Consider the source

For many years, my computer monitor has been adorned with one of my favorite quotes relating to emotional life, mental well-being, etc:

"Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions."

All along, that line has been attributed to Hafiz, the mystic poet of 14th century Iran who wrote movingly about love, God and wine.


Recently, however, it has come to my attention that the phrase actually has little, if anything, to do with Hafiz. It is from Daniel Ladinsky, by most reckoning a minor British poet who had the marketing sense to hitch his fortunes to Hafiz and a growing interest in Sufi mysticism.


The cover of "The Gift," in which the line I so like appears, labels the work as "Poems by Hafiz, the great Sufi master. Translations by Daniel Ladinsky."


The writer is coyer in the introduction, saying his poems are "renderings" of Hafiz works meant to capture the spirit of the originals for modern readers. Further inquiry reveals Ladinsky neither speaks nor reads Persian, making his qualifications dubious for any normal conception of "translator."


Further reading of more scholarly interpretations of Hafiz's work reveal a tight formal structure that bears no resemblance to the free verse of "The Gift."


Which leaves me in a quandary. I still love that quote. But it's one thing to pass along the wisdom of Hafiz and quite another to quote "this British guy who kind of..."


Should that matter to me? Or should one accept wisdom wherever one finds it?