Having now considered the sources available to us for a study of the literary phenomena presented by Persia at this period, we shall consider first the Persian- and then the Arabic-writing poets who flourished under the Ṭáhirid, Ṣaffárid, Sámánid, and other contemporary dynasties, deriving our information concerning the former chiefly from 'Awfí's Lubáb, and for the latter from Tha'álibí's Yatíma. The latter work has been already sufficiently described, but, pending the publication of my edition of the latter, some account of its contents is here given.

Of the author of this work, Muḥammad 'Awfí, nearly all that is known will be found on pp. 749-750 of Rieu's Description of 'Awfí's Lubábu­'l-Albáb. Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum. He claimed descent from 'Abdu'r Raḥ-mán b. 'Awf, one of the six Companions of the Prophet who were appointed by the dying Caliph 'Umar to choose his successor from their midst. His repeated references to poets whom he had met at different dates and in different towns in Persia show that he had travelled widely in Khurásán and the neighbouring lands about the beginning of the seventh century of the hijra (circ. A.D. 1200). He subsequently resided in India, first at the Court of Náṣiru'd Dín Qúbacha, and then at that of Shamsu'd-Dín Íltatmish, after the over­throw of his former patron by the latter in A.H. 625 (= A.D. 1228). Besides the Lubáb he was the author of a vast collection of stories entitled the Jawámi'u'l-Ḥikáyát, consisting of four books, each comprising twenty-five chapters.

The Lubáb, notwithstanding its age, is in some ways a dis­appointing book, owing to the undue prominence which it gives to the poets of Khurásán, and the almost complete lack of biographical particulars. Indeed, it is rather to be regarded as a vast anthology than as a biography. It is divided as follows into twelve chapters, of which the first seven make up vol. i, and the last five the larger and more interesting vol. ii:—

Chapter	I.	On the Excellence of Poetry.
Chapter	II.	Etymology of the word shi'r (Poetry).
Chapter	III.	Who first composed poetry.
Chapter	IV.	Who first composed poetry in Persian.
Chapter	V.	Kings and nobles who wrote verse.
Chapter	VI.	Ministers and officials who wrote verse.
Chapter	VII.	Theologians, doctors, and scholars who wrote verse.
Chapter	VIII.	Poets of the Ṭáhirí, Ṣaffárí, and Sámání dyn­asties.
Chapter	IX.	Poets of the Ghaznawí dynasty.
Chapter	X.	Poets of the Seljúq dynasty.
Chapter	XI.	Poets contemporary with the Author.
Chapter	XII.	Courtiers contemporary with the Author who wrote verses.

The first volume, which deals with those who were not poets by profession, contains about 122 notices; and the second, dealing with poets by profession, about 164 notices: in all, about 286 notices of poets who lived before A.H. 625 (A.D. 1228). The credit of making known to European scholars the contents of this valuable compilation belongs primarily to Nathaniel Bland, who, under the title of The Most Ancient Persian Biography of Poets, described at con­siderable length the manuscript which belonged successively to J. B. Elliott (A.D. 1825) and Lord Crawford (1866-1901), and which has lately (August, 1901) been bought by Mrs. Rylands for the John Rylands Library at Manchester, in vol. ix (pp. 112 et seqq.) of the Royal Asiatic Society's Journal; and the other known manuscript (now at Berlin) was described by Dr. Sprenger at pp. 1-6 of his Catalogue of the … Manuscripts of the Library of the King of Oudh (Calcutta, 1854).* Since then Dr. Ethé, of Aberystwyth, has made great use of it in a series of admirable monographs on the earlier Persian poets* which he has published in various German periodicals; and now I hope that the text will soon be available to all Persian scholars in the edition which I am about to publish. Here it will only be possible to notice a few of the most notable poets of the earliest period.

*

(1) Ḥandhala of Bádghís is the only Persian poet belonging to the Ṭáhirid period (A.D. 820-872) mentioned by 'Awfí, who cites only the two following couplets:* —

“Though rue-seed in the fire my sweetheart threw
Lest hurt should from the Evil Eye accrue,
I fear nor fire nor rue can aught avail
That face like fire and beauty-spot like rue!”

*

(2) Fírúz al-Mashriqí, whom 'Awfí next mentions, lived in the time of 'Amr b. Layth the Ṣaffárid (A.D. 878-900). Of his verses likewise only two couplets are handed down:—

“A bird the Arrow is—strange bird of doom!
Souls are its prey, the quarry of its quest:
It borrows for its use the eagle's plume,
Thereby to claim the eaglet as its guest.”

(3) Abú Salík of Gurgán concludes the short list of Ṭáhirid and Sámánid poets. Two separate fragments of his verse, each consisting of two couplets, are cited by 'Awfí.

The remaining twenty-eight poets mentioned in this chapter all belong to the Sámánid period, but some of them were under the patronage of the House of Buwayh (e.g., Manṣúr b. 'Alí al-Manṭiqí ar-Rází and Abú Bakr Muḥammad b. 'Alí Khusrawí of Sarakhs, both of whom were patronised by that generous minister the Ṣáḥib Isma'íl b. 'Abbád), others (e.g., the last-mentioned poet, and Abu'l-Qásim Ziyád b. Muḥammad Qumrí of Gurgán) sung the praises of the Ziyárids of Ṭabaristán, others (e.g., Daqíqí and Manjik) of the Chaghání or Faríghúní rulers, and others of the early Kings of Ghazna; while some half-dozen seem to have had no special patron. Most of them are mentioned, and their extant verses cited, by Ethé* in his already cited article (published in Professor Fleischer's Festschrift, entitled Mor-genländische Forschungen, Leipzig, 1875, pp. 35-68), and only a few of the most notable need detain us here. Three or four are described as Dhu'l-Lisánayn (“Masters of the two lan­guages”), or bilingual poets, composing verses both in Arabic and Persian: of these are Shaykh Abu'l-Ḥasan Shahíd of Balkh, Abú Bakr Muḥammad b. 'Alí Khusrawí of Sarakhs, and Abú 'Abdi'lláh Muḥammad b. 'Abdu'lláh Junaydí, who is stated by 'Awfí to be mentioned in the Yatíma, though I have hitherto been unable to find any notice of him in that work.

(4) Shahíd of Balkh. Of this poet seven pieces of Persian verse, comprising fifteen couplets, and three couplets of Arabic are recorded by 'Awfí, as well as some verses composed on his death by Rúdagí, who says that though, according to the reckoning of the eyes, one man has passed away, in the estimate of wisdom it is as though more than a thousand had died. The following translations are given as specimens of his work:—

“The cloud doth weep as weeps the Lover, while
Like the Belovèd doth the Garden smile;
Afar the thunder, like myself, doth groan,
When with the dawn I raise my piteous moan.”

“Had sorrow smoke like fire, I do protest
The world would e'er remain in darkness dresst;
Search the world through and through: thou wilt not find
One man of wit who's not by grief oppresst.”

Some of his Arabic verses are said to be given in an anthology (otherwise unknown) entitled Ḥamásatu'dh-Dhurafá, compiled by Abú Muḥammad 'Abdu'l-Káfí-i-Zawzaní.

(5) Abú Shu'ayb Ṣáliḥ b. Muḥammad of Herát is chiefly known as the author of five couplets in praise of a pretty Christian child, of which the first three are to the following effect:—

“Face and figure meet for Heaven, holding doctrines doomed to hell,
Chain-like ringlets, cheek like tulips, eyes that shame the sweet
gazelle,
Mouth as though some Chinese painter with his brush had drawn
a line
Of vermilion on a ground of musk to form those lips of thine.
'Midst the swarthy Æthiopians could his grace divided be,
Each would have wherewith to stir the Turkish beauties' jealousy.”