CLXVI. HAMDAMĪ.

He is Mīrzā Barkhurdār,* who has the title of Khān-i-‘Ālam. He is the son of Hamdam Beg* who was one of the famous amīrs of his late majesty. Hamdamī is well known for his bravery and his goodness of disposition. He used to occupy himself with poetry. The following couplet is his:—

“See my heart, which has on every part of it a fresh scar
caused by love's madness;
It is an ocean of grief and everywhere in it there is a 386
whirlpool of blood.”

In imitation of that ghazal of Āṣafī's, which begins:—

“My slayer closes her eyes at my dying gasps
Until my heart longs with regret to catch her gaze.”

He wrote, by the emperor's order, the following:—

“The arrow of that slayer came and passed through my
heart,
And the scar remains on my heart till the day of resurrec-
tion.”

Shaikh Faiẓī, at the time when this ghazal was under discuss-sion at Āgra, wrote the following:—

“Place thy foot on it (my heart),* “O slayer, as I gasp in
death,
That thus I may have an opportunity of kissing thy foot.”

At this time (Faiẓī) produced many ghazals of this sort from his dīvān and dressed them up to suit the emperor's taste.*