Reinvestigation of “Mezmar" and "Ney" in Khaqani's poetry

Khaqani’s poem comprises a significant quantity of detailed descriptions, beautiful images, and highly complex points to understand due to the combination of his poetry with the old sciences such as medicine, astronomy, references to Quran and Hadith, rhetorical techniques, etc. In spite of the existence of valuable studies in explaining the much more complicated aspects of his poems, some parts of his poems are in need to accurate explanation. The reasons behind this phenomenon are the use of new metaphors and strange metonymies. Special attention has been paid to music by Khaqani as one of the ancient sciences and, therefore, there is an immense number of musical terms and interpretations. A more detailed investigation of the music system and its expressions in his poems can put an end to the ambiguities in some distiches. Since the music used in the past was only live music and the audiences were observing the musicians and their instruments, the attention to the musical features of the instruments was singinifcantly higher in comparison with today. Furthermore, the poets were able to create many themes referring to the instruments. "Mezmar" and "Ney" are among the instruments that have been addressed by Khaqani and the commentators have taken these instruments as one, due to the lack of enough familiarity with music. "Mezmar" has another meaning which reveals itself after a closer examination. The present study tries to reinvestigate "Mezmar" and "ney" via using intratextual and extratextual factors in his work and discusses two points and, finally, suggests a more precise meaning to the related verses. 
Introduction:
Khaqani Shervani has been addressed as one of the greatest poets of Iran in the 6^th century of Hijri.  He could be regarded as a poet of detailed descriptions, insightful points, and beautiful images. Accordingly, presenting a detailed description of his verses proves difficult since his poetry combines old sciences such as medicine, astronomy, Quran, Hadith, rhetorical techniques, etc. Despite the precious endeavors of explainers, some of his verses have remained inexplicable, to date. This is because his poetry is filled with original metaphors and distant allusions which are not easily unraveled. Such originality quests of Khaqani in the field of words and meaning have ended up in a particular style to be initiated. This has been entitled as the "Wonderful Way" by the poet himself that is a specific and novelistic style. The distinctive feature of this particular and fresh style is its complexity and novelty, which renders his poems unique. In his poetry, there are unprecedented metaphors, distant allusions, references to Quranic verses and traditions, dealing with rare stories, referring to traditional and customary events (e.g. weddings and mourning), utilizing game terms, such as backgammon and chess, dealing with mystical terms, and employing various literary sciences. Furthermore, references to the stories of prophets, divine religions, etc could be observed abundantly, and the presence of such topics makes his poetry obscure and ambiguous.
Despite all the efforts that have been made in the field of describing and reporting the difficulties of Khaqani poems, sometimes the analyses proposed by explainers are insufficient and, in some cases, completely discrete from the topic. The subtleties and novel points intended by Khaqani are possible by considering all aspects and careful review.
One of the forms of science that has been of particular interest in Khaqani's poetry, has become similar to other ancient sciences, and has been referred to to as a tool for creating meaning in his poetry, is music. In Khaqani's poetry, musical terms, songs, instruments, and moods of musicians are brought to use abundantly in the form of similes and metaphors with the aim of creating and conveying meaning. Among the instruments used in Khaqani's poetry, Mezmar can be pointed out. This instrument is mentioned everywhere by explainers as reed and pipe, and they have easily passed and skipped it cursorily without paying decent attention to the meaning of this instrument in the dictionary and also without paying attention to the details and the association of this instrument with other instruments mentioned in the verses. The precision in the verses where Khaqani mentioned the name of this instrument suggests that this instrument cannot be a reed, contrary to what many interpreters have written. Furthermore, in order to reach its true meaning, one must take into account a lot of precision and subtleties and give a serious and deep thought to it. In this article, two points in Khaqani's poetry are examined related to reeds and psalms, and explainer reports about these verses are reread and attempt is made to obtain a more precise meaning and understanding concerning the verses in which these terms are used.
According to the data of the present article, the poet means the reed in some verses, which has various examples in the geography of Iran, and the way it is played and its appearance was intended by Khaqani. The Mizmar as a wind instrument in Azerbaijan, is considered as Khaqani's poetic geography and is referred to as an instrument that is called the balaban today. In Kurdistan, however, it is called the “Ney narme” and in Armenia it is called the “duduk”. It is the balban an instrument that the head part is separable from the body, unlike the Ney, whose head cannot be separated. Another point of the article is to consider the body gestures and manner of the musician while playing the Mezmar. When playing the psalm, the musician's mouth is filled with air by blowing into it, and this point has been the focus of Khaqani's illustration, and interpreters have failed to provide a detailed description of these verses due to lack of familiarity with the minutia of the mentioned instrument and the way it is played.
The current research is an attempt to shed light on the meaning of the Mizmar in the dictionary and Khaqani's references, while explaining two verses of Khaqani and clarifying explainer objection, to deal with the meaning of Mezmar in different regions of Iran, in general, and Azerbaijan, in particular .Based on the long-standing overlaps between poetry and music, we hardly know a Persian-speaking poet having failed to pay attention to music, musical instruments and terms, or use it in his poetry. Furthermore, unlike today that we often hear music through our ears and recorded, it was performed live only where the listeners also could observe musicians and their instruments. Therefore, paying attention to the characteristics of these instruments would have been more, compared to today, where poets could have been able to create many themes of their poems using the characteristics of these instruments. Among the points that are to be borne in mind upon verse rectification and description, is the precision in the characteristics of the instruments mentioned by the poets. Each instrument has its own characteristics. For instance, some of them are loud and have been used in wars, victory celebrations, Hajj caravans, and similar ceremonies.
Due to the lack of image and conception about instruments, in general, and this instrument, in particular, the points the poets try to convey may not be understood in some cases; therefore, two methods can be used to distinguish them. First, paying careful attention to the anatomy and physical characteristics of the instrument, which have been mentioned in some verses. In so doing, the difference between different instruments, including wind instruments, could be understood. The other method is focusing on the type of playing and accompaniment of the instruments with each other, which is called harmony by musicians. To put it simply, what instruments were played together, and what sound reached the ears of the listeners is very important. It was undoubtedly not the case that every instrument could have been played along with any other instrument(s). For example, reeds can be played with strings, Tambourines, and harps, but reeds cannot be played with drums.