THE
HUNDRED LOVE SONGS
OF KAMAL AD-DIN OF
ISFAHAN
THE
HUNDRED LOVE SONGS
OF KAMAL AD-DIN OF
ISFAHAN
NOW FIRST TRANSLATED FROM
THE PERSIAN BY LOUIS H. GRAY
AND DONE INTO ENGLISH VERSE
BY ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S
SONS : NEW YORK : 1904
Copyright, 1903, by Alfred Nutt
Copyright, 1904, by Charles Scribner’s Sons
INTRODUCTION
AMONG those who have sung of love in Persia
not the least is Kamal ad-Din Ismail of
Isfahan. Of his life we have some brief
accounts, the longest of which is contained in the
‘Tadhikirat ush-Shu‘ara,’ or ‘Memoirs of the Poets,’
written in the fifteenth century by Daulatshah of
Samarkand, whose account of the poet is as follows:
‘Jamal ad-Din Abd ar-Razzak, the descendant of
integrity and the ancestor of honour, had two sons,
Muin ad-Din Abd al-Karim and Kamal ad-Din Ismail.
Muin ad-Din was full of understanding and
wisdom, and Kamal ad-Din also was learned and
wise, and their family was in great honour in Isfahan,
and high grandees bent themselves to the education
of Kamal ad-Din Ismail…. Now the great
folk and the poets name Kamal ad-Din Ismail the
Creator of Conceits, for in his words lie hid subtle
conceits, which after consideration for a little time
become clear…. And the Divan of Kamal ad-Din
Ismail was honoured in the eyes of them of understanding,
but Kamal was disdainful of praise,
howbeit his fame spread through all the earth. Men
tell the tale that in him the wealth of this world and
all manner of talents met together, and ever he gave
succour from his goods in business-wise to the
needy, but certain of them of Isfahan dealt falsely
with him and denied their debt, and therefore he
hated men….
‘And after no long time the army of Uktai Khan
came, and there was a massacre of the folk in Isfahan,
and Kamal ad-Din also was martyred in that
tumult. Now the occasion of his murder was this:
When the Mogul army came, Kamal clad him in the
rags of Sufis and of Holy Men, and chose him a hermitage
without the city. These folk did not cause
him vexation but they showed respect unto him, and
the people of the city and of the quarters of it hid
their garments and belongings in his hermitage, and
all this was in a well within his house. On a time a
young Mogul came, bow in hand, to the hermitage
and threw a stone at a bird. His thumb-stall fell
from his hand and the wrapper rolled into the well.
In the search for the thumb-stall they drew off the
covering of the well and discovered the treasure, and
they demanded of Kamal that he reveal yet other
wealth until he perished in torment and in torture,
and in the moment of his death he wrote with his
own blood this rubai:
“My bleeding heart obeys thy will, O Lord!
Is this the rest my years of homage earn?
Be patient, O my soul; now shalt thou learn
In what strange ways God doth man’s love reward.”
‘And his martyrdom was made on the second day
of the first Jamad of the year six hundred and thirty-five….
And Rafi Lanbani and Athir ad-Din Aumani
and Sharaf ad-Din Shafruh were of the contemporaries
of Kamal ad-Din Ismail.’
Thus, on the twenty-first of December, 1237, died
Kamal ad-Din. Daulatshah has indeed a few other
passages concerning him, but these give little information
more. We read of contemporaries of his,
such as Salman of Saveh, who joined him in answer
to the poetaster Athir ad-Din of Akhsikat, and Mujir
ad-Din of Bailakani, who replied with him to
Hasan of Ghazni. We know, too, that he inherited
not only his wealth but his poetic talents, for Daulatshah
tells us that his father, whose full name was
Jamal ad-Din Muhammed ibn Abd ar-Razzak, was
‘of the lords and great ones and wise in Isfahan.
Melodious was his poesy and high station he held
and perfect favour. And Kamal ad-Din Ismail of
Isfahan was his son, and the Sultan Said Ulugh Beg
Gurgan (God make bright the fame of him!) exalted
the words of Jamal ad-Din Abd ar-Razzak even as
the words of Kamal ad-Din Ismail his son.’ Kamal’s
characteristic note in the eyes of his Persian biographer
is ‘tenderness,’ and in a burst of ecstasy he
declares:
‘Great Jami’s verses, brine-filled as the sea,
Draw all their sweetness, O Kamal, from thee.’
In the ‘Tarikh-i Guzidah,’ or ‘Select History,’
written by Hamdullah Mustavfi of Kazvin in 1330
A.D., there is a brief mention of our poet, saying that
‘He has some dainty verses and has originated some
charming conceits. He has composed sundry scholarly
works, among them a “Treatise on the Bow.”’
According to Hamdullah, furthermore, Kamal wrote
as he lay dying this rubai in addition to the one already
quoted:
‘O Heart, awake once more! What is thy pain
To that of thy dear land by anguish swept?
Last night for one that died a thousand wept,
At dawn not one to weep a thousand slain!’
Thus far the Persian texts on Kamal ad-Din. In
his Divan, as it has come down to us, we find ghazals
and kassidas and his rubaiyat. The ghazals and
kassidas touch, it is true, on ethics and on mystic
lore, but in the main they are devoted to eulogies of
his patrons, to the Chief Justice Rukn ad-Din Said
ibn Masud, to the princes of the house of Khvarizmshah,
Ala ad-Din Tukush, his son Mohammed ibn
Tukush, and his grandsons Jalal ad-Din and Ghiyath
ad-Din, as well as to the Atabeg princes of
Fars, Sad ibn Zangi, and Abu Bekr ibn Said, a patron
of the great Sadi also, besides Husam Ardashir
of Mazandaran, and many more.
But for us Kamal’s chief interest lies not in his
ghazals and kassidas, with their fulsome eulogies of
petty kings long passed away, but in his Rubaiyat
of love. If Omar, like Koheleth, sings ever of life’s
vanity, if Abu Said in his quatrains speaks only of
the mystic unity of God and man, Kamal of Isfahan
knows no theme but the sadness and the passion of
love, whose end is the Triumph of Death.
All we know of Kamal’s heart-history is gleaned
from his poetry. His biographers are silent here,
and rightly so. Only Occidental ‘culture’ stoops
shamelessly to reveal and print the love-lives of the
great. Yet, although the veil may not be raised, we
may, now and again, catch stray glimpses of the figures
which move behind. We know from the Rubaiyat
that his love was unhappy, and that the Beloved
was cruel to him and false. Nor can we reproach
her justly, for however much we idealize the
Beloved and worship her above all else, she is but
woman, varium et mutabile semper.
Of one thing at least we may be sure, if the Rubaiyat
speaks truth—Kamal’s Beloved was of the
daughters of joy, twining her hair, like Lilith, about
the hearts of men. Before the hierodulæ of Astarte
the poets and the artists of all ages have made themselves
an offering. Lesbia, Cynthia, Delia, Corinna,
did they not inspire the noblest poems of love that
Latin verse has ever known? Was it not Phryne
who was the glory of Praxiteles, Aspasia who cast
her glamour over the age of Pericles? India knows
the tale of Bhartrihari, and China the tragic love-legend
of Sai Thâo. Everywhere and ever the God
and the Bayadere! So was it with Kamal. He, too,
loved one who, perchance, like Rahab in Jericho of old,
‘dwelt upon the wall.’ There her gaze might wander
over the fair city of Isfahan, and from her window
she might behold him fallen at her gate, while
from the casement floated her laughter’s mockery.
Yet there is not one faltering note in all the Rubaiyat—only
the passion and the grief of the Lover that
his Love heeds him not. Nor is it strange that he
should worship her. ‘Être aimé d’une jeune fille
chaste, c’est la chose du monde la plus simple. Mais
être réellement aimé d’une courtisane, c’est une victoire
bien autrement difficile. Ches elles, le corps a
usé l’âme, les sens ont brûlé le cœur, la debauche a
cuirassé les sentiments. Les mots qu’on leur dit, elles
les savent depuis longtemps, les moyens que l’on emploie,
elles les connaissent, l’amour même qu’elles
inspirent, elles l’ont vendu. Puis, quand Dieu permet
l’amour à une courtisane … !’ This was the
hope of Kamal, less happy than he who won the love
of Marguerite Gautier. Yet for an instant, even
unto him, longing was reality, as woman gives only
that she may take away. And then at last, despairing
and broken, mocked by the men he had helped
and the woman he had loved, he went forth from Isfahan,
nor came again.
Even to us, children of an after-age of doubt and
sadness, come these faint notes of the everlasting
pain of Love with the strange sweet perfume of the
Beloved, adored in vain. For to them who love as
love the Bulbul and the Gul, there is naught but sorrow,
sorrow so divine that for one moment of its
ecstasy all earthly joy were cheaply lost. Thus Persia
lessons us of Love, its pain, its perfectness. Ah,
Persia! Hafiz, drunken with the wine of Shiraz,
chanting a ghazal to his loveling; Jami, rapt in meditation
on the mystic yearning of Potiphar’s wife for
the ‘moon of Canaan’; Firdausi, singing to an alien
Faith the deeds of his country’s heroes; and, dearest
of all to us, enfants du siècle! the death-march beating
beneath the gliding melodies of Omar of Naishapur.
Through them all, disguised in many chords
and struck in many keys, the single note is Love,
Love that kills, yet knows too how to die; Love impassioned,
burning, sensuous … like the Nightingale,
with thorn-pierced breast, who sobs out his
life to the heedless Rose, that flushes only the deeper
scarlet with the wine his heart pours out.
AN HUNDRED LOVE SONGS
I
My love for thee, O thou the World’s Desire,
Doth fill with anguish sweet my longing soul;
About my broken heart thy tresses roll,
And bind it whole again with bands of fire.
II
Last night I dreamed that thou wert by my side,
And gave unto my grief attentive ear.
I called to thee, and fancied thou didst hear—
O Phantom false, but loved, with me abide!
III
There is no thought of thee that is not dear;
Ay, be thou evil if thou wilt to me—
The pain thou givest is an ecstasy;
Be thou my dream, be thou in vision near.
IV
What though the rose be rival to the sun,
Her cheek is not like thine, O gate of joy!
Rose of the World, whose perfumes never cloy!
Light of the World, whose day is never done!
V
When Wisdom sees thy face, her calmness flies;
The Cypress sees thee, and its rival knows.
The Morning Breeze o’er fair rose-gardens blows,
Breathes thy sweet perfume, and in envy dies.
VI
Whene’er the wine of Joy doth reach my brain,
My talk is of my Love and of the Vine.
Ah! then it is, with eloquence divine,
The song of Israfil thrills through my pain.
VII
The Bird of Pleasure upward soars and high—
Follow, my love, in that celestial flight!
Yea, I will take the sorrow and the night,
That Laughter may see all thy days go by.
VIII
‘They call thee “Moon of Earth,”’ I said to thee;
And straight thine answer: ‘’Tis no empty name’—
Yet, dear, this common glory is thy shame;
Would that thy light were shed alone for me.
IX
Thou wouldst the turquoise bowl of heaven turn,
To pour its pleasures out like perfume sweet;
Ay, use the stars as anklets for thy feet,
While o’er thy brows the seven planets burn.
X
Thou hast no shame of thine unbounded greed;
A golden ring attends thy willing ear.
Alas! It whispers but of gold, I fear,
And thou must listen to its sordid creed.
XI
Thy jewels mock me with their glittering eyes.
I may not woo thee, dear, with gems and gold;
Ah, let me thrust aside their beauty cold,
To kiss the place where each bright ruby lies!
XII
Gold is but dust! Oh, listen, World’s Delight,
Love is the flame of which e’en God is made—
The loss of love should make thy soul afraid;—
Alas! she shakes at me her bangles bright.
XIII
Lo, for one word I have endured all pain,
And now a word hath brought me sore distress.
Yet I did speak because of tenderness;
Alas that Truth must ever warn in vain!
XIV
In hopeless longing all men to thy door
Draw nigh, then turn away with anguished hearts—
Yet love thee still! Oh, strange thy subtle arts,
That keep them all thy slaves for evermore.
XV
And thus I love thee, Soul of all the World,
Though oft mine eyes must weep their tears of blood,
That sear and drown as in a fiery flood,
Though all my heart must in the flame be hurled.
XVI
O love, thy hair! thy locks of night and musk!
The very wind therein doth lose his way,
While in the perfumed darkness he would stray;
And my heart, too, is lost in scented dusk.
XVII
O love, thy hair! such heaven hath never been!
Where’er amid the clatter of the mart,
They talk of Gold, of Wars, of Death, of Art,
Still comes thine all-compelling head between.
XVIII
And when, relenting, thou dost let me pour
My heart’s love in thine ear, beneath that veil
That still o’er souls of all men must prevail;
Ah, then, ’twere well the sun should rise no more.
XIX
Thy crescent brows irradiate the night;—
Love, of thy lips and tresses give thou me—
Thy breast is like the restless, heaving sea;
Thine eyes are stars of sorrow and delight.
XX
And yet thy love is hollow as a shell
Until thine eyes shall have been dimmed by tears,
Until thy heart shall have been torn by fears—
Oh, then, then only, shalt thou love me well.
XXI
Yet grieve not that I grieve, Soul of the Sea—
What is my heart that thou shouldst comfort it
With wine or song, with smile or dance or wit?
Dust of thy threshold is enough for me.
XXII
Yea, I will kiss the dust beneath thy feet,
Nor ask to share the wine-cup in thy hand;
I am a slave, who waits on thy command,
And lo, a slave who finds his bondage sweet!
XXIII
Last night I tossed upon my bed of pain;
The fever of thine absence, like a flame
Consumed my soul—aloud I called thy name,
And all the night thy Vision did remain.
XXIV
I sleep no more; but not as merchants wake,
For thought of wealth’s poor baubles that are lost—
I care no more for barter, venture, cost—
My wakefulness is all for thy dear sake.
XXV
As through a rose-tree, sick with wintertide,
Is seen the surging spring’s new ecstasy,
So in my wasted body thou may’st see
The pulse of this great love thou hast denied.
XXVI
I found thy comb, and, nestled there, a hair,
And that I kissed until my soul was dazed;
I found thy mirror, into which I gazed,
Seeking some shadow of thy beauty there.
XXVII
To quench my love in other loves I sought,
And sang my song unto a kinder ear
With words that burn as scarlet embers sear—
The fairest slave in all the mart I bought.
XXVIII
‘O Turkish slave of mine, with jasmine face,
’Twas Allah’s hand that shaped thy dainty mouth,
Sweet breath from gardens of the flowered South,
’Tis thou hast robbed the leopard of his grace.
XXIX
‘The year that thou wast born in Turkestan,
Rare were red rose-leaves for such lips as thine
That are so small, so delicate, so fine,
Yet may not match thy waist of slender span.’
XXX
I sang my song in praises of her eyes;
Alas! thy tresses wound about my soul—
I could not tear, could not their curls unroll—
I cried: ‘Thou only art my Paradise!’
XXXI
Ah, Tulip-cheeked, thy path is one of hearts;
But mine may never lie before thy feet;
Thy face shames every face, however sweet—
I may not purchase Joy in other marts.
XXXII
I said unto my heart: ‘Thou leavest me;
No more hast thou thy home within my breast.’
My heart replied: ‘With her is life and rest.
I may no longer tarry here with thee.
XXXIII
‘Her eyes and tresses are my daily need—
Starved am I, dying, kept away from her,
Whose body is of spice and nard and myrrh;
Yea, I must follow where she choose to lead.’
XXXIV
Thus is my heart departed to thy care,
And see, my soul unto my lips doth rise;
Grant me one kiss, that so in Paradise
My soul may join my heart forever there!
XXXV
It is for thee my body melts like wax
Beneath the constant burning of the flame;
My blood is kindled at thy very name,
My might doth loosen and my will relax.
XXXVI
O Heart, on grief alone thou still must live,
Nourished by pain and drenched with bitter tears;
Fed on sweet promises for weary years,
Now I have only memories to give.
XXXVII
Ah! Fortune, pity me! behold my pain!
Sorrow alone unto my soul is given;
Let life be short to him whose heart is riven,
Brim not with bitterness the cup I drain!
XXXVIII
My life and youth unto the winds are given,
And for thy sake my wealth is flung aside.
Thy promises the zephyrs scatter wide,
As light as down before the breezes driven.
XXXIX
I drink no more as in the days of old,
Red wine, in token of my love for thee,
Yet not for shame of hallowed revelry
Do I forego its pleasures manifold.
XL
But one should drink in joy, from sorrow free,
And happiness should crown the wine cup blest;
My heart is heavy, and my soul distressed,
Since they have made their dwelling-place with thee.
XLI
Fast bound am I, as are thy tresses long,
And bent am I, as bend thy brows so fair;
Low to the earth I fall, as falls thy hair,
And clasp thy feet, as thy small sandals’ thong.
XLII
The lurking dimple that divides thy chin
Holds greater peril than the deep ravine;
Thine eyes are wells, o’er which I dared to lean,
And now, alas! my heart hath fallen in!
XLIII
Or shall I say, this day I pawned my soul,
And thy coy mole was witness to the deed?
Or, is thy chin an apple, and its seed
This same bewitching, all-enticing mole?
XLIV
Behold my sword from out its scabbard cried:
‘Am I to be forgotten for a maid?
Must I, the flawless one, the faultless blade,
Within this sheath of rust and shame abide?’
XLV
O faithful one, with thee true faith I’ll keep,
To thee I’ll turn my songs for evermore;
Of Life and Death thou knowest all the lore,
Of Life’s warm essence thou shalt soon drink deep.
XLVI
As a strong swimmer dives into the sea,
Deep down and sure in his exultant strength,
Thy naked steel doth plunge its shining length
Into the heart of thy sought enemy.
XLVII
O sword! thou art the blade that moweth men
As men mow down the shrinking blades of grass;
A flash of lightning through the air doth pass,
And, lo! the flowers of blood bloom forth again.
XLVIII
O sword! when in my hand I grasp thy hilt,
The fountain-head of victory is mine;
For conquest flows along thy steel like wine—
Red wine of conquest that thy strength hath spilt.
XLIX
Behold! the curving sea-beach envies thee,
O scimitar, inlaid with golden signs;
The waters envy thee, who, flashing, shines
Brighter than sunlight on the rippled sea.
L
O sword! thou art the very fang of Death!
Thy rubies are his eyes ablaze and red,
Thy pearls the tears the fatherless have shed,
Thy scent of drying blood his battle breath.
LI
And every Sultan oft to thee hath prayed
To hold his throne, O jewelled Grand Vizier;
And where the Sultan, who hath not in fear
Dreamed of thy treachery, O subtle blade?
LII
O sword! could I but use thy cooling steel
To quench the fire of love that burns my soul!—
The well-beloved doth bear a bitter bowl,
And I am drunk with grief as drunkards reel.
LIII
O heart! go thou the way that leads to dust—
Thou art beside thyself and not above
This burning madness that thou deemest love—
Die, and forget, as dream and die thou must.
LIV
As men have died for love that proved unkind,
Oh, may I now find rest, lay down my load;
Strange steps approach me quickly on the road
Where once I heard them faintly far behind.
LV
Since Life’s the Evil … not Death’s final call …
Strive thou to be as dead before the end.
Life is the wily traitor, Death thy friend;
Why fear the gentle hand that ends it all?
LVI
In my life’s reckoning to show some gain,
E’en empty pleasures miserly I count—
Alas! alas! small is their whole amount
Measured against the awful sum of Pain.
LVII
Yet could we reach the Haven of Desire,
We’d spend the capital of Life’s pure gold—
Ay, lose the interest a thousand fold—
And sacrifice our souls to Passion’s fire.
LVIII
Henceforth I swear Earth’s cares are naught to me;
Its joy and woe with equal brow I’ll bear;
O Heart’s Desire! I now no longer care—
Thy garlands are an empty mockery.
LIX
I will no longer strive through night and gloom:
There is no end to Time’s vicissitudes;
He gives us here and there soft interludes
Of Love and Hope—then seals the painted tomb!
LX
And seek not in the stars a prophecy,
For straightway fear shall enter in thy heart—
A dimmed half-knowledge is a poisoned dart
That spreads its venom sure and endlessly.
LXI
Fear thine own shadow—thou thyself art doom—
And tremble at the spectre of thy thought!
Alas! oblivion were cheaply bought,
Whate’er the price, howe’er the future loom.
LXII
Wouldst thou know Peace? Then flee from shining eyes;
Wouldst own thy heart? Leave fervent Love behind;
Break from the perfumed locks that snare and bind,
And shun the rose-sweet mouth that smiles and sighs.
LXIII
All evil was ordained before all time;
My Destiny was writ by God’s own hand;
I have no hope, no fear of His command,
And yet mine anguished Love sobs through my rhyme.
LXIV
O Heart! consider well that Death is sure,
Nor gloom with doubts thy life before its close.
Contentment comes alone to him who knows,
And all things pass, and nothing may endure.
LXV
A Place that hath a Signless Sign is there;
Finger on lip, a changeless Spectre stands.
Patient he waits the voiceless great commands,
Ere for thy feet he set the final snare.
LXVI
O Cypress! Rose! Light of the World! beware!
Somewhere the Archer draws the bending bow;
Silent and swift the fatal arrows go—
And one shall find thy marble bosom bare.
LXVII
There is a Gate men call ‘Eternity,’
Whereunto lead the paths of Dread and Fear.
Each light-spent day brings thee more surely near
Where dimly gleams the Sword of Destiny.
LXVIII
O arrogant! stake not thy beauty frail
Against the magic of the Moon and Stars;
And mock me not because my silence mars
Thine idle mirth and talk of no avail.
LXIX
Plays the dawn wind with violet and rose,
And dimples o’er with smiles the river’s face;
Unto the cypress lends a subtler grace,
And brings the fevered sick divine repose.
LXX
But oh, forget not—insolent with glory—
The wind that opes the rose, the tulip breaks,
From off the bough the almond blossom shakes;
And Death the ending of Love’s sweetest story.
LXXI
But all this talk of cold philosophy
Is but to bind the wounds that thou hast made;
I sit me down within the Plane-tree’s shade,
And strive to conquer all my hopes of thee.
LXXII
And, lo! I see that quivering is the Plane,
Because the Cypress in the garden grows;
His finger-tips of green he outward throws,
That softly he may touch his love again.
LXXIII
My soul is like thy lute of many strings,
And on my heart thou playest all these songs;
For thy soft hand my straining spirit longs—
Hark, from thy touch what endless music springs!
LXXIV
More sacred is thy voice to me, O Love,
Than all the words that God’s great Prophet spake.
Sweeter to hear thy lips my poor name take,
Than know ’tis written in the Book above.
LXXV
Thou art serene and silent as the night,
And yet thy very calmness wounds the most,
And he that might defy thee is a ghost—
Dead is the heart that can resist thy might.
LXXVI
Unto thy face why liken changeful fire?
Or lead thee where the swaying cypress grows?
The cypress I abjure, and mock the rose,
Whene’er I gaze upon my Heart’s Desire!
LXXVII
My pen and I do naught but write of thee,
And thereby show this constant love of ours.
When faults we seem to see in bitter hours,
A sword there lieth ’twixt my pen and me.
LXXVIII
The veil that hides the brightness of thine eyes
Is as the cloud that wraps the moon’s soft sheen;
Thy brows are bows, thy glances arrows keen,
Wherewith to make my wounded heart thy prize.
LXXIX
The comb may touch thy hair, perfumed and curled;
The mirror sees thy beauty face to face.
Would I were Kohl, thine eyes should be my place;
Would I were Henna, and thy hair my world!
LXXX
Thy light heart holds, alas! no love for me!
If God should look with pity on my pain,
And make me tears, thy tears, like silver rain,
Thou wouldst deny me this sad ecstasy.
LXXXI
If I became pure wine, thou wouldst not drink;
A curl, then from thy head I’d severed be.
If I besought in dreams to come to thee,
From my poor vision thou wouldst turn and shrink.
LXXXII
Thou art beyond my Hope’s consuming fire,
I may not win thee though I give my soul;
The Foot of Hope attains not to that goal,
Beyond the reach of Longing and Desire.
LXXXIII
Thou sayest ‘Fire may oft be quenched by tears,
Will thine not cool thy lips that throb and burn?’
‘O Love! Thy Jasmine cheek unto me turn,
And thou shalt know how flaming passion sears!’
LXXXIV
O Love of mine, thy heedlessness I know,
Thy restless soul mine eager wish hath slain;
Thou art a phantom, haunting my sick brain,
The final tear that makes my heart o’erflow.
LXXXV
Thy gentle tongue doth speak in hate of me;
Thy tender soul my woe doth weave and plan.
Dost thou begrudge me this my Life’s brief span?
That I am so denied thy charity?
LXXXVI
My heart hath lost all hope of gaining thee,
Yet prays thee still to ease its grief and pain—
Look forth, my Love, that I may live again,
For sight of thee may soothe mine agony—
LXXXVII
And yet thy hair is musk, as is the rose,
And musk inflames the wound that aches and burns;
Ah! let thy girdle with its many turns
Bind up my hurt, that I may find repose.
LXXXVIII
Thy little shoe the way of Friendship knows,
And all thy charms are in its tiny seal.
It sees sly Hindus pilfer, thieve, and steal,
And so steals hearts as down the path it goes.
LXXXIX
Thy little shoe! It hath a wondrous seal—
Potent as that of Solomon the Wise.
Thy beauty giveth life that never dies
Unto the impress of thy rosy heel.
XC
Thou hast the magic of the Ancient Sign
Within the meshes of thy midnight hair,
Holding the spirits of the winds in snare,
As fast it binds this helpless heart of mine.
XCI
My body and my brain thou hast in thrall;
Though I were dead, I’d rise at thy command,
Would feel the power of thy quickening hand,
And answer to thy softly tuneful call.
XCII
Thy foes expire as dies the candle’s flame,
Blackened and burned, consumed for evermore.
Where hast thou learned the Great Magician’s lore
That thine ill-wishers fall before thy name?
XCIII
When thou art far, no rest my body knows;
With thy departure, Happiness hath ceased.
Thou art to me as Dawn-winds of the East,
The healing breeze that through the casement blows.
XCIV
Who once hath loved thy pale and fervent face,
To him the rose is dead and cold the flame,
Deaf to all music save thy voice and name,
Blind to all beauty save thy subtle grace.
XCV
My heart rebels, and cries, ‘A beggar be,
And haunt her door with supplicating cry.
Perchance she may give ear, and, drawing nigh,
Give thee sweet alms out of her charity.’
XCVI
Joy will I call the Grief thou bringest me;
Thy Tyranny I’ll deck with Mercy’s name;
If thou wert kind, I could not sing thy fame,
For words would learn their hopeless poverty.
XCVII
‘These twenty days I have not seen thy face!
Now, wherefore this?’ the well-belovèd cried.
Before she spake, methought my heart had died;
Now doth she give an hundred years of grace.
XCVIII
Lo! thou didst say, ‘Of thy heart speak to me,
For I would hear thy hidden thought avowed.’
What need of words, when Silence cried aloud:
‘My only secret is my love for thee!’
XCIX
Thy promise thou dost give me laughingly,
And each day sees thy promise is a lie;
Thy wit an hundred reasons doth supply,
Yet finds not one why thou shouldst come to me.
C
Behold! Thy beauty to the world is known!
Unveiled thou art, that every man may see—
Love’s temple walls are fallen, yet to me
My Idol reigneth proudly and alone.
LOVE’S FULFILLMENT
CI
Last night the well-belovèd came to me—
Ate of my bread and drank my crimson wine;
Last night, last night, the Heart’s Desire was mine—
Last night I gave Love hospitality!
APPENDIX
THIS translation of the Rubaiyat of Kamal
ad-Din of Isfahan, the first in any Occidental
language, is based on an undated
edition of his collected works published in lithograph
at Bombay. It contains one hundred and seventy-two
quatrains, from which we have selected
those which lend themselves most readily to translation,
supplementing them with four, the twenty-seventh,
the thirtieth, the forty-fourth, and the fifty-second,
to complete the thread of the narrative in
which we have arranged the verses. In the original,
as in all Persian rubaiyats, the quatrains have no
mutual relation, and there is no effort made to preserve
a logical sequence. Fifteen verses are contained
in Salemann and Shukovski’s ‘Persische
Grammatik’ (Berlin, 1889), pp. *36-*39, eight of
which are not in the Bombay edition. These are
taken from a manuscript (No. 92) of the Library of
the University of St. Petersburg. Manuscripts of
the poet, whose works contain some eight thousand
distichs, are not uncommon. The Bodleian Library
has six, the lodest being written in 1573 A.D. and
the largest and best in 1614 (see Sachau and Ethé,
‘Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindustani, and
Pushtu Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library,’ Part
I., ‘The Persian Manuscripts’; Oxford, 1889, Numbers
638-643, columns 506-509). The British Museum
has five (Or. 473, 287, Add. 18,414, 7092, 7748),
of which the oldest was written in 1598 (see Rieu,
‘Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British
Museum,’ London, 1881, pp. 580-581), and the
Berlin Library one (see Pertsch, ‘Verzeichniss der
persischen Handschriften der königlichen Bibliothek
zu Berlin,’ Berlin, 1888, No. 762, p. 783). There
are four in Stamboul (see Horn, ‘Zeitschrift der
deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, vol. 54, p.
481), at least one in Paris (Bibliothèque national,
1312 du supplément persan; see Blochet, ‘Catalogue
de la collection des manuscripts orientaux formée
par M. Charles Schefer,’ Paris, 1900, p. 65), and one
in Oudh (see Sprenger, ‘Catalogue of the Arabic,
Persian, and Hindu Manuscripts in the Libraries of
the King of Oudh,’ vol. I., Calcutta, 1854, p. 454).
Poems of Kamal are frequently included in anthologies,
as at Cambridge University (L 16.15; see
Browne, ‘Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in
the Library of the University of Cambridge,’ Cambridge,
1896, p. 389), in one at Copenhagen (see
Mehren, ‘Codices Persici, Turcici, Hindustanici
… Bibliothecae Regiae Hafniensis,’ Copenhagen,
1857, p. 34), and in the British Museum (Or. 4110,
see Rieu, ‘Supplement to the Catalogue of the Persian
Manuscripts in the British Museum,’ London,
1895, p. 233). This list is by no means exhaustive,
nor is there any one codex which may be called canonical.
The longest notice of the life of Kamal is that
translated, except for some irrelevant matter, in our
introduction from Daulatshah’s ‘Tadhkirat ash-Shu‘ara’
(edited by Browne, London, 1901, pp. 148-153).
There are, however, numerous briefer mentions, not
only in Daulatshah (pp. 17, 82-83, 104, 136, 141-142,
381, 426, 483) and in the ‘Tarikh-i Guzidah’ (quoted
from Browne’s translation in the ‘Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society’ for 1901, pp. 13-14), but in
numerous sources, inaccessible to us, as in the ‘Safinah-i
Khvashgu,’ Cod. Nr. 663, fol. 285b, in the
‘Maikhanah’ of Hasan ibn Lutf Allah Tihrani Razi,
fol. 230a, and an anonymous Memoir of ancient
poets in the British Museum, Or. 3386, fol. 309a, in
the ‘Mirat al-‘Alani,’ fol. 691, the ‘Khulasat al-Afkar,’
fol. 229, the ‘Baharistan,’ fol. 67, Habib as-Siyar,
vol. ii., Juz 4, p. 190, the ‘Haft Aklim,’ fol. 356,
the ‘Riyaz ash-Shu‘ara,’ fol. 356, the ‘Atashkadah,’
fol. 80 (see Rieu, ‘Supplement,’ pp. 76, 81, ‘Catalogue,’
p 581), and in Halimi’s ‘Bakhr Aghrayab’
(see Lagarde, ‘Persische Studien,’ Göttingen, 1884,
p. 22). There is also a quotation from Kamal in Hafiz
(No. 380, baits 7-8, ed. Brockhaus, Leipzig, 1863).
The additional information thus gained is very
slight. We learn, as the most important fact, that
Kamal, when he withdrew from the world, devoted
himself to mystic contemplation under the guidance
of the Sufi teacher Shihab ad-Din Omar ibn Mohammed
as-Suhravardi, and doubt is cast on the exact
date of the poet’s murder, which took place, according
to the ‘Khulasat al-Afkar,’ in the year 628 of the
Hejira, but in 639 if we follow the ‘Mirat al-‘Alani,’
instead of 635, the year adopted by the best Persian
authorities. Probably the passage translated from
Daulatshah is the most trustworthy in all respects.
The life of Kamal is sketched in outline by Pizzi in
his ‘Storia della Poesia Persiana’ (Turin, 1894, vol.
i., pp. 101-102), and by Ethé in his ‘Neupersische
Litteratur’ in Geiger and Kuhn’s ‘Grundriss der
iranischen Philologie’ (Strassburg, 1895-1903, vol.
ii., p. 269).
There is a translation of three quatrains ascribed
to Kamal, but which are not found in the Bombay
edition, in Rückert’s ‘Grammatik, Poetik und Rhetorik
der Perser’ (second edition, Gotha, 1874, pp.
300-301), and one quatrain, which corresponds to
the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth of our translation,
was rendered into English verse by Mrs. Theodosia
Garrison in ‘Lippincott’s Magazine’ for 1900,
p. 783. Mention should also be made of twelve distichs
from Kamal contained in the Persian ‘Farhang-i
Shu‘ara,’ or ‘Dictionary of the Poets,’ translated
by Hammer-Purgstall in his ‘Duftkörner aus
persischen Dichtern,’ second edition, revised by Bodenstedt,
Stuttgart, 1860, pp. 39, 43, 49, 50, 69, 83,
85, 96, 152, 178, 191), although these verses, even
were they contained in the Rubaiyat, are too fragmentary
to constitute a real translation.
In the division of our work the quatrains have
been selected and translated into verse by Mrs.
Mumford on the basis of a complete prose rendering
by Dr. Gray, who also prepared the Introduction.
NEW YORK CITY, August, 1903.