I know, however, that the Sulṭán is wise and prudent, and will never embark on such an enterprise; therefore have I no anxiety as to the issue of this matter, but recline on the couch of tranquillity and confidence.”
The letter, adds our biographer, had the desired effect, and so long as she lived the Sulṭán made no attack on her son's dominions. Some colour is given to this tale by the fact, recorded by Ibnu'l-Athír, that Ray was seized by Sulṭán Maḥmúd, and Majdu'd-Dawla dethroned, in A.D. 420 (A.D. 1029), the year succeeding that in which the mother of the latter died. It was in the spring of that year that Maḥmúd entered Ray, and took from it a million dínárs in money, and half that value in jewelry, with six thousand suits of clothes and innumerable other spoils. He summoned Majdu'd-Dawla before him and said to him, “Hast thou not read the Sháhnáma (which is the history of the Persians) and the history of Ṭabarí (which is the history of the Muslims)?” “Yes,” answered Majdu'd-Dawla. “Thy conduct,” continued Maḥmúd, “is not as of one who has read them. Dost thou not play chess?” “Yes,” replied the other. “Didst thou ever see a king approach a king?” the Sulṭán went on. “No,” answered the unfortunate prince. “Then,” asked Maḥmúd, “what induced thee to surrender thyself to one who is stronger than thee?” And he ordered him to be exiled to Khurásán. It was on this occasion also that Sulṭán Maḥmúd crucified a number of the heretical Báṭinís (“Esoterics”) or Isma'ílís, banished the Mu'tazilites, and burned their books, together with the books of the philosophers and astronomers; while of such books as remained after this act of wanton vandalism, he transported a hundred loads to Ghazna.*
In conclusion, we must say a few words about Kisá'í, not so much for his own sake (though he was a noted poet in his day)
Kisá'í. as on account of his relations with a much greater man and poet, Náṣir-i-Khusraw, of whom we shall speak at length in the next chapter. Unlike Pindár, Kisá'í is more fully noticed by ancient than by modern writers. 'Awfí devotes to him more than five pages (pp. 33-39 of vol. ii), and the Chahár Maqála (which calls him Abu'l-Ḥasan, not, like Ethé, Abú Isḥáq) reckons him as one of the great Sámánid poets (p. 45), while Dawlatsháh ignores him entirely. He was born, according to a statement made by himself in a poem which 'Awfí, who cites it (pp. 38-39), says that he composed “at the end of his life, the time of farewell, and the hour of departure,” being at that time, as he twice declares, fifty years of age, on Wednesday, March 16, A.D. 953. Dr. Ethé, in the monograph which he has devoted to this poet, * assumed from the above data that Kisá'í died about A.D. 1002; but he has since, in his article Neupersische Litteratur in the Grundriss, p. 281, modified his views, and supposes that the poet lived to an advanced age, and came into personal conflict with Náṣir-i- As a matter of fact, however, in the Díwán of Náṣir-i-
“If Kisá'í should see in a dream this brocade of mine” (meaning his fine robe of song), “shame and confusion would fret the robe (kisá) of Kisá'í.”
“If there were poems of Kisá'í, they are old and weak, [while] the verse of Ḥujjat * is strong, and fresh, and young.”
“His (i.e., Náṣir's) verses are like brocade of Rúm, if the verse of Kisá'í's town (i.e., Merv) is a garment (kisá).”
“For my verses are brocade of Rúm, if the verse of the accomplished Kisá'í is a garment (kisá).”
“The robe (kisá) of Kisá'í would become hair (sha'r) on his back in shame if he should hear thy (i.e., Náṣir's) verse (shi'r).”
“So long as thou art in heart the servant of the Imám of the Age (i.e., the Fáṭimid Caliph al-Mustanṣir), the poetry of Kisá'í will be the slave of thy poetry.”
“Beside his (i.e., Náṣir's) fresh verses, that famous discourse of Kisá'í hath grown stale.”
I have not, unfortunately, all Dr. Ethé's materials at my disposal, but in the above allusions, and so far as the Díwán of Náṣir-i-Khusraw is concerned, I see no particular disparagement of Kisá'í, but rather the reverse; for when a poet is indulging in this style of boasting, so popular with the Eastern poets, he naturally declares himself superior to the greatest, not the least, of his predecessors and contemporaries. Any other method would result in bathos.
Kisá'í, then, was without doubt a noted poet in his day. He was, as already remarked, a Shí'ite, and in many of his poems hymned the praises of 'Alí and the Holy Family. This did not, however, prevent him from celebrating the glories and the generosity of Sulṭán Maḥmúd, or even from praising wine, which was certainly not the metaphorical wine of the mystics. It seems likely enough, however, as suggested by Ethé, that the poem already mentioned which he composed in his fiftieth year marks the date of a change in his life and mind, and an abandonment of sinful pleasures for ascetic exercises. In this poem he says:—
“The turn of the years had reached three hundred and forty one,
A Wednesday, and three days still remaining of [the month of]
Shawwál,
[When] I came into the world [to see] how I should say and
what I should do,
To sing songs and rejoice in luxury and wealth.
In such fashion, beast-like, have I passed all my life,
For I am become the slave of my offspring and the captive of my
household.
What hold I in my hand [of gain] from this full-told tale of fifty
[years]?
An account-book [marred] with a hundred thousand losses!
How can I at last resolve this reckoning,
Whose beginning is a lie, and whose end is shame?
I am the bought slave of desire, the victim of greed's tyranny,
The target of vicissitude, a prey to the meanness of begging.
Alas for the glory of youth, alas for pleasant life,
Alas for the comely form, alas for beauty and grace!
Whither hath gone all that beauty and whither all that love?
Whither hath gone all that strength and whither all that circum-
stance?
My head is [now] the colour of milk, my heart the colour of
pitch,
My cheek the colour of indigo, my body the colour of the reed.
Night and day the fear of death makes me tremble
As does fear of the strap children who are slow at their lessons.
We passed [our days] and passed on, and all that was to be took
place;
We depart, and our verse becomes but rhymes for children.
O Kisá'í, fifty (panjáh) hath set its clutch (panja) on thee;
The stroke and the claws of fifty have plucked thy wings!
If thou no longer carest for wealth and ambition,
Separate thyself from ambition, and rub thine ears
*
in time!”
Only one other verse of Kisá'í's will I quote here, and that because it seems to be the prototype of 'Umar Khayyám's—
“I often wonder what the vintners buy
One half so precious as the stuff they sell,”
so familiar to all admirers of FitzGerald's beautiful version of his quatrains. Kisá'í's verse, however, is not in the quatrain form:—
Gul ni'matí 'st hidya firistáda az bihisht,
Mardum karím-tar shavad andar na'ím-i-gul;
Ay gul-furúsh! gul chi firúshí baráyi sím?
Wa'z gul 'azíz-tar chi sitání bi-sím-i-gul?“A heaven-sent gift and blessing is the rose,
Its grace inspireth aspirations high.
O flower-girl, why the rose for silver sell,
For what more precious with its price canst buy?”