“Precious are these heart-burning sighs, for lo,
This way or that, they help the days to go.
All night I wait for one whose dawn-like face
Lendeth fresh radiance to the morning's grace.
My Friend's sweet face if I again might see
I'd thank my lucky star eternally.
Shall I then fear man's blame? The brave man's heart
Serves as his shield to counter slander's dart.
Who wins success hath many a failure tholed.
The New Year's Day
*
is reached through Winter's cold.
For Laylá many a prudent lover yearns,
But Majnún wins her, who his harvest burns.
I am thy slave: pursue some wilder game:
No tether's needed for the bird that's tame.
A strength is his who casts both worlds aside
Which is to worldly anchorites denied.
To-morrow is not: yesterday is spent:
To-day, O Sa'dí, take thy heart's content!”
The second is a great favourite with the Shírázís, by reason of the well-deserved compliment paid to their city.
“O Fortune suffers me not to clasp my sweetheart to my breast,
Nor lets me forget my exile long in a kiss on her sweet lips pressed,
The noose wherewith she is wont to snare her victims far and
wide
I will steal away, that so one day I may lure her to my side.
Yet I shall not dare caress her hair with a hand that is over-bold,
For snared therein, like birds in a gin, are the hearts of lovers
untold.
A slave am I to that gracious form, which, as I picture it,
Is clothed in grace with a measuring-rod, as tailors a gar-
ment fit.
O cypress-tree, with silver limbs, this colour and scent of thine
Have shamed the scent of the myrtle-plant and the bloom of the
eglantine.
Judge with thine eyes, and set thy foot in the garden fair and free,
And tread the jasmine under thy foot, and the flowers of the Judas-
tree.
O joyous and gay is the New Year's Day, and in Shíráz most
of all;
Even the stranger forgets his home, and becomes its willing thrall.
O'er the garden's Egypt, Joseph-like, the fair red rose is King,
And the Zephyr, e'en to the heart of the town, doth the scent of his
raiment bring.
O wonder not if in time of Spring thou dost rouse such jealousy,
That the cloud doth weep while the flowrets smile, and all on
account of thee!
If o'er the dead thy feet should tread, those feet so fair and fleet,
No wonder it were if thou should'st hear a voice from his winding-
sheet.
Distraction is banned from this our land in the time of our lord
the King,
Save that I am distracted with love of thee, and men with the
songs I sing.”
Not much biographical material is to be gleaned from these odes, though in one (Bombay lithograph of A.H. 1301, p. 58), Sa'dí speaks of himself as being in danger, through love, of losing in five days the reputation for wisdom and prudence which he had built up in fifty years, while there are a good many allusions to his patron the Ṣáḥib-Díwán, one of which occurs in an ode written, apparently, just as Sa'dí was about to leave Shíráz for Baghdád. In this he says (p. 117):—
Dilam az ṣuḥbat-i-Shíráz bi-kullí bi-g'rift:
Waqt-i-án-ast ki pursí khabar az Baghdád-am.Hích shak níst ki faryád-i-man ánjá bi-rasad—
'Ajab ar Ṣáḥib-i-Díwán na-rasad faryád-am!
Sa'diyá, ḥubb-i-waṭan garchi ḥadíthíst ṣaḥíḥ,
Na-tuwán murd bi-sakhtí ki man ínjá zádam!
“My soul is weary of Shíráz, utterly sick and sad:
If you seek for news of my doings, you will have to ask at
Baghdád.
I have no doubt that the Premier there will give me the help
I need;
Should he help refuse to one like me, I should deem it strange
indeed!
Sa'dí, that love of one's native land is a true tradition is clear!
*
But I cannot afford to die of want because my birth was
here!”
Another point worth noticing is that a considerable number of verses from Sa'dí's Díwán occur not only (which is Verses of Sa'dí's odes cited in the Gulistán and by Ḥáfidh. natural enough) in his Gulistán, but (which is more curious) in the Díwán of his equally famous but more modern fellow-townsman Ḥáfidh. In a cursory reading I have found eight examples of the former class, and three of the latter, and probably a careful search would reveal more. To begin with the first class, on p. 37 of the Ṭayyibát in the Bombay lithographed edition of A.H. 1301 (No. clxiii) we find the verse:—
Na ánchunán bi-tú mashghúl-am, az bihishtí rú,
Ki yád-i-khwíshtan-am dar ḍamír mí-áyad.
“O thou whose face is of Paradise, my preoccupation with thee
is not such that thought of myself can enter my mind.”
This verse is quoted in chap. v of the Gulistán.
Again, in the Badáyi' (p. 93), occurs the verse:—
Án-rá ki jáy níst, hama shahr jáyi-úst,
Darwísh har kujá ki shab ámad saráyi-úst.
“The whole town is the home of him who has no home:
The poor man's house is wherever night overtakes him.”
In chap. iii of the Gulistán this verse occurs, with the following modification of the first hemistich:—
“Shab har tuwángarí bi-sará'í hamí ravad.”
“At night every rich man goes to a house.”
Again, on p. 99 of the Badáyi' occurs the hemistich:—
“Banda chi da'wa kunad? Ḥukm khudáwand-rást!”
“What objection can a servant raise? It is for the master to
command!”
This, also with the addition of a new hemistich to match it, likewise occurs in chap. i of the Gulistán, in the story of 'Amr ibn Layth and his slave. The other verses in the Díwán which also occur in the Gulistán are the following. Two couplets from the ghazal on p. 100 beginning:—
Mu'allim-at hama shúkhí u dilbarí ámúkht;
Jafá u náz u 'itáb u sitamgarí ámúkht.
“Thy master taught thee all [the arts of] coquetry and heart-
stealing;
He taught thee cruelty, coyness, recrimination and tyranny.”
The couplet (on p. 115 of the Badáyi'):—
'Ajab az kushta na-báshad bi-dar-i-khayma-i-Dúst:
'Ajab az zinda, ki chún ján bi-dar áwurd salím!”
“There is no wonder at him who is slain at the door of the
Beloved's tent:
The wonder is at the survivor, in what way he saved his soul
alive.”
The couplet (on p. 144 of the Khawátím):—
Dídár mí-numá'í, u parhíz mí-kuní:
Bázár-i-khwísh u átash-i-má tíz mí-kuní.
“Thou showest thy face and withdrawest:
Thou makest brisk thine own market and the fire which
consumes us.”
And lastly (on p. 145 of the Khawátím), a modification of the verses from the Preface of the Gulistán already translated on p. 528 supra.
In the chapter at the beginning of this work treating of the Poetry and Rhetoric of the Persians, mention was made of the figure called taḍmín, or the inclusion by a poet in his verse of a hemistich, a couplet, or more, from the works of another poet; and it was observed that, in order to avoid incurring a charge of plagiarism (sirqat), it was incumbent on the poet making use of this figure either to cite only verses so well known to every educated person that no one could suppose he intended to ascribe them to himself, or, if he quoted from a less-known poet, to make formal mention of that poet's name. The fact that Ḥáfidh, in the following passages where he introduces verses by his predecessor Sa'dí, makes no such acknowledgement of their provenance is another proof (were any needed) of the great popularity of Sa'dí's lyric poetry.