97. Khusrawá! bá zamána dar jang-am: ki bi-gham mí-gudázad-
am hamwár:
98. Chi buwad gar kaf-i-tu bar gírad az mayán-i-man u zamána
ghubár?
99. Tá 'ayán-ast mihr-rá tábish, tá nihán-ast charkh-rá asrár,
100. Rúz u shab juz sakhá ma-bádat shughl; sál u mah juz ṭarab
ma-bádat kár!

“O Prince! I am at war with Fortune: for ever she consumes
me with vexation:
How would it be if thy hand should remove the dust (i.e., dis-
agreement) between me and Fortune?
So long as the shining of the sun is apparent, so long as the
secrets of the sphere are hidden,
Day and night may thine occupation be naught but generosity:
year and month may thy business be naught but enjoy-
ment!”

Nearly all the more important rhetorical figures are con­tained and illustrated in the above qaṣída, or have been mentioned incidentally in connection with it, though many minor embellishments will be found by those desirous of going further into the matter in the works of Gladwin and Rückert. Of those omitted mention need only be made of the following:—

(1) The ta'ríkh, or chronogram, where the sum of the letters, according to the abjad reckoning, in a verse, sentence,

Ta'ríkh. or group of words, gives the date of the event commemorated. The most ingenious paraphrase in English of a Persian chronogram with which I am acquainted is one by Hermann Bicknell (“Ḥájjí 'Abdu'l-Waḥíd”), the admirer and translator of Ḥáfidh, on the well-known chrono­gram:—

Chu dar khák-i-Muṣallá sákht manzil,
Bi-jú ta'ríkh-ash az KHÁK-I-MUṢALLA.

“Since he made his home in the earth of Muṣallá, *
Seek for his date from THE EARTH OF MUṢALLÁ.”

The letters composing the words Khák-i-Muṣallá are:— Kh=600; á=1; k=20; m=40; ṣ=90; l=30; y=10: Total=791 (A.H.=1389). The difficulty in pro­ducing a chronogram in English is that only seven letters (C, D, I, L, M, V, and X) have numerical values, neverthe­less Bicknell overcame this difficulty and thus paraphrased the above chronogram:—

“Thrice take thou from MUṢALLÁ'S EARTH” (M+L+L=1100) “ITS RICHEST GRAIN” (I+I+C+I=103X3=309: 1100-309=791).*

(2) The talmíḥ, or allusion (to a proverb, story, or well- Talmíḥ. known verse of poetry) is another pretty figure. Here is an English instance from the Ingoldsby Legends:—

“Such a tower as a poet of no mean calibre
I once knew and loved, poor, dear Reginald Heber,
Assigns to oblivion—a den for a she-bear.”

The allusion is to the following verse in Heber's Palestine:—

“And cold Oblivion midst the ruin laid,
Folds her dank wing beneath the ivy shade.”

A good instance from the Bústán of Sa'dí is (ed. Graf, p. 28, l. 2):—

Chi ḥájat ki nuh kursiy-i-ásmán
Nihí zír-i-pá-yi Qizil Arslán?

“What need that thou should'st place the nine thrones (i.e., spheres) of heaven beneath the feet of Qizil Arslán?”

The allusion is to the following verse by Dhahír of Fáryáb:—

Nuh kursi-i-falak nihad andísha zír-i-páy
Tá búsa bar rikáb-i-Qizil Arslán nihad.

“Imagination puts the nine thrones (spheres) of heaven beneath
its feet
That it may imprint a kiss on the stirrup of Qizil Arslán.”

'Ubayd-i-Zákání, a very bitter satirist who died some twenty years before Ḥáfidh, wrote amongst other poems a little mathnawí (still a popular children's book in Persia) named “The Cat and the Mouse” (Músh u Gurba), in which an old cat plays the devotee in order to entice the mice within its clutches. The mice report its “conversion” to their king in the following verse:—

“Muzhdagáná! ki gurba záhid shud,
'Ábid, u mu'min, u musulmáná!”

“Good tidings! for the cat has become an ascetic,
A worshipper, a believer, a devout Muslim!”

From this story the phrase “gurba záhid shud” (“the cat has become an ascetic”) became very common in speaking of an old sinner who shams piety for purely mundane (generally evil) objects; and Ḥáfidh alludes to this in the following verse:—

Ay kabk-i-khush kharám! Kujá mí-rawí? Bi-íst!
Ghirra ma-shaw ki “gurba-i-'ábid” namáz kard!

“O gracefully-walking partridge! Whither goest thou? Stop!
Be not deceived because the ‘devout cat’ has said its prayers!”

These allusions often constitute one of the most serious difficulties which the European student of Persian, Arabic,

Difficulty of allusions in poetry of the Muslims. Turkish, and other Muslim languages has to encounter, since the common ground of his­torical and literary knowledge shared by all persons of education in the lands of Islám is quite different from that in which the European and other Christian nations participate. Any allusion to the Qur'án, for instance, is supposed to be intelligible to a well-educated Muslim; yet it may cost the Christian reader an infinity of trouble to identify it and trace it to its source. To take one instance only, which, se non è vero è ben trovato. The poet Firdawsí, when suffering from the sore disappointment occasioned by Sulṭán Maḥmúd's niggardly recognition of his great work, the Sháhnáma, or Book of Kings, wrote a most bitter satire (now prefixed to most editions of that work), left it in the hands of a friend of his, with instructions to deliver it after the lapse of a certain period, and then made the best of his way to Ṭabaristán, where he sought refuge with the Ispahbad Shírzád (or, according to others, Shahriyár, the son of Sharzín). Sulṭán Maḥmúd, on reading the satire, was filled with fury, and wrote to this Prince demanding the surrender of the poet, and threatening, should his demand not be complied with, to come with his elephants of war (which appear to have been a great feature of his army) and trample him and his army, villages and people under their feet. It is said that the Ispahbad merely wrote on the back of the Sulṭán's missive the three letters “A. L. M.” Though Sulṭán Maḥmúd, it is said, did not at once see the allusion, all his courtiers imme­diately recognised it, and knew that the Ispahbad's intention was to remind them of the fate which overtook Abraha the Abyssinian, who, trusting in his elephants, would have pro­faned the Holy City of Mecca in the very year of the Prophet Muḥammad's birth, known ever afterwards as “the Year of the Elephant.” For concerning these impious “People of the Elephant” a short chapter (No. CV) of the Qur'án was revealed, known as the Súratu'l-Fíl, which begins with the letters “A. L. M.,” i.e., Alam tara kayfa fa'ala Rabbuka bi-Aṣḥábi'l-Fíl?—“Hast thou not seen how thy Lord dealt with the People of the Elephant? Did HE not cause their device to miscarry? And send against them birds in flocks, which pelted them with stones of baked clay? And make them like leaves of corn eaten [by cattle]?” The allusion was extraordinarily appropriate, and is said to have effectually turned the Sulṭán from his purpose. Nothing, indeed, is so effective or so much admired amongst Muslims as the skilful and apposite application of a passage from their Sacred Book, and to this topic I shall have occasion to revert again at the end of this chapter.

Taṣḥíf is another ingenious figure depending on the dia­critical points which serve to distinguish so many letters of Taṣḥíf. the Arabic alphabet. By changing these points, without interfering with the bodies of the letters, the sense of a sentence may be completely changed, and the sentence or sense so changed is said to be muṣaḥḥaf. The expression occurs in the Bústán of Sa'dí (ed. Graf, p. 166, l. 4):—