(6) Wiṣál (d. 1262/1846) and his sons.

I have already mentioned Wiṣál, some of whose gifted sons and grandsons I was privileged to meet at Shíráz in Wiṣál (d. 1262/ 1846) and his sons. the spring of 1888. He is generally regarded by his countrymen as one of the most eminent of the modern poets, and both Riḍá-qulí Khán, who devotes lengthy notices to him in all three of his works, and the poet Bismil, the author of the Tadhkira-i-Dilgushá, were personally acquainted with him, the latter intimately. His proper name was Mírzá [Muḥammad] Shafí', but he was commonly entitled “Mírzá Kúchuk,” and he was a native of Shíráz. Bismil speaks in the most glowing terms of his skill in calligraphy and music as well as in verse, wherein he holds him “incomparable” ('adímu'l-mithál), and praises his lofty character and fidelity in friendship, but describes him as “rather touchy” (andak zúd-ranj), a description illustrated by Riḍá-qulí Khán's remark (in the Rawḍatu'ṣ-Ṣafá) that he was much vexed when the Sháh, meaning to praise him, told him that he was “prodigal of talents.” * He is said to have written twelve thousand verses, which include, besides qaṣídas and ghazals, the Bazm-i-Wiṣál and the continuation and completion of Waḥshí's Farhád u Shírín, described as “far superior to the original.” * He also translated into Persian the Aṭwá-qu'dh-Dhahab (“Collars of Gold”) of Zamakhsharí. Bismil, who professes to have read all his poems, only cites the relatively small number of 213 couplets, of which the following are fairly typical, and afford a good instance of what Persian rhetoricians call the “attribution of praise in the form of blame,” for the qaṣída begins:

“The sea, the land, heaven and the stars—
Each one of them declares the King a tyrant—

an opening calculated to cause consternation to courtiers, until it is stated that the sea considers itself wronged by his liberality, the mountain because he has scattered its hoarded gold like dust, the stars because they are eclipsed in number and splendour by his hosts, and so forth. As such far-fetched conceits can hardly be made attractive in translation, I again confine myself to quoting a few lines of the original:

Wiṣál's Farhád u Shírín has been lithographed, and ample selections from his poems are given by Riḍá-qulí

Wiṣál's sons. Khán in his Riyáḍu'l-'Árifín (pp. 337-50) and Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá (ii, pp. 528-48), which latter work also contains (pp. 548-58) an ample notice of his Wiqár. eldest son Wiqár, who was presented to Náṣi-ru'd-Dín Sháh in 1274/1857-8 at Ṭihrán, where his biographer met him again “after twenty years' separation.” The same work contains notices of Wiqár's younger Mírzá Maḥmúd the physician. brothers, Mírzá Maḥmúd the physician, poetically named Ḥakím (d. 1268/1851-2: pp. 102-5), Farhang. and Mírzá Abu'l-Qásim Farhang, of whom I have already spoken (p. 300 supra), but not of the three other brothers Dáwarí, Yazdání and Himmat. The following fine musammaṭ by Dáwarí, de- Dáwarí. scribing one of the Sháh's hunting parties, I copied for myself in the house of the late Nawwáb Mírzá Ḥasan 'Alí Khán at Ṭihrán early in the year 1888, and, as it has never been published, and I know of no other copy in Europe, I cannot resist the temptation of here assuring a survival hitherto so precarious, for it was copied on a loose half-sheet of note-paper which I only accidentally came across just now while searching for something else.

This poem is simple, sonorous and graphic; the court page, who has just returned from accompanying the Sháh on a winter hunting-expedition, and is in so great a hurry to visit his friend the poet that he enters in his riding-breeches and boots (bá chakma wa shalwár), with hair still disordered and full of dust, and eyes bloodshot from the glare of the sun, the hardships of exposure, and lack of sleep, bringing only as a present from the journey (rah-áward-i-safar ) roses and hyacinths (his cheeks and hair), rubies of Badakhshán (his lips), and a casket of pearls (his teeth), is a vivid picture; and if a description of the Royal massacre of game reminds us of the immortal Mr Bunker's Bavarian battue, * we must remember that the wholesale slaughters of game instituted by Chingíz Khán the Mongol in the thirteenth century, whereof the tradition still survives to some extent, were on a colossal scale, altogether transcending any European analogy.*

In 1887, the year before I met Dáwarí's brother Farhang at Shíráz, two of his unpublished poems were shown to and Farhang's description of Paris. copied by me in London. One was a qaṣída in praise of Queen Victoria, composed on the occasion of her Jubilee, which I was asked to translate so that it might perhaps be brought to her notice, a hope not fulfilled. The other, composed in May of the same year (Sha'bán, 1304), contained a quaint description of Paris, laudatory for the most part, but concluding with some rather severe reflections on the republican form of government. It differs widely from the poems of Farhang cited in the Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá (ii, pp. 384-8), is full of French words, and produces, as was probably intended, a somewhat comic and burlesque effect. It contains 78 verses and is too long to be cited in full, but I here give the opening and concluding portions:

<text in Arabic script omitted>¹ ³ ² *

<text in Arabic script omitted>*

Lack of space compels me to pass over several poets of some note, such as Áqá Muḥammad Ḥasan Zargar

Other poets of less importance. (“the Goldsmith”) of Iṣfahán, who died in 1270/ 1853-4; Áqá Muḥammad 'Áshiq, a tailor, also of Iṣfahán, who died at the age of seventy in 1281/1864; Mírzá Muḥammad 'Alí Surúsh of Sidih, entitled Shamsu'sh-Shu'ará, who died in 1285/1868-9; and Áqá Muḥammad 'Alí Jayḥún of Yazd, of whose life I can find no particulars save such as can be gleaned from his verses, but who composed, besides numerous poems of various types, a prose work entitled Namakdán (“the Saltcellar”) on the model of the Gulistán, and whose complete works were lithographed at Bombay in 1316/1899, making a volume of 317 pp. Others who are reckoned amongst the poets were more distinguished in other fields of literature, such as the historians Riḍá-qulí Khán Hidáyat, so often cited in this chapter (born 1215/1800, died 1288/ 1871-2), and Mírzá Muḥammad Taqí Sipihr of Káshán, entitled Lisánu'l-Mulk (“the Tongue of the Kingdom”), author of the Násikhu't-Tawáríkh (“Abrogator of Histories”) and of another prose work entitled Baráhínu'l-'Ajam (“Proofs of the Persians”); the philosopher Ḥájji Mullá Hádí of Sabzawár, who was born in 1212/1797-8, wrote a small amount of verse under the pen-name of Asrár (“Secrets”), and died in 1295/1878; and others. Of the remaining modern representatives of the “Classical School” Qá'ání is by far the most important, and after him Yaghmá, Furúghí and Shaybání, of whom some account must now be given.

(7) Qá'ání (d. 1270/1853-4).

Qá'ání is by general consent the most notable poet produced by Persia in the nineteenth century. He was born Qá'ání (d. 1270/ 1853-4). at Shíráz about 1222/1807-8, for, according to his own statement at the end of the Kitáb-i-Paríshán , he completed that work on Rajab 20, 1252 (October 31, 1836), being then two or three months short of thirty years of age: