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Lascivious Vines, Corrupted Virgins, and Crimes of Honor: Variations on the Wine Production Myth as Narrated in Early Persian Poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Dominic Parviz Brookshaw*
Affiliation:
Persian Literature at the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford

Abstract

The Persian wine production myth centers on the relationship between a male vintner and his female vine and her daughters, the grapes. This myth, the earliest extant examples of which are found in qasīdas by the Samanid poets Rūdakī and Bashshār Marghazī and which was much developed by Manūchihrī and his contemporary Farrukhī, contains images of femininity, the mother–child bond, separation, violence, execution, and ultimate redemption. The grape harvest comes in the late summer and culminates in the Mihragān festival, a celebration focused on the grape and grape wine, at which poems containing versions of the wine production myth were recited. The present study maps the evolution of this myth over the span of a century through a close reading of eleven poems with specific reference to variations in narrative structure.

Type
Special Section: Wine in Pre-Modern Persian Literature
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2014

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Footnotes

I am grateful to Paul Losensky for his detailed and insightful comments on an earlier version of this essay.

References

1 The abbreviation ♂ stands for a mudhakkara (male love poem) by Abū Nuwās, the first number for the number of the poem, and the second for the specific bayt. For Abū Nuwās's mudhakkarāt, see Nuwās, Abū, Dīwān Abī Nuwās, ed. Schoeler, G. (Wiesbaden, 1982), IV: 185486Google Scholar. See ♂62:5 and 63:7. The abbreviation Kh stands for a khamrīya (wine poem) by Abū Nuwās. For Abū Nuwās's khamrīyāt, see Nuwās, Abū, Dīwān Abī Nuwās, ed. Wagner, E. (Wiesbaden, 1988), III: 1Google Scholar. See Kh30:1, 33:1, 67:5, 129:14, 150:2, 167:1, 214:5, 216:4, 220:5, 231:2, 239:1, 240:1, 281:3, and 305:7.

2 See ♂27:8.

3 See Kh106:1.

4 See Kh8:4, 111:4, and 281:3.

5 See Kh8:14, 43:5, and 126:8.

6 See ♂41:10 and Kh8:6, 23:3, 58:3, 75:1, 137:3, 160:4, 170:6, 182:4, 209:5, 253:4, 339:14, and 381:17.

7 See Kh33:3, 67:6, and 74:6.

8 See Kh108:17, 109:1–2, and 165:2.

9 The abbreviation RMM stands for Rūdakī's qasīda known as Mādar-i may. For the text of the poem, see Tārīkh-i Sīstān, ed. Bahār, M. (Tehran, 1935), 317–23Google Scholar.

10 The abbreviation BM stands for the qasīda of Bashshār Marghazī. For the text of the poem, see Yāsamī, R., “Qasīda-yi Bashshār-i Marghazī,Iranshahr 2 (1923): 599605Google Scholar.

11 Manūchihrī's musammats are abbreviated as MM1, MM6, MM10, and MM11, and his qasīdas are abbreviated MQ13, MQ31, and MQ56; see Dāmghānī, Manūchihrī, Dīvān, ed. Dabīr-Siyāqī, M. (Tehran, 1996), 153–8Google Scholar, 174–7, 195–9, 202–7; 13–15, 47, and 101–2.

12 Farrukhi's qasidas are abbreviated to F110 and F159; see Sīstānī, Farrukhī, Dīvān, ed. Dabīr-Siyāqī, M. (Tehran, 1999), 219–21Google Scholar and 312–14.

13 Bazin, M., de Planhol, X., and Hanaway, W.L., “Angur,Encyclopaedia Iranica, II: 7074Google Scholar.

14 Ibid.

15 On the link between wine-drinking at court and wine description in Persian poetry and prose, see Yarshater, E., “The Theme of Wine-Drinking and the Concept of the Beloved in Early Persian Poetry,Studia Islamica 13 (1960): 4353CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Brookshaw, D.P., “Palaces, Pavilions and Pleasure-gardens: The Context and Setting of the Medieval Majlis,Middle Eastern Literatures 6, no. 2 (2003): 199223CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Bazin et al., “Angūr.”

17 Hanaway, W.L., “Blood and Wine: Sacrifice and Celebration in Manuchihri's Wine Poetry,Iran XXVI (1988): 72Google Scholar. In Rāvandī's, Rāhat al-sudūr va āyat al-surūr (ed. Iqbál, M. [London, 1921], 423–5)Google Scholar, the discovery of wine production is located within the reign of Kay-Qubād.

18 De Jong, A., Traditions of the Magi: Zoroastrianism in Greek and Latin Literature (Leiden, 1997), 368CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Sa‘d Salmān, Mas‘ūd, Dīvān, ed. Yāsamī, Rashīd (Tehran, 1983), 470Google Scholar.

19 Boyce, M., “Iranian Festivals,The Cambridge History of Iran, III.ii, ed. Yarshater, E. (Cambridge, 1983), 802Google Scholar.

20 Ibid., 793. Like Mihragān, Sada was associated with both Jamshīd and Farīdūn. See ‘Balkhī, Unsurī, Dīvān, ed. Dabīr-Siyāqī, M. (Tehran, 1984), 21Google Scholar.

21 De Jong, Traditions of the Magi, 371.

22 Hanaway, “Blood and Wine,” 72. In relation to the discovery of wine, Jamshīd is to Iranian lore what Dionysus and Bacchus are to the Classical World.

23 Sharma, S., Persian Poetry at the Indian Frontier: Mas‘ud Sa‘d Salman of Lahore (Delhi, 2000), 2Google Scholar. For another early Ghaznavid Mihragān poem, see ‘Unsurī, Dīvān, 170.

24 Tetley, G.E., The Ghaznavid and Sejuq Turks: Poetry as a Source for Iranian History (London, 2009), 89Google Scholar.

25 De Jong, Traditions of the Magi, 372.

26 Ibid., 374.

27 Ibid., 375.

28 Kennedy, P.F., The Wine Song in Classical Arabic Poetry: Abu Nuwas and the Literary Tradition (Oxford, 1997), 37Google Scholar.

29 Ibid., 89.

30 Mas‘ūd Sa‘d Salmān, Dīvān, 43.

31 Nidhámí-i-‘Arūdī-i-Samarqandí, , Chahár Maqála, trans. Browne, E.G. (London, 1921), 51–2Google Scholar.

32 De Jong, Traditions of the Magi, 357.

33 Ibid., 360.

34 Hanaway, “Blood and Wine,” 76. Samarqandī, Sūzanī (Dīvān, ed. Shāh-Husaynī, N. [Tehran, 1959], 318–19)Google Scholar also has a poem in which he celebrates the convergence of Mihragān and ‘Īd-i Qurbān. In his qasīda, Sūzanī sets up a number of parallels: between the shedding of blood (khūn-rīz) and the falling of leaves (barg-rīz) and between the animal sacrifice and the sacrifice of the grape: the former furnishes the feast (khvān), while the latter fuels the drinking bout (bazm). The grape sacrifice loads the wine flask, and the animal sacrifice loads the scales of obedience to God (khūn-rīz-i īn qanīna-yi may-rā girān kunad / khūn-rīz-i ān tarāzū-yi tā‘at kunad girān).

35 Hanaway, “Blood and Wine,” 76.

36 Sharlet, J. (Patronage and Poetry in the Islamic World: Social Mobility and Status in the Medieval Middle East and Central Asia [London, 2011], 54–5)CrossRefGoogle Scholar notes Farrukhī's entrée into the court of the Chaganian ruler was facilitated by a poem, “in which he referred to the overlap of the festivals of Eid and Nowruz, thereby invoking Muslim and Persian cultural contexts in his appeal for patronage.”

37 Hanaway, “Blood and Wine,” 76.

38 See Clinton, J.W., “Bāda,Encyclopaedia Iranica, III: 353–4Google Scholar: “In meaning they [may, bāda, sharāb, khamr, nabīdh] are virtually interchangeable, but they are metrically different. Their use by poets was governed more by phonetic and linguistic considerations than by differences in sense.”

39 P. Losensky, “Sāqi-Nāma,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/saqi-nama-book.

40 Yarshater, “The Theme of Wine-Drinking,” 44.

41 With the developments in the use and function of the Persian ghazal from the late eleventh century onwards, as Clinton (“Bāda”) reminds us, “The association of worldly drunkenness with spiritual intoxication eventually became so firmly established in Persian poetry that wine-drinking lost its original meaning of simple, worldly revelry.”

42 Clinton, J.W., The Dīvān of Manūchihrī Dāmghānī: A Critical Study (Minneapolis, 1972), 110Google Scholar.

43 Lazard, G., “Abū Šakūr Balkī,Encyclopaedia Iranica, I: 382Google Scholar.

44 Manūchihrī, Dīvān, 11.

45 Ibid., 120–1.

46 Ibid., 120–1.

47 Ibid., 8.

48 Ibid., 18.

49 Ibid., 71.

50 In ‘Abbasid poetry, wine is occasionally associated with Noah.

51 Manūchihrī, Dīvān, 125–7.

52 On Christian themes in the Arabic khamrīya, see Montgomery, J.E., “For the Love of a Christian Boy: A Song by Abu Nuwas,Journal of Arabic Literature 27 (1996): 114–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 In medieval western Christianity, the “blood” produced by the wine press of God's wrath was likened to the blood of Christ, and the wine production process itself to the sacrifice of Christ.

54 There is more homoerotic content in Farrukhī's nasībs than in those of Manūchihrī. For representative examples of homoerotic Ghaznavid nasībs, see Farrukhī Sīstānī, Dīvān, 4–5, 45, 139–40, and 208.

55 Manūchihrī, Dīvān, 5, 29, 129.

56 Ibid., 12.

57 Ibid., 64.

58 Ibid., 46, 69.

59 Ibid., 8, 29, 46, 51, 60, 62, 99.

60 Ibid., 10, 61, 110, 123, 150. On the beloved as Turk in Persian poetry, see Shamīsā, S. Shāhid-bāzī dar adabiyāt-i Fārsī (Tehran, 2002), 4451Google Scholar. See also Brookshaw, D.P., “To be Feared and Desired: Turks in the Collected Works of ‘Ubayd-i Zākānī,Iranian Studies 42, no. 5 (2009): 725–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 Manūchihrī, Dīvān, 61, 108, 142, 150.

62 Ibid., 117.

63 Ibid., 66.

64 Ibid., 22.

65 Ibid., 43.

66 Ibid., 57, 101.

67 Meisami, J.S., Structure and Meaning in Medieval Arabic and Persian Poetry (London, 2003), 36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Ibid., 37.

69 Ibid., 331.

70 Ibid., 333–4.

71 Ibid., 337.

72 Clinton, The Divan of Manuchihri, 114.

73 Meisami, Structure and Meaning, 332.

74 Meisami, J. S., “Poetic Microcosms: The Persian Qasida to the End of the Twelfth Century,” in Qasida Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa, ed. Sperl, S. and Shackle, C. (London, 1996), I: 140–1Google Scholar.

75 Ibid., 143.

76 Denison Ross, E., “A Qasida by Rudaki,Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 2 (1926): 218Google Scholar.

77 Rypka, J., History of Iranian Literature (Dordrecht, 1968), 144–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 Safā, Z., “Baššār-e Margazī,Encyclopaedia Iranica, III: 856Google Scholar.

79 Meisami, Structure and Meaning, 333.

80 Hanaway, “Blood and Wine,” 74.

81 Yarshater, “The Theme of Wine-Drinking,” 44.

82 Meisami, “Poetic Microcosms,” 156–7.

83 Ibid., 160.

84 Ibid., 160.

85 Rypka, History of Iranian Literature, 177.

86 Clinton, The Dīvān of Manūchihrī, 113.

87 Hanaway, “Blood and Wine,” 74.

88 Clinton, The Dīvān of Manūchihrī, 111. For an in-depth discussion of the possibility that Manūchihrī's wine sacrifice poems inspired certain elements of the plot and structure of Sādiq Hidāyat's novel Būf-i kūr, see Simidchieva, M., “Rituals of Renewal: Sādeq Hedāyat's ‘The Blind Owl’ and the Wine Myths of Manučehri,Oriente Moderno 83, no. 1 (2003): 219–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

89 Ibid., 123.

90 Cuddon, J.A., The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, 4th ed. (London, 1998), 527Google Scholar.

91 See Meisami, Structure and Meaning, 333: “it may well have been a ploy, a specialization which would ensure the poet would be called upon to celebrate this particular occasion.”

92 Ibid., 333.

93 ‘Unsurī, Dīvān, 64: the vine's cheeks have grown yellow in separation, and her blood tears are the grape wine (raz az firāq-i sabā khūn-garī u zard-rukhī-st / rukhān-i zard-ash barg-ast u khūn-i dīda ‘asīr).

94 Mas‘ūd Sa‘d Salmān, Dīvān, 411: the daughter of the vine is continually crying tears of blood in the vintner's house (hama az dīda khūn bi-pālāyad / dukhtar-i raz bi-khāna-yi dihqān). Ibid., 43: the poet speaks of “power of the spirit of the blood of the grape” (quvvat-i rūh-i khūn-i angūr) and likens the wine in the cup to the “soul in the body” (jān dar jism).

95 This personification of the vine, her grapes, and the wine produced from them is employed in a much abbreviated form by post-Mongol poets. Hāfiz (d. 1389), for example, speaks of the “[virgin] daughter of the vine” (dukhtar-i raz; Dīvān, ed. Ghanī, Q. and Qazvīnī, M. [Tehran, 1999], 99Google Scholar), “the trickery of the vine's daughter” (farīb-i dukhtar-i raz; Dīvān, 248), and the “blood of the vine's daughter” (khūn-i dukhar-i raz; Dīvān, 160). In one poem, Hāfiz pictures the daughter of the vine as a prostitute or other promiscuous female who has “repented from chaste behaviour” (tawba zi mastūrī kard) and gained permission from the muhtasib to ply her illicit trade (Dīvān, 162). On the daughter of the vine, see also Paul Losensky's article in this issue.

96 Cuddon, Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms, 533.

97 Clinton, The Dīvān of Manūchihrī, 119.

98 Ibid., 118.

99 A musammat is a strophic poem divided into stanzas by use of a repeated rhyme pattern—as opposed to a tarjī‘-band in which the stanzas are linked by a repeated bayt. The popularity of the panegyric musammat in the early Ghaznavid period appears to have been due primarily to the efforts of Manūchihrī (whose divan contains eleven musammats). Manūchihrī appears to have been the first Persian poet to employ the musammat. See Rypka, History of Iranian Literature, 177.

100 Yūsofī, G., “Abū Sahl Lakšan,Encyclopaedia Iranica, I: 371–2Google Scholar.

101 Hanaway, “Blood and Wine,” 69.

102 Ibid., 69.

103 Ibid., 73.

104 On the structure of Manūchihrī's wine myths and the mirroring of elements of this structure in Hidāyat's novel, see Simidchieva, “Rituals of Renewal,” 232–4.

105 In these first lines of the poem, raz denotes the grape, rather than the vine or the vineyard. BM:1-4.

106 Direct reference to the wine majlis may be made at the opening of the poem or else the close of the wine section, or both, in which case a full circle is achieved back to the majlis. See Mas‘ūd Sa‘d Salmān, Dīvān, 116 and 470. Bashshār's open opens with a celebration of the grape and grape wine and ends with praise for wine as the dispeller of all woes. BM:30–31.

107 MQ13:1; MM1:1; MM10:3; F110:1; F159:1–2.

108 RMM:4; MM6:1; MM10:1.

109 All translations are my own. For alternative translations of Manūchihrī's wine poems, see Clinton, The Dīvān of Manūchihrī and Hanaway, “Blood and Wine.”

110 MQ56:2; MM11:1–2, 4.

111 MM1:1; F110:2; F159:1, 3, 5. On the autumn wind, see also Mas‘ūd Sa‘d Salmān, Dīvān, 116 and 470.

112 MQ13:3, 6; MM1: 7, 9; F110:2–3. The garden is ruined (kharāb) by autumn. See Mas‘ūd Sa‘d Salmān, Dīvān, 32.

113 RMM:4; MQ31:2; MM10:34.

114 MQ13:6–12; MQ56:2–3, 6–7; MM1:10–15, 19–24; MM10:67; MM11: 10–21.

115 MQ56:1; MM10:1–3, 67-68; F159:10.

116 MQ56:10; F159:10.

117 RMM:29–31, 33.

118 MQ56:1, 12.

119 F159:11.

120 MQ56:9; MM10:67; MM11: 89.

121 RMM:34; MQ56:1, 16–17; MM1:61; MM6:38; MM11:8; F159:10.

122 BM:12; MQ31:1; MM1:3; MM6:3; MM10:13; MM11:22; F159:3.

123 MQ31:1; MM1:3; MM6:3.

124 MM11:69.

125 Tafazzoli, A., “Dehqān,Encyclopaedia Iranica, VII: 223–6Google Scholar.

126 Ibid.

127 Ibid.

128 MM6:16; MM10:13; MM11:22; F159:3–8.

129 MM6:16.

130 MM1:31; MM10:15–18, 21; MM11:22.

131 MM10:22–3.

132 Rizvān (lit. pleasure, delight; consent) is the one who guards the Paradise garden.

133 BM:9; MM1:26, 31–2; MM10:25; MM11: 22–3, 31–4, 43.

134 See Daryaee, T., Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire (London, 2010), 5963Google Scholar.

135 The dihqān as Muslim: MM6:15; MM10:31; MM11:23, 25.

136 On the centrality of women's chastity to masculine power, wealth, and authority, see Milani, F., Veils and Words: The Emerging Voices of Iranian Women Writers (London, 1992), 57Google Scholar.

137 BM:13.

138 RMM:1; BM:10; MQ13:13; MQ56:12–13; MM131; MM6:3; MM10:4; F110:5; F159:7.

139 MM6:11, 13–14; MM10:10. The whole garden is aged by the advent of autumn: see Mas‘ūd Sa‘d Salmān, Dīvān, 407.

140 MM10:4. The word kuhan is evocative of those poems in Arabic and Persian in which the wine is depicted as an ancient virgin.

141 MM10:7.

142 F159:2

143 MQ13:3; MQ56:8; MM1:2, 36; MM6:13; MM11:21. See also ‘Unsurī, Dīvān, 64.

144 MQ13:15–18.; MM11:72.

145 MM10:5–7.

146 MM6:5–6; MM10–11.

147 RMM:3–4; BM:10; MM1:36; MM6:10–11, 14; F110:5; F159:7.

148 MM10:11–15.

149 RMM:1; BM:9; MQ13:13; MQ56:12–13; MM6:2; F110:5; F159:4, 7.

150 bachcha/gān: RMM:1; MQ13:13; MM10:7–8; F159:4, 7–8; atfāl/tiflakān: MM6:18–19.

151 shīr-khvārān: F110:5.

152 dukhtar/ak/ān: BM:9; MQ13:20; MM6:4; MM10:4

153 MQ13:14, 19; MM1:35; MM6:3; MM10:20, 28–9.

154 MQ13:14; MQ56:12; MM10:8, 20.

155 MM10:9.

156 MM1:25–7; MM10:28; MM11:24.

157 MQ13:20; MM10:40.

158 MM1:27.

159 MQ31:4.

160 MQ31:4; MM11:41.

161 BM:11–12; MM1:28.

162 MM1:29.

163 MQ31:1–20; MM10:40–48; MM11:46–57.

164 MM11:54–6.

165 MM10:30.

166 MM10:33.

167 MQ13:21; MQ31:3.

168 MQ31:1–2, 5; MM10:41–8.

169 MM11:50.

170 MQ13:21–23.

171 MQ13:23.

172 BM:13; MM1:28–32; MM10:31–9; MM11:25–9.

173 MM10:32, 37; MM11:27.

174 MM11:28.

175 MM11:28–9.

176 MM11:37–9.

177 MQ31:10–20.

178 BM:29.

179 Hanaway, “Blood and Wine,” 70.

180 Ibid., 71.

181 RMM:2; F110:5; F159:8.

182 RMM:1, 5; F159:4.

183 Montgomery, “For the Love of a Christian Boy,” 119.

184 RMM:5.

185 MM1:39; MM10:36; MM11:60.

186 MM1:40–41; F159:4, 8.

187 MQ13:11, 13; MM6:16.

188 F159:8.

189 MM6:20, 33.

190 RMM:1; F110:5.

191 MQ13:25.

192 MQ13:27.

193 MQ13:28; MM10:52–4; MM11:57.

194 BM:14; MQ31:11; MQ56:13; MM1:40; MM6:18; MM10:49, 55; MM11:63–4; F110:5.

195 BM:13; MQ31:10–11; MM1:40; MM6:17; MM10:49; MM11:62; F159:4.

196 MM1:3.

197 MM6:15.

198 BM:16; MQ31:10–16; MQ56:14; MM1:37, 44; MM6:31; MM10:49–50; MM11:70–2.

199 BM:16; MQ31:15; MQ56:14; MM1:44, 46; MM6:31–2; MM10:57–8; MM11:70–1.

200 RMM:2; BM:16; MQ31:12, 14; MM1:39, 43; MM6:31; MM10:57; MM11:68.

201 MM1:42.

202 MQ31:13; MQ56:14; MM1:43; MM6:30, 32; MM10:56; MM11:67.

203 MM6:21–8.

204 MM6:29.

205 MM1:48; MM6:24.

206 BM:16–17; MQ31:16; MQ56:15; MM1:45–6; MM6:33; MM10:58; MM11:72; F110:6.

207 F110:8–10.

208 F110:10.

209 MQ31:17; MQ56:15; MM6:33; MM10:58; MM11:75; F110:6. In Bashshār's poem, the wine is stored in a stone cavity and covered with a large stone: BM:18–19.

210 RMM:6–10; MM6:33–4.

211 RMM:11.

212 RMM:1, 5–6; MM1:38, 47, 50.; F110:6.

213 MQ31:17; F110:6–7.

214 MQ31:17; MQ56:15; MM10:58–9.

215 RMM:12; BM:19; MQ56:16; MM6:35; MM11:76; F110:7.

216 MM11:76.

217 MM11:77.

218 MM6:36.

219 RMM:16, 22; BM:20; MQ31:17; MQ56:16; MM1:48; MM10:60; MM11:78; F110:7.

220 RMM:17; BM:25; MQ31:19; MQ56:17; MM1:49; MM10:62; MM11:79–80.

221 RMM: 13–15, 17–18, 34; BM:24, 28; MQ31:19; MM1:50–1, 63; MM10:63–4, 68; MM11:81, 84; F159:10.

222 MM10:62.

223 MM1:56–7; MM11:83.

224 MM1:52–4; MM10:64–5; MM11:85–7.

225 MM10:64; MM11:82, 87.

226 MM1:58–60; MM11:88.

227 RMM:20–1, 32; MQ31:18.

228 MQ13:31; MQ31:20; MQ56:18–19; MM1:58–9; MM10:67–8; MM11:91–5; F110:11–12; F159:9–11.

229 RMM:28, 34, 36; MQ13:31–3; MQ56:20; MM1:61–4; MM6:39–41; MM10:69–70; MM11:96; F110:13; F159:11–12.