قِطْعَة قاآنی

2 زانْکِه بَر اِين قَول گُفْتارِ حَکيمَسْتَم حِکَم 1 کَم خُور اَی نادان و بَر  اِين گُفْتَه کَم جو  اِعْتِراض

zān ke bar in| qaw LO gof tā| re ha ki mas| tam he kam

 kam kho ray nā | dā no bar  in | gof te kam ju | e` te rāz

 L  S   L   L  |  L  S   L   L   |   L   S   L   L  |  L  S  L    L    S    L    L     |  L   S   L   L   |   L   S   L   L  |  L  S  L

because in this dictum is the word of the wise, for me it is [a] philosophy/science

eat less oh fool and on this dictum seek little objection

 
4  قيمَتَش کَمْتَر بُوَد زان چيز کِه آيَد اَز شِکَم  3 آنْکِه را صَرْفِ شِکَم شُد حاصِلِ عُمْرِ عَزيز
qi ma tash kam| tar bo vad zān | chiz ZO kā  yad | daz she kam ān ke rā sar | fe she kam shod | hā se le `om | re `a ziz
L  S   L   L   |  L  S   L   L   |   L   S   L   L  |  L  S  L  L    S    L    L     |  L   S   L   L   |   L   S   L   L  |  L  S  L    

its value will be less than that which passes out from the bowels [stomach]

that which in feeding the stomach became the result of a dear lifetime


Listen to this poem read in two different styles:

#1  The way it's supposed to be read.

 Hope you'll enjoy and try to imitate...

Notice it is not necessary to pause between feet or stichs and the emphasis  is on word stress rather than syllable length.

 

 #2  Read according to the meter.

 This style is provided only to show you the "behind-the-scenes" mechanics.  Poetry is never actually recited this way so don't try this in public! The trick is to always be conscious of the meter  but  make it look like you're not!  Listen to this style many, many times until it's in your blood, then throw it in the garbage and try to emulate the correct style to your left (#1)

 Listen

Listen


This is a qet`e which is just like a ghazal except that the qet`e lacks the AA rhyme scheme peculiar to the first verse of a ghazal. It jumps right in to the BA, CA, DA, EA pattern. It also can be very short or fragmented, hence the name.

Pattern of meter :

--> Long Short Long Long |  Long Short Long Long  |Long Short Long Long  | Long  Short Long

qāfiye: ek
radif: am
                                                                                                              

L(ong) is a long syllable, S(hort) is a short syllable and E(xtra)L(ong) is a syllable, usually restricted to the last foot, containing a consonant cluster. A long syllable may contain a consonant + short vowel + consonant OR consonant + long vowel. A short syllable contains a consonant + short vowel.  In the older stages of the Persian language, (and as speakers of modern Czech still do) long vowels really were pronounced with a longer duration and short vowels a little shorter, however, this distinction has been lost in the modern language.

Meter (وَزْن ): It is essential to first figure out the meter of a poem before attempting to understand the meaning.  This is how you can tell, among other things,  where the ezāfe's go and how you can distinguish  words whose meaning depends on a tashdid  (for example serr ("secret") and sar ("head").
  Procedure:  
    First, mark off the long vowels: ā, i, u, and  long diphthongs: ay, aw (but careful if they are followed by a suffix)
    Then, mark off the short vowels: a, e, o
     
    When you see the pattern, deal with vowels which can be either long or short:
      final "he" unpronounced "he"
      word-final u/o (including the "vāv"  meaning "and" in poetry always pronounced (v)o)
      ezāfe's
      any other word-final short vowels
      /i/ + vowel (especially /iyā/)
     tashdid's and hamze's are sometimes made use of  and sometimes ignored.
    two Short syllables may be counted as one Long syllable
    The first syllable of a foot may (in certain meters) be short, even if the meter calls for it to be long.
    It takes some juggling  to figure out where one syllable ends and the next begins. Learn to ignore spelling--syllabic units transcend word boundaries.
    If you find you have 2 consonants, one-after-another (except consonant + "nun"), you need to break them up by adding a short vowel.  However,  in the last "foot" or section of the verse, it is ok to have a consonant cluster and that syllable is called "ExtraLong"
Hacking up the words of a poem to bits and pieces like this is called تَقْطيع   /taqti`/ "cutting" in Persian. In English it is called scanning. MORE!

References:

Divan-i Hakim Qaani Shirazi: (p 796) 

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