HUMOUR IN RUMI’S GHAZALS agar ‘aql-e xalâyeq-râ hama bar ham-degar bandi na-yâbad serr-e lo†f-e mâ magar ân jân ke be-g(o)zidam (R. 1424/8) Jalâl-od-din Rumi (1207-1273/4 AD) is generally regarded as the most outstanding representative of Persian Sufism and his texts are stud- ied predominantly for the sake of their serious though enigmatically worded ‘mystical message’. Consequently, the less solemn layers of his poetry, i.e., the innumerable puns, wordplays and jokes displayed in it, are usually treated as mere embellishments of no particular importance. “Yet, Rumi had also a good sense of humour…” admits Professor Annemarie Schimmel in her monograph1 which thoroughly discusses the whole oeuvre of this 13th century Persian poet. This paper intends to peruse various categories of the obvious humorous devices applied by Rumi in his ghazals collected in the Divân-e Sams-e Tabriz(i)2 in order to show that the playfulness of these poems is one of their non-negligi- ble traits and forms a part of the poet’s communicative strategy. To put it simply, this author’s view is that the chief purpose of Rumi’s poetry was to involve his readers in a linguistic game which tests their intelli- gence and ingenuity by means of verbal and semantic riddles and/or ambiguities and awards the successful ‘decipherers’ of them with the feeling of amused satisfaction. According to the analysis of various forms of humour proposed by Arthur Koestler3, the common pattern underlying all laughter-provoking phenomena is the so-called ‘bisociation’, i.e., ‘the perceiving of a situa- tion in two self-consistent but mutually incompatible frames of reference or associative contexts’ which provokes a ‘delightful mental jolt of a sudden leap from one plane or associative context to another’. While the existence of two simultaneous frames of reference (e.g., two different meanings of a homonym) is a necessary condition, it is not a sufficient one unless this ‘bisociative’ structure is used as a means of expression of 1 A. SCHIMMEL, The Triumphal Sun. A Study of the Works of Jalâloddin Rumi, London / The Hague 1978, p. 56. 2 B. FORUZANFARR, Kolliyât-e Divân-e Sams-e Tabrizi, Tehrân 1363 s/1985. 3 A. KOESTLER, Humour and Wit, in: The New Encylopædia Britannica, (Macropædia 9), 15th ed., Chicago/London etc. 1976, p. 5-11. 84 W. SKALMOWSKI aggressivity towards the object of amusement (when, e.g., in a joke based on a homonym one of its two meanings is derisive of its referent). What Koestler calls the ‘emotional dynamics’ of laughter presupposes a certain level of tension in the observer(s) due to respect, awe or appre- hension which gets suddenly released by realization that the cause of these feelings merits them less than it had appeared before. Thus, a wit- ticism or an amusing situation consists of a sudden degradation of the object of attention occuring in such circumstances that the observer does not feel any sympathy for the victim — otherwise the effect would be pathetic rather than comic. This exclusion of sympathy can be achieved in various ways, starting with making the degradation relatively harm- less (e.g., in friendly teasing) and ending with such an exaggeration of brutality that it overshoots the target and reveals itself as unrealistic (e.g., in a caricature or satire). Extended between these two extremes is a wide spectrum of humour of varying subtlety and ingenuity which defies strict categorization, but which can always be reduced to the basic ingredients of this perceptional mood: the two simultaneous associative contexts and an intention to humiliate. By its very nature the subject of this paper belongs to the category of verbal humour which Koestler subdivides into three general types: (1) pun, (2) comic verse and (3) satire and allegory. In the following several examples from Rumi’s ghazals will be quoted in order to demonstrate that all these three types are easily discernible in them. This presentation is neither exhaustive (the bulk of the material is too great for it) nor fully systematic (the elusiveness of the very notion of “witticism” makes this impossible in a short article), but it seems sufficient for substantiating this author’s claim that the humorous element deliberately introduced into these texts by the poet is an important trait deserving attention in its own right. The three types of verbal humour proposed by Koestler are used in their large sense in this paper. Thus the notion of ‘pun’ is extended onto all kinds of ambiguous and/or unusual single free forms — both seman- tic and grammatical — whose comic intent is to temporarily mislead or mistify the reader in order to demonstrate his/her intellectual inferiority vis à vis the text’s author. The most primitive kind of this type of humour is the verbal pun sensu stricto, i.e., a real or an ad hoc created homonym combining two disparate ideas superficially united by the same phonetic form. It is one of the most popular rhetorical devices of Persian poets and its extensive use in Rumi’s work is as it were natural. HUMOUR IN RUMI’S GHAZALS 85 Thus only one instance of such a verbal joke is quoted here (Ex. 1) for the sake of completeness. [1] R. 884/13-15 goftam to kisti goft morâd-e goftam man kistam goft morâd-e hama morâd mofta‘elon fâ‘elât rafta bodam maÌv soda pis-e Âât del be-soxon az Òefât con oftâd dâd del o ‘aql o jân mafxar-e az madad-e in se dâd yâft tabriziyân zamâna sedâd ‘I said: “Who are you?”; he said: “The aim [lit. desire(d object)] of everybody”; — I said: “Who am I?”; he said: “The ultimate aim [lit. the aim of the aim]”. “Long-short-short-long, long-short-long-short” [metric pattern of munsarîÌ ma†wî]; I have given up (all) Attributes — (and) they disap- peared in the presence of Essence as soon as the Heart [= Beloved] began to speak. The Glory of the Tabriz-dwellers [= Sams-e Tabriz] offered (me) (His) heart, reason and soul/life — (and) thanks to [lit. with the help of] these three gifts [Pers. se dâd] the (bad) destiny (of mine) came to an end [lit. found an obstacle; Ar.-Pers. sedâd].’ Bayt 3 of the next example contains a pun of a more sophisticated type, namely a neologism nâ-ambar-a (spelling: n-a-n-b-r-h), lit. ‘hav- ing no shelter/shed’ in its second meÒrâ‘. This strange word confuses the reader who had just met the compound nân-xvâra ‘bread-eating’ in the first meÒrâ‘ and thus automatically analyses the unfamiliar form as *nân-bara which has no sense at all. Only after some reflection will the reader eventually find the right solution and smile at the poet’s superior verbal skill. [2] R 9/1-3 man az kojâ pand az kojâ bâda ân jâm-e jân-afzây-râ bar riz bar be-gardân sâqiyâ jân sâqiyâ bar dast-e man neh jâm-e jân dur az lab-e bigânegân pis âr ay dastgir-e ‘âseqân penhân sâqiyâ nân-i be-deh nân-xvâra-râ ân ân ‘âseq-e nâ-(a)mbara-râ konj-i †âme‘-e bicâra-râ be-xosbân sâqiyâ ‘Not for me moral advice: o cupbearer, bring wine! — pour this life- prolonging cup for the sake of life [or: Soul, i.e., Beloved], o cupbearer! 86 W. SKALMOWSKI O protector of lovers, put into my hand the life(-giving) cup — serve (it) secretly (and) far away from strangers’ lips, o cupbearer! Give some bread to this poor hungry breadeater — find some place to sleep for this homeless [lit. “shedless”] lover, o cupbearer!’ The two following examples feature unusual morphological forms which constitute obvious distortions of the norm of Classical Persian, but which — being only extravagant extensions of legitimate construc- tions — remain perfectly understandable to the reader. These apparently playful licentiae poeticae may be regarded as grammatical puns which ‘bisociate’ strange acoustic forms with normal syntactic functions. Thus, e.g., Ex. 3 displays a series of normal infinitives augmented with the suf- fix -â which habitually may be used only with the finite forms of certain verbs (e.g., gûy(i-y)â, goft-â ). In our case the source of this pun is the end of the first meÒrâ‘ of the first bayt: fanâ vo mordanâ in which the ad hoc ‘augmented’ infinitive (used as an abstract noun) forms an inter- nal rhyme to the preceding word fanâ. However, since a word in that position (the so-called ‘arû∂-foot) determines the rhyme of the whole ghazal all other infinitives in it had to be put into this unusual form. [3] R. 49/1 & 4-5 bâ to Ìayât o zendagi bi to fanâ z-ânk(e) to âftâbi vo bi to vo mordanâ bovad fasordanâ (…) pis be-sejda mi sodam past xanda-zanân gosâd lab goft derâz- xamida con sotor gardanâ bin ke ce xvâhi kardanâ bin ke gardan-e derâz karda-yi pamba ce xvâhi kardanâ be-xvâhi xvardanâ ‘(Being) with you (means) life and being alive; (being) without you (means) annihilation and dying — because you are (like) sun(shine) and (thus) (being) without you (means) withering away. I prostrated myself (before Him) bowing down (to the ground) like a camel — He opened (His) mouth (and) said with a smile: “O, impudent one [lit. streching (his) neck]! Look what you are (now) going to do: — (since) you have been impudent (to Me) you will (have to) stuff your mouth [lit.