persians, there were many artworks which were damaged after the Arab invasion of Persia, led to the fall of the Sasanian Empire of Iran (Persia) in 651 and the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion. It was a destructive attack in the years (642 – 821)

The Persians have witnessed this destructive Arabs’ invasion of Iran after the defeat of the Sassanians’ army, the reason; maybe the lack of discipline, order, unity, and integration within the administration body of Sassanians’ government paved the way for the Arabs’ conquest of Iran with a deadly blow. And pityingly, it was not only bloodsheds but also all kind of arts like Carpets, Paintings, Books, Music instruments and composed pieces written on the papers was burned out with the palaces together; under the motto; The only art is the Quran (the holy book of Islam) and nothing else.

Well, therefore, nothing’s remained from the old arts. And what we can talk about the Persian genius, it can be only after Islam and there are many; it is because the Arabs were not in a way making an imperium for themselves; they had actually no idea thereabout, they just wanted to convert people to Islam as many as they could. One had to say God is great and Muhammad is one and the only prophet. That was all, then the people could live and do what they wanted in their own home.

That’s why we see so many genii in the world of Islam, especially in Iran like Abu Ali Sina (Avicenna – The greatest doctor after Galinos)
Whom I once wrote about him, Zakariya al-Razi (inventor of Alcohol http://Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi ) and also Omar Khayyam whom I want to introduce him here.

I must add here that my expression above doesn’t have to be interpreted as patriotism as I am not one. I feel it just unfair to see how a great culture gets damaged by some uncultivated ideologist. As we might know; for example; the equality between gender in the old Persia compared to the Arabs as Muhammad the prophet quoted that “Heaven is under the feet of the mothers” to stop men burring their daughters after born; they wanted only sons!

Omar Khayyam was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet. He was born in Nishabur, in northeastern Iran, and spent most of his life near the court of the Karakhanid and Seljuq rulers in the period which witnessed the First Crusade. (Wikipedia)

I was not only fascinated by his poems but also by his solitary view to the world and into the life. He was convinced that life is now; enjoy every minute in it that when the time comes, nothing of you will remain.

Of course, there are some translations on his works; the famous one is Edward FitzGerald http://Edward FitzGerald (poet) who has a freewill-translation; nice and good but I had preferred to translate these two poems by myself.😉

from child became a teacher in a while
as a teacher, we’re happy for a while
listen to the end what we’ve received
We came out of the dust and gone with the wind

{translated by me}

یکچند به کودکی به استادشدیم
یک چند ز استادی خود شاد شدیم
پایان سخن شنو که مارا چه رسید
از خاک برامدیم و بر باد شدیم

without a pure drink, existing I can’t
without a sip of wine, bearing the body, I can’t
I avid for that moment that Saghy says;
Take another cup and I can’t {translated by me}

This video which I represent here is not only embellished with some wonderful Khayyam’s poems but also is a very informative on Khayyam as a scientist and the story of the old Persian. If you’d have about 30 minutes time, you’d be surely amused.

Sources:

https://www.destinationiran.com/history-destructive-arabs-invasion-of-iran.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Zakariya_al-Razi#:~:text=Muhammad%20ibn%20Zakariya%20al%2DRazi%20%2D%20Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khayyam

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Omar-Khayyam-Persian-poet-and-astronomer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_FitzGerald_(poet)

Here I’d like also present the article of my Greek friends whom I am always thankful for their great posts about the sad sinking the Titanic and more sadly the worthy book of Edward FitzGerald.

Like in the ancient time; the old Hellenes and ole Persians hold together. 🙏💖🙏

Rubayat: The most luxurious book of poetry in the history of mankind

By http://SearchingTheMeaningOfLife

Natalia Petriti

When the Titanic sank on the night of April 14, 1912, in addition to the dozens of souls he was about to carry to the depths of the ocean, he would take with him one of the most important versions of all time. This book was a fictional manuscript of Rubáiyát, the 11th-century Iranian scholar Omár Khayyám. The book was considered valuable because it was the only one in the world at the time.

In fact, at that time there were plenty of copies of the volume of Persian poems. But when the Titanic made its first and final voyage, this version of Rubayat surpassed all other collections, not because of its content, but because of its unrealistic appearance. In fact, the story of the manuscript was the inspiration for a novel by French and Lebanese author Amin Maalouf, entitled Samarkand.

The story of Rubayat

Desiring to revive medieval bookbinding traditions using gemstones, George Sutcliffe and Francis Sangorski were known in the early 1900s for their luxurious and state-of-the-art designs. Henry Sotheran, a bookstore owner, turned to them to make a book like no other.

Sotheran was not interested in the cost of its creation and so the creators put their imagination to work and all their mastery.

The book was completed in 1911, after two years of intensive work. The edition consisted of loose Victorian renditions by Edward FitzGerald of Omar Khayyám’s poems, illustrated by Elihu Vedder and became known as “The Great Omar” and “The Book Wonderful” for its sheer brilliance. It had a gilded cover with three peacocks, the tails of which were decorated with precious stones and were surrounded by intricate floral patterns, pervasive in medieval Persian manuscripts. On the back cover, a Greek bouzouki adorned the book.

More than 1000 precious and semi-precious stones were used to create it. Rubies, turquoise, emeralds, as well as about 5000 pieces of leather, silver, ivory and ebony. The pagination required 600 sheets of 22 carat gold.

The Great Omar

Although destined for New York by Sotheran, the bookseller refused to pay the huge fee imposed on him by US customs. It was returned to England, where it was bought by Gabriel Wells at Sotheby’s auction for 450 450, less than half its ίας 1,000 reserve value. Wells, like Sotheran before him, intended to bring the masterpiece to America. But choosing the Titanic as the ship that would carry the book would be fatal.

The story, however, would not end with the sinking of the Titanic, or the strange death of Sangorski from drowning a few weeks later. Sutcliffe’s nephew Stanley Bray was determined to relive the memory of the “Great Lobster”.

Using Sangorski’s original designs, he managed, after six years of exhausting work, to reproduce the book, which was placed in a bank vault.

Bray once again tried to make a copy of his uncle’s “swan song”, but this time it would take him 40 years to complete. When the new copy was finalized, the result was so good that he lent it to the British Library, where he bequeathed all his property after his death.

FitzOmar

But who was Omar Khayyám’s Rubayat and who was this enigmatic person who fascinated Sotheran? An 11th-century learned man from eastern Iran, Khayyám was famous throughout his life for his pioneering work in astronomy and mathematics. Khayyám was also a poet. His poetry, however, was unlike that of any other poet of Persian origin and has been considered for centuries unique in classical Persian literature.

Because of his adventurous nature, Khayyám challenged the things that were then taken for granted: faith, the afterlife, and the meaning of life itself. He had little faith in the promises of his religion, and in his talk on “Paradise and Hell” he expressed doubts about the existence of God. There was only one thing Khayyám was sure of and truly loved: this life.

He had a good understanding – perhaps because of the turbulent times in which he lived (Iran was then under Turkish occupation, and would soon live under Arab and Mongol invasion) – of the meaning of life and the inevitability of death. Any discussion of the afterlife or religion was unnecessary for him.

Victorian poet Edward FitzGerald adored Khayyám’s Iranian spirit. When he turned his attention to him, he had already translated from Persian. But translations of Khayyám’s work were to be his magnum opus.

The translations of FitzGerald were free, but they faithfully conveyed the spirit of the original, which is why many referred to the translator using the name “FitzOmar”, which came from the combination of his adjective and “Big Omar”.

While when the work was released it was not very popular, the small but profound book would soon enjoy a popularity that FitzGerald could never have imagined. In the late 19th century, a high society literary club in London took its name from Khayyám. Rubayat has also been a source of inspiration for artists such as William Morris.

Numerous other works of art have also been produced by artists such as Edmund Dulac and Edmund Joseph Sullivan. An illustration of the latter, in fact, would adorn the cover of the 1971 Grateful Dead album of the same name in the future. Agatha Christie released the novel The Moving Fingerhad in 1942, using the title of a poem from the play as her name, and Martin Luther King used excerpts from it in an anti-war speech in 1967. In the 1950s, Rubayat was now so famous that more than half the book was in the collective books “Bartlett’s Quotations” and “The Oxford Book of Quotations”.

Rubayat today

Khayyám’s poetry has undoubtedly stood the test of time. In his homeland, Iran, Rubayat exists in every home. FitzGerald’s performance, despite the freedoms he received in this regard, is the best known in English to date and is considered a classic. The work has also been translated into almost all languages ​​of the world.

The answer to why this work is so popular is easily found in its timelessness and its “universal” truths, which do not depend on culture, religion and creed.

Source;

https://m.tvxs.gr / https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/156613939.pdf

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180111-the-rubaiyat-historys-most-luxurious-book-of-poetry

https://yd.gyproc-club.ru/425 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00210862.2014.906184?scroll=top&needAccess=true

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/215684728_A_Criticism_and_Survey_of_the_Translation_of_the_Rubaiyat_of_Omar_Khayyam_by_FitzGerald

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubaiyat_of_Omar_Khayyam