Surely no more cynical avowal was ever made by any one practising the trade—for such we must call it—of the panegyrist! And as a trade, indeed, does Dhahír regard his calling, for he says in another poem:—
“I am not a landowner nor a merchant, that I should have
Granaries full of corn, and purses full of silver and gold.”
So he must even make money out of his poetry, and to that end must stoop to devices which he despises. He must take what he can get, and then find some pretext for demanding more, as, for instance, when, having received a gift of a fine robe and an ambling mule, he says:—
“I still hope for a saddle and bridle,
Else how can I tell that the mule is good for riding?”
If praise fails to produce money, satire may prove more efficacious; nay, with the rivals and enemies of the victim it may command a better price than panegyric, as the following lines show:—
“O Sire, it is more than a year that I
Drink the wine of thy praises from the goblet of verse.
I have not seen from thee anything which I can mention:
I have not obtained from thee anything which I can put on.
If in any company they question me concerning thy bounty,
I am obliged to stop my ears with cotton.
Be not misled if, in consequence of my virtues,
I remain philosophical, good-tempered, and silent.
When I mount my Pegasus with intent to produce verse,
My colleagues are proud to carry my horse-cloths on their
backs.
In praise, like all the rest, on occasions of complaint or thanks-
giving,
I shine like the sun or rage like the sea.
If I should recite to a certain person a verse or two of satire
on thee,
He would place in my embrace the treasures of the world.
Since, then, they are ready to buy satire of thee for red gold,
It is but right that I should sell at the best market-price.”
Often the mere threat of satire seems to have been enough to loose the purse-strings of those who were least susceptible to flattery, for the actual number of satires in the collection is very small. The following, addressed to an ecclesiastic named Muḥiyyu'd-Dín, is of a mildness and delicacy very rare in this kind of poetry:—
“O learned prelate and Muftí of the age, Muḥiyyu'd-Dín,
By knight and castle dost thou excel all creatures!
*
Twice or thrice have I recited qaṣídas in thy praise,
But no effort of thine has loosed the knots of my condition.
*
To-day some fellow stood up in front of thy pulpit,
Crying, ‘I repent of my deeds!” Thou didst exclaim, ‘Well
done!’
Then thou didst demand for him money and clothes from the
congregation,
Which they gave readily and willingly, without demur or diffi-
culty.
Now since thou hast given me nothing for my verse, at least
Give me something for repenting of that art which thou hast
inspired in me!”
It would be easy to multiply instances of the poet's demands for money and complaints of poverty and debt: “Creditors are stationed at my threshold,” he says in one place, “as Fortune is stationed at yours.” But the above specimens are sufficient, and fairly represent the tone and quality of the whole. Of erudition Dhahír, in spite of his boasts, shows far fewer signs than Anwarí and Kháqání, whose poems, as we have seen, teem with allusions to the most recondite sciences. It is perhaps worth noticing the following verse, which can hardly be regarded otherwise than as a quotation from the Gospels:—
Shutur bi-chashma-i-súzan birún na-khwáhad shud:
Ḥasúd-i-khám-ṭama', gú, darín hawas bi-g'dáz!
“The camel will not go through the eye of a needle:
Bid thine envier with his crude ambitions melt in this vain
endeavour!”
I do not know on what principle Dhahír's Díwán is arranged, for the order of the poems is neither chronological nor alphabetical. It would seem as though an attempt had been made to put the best poems at the beginning, and it is remarkable that, of the first five, three are chosen as specimens of the poet's work by 'Awfí in his Lubáb (vol. ii, pp. 298-307) and a fourth by Dawlatsháh (p. 110). The first poem, which consists of thirty-seven verses, seems to me quite the best in the whole collection, and I will conclude my notice of Dhahír with a few lines from it.*
“That thou may'st fill thy belly and clothe thyself withal,
Behold how many a harmless beast to pain and death is thrall!
For thee what grievous burdens insect and reptile bear,
What agonies befall the beasts of earth and birds of air!
Some harmless creature, fearing naught, is grazing on the veldt,
Whilst thou thy knife art sharpening to strip it of its pelt.
With bitter toil poor weakly worms weave for themselves a
nest,
That thou of silks and satins fine may'st clothe thee with the
best.
Eager thy jaded palate with honey sweet to please,
Thou sittest watching greedily the toiling of the bees.
From the dead worm thou strip'st the shroud to turn it to thy
use:
Can any generous soul accept for such a theft excuse?”
I have written thus fully of Dhahír of Fáryáb, not because I
would place him on an equality with Anwarí, Kháqání, or
Nidhámí, much less with Firdawsí or Náṣir-i-Khusraw, but
because he may be taken as a type of the innumerable Court-