Hich kare nist

Abstract

Owing to the association that Hafez's poetry has established with the minds and Persian speakers since the 18 th century onwards, some of the historical constructions of his poetics have been adapted, justified and interpreted along with the communal Persian language today. The phrase of “ Hich kare nist” that Hafiz has applied in this verse (Do not scare us from thewisdom’s forbiddance of serving us wine / Since that sheriff is not no-account in our province) has preoccupied the minds of the commentators of his poetry. Whilst they endeavored to solve the seemingly-embedded contradiction in the meaning of thisdistich,regrettably the commentatorshave not mentione dverifications derivedfrom the texts of ancient poetry and prose, and conversely tried to adapt it to some specimens from modern Persian. The commentators’ justifications on Hafez’s verse fall into twocategories: first, "It is Jack of all trades (omnipotent)" and second, “it is master of none (not omnipotent)" which according to the broad meaning of the verse, only one form is acceptable. Thus, this article attempts to problematize the difficulty of this phrase, the function of "nothingness" in the history of Persian language in the axis of connotation and its different grammatical functions, which most grammarians and lexicographers have not dealt with thoroughly. From this vantage, Hafez’s linguistic construction can be justified and explained in light ofits application in verse and prosetexts.