Prose (nathr) is of three kinds—simple or unornate ('árí, “naked”); cadenced (murajjaz), which has metre without Recognised varieties of prose. rhyme; and rhymed (musajja'), which has rhyme without metre. Concerning the first variety nothing need be said. The second demands more attention, since its recognition as a separate species of prose depends on what may be described as a theological dogma. Much of the Qur'án is written in rhymed prose, and here and there it happens that a verse falls into one of the recognised metres, as in súra ii, 78-79:—

Thumma aqrartum, wa antum tashhadún,
Thumma antum há'ulá'i taqtulún,

which scans in the Ramal metre, i.e., the foot fá'ilátun repeated six times in the bayt or verse and apocopated to fá'ilát at the end of each miṣrá' or hemistich. Now the Prophet's adversaries used to call him a “mad poet,” which description he vehemently repudiated; and hence it became necessary for his followers to frame a definition of poetry which would not apply to any verse or portion of the Qur'án. And since, as we have seen, certain verses of the Qur'án have both rhyme and metre, it became necessary to add a third condition, namely, that there must exist an intention (qaṣd) on the part of the writer or speaker to produce poetry. It is, therefore, spontaneous or involuntary poetry, occurring in the midst of a prose discourse, and reckoned as prose because it is not produced with intention, which is called murajjaz. The other classical instance, occurring in a traditional saying of the Prophet's, is:—

Al-karímu 'bnu 'l-karími 'bni 'l-karími 'bni 'l-karím,

which also scans in the Ramal (octameter) metre. The third variety of prose (musajja', or rhymed) is very common in ornate writing in all the Muhammadan languages. Three kinds are recognised, called respectively mutawází (“parallel” or “concordant”), muṭarraf (“lop-sided”), and mutawázin (“symmetrical”). In the first kind the rhyming words ending two successive clauses agree in measure (i.e., scansion) and number of letters, as, for example, in the tradition of the Prophet: Allahumma! I'ṭi kulla munfiqin khalaf^an, wa kulla mumsikⁱⁿ talaf^an! (“O God! give every spender a successor, and every miser destruction”); or, as we might say in English, “Give the spender health, and the lender wealth.” In the second kind the rhyming words in two or more successive clauses differ in measure and number of letters, as though we should say in English, “He awakes to reprieve us from the aches which grieve us.” In the third kind (common to verse and prose), the words in two or more successive clauses cor­respond in measure, each to each, but do not rhyme, as in the Qur'án, súra xxxvii, 117-118: Wa átaynáhuma'l-Kitába 'l-mustabín: wa hadaynáhuma 'ṣ-Ṣiráṭa 'l-mustaqím. An English example would be: “He came uplifted with joy, he went dejected with woe.” The best European imitations of rhymed prose which I have seen are in German, and some very ingenious translations of this sort from the Maqámát, or “Séances,” of Badí'u'z-Zamán al-Hamadhání (died A.D. 1007-8 in Herát) may be seen in vol. ii of Von Kremer's admirable Culturgeschichte, pp. 471-475. The following short extract will serve as a specimen:—

“Seine Antwort auf diesen Schreibebrief war kalt und schneidend— und ich, jede weitere Berührung vermeidend,—liess ihn in seinem Dünkel schalten—und legte ihn nach seinem Buge in Falten,—sein Andenken aber löschte ich aus dem Gedächtnissschrein,—seinen Namen warf ich in den Strom hinein.”

George Puttenham, in his Arte of English Poesie (1589: Arber's reprint, 1869, p. 184) calls this figure Omoioteleton, or “Like loose,” and gives the following prose example:—

“Mischaunces ought not to be lamented, But rather by wisedome in time prevented: For such mishappes as be remedilesse, To sorrow them it is but foolishnesse: Yet are we all so frayle of nature, As to be greeved with every displeasure.”

Eleven different verse-forms, or varieties of poem, are enumerated by Rückert (ed. Pertsch, p. 55) as recognised in Verse-forms recognised by the Persians. Persian by the author of the Haft Qulzum or “Seven Seas”; to wit, the ghazal or ode, the qaṣída, “purpose-poem” or elegy, the tashbíb, the qiṭ'a or fragment, the rubá'í or quatrain, the fard or “unit,” the mathnawí or double-rhyme, the tarjí'-band or “return-tie,” the tarkíb-band or “composite-tie,” the mustazád or “comple­mented,” and the musammaṭ; to which may be added the murabba' or “foursome,” the mukhammas or “fivesome,” &c., up to the mu'ashshar or “tensome,” the “foursome,” “five­some,” and “sixsome” being by far the commonest. There is also the muwashshaḥ, which was very popular amongst the Moors of Spain and the Maghrib, but is rarely met with in Persian. The mulamma', “patch-work,” or “macaronic” poem, composed in alternate lines or couplets in two or more different languages, has no separate form, and will be more suitably considered when we come to speak of Verse-subjects, or the classification of poems according to matter.

The classification adopted in the Haft Qulzum (and also by Gladwin) is neither clear nor satisfactory. The tashbíb, for instance, is merely that part of a qaṣída which describes, to quote Gladwin, “the season of youth (shabáb) and beauty, being a description of one's own feelings in love; but in common use it implies that praise which is bestowed on any­thing [other than the person whose praises it is the ‘purpose’ or object of the poet to celebrate, to which praises the tashbíb merely serves as an introduction], and the relation of circum­stances, whether in celebration of love or any other subject.” The fard (“unit” or hemistich) and the qiṭ'a (“fragment”), as well as the bayt (or couplet, consisting of two hemistichs), have also no right to be reckoned as separate verse-forms, since the first and last are the elements of which every poem con­sists, and the “fragment” is merely a piece of a qaṣída, though it may be that no more of the qaṣída was ever written, and, indeed, the productions of some few poets, notably Ibn Yamín (died A.D. 1344-45), consist entirely of such “fragments.” Again, the two forms of band, or poem in strophes separated either by a recurrent verse, or by verses which, though differ­ent, rhyme with one another and not with the verses of the preceding or succeeding band, may well be classed together; as may also the “foursome,” “fivesome,” and other forms of mul­tiple poem. The muwashshaḥ, again, like the musammaṭ and muraṣṣa', is merely an ornate qaṣída or ghazal of a particular kind. Before attempting a more scientific and natural classi­fication of the varieties of Persian verse, it is, however, necessary to say a few more words about the elements of which it consists.

The unit in every species of poem is the bayt, which con­sists of two symmetrical halves, each called miṣrá', and com- The Bayt and the Miṣrá'. prises a certain number of feet, in all save the rarest cases either eight (when the bayt is called muthamman or “octameter”) or six (in which case it is called musaddas or “hexameter”). Into the elements composing the foot (viz., the watad or “peg,” the sabab or “cord,” and the fáṣila or “stay”) we need not enter, only pausing to observe that, owing to a fanciful analogy drawn between the baytu'sh-sha'r, or “house of hair” (i.e., the tent of the nomad Arabs), and the baytu'sh-shi'r, or verse of poetry, they, as well as most of the other technical terms of the Arabian Prosody (substantially identical with the Prosody of the Persians, Turks, and other Muhammadan nations), are named after parts of the tent. Thus the tent, or baytu'sh-sha'r, looked at from in front, consists of two flaps (miṣrá') which together constitute the door; and so the word miṣrá' is also used in Prosody to denote each of the two half-verses which make up the baytu'sh-shi'r. Various reasons (which will be found set forth in detail at pp. 20-21 of Blochmann's Persian Prosody) are adduced to account for this curious comparison or analogy, the prettiest being that, as the baytu'sh-sha'r, or “house of hair,” shelters the beautiful girls of the nomad tribe, so the baytu'sh-shi'r , or “verse of poetry,” harbours the “virgin thoughts” (abkár-i-afkár) of the poet. In English the term bayt in poetry is generally rendered by “couplet,” and the word miṣrá' by “hemistich.” This seems to me an unfortunate nomen­clature, since it suggests that the bayt is two units and the miṣrá' half a unit, and consequently that four, instead of two, of the latter go to make up one of the former. It would therefore seem to me much better to render bayt by “verse,” and miṣrá' by “half-verse,” though there would be no objec­tion to continuing to call the latter “hemistich” if we could agree to call the bayt, or verse, stichos; in which case the rubá'í, or quatrain, which consists of four hemistichs, or two stichoi (hence more accurately named by many Persians du-baytí ), would be the distich. In any case it is important to remember that the bayt is the unit, and that the terms “hex­ameter” (musaddas) or “octameter” (muthamman) denote the number of feet in the bayt, and that, since all the bayts in a poem must be equal in length, that combination of hexameters and pentameters which is so common in Latin verse is impos­sible in Persian. In the course of prose works like the Gulistán a single bayt, or even a single miṣrá', is often introduced to give point to some statement or incident, and such may have been composed for that sole purpose, and not detached from a longer poetical composition. The miṣrá' is in this case often called a fard, or “unit.”