Autograph of the poet Ṣá'ib
Or. 4937 (Brit. Mus.), p. 472
To face p. 266

“More than six years * have passed since the passage of the steed of
my resolve from Iṣfahán to India took place.
The bold attraction of my longing has brought him weeping from
Iṣfahán to Agra and Lahore.
I your servant have an aged father seventy years old, who has count-
less claims upon me by reason of the education [he gave me].
Before he comes from Agra to the flourishing land of the Deccan
with reins looser than the restless torrent,
And eagerly traverses this far road with bent body and feeble form,
I hope for permission from thy threshold, O thou whose threshold is
the Ka'ba of the age's hopes!
His object in coming is to take me hence, therefore cause thy lips
to scatter pearls [of speech] by [uttering] the word of permission,
And, with a forehead more open than the morning sun, raise thy
hand in prayer to speed me on my way.”

On his return to Iṣfahán, Ṣá'ib became poet-laureate to Sháh 'Abbás II, but had the misfortune to offend his successor Sulaymán. He died in Iṣfahán after an apparently uneventful life in 1080/1669-70. The words “Ṣá'ib found death” (<text in Arabic script omitted>) give the date of his decease.*

Amongst the merits ascribed to Ṣá'ib by Shiblí is an appreciation of Indian poets rare with the Persians. Shiblí

Ṣá'ib's generous appreciation of his Indian colleagues. quotes thirteen verses in which Ṣá'ib cites with approval, by way of taḍmín or “insertion,” the words of Fayḍí, Malik, Ṭálib-i-Ámulí, Naw'í, Awḥadí, Shawqí, Fatḥí, Shápúr, Muṭí', Awjí, Adham, Ḥádhiq and Ráqim. In the following verses he deprecates the jealousy which too often characterizes rival singers:

“Happy that company who are intoxicated with each other's speech;
who, through the fermentation of thought, are each other's red
wine.
They do not break on the stone [of criticism] one another's pearls
[i.e. verses], but rather strive to give currency to the wares of
one another's shops.
They pelt one another with tender-hued verses as with roses, with
fresh ideas they become the flowers of one another's gardens.
When they shape their poetry it is with blades like diamonds, and
when their genius tends to become blunted, they are each other's
whetstones.
Except Ṣá'ib, the epigrammatic Ma'ṣúm, and Kalím, who of all the
poets are kind to one another?”*

Ṣá'ib was a great admirer of Ḥáfiẓ, and is also complimentary to his masters Rukná and Shifá'í. Of the latter he says

“Who will care for poetry in Iṣfahán, O Ṣá'ib,
Now that Shifá'í, whose discerning hand was on the pulse of poetry,
is no more?”

He puts Naẓírí not only above himself but above 'Urfí. “So far,” says Shiblí, * “no objection can be made, but it is a pity that, yielding to popular approbation and fame, he makes himself also the panegyrist of Ẓuhúrí and Jalál-i-Asír… This was the first step in bad taste, which finally established a high road, so that in time people came to bow down before the poetry of Náṣir 'Alí, Bí-dil, and Shawkat of Bukhárá. ‘The edifice of wrong-doing was at first small in the world, but whoever came added thereunto.’”*

Though Ṣá'ib tried his hand at all kinds of poetry, it was in the ode (ghazal) that he excelled. He was a ready wit. One of his pupils once composed the following absurd hemistich:

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“Seek for the bottleless wine from the wineless bottle.”

Ṣá'ib immediately capped it with the following:

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“Seek for the truth from the heart which is empty of thought.”

On another occasion one of his friends produced the following meaningless hemistich and apparently invited Ṣá'ib to complete the verse and give it a meaning:

Ṣá'ib immediately prefixed the following hemistich:

so that the completed verse runs in translation:

“Peace is in proportion to every pause: observe the difference between
‘to run, to walk, to stand, to sit, to lie, to die.’”

Ṣá'ib was a very careful student of the works of his predecessors, both ancient and modern, and himself compiled a great anthology of their best verses, of which, according to Shiblí, * a manuscript exists at Ḥaydar-ábád in the Deccan, and which appears to have been utilized by Wálih of Dághistán and other tadhkira-writers. Shiblí compares Ṣá'ib to Abú Tammám, the compiler of the great anthology of Arabic poetry called the Ḥamása, inasmuch as his taste is shown even more in his selective than in his Selected verses from Ṣá'ib. creative powers. The following are the verses by Ṣá'ib which I selected from the Kharábát and copied into a note-book many years ago. * They pleased me when I was a beginner, they still please me, and I hope that some of them at any rate may please my readers.

“When poison becomes a habit it ceases to injure: make thy soul
gradually acquainted with death.”

“The roots of the aged palm-tree exceed those of the young one;
the old have the greater attachment to the world.”

“In this market every head has a different fancy: everyone winds his
turban in a different fashion.”

“What profit accrues from a perfect guide to those whom Fate hath
left empty-handed, for even Khiḍr brings back Alexander athirst
from the Water of Life?”

“The rosary in the hand, repentance on the lips, and the heart full o??
sinful longings—sin itself laughs at our repentance!”

“The place of a royal pearl should be in a treasury: one should make
one's breast the common-place book for chosen verses.”

“All this talk of infidelity and religion finally leads to one place:
The dream is the same dream, only the interpretations differ.”

“The tyrant finds no security against the arrows of the victim's sighs:
Groans arise from the heart of the bow before [they arise from] the
target.”

“The cure for the unpleasant constitution of the world is to ignore it:
Here he is awake who is plunged in heavy sleep.”

“Flowers and fruit are never combined in one place; it is impossible
that teeth and delicacies should exist simultaneously.”

“Ten doors are opened if one door be shut: the finger is the inter-
preter of the dumb man's tongue.”

“The simple-minded quickly acquire the colour of their companions:
The conversation of the parrot makes the mirror [seem to] speak.”