Of Adíb-í-Ṣábir's life we have few particulars, save what can be gleaned from his verse. He was a native of Tirmidh, and, though, according to Dawlatsháh, he spent most of his life in Khurásán, especially at Merv, the following fragment, quoted by 'Awfí (vol. ii, p. 123), composed by him on the death of a tyrannical noble of Tirmidh, named Akhtí, who choked himself with wine at a drinking-bout, and, to make use of 'Awfí's graceful expression, “took the aqueous road to hell­fire,” shows that his own town was not wholly deprived of his talents:—

“O Akhṭí, the day thou drankest wine was the day thou didst
hie thee to hell;
A hundred thousand blessings rest on the day of thy drinking
wine!
Since thy departure once more the world is alive and all goes
well:
Cursed thou art, yet may mercy rest on this sudden death of
thine!”

He was entitled Shihábu'd-Dín (“the Meteor of the Faith”), and must evidently have been for a time on good terms with Atsiz, at whose hands he ultimately suffered death, since he has qaṣídas in his praise. He also appears to have been in relations, friendly or otherwise, with several poets besides Waṭwaṭ; thus we find in 'Awfí's Lubáb complimentary verses addressed by him to 'Imádí and Futúḥí, and recrimi­nations addressed to Shimálí. The following lines were written by him to a man of position who had been attacked in an anonymous lampoon of which some persons declared Ṣábir to be the author:—

“They say, ‘Why hast thou spoken ill
Of him whom all the world doth praise?’

Such deed was never done by me;
Such word ne'er marred my noble lays.
What dirty scoundrel tells this tale?
This trick on me what blackguard plays?”

This violently personal style is, unfortunately, common enough with the poets, especially the Court-poets, of Persia,

'Am'aq of Buk­hárá and Rashídí. but only the mildest examples of it, and those rather toned down, can well be offered to the modern European reader. Contemporary princes, however, appear to have derived great entertainment from these outbursts of spite or jealousy, and even strove at times to provoke them, as we see from one of the anecdotes (No. xix, pp. 75-77 of my translation) in the Chahár Maqála concerning two other poets of this period, 'Am'aq of Bukhárá and Rashídí, of whom the former was poet-laureate to Khiḍr Khán, one of the Ílak Kháns of Transoxiana. This prince, says the author of the Chahár Maqála,

“was a great patron of poets, and in his service were Amír 'Am'aq, Master Rashídí, Najjár-i-Ságharchí, 'Alí Pánídhí, Bishr of Dar-ghúsh, Bishr of Isfará'in, * 'Alí Sipihrí, and Wajíbí of Farghána, all of whom obtained rich rewards and ample honours. The Poet-Laureate was Amír 'Am'aq, who had profited abundantly by that dynasty and obtained the most ample circumstance, comprising fair damsels, well-paced horses, golden vessels, sumptuous apparel, and servants, biped and quadruped, innumerable. He was greatly honoured at the King's Court, so that the other poets must needs do him reverence. Such homage as he obtained from the others he desired also from Master Rashídí, but herein he was disappointed, for Rashídí, though still young, was nevertheless learned in his art. The Lady Zaynab was the special object of his panegyrics, and he enjoyed the fullest favour of the King, who was constantly praising him and proclaiming his merits, so that Rashídí's affairs prospered, the title of ‘Prince of Poets’ (Sayyidu'sh-Shu'ará) was conferred upon him, and he continued to rise ever higher in the King's favour and to receive from him gifts of great value.

“One day, in Rashídí's absence, the King asked 'Am'aq, ‘What sayest thou of the verse of Rashídí, the Prince of Poets?’ ‘His verse,’ replied the other, ‘is excellent, being both chaste and correct, but it wants salt.’*

“When some time had elapsed, Rashídí entered, and, having made obeisance, was about to sit down when the King called him forward, and, teasing him as is the way of Kings, said, ‘I asked the Poet-Laureate just now what he thought of Rashídí's poetry, and he replied that it was good, but wanted spice. Now you must compose a quatrain on this topic.’ Rashídí, with a bow, sat down in his place and improvised the following fragment:—

‘You stigmatize my verse as “wanting salt,”
And possibly, my friend, you may be right.
My verse is honey-flavoured, sugar-sweet,
And salt with sweetmeats cannot give delight.
Salt is for you, you blackguard, not for me,
For beans and turnips is the stuff you write!’”

Khiḍr Khán was so delighted with this rude but spirited retort to the Poet-Laureate's criticism that, according to the Chahár Maqála, he bestowed on Rashídí a thousand gold dínárs, which were set out in his audience-hall on four trays, as was the practice of the princes of Transoxiana.

It is now time to say something more about the author of this Chahár Maqála, or “Four Discourses,” which has been so Nidhámí-i­'Arúḍí of Samarqand. freely quoted in this and the preceding chapters, and which is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting and remarkable prose works in Persian, and one which throws a far fuller light than any other book with which I am acquainted on the intimate life of Persian and Central Asian Courts in the twelfth century of our era. The author was essentially a Court-poet attached to the service of the House of Ghúr, or “Kings of the Mountains,” with which, when he wrote the Chahár Maqála, he had been con­nected for forty-five years, as he himself tells us. His name, according to his own statement (Chahár Maqála, p. 10 of my translation) was Aḥmad b. 'Umar b. 'Alí, and his title (laqab), Najmu'd-Dín, but he is always known by his pen-name (takhalluṣ) of Nidhámí. Even amongst his contemporaries, however, there were, as will directly appear, several Nidhámís more celebrated than himself, not to mention his later, greater namesake, Nidhámí of Ganja, who is the Nidhámí par excellence of Persian literature; so the poet with whom we are now concerned is always spoken of as Nidhámí-i-'Arúḍí (i.e., “the Prosodist”) of Samarqand. Little of his verse has come down to us: Dawlatsháh (pp. 60-61 of my edition) quotes only one couplet from the Wísa and Rámín, which, unfor­tunately, appears not to be his work. 'Awfí, who gives him a notice of two pages (vol. ii, pp. 207-8), quotes five frag­ments, all of which are vers d'occasion, mostly of the personal and vituperative kind just spoken of, and adds that he was the author of several mathnawí poems, of which not even the names are preserved. All that we know of him is what he himself tells us in his “Four Discourses,” from which we are able to fix the following dates in his career. In A.H. 504 (= A.D. 1110-11) he was at Samarqand, hearing traditions about the early poet Rúdagí; in A.H. 506 (= 1112-13) he was at Níshápúr, enjoying the society of the celebrated astronomer-poet, 'Umar Khayyám; three years later he was at Herát; next year (A.H. 510 = A.D. 1116-17) he was at Níshápúr again, and also at Ṭús, where he collected traditions about the great Firdawsí, and visited his grave. About this time, it would appear, he succeeded, encouraged and assisted by Mu'izzí, Sanjar's Poet-Laureate, in bringing himself to the notice of the King, from which period his fortune and fame may be supposed to date. In A.H. 512 and 530 (=A.D. 1118-19 and 1135-36) we again find him at Níshápúr, and it was in the latter year that he paid that pious visit to the tomb of 'Umar Khayyám which has indirectly afforded so much occupation to members of the “Omar Khayyám Club,” who, because they have not read their Chahár Maqála, bestow on the rose a worship to which the peach-tree and pear-tree have a better claim. In A.H. 547 (= A.D. 1152-53) he was in hiding at Herát, after the defeat of the army of Ghúr by Sanjar the Seljúq. His Chahár Maqála was written sometime within the next nine years, since he alludes to Ḥusayn “the World-consumer” (Jahán-súz), who died in A.D. 1161, as still living. For a knowledge of his later life we have no data, and even the date of his death is, so far as I am aware, quite unknown. His claim to immortality rests entirely on this one book, the Chahár Maqála, of which the unique value has hitherto met with the most inadequate recognition, though it is now accessible to Persian scholars in the lithographed edition published at Tihrán in A.H. 1305 (= A.D. 1887-88), and to English readers in the translation which I published in 1899 in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, as well as in a separate reprint. The whole book is worth reading, and though I have quoted from it very largely in these pages, con­siderations of space have compelled me to omit much which I should like to have included. I will content myself with quoting here an autobiographical anecdote (No. xxi) with which the second of the “Four Discourses” (on poets) ends:—