So much being clearly understood, we may proceed to the classification of the various verse-forms. The primary division Classification of Persian verse-forms. depends on whether the rhyme of the bayt is, so to say, internal (the two miṣrá's composing each bayt rhyming together), or final (the bayts throughout the poem rhyming together, but their component miṣrá's not rhyming, as a rule, save in the maṭla', or opening verse). These two primary divisions may be called the “many-rhymed” (represented only by the mathnawí, or “couplet-poem”) and the “one-rhymed” (represented by the qaṣída, or “purpose-poem,” and its “fragment,” the qiṭ'a; the ghazal, or ode; and the tarjí'-band and tarkíb-band, or strophe-poems; to which, perhaps, we should add the rubá'í, or quatrain). What I have called the “multiple poems” (from the murabba' or “foursome” to the mu'ashshar or “tensome”) must be placed in a separate class.

Concerning the many-rhymed poem, or mathnawí, little need be said, since most European poetry which is not written The Mathnawí. in blank verse belongs to this category. The rhyme, as has been said, is contained in the bayt, and changes from bayt to bayt. Tennyson's Locksley Hall furnishes an admirable example in English (taking accent for quantity, which the genius of our lan­guage requires), since it represents as closely as is possible what would be technically described in Persian Prosody as a mathnawí poem written in the metre called Ramal-i-muthamman-i-maḥdhúf , or the “apocopated octameter Ramal,” viz.:—

twice repeated in the bayt. Here are the two first bayts (four lines of the English) scanned in this Persian fashion:—

“Cómrades, léave mé | hére a líttlé, | whíle as yét 'tís | éarly
mórn |:

Léave me hére, ánd | whén you wánt me, | soúnd upón thé |
búgle hórn. |

'Tís the pláce, ánd | áll aroúnd ít, | ás of óld, thé | cúrlews cáll, |

Dréary gleáms á | bóut the móorlánd | flýing óvér | Lócksley
Háll. |”

All long narrative and systematised didactic poems in Persian, like the Sháhnáma, or “Epic of Kings,” of Firdawsí; the Panj Ganj, or “Five Treasures,” of Nidhámí of Ganja; the Haft Awrang, or “Seven Thrones,” of Jámí; and the great Mystical Mathnawí of Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí, are composed in this form, which is of Persian invention, and unknown in classical Arabic poetry, though occasionally employed (under the name of muzdawaj or “consorted”) in post-classical Arabic verse (late tenth century onwards) by Persian writers.*

We now pass to the one-rhymed forms of verse, wherein the same rhyme runs through the whole poem, and comes at The Ghazal. the end of each bayt, while the two half-verses composing the bayt do not, as a rule, rhyme together, save in the maṭla', or opening verse of the poem. The two most important verse-forms included in this class are the ghazal, or ode, and the qaṣída, or elegy. The same metres are used for both, and in both the first bayt, or maṭla', has an internal rhyme, i.e., consists of two rhyming miṣrá's, while the remaining rhymes are at the ends of the bayts only. The ghazal differs from the qaṣída mainly in subject and length. The former is generally erotic or mystical, and ṣeldom exceeds ten or a dozen bayts; the latter may be a panegyric, or a satire, or it may be didactic, philosophical, or religious. In later days (but not, I think, before the Mongol Invasion) it became customary for the poet to introduce his takhalluṣ, nom de guerre, or “pen-name,” in the last bayt, or maqṭa', of the ghazal, which is not done in the qaṣída. As an example of the ghazal I give the following rendering of the very well­known ode from the Díwán of Ḥáfidh of Shíráz which begins:—

Agar án Turk-i-Shírází bi-dast árad dil-i-márá
Bi-khál-i-Hinduwash bakhsham Samarqand u Bukhárá-rá.

“If that unkindly Shíráz Turk * would take my heart within her
hand,
I'd give Bukhárá for the mole upon her cheek, or Samarqand!
Sáqí, * what wine is left for me pour, for in Heaven thou wilt
not see
Muṣallá's sweet rose-haunted walks, nor Ruknábád's * wave-
dimpled strand.

Alas! those maids, whose wanton ways such turmoil in our city
raise,
Have stolen patience from my heart as spoil is seized by Tartar
band.
Our Darling's beauty hath, indeed, of our imperfect love no
need;
On paint and pigment, patch and line, a lovely face makes no
demand.
Of Wine and Minstrel let us speak, nor Fate's dark riddle's
answer seek,
Since none hath guessed and none shall guess enigmas none may
understand.
That beauty, waxing day by day, of Joseph needs must lead
astray
The fair Zulaykhá from the veils for modest maids' seclusion
planned.
Auspicious youths more highly prize the counsels of the old and
wise
Than life itself: then take, O Heart, the counsels ready to thy
hand!
You spoke me ill; I acquiesced. God pardon you! 'twas for
the best;
Yet scarce such bitter answer suits those rubies sugar-sweet and
bland!
Your ode you've sung, your pearls you've strung; come, chant
it sweetly, Ḥáfidh mine!
That as you sing the sky may fling the Pleiades' bejewelled
band!”

The great length of most qaṣídas makes it almost impossible to give an English verse-translation which shall preserve the The Qaṣída. one-rhymed character throughout, though many such translations of Turkish qaṣídas may be seen by the curious in such matters in the late Mr. E. J. W. Gibb's great History of Ottoman Poetry. To preserve the original form (both as regards metre and rhyme) of whatever poem he translated was with this great scholar an unvarying principle; but I, having less skill in verse-making, have felt myself con­strained as a rule to abandon this plan, and translate qaṣídas, and sometimes even ghazals, as though they were mathnawís. I am emboldened to make such changes in rhyme and metre by the example of the Orientals themselves, for, as I have observed at pp. 464-5 of the Prolegomena to this volume, at the time when such verse-translations from Arabic into Persian and vice versâ were common feats of ingenuity and tests of scholarship in the two languages, it was usual to adopt a different metre in translating, and to change mathnawí Persian verses (e.g., in al-Bundárí's Arabic translation of the Sháhnáma) into the qaṣída form in Arabic, notwithstanding the fact that both languages have a common system of Prosody, which, of course, does not extend to English. If, then, these masters of style and language permitted themselves these liberties, why should we, who are in every way placed at a disadvantage compared with them, deny ourselves a similar freedom?

However, since we are here speaking of verse-forms, I shall give a few specimens from qaṣídas in the proper monorhythmic form, which I have not found it possible to maintain in my translations for any complete qaṣída, the qaṣída being, as I have said, always of considerably greater length than the ode or ghazal, and often extending to more than a hundred bayts. My first specimen consists of six bayts taken from a marthiya (threnody, or qaṣída of mourning) composed by Shaykh Sa'dí of Shíráz on the sack of Baghdád by the Mongols and the cruel murder of the last 'Abbásid Caliph, al-Musta'ṣim bi'lláh, and his family. The text, which is interesting as showing the effect produced on the mind of a contemporary Muslim by this horrible catastrophe, is taken from vol. i of Ẓiyá Bey's Kharábát (Constantinople, A.H. 1291, p. 156). The metre is again the apocopated octameter Ramal. I give the six first of the twenty-one bayts which the poem comprises—

Specimen of a Marthiya, or Threnody.