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Fruitless search for Richard's poem not without rewards

On Friday night's show when Rachel and Richard were talking about how hot it is in Baghdad, Richard mentioned that there are Ottoman poems about how much they

On Friday night's show when Rachel and Richard were talking about how hot it is in Baghdad, Richard mentioned that there are Ottoman poems about how much they hated the heat there:

"There are Ottoman poems that describe it as, well, in an unflattering four-letter words and then say, Baghdad, it is excrement and it is infernally hot. I'll give you the poem. I think from the 17th century."

I'll try to find out if he has a link or some other copy of the poem, but I figured he's kind of busy and not exactly hanging out in an Ottoman poetry library at the moment so I tried to find it myself.In the scope of translated-to-English and free-on-Google I wasn't able to find the particuar lines he mentioned, but I did have a pretty good time reading Ottoman poetry. Google Books had a couple of offerings that were incomplete but still good for browsing:After the jump, a sample of what I found:


From Ottoman lyric poetry: an anthology By Walter G. Andrews, Najaat Black, Mehmet Kalpaklı, page 134. I think the poet's name is Nedim, from the year 1730.

At the gathering of desire you made me a wine-cupwith your sugar smileOh saki, give me only half a cup of wine,you've made me drunk enoughYou crushed me under teh hoof of a wild horsethat runs like fireIn those places flames rise up from my asheslike cypress treesAh, east wind, you came to me with the scentof my lover's hairYou made me love-bewildered like the hyacinth's curlWith your beauteous grace my hair has been standinglike a jinnWith love you've made me mirror-colored from headto footDon't make your crying Nedim drunk and devastatedlike thatSaki, give me only half a cup of wine, you've mademe drunk enough

From A history of Ottoman poetry, Volume 3 By Elias John Wilkinson Gibb, page 46. This poet is Usuli of Vardar Yenijesi and he lived into the mid-900s, so I reckon that's when the poem is from as well. (And yes, this is well out of the range Richard mentioned but by this point in my search I was pretty much just wandering.)

Each wave that riseth on the sea of Absolute ExistencyDeclares the secret 'I am God' or openly or secrectly.All things are mines, and of their quintessential nature they beget,Some gold, some silver, other stones and clods of earth, in verity.Although in truth this orchard hath but one water and one gardener,What myriad trees do grown herin from multiform realityBehold the race of men and see how some are poison, sugar some;How great a marvel, diverse fruits appearing on a seingle tree!What myriad acts are ordered fair, what myriad shows are brought to naught;How passing strange a work is this, whereof no workman we can see!Lo, thou hast entered and shalt quit this fane nine-domed, hexagonal/Yet neither entrance-door nor gate of exit is beheld of thee.How sore must labour the Adept ere he attain perfection's point;What blood the mine must drain to form a single gem of radiancy!In all beholders wait the virgin fantasies expectant tillThat link Usuli there arise a lord of perspicacity.