“O noble sir, thou knowest that, being afflicted with the gout,
I, thy servant, abstain from everything which is sour.
I asked for wine, and thou didst give me stale vinegar,
Such that, should I drink it, I should rise up at the Resurrection
like pickled meat.
Where is thy butler, then, so that I may pour
A cupful of it into the ears and nose of the scoundrel?”

These are the main facts which I have been able to glean from a cursory perusal of Anwarí's collected poems, but there is no doubt that the careful examination of a text more correct than any which we yet possess would supply us with further details of his life and fuller data for judging of his character. Let us now return to the anecdotes related by the biographers, which, though not worthy of much credence, ought not to be passed over without notice.

One of the most celebrated of these, taken from the Ḥabíbu's-Siyar (vol. ii, part 4, pp. 103-104 of the Bombay edition of A.D. 1857) gives another account of Anwarí's first appearance at the Court of Sanjar. According to this story, Mu'izzí, the Poet-Laureate, to whom was entrusted the duty of interview­ing poets who desired to submit their verses to the King, and of keeping back all those whose merit was not sufficient to entitle them to an audience, had devised an infamous trick to discourage and turn away all applicants of whose talents he was jealous. His memory was so good that he could remember and repeat any poem which he had heard recited once; his son could repeat any poem which he had heard twice, and his servant any poem which he had heard three times. So when any poet desiring audience of the King came before him and recited his poem, he would hear it to the end, and then say, “That is my own poem, and in proof of what I say, hear me recite it.” Then, when he had repeated it, he would turn to his son and remark, “My son also knows it”; whereupon the son would also repeat it. Then in like manner he would cause his servant to repeat it, after which he would drive the unfor­tunate poet from his presence as an unprincipled plagiarist.

For a long while aspirants to poetical honours were in despair of outwitting Mu'izzí's stratagem, until at length Anwarí resolved to see what he could do. Dressing himself in absurd and grotesque apparel, he presented himself before Mu'izzí, and recited certain ludicrous and doggerel verses which aroused the ridicule of all who heard them. Mu'izzí, apprehending no danger from one whom he took for a buffoon, promised to present Anwarí to the King on the following day. When the time came, Anwarí, being called forward, appeared in a dignified and appropriate dress, and, instead of the expected doggerel, recited the first two couplets of the poem:—

Gar dil u dast baḥr u kán báshad,
Dil u dast-i-Khudáyagán báshad.

Then, turning to Mu'izzí, he said, “If you have heard this poem before, then recite the remainder; if not, admit that it is my own original composition.” Mu'izzí was confounded, and was compelled to witness his rival's complete triumph.

As a matter of fact the poem in question itself affords evidence that its author had already for some considerable time been engaged in verse-making, for in it he says:—

Khusrawá, banda-rá chu dah sál-ast
Kash hamí árzúy-i-án báshad,
K'az nadímán-i-majlis ar na-buwad
Az muqímán-i-ástán báshad …

“O Prince, since it is ten years that thy servant
Is possessed by this desire,
That if he may not be one of the intimates of thine assembly,
He may [at least] be one of those who stand at thy
threshold …”

Be this as it may, Anwarí's own words suffice to prove that he was held in high honour by the King. Thus he says in one place:—

Anwarí-rá Khudáyagán-i-jahán
Písh-i-khud khwánd, u dast dád, u nishánd;
Báda farmúd, u shi'r khwást azú …

“The Lord of the world called Anwarí
Before him, gave him his hand, and caused him to be
seated;
Called for wine, and asked him for poetry …”

Another incident recorded concerning Anwarí in the Haft Iqlím, and, in a somewhat different form, in the Baháristán, the Mujmal of Faṣíḥ, and the Lubábu'l-Albáb of 'Awfí (vol. ii, pp. 138-9) is connected with a warning which he received from a contemporary poet, Khálid b. ar-Rabí', when he was invited by the Ghúrí King 'Alá'u'd-Dín to visit his court. Outwardly this invitation boded no evil; but inwardly the King of Ghúr was filled with rancour against Anwarí, and sought to punish or destroy him, on account of certain satirical verses which he had, or was alleged to have, composed about him. Fakhru'd-Dín Khálid, knowing the true state of the case, wished to warn his friend, but feared to do so openly, lest he himself should incur the wrath of 'Alá'u'd-Dín. He there­fore wrote him a letter to which he prefixed three Arabic verses, of which the translation is as follows:—

“Behold the World full-throated cries to thee,
‘Beware, beware of my ferocity!
Let not my smiles protracted lull thy fears;
My words cause laughter, but mine actions tears!’
The World to garbage stuffed with musk indeed
I best may liken, or to poisoned mead!”*

Anwarí, who was quick enough to take this hint of danger, refused to go, whereupon 'Alá'u'd-Dín sent another messenger, offering Malik Ṭútí, his host for the time being, a thousand sheep in exchange for the poet, who, however, succeeded in prevailing upon his patron not to surrender him to his foe. According to some biographers he also excused himself to the King of Ghúr in the poem beginning:—

Kulba'í k'andarán bi-rúz u bi-shab
fáy-i-árám u khurd u-khwáb-i-man-ast …*

which, in any case, evidently belongs to the latter part of his life, when he had abandoned the frequenting of Courts.

Anwarí is generally said to have passed the closing days of his life at Balkh, whither he retired after the loss of prestige which he suffered in consequence of the failure of the astro­logical prediction * already mentioned in A.H. 581 (= A.D. 1185-86). Here also misfortune pursued him, for there appeared a satire on the people of Balkh entitled the Khar-náma , or “Book of Asses,” of which, though it was really from the pen of Súzaní, Anwarí was falsely supposed to be the author. According to other accounts, the offending poem * was a fragment of five verses characterising the four chief cities of Khurásán (Balkh, Merv, Níshápúr, and Herát), com­posed by Futúḥí at the instigation of Súzaní and deliberately ascribed by him to Anwarí, in which Balkh is described as a town “filled with rogues and libertines,” and destitute of a single man of sense. In any case Anwarí was roughly handled by the people of Balkh, who, furious at what they considered an unprovoked outrage, paraded him through their streets with a woman's headdress on his head, and would have gone further had they not been dissuaded and pacified by some of the poet's influential friends, such as Sayyid Abú Ṭálib, Ḥamídu'd-Dín the judge, Ṣafi'u'd-Dín 'Umar the Muftí, Táju'd-Dín Aḥmad the Muḥtasib (or inspector of weights and measures), and Nidhámu'd-Dín Aḥmad the professor, to whom the poet bewails his adventure and offers his thanks in a qaṣída (No. 6 of Zhukovski, pp. 58-72 of the texts) of a hundred verses, beginning:—

Ay Musulmánán, fighán az jawr-i-charkh-i-chanbarí,
Wa'z nifáq-i-Tír, u qaṣd-i-Máh, u kayd-i-Mushtarí!

This qaṣída, I may remark, is the original of the piece called “Palinodia” which occupies pp. 63-80 of the late Professor E. H. Palmer's Song of the Reed (Trübner, 1877); a rendering so free that it can at most be described as a paraphrase, of which the first two verses, corresponding to the first three bayts of the original, are as follows:—

“Ah! the spheres are incessantly rolling,
And the Archer is shifting his ground,
And the moon is for ever patrolling,
And Jupiter going his round.
The water that tastes to another
Refreshing and cool on the lip,
Is as fire that no efforts can smother
In the cup which I sip.