“I never loved a dear gazelle,
Nor anything that cost me much:
High prices profit those who sell,
But why should I be fond of such?”
Mention should also be made of the genuine “macaronic”
Macaronic verse. poem, where Persian words are constructed and treated as Arabic, just as, in the absurd schoolboy doggerel beginning:—“Patres conscripti took a boat and went to Philippi,”
English words are Latinized; as in the line:—
“Omnes drownderunt, quiâ swim-away non potuerunt.”
Such “macaronic” verses and prose occur in Sa'dí's facetiœ, but there is a better instance in Ibn Isfandiyár's History of Ṭabaristán (compiled about A.D. 1216) in a long qaṣída of seventy-four verses written by the Qáḍí Hishám to satirise one of his contemporaries. This poem is given in full, with the variants, at pp. 81-85 of my abridged translation of this History, published in 1905 as the second volume of the E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series. It begins:—
Ay bi-farhang u 'ilm daryá'u! Man-am ú tu ki lá ḥayá laná: Laysa márá bi-juz tu hamtá'u. Hazl-rá karda'ím iḥyâ'u.
Of European macaronic poems, the best known are, perhaps, the Macaronicorum poema of Merlinus Coccaius, published about A.D. 1529, and William Drummond of Hawthornden's Polemo-Middinia, printed at Oxford in 1691. The following specimen from the latter may suffice:—
“Hic aderant Geordy Akinhedius, et little Johnus,
Et Jamy Richœus, et stout Michel Hendersonus,
Qui gillatis pulchris ante alios dansare solebat,
Et bobbare bene, et lassas kissare bonœas;
Duncan Olyphantus valde stalvertus, et ejus
Filius eldestus jolyboyus, atque Oldmondus,” &c.
There are many other terms used in describing the subject-
In addition to the terms above explained, there are a large number of rhetorical devices and quaint conceits employed by writers of ornate prose and verse which demand some notice from any one desirous of understanding the nature, or appreciating the ingenuity, of Persian (and Arabic or Turkish) literary compositions. Many of these figures, though no longer cultivated in this country, were highly esteemed by the Euphuists and other English writers of the sixteenth century, and a rich store of examples may be gleaned from George Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie, published in 1589, and quoted hereinafter from Mr. Arber's reprint of 1869; while most varieties of the tajnís, or word-play, may be illustrated from the Ingoldsby Legends, the works of Tom Hood, and similar books. The more important of these artifices of the Persian rhetoricians and poets are illustrated in a qaṣída-i-muṣanna', or “artifice-qaṣída,” composed by the poet Qiwámí of Ganja, the brother of the celebrated Nidhámí of Ganja, who flourished in the twelfth century of our era. This qaṣída comprises 101 bayts, or verses, and is given on pp. 198-201 of vol. i of Ẓiyá Pasha's Kharábát. I reproduce it here, line by line, with prose translation, and running commentary as to the nature of the rhetorical figures which it is intended to illustrate.
1. Ay falak-rá hawá-yi qadr-i-tu bár, W'ay malak-rá thaná-yi-
“O thou the love of whose worth is the burden of heaven,
And O thou the praise of whose high place [affords] occupa-
tion to the angels!”
This verse exemplifies two figures, ḥusn-i-maṭla', (“beauty of exordium”), which is, as Gladwin says, “when the poet exerts Ḥusn-i-matla' and Tarṣí'. himself in the maṭla'” (or opening verse of a qaṣída or ghazal) “to fix the hearer's attention, and excite his curiosity for the catastrophe”; and tarṣí', which literally means “setting with jewels,” but in poetical composition is when the words in two successive miṣrá's, or half-verses, correspond, each to each, in measure and rhyme. An English example (but imperfect at two points) would be:—
“O love who liest on my breast so light,
O dove who fliest to thy nest at night!”
An excellent Latin example is given in Morgan's Macaronic Poetry (New York, 1872, p. 101):—
“Quos anguis tristi diro cum vulnere stravit,
Hos sanguis Christi miro tum munere lavit.”
2. Tír-i-charkhat zi mihr dída sipar, Tír-i-charkhat zi mihr dída-
“The quarrel of thy cross-bow sees in the sun a shield;
The [planet] Mercury in heaven lovingly follows thee with
its eyes!”
Here we have two figures, the tarṣí' explained above, but combined with an elaborate series of “homonymies,” or word- Tarsí'and Tajnísi-támm. plays. Such word-plays (called tajnís or jinás) are of seven kinds (or, if we include the kindred ishtiqáq, eight), all of which seven kinds are exemplified in this and the six following verses. In this verse the words on which the poet plays are identical alike in spelling, pointing, and pronunciation, and illustrate the first kind of tajnís, called támm (“complete”). Thus tír is the name of the planet “Mercury,” and also denotes “an arrow” or “quarrel”; charkh means “heaven,” and also “a cross-bow”; mihr, “the sun,” and “love”; dída, “having seen” or “saw,” and “the eye”; sipar is a shield, while sipár is the root of the verb sipurdan, “to entrust,” dída-sipár being, at the end of the verse, a compound adjective meaning “entrusting,” i.e., “fixing the eye.”
3. Júd-rá burda az miyána miyán, Bukhl-rá dáda az kinára kinár!
“Out of a company [of rivals] thou hast caught Generosity in
thine embrace:
Thou hast banished Avarice from thy side!”
The tajnís here illustrated is really the third variety, called zá'id (“redundant”), though described in the margin of my Tajnís-i-zá'id. text as of the last or “complete” kind, and another instance of it occurs in the fifth verse. It is so called because one of each pair of words has a “redundant” letter, which differentiates it from its fellow (mayán mayána; kinár, kinára), and prevents the word-play from being “complete.” An English exemplification from Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie is the following:—
“The maid that soon married is, soon marred is.”
4. Sá'id-i-mulk, u Rakhsh-i-Dawlat-rá, Tu siwárí, wa himmat-i-
“On the arm of Empire, and the steed of State,
Thou art the bracelet, and thy courage the rider.”
Rakhsh (here rendered by “steed”) was the name of the legendary hero Rustam's horse. The verse exemplifies the second kind of tajnís, called náqiṣ, or “defective,” when the words on which the writer plays are spelt alike, but pointed differently, i.e., differ in one or more of the short vowels. The following English example is from Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie:—
“To pray for you ever I cannot refuse;
To prey upon you I should you much abuse.’
5. Past bá rif'at-i-tu khána-i-khán: Tang bá fusḥat-i-tu shári'-i-