Censoring an Iranian Love Story Read Online Free PDF Page B

treasure pure gold,
her wavy tresses a snake atop the chest coiled
….
From the gatekeeper’s hand has fallen the gardengate key,
her pomegranate breasts in the garden revealed
….
Unaware of the king’s gaze that jasmine lingered,
for the view of her narcissus the hyacinth hindered.
…
When the moon from the dark cloud emerged,
Shirin’s eyes the king discerned.
…
But this that pool of sugar saw no means,
than her hair like the night to spread upon the mist.
…
    In this romance, as in all romances, there are many incidents and events that impede Shirin and Khosrow from meeting each other and from being alone together away from the eyes of the fiercely devout who behaved much like modern-day censors.
    Finally, however, Shirin arrives in Madayen, her beloved’s capital city …
    In those days, Madayen was the wealthiest and the most splendid capital city in the world. Remnants of the massive arched roof of its royal palace can still be found in Iraq—I mean that country that was once part of the Persian Empire and that today, because of the unrelenting war there, those Americans whose knowledge of geography is not very good no longer mistake for Iran.
    A long time has passed since Shirin and Khosrow met and fell in love, but they still haven’t done anything. On their long-awaited wedding night, Shirin lectures Khosrow: After all the wine you have drunk in your life, on this one night do not drink. However, by early afternoon, from the intense excitement of consummating their marriage, Khosrow starts to drink. By nightfall, completely drunk, he waits for Shirin to walk through the doors of the nuptial chamber bathed, made up, perfumed, and wearing a negligee that the fashion-setting Victoria’s Secret has yet to dream up … Imagine the nuptial chamber, not with your own strong and scientific imagination, but with the unscientific and idiotic imagination of a film such as Oliver Stone’s Alexander. Imagine the chamber with an Egyptian-Arabic-Indian-Iranian-Chinese decor, with a bed that has so much gold or emeralds or diamonds strewn on it that there is no room to lie down. In one corner there is an Indian Shiva, somewhere else there is the figure of Ra, the Egyptian deity, and in yet another corner smoke rises from a Chinese incense burner. And there, in the middle of the bed, lies Khosrow, the emperor of Persia, all sprawled out. I cannot find an Iranian imagery for Khosrow; therefore, like those Hollywood movies that jumble everything together, I will compare him to Ganesha, the Hindu patron of arts and sciences and the god of intellect and wisdom whom I like very much. Ganesha has an elephant’s head and a human body. He loves sweets, and in Farsi the name Shirin means “sweet.” But I have chosen this simile because Ganesha’s trunk is likely to bear similarities to Khosrow’s manly trunk.
    Regardless of the elephant’s trunk, when Shirin realizes that Khosrow is drunk on this historic night, out of mischief, she sends her stepmother into the nuptial chamber instead of going in herself. The description of the old woman is thus:
    Like a wolf, not a young wolf but an old one, with a pair of sagging breasts that resemble two sheepskin sacs, an old hump on her back, her face as wrinkled as an Indian walnut, her mouth as wide as a grave and with only a couple of yellow teeth in it, and no eyelashes on her eyes … The old woman enters the room. Khosrow, drunk, is taken aback. What is this? How did pretty Shirin suddenly turn into this? He concludes that it is because of his inebriated state that he sees Shirin like this, and he gets his hooks into her. The old woman screams out in pain, Shirin save me! Shirin enters the room and Khosrow realizes his mistake.
    Here, the poet again offers a lengthy description of Shirin’s beauties. He compares her body to all sorts of flowers and all sorts of rare sweets and foods. Of course, from the standpoint of literary ingenuity and poetic creativity, the