Sky earth
08-03-2014, 07:07 PM
This happens in societies were women and men are separated from each other:
HOMOSEXUALITY
iii. IN PERSIAN LITERATURE
A sharp contrast exists between the treatment of homosexuality in Islamic law, on the one hand (see ii. above), and its reflection in Persian literature, particularly poetry (the chief vehicle of Persian literary expression), on the other. From the dawn of Persian poetry in the ninth century all through to the twentieth century, not only was homosexuality condoned in Persian poetry, but in fact homoeroticism formed almost the only amatory subject of Persian ghazals (short sonnet-like lyrics) and the main topic of much of Persian love poetry.
THE BELOVED
The “beloved” (q.v.) in Persian lyrics is, as a rule, not a female, but a young male, often a pubescent or adolescent youth, or a young boy. No sense of shame, no unease, no notion of concern for religious prohibition affects the exuberant descriptions of the male beloved or the passionate love displayed by the poets for him. There are many poems by classical and later poets which explicitly address a boy (pesar) as the subject of the poet’s love, as illustrated by the following examples from different periods:
O boy, if you want to gladden my heart / You must give me kisses after serving me wine (Ey pesar gar del-e man kard hamiḵᵛāhi šād / Az pas-e bāda marā busa hami bāyad dād; Farroḵi [d. 1038] Divān, p. 46).
O boy, you carry the business of beauty beyond all limits / With such beauty you expect me to bide my time? Impossible! (Ey pesar nik ze ḥadd mibebari kār-e jamāl / Bā čonin ḥosn ze to ṣabr konam? In’t moḥāl; Natáanzi, quoted by Šams-e Qays [13th century], p. 326).
A beau with a candle in hand is an affliction / (A beau) heavy-headed with love’s slumber and intoxicated with wine (Fetna bāšad šāhedi šamʿi be dast / Sar gerān az ḵᵛāb-o sarmast az šarāb; Saʿdi [d. ca. 1290], Ḡazaliāt, p. 15).
This boy who stood up walks gracefully / He is a cypress walking so straight! (Ḵoš miravad in pesar ke barḵāst / Sarvi’st ke miravad čonin rāst;Saʿdi, Ḡazaliāt, p. 25).
One of the ghazals of Awḥadi of Marāḡe (b. 1270, p. 127) has “o boy” (ey pesar) as its refrain (radif) and begins with the following line:
Your fragrant tresses are like a trap, o boy / Your face resembles the full moon, o boy! (Zolf-e moškinat čo dām ast ey pesar / ʿĀreżat māh-e tamām ast ey pesar; Divān, p. 233).
Sanāʿi (d. ca. 1141), has no fewer than five successive ghazals with pesar as their radif (Divān, pp. 891-96).
It is to be noted that the Arabic words used in Persian poetry for the beloved—maʿšuq, maḥbub, and ḥabib—are all, not feminine, but masculine adjectives.
THE BELOVED AS A SLAVE SOLDIER
In early and mid-classical poetry, particularly in the lyrical preludes (nasibs, tašbibs) to panegyric odes, the beloved is sometimes a youth who serves as a page, but more often a young Turkish soldier. From early in the Abbasid period the caliphs instituted a tradition of forming army contingents composed of slaves, mostly taken as captives in the course of frontier wars and raids into Central Asia, the Caucasus, and India, among other regions. There were also slave markets where young male slaves, along with female ones, captured as booty or procured by other means, were sold (see Yarshater, 1960, and BARDA AND BARDADĀRI iii. and v.). The preferred slaves were Turkic ones, admired for their handsome features, their valor, and their martial gifts. The Samanids, who originated from Sogdiana and were neighbors to the Turkic khanates of Central Asia, adopted the practice of enlisting slaves in their army—a practice which continued under the succeeding dynasties, chiefly the Ghaznavids, the Seljuks, and theKʷārazmšāhs.
Young slaves also were bought by the wealthy for agricultural work, domestic chores, or running errands, and by rulers to serve at their courts and in their armies. Those who were fit to fight were specially trained for military service and were placed in the slave contingents of the army, as is abundantly evident from the sources and the poetry of the Samanid, Ghaznavid, and Seljuk periods. Some of them, if talented, were also taught other skills; for instance, they learned to play music and served as boon companions (Yarshater, 1960, p. 49). The love poetry of these periods is generally addressed to such adolescent soldiers or pages, as the following examples demonstrate:
Put down your weapons boy! Bring me kisses! / All this trouble and strife serves no purpose at all! (Ey pesar jang beneh busa biār / In hama jang o dorošti begoḏār;Farroḵi, Divān, p. 141).
Take off and throw aside, O Turk, this battle raiment / Take up the lyre and put down your shield and sword (Barkeš ey Tork o be yek su fekan in jāma-ye jang / Čang bargir o beneh darqa o šamšir az čang; Farroḵi, Divan, p. 206).
The army left and that army-breaking idol left (with it) / May it not happen to anyone to lose his heart to a soldier! (Laškar beraft o ān bot-e laškar-šekan beraft / Hargez mabād kas ke dahad del be laškari;Farroḵi, Divan, p. 382).
The following line attests to the musical skill of the beloved:
Do you see that when that Turk takes the lyre in hand / Self-restraint flees a hundred parasang from the hearts of saints! (Bini ān Torki ke u čun barzand bar čang, čang / Az del-e abdāl bogrizad be sad farsang sang; Manučehri [d. 1041], Divān, p. 50).
Selecting Turkish beauties for love affairs became so prevalent that in Persian poetry that Turk became a poetic synonym for a male beauty or the beloved:
O my Turk, you won’t say where you are today / Unless we send someone and call you you won’t come! (Ey Tork-e man, emruz naguʾi be kojāʾi / Tā kas naferestim o naḵᵛānim nayāʾi! Manučehri, Divān, p. 95).
William Jones has made the term familiar through his elegant but free translation of a ghazal of Hafez (d. 1389), beginning with:
If that Turk of Shiraz should gain my heart / I bestow upon him Samarkand and Bukhara for his black beauty spot (Agar ān Tork-e Širāzi be dast ārad del-e mā rā / Be ḵāl-e henduyaš baḵšam Samarqand o Boḵārā rā; Divān, no. 3; see Browne, Lit. Hist. Persia III, p. 304).
We find a fairly comprehensive description of such youths, who combined military tasks with a beloved’s part, in the lyric prelude of a qasida in praise of the Seljuk Malekšāh by Kāfi Ẓafar of Hamadān, cited by ʿAwfi in his Lobāb al-albāb (pp. 210-13), of which a few lines are cited here:
These jolly riders who ravish people’s hearts / One wonders whose progeny they are and after whom they take in beauty (In šuḵ-savārān ke del-e ḵalq setānand / Guʿi ze ke zādand o be ḵubi be ke mānand).They are Turks by race, no doubt, but / In beauty and loveliness are like idols (Torkand be aṣl andar šak nist walikan / Az ḵubi o zibāʾi mānand-e botānand).
They are troop leaders and (yet) brides of chambers / They are world paladins and furious lions (Mirān-e sepāhand o ʿarusān-e weṯāqand / Gordān-e jahānand o hožbarān-e damānand).
They are of musky facial hair, sweet of speech, with perfumed tresses / Silver-bodied, gold-girded, and narrow-waisted (Meškin ḵaṭ o širin soḵan o ḡālia zolfand / Simin bar o zarrin kamar o muy-mīyānand).
In battle they think of nothing but attack by sword / In festive gatherings they have no pleasure but ravishing hearts (Dar razm bejoz tiḡ zadan ray nabinand / Dar bazm bejoz del setādan kām nadānand).
I hope that by the good fortune of my lord I shall find / A sweetheart from among them, even though their price is high (Arju ke be eqbāl-e ḵodāvand biābam / Z’išān ṣanami gar bebahā nik gerānand).
Of course there were slaves of other origins as well, e.g., Indian and Slav (generally termed bolḡār “Bulgarian,” known for their fair skin). In a poem Farroḵi compares the Turkish and Indian partners (Divān, p. 435), showing preference for the latter (perhaps with tongue in cheek) on account of their docility:
By the time a Turkish sweetheart has given you three furtive kisses / You can take an Indian one and consummate the affair with him (Tā to rā Torki se busa-ye dozdida dahad / Hendui rā betavān bord o bepardāḵt ze kār;Farroḵi, Divān, p. 435).
Anvari (d. ca. 1190) has a qasida which begins with an account of his love for an Indian sweetheart bought from a slave-seller (Divān, p. 165; see also Sanāʾi [d. ca. 1141], Divān, p. 68).
As women were totally secluded and were socially excluded from men’s gatherings, wine was handed around in the feasts by youths, serving as so many Ganymedes. Such gatherings provided an occasion for the participants to admire and fall in love with the wine servers (sāqis) so frequently that notions of the beloved and the sāqi are intertwined and fused together in many ghazals; and the sāqi and the beloved become one, e.g.,
Pardon me if the thread of my rosary came undone / My hand was in the arm of the silver-calved sāqi (Rešta-ye tasbiḥ agar begsast maʿḏuram bedār / Dastam andar sāʿed-e sāqi-ye simin sāq bud; Hafez, Divān, no. 202).
PEDOPHILIA
In Persian love lyrics, however, one can hardly find the kind of homosexual relationship that is understood in the modern West; love is a one-sided and asymmetrical affair. As a rule, it is between an adult male and a boy or youth. Therefore, it should be characterized more properly as pedophilia, and its physical aspect as pederasty, rather than described under the more nebulous concept of homosexual love. In a number of poems the beloved is actually called kudak or ṭefl,i.e., a child, a young lad, or a minor, e.g.:
I love silver-bodied, ruby-lipped children. / Wherever you see one of them, call me there (Dust dāram kudak-e simin-bar-e bijāda-lab / Har kojā z’išān yeki bini marā ānjā ṭalab;Farroḵi, Divān, p. 5).
O beautifully clad child, silver-bodied and ruby-lipped, / the substance of charm and gaiety, envious houries in pain from you! (Ey kudak-e zibā salab, simin-bar o bijāda-lab / Sarmāya-ye nāz o ṭarab, hurān ze raškat bā taʿab; Anvari, apud Šamisā, p. 80).
What choices have I, if I should not fall in love with that child? / Mother Time does not possess a better son (Del bedān rud-e gerāmi čekonam gar nadaham / Mādar-e dahr nadārad pesar-i behtar az in; Hafez, Divān, no. 396).
My sweetheart is a beauty and a child, and I fear that in play one day / He will kill me miserably and he will not be accountable according to the holy law (Delbaram šāhed o ṭefl ast o be bāzi ruzi / Bekošad zāram o dar šarʿ nabāšad gonahaš).
I have a fourteen year old idol, sweet and nimble / For whom the full moon is a willing slave (Čārdah-sāla boti čābok o širin dāram / Ke be jān ḥalqa be guš ast mah-e čārdahaš).
His sweet lips have (still) the scent of milk / Even though the demeanor of his dark eyes drips blood (Bu-ye šir az lab-e hamčon šekaraš miāyad / Garče ḵun mičekad az šiva-ye čašm-e siahaš; Hafez, Divān, no. 284.)
In many poems the poet-lover describes himself as a fatherly figure to the beloved, and indeed a homosexual may take a catamite into his home and care for his well-being and education (acting as a ‘sugar daddy’). A case in point is that of Amir Yusof and Toḡrol, related by Bayhaqi in his History (pp. 329-31): Ṭoḡrol, a rare beauty was sent as a gift to Sultan Maḥmud from Turkestan; he was serving wine at one of the court’s drinking sessions when Amir Yusof, Maḥmud’s brother, became enamored of him. He was overcome by wine, and his gaze remained fixed on the boy. Maḥmud realized the situation and, though not amused, made a gift of the boy to his brother, who took charge of him and raised him as a son. Years later, at the instigation of Maḥmud, who had become suspicious of Amir Yusof’s intentions, the youth spied on his lover and lord and facilitated his downfall.
An instructive description is found in a qasida by Iraj (d. 1925) addressed to a boy on the threshold of puberty which begins with the line:
Be mindful o jolly boy that next year / Your lifestyle and your affairs will change (Fekr-e ān bāš ke sāl degar ey šuḵ pesar / Ruzegār-e to degar gardad o kār-e to degar; Divān, p. 21), and in the course of which he describes in minute detail what an adult homosexual could do for his catamite. In a poem (p. 29), of which the first line was quoted before, he talks about a boy whose father is a hindrance to the poet’s amorous desires and says:
If his father should die, there is no cause for sorrow and mourning / I am alive; I will take care of him better than his father (Gar bemirad pedaraš jā-ye ḡam o mātam nist / Zenda’am man, benavāzam ze pedar ḵubtaraš).
In order to secure a fatherly position over the boy, he goes so far as to say:
So that people would not say what I have to do with another person’s son / I would marry his mother and shall become his father (Tā naguyand torā bā pesar-e ḡēyr če kār / Mādaraš rā be zani giram o gardam pedaraš; Divān, p. 29).
www.iranicaonline.org/articles/homosexuality-iii
HOMOSEXUALITY
iii. IN PERSIAN LITERATURE
A sharp contrast exists between the treatment of homosexuality in Islamic law, on the one hand (see ii. above), and its reflection in Persian literature, particularly poetry (the chief vehicle of Persian literary expression), on the other. From the dawn of Persian poetry in the ninth century all through to the twentieth century, not only was homosexuality condoned in Persian poetry, but in fact homoeroticism formed almost the only amatory subject of Persian ghazals (short sonnet-like lyrics) and the main topic of much of Persian love poetry.
THE BELOVED
The “beloved” (q.v.) in Persian lyrics is, as a rule, not a female, but a young male, often a pubescent or adolescent youth, or a young boy. No sense of shame, no unease, no notion of concern for religious prohibition affects the exuberant descriptions of the male beloved or the passionate love displayed by the poets for him. There are many poems by classical and later poets which explicitly address a boy (pesar) as the subject of the poet’s love, as illustrated by the following examples from different periods:
O boy, if you want to gladden my heart / You must give me kisses after serving me wine (Ey pesar gar del-e man kard hamiḵᵛāhi šād / Az pas-e bāda marā busa hami bāyad dād; Farroḵi [d. 1038] Divān, p. 46).
O boy, you carry the business of beauty beyond all limits / With such beauty you expect me to bide my time? Impossible! (Ey pesar nik ze ḥadd mibebari kār-e jamāl / Bā čonin ḥosn ze to ṣabr konam? In’t moḥāl; Natáanzi, quoted by Šams-e Qays [13th century], p. 326).
A beau with a candle in hand is an affliction / (A beau) heavy-headed with love’s slumber and intoxicated with wine (Fetna bāšad šāhedi šamʿi be dast / Sar gerān az ḵᵛāb-o sarmast az šarāb; Saʿdi [d. ca. 1290], Ḡazaliāt, p. 15).
This boy who stood up walks gracefully / He is a cypress walking so straight! (Ḵoš miravad in pesar ke barḵāst / Sarvi’st ke miravad čonin rāst;Saʿdi, Ḡazaliāt, p. 25).
One of the ghazals of Awḥadi of Marāḡe (b. 1270, p. 127) has “o boy” (ey pesar) as its refrain (radif) and begins with the following line:
Your fragrant tresses are like a trap, o boy / Your face resembles the full moon, o boy! (Zolf-e moškinat čo dām ast ey pesar / ʿĀreżat māh-e tamām ast ey pesar; Divān, p. 233).
Sanāʿi (d. ca. 1141), has no fewer than five successive ghazals with pesar as their radif (Divān, pp. 891-96).
It is to be noted that the Arabic words used in Persian poetry for the beloved—maʿšuq, maḥbub, and ḥabib—are all, not feminine, but masculine adjectives.
THE BELOVED AS A SLAVE SOLDIER
In early and mid-classical poetry, particularly in the lyrical preludes (nasibs, tašbibs) to panegyric odes, the beloved is sometimes a youth who serves as a page, but more often a young Turkish soldier. From early in the Abbasid period the caliphs instituted a tradition of forming army contingents composed of slaves, mostly taken as captives in the course of frontier wars and raids into Central Asia, the Caucasus, and India, among other regions. There were also slave markets where young male slaves, along with female ones, captured as booty or procured by other means, were sold (see Yarshater, 1960, and BARDA AND BARDADĀRI iii. and v.). The preferred slaves were Turkic ones, admired for their handsome features, their valor, and their martial gifts. The Samanids, who originated from Sogdiana and were neighbors to the Turkic khanates of Central Asia, adopted the practice of enlisting slaves in their army—a practice which continued under the succeeding dynasties, chiefly the Ghaznavids, the Seljuks, and theKʷārazmšāhs.
Young slaves also were bought by the wealthy for agricultural work, domestic chores, or running errands, and by rulers to serve at their courts and in their armies. Those who were fit to fight were specially trained for military service and were placed in the slave contingents of the army, as is abundantly evident from the sources and the poetry of the Samanid, Ghaznavid, and Seljuk periods. Some of them, if talented, were also taught other skills; for instance, they learned to play music and served as boon companions (Yarshater, 1960, p. 49). The love poetry of these periods is generally addressed to such adolescent soldiers or pages, as the following examples demonstrate:
Put down your weapons boy! Bring me kisses! / All this trouble and strife serves no purpose at all! (Ey pesar jang beneh busa biār / In hama jang o dorošti begoḏār;Farroḵi, Divān, p. 141).
Take off and throw aside, O Turk, this battle raiment / Take up the lyre and put down your shield and sword (Barkeš ey Tork o be yek su fekan in jāma-ye jang / Čang bargir o beneh darqa o šamšir az čang; Farroḵi, Divan, p. 206).
The army left and that army-breaking idol left (with it) / May it not happen to anyone to lose his heart to a soldier! (Laškar beraft o ān bot-e laškar-šekan beraft / Hargez mabād kas ke dahad del be laškari;Farroḵi, Divan, p. 382).
The following line attests to the musical skill of the beloved:
Do you see that when that Turk takes the lyre in hand / Self-restraint flees a hundred parasang from the hearts of saints! (Bini ān Torki ke u čun barzand bar čang, čang / Az del-e abdāl bogrizad be sad farsang sang; Manučehri [d. 1041], Divān, p. 50).
Selecting Turkish beauties for love affairs became so prevalent that in Persian poetry that Turk became a poetic synonym for a male beauty or the beloved:
O my Turk, you won’t say where you are today / Unless we send someone and call you you won’t come! (Ey Tork-e man, emruz naguʾi be kojāʾi / Tā kas naferestim o naḵᵛānim nayāʾi! Manučehri, Divān, p. 95).
William Jones has made the term familiar through his elegant but free translation of a ghazal of Hafez (d. 1389), beginning with:
If that Turk of Shiraz should gain my heart / I bestow upon him Samarkand and Bukhara for his black beauty spot (Agar ān Tork-e Širāzi be dast ārad del-e mā rā / Be ḵāl-e henduyaš baḵšam Samarqand o Boḵārā rā; Divān, no. 3; see Browne, Lit. Hist. Persia III, p. 304).
We find a fairly comprehensive description of such youths, who combined military tasks with a beloved’s part, in the lyric prelude of a qasida in praise of the Seljuk Malekšāh by Kāfi Ẓafar of Hamadān, cited by ʿAwfi in his Lobāb al-albāb (pp. 210-13), of which a few lines are cited here:
These jolly riders who ravish people’s hearts / One wonders whose progeny they are and after whom they take in beauty (In šuḵ-savārān ke del-e ḵalq setānand / Guʿi ze ke zādand o be ḵubi be ke mānand).They are Turks by race, no doubt, but / In beauty and loveliness are like idols (Torkand be aṣl andar šak nist walikan / Az ḵubi o zibāʾi mānand-e botānand).
They are troop leaders and (yet) brides of chambers / They are world paladins and furious lions (Mirān-e sepāhand o ʿarusān-e weṯāqand / Gordān-e jahānand o hožbarān-e damānand).
They are of musky facial hair, sweet of speech, with perfumed tresses / Silver-bodied, gold-girded, and narrow-waisted (Meškin ḵaṭ o širin soḵan o ḡālia zolfand / Simin bar o zarrin kamar o muy-mīyānand).
In battle they think of nothing but attack by sword / In festive gatherings they have no pleasure but ravishing hearts (Dar razm bejoz tiḡ zadan ray nabinand / Dar bazm bejoz del setādan kām nadānand).
I hope that by the good fortune of my lord I shall find / A sweetheart from among them, even though their price is high (Arju ke be eqbāl-e ḵodāvand biābam / Z’išān ṣanami gar bebahā nik gerānand).
Of course there were slaves of other origins as well, e.g., Indian and Slav (generally termed bolḡār “Bulgarian,” known for their fair skin). In a poem Farroḵi compares the Turkish and Indian partners (Divān, p. 435), showing preference for the latter (perhaps with tongue in cheek) on account of their docility:
By the time a Turkish sweetheart has given you three furtive kisses / You can take an Indian one and consummate the affair with him (Tā to rā Torki se busa-ye dozdida dahad / Hendui rā betavān bord o bepardāḵt ze kār;Farroḵi, Divān, p. 435).
Anvari (d. ca. 1190) has a qasida which begins with an account of his love for an Indian sweetheart bought from a slave-seller (Divān, p. 165; see also Sanāʾi [d. ca. 1141], Divān, p. 68).
As women were totally secluded and were socially excluded from men’s gatherings, wine was handed around in the feasts by youths, serving as so many Ganymedes. Such gatherings provided an occasion for the participants to admire and fall in love with the wine servers (sāqis) so frequently that notions of the beloved and the sāqi are intertwined and fused together in many ghazals; and the sāqi and the beloved become one, e.g.,
Pardon me if the thread of my rosary came undone / My hand was in the arm of the silver-calved sāqi (Rešta-ye tasbiḥ agar begsast maʿḏuram bedār / Dastam andar sāʿed-e sāqi-ye simin sāq bud; Hafez, Divān, no. 202).
PEDOPHILIA
In Persian love lyrics, however, one can hardly find the kind of homosexual relationship that is understood in the modern West; love is a one-sided and asymmetrical affair. As a rule, it is between an adult male and a boy or youth. Therefore, it should be characterized more properly as pedophilia, and its physical aspect as pederasty, rather than described under the more nebulous concept of homosexual love. In a number of poems the beloved is actually called kudak or ṭefl,i.e., a child, a young lad, or a minor, e.g.:
I love silver-bodied, ruby-lipped children. / Wherever you see one of them, call me there (Dust dāram kudak-e simin-bar-e bijāda-lab / Har kojā z’išān yeki bini marā ānjā ṭalab;Farroḵi, Divān, p. 5).
O beautifully clad child, silver-bodied and ruby-lipped, / the substance of charm and gaiety, envious houries in pain from you! (Ey kudak-e zibā salab, simin-bar o bijāda-lab / Sarmāya-ye nāz o ṭarab, hurān ze raškat bā taʿab; Anvari, apud Šamisā, p. 80).
What choices have I, if I should not fall in love with that child? / Mother Time does not possess a better son (Del bedān rud-e gerāmi čekonam gar nadaham / Mādar-e dahr nadārad pesar-i behtar az in; Hafez, Divān, no. 396).
My sweetheart is a beauty and a child, and I fear that in play one day / He will kill me miserably and he will not be accountable according to the holy law (Delbaram šāhed o ṭefl ast o be bāzi ruzi / Bekošad zāram o dar šarʿ nabāšad gonahaš).
I have a fourteen year old idol, sweet and nimble / For whom the full moon is a willing slave (Čārdah-sāla boti čābok o širin dāram / Ke be jān ḥalqa be guš ast mah-e čārdahaš).
His sweet lips have (still) the scent of milk / Even though the demeanor of his dark eyes drips blood (Bu-ye šir az lab-e hamčon šekaraš miāyad / Garče ḵun mičekad az šiva-ye čašm-e siahaš; Hafez, Divān, no. 284.)
In many poems the poet-lover describes himself as a fatherly figure to the beloved, and indeed a homosexual may take a catamite into his home and care for his well-being and education (acting as a ‘sugar daddy’). A case in point is that of Amir Yusof and Toḡrol, related by Bayhaqi in his History (pp. 329-31): Ṭoḡrol, a rare beauty was sent as a gift to Sultan Maḥmud from Turkestan; he was serving wine at one of the court’s drinking sessions when Amir Yusof, Maḥmud’s brother, became enamored of him. He was overcome by wine, and his gaze remained fixed on the boy. Maḥmud realized the situation and, though not amused, made a gift of the boy to his brother, who took charge of him and raised him as a son. Years later, at the instigation of Maḥmud, who had become suspicious of Amir Yusof’s intentions, the youth spied on his lover and lord and facilitated his downfall.
An instructive description is found in a qasida by Iraj (d. 1925) addressed to a boy on the threshold of puberty which begins with the line:
Be mindful o jolly boy that next year / Your lifestyle and your affairs will change (Fekr-e ān bāš ke sāl degar ey šuḵ pesar / Ruzegār-e to degar gardad o kār-e to degar; Divān, p. 21), and in the course of which he describes in minute detail what an adult homosexual could do for his catamite. In a poem (p. 29), of which the first line was quoted before, he talks about a boy whose father is a hindrance to the poet’s amorous desires and says:
If his father should die, there is no cause for sorrow and mourning / I am alive; I will take care of him better than his father (Gar bemirad pedaraš jā-ye ḡam o mātam nist / Zenda’am man, benavāzam ze pedar ḵubtaraš).
In order to secure a fatherly position over the boy, he goes so far as to say:
So that people would not say what I have to do with another person’s son / I would marry his mother and shall become his father (Tā naguyand torā bā pesar-e ḡēyr če kār / Mādaraš rā be zani giram o gardam pedaraš; Divān, p. 29).
www.iranicaonline.org/articles/homosexuality-iii