salāh-e kār kojā vo man-e kharāb kojā? bebin tafāvot-e rah k-az kojāst tā be kojā delam ze sowme'e begreft o kherqe-ye sālus kojāst deyr-e moghān o sharāb-e nāb kojā?
Where is right conduct, and where am I, a ruin? See how far the road runs — from where to where! My heart grew sick of the cloister and the hypocrite's cloak; where is the temple of the Magi, where the pure wine?
The speaker calls himself kharāb — 'ruined', a word that in Hafez also hints at 'drunk' — and admits he is far from respectable piety. The kherqe is the patched woollen cloak of a Sufi; Hafez uses it as a sign of religion worn for show. Against it he sets the deyr-e moghān, 'the temple of the Magi' (the Magi were Zoroastrian priests): in his poems it is a tavern-like place outside official religion where, paradoxically, sincerity lives. The repeated 'kojā… kojā' ('where … and where') is still a common Persian way of saying two things are worlds apart.
Persian word, how to say it, and what it means in your language.
Sounds likekojā
Meaningwhere
Sounds likekharāb
Meaningruined; (in Hafez) also drunk
Sounds likesharāb
Meaningwine
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