Bamya

An excellent recent book on things Armenian is Nina Garsoian's recently published autobiography, De Vita Sua.

I will try to clarify some words if I can, with my limited Georgian. Didar may be a version of the Georgian word for a wealthy or noble person, "Mdidari". Makes sense in the context of the phrase, "Leili mdidari nman is". "Tata bidi tarikht asi". Tata is a word used by Georgians to mean soothsayer or seer. Makes sense then, that the fortune teller will tell the beloved's fortune. Ghand, I believe, are candied rose petals. They were much favored among Georgian and Russian nobility of the period, who had them imported from France, where they are still made. From "Amen sazi mechn govadz" the phrase "Nagaz mart kiz chi gana desni"... In Georgian, "nagazi" means huntsman (the "i" at the end of Georgian nouns is a suffix that indicates that they are in the nominative case). As for "Sayat Novou gerezman@, Hint, Habash, Harap mi anir." I think this is an allegorical request that begs the Georgian King Erekle (in whose court Sayat served) to not banish him such that his grave ends up being in India, Africa, or Arabia. Maybe Sayat had foresight of what his eventual fate would be. The legend that Sayat was banished for having love interests for the King's sister is probably just that, legend. Georgian custom has very strict interdictions against one's close friends or confidantes taking romantic interest in their womenfolk. What could have been so awful as to cause Sayat to fall so out of favor with the king? An affair with his sister would not even be possible at court. But it is such a trope that it is very easily relied upon to explain Sayat's forced monastic life, and it discredits Sayat as having acted indecently, as having lost face. More likely than not, though, he had political ideas that Erekle did not agree with or felt threatened by.

I believe that in order to understand Sayat Nova's daghs it's important to know several languages. Georgian is very important in that respect. Many of the Persian or Turkic or even Arabic words he used were, I believe, filtered through Georgian, such that they acquired added local and temporal nuances. If you search for Sayat Nova on youtube, you will come across several clips of his works being recited in Georgian. The residents of Tbilisi, especially of Havlabar, are very proud of their Sayat Nova. He expresses himself differently in Georgian than he does in Armenian. Some say that his Georgian works are more humorous and satirical, and his Azeri works contain much more erotic imagery than what he offers in Armenian.