Poetry | Omar Khayyam's khosh bāsh Intro
Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation
Chai & Conversation
4.9 • 548 Ratings
🗓️ 10 December 2018
⏱️ 16 minutes
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Summary
In this lesson, we introduce one of the greats of Persian Sufi poetry, Omar Khayyam. Khayyam was a 12th century poet and a true renaissance man- in addition to being one of the most well known Iranian poets, he was also a famed mathematician and astronomer. This shouldn't be surprising, however, as these disciplines greatly informed one another.This poem, which we are calling khosh bāsh, or 'be glad', is one of my favorites, and something I consider a sort of mantra in life. In it, he reminds us that life is fleeting, that we all will eventually die, and therefore, now that we are here, we should be glad.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation, Lesson 74. |
| 0:17.2 | Hello and welcome to the fourth poem in our poetry series. |
| 0:22.2 | I'm here today with Farid Chaffin Nouris. |
| 0:24.6 | Salon Parit. |
| 0:25.4 | Salon, Lé de Jong. |
| 0:27.4 | So today we are breaking from these. |
| 0:31.1 | Our poems have been getting progressively heavier and heavier. |
| 0:34.9 | And today we thought we'd break from that a little bit and come to a short and sweet poem. |
| 0:40.0 | Very short, very sweet, very easy to memorize. |
| 0:43.2 | And that is the poem by Chayam. |
| 0:46.6 | Omar Chayom, a 11th century Persian mathematician, |
| 0:51.3 | astronomer and poet who was born in the city of Neeshawpur. |
| 0:55.8 | That's right. |
| 0:56.7 | Which is in the northeastern part of Iran. |
| 0:58.8 | And what is Neeshawpur also known for besides Omar Hayam is pottery. |
| 1:04.7 | Okay, with the little birds on it. |
| 1:06.0 | With the birds on it. |
| 1:06.6 | Yes. |
| 1:07.7 | I have some of that pottery. |
| 1:10.1 | And Chaoyam wrote a very specific type of poem called the... |
| 1:14.9 | Roboyot. |
| 1:16.0 | And we have, as we've done so many different styles now, we've done modern from Sohrab and Furug |
... |
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