ز دستم بر نمیخیزد
Ze Dastam Bar Namekhezad
“Nothing Comes of My Hands”
It Is Beyond Me — Saadi's ghazal of love past the point of choice: the speaker cannot sit a single moment without the beloved, loves against the judgment of the whole world, and would drop the shield before the beloved's drawn sword.
About This Recording
Nothing Comes of My Hands describes a condition of complete helplessness: the speaker's hands — the instruments of action, of making, of doing — produce nothing. Love has dissolved the will that would direct them. In the ghazal tradition, this helplessness is not a complaint but a credential: only love thorough enough to prevent action is love genuine enough to be named.
The recording's arrangement mirrors the lyric's stillness. Zahir does not reach for dramatic effect; the song moves quietly through its statement of incapacity, the voice doing the work of conveying that the speaker is present and feeling, even though action has become impossible.
Lyrics
English Translation
It is beyond me to sit a single moment without you I want to see no face but yours
From the first day I knew that in falling for Shirin I must, like Farhad, wash my hands of my sweet life
I love you against the judgment of everyone in the world Though it mock my reason, though it breach my faith
And if you take up the sword, I will throw down my shield before you For without a sword you have already slain me — with those silver wrists
متن اصلی
ز دستم بر نمیخیزد که یک دم بی تو بنشینم به جز رویت نمیخواهم که روی هیچ کس بینم
من اول روز دانستم که با شیرین درافتادم که چون فرهاد باید شست دست از جان شیرینم
تو را من دوست میدارم خلاف هر که در عالم اگر طعنه است در عقلم اگر رخنه است در دینم
و گر شمشیر برگیری سپر پیشت بیندازم که بی شمشیر خود کشتی به ساعدهای سیمینم
Poetic Source & Adaptation
Saadi Shirazi
Saadi Shirazi, Divan, ghazal 423 (Foroughi edition; Wikisource/Ganjoor). The opening hemistich — 'it does not rise from my hands to sit one moment without you' — is a Persian idiom of incapacity: the speaker's helplessness is not weakness but the credential of complete love. The Farhad and Shirin allusion in the second bayt places the speaker in the lineage of Persian literature's great doomed lovers.