Lisání of Shíráz is the last of the twenty-two Persian Shí'a poets mentioned in the Majálisu'l-Mú'minín and Lisání (d. 940/1533). deserves mention rather on account of his devotion to that faith than by reason of his poetic talent; for, although he is said to have produced more than 100,000 verses, they are little known and seldom met with, * and, though mentioned in the Átash-kada and the Haft Iqlím, he is ignored by Riḍá-qulí Khán. Most of his life was spent at Baghdád and Tabríz, in which latter town he died just before it was taken by the Ottoman Sulṭán Sulaymán. “On account of his devotion to the Twelve Imáms,” says the author of the Majális, “Lisání would never remove from his head the twelve-gored kingly crown * until, when Sulṭán Sulaymán the Turk was advancing to occupy Tabríz, it happened that news of his near approach reached Lisání when he was engaged in prayer in the great Mosque of Tabríz. On hearing this news, he raised his hands in prayer, saying, ‘O God, this usurper is coming to Tabríz: I cannot remove this crown from my head, nor reconcile myself to witnessing his triumph, therefore suffer me to die, and bring me to the Court of Thy Mercy!’ He then bowed his head in prayer, and in that attitude surrendered his soul to the Beloved.” The following quatrain is characteristic:
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“If the joints of Lisání break apart, and his needy body passes into
the dust,
By God, from the horizon of his heart naught will appear save the
love [or sun] of 'Alí and his eleven descendants!”
His poems, in the preservation of which he seems to have
been very careless, were collected after his death by his
pupil Sharíf of Tabríz, but so slovenly was the compilation
that, according to the Átash-kada, it was known as Sahwu'l-
Fuḍúlí is reckoned amongst the Turkish rather than the
Persian poets, and is fully discussed by Gibb in vol. iii of
Fuẓúlí
(d. 970/1562).
his monumental History of Ottoman Poetry
(ch. iv, pp. 70-107). That he became an Ottoman
subject was due to the fact that Baghdád,
where he was probably born, and where he spent nearly all
his life, was taken from the Persians by the Turks in 940/
1535; but, as Gibb says,
*
“he composed with equal ease
and elegance in Turkish, Persian, and Arabic.” He is
described by the same scholar
*
as “the earliest of those four
great poets who stand pre-eminent in the older literature of
Turkey, men who in any age and in any nation would have
taken their place amongst the Immortals.” That his status
in the Persian Parnassus is so much lower is due rather to
the greater competition and higher standard of excellence
prevailing there than to any lack of skill on his part in the
use of the Persian language.
*
That he was of the Shí'a
faith is clear from several of his verses, and from his
Ḥadíqatu's-Su'adá,
*
a Turkish martyrology modelled on
the Persian Rawḍatu'sh-Shuhadá of Ḥusayn Wá'iẓ-i-
As I have referred to Gibb's great work on Ottoman Poetry, I may here express a doubt as to his claim * that the kind of poem entitled Shahr-angíz (or “City-thriller,” as he renders it) is a Turkish invention, and that “there is no similar poem in Persian literature.” Sám Mírzá in his Tuḥfa-i-Sámí (compiled in 957/1550) mentions at least two poets, Waḥídí of Qum and Ḥarfí of Iṣfahán, who composed such poems, the former on Tabríz, the latter on Gílán, and though these were probably written later than Masíḥí's Turkish Shahr-angíz on Adrianople, there is nothing to suggest that they were regarded as a novelty or innovation in Persia. Ḥarfí's poem, called Shahr-áshúb (“City-disturber”) seems to have been bitterly satirical, for the unhappy poet was deprived of his tongue in consequence, as Sám Mírzá relates:
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Though born at Báfq, a dependency of Kirmán, Waḥshí spent most of his life at Yazd. His poetry, especially his Waḥshí (d. 991/1583). Farhád u Shírín and his ghazals, are highly praised in the Ta'ríkh-i-'Álam-árá-yi-'Abbásí, the Átash-kada, and the Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá. * He also wrote panegyrics on Sháh Ṭahmásp and his nobles, concerning which the author of the work last-named remarks that in this branch of the poetic art none of the poets of the middle period can compare with the ancients. He did not finish the Farhád u Shírín, which was completed long afterwards (in 1265/1848-9) by Wiṣál. He wrote two other mathnawí poems, the Khuld-i-Barín (“Supreme Abode of Bliss”) and Náẓir u Manẓúr, besides ghazals (odes) and qiṭ'as (fragments), a large selection of which are given in the Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá and the Átash-kada (pp. 111-120). * The following murabba', or “foursome,” given in both these anthologies, is rather pretty and unusual.
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“O friends, hearken to the account of my distraction! Hearken to the tale of my hidden sorrow! Hearken to the story of my disordered state! Hearken to my description of my bewilderment! How long shall I hide the account of this grievous story? I burn! I burn! How long shall I refrain from telling this secret?
For a while I and my heart dwelt in a certain street: the street of a certain quarrelsome beauty. We had staked Faith and heart on one of dissolute countenance; we were fettered in the chains of one with chain-like tresses. In that chain was none bound save me and my heart: of all that exist, not one was captive then.
Her bewitching narcissus-eyes had not then all these love-sick victims; her curling hyacinthine locks held then no prisoner; she had not then so brisk a business and so many customers; she was a Joseph [in beauty] but found no purchaser. I was the first to become a purchaser; it was I who caused the briskness of her market.
My love was the cause of her beauty and comeliness; my shame gave fame to her beauty; so widely did I everywhere describe her charms that the whole city was filled with the tumult of the spectators. Now she has many distracted lovers, how should she think or care for poor distracted me?
Since it is so, it is better that we should pursue some other aim, that
we should become the sweet-voiced songsters of some other rose-
Although the fancy for thy face hath passed away from Waḥshí's mind, and the desire for thy charming figure hath departed from his heart, and one vexed in heart hath departed in vexation from thy street, and with a heart full of complaints hath departed from the displeasure of thy countenance, God forbid that I should forget thy constancy, or should listen to man's counsels of expediency!”
Maḥmúd Qárí of Yazd, the poet of clothes, who died two
years after Waḥshí and three years before Muḥtasham, was
Maḥmúd Qárí
of Yazd
(d. 993/1585),
and Muḥtasham
of Káshán
(d. 996/1587-8).
mentioned in the preceding volume of this work
*
in connection with the two earlier parodists
'Ubayd-i-Zákání and Busḥaq (Abú Isḥáq) of
Shíráz; while the far more notable Muḥtasham
has been already discussed at some length in
the preceding chapter
*
in connection with the religious
poetry on which his fame chiefly rests. Of the erotic verse
of his early youth and of his panegyrics on Sháh Ṭahmásp
copious specimens are given in the Átash-kada, but these
are neither so distinguished nor so characteristic as his
elegies (maráthí) on the martyrdom of Ḥusayn and the
other Imáms, from which the extracts given in the Maj-