(6)

<text in Arabic script omitted> <text in Arabic script omitted>

“A negro, lacking reason, faith and taste,
Whose life the demon Folly had laid waste
Had in a jar some treacle set aside,
And by mischance a mouse fell in and died.
He seized the mouse and plucked it out with speed—
That cursed mouse, whose death was caused by greed.
Then to the Qáḍí sped the unwilling wight,
Taking the mouse, and told of Fortune's spite.
The Judge before the folk, refined and rude,
Condemned the treacle as unfit for food.
The luckless negro scouted this award,
Saying, ‘You make a great mistake, my Lord!
I tasted it, and found it sweet and good;
If sweet, it cannot be unfit for food.

Had this my treacle bitter been, then sure
Unlawful had I held it and impure.’
The mind perverted of this black accursed
Bitter and sweet confounded and reversed.
Sin seemeth sweet and service sour, alack!
To thee whose face is as a negro's black.
To passion's palate falsehood seemeth sweet;
Bitter is truth to natures incomplete.
When men are sick and biliously inclined
The taste of sugar alum calls to mind.
Sick for this world all hearts, both young and old,
Jaundiced for love of silver and of gold.
O captive in the snare of worldly joys,
Perish not mouse-like for the sweet that cloys!
Though bitter seems God's discipline to thee
This bitter drug is thy sure remedy.
This bitter drug will cause thine ill's surcease,
And give the patient healing, rest and peace.”

The second extract is of greater interest, for it describes a meeting between Shaykh Ṣafiyyu'd-Dín, the ancestor of the Ṣafawís, who take their name from him, and the famous Shaykh Sa'dí of Shíráz. Some independent corroboration of this interview, or at least of its possibility, is afforded by the previously-quoted Silsilatu'n-Nasab-i-Ṣafawiyya, * which gives the date of Ṣafiyyu'd-Dín's birth as “in the last days of the 'Abbásid Caliphs in A.H. 650” (A.D. 1252-3), at which time, the author adds, Shams-i-Tabríz had been dead five years, Shaykh Muḥyi'd-Dín ibnu'l-'Arabí twelve years, and Shaykh Najmu'd-Dín Kubrá thirty-two years; while of eminent contemporary saints and poets, Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí died when he was twenty-two and Sa'dí when he was forty-one years of age. He was also contemporary with Amír 'Abdu'lláh of Shíráz, Shaykh Najíbu'd-Dín Buzghúsh, 'Alá'u'd-Dín Simnání, and Maḥmúd Shabistarí. * A page or two further on we read how Ṣafiyyu'd-Dín went to Shíráz to seek guidance from the above Shaykh Najíbu'd-Dín Buzghúsh, but found on his arrival that this saintly personage

SA'DÍ
Add. 7468 (Brit. Mus.), f. 19
To face p. 484

had passed away. This, no doubt, is the occasion to which the following passage in the Anísu'l-'Árifín refers.

<text in Arabic script omitted>*

From this passage, which is hardly worth translating in full, we learn that, while at Shíráz, Shaykh Ṣafiyyu'd-Dín, whose reputation had made Ardabíl (or Ardawíl) famous, became acquainted with the great Sa'dí, who was so much impressed by his sanctity and holy enthusiasm that he offered to add to his Díwán some poems in his praise. This offer, however, Ṣafiyyu'd-Dín declined, on the ground that he was too much preoccupied with “the Beloved” to concern himself with anything else; a refusal which evidently caused poor Sa'dí some chagrin, as he “wept bitterly,” while paying tribute to the Shaykh's exalted motives.

Between the subjects of the last two biographies, who, if not very remarkable poets, had at least a certain character and individuality, and the great Jámí, in whom culminated the literary talent of this period, there intervene a number of minor poets amongst whom it is difficult to make a selection, but of whom half a dozen or more deserve at least a brief mention. Little, as a rule, is known of their lives or personal characteristics, though most of them are noticed in the numerous biographical works of the period, and for convenience they may best be arranged in chronological order, according to the dates of their death.

Kátibí of Níshápúr.

Kátibí of Níshápúr (or of Turshíz), who died in Kátibí of Níshápúr 838/1434-5, comes first in sequence and perhaps in merit. Mír 'Alí Shír Nawá'í, in his Majá-lisu'n-Nafá'is , classes him amongst the poets who were living in his time but whom he had never had the honour of meeting, and writes of him:

“He was incomparable in his time, and introduced wonderful ideas into whatever kind of verse he attempted, especially his qaṣídas, even Mír 'Alí Shír's opinion of him inventing new artifices, which were entirely successful. So also his mathnawís, such as ‘Love and Beauty’ (Ḥusn u 'Ishq), ‘Regarder and Regarded’ (Náẓir u Manẓúr), ‘Bahrám and Gul-andám,’ which illustrate such artifices as the double metre (dhu'l-baḥrayn), the double rhyme (dhu'l-qáfiyatayn) and various kinds of word-plays. * His Díwán of ghazals (odes) and qaṣídas (elegies) is, however, more celebrated and better. Towards the end of his life he attempted an imitation of the Khamsa (Quintet), in which he advanced great pretensions; probably for this reason he failed to complete it. In my humble opinion his poetical talent was such that had he enjoyed the patronage of a ruler, like our own most fortunate Sovereign, capable of appreciating good verse, and had his life endured longer, he would have captured the hearts of all with his effusions, but through his ill-fortune he did not survive into either of the two reigns here mentioned.”*

Mír 'Alí Shír then quotes a verse each from a qaṣída and a ghazal of his, and finally the two following verses which Khwándamír * adduces as a proof that he perished in the outbreak of plague at Astarábád to which he alludes:*

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“That Astarábád whose dust was more fragrant than musk
Was suddenly made desolate by the fiery wrath of the pestilence.
No one, old or young, survived therein:
When fire falls on the forest neither moist nor dry remains.”

Dawlatsháh consecrates ten pages of his Memoirs of the Poets * to Kátibí, who, according to him, was born at a village between Turshíz and Níshápúr, whence he is sometimes called Turshízí and sometimes Níshápúrí. He learned the art of calligraphy from the poet Símí, * who, however, became jealous of him, so that he left Níshápúr for Herát. Finding his talent unappreciated at the court there, he went to Astarábád and Shírwán, where he attached himself for a time to Amír Shaykh Ibráhím, from whom he received large sums of money which he dissipated in a short while, so that he was reduced to the state of penury depicted in the following verses:

“Yesterday I called my cook and bade him bake for me a pie
That my guest's needs and mine own might eke be satisfied thereby.
‘If,’ said he, ‘I get the meat and get the fat, who'll give the meal?’
‘He,’ I answered, ‘who the millstone of the heavens made to wheel.’”

Kátibí next proceeded to Ádharbáyján, and composed a qaṣída in praise of the Turkmán ruler Iskandar ibn Qará Yúsuf. As this potentate failed to appreciate his efforts or to reward him for them, he wrote a very coarse lampoon on him and departed to Iṣfahán, where he seems to have undergone a kind of conversion at the hands of Ṣá'inu'd-Dín Tarika, to have renounced the adulation of princes and attendance at courts, and to have adopted the outlook of the Ṣúfí mystics. Dawlatsháh * quotes one of his poems (also occurring, with two additional verses, in a manuscript of mine) which reflects this change of heart, but is more conspicuous for piety than for literary merit. From Iṣfahán he went to Rasht and thence once more to Astarábád, where, as we have seen, he died.