(8) Furúghí (d. 1274/1858).

Mention has already been made of Mírzá 'Abbás, son of Áqá Músá of Bisṭám, who wrote verse first under the pen- Furúghí (d. 1274/1858). name of Miskín and later of Furúghí. He is said to have written some twenty thousand verses, of which a selection of some five thousand is placed at the end (pp. 4-75) of the Ṭihrán edition (1302/1884-5) of the works of Qá'ání, with whom he was so closely associated. Unlike him, however, he seems to have preferred lyric to elegiac forms of poetry; at any rate His Ṣúfí tendencies. the selections in question consist entirely of ghazals. According to the brief biography prefixed to them he adopted the Ṣúfí doctrine in the extremer forms which it had assumed in ancient times with Báyazíd of Bisṭám and Ḥusayn ibn Manṣúr al-Ḥalláj, and so incurred the suspicion and censure of the orthodox. Náṣiru'd-Dín Sháh, in the beginning of whose reign he was still flourishing, once sent for him and said, “Men say that like Pharaoh thou dost advance the claim ‘I am your Lord the Supreme,’ * and that thou dost openly pretend to Divinity.” “This assertion,” replied Furúghí, touching the ground with his forehead, “is sheer calumny…For seventy years I have run hither and thither, and only now have I reached the Shadow of God!” * The first three verses from the first ode cited seem to me as good and as typical as any others. They run as follows:

“When didst thou depart from the heart that I should crave for Thee?
When wert thou hidden that I should find Thee?
Thou hast not disappeared that I should seek Thy presence:
Thou hast not become hidden that I should make Thee apparent.
Thou hast come forth with a hundred thousand effulgences
That I may contemplate Thee with a hundred thousand eyes.”

(9) Yaghmá of Jandaq.

Mírzá Abu'l-Ḥasan of Jandaq, chiefly celebrated for his abusive and obscene verses (Hazaliyyát), and commonly Yaghmá of Jandaq. known, from his favourite term of coarse invective, as Zan-qaḥba, is the last poet mentioned by the author of the Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá * before the autobiography with which he concludes. He was for some time secretary to a very violent and foul-mouthed nobleman named Dhu'l-Fiqár Khán of Samnán, for whose amusement he is said to have written these offensive poems, collectively known as the Sardáriyya. * Though he wrote a quantity of serious verse and a number of elegant letters in prose, which are included in the large Ṭihrán edition of his works lithographed in 1283/1866-7, it is on his Haza-liyyát , or “Facetiae,” that his fame or infamy is based. The author of the Tadhkira-i-Dilgushá * devotes but three lines to him, and was not personally acquainted with him, but had heard him well spoken of as “an amiable and kindly man and a good-natured and eloquent youth, who did not believe in making a collection of his poems.” Qá'ání attacked him in his own style in the following abusive verses:*

Qá'ání's attack on Yaghmá. <text in Arabic script omitted> <text in Arabic script omitted>

Yaghmá's Kulliyyát, or Complete Works, as represented Contents of Yaghmá's Kulliyyát or Complete Works. in the Ṭihrán lithographed edition above mentioned, comprise the following:

A. Prose writings (pp. 2-145), consisting of numerous letters written to friends and acquaintances, unfortunately, so far as I have seen, undated. A careful examination of these letters would undoubtedly furnish abundant materials for the poet's biography. Many of them are addressed to unnamed friends, acquaintances or patrons, but some were written to his sons, Mírzá Isma'íl who wrote poetry under the pen-name of Hunar, Mírzá Aḥmad Ṣafá'í, Mírzá Muḥammad 'Alí Khaṭar, and Mírzá Ibráhím Dastán, while others were written to men of more or less note whose names are given. In many of these letters he elects to write in pure Persian (Pársí-nigárí), avoiding all Arabic words, while others, called náma-i-basíṭ, are written in a very simple style.

B. Verse.

1. Early odes (ghazaliyyát-i-qadíma), pp. 146-183.

2. Later odes (ghazaliyyát-i-jadída), pp. 184-203.

3. The Sardáriyya mentioned above (pp. 204-217), written in the ghazal form with the pen-name Sardár.

Autograph of the poet Yaghmá
Or. 4936 (Brit. Mus.), 19
To face p. 338

4. The Qaṣṣábiyya (pp. 218-231), similar to the last-mentioned work in form and contents, but with the penname Qaṣṣáb (“Butcher”).

5. The Kitáb-i-Aḥmad (pp. 232-247), similar to the two last, but with the pen-name Aḥmad.

6. The Khuláṣatu'l-Iftiḍáḥ (“Quintessence of Disgrace,” pp. 248-265), an account in mathnawí verse of a scandalous incident fully described in a marginal note on p. 248.

7. The Kitáb-i-Ṣukúku'd-Dalíl (pp. 266-280), another mathnawí in the metre of the Sháhnáma outwardly praising but inwardly satirizing a certain Sayyid Qanbar-i-Rawḍa-khwán , entitled by Yaghmá Rustamu's-Sádát.

8. Maráthí or Elegies on the deaths of the Imáms (pp. 282-301).

9. Tarji'-bands and Tarkíb-bands (pp. 302-331), mostly of a ribald character.

10. Qiṭa'át or Fragments (pp. 332-355), mostly ribald and satirical.

11. Rubá'iyyát or Quatrains (pp. 356-389), also ribald.

The odes, old and new, and the elegies (Nos. 1, 2 and 8 in the above list) constitute the respectable part of Yaghmá's Yaghmá's abusive verse. verse, in all about one-third of the whole. As for the rest, with the possible exception of No. 7, it is for the most part not fit to print, much less to translate. The poet's favourite term of abuse Zan-qaḥba, by which he himself is commonly known, is by no means a nice expression, but it is delicacy itself compared with much of the language he employs. On the other His religious elegies. hand, his serious odes and elegies show that he can write fine poetry, while his command of language is almost greater than that of Qá'ání, even though the melody of his verse be less. He also appears to have invented a type of marthiya or elegy which he calls Núḥa-i-Sína-zaní, or Lamentation accompanied by beating of the breast. This I supposed till lately to have been one of the new models which sprang into existence after the Revolution of 1905-6, and I gave several specimens of it in my Press and Poetry of Modern Persia. * The following are the initial lines of eight of Yaghmá's elegies of this type:

This last poem in form most closely approaches No. 19 in my Press and Poetry of Modern Persia.

The above poems are interesting as regards their form. The following, an ordinary Núḥa, or “Lamentation,” without refrain, partly in colloquial dialect, is simple and rather beautiful. I quote only the first six of the nineteen verses which it comprises:

“My heart is very weary of life; however soon I die, it is still too late.
The women's hearts are the abode of grief and mourning; the men's
bodies are the target of swords and arrows.
Their sons welter in their blood; their daughters mourn; the brother
is slain; the sister is a captive.
The morsel in the mothers' mouths is their own heart's blood; the
milk in the children's throats is liquid gore.

The captives, in place of tears and lamentations, have sparks in
their eyes and fire in their souls.
The outcry of the thirsty reaches down and up from the dark earth
to the Sphere of the Ether.”