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Notes

We ran up against a problem in the first stanza of this poem: Hamid's literal says, 'there are two magic cups in your face' and, in Persian, it's quite usual to use a glass, cup, chalice, as a metaphor for the eyes - because they contain something intoxicating (forbidden alcohol). Of course, in English, it sounds wrong to compare eyes to a vessel, so we substituted, 'rubies' (for their wine-colour).

In the fourth stanza there's an idea that children playing games, such as hide and seek, become adults 'playing' at marriage. The original refers to playing 'mothers and fathers', but the English game is always called 'house'.

Sarah Maguire, Workshop Facilitator