He was a native of the pleasant city of Najār, but he comes
of a base stock. He was quarrelsome and impudent, and confirmed
by his behaviour the general belief regarding the character of
poets. He was well skilled in the arts of poetry and prosody, in
the composition of enigmas, in history and all other minor branches
of knowledge, and has written treatises on these subjects. On
the first occasion on which he paid his respects at court to the
late emperor he stepped towards him at the levée with his left foot.
As his late majesty was very punctilious in such details of etiquette
he said, ‘The Mullā is left-handed,’*
and commanded him
to be led out and again brought forward. After the command had
been given for him to be seated he began to talk lewdly, obscenely,
and foolishly, and fell into an argument with Mullā Bīkasī.*
To
Mīr ‘Abdu-l-Ḥayy the Ṣadr,*
who took the part of the Mullā he 363
said, ‘What shall I do? I am friendless. The face of a friendless
man is blackened’;*
and when Khwāja Husain of Marv,*
on
whom rested some slight suspicion of infamy, supported the
other two he said, ‘Khwāja, what occasion was there for your assistance?’
*
His late majesty, much vexed and annoyed by this
churlish behaviour, rose and left the darbār, but, in spite of his
annoyance so great was his clemency that he would not consent to
Niyāzī's being injured or harassed in return for his evil and beastly
conduct. The reason for Niyāzī being turned out of Transoxi-
“That is not the crepuscule that appears in the sky; it is my
rosy-coloured wine
I am a debauchee swilling the lees, and the goblet of the
sky is my cup.
Since Niyāzī has become the king of the age in the king-
dom of eloquence
The name of Jāmī has been obliterated, and that of Niyāzī
is in its place.”
It is said that he was one day reciting this ode of his in a gathering at Thatha and there happened to be there a copy of the dīvān of his holiness the Maulavī.* It was opened at random and on the page at which it opened this opening couplet was written:
“Regard the sky as a cup which is upside down, empty of
the wine of delight
To look for wine from a cup which is upside down is the
mark of a fool.”
Niyāzī olim Fusunium poetam in somnio vidit et putavit se in barbâ ejus minxisse. Poeta quidam hos versiculos recitavit,
“Niyāzī Fusunium in somnio vidit.
Et barbam ejus aquâ ex amphorâ aspersit.
Si autem minxit Fusunio opprobrio ne tribuatis,
Canis, si minxit in rubo, minxit.”
364 The following verses are by Niyāzī:—
“O silver-bodied one, thy locks curl over thy flaming cheek
For when a hair falls on the fire it twists and curls.”“Since I cannot go round the head of that tyrannical beauty,
I bring her image to my sight and ever go round about it.”“It is not from the breeze that her shift is in motion,
The grace of her body has given life to the shift.”
He died in Thatha.