The Sultan's crown, with priceless jewels set,
Encircles fear of death and constant dread;
It is a head-dress much desired—and yet
Art sure 'tis worth the danger to the head?
Down in the quarter where they sell red wine
My holy carpet scarce would fetch a cup—
How brave a pledge of piety is mine,
Which is not worth a goblet foaming up!
Full easy seemed the sorrow of the sea
Lightened by hope of gain—hope flew too fast!
A hundred pearls
*
were poor indemnity,
Not worth the blast.”*
Another Indian king, Sulṭán Ghiyáthu'd-Dín ibn Sulṭán Sikandar of Bengal, stated by Shiblí Nu'mání (who is responsible for the story) * to have ascended the throne in 768/1366-7, is said to have corresponded with Ḥáfiẓ, who wrote for him the ode beginning:
<text in Arabic script omitted>
“O cup-bearer there is talk of the cypress, the rose and the anemone,
And this discussion goes on with ‘the three cleansing draughts.’ *
All the parrots of India will crack sugar
Through this Persian candy which is going to Bengal.
O Ḥáfiẓ, be not heedless of the enthusiasm of the Court of Sulṭán
Ghiyáthu'd-Dín,
For thy affair will be furthered by thy lamentation.”
Having spoken of Ḥáfiẓ's relations with contemporary princes, we pass now to the little that is known or con- Domestic circumstances of Ḥáfiẓ jectured as to his personal circumstances. For the statement that he fell in love with and ultimately married a girl called Shákh-i-Nabát (“Branch of Sugar-cane”) there is no weighty authority, nor are such domestic particulars to be expected from Persian biographers, in view of their reticence on all matrimonial matters. That he married and had several children is probable. To the death of his wife he is supposed to allude in a poem beginning:*
<text in Arabic script omitted>
“That sweet-heart through whom our home was Fairyland,
And who, from head to foot, was like a fairy, free from blemish,”
but there is nothing in the poem to show that his wife is the person referred to. There is, however, a clearer reference to the premature death of a son in the following verses:
<text in Arabic script omitted>
“O heart, thou hast seen what that clever son
Has experienced within the dome of this many-coloured vault:
In place of a silver tablet * in his bosom
Fate hath placed a stone tablet * on his head.”
The following fragment, * also believed to refer to the death of this or another son, gives the date of this loss as Friday, 6th of Rabí' 1, 764 (Dec. 24, 1362):
<text in Arabic script omitted> <text in Arabic script omitted>
“It was the morning of Friday and the sixth of the first Rabí'
When the visage of that moon-faced one declined from my heart.
In the year seven hundred and sixty four of the Flight
This difficult story became clear to me like [limpid] water.
How can regret, grief or sorrow profit
Now that life has passed in vanity without result?”
According to a biography of poets entitled Khizána-i-
As regards Ḥáfiẓ's intellectual attainments, his bilingual Intellectual attainments of Ḥáfiẓ poems alone show that he had a good knowledge of Arabic, apart from the statements of his editor, Muḥammad Gulandám, * as to his more scientific work in the language. He himself says:
<text in Arabic script omitted>
“No one of the Ḥáfiẓes * in the world hath combined as I have
The aphorisms of the Philosophers with the Scripture of the Qur'án.”
That he knew the Qur'án by heart is proved by the verse:
<text in Arabic script omitted>
“I have never seen any poetry sweeter than thine, O Ḥáfiẓ,
[I swear] by that Qur'án which thou keepest in thy bosom.”
Mawlawí Shiblí Nu'mání points out that the oft-made assertion that Ḥáfiẓ was indifferent to the favour of kings Ḥáfiẓ not indifferent to royal favour and princes is not borne out by his poems, in which there occur incidentally praises of the majority of contemporary rulers, including Sháh Shujá', Shaykh Abú Isḥáq, Sulṭán Maḥmúd, Sháh Manṣúr, and the rulers of Yazd and Hurmuz:
<text in Arabic script omitted>
“The King of Hurmúz did not see me, yet showed me a hundred
favours without a word [of praise on my part];
The King of Yazd saw me, and I praised him, but he gave me
nothing.
Such is the conduct of Kings: be not thou vexed, O Ḥáfiẓ;
May God, the Giver of daily bread, vouchsafe them His Grace and
Aid!”
To the King of Yazd's failure to reward him, he again alludes in a very famous and beautiful ode: * <text in Arabic script omitted>
These lines are thus rendered by Herman Bicknell:*
“Many a year live on and prosper, Sáqís * of the Court of Jam, *
E'en though I, to fill my wine-cup, never to your circle come:
East-wind, when to Yazd thou wingest, say thou to its sons from me:
‘May the head of every ingrate ball-like 'neath your mall-bat be!
‘What though from your daïs distant, near it by my wish I seem;
‘Homage to your King I render, and I make your praise my theme.’”
The difference between Ḥáfiẓ and most Persian pane- Wherein Ḥáfiẓ differs from other panegyrists gyrists is, however, as Mawlawí Shiblí Nu'mání well points out, that, unlike even such great poets as Anwarí, Ẓahír of Fáryáb and Salmán of Sáwa, he never employs mean and despicable methods to extort money, or has recourse to satire when panegyric fails.
We have already seen how devoted Ḥáfiẓ was to Shíráz, and he never wearies of singing the stream of Ruknábád and the rose-gardens of Muṣallá:
<text in Arabic script omitted>
“Bring, Cup-bearer, all that is left of thy wine!
In the Garden of Paradise vainly thou'lt seek
The lip of the fountain of Ruknábád
And the bowers of Muṣallá where roses twine.”*
And again:
<text in Arabic script omitted>
“There is a difference between the Water of Khiḍr, which dwells in
the Darkness, *
And our water, of which Alláhu Akbar * is the source.”
Although it is chiefly of the Spring, the Rose, the Nightingale, Wine, Youth and Beauty that Ḥáfiẓ sings, and at times of the Eternal Beauty of which all fair and desirable things are but the pale reflection, he sometimes makes incidental mention of various statesmen and scholars whose favour and patronage he has enjoyed. * Amongst these are Ḥájji Qiwám, Qiwámu'd-Dín Ḥasan, * Khwája Jalálu'd-Dín, Sháh Yaḥyá Nuṣratu'd-Dín and others, besides the kings and princes already mentioned. And though he wrote mathnawís, “fragments” (muqaṭṭa'át), qaṣídas and quatrains (rubá'iyyát), it is in the ode or ghazal that he especially excels. To his incomparable skill in this branch of verse many of his successors have borne testimony, amongst them Ṣá'ib, Salím and 'Urfí; * but no one has better expressed it than Sir Gore Ouseley, who says:*