Nidhámí's proper name, as Bacher shows (p. 9), was probably
Ilyás (Elias), while his kunya was Abú Muḥammad, and
his laqab, or title (from which his pen-name was derived),
was Nidhámu'd-Dín. His father, Yúsuf the son of Zakí
Mu'ayyad, died when he was still young, and his mother, who
was of a noble Kurdish family, seems not long to have survived
her husband. He also alludes to the death of an uncle on the
mother's side, who, as Bacher conjectures, very probably took
care of him after his father's death. A brother of his named
Qiwámí-i-Muṭarrizí (of whose poems a fine old fourteenth-
Of Nidhámí's life, beyond the above facts, we know very
little, but it is clear, as Bacher points out (pp. 14-15), that he
had a far higher conception of the poet's aims and duty than
the countless panegyrists and Court-poets of whom Anwarí is
the type, and that, as tradition and internal evidence both
show, he eschewed panegyric and avoided Courts, though he so
far adhered to the prevailing fashion of his time as to dedicate
his poems to contemporary rulers. Thus the Makhzanu'l-
Dawlatsháh says (p. 129 of my edition) that, besides the above-named five poems which constitute the Khamsa or “Quintet,” Nidhámí's odes and lyrical verses amounted to nearly 20,000 verses, and Bacher (p. 7) cites a verse from the Laylá and Majnún which he considers a proof that the poet arranged his Díwán about the same time that he wrote this poem, viz., in A.H. 584 (A.D. 1188-89). 'Awfí, on the other hand (vol. ii, p. 397), says:—“Save for these mathnawí-poems little poetry has been handed down from him. In Níshápúr, however, I heard the following recited as his by a certain great scholar”; and he then cites three short ghazals, each comprising five bayts, of which the last bewails the death of his son. Dawlatsháh (pp. 129-130) cites another of eight bayts, in the last of which the pen-name Nidhámí is introduced, but it must be remembered that there were several other poets of this name, whom this very inaccurate biographer is quite capable of confusing with the subject of the present notice. If such a Díwán ever existed in reality, it appears long ago to have been lost and forgotten.
Nidhámí's high rank as a poet alike original, fruitful, and o?? rare and noble genius, is admitted by all critics, Persian and non-Persian, including 'Awfí, Qazwíní, Dawlatsháh, and Luṭf 'Alí Beg amongst biographers, and Sa'dí, Ḥáfidh, Jámí and 'Iṣmat amongst the poets. * And if his genius has few rivals amongst the poets of Persia, his character has even fewer. He was genuinely pious, yet singularly devoid of fanaticism and intolerance; self-respecting and independent, yet gentle and unostentatious; a loving father and husband; and a rigorous abstainer from the wine * which, in spite of its unlawfulness, served too many of the poets (especially the mystical poets) of Persia as a source of spurious inspiration. In a word, he may justly be described as combining lofty genius and blameless character in a degree unequalled by any other Persian poet whose life has been the subject of careful and critical study.
A few words must now be said about each of the five poems constituting the Khamsa or “Quintet,” though it is impossible in a work of the size and scope of the present to give them anything approaching adequate notice. There are several Eastern editions, of which I use the Ṭihrán lithograph of A.H. 1301 (A.D. 1884), a volume of about 600 pages, containing about 50 bayts to the page.
The Makhzanu'l-Asrár, or “Treasury of Mysteries,” is both the shortest and the earliest of the Quintet, and is of quite a The Makhzanu 'l-Asrár. different character to the others, being rather a mystical poem with illustrative anecdotes, after the fashion of the Ḥadíqa of Saná'í, or the later Mathnawí of Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí, than a romance. It also appears to me inferior in quality, but perhaps this is partly due to the fact that I dislike its metre, which runs:—
It comprises, besides a good deal of introductory matter and several doxologies, twenty maqálas, or “Discourses,” each of which deals with some theological or ethical topic, which is first discussed in the abstract and then illustrated by an apologue. The following short specimen, which embodies the well-known story of how the wise and courageous Minister of one of the Sásánian Kings rebuked his master for his injustice and neglect of his people's welfare, may suffice to give some idea of the style of this poem (p. 22):—
“Intent on sport, Núshirwán on a day
Suffered his horse to bear him far away
From his retainers. Only his Wazír
Rode with him, and no other soul was near.
Crossing the game-stocked plain, he halts and scans
A village ruined as his foeman's plans.
There, close together, sat two owls apart,
Whose dreary hootings chilled the monarch's heart.
‘What secrets do these whisper?’ asked the King,
Of his Wazír; ‘what means the song they sing?’
‘O Liege,’ the Minister replied, ‘I pray
Forgive me for repeating what they say.
Not for the sake of song mate calls to mate:
A question of betrothal they debate.
That bird her daughter gave to this, and now
Asks him a proper portion to allow,
Saying: “This ruined village give to me,
And also others like it two or three.”
“Let be,” the other cries; “our rulers leave
Injustice to pursue, and do not grieve,
For if our worthy monarch should but live,
A hundred thousand ruined homes I'll give.”’”
In the romance of Khusraw and Shírín, Nidhámí, both as regards matter and style, follows Firdawsí rather than Saná'í;
Khusraw and Shírín. but though the subject of his poem—namely, the adventures of the Sásánian King Khusraw Parwíz, and especially his amours with the beautiful Shírín and the fate of his unhappy rival Farhád—is drawn from the sources used by Firdawsí, or from similar ones, it is handled in a different and much less objective manner, so as to result not in an epic but in a romantic poem. And the heroic mutaqárib metre, consecrated by long usage to the epic, is here replaced by the hexameter hazaj:—The poem is a long one (pp. 48-192 of the Ṭihrán lithograph), containing about 7,000 couplets. The following passage (p. 129) describes the lamentation and death of Farhád when, at Khusraw's command, false tidings are brought to him of Shírín's death at the time when he has all but completed the task imposed on him of cutting through the mountain of Bísutún, * for the accomplishment of which Shírín's hand was to be his recompense.
“When Farhád heard this message, with a groan
From the rock-gulley fell he like a stone.
So deep a sigh he heaved that thou wouldst say
A spear had cleft unto his heart its way.
‘Alas, my labour!’—thus his bitter cry—
‘My guerdon still unwon, in grief I die!
Alas the wasted labour of my youth!
Alas the hope which vain hath proved in truth!
I tunnelled mountain-walls: behold my prize!
My labour's wasted: here the hardship lies!
I, like a fool, red rubies coveted;
Lo, worthless pebbles fill my hands instead!
What fire is this that thus doth me consume?
What flood is this which hurls me to my doom?
The world is void of sun and moon for me:
My garden lacks its box- and willow-tree.
For the last time my beacon-light hath shone;
Not Shírín, but the sun from me is gone!
The cruel sphere pities no much-tried wight;
On no poor luckless wretch doth grace alight!
Alas for such a sun and such a moon,
Which black eclipse hath swallowed all too soon!
Before the wolf may pass a hundred sheep,
But on the poor man's lamb 'tis sure to leap.