Haft paykar - The Haft Paikar of Niẓāmī (Wilson)

1,079. “The garden’s lamps and candles”; i.e., “the flowers.”

1,080. Lit., “had removed his baggage and effects.” By “the gardener” is possibly meant the warmer season before the winter.

1,081. As the nightingale is not heard in the winter and the crow is, the author fancifully conceives that the latter has stolen the former’s notes.

1,082. “Hindū” means “black” and also “thief”.

1,083. “Robbed the fire of light”; i.e., was brighter in its effects than fire. “Made swords from water”; i.e., made sharp ice or icicles. “Water, too, from swords”; i.e., deprived them of éclat or honour, brought them into disrepute, āb kardan, having those senses. (Cf. āb shudan, “to melt; to become ashamed, or divested of honour; to grow obsolete.”)

1,084. Lit., “icy coldness,” zamharīr.

1,085. “Egg-plant robes”; i.e., white robes.

1,086. “Two-hued” in respect of day and night.

1,087. Means presumably that the fire which may be struck from stone (flint) kept within the stone because of the cold.

At the same time, the heat of the sun was supposed to be required to develop the ruby in the stone.

1,088. i.e., the roses when made into rose-water or otto of roses and put into bottles had stoppers for these bottles of a species of cement, with which they are fancifully supposed to have covered themselves to keep out the cold.

1,089. i.e., the quicksilver-like globules in the glass of water by being frozen became like pure silver.

1,090. “Winter-house,” tāb-khāna, which appears to be a room with a species of oven sunk into the floor for the purpose of warming.

1,091. Lit., “maintained the nature of the four seasons”; i.e., kept the mean between them.

1,092. i.e., by the burning of such perfumes as sandal and aloes-wood the wintry air was tempered. “Wintry,” lit., “snow-raising,” barf-angīz, the reading of I.O. MSS. 777 and 1491, and of the B. ed. of 1328.

I.O. MS. 1168 reads less satisfactorily ‘ambar-bīz, “ambergris-sifting”; i.e., “scented.”

The readings of the other I.O. MSS. I have consulted are worthless.

1,093. i.e., soothed the brain and gave lively fancies to the heart.

1,094. It is implied that the Hindūs are black as smoke and their devotions as well.

1,095. “Zoroastrian sulphur red of hue.” “Zoroastrian” because of the fire associated with the religion.

1,096. Both hemistichs are descriptive of the fire.

1,097. i.e., the fire after giving forth darting, unsteady flames, settled into a steady glow.

1,098. Descriptive of the red glow of the fire.

1,099. “Gardener”; lit., “labourer.”

“The juice of grapes” means here red wine.

1,100. An allusion to the yellow of the fire and the blackness of the smoke.

1,101. “A veil of musk”; i.e., a black veil (of smoke). With regard to the sun the veil of musk means, of course, a black cloud.

1,102. An allusion to the appearance of the fire through the smoke.

1,103. “A Turk”; i.e., a beauty of brilliant complexion.

“Related to the race of Greeks”; lit., “whose lineage originated in Greeks”; an allusion to the inconstancy and volatileness of the fire, which on account of those qualities is likened to Greeks. Cf. sabuk Rūmī, “the inconstant Greek,” as a term for “fire”.

1,104. Qurratu ’l-‘ain, “lustre and brightness (lit., coolness) of the eyes,” is a name of women. “Lustre of the Eyes of Hindūs” is a reference to the lustrous fire in proximity to the black smoke.

1,105. I have never seen any allusion to “the torch of Jonah”, mash‘al-i Yūnus.

Kalīm, “The Speaker” (with God), is the special title of Moses.

“The Speaker’s lamp” means probably “the burning bush”.

“The feast of Jesus” refers possibly either to the Marriage Feast or to the Last Supper, in which wine is mentioned, which on account of the colour generally associated with it is likened to fire. Cf. ātish-i pur āb; ātish-i tar; ātish-i raz, etc., which are names given to red wine.

“Garden of Abraham” is a reference to the rose-garden into which the fire turned when he was cast into it, according to the Persian legend, by order of Nimrod.

1,106. “Of a musky hue”; i.e., black.

Mirrors were made of metal.

1,107. Yāqūt is a generic name for “ruby”, “topaz”, and “amethyst or sapphire”, according as it is qualified by the adjectives surkh (“red”), zard (“yellow”), or kabūd (“blue”). If used alone it means “ruby”.

1,108. “Ambergris-perfumed” refers to the perfumes burnt in the fire. “Embracing coal”; lit., “(with) charcoal in her bosom,” means, with regard to the young bride, “with long, black hair.”

1,109. “At goldsmiths’ work”; i.e., giving out yellow flames from the burning perfumes.

1,110. i.e., yellow and red.

1,111. “Fuel”; lit., “plants.”

1,112. A snake or dragon was supposed to guard every hidden treasure.

1,113. Lit., “the hell of the people of the caravan to the fire-temple.”

1,114. “The heaven” of those; lit., “the Garden” of those; i.e., the garden of paradise.

1,115. This apparently refers to Bahrām’s Magian guests, and to their gathering close round the fire as devotees.

1,116. The regret is possibly because Satan and hell are called “fire”.

1,117. i.e., beautiful dancing girls were waving their arms in the dance.

1,118. i.e., graceful cupbearers and attendants were circling round.

1,119. The ring-doves are possibly the cup-bearers represented on account of their beauty to have descended from the heavens.

By “blood” is meant the red wine. Or, possibly, it was in the banquet-room as if the sky did this, the “ring-doves” representing glass vessels, and the “blood”, as in the former supposition, standing for the red wine.

Or, again, the first “ring-doves” may mean snow-flakes, and the second, glass vessels, the sense of the distich being that the wintry weather induced them to drink wine.

1,120. I have reversed the order of the two terms of comparison in the second hemistich for the sake of clearness.

The wine is likened to wet fire, and the crystal cup to dry water.

1,121. Kabābs. (See Notes 568 and 1,340.)

1,122. A very special feature is made of wine-drinking among the older Persian kings. (Cf. the Shāh-nāma.)

1,123. “A ripe thing”; i.e., the grape. “Crushed to death.” (Cf. sīmāb-i kushta, “quicksilver reduced to powder.”)

1,124. i.e., they made the path of amusement open, clear, and bright.

1,125. In the two hemistichs the contrast is between the grandeur of the king and the minute particularity of his knowledge, i.e., the subtlety of his intellect in grasping the most minute points.

In the second hemistich daqīqa is, I think, used in the sense of khurda-bīnī.

1,126. i.e., no one has seen either in the outer state or in the hidden mind of any other king.

1,127. “By the glory of (the monarch’s) head”; i.e., through his exaltation and auspicious fortune.

Or, “by the glory of his head” might possibly be an adjuration, but not necessarily so, since the second hemistich may simply supplement the reason for their having everything, and not give another reason when the first has been sufficient.

1,128. “Through his auspicious steps”; i.e., through his coming amongst us and being our king.

1,129. i.e., Would that as regards that enjoyment and prosperity of the king’s there were some means by which the evil eye might be averted. Enjoyment and prosperity are supposed to attract the ill-effects of the evil eye.

The drift of the orator’s words is that all the enjoyment, happiness, and prosperity of the people depend upon those of the king, and that they are so great that the evil eye is to be feared, and a means of averting it is desirable. If the evil eye is averted from the king it will be averted from the people.

1,130. i.e., so that (cf. also the two preceding distichs) the king might ever have as much enjoyment, happiness, and prosperity as at the present time.

1,131. “Fixed (their) hearts upon the speech”; i.e., were pleased with, and acquiesced in it.

1,132. Dama means literally “wind and snow; icicle; asthma”; but it seems here equivalent to the Arabic word ẓīq, “anxiety, contraction, oppression.” Cf. ẓīqu ’n-nafas, “oppression, difficulty of breath, asthma.”

1,133. Shīda, the name of the man. Shīd, a name of the sun.

1,134. i.e., of anything he wished.

1,135. Mānī (Manes), the famous Persian syncretist and painter, the founder of the sect of the Manichæans.

Farhād, who cut through the rocky mountain Bīstūn for the sake of his beloved Shīrīn. (See Nizāmī’s poem Khusrau-u Shīrīn. See also Notes 1,163, 1,165, 1,234, and 1,555.)

1,136. Simnār, the architect who built the palace of Khavarnaq.

1,137. Naqsh means painting, sculpture, and also engraving, and embroidery.

1,138. Lit., “when he saw water in his tongue and fire in his heart.”

1,139. “Form a likeness to”; or “proceed by analogy with”; lit., “take a relation from.” Cf. the following distichs to the end of the speech.

1,140. “He’ll be as the sky,” ḥukm-i āsmān dārad.

1,141. Or, “from my sketches or plans of the business.”

But az, “from,” sometimes has the sense of “for”, so that the meaning may be “for the accomplishment of the business”.

1,142. “Skies”; lit., “fortresses.”

1,143. “Idols”; i.e., “wives.”

1,144. “Signalized”; lit., “having the distinguishing ornament”; or, more literally, “having ‘the shoulder-band of rich stuff worn by kings and grandees’,” ‘alam.

1,145. “In ground-work and in columns”; i.e., absolutely and entirely.

1,146. The Burhān-i Qāṭi‘ and other authorities make each one of certain definite countries dependent upon one particular planet; and certain geographers, e.g., Jurjānī, assert that the nature of the people is influenced by the nature of the planet which governs their country.

The authorities, however, do not agree, except in a few cases, as to which planet governs which country.

The statement of the Burhān-i Qāṭi‘ has been given in Note 207. Authorities generally agree as to the First, Fifth, and Seventh, but not as to the others, and, as a matter of fact, according to the limits of the Climes assigned by geographers, Turkistan, which clashes with Transoxiana, is not in the Third Clime, nor Rūm in the Sixth, but in the Fourth. Part of India is in the First; part of China, but not Khaṭā, in the Second; (Maghrib is in the Third); part of ‘Irāq and Khurāsān in the Fourth; (but Rūm is also in the Fourth); part of Transoxiana in the Fifth; part of the hyperborean regions, the far north, Slavonia, etc., in the Sixth and Seventh.

Maghrib, by the way, i.e., north-west Africa or Barbary, from Tripoli to Morocco, (often Morocco alone), is included by some in the Climes, though not by the Burhān-i Qāṭi‘. (See also Notes 207 and 1,147.)

1,147. i.e., each of the days, as in the Classical and Scandinavian mythology, is under the influence of one particular planet:—

But it will be observed that except with regard to Saturn the order of the planets as associated with the days is different from their order as associated with the Climes. Thus, (beginning with Saturday), Wednesday, the fifth day, is subject to Mercury, but Transoxiana, the Fifth Clime, is subject to Venus.

It is evident, therefore, that the Author, when associating in the Stories which follow any particular day with the Clime corresponding with it in number, is not adhering either to any given order of Climes or to the statements of the geographers. In fact, although he takes the days in order, he is quite arbitrary as to the Climes, giving, e.g., Ṣaqlāb, i.e., Slavonia, as the Fourth Clime, whereas it is in the Sixth and Seventh and still farther north. According to the Burhān-i Qāti‘, as mentioned in Note 207, it is in the Seventh. (See also Notes 207 and 1,146.)

1,148. Lit., “as long as life is on the target of affairs,” tā buvad ‘umr bar nishāna-yi kār.

1,149. “Applause,” āfarīn; “Creator,” Āfarīnanda.

1,150. “Simnār’s formula.” See the Section, “Bahrām finds the picture of the Seven (Fair) Faces in Khavarnaq.”

1,151. Lit., “he had knowledge of a concealed calculation”; i.e., he already had knowledge through Simnār’s formula or communication of what fate had in store for him, so that the words of Shīda had an effect upon him as harmonizing with and confirming that communication.

1,152. “He gave no answer for a few short days.”

The B. ed. of 1328:—

I.O. MS. 402 has:—

I.O. MS. 1168 reads:—

pai bar andākhtan na-dīd ṣavāb, “he did not think it advisable to throw away the tracks”; i.e., I suppose, “to wander at random without proper consideration of the way.”

1,153. Bahrām is the Persian name of Mars as well as that of the king.

1,154. It is not clearly stated, but it seems that this astrologer was not Shīda.

1,155. i.e., had made them as he had promised a kind of parallel to the seven skies.

1,156. “Seven skies”; i.e., the seven domed houses of the palace.

1,157. “That wondrous man”; lit., “that skilful or dexterous one of creation,” ān ṣin‘-i (or ṣun‘-i) āfarīnish.

1,158. Āmul, a town in Māzandarān. There is also a town of the same name on the Oxus.

1,159. i.e., my action is no more from lavishness than Nu‘mān’s was from greed. The action of each was fated.

1,160. i.e., is roasted or parched with thirst. (For kabāb see Notes 568 and 1,340.)

1,161. “Submission,” ‘ājizī, the reading of I.O. MS. 1491.

I.O. MSS. 777 and 1168; the I.O. B. ed. and the B. ed. of 1328 read khāmushī, “silence.”

1,162. “The crown of Kai-Qubād”; i.e., the royal crown of Persia. Kai-Qubād was the first king of the second or Kayānian dynasty of Persia.

“Kai-Khusrau’s crown”; i.e., again, simply, the royal crown of Persia.

Kai-Khusrau was the third of the same dynasty.

1,163. Bīstūn (Behistun), the name of the mountain which Farhād cut through at the command of Shīrīn.

“The whole of the sculpture at Bīstūn,” says Sir John Malcolm, “is ascribed to the chisel of Farhād. He was promised, we are told in Persian romance, that if he cut through the rock, and brought a stream that flowed on the other side of the hill to the valley, the lovely Shīrīn should be his reward. The same story adds that he was on the point of completing his labour when Khusrau (the king), fearing to lose his mistress, sent an old woman to inform Farhād that the fair object of his desire was dead. He was at work on one of the highest parts of the rock when he heard the mournful intelligence. He immediately cast himself headlong, and was dashed in pieces.”

By Bīstūn is meant here apparently the seven-domed building, constructed, presumably, of stone or marble, and adorned with sculptured work. (See also Notes 1,165, 1,234, and 1,555.)

1,164. “Fled”; i.e., the work of Farhād could not compete with this sculpture-adorned stone-palace.

1,165. The popular etymology of Bīstūn is “columnless”, as if from bī-sutūn.

The old Persian form was Bāgastāna, i.e., “Place of the gods.” Bāga is said by the Encyclopœdia of Islām to have been particularly Mithras. (See also Notes 1,163, 1,234, and 1,555.)

1,166. “In those walls”; i.e., presumably, in the walls which surrounded the seven-domed building.

1,167. i.e., the walls were so high that they were as a rampart round the heavens.

1,168. i.e., the domes were not only made of the same colour as the spheres of the planets, but presumably by astrological arts they had in their natures something analogous to the natures of the planets.

1,169. Lit., “of Saturn’s kind.”

1,170. Māya, “essence,” is used here in the sense of gauhar.

1,171. Lit., “And that to which Mars attached a circuit, or a collar, or possessions.”

1,172. “Turquoise,” fīrūza; “felicity,” fīrūzī.

1,173. Lit., “towards or to whose tower.”

1,174. “Through the moon’s aspect throve in verdancy.”

The sphere of the moon was supposed to be green. The word sar-sabzī means both “greenness, verdancy” and “thriving, prosperity”, and it has these two senses here.

In this and the preceding six distichs the colour of each dome is described as being the same as that of the sphere of the planet upon the temperament of which it is said to have been fashioned.

From the third, fourth, and seventh of these distichs it would seem to be implied that each planet revolved round the particular dome under whose auspices it was.

1,175. “Had covenants from them”; i.e., were protected by and dependent upon them.

1,176. Lit., “(were) on their bridal seats.”

1,177. Lit., “a different palace.”

1,178. “Her sweetness”; lit., “her ḥalvā.” (For ḥalvā, see Note 1,459.)

1,179. The “rose-garden”, so qualified, is the world.

1,180. “This two days’ abiding-place”; i.e., the world.

1,181. According to the Burhān-i Qāṭi‘ Shammās was the name of the man who first instituted fire-worship. Hence, the Shammāsian temple is the fire-temple, and the reference is either to its brightness, or to the white robes of the priests.

1,182. ‘Abbāsian means “black”, that being the colour affected by the Abbāside Khalifs of Baghdād, who reigned from A.H. 132 to A.H. 656 (A.D. 749 to A.D. 1258).

1,183. Galia; i.e., galia moschata, a composition of musk, ambergris, camphor, and oil of ben-nuts. Dark or black things are often compared with it on account of its dark colour.

1,184. “Scattering scent”; lit., “making scent.”

1,185. “Black musk” means the darkness of the sky at night, which envelops the moon, here likened to white silk (robes).

1,186. “That Cashmerian early Spring”; i.e., the Indian princess.

1,187. “Perfume”; i.e., utterance as sweet as the perfume of the morning breeze.

1,188. “A case of pearls”; i.e., her mouth.

1,189. “The five turns of music.” It was the custom to play music or beat a drum five times a day before the palace of a king, prince, or governor.

1,190. “The moon’s throne”; lit., “the four-cushioned seat of the moon,” which probably means simply a cushioned seat or throne fit for a king. It might have reference to the four phases of the moon.

1,191. “Sugar” means her lips, and “aloes-wood” her words; but sugar and aloes-wood are sometimes mixed together and burnt as a perfume.

1,192. Simply a compliment to the lady, by which she is, by implication, likened to the ḥūrīs. (Cf. Note 1,795.)

1,193. Lit., “become an associate or friend to us with the story.”

1,194. Lit., “and become a whitewasher or a whitesmith for this black.”

1,195. It is implied that the king behaved so well to the slave-girl that though he is dead, and she is in a position to express a true opinion, she has nothing but good to say of him.

1,196. i.e., it was a very lofty room.

1,197. Lit., “Whoever came he held (his) reins, and received him as a visitor to himself.”

1,198. Sīmurgh is the name of a fabulous bird whose abode was supposed to be Mount Alburz. It is celebrated in the Shāh-nāma as the foster-father and teacher of Zāl, the father of Rustam, the great Persian hero.

In Ṣūfī terminology (cf. especially the Manṭiqu ’ṭ-Ṭair of ‘Aṭṭār) it represents the Divine Essence. (See also Notes 1,208 and 1,558.)

1,199. ‘Anqā, the name of a fabulous bird said by the dictionaries to be the Sīmurgh (see the last Note), but in Ṣūfī phraseology it signifies “matter” in the philosophical sense of the word; i.e., the substratum of all material objects. In the Ṣūfī sense, therefore, it is the direct opposite to Sīmurgh. (Cf. ‘Abdu ’r-Razzāq’s Dictionary of the Technical Terms of the Ṣūfīs, and the Enneads of Plotinus.)

1,200. The “tunic”, qabā, either long or short, is an outer garment open in front.

The “gown”, pīrāhan, is an inner long garment which covers the whole body.

1,201. “The Stream or Water of Life” was supposed to be in a dark place at the extremity of the world, Zalmat or (plural) Zulumāt. The prophet Khiẓr (sometimes confused with Elias or with St. George) was said to have been the only person who found it and drank of its water. Alexander the Great sought but did not find it.

It is probable that the legend of the Water of Life, so commonly referred to by Persian poets, has descended from the Babylonian Epic of the progress of the sun through the seasons, which narrates how the sun after his youth, manhood, and decline in Spring, Summer, and Autumn respectively, perishes in the storms and “darkness” of Winter, but is restored to life by the Water of Life in that darkness, and appears again in his youth in the Spring. (See also Notes 1,562 and 1,698.)

1,202. The qibla is the direction to which people turn in prayer. With Muslims it is the ka‘ba or cubical house in the temple of Mecca.

1,203. Iram, the name of the fabulous gardens said to have been devised by Shaddādu ’bnu ‘Ād, a king of Yaman, in emulation of the gardens of paradise. (See the Qur’ān, lxxxix., 5-7. See also Notes 90 and 1,605.)

1,204. The meaning of this second hemistich is “it has brought me under the ban of misfortune”. The literal sense seems to be “it has drawn the black ink of the pen through me: it has erased me, or smothered me in black”. Cf. the idiom, dar qalam āmadan (lit., “to come into the pen”), which means bāṭil va-khārij az mabḥas shudan, “to become null and void, futile and beside the question,” (so as to be, as it were, subject to erasure).

Another idiom is worthy of notice, qalam dar siyāhī nihādan, “to dip the pen into black ink,” which signifies āmāda-yi badbakhtī nuvishtan shudan, “to prepare to write ill-fortune (against a person).”

1,205. i.e., my white body.

1,206. i.e., may attempt an audacious and impossible thing.

1,207. i.e., he opened his lips and spoke words, likened in their sweetness to the scent of musk.

1,208. i.e., it is a mystery which cannot be disclosed. The Sīmurgh is said to be “existent in name, but not found in body”, maujūdu ’l-ism, ma‘dūmu ’l-jism. (See also Notes 1,198 and 1,558.)

1,209. Natives of both ‘Irāq and Khurāsān were famed for cunning.

1,210. “China’s realm.” This may be China proper, or possibly either Chinese Turkistan, or Turkistan. (See Note 694.)

1,211. “Black silk”; i.e., as regards the moon, the dark sky at night.

1,212. i.e., whoever engages in the intoxicating mystery which that city can offer him.

1,213. Ān savād, “that city,” means also “that blackness”.

1,214. Lit., “fastened (his) baggage on to (his) ass.”

1,215. “Check to king and castle.” The term used here is farzīn-band, “fixed by the queen,” and means, according to Dr. Forbes, check to the adversary’s king by the queen, the latter at the same time attacking the castle.

It should be remembered that in the Oriental game the castle was the most valuable piece on the board.

1,216. i.e., to let me get the better of him by guessing the secret.

1,217. “Iram’s Garden.” (See Notes 90, 1,203, and 1,605.)

1,218. i.e., was dressed in black, musk being of a dark colour.

1,219. Takht or takhta is a parcel of silk goods laid between two boards and fastened at the ends.

1,220. The text adds “a butcher”, but I have omitted this in the translation, the familiar association of a king with a butcher being somewhat incongruous with Western ideas.

1,221. “A piece of iron” means the butcher, probably as a plain man, but one of sterling worth.

1,222. i.e., speak more like a person of mature judgment.

1,223. “When night o´er camphor scattered ambergris”; i.e., when the blackness of night came upon the whiteness of day, ambergris being of a dark colour.

1,224. The ruin was probably an enchanted place, in which they would become actually invisible as fairies are. (Cf. the next distich.)

1,225. i.e., “rise up into the air in the basket.”

1,226. The sphere or sky is called a juggler with rings because it is circular, or because it was supposed to revolve; or again, because it may be said to juggle with the planets in its government of the fortunes of men.

1,227. i.e., I was engaged in a hazardous enterprise connected with the rope.

1,228. i.e., I was helplessly bound by the rope.

1,229. A captive whom good fortune leaves, etc., i.e., one who must remain in prison, and whose neck is bound by a rope.

1,230. i.e., a rope which restrained my body.

1,231. i.e., it saved my life by preventing me from falling out.

1,232. i.e., the rope which had coiled round his neck and kept him fixed in the basket was loosened, so that he fell out on to the tower.

1,233. i.e., piety towards God and invocation of Him.

1,234. Bīstūn, the mountain through which Farhād cut at the request of his beloved Shīrīn. The Author uses the name in connexion with the word “column” because of its suppo ed meaning, “columnless,” as if from bī-sutūn. (See also Notes 1,135, 1,163, 1,165, and 1,555.)

1,235. i.e., he has reduced me to so helpless and desperate a plight.

1,236. “Earth”; more literally, “a piece of earth,” i.e., the man himself.

1,237. Man is here likened to dust, and it is implied that the beauty of the garden had never been impaired by the presence of man.

1,238. i.e., the verdure was full of fresh life, and the water was, presumably, lake-water.

1,239. i.e., the hyacinth and the pink grew there close together.

1,240. The “lips” are the “petals”. (See the last Note.)

1,241. i.e., the blossoms or leaves of the Judas’ tree grew down to the ground in their luxuriance, and those which reached it were cut off, as it were, by the blades of grass of the meadow.

1,242. “This turquoise fort”; i.e., the sky.

1,243. See Note 569.

1,244. i.e., the breeze was fragrant with the scent of them.

1,245. Iram. (See Notes 90, 1,203, and 1,605.)

1,246. One species of cypress is called the “free cypress”, because it grows up straight and free from crookedness, and does not interlace with other trees. Others say, because it is free from change and always green. Others again, because it bears no fruit.

Āzādī, “freedom,” means also “thanksgiving”, and “praise”.

1,247. “I had not gone though endless work had called.” I think this is the sense of na-shudam gar hazār kār-am būd, and that the Author for the sake of the metre uses shudam for shudamī or mī-shudam, and būd for būdī or mī-būd. The sense seems to require the above interpretation, and the word gar, “if,” has no meaning if the hemistich be rendered with due regard to the exact sense of the tenses employed here.

1,248. Collyrium being dark in colour is made an image of the darkness of night.

“Crimson spurned” is an allusion to the setting of the sun.

1,249. “The eastern sky.” This seems to be the sense here of ṣubḥ, which means literally the “dawn”. It refers possibly to the paler streaks in the eastern sky after sunset, since the prevalent meaning of shigūfa, “blossom,” is “‘white’ blossom”. Shigūfa or shikūfa itself comes from shukūfīdan, “to open or split,” and is allied to shikāftan, “to split.”

The hemistich reads slightly more literally, “the flower of dawn was cleft like a flower,” zahra-yī ṣubḥ chun shigūfa shikāft.

In my interpretation I have taken zahra as the Arabic word for “flower”, but it may also be used as the Persian word meaning “gall-bladder”, in which case the hemistich would mean “the gall-bladder of dawn was split like a flower”, the sense being that dawn (by which here “day” must be meant) was scared away.

1,250. “Idols”; i.e., beautiful girls.

1,251. “Pictures”; i.e., beauties.

1,252. Every picture; i.e., every beauty.

1,253. Khūzistān (Susiana), is, or was, famous for its sugar-canes, the sweetness of which is here compared to its disadvantage with the sweetness of the ruby lips of the beauties. The sense of the hemistich is that their sugary lips would compensate for the destruction of all Khūzistān with its sugar-canes.

1,254. i.e., the queen of the beauties approached.

1,255. “The sky was lost to view”; i.e., all the heavenly bodies at night were eclipsed by its light.

The “sun”, of course, means the queen of the beauties.

1,256. i.e., the attendant beauties.

1,257. “Each honeyed one”; lit., “every piece of sugar,” i.e., every beauty.

1,258. “Straight cypresses”; i.e., girls of tall and slender form.

1,259. i.e., as a beautiful bride with all her adornments sits on the bridal throne to await the bridegroom.

1,260. “A resurrection rose”; i.e., “a great commotion arose” on account of the beauty she displayed.

1,261. “With Ethiop troops behind and Greek before.” The Ethiop troops are an allusion to her black hair, and the Greek to her complexion.

1,262. “Two-hued dawn.” An allusion to the appearance of the sky at early dawn when dark streaks are set, as it were, against light. The sense of the distich is that the white and pink of her face were antagonistic to and set off the black of her hair.

1,263. “Narrow of eyes,” an epithet often applied to a beauty, especially to one of Chinese Turkistan.

1,264. “Each cypress”; i.e., each beauty, who was as an earth-born human being compared with her, who was of light, the constitution of the angels.

1,265. i.e., inflaming the world with her beauty as a red rose does.

1,266. “Bird of paradise”; lit., “peacock.”

1,267. “The throne where sat the bride,” jilva-gāh-i ‘arūs; i.e., the throne on which the bride dressed in all her finery awaits the bridegroom.

1,268. i.e., should be in the best and nearest place, not in the outer places. The guest should be muqarrab, a close intimate.

1,269. “The moon’s in concord with the Pleiades.”

By this is presumably meant that the moon is in or with the Pleiades, the third of the 28 lunar “mansions”. If Parvīn, “the Pleiades,” has the same meanings as its Arabic equivalent Suraiyā, I should assume the real sense to be that she, “the moon,” is in concord with her lover, “a lustrous gem,” gauhar-i ābdār.

But since the Pleiades are a part of the sign Taurus, the sense might be that the moon is in Taurus. The effect of this is that the moon, which is receptive, would take the qualities attributed to that sign, and that those subject to this influence would be fearless and strong of will, firm and determined, and also affectionate, loving and of keen desire. The former qualities would help such persons in the pursuit of the object of the latter.

If the hemistich has any sense in this connexion, it must be from the fairy-queen’s ascribing this astrological influence to herself with regard to her lover. (See also Note 533.)

1,270. Bilqīs is the name given to the Queen of Sheba, who was supposed to be a wife of Solomon’s. The mention of dīvs or demons is from the fact that they were supposed to have been in subjection to Solomon. (See also Notes 272 and 1,407.)

1,271. This must mean either that he put his arm round her, or that being seated near her he had her, in a way, in his possession.

1,272. “Gaiety was left without a plea”; lit., “excuses came into a remainder for gaiety.” The meaning is that gaiety had no excuses to offer for absence when the music began after the banquet. In other words, gaiety had to be present. (See also for the same idiom the distich to which Note 1,970 is appended.)

1,273. “A pearl was bored by every unbored Pearl”; i.e., every virgin chanted verse.

1,274. “The dance a square oped, and a circle closed”; i.e., a square was cleared for the dance, and the dancers circled round with hands joined. (Cf. daṣt-band.) Another sense of “setting open a square” would be “giving rise to enjoyment and hilarity” (cf. maidān gushāda yāftan); but the first sense is more in harmony with the second clause of the hemistich.

1,275. “They fashioned tapers”; i.e., they were in their slender, upright figures themselves as tapers.

1,276. “Name”; i.e., fame.

1,277. “Turk”; i.e., a beauty.

1,278. Turk-tāz, “predatory raid,” deriving its name from the raids of the Turks, means also amorous blandishments, which are a species of predatory raid upon the lover.

1,279. i.e., he is as a Turkish raid in assailing her with his love.

1,280. i.e., let us drink wine and make love, and throw aloes-wood (which is dark like Hindūs) upon the fire for perfume.

1,281. “The Magian wine.” Mugh-kada, “a Magian temple,” means also “a tavern”, a sense attached to the term possibly through Muslim contempt.

May-i Mughāna means therefore “Magian wine”, or “wine of the tavern”.

1,282. i.e., let them both be properly served and enjoyed. Khvān, a tray for food, means also a smaller tray upon which dessert fruit and sweets are taken round to the guests to change the taste and be partaken of with wine.

1,283. i.e., do not attempt impossibilities.

1,284. Hindū has also the sense of “slave”, and since it means “black” too, it is used appropriately in connexion with “moles”, which are black.

1,285. The scent of the candles is likened to ambergris, the fire of them to rubies.

1,286. “With rose-decked willow white”; lit., “roses in the willow,” is an allusion to her pink and white skin.

1,287. “Vested”; lit., “in a tunic.” For the “tunic”, qabā, see Note 1,200. The “crown”, as referred to the rose, means most probably its stamens.

1,288. Farẓ-i Īzid means the divine ordinances, the ordinances enjoined by God Himself, in contradistinction to those based upon the precepts or practice of Muḥammad, namely the Sunna.

1,289. Sarāy, the old Mongol capital on the banks of the Volga. Ṣādiq Iṣfahānī says, “the capital of the Qipchāq Plain.” This was north of the Caspian.

1,290. “Like a yellow rose”; i.e., pallid with regret at the absence of the beauties and from the effects of the wine-drinking.

1,291. i.e., presumably, on rose-petals blown down and scattered about.

1,292. “Its musk-pod opened out”; i.e., either “displayed darkness” or “diffused perfume”.

1,293. “Bringing galia”; lit., “rubbing galia moschata”; i.e., “scattering scent.” (For galia moschata see Note 1,183.)

1,294. “Scattered pearls”; lit., “became possessed of a pearl-shell”; i.e., displayed those pearls, the moon and stars.

1,295. “That jasmine sowed, this planted violets”; i.e., the breeze diffused such fragrance as that of the jasmine, and the water brought out such perfume as that of violets.

1,296. “Laid down its head”; i.e., was hopeless of competing with the fragrance of that evening.

1,297. Lit., “The puppets full of gaiety returned, the sky again became a puppet-player.” The sky is called a puppet-player because by means of the puppets, the planets, which it exhibits, it plays with the fortunes of men. Here, however, the immediate sense is that the sky or fortune played upon men through the puppets, the beauties.

1,298. Yaghmā is said to be the name of a city in Turkistan which was famous for the beauty of its inhabitants.

1,299. Lit., “came into the head”; but the idiom may also be rendered, “reached the highest pitch.”

1,300. “Love was associated with the wine”; lit., “love joined hands with the wine”; i.e., love went on pari passu with the wine.

1,301. “Turk”; i.e., “beauty.”

1,302. “Hindū”; i.e., “slave.”

1,303. Lit., “sugar triply refined,” qand.

1,304. “Put a chain upon your door.” The chain here meant is “the chain of justice or redress of grievances”, zanjīr-i ‘adl, which was attached to the door of the king’s palace, so that anyone suffering from injustice might by shaking it at any time call attention to his wrong, and obtain redress. This chain was also called “the chain of Nūshīrvān”, a Sāsānian king who reigned from A.D. 531 to 579, because it was instituted by him. It is spoken of in the Siyāsat-nāma of Nizāmu ’l-Mulk, the vazīr of Malik Shāh.

1,305. Versus ad coitum spectat.

1,306. See the last Note.

1,307. See Note 1,305.

1,308. i.e., may you live, but I shall die.

1,309. See Note 1,305.

1,310. See Note 1,305.

1,311. See Note 1,305.

1,312. i.e., the matter he delicately hints at would not entail serious consequences.

1,313. “To put a horse-shoe into the fire” means to make a person impatient to see you and subservient to your will. This was supposed to be effected by cutting the person’s name upon a horse-shoe, reciting some magic words over it, and casting it into the fire. The use here of the word shabdīz, “black horse,” is in reference to the night which is to pass before he gains his desire. The meaning then of the second hemistich is “Never mind the fact that the black horse’s shoe is in the fire”; i.e., “disregard any feeling of impatience you have for me to-night.”

1,314. “An everlasting lamp”; i.e., one whose brightness never changes with time. The allusion is either to herself, or to unvarying happiness.

1,315. Nard is the Persian backgammon.

1,316. Ham durust āyam archi dīr āyam. This hemistich is most probably taken from the proverb, Dīr āyad durust āyad, “Who comes late comes at the best,” or “One comes the better for coming late”, which is in affinity with the Latin, Festina lente, “Hasten, but do not be precipitate”: do not endanger the issue by undue haste.

1,317. Māhī means “fish”, and māh “moon”.

1,318. The term “sweet basil” is an allusion to herself.

The word used is qaranfulī, which is from its form specific, not generic. It is possibly used for ḥabaq-i qaranfulī, which, according to Steingass, is “sweet basil”. Redhouse, however, renders it “calamint”, and Vullers conjectures melissa; i.e., “balm.” All these plants, however, are of the mint kind, and belong to the natural order labiatœ.

It may possibly be “basil royal”. Steingass renders the Persian word shāh-siparam both “sweet basil” and also “basil royal”. In fact, as regards botanical nomenclature there is often in Persian great confusion, and it is very difficult to identify.

1,319. “Constrained to patience I renounced (my wish),” Bar sar-i ṣabr tauba mī-kardam.

Bar sar-i ṣabr is, I think, probably used in the sense of the Arabic ṣabran, “perforce”; e.g., fa‘ala-hu ṣabrā, “he did it perforce”; lit., “he did it as one in a bound condition.” The only other senses could be, “I made a vow of renunciation (of my wish) in the presence or name of patience”; or, “I made a vow of renunciation in the matter, or on the subject, of patience”; i.e., “I repented of, or renounced impatience.” The sense of I.O. MS. 1491 is, “I perambulated about or towards renunciation (of my wish),” Ba-sar-i tauba sair mī-kardam.

‘Ishva in the second hemistich seems to be used in the sense of firīb.

1,320. i.e., such as the girl who had now been selected.

1,321. i.e., when the day dawned and made the world white and luminous.

Night is called a dyer because it darkens and blackens the white of day.

1,322. i.e., they had ceased to be seen and to adorn. But I.O. MSS. 402, 777, and 1168, and the I.O. B. ed. have for bisāṭ, “carpet,” nashāṭ, “gladness”; 402, and the B. ed. have u, “and,” after nashāṭ, and the latter has ān, “that,” instead of az, “from,” before nashāṭ.

1,323. Ṭarāz, a town in Turkistan famous for the beauty of its inhabitants. (See Note 695.) “Turkistan”; lit., “China,” but no doubt, as generally in such cases, meaning Chinese Turkistan or Turkistan.

1,324. i.e., I was honoured, and enjoyed great good fortune.

1,325. “The earth, of musk”; i.e., the earth of the garden.

“The house, of golden bricks”; i.e., the house where he spent the night.

1,326. i.e., he had bright, sunny days, and at night enjoyed the society of a bright, moon-faced beauty.

1,327. “The moon’s term.” The moon means both the real moon, or rather month, here, and also the queen of the beauties, va‘da, “term,” signifying also, as applied to the latter, “promise.”

1,328. Lit., “the night made the world black upon the stars”; i.e., it totally obscured or obliterated all traces of them. The idiom means also “to destroy or devastate”, but here it is equivalent to rāh-ra bar kasī yā chīzī siyāh kardan; lit., “to make the road black upon a person or thing”; i.e., “to obliterate all traces of him or it.”

1,329. “The palace of the sky’s black coping”; lit., “the ambergris-like forelocks.” The sense of the distich is that the sky was dark and the moon invisible.

1,330. Lit., “made fresh their fresh-facedness”; or more freely, “renewed their cheerfulness of aspect.”

1,331. i.e., with plump hands and full, rounded breasts.

1,332. The meaning is that the idea of candles’ being behind must be discarded when all the candles which, in their brightness, are worthy of the name, namely, the girls’ faces, are in front; i.e., in front of them themselves.

1,333. “Rosy wine”; lit., “wine of the colour of (the flowers of) the Judas’ tree.”

1,334. i.e., by making the wine flow the cupbearers did something in harmony with the music. “Drinking in harmony with the music” is an expression used.

1,335. A crystal bowl or cup is likened to a pearl-shell; cf. ṣadaf-gūn sāghar, “a pearl-shell=coloured cup.”

“Pearls”; i.e., “drops of wine.”

1,336. “Demons”; i.e., “tormenting passions.”

1,337. “With ropes”; i.e., “with the ropes, her locks.”

1,338. i.e., I played with her locks.

1,339. “The long hand”; i.e., “the rapacious hand.”

1,340. Kabāb, meat cut in small pieces, flavoured with onions and eggs, and roasted on skewers. But more generally, roast, baked, or broiled meat. (Cf. Note 568.)

1,341. i.e., your face is so bright that, like a lamp before the sun, I must die before it.

1,342. The person who sees a fairy, parī, or a demon, dīv, is supposed to become possessed, parī-dār, or dīv-dār (cf. dīv-dīd), but the mode of possession is not the same in each case, since the parī is of the good jinn or genii, and the dīv is of the evil. The parī-dār is “possessed” and “fascinated” in so high a degree that the intellect is, as it were, beclouded, as it might be, in a lower degree, by the sight of any extraordinarily beautiful object. (Cf. Note 1,525.)

The dīv-dār or dīv-dīd, on the other hand, is possessed of a demoniacal spirit, and is insane and helpless.

(Cf. Notes 1,525, and 1,620.)

1,343. Lit., “you have again cast the horse-shoe into the fire for me.” (See Note 1,313.)

1,344. The “moon” means figuratively the fairy-queen.

1,345. i.e., I am absolutely overpowered by your brightness and effulgence as a mote in the sun’s rays. By my own being which, like that of a mote is as nothing, I cannot conceal from myself or be oblivious of your overpowering effulgence, in which I am immersed.

1,346. The sense of this second hemistich is analogous to that explained in the last Note.

1,347. Lab ba-dandān gazīdan (or khāyīdan), “to bite or chew the lips,” means “to suffer shame or regret”.

Āb-i dandān makīdan, “to suck the water of the teeth,” means “to have desire or longing”. Another meaning of the distich is, “How long am I merely to taste your beauty?”

1,348. “Warm kisses,” būsa-yi garm; but I.O. MS. 1168 has, tūsha-yi garm, “warm food,” which perhaps in the light of preceding distichs is more apposite.

1,349. i.e., although you are formed for love.

1,350. A “hare’s sleep”, khvāb-i khargūsh, is the sleep either of feigned negligence, or of carelessness and fancied security. Here it signifies the latter, the sense of the hemistich being, “how long will you lull me into fancied security, beguiling me with promises?”

1,351. “This ancient wolf of vulpine craft” is “the world or fortune”.

1,352. “In wolfish, vulpine dealings will engage”; i.e., “will deal savagely and cunningly with me.”

1,353. Or, “like one who is drunk enough to feel equal to taking lions.”

1,354. “You from Khallukh”; i.e., “you are handsome,” Khallukh being the name of a town in Turkistan famous for the beauty of its inhabitants.

1,355. “From Ethiopia I”; i.e., “I am your slave.” In the next distich she expresses her unworthiness of him.

1,356. Lit., “like the full moon.”

1,357. “Beyond ‘Abbādān there is ne´er a town,” Laisa qaryata warā´a ‘Abbādān. The words of this hemistich, which are in Arabic, are evidently an Arabic proverb. They are incorrectly written in all the copies I have consulted. The best is that of I.O. MS. 1491, Laisa qarya(h) varāyi ‘Abbādān, rather a curious mixture of Arabic and Persian.

“‘Abbādān, the most southern town of Babylonia (‘Irāq ‘Arabī). Originally it was on an island on the Persian Gulf and was still there in the tenth century; but now it is more than twenty miles from the coast.” (Encyclopœdia of Islām.)

Jurjānī (about A.D. 1460) describes it as a town at the mouth of the Tigris on the Persian Gulf, but he must mean the mouth of the Shaṭṭu ’l-‘Arab.

Redhouse says, “The island at the mouth of the Euphrates on the Persian Gulf.”

Steingass says, “Name of an island in the Tigris.”

These are both similar errors to that of Jurjānī. Besides this, it is not an island, but a town.

The meaning of the hemistich is that the fairy-queen is the ne plus ultra of desire, and that now that he has her near he must not neglect his opportunity in the hope of finding any one more beautiful beyond.

1,358. “Demand a mat and pour out sand.”

“A mat”; i.e., the mat on which executions were carried out. “Sand”; i.e., the sand put down to absorb the blood shed.

1,359. i.e., “either let me share your throne and be your partner, or fix me on a gibbet as a throne may be fixed on a high framework.”

The word chār-mīkh means both a gibbet and also a framework on which a throne might be erected.

1,360. By “bee”, and “thorn” he means himself.

1,361. “Rose-honey sweets”; i.e., a confection of rose and honey.

1,362. In the case of the dead, i.e., extinguished lamp, the brand would be the blackness of the wick. If murda, “dead,” be taken as murda-dil, “dead in heart,” i.e., “ignorant, wicked,” as zinda, “alive,” is used for zinda-dil, “alive in heart,” i.e., “enlightened, pious, a Ṣūfī,” the brand would be ‘aib, i.e., “disgrace.”

1,363. The I.O. B. ed. and that of 1328 read, bi-gardad instead of na-gardad. If this reading be adopted the hemistich should be rendered, “If the sun turn away from thought of burning.”

1,364. He means presumably (see the preceding distich) that he has been asleep and dreaming up to the present, and that such dreaming is not the desire he had with regard to her. Such dreams, however, come from his having seen her face. (See the next distich.)

1,365. He seems to imply that his nights have been passed only in dreams inspired by her face.

1,366. “Rubini” ad sanguinem in virginis stupratione effusum spectant.

“Sardachates” ad penem spectat.

1,367. The dagger may be said to clutch the waist in so far as it is attached to it.

1,368. The lady who relates the story is speaking here on her own part.

1,369. See Notes 274, 1,201, 1,562, and 1,698. The meaning is that she dressed in black.

1,370. “The king’s umbrella”: one of the insignia of royalty.

1,371. The back of the fish is darker than its head.

1,372. “Black”; i.e., the black of the pupil.

1,373. “The seven thrones” means generally Ursa Major. Here, however, it denotes the seven planetary heavens, to the sphere of each one of which a special colour is attributed, all of them making up the seven colours mentioned here.

1,374. “Higher than black there is not any hue.” The sense is that black, as the colour attributed to the sphere of Saturn, who is in the seventh, farthest, and highest planetary heaven, is necessarily the highest colour.

1,375. “Dawn’s scales”; i.e., the sun.

1,376. i.e., he clothed himself in gold-worked garments.

1,377. Jamshīd, the name of a mythical king of Persia, the fourth of the first or Pīshdādian dynasty. He is said by Firdausī to have reigned 700 years, and to have been killed by order of Ẓaḥḥāq, an Arab invader (Albīrūnī quotes, “of the Amalekites”), who then became king of Persia, and reigned 1,000 years.

The name is composed of “Jam” from the Avestic Yima, “a king,” and “shīd,” Avestic khshaēta, “radiant.”

1,378. An allusion to “the Cup of Jamshīd”, “Jām-i Jamshīd”, or “Jām-i Jam”, which, according to the Persian fabulists, represented the whole world, and hence is also called “Jām-i jahān-namā”. It was marked with seven lines, each of which had a name.

1,379. “Fine or exuberant display” is no doubt, I think, the sense here of ra‘nāyī.

“Amber upon a golden ring” means with respect to the yellow rose the yellow stamens with the petals. With regard to Bahrām it signifies that in his dress he added yellow to yellow in the way of yellow stones, golden ornaments, and gold-worked garments.

1,380. “That sweet-spoken bride”; lit., “that sugar-scattering taper.”

1,381. Lit., that she should associate rubies with sugar-candy.

1,382. Lit., “He desired her to engage in flute-playing,” but the author means, “to speak in flute-like tones.”

Arghanūn, generally rendered “organ”, means, according to the Burhān-i Qāṭi‘, any wind-instrument of music. Other meanings given by that dictionary are not applicable here.

1,383. “Adorned and lovely.” I have translated Chīnī-bāz so on the analogy of ‘arūs-bāz; but Chīnī-tāz, “of Chinese beauty,” or Chīnī-nāz, “of Chinese coquetry,” may be the correct reading.

1,384. Ṭarāz, a town in Turkistan famous for the beauty of its inhabitants. (See Note 695.)

1,385. i.e., loses his head.

1,386. New Year’s Day in the Persian Calendar is the 21st of March, the beginning of Spring.

1,387. Lit., “she would raise her head in lady-consortship.”

1,388. See Note 695.

1,389. This and the preceding distich are remarks of the Author’s. The meaning is that flattering is as mischievous in a meddlesome fool as adornment in a balista. The flattery of the one is as misleading as the adornment of the other.

1,390. i.e., each one disdained the affection he showed her.

1,391. “The picture-house of China’s realm”; i.e., probably, either of Chinese Turkistan or of Turkistan, both famous for their “pictures” of beauty. The Author speaks later of the slave-dealer himself as the merchant from Cathay, but Khaṭā (Cathay) may be either North China or Chinese Turkistan. (See the end of Note 694.)

1,392. Khallukh, a town in Turkistan famous for the beauty of its inhabitants.

1,393. To have the ear bored for a ear-ring and to wear one was a token of slavery.

1,394. Lit., “although her tray is given over to sugar, there is (only) a dish of liver from it for the people.”

By the first hemistich is meant that she is all sugary sweetness. In the second the word jigar “liver, heart”, means also “affliction”; i.e., here, affliction through love of her.

1,395. The slave-dealer is speaking here on his own part.

1,396. i.e., as surely as you do the one the other will follow. This peculiar mode of expression in Persian is always indicative of the uselessness of some act supposed.

1,397. The second hemistich is not a metaphor of particular application, but must be taken more generally as an adverbial amplification of the first, and it might be freely rendered, “in these abnormal and disconcerting circumstances.”

Nard is the Persian backgammon.

1,398. Lit., “his heart was not becoming satiated with the girl.”

1,399. Lit., “except the door of intercourse, which she closed.”

1,400. See the distich to which Note 1,388 is appended.

1,401. This I take to be the nearest approach to the sense of the hemistich, Garchi z’-ān Turk dīd ‘aiyārī. “Turk,” in addition to its primary sense of “Turk”, means a “marauder” and also a “charmer”. The renderings of ‘aiyārī given by Vullers, Steingass, and Redhouse are quite inapplicable here, but the proper sense can be fairly well gathered from the quotations offered by Vullers as well as from passages in other writers.

1,402. The moon is here likened to a basin, and the Author implies that it is so inferior in beauty to the girl’s face that it is only worthy of bearing a jug to her as a slave to her mistress. The image is taken from the fact that the basin bears the jug.

1,403. Lit., “of just standard or measure.”

1,404. “To stimulate her heart and soul.” This, I think, is the right sense of az bahr-i ān dil-angīzī. Dil-angīzī is not in the dictionaries, but the compound, dil-angīzān, is given as a form of music, and evidently means music of a stimulating, rousing nature. (Cf. Note 1,506.) Ān in the hemistich means “a certain”, and ān dil-angīzī, consequently, “a certain (amount of) stimulation.”

1,405. Lit., “he sprinkled sugar over morello cherries,” kard bar nārvan shakar-rīzī.

“Sprinkling sugar” means speaking eloquently and sweetly, and “cherries” mean here lips or mouth, so that the sense is “he poured forth from his mouth eloquent and sweet words”.

By the word nārvan, “morello or sour cherries,” the Author may intend to convey also that the king in order to excite the girl’s interest sweetened his adjuration by an eloquently spoken narrative.

But all authorities do not give “morello cherry” as an equivalent of nārvan, though all give “pomegranate”. If the latter be preferred the additional sense suggested cannot be entertained, and “pomegranate” would mean the lips or mouth simply with regard to colour, and not to taste.

1,406. “Sextile aspect” denotes the aspect or position of two planets when distant from each other 60 degrees or two signs. This position is marked thus: *. A sextile aspect, it should be added, is an auspicious one.

1,407. The name given by the Commentators to the Queen of Sheba. An account of her visit to Solomon is given in the Qur’ān, xxvii., 22-45. (See also Notes 272 and 1,270.)

1,408. Lit., “loose at the joints,” gushāda az paivand.

1,409. “The Guarded or Preserved Tablet,” Lauḥ-i Maḥfūz. “In the Ḥadīs (the Traditions), and in theological works, it is used to denote the tablet on which the decrees of God were recorded with reference to mankind.” (Hughes’s Dictionary of Islām.) In Ṣūfī phraseology it is used to denote the Qur’ān, or the Universal Soul.

Al-Lauḥ. Huwa ’l-Kitābu ’l-Mubīn, wa-’n-Nafsu ’l-Kullīya (‘Abdu ’r-Razzāq’s Dictionary of the Technical Terms of the Ṣūfīs).

1,410. i.e., in order to see your beauty eyes were created.

1,411. “The fount of light”; i.e., the sun. The evil eye is supposed to have special influence over a thing of beauty.

1,412. The gardener or porter of paradise is called Riẓvān.

1,413. Muhr, “seal,” means here, presumably, “control.” Mihr, “affection,” is scarcely applicable.

1,414. Roses escape from the hands of people because of their thorns; the child, because he no longer requires their hands to do for him what his own can now do.

1,415. The Persian dīv means sometimes the same as the Arab evil genius, the evil jinn. It has often the sense of an assistant-demon to Satan, or of Satan himself, all these being of the evil jinn. The parī or “fairy”, on the other hand, is of the good genii, a good spirit.

1,416. The legendary Fish that was supposed to support the Ox which was imagined to bear the world, and hence the lowest place or depth. (See also Notes 739 and 1,060.)

1,417. Lit., “to see what gift he has brought me from the road.”

1,418. “God’s sanctum”; i.e., the territory, city, mosque, or precincts of the cubical house in the temple of Mecca.

1,419. The king of ‘Irāq resumes his address to the slave-girl.

1,420. The connexion between the preceding distich and this one is that though the king on his part consents to make no demonstration of love, it is surprising that the slave-girl, being so beautiful and formed for love, should on her part make no demonstration. “Abandoned thought of love”; lit., “accustomed yourself to not loving.”

1,421. “The limpid spring” is taken metaphorically as the king’s mind, in which the straightness of truth or the crookedness of falsehood would be discovered, as the form of the cypress would be reflected in the spring.

1,422. i.e., since my secret has been disclosed.

1,423. i.e., every person should step according to his stature, or, in other words, adapt himself to his circumstances.

1,424. “A handful of corn,” khvarish. Khvarish-i dast-ās is described as “a handful of corn thrown preliminarily by the miller into the mill-hopper”.

1,425. i.e., she tries to attract the attention of any man of open countenance who might be assumed to be liberal.

1,426. The literal sense of “rubies” is the pulp of the pomegranate; and of “pearls” the seeds. The “pomegranate replete with seeds” expresses metaphorically the breasts of a woman who has become fully developed; and the sense of the distich is that when so developed she has become experienced too in the knowledge and appreciation of the value of rubies and pearls, and, as the Author seems to imply, she covets them.

1,427. Sar-sabz, “verdant,” signifies also, as regards the immature girl, “happy and fortunate.” Rū-siyāh, “black of face,” means also, with respect to the adult woman, “sinful, disgraced, unhappy, and unfortunate.”

1,428. “Raw” means here metaphorically “inexperienced or unpractised as regards women”, and “ripe” the reverse of this. Both terms are used in connexion with “gourd”, which here signifies metaphorically membrum virile. The Author intimates that it is wise to abstain from women, and unwise to have intercourse with them.

1,429. i.e., even the black night is made beautiful when it has the moon in her lustrous purity.

1,430. i.e., she accomplished her business of excuse making, and did not trouble about the result.

1,431. Lit., “that kingly Moon.”

1,432. “One of mighty frame,” or, in the alternative, “a Rustam,” the Persian hero, who was entitled “Tahamtan”, “the strong-bodied one”. (For Rustam, see Notes 212, 1,035, and 2,078.)

1,433. “Had lost his might,” az tanī ūftāda, which means “had lost flesh and strength”. Neither this expression nor its equivalent, az bunya (binya) uftāda, occurs in any dictionary I know. I have seen the latter idiom, however, in newspapers. The expression might be taken also in a moral sense.

1,434. In this distich “a fay” means the slave-girl, and in the next “Sun” and “Moon” mean the same.

1,435. “The bow of an old woman”; i.e., the curved back of this particular old woman.

1,436. It is possible that this “spell-casting” means simply “deceit”. Afsūn (or fusūn), the word used here, signifies both.

“The world-illuming Sun” is the slave-girl.

1,437. i.e., the scheme seemed to him to shape well.

1,438. “One knowing ḥaram life.” This I take to be the sense here of parda-parvar, which is not found in the dictionaries. It might also, however, mean “a skilled musician”, and it is possibly in connexion with this sense that the Author uses the word “narm”, “soft, gentle, submissive, lowly, docile”, since this word signifies also “the bass or low” in music.

1,439. It is only by the consideration of a few words in this and the preceding two distichs that it is seen that the Author by his art, whilst apparently describing the girl as a juggler, a conjurer, a musician, and a tumbler, is speaking of something quite different.

1,440. This may also be rendered “against the grain a miser gave away”.

1,441. The B. ed. of 1328 reads:—Gāh gāhī dar ān figandī dast; vaqt-i ḥājat ba-ān kashīdī dast, with no proper rhyme.

I would venture to suggest that the correct reading in the second hemistich may be gushādī shast; lit., “would open the thumbstall,” i.e., “would aim at.”

1,442. Lit., “hic suum cor, margaritam perforavit illic”; i.e., quod ad hanc puellam attineret mœrorem passus est, cum illa puella coiit.

1,443. “Non perforata margarita”; i.e., virgo intacta.

1,444. “Concupiit perforata esset margarita”; i.e., concupiit ut rex secum coiret.

1,445. “The dust,” gard. Gard-i māh means also “moonbeams”.

1,446. “The Moon’s face”; i.e., the slave-girl’s face.

1,447. Tanūr is a circular, open oven of earthenware.

“Storm” is used here, of course, in a metaphorical sense, and refers to the mental disturbance excited by the old woman’s machinations, whether enchantment was used by her or simply deceit. It has been intimated, however, that she was an enchantress or species of witch, and such, it is known, were supposed to be able to raise real storms by means of their cauldrons or ovens and magic arts. (Cf. also Note 1,454.)

1,448. Taken in connexion with the last distich but one, the meaning is possibly that though the day has no choice, but must begin with brightness and end with darkness, the king has free will and should not change from one course to the opposite without some sufficient reason.

1,449. i.e., “why do you make me suffer the sharpness of grief?” Vinegar is likened to eve because of its dark colour.

1,450. i.e., “Non repugnabo quin rex me vitiet.”

1,451. The Author means possibly, “in order that I may not become moved out of myself and absolutely distraught, for I am now in a mood for it.”

1,452. “Of every kind”; lit., “both fit and unfit to be spoken.”

1,453. The “water” and “iron” are apparently allusions to the coldness and hardness of heart of the slave-girl. The sense is presumably that the fire in the king’s heart should warm and soften that of the girl, but that even if it did not (see the next distich), his mind is so set on her that the pain of the love for her is preferable to him to his remedy of intimacy with the other girl.

1,454. Lit., “the old woman was a smoke-raiser in the midst.” Dūd-afgan, lit., “a caster or raiser of smoke,” means “a sorcerer or sorceress who by burning aloes-wood, frankincense, wild rue-seed, and a species of bdellium raises incense and smoke, and by this and an incantation summons genii to do his or her bidding” (Burhān-i Qāṭi‘).

Dūd, “smoke,” means also “affliction”, a sense which is applicable also in the hemistich.

1,455. “The old dame’s cold,” bardu ’l-‘ajūz, is the name given to a period of cold weather lasting from about the 7th to the 14th of March, so that the sun enters Aries, and the New Year and Spring in Persia begin about a week after the cessation of this cold. By the sun’s entering Aries it is meant that the Spring of happy days is beginning for the king.

1,456. “Delight.” This sense of nāz is not given in the dictionaries, but it is established by many passages in this poem and other Persian writings.

1,457. “The lily-finder.” An allusion to the slave-girl as having a lily-white bosom.

“Unto the lily-scented cypress-tree”; i.e., to herself.

1,458. As usual, “the Chinese form, figure, or beauty,” naqsh-i Chīn, means a beauty of Chinese Turkistan. It is often, like “Turk”, applied as a compliment to any beauty.

1,459. “Ḥalvā, a certain sweet dish prepared in many varieties with sesame oil, various cereals, and syrup or honey” (Redhouse).

Saffron is sometimes added, principally because it is supposed to possess stimulant, exhilarating, cordial, and antispasmodic properties.

The Author by saying that the pleasure of ḥalvā dressed with saffron comes from yellowness means of course that it comes from the yellow ingredient saffron, but it may be noticed that most of the ingredients of the dish are yellow.

1,460. “Its yellow veil”; i.e., the material of which it is made.

1,461. A reference to the golden calf. See the Qur’ān, ii., 48, 88; iv., 152; vii., 146, and xx., 90. The meaning is that the real value of the calf was in its gold.

1,462. “Yellow ochre,” ṭīn-i aṣfar, or gil-i zard, is hydrated oxide of iron more or less mixed with clay, in which state it occurs naturally. Having when taken blood-enriching properties, it is stimulant and exhilarating. It is consequently, as the Author says, precious like gold because it is a source of joy.

1,463. i.e., he prepared to set out with great pomp.

Sar-sabz, translated “fortune-favoured”, means in the first place “verdant, green”, the colour on this occasion of the royal canopy or umbrella.

1,464. Lit., “The king was lighted up like a green candle”; but bar-afrūkhta means also “bright, rejoicing”.

1,465. The angels are supposed to be clothed in green.

1,466. “The garden of the stars” means the sky.

“This verdure emerald-hued” is also the sky, part of which near sunset inclines to green. By “vernal blooms” are meant, as generally, “white blossoms.” The sense of the distich is, “When the stars studded the sky with their white or silvery orbs”; i.e., when the stars came out (and it was night).

1,467. “Green-throned”; i.e., possibly, “seated in the heavens” (see Note 1,466), but may be either a compliment to the lady as one fit to be in the heavens with the ḥūrīs (cf. Notes 1,192, and 1,795), or a reference to her being on a green throne in the Green Dome.

1,468. More literally, “to open the sack and disclose the sugar.”

1,469. i.e., began to disclose what was in her mind to the wise and powerful king.

1,470. Kings lived much in tents both for war and also for the chase.

1,471. “Gate” means the king’s court, since the king sat at the gate to administer justice. The crown and throne may be said to be the threshold of the king’s Gate or court, since they are symbols of his power, and it is through that power that the people may expect justice at his Gate or court.

The meaning of the second hemistich of the next distich is that the king’s sovereign power is upheld by his justice, symbolized here by his Gate or court.

1,472. Lit., “she let flow a spring of sugar from cornelian”; but ‘aqīq, “cornelian,” means also a “channel, watercourse, or ravine”.

1,473. Rūm, a name formerly applied to the lower Roman empire and Asia Minor. It is now applied by the Persians to the Ottoman empire.

1,474. Lit., “in a wrapper of raw, undressed (stuff).”

1,475. Cf. the third and fourth distichs of this story.

1,476. i.e., she was like a rose in face. With the rose is contrasted the cypress to which her stature is likened.

1,477. “One of fair face washed with the pheasant’s blood.” This, I think, is as near as one can get to the Persian Shusta-rūy-ī, valī ba-khūn-i taẕarv, which rendered literally is “One of washed face, but (washed) with the pheasant’s blood”.

“The pheasant’s blood” is of course an allusion to the rosiness of her face.

1,478. i.e., disturbance of heart and trouble amongst her lovers.

1,479. Lit., “the showing through (of her face),” ‘aks having that sense here.

‘Aks means “reflection” as in a mirror, and also “the appearance of a thing through a transparent or translucent substance”.

1,480. “More dusky”; lit., “more ambergris-diffusing”; but this perfume, though greyish, is generally used as an equivalent of musk, and referred as often to blackness of colour as to sweetness of scent.

1,481. “More dusky”; lit., “more infidel or impious,” nā-musulmāntar. Nā-musulmān is equivalent to kāfir, which besides its literal meaning has also the sense of “black”.

1,482. “A lonely wanderer” is a term applied to the moon as moving in solitary, unequalled grandeur among the stars. It is applied here in a similar way to the girl as one unequalled among others.

1,483. Expresses his mental condition after awaking from his stupefaction.

1,484. Lit., “and if I become patient, cold,—where are patience, coldness?”

1,485. Lit., “may make this business easy for me.”

1,486. Lit., “if any (thing) more or less should come to any grain.” Kam-u bīsh, “less or more,” generally used adverbially, occurs sometimes as a noun. (See quotations in Vullers.)

1,487. Lit., “the bottle in which urine is tested.”

1,488. The allusion in the first hemistich is to the sorcerer’s practice of writing or cutting on a horse-shoe the name of a person he wishes to bring under his control, putting the shoe into the fire, and reciting the appropriate spell. By this means the person is perturbed and drawn under the sorcerer’s influence.

In the second hemistich the “amber’s power” is its electrical or attracting power, and “pearl and ruby” are allusions to the teeth and lips of a beauty. Thus the sense of the distich is that Malīkhā can by his magic power draw people under his influence as well as a beauty can by her charms.

It is possible that there may be a sub-allusion to the pale yellow colour of amber, so that we might have the secondary sense, that his magic power can make people perturbed and pale as well as the charms of a beauty can her lovers.

1,489. In the second hemistich there is a jeu de mots which is lost in translation. A “pied snake” is mār-i pīsa(h), and “palm-fibre rope” is pīs-rasan. The Persian word pīs, besides its more usual senses of “leprous, white, pied”, means also “the dwarf palm-tree”, khurmā-yi Abū Jahl, of the fibrous bark of which ropes are made. From this last meaning of pīs, taken in its literal sense of “the palm-tree of Abū Jahl”, it may be assumed that its fibrous bark is taken to be the masad mentioned in the Qur’ān as the fibrous bark from which the rope for the neck of Abū Jahl’s wife was made.

Abū Jahl was Muḥammad’s uncle and enemy, and he and his wife Umm Jamīl are bitterly cursed in the Qur’ān, sūra cxi.

1,490. The sense of talisman here is an image prepared with magic arts attached to a buried treasure to prevent any unauthorized person from finding and taking it. This is a particular application of its general sense of such an image fixed in the ground for the purpose of preventing people from going beyond a certain limit.

The word talisman sometimes also signifies an amulet against enchantment or fascination, and sometimes a spell or charm to effect some purpose.

Finally, any mechanism that appears mysterious or is not understood may be called a talisman. (See Nizāmī’s Sikandar-nāma-yi Baḥrī; see also Note 553.)

1,491. “Skilled master,” faḥl . . ustādī. Faḥl is sometimes prefixed to a noun adjectivally in the sense of “unusually fine of its kind”. So, we might say, faḥl baṣal, “a fine, large onion.”

1,492. “Frigid”; lit., “raw, unburnt,” as opposed to “burning” applied to “smoke” in the preceding distich.

1,493. i.e., one should not live in the state of abject ignorance of the ox or ass.

1,494. More literally, “how long will you fashion things to the Pen?” By “the Pen” is probably meant “the Pen with which God is said to have pre-recorded the actions of men”. “The Prophet (has) said (that) the first thing which God created was the Pen (Qalam), and that it wrote down the quantity of every individual thing to be created, all that was and all that will be to all eternity (see the Mishkát).” (Hughes’s Dictionary of Islām.) In Ṣūfī phraseology “the Pen” signifies the Universal Intellect, and the expression quoted from Hughes is tantamount to that in another Tradition: Auwalu mā khalaqa ’llāhu ’l-‘Aql, “The first thing which God created was the Intellect.”

The ‘Aql corresponds with the “” of St. John.

The “Pen” might also mean simply what is written or recorded in theological books, naql, “relation,” as opposed to “reason, intellect”. (Cf. the word ḥujjat, “argument, reason, proof,” in the first hemistich.)

1,495. Lit., “I am not without knowledge of the secrets of affairs.”

1,496. I have translated on the supposition that na-bāyad raft, “one should not go,” is the reading intended, though raft is not a perfect rhyme to guft in the first hemistich.

The perfect rhyme ruft does not make so good sense, but if it were adopted, the second hemistich would signify, “one should not sweep the path of one’s own fancy and conceit”; i.e., one should not allow a clean and clear path for one’s own fancy and conceit.

1,497. “Yon side of the Veil” is the spiritual world, the Universal Spirit, which embraces the prototypes of all things of the phenomenal world and their relations of cause and effect to one another.

The distich means that, as we cannot reach the spiritual world and understand its prototypes and their relations, we cannot understand the pictures or reflexions of those prototypes and their relations in this phenomenal world.

This must be taken with limitations, since the Ṣūfī saint is supposed to have reached the position of Universal Spirit, and to grasp all things and relations by intuition, and not by discursive reasoning.

1,498. i.e., though we may strive to get at the meaning of things and their relations in this world, our conclusions will not be unattended by some error. Therefore no trust can be placed in our reading of these pictures of the phenomenal world. (See the previous distich.)

1,499. i.e., at the Resurrection the truth will be known.

In the second hemistich ghalaṭ bāzand is used, I think, in the sense of taghlīṭ kunand, “they will lead into error,” or “accuse of error”. It should be added that bākhtan, “to play,” means also “to give”, so that ghalaṭ bākhtan may signify ghalaṭ dādan, “to lead into error,” and, if my conjecture have support, “to accuse of error.”

1,500. ‘Azīmat, “a sacred incantation, spell, or amulet” —often composed of verses of the Qur’ān—which compels demons (dīvs) to attend on and obey the person who recites or writes it.

1,501. Kabābs. (See Notes 568 and 1,340.)

1,502. This distich is the peroration of Malīkhā’s speech. The first hemistich means “Solve difficulties in such a manner”.

1,503. In this and the preceding two distichs Bashr is alluding to the way in which he and Malīkhā respectively interpret the jar and water.

In the first hemistich of this distich I have rendered pīshī by “at first”, which is most probably its meaning here, though the dictionaries explain it only as a noun. But there is no reason why it should not have an adjectival signification, and hence an adverbial. Its adverbial use might be explained too on the analogy of ‘āqibat for ba-‘āqibat or dar ‘āqibat.

1,504. “Wallets”; i.e., travellers’ food-wallets, which can be spread out as cloths.

“Drank water (from the jar)”; lit., “gave out water,” āb dar dādand; i.e., presumably, ladled it out with their hands.

1,505. Lit., “Do not be a mixer of colours in such a jar”; i.e., do not mix the colours of your dirt in its water. But rang-āmīz, “a mixer of colours,” means also “deceitful, full of stratagems, crafty”, so that we might also translate “Do not play tricks upon, or be treacherous to this jar” (which has given you water).

1,506. “With stimulated heart,” bā dil-angīzī. (See Note 1,404.)

1,507. It should be remembered that mirrors were made of metal.

1,508. “Tried,” fitna, here used as maftūn.

1,509. i.e., henceforth we must be strangers.

1,510. “That sample of the base,” ān namūna-yi ni‘āl; lit., “that sample of shoes.”

Ṣaff-i ni‘āl, “the line or rank of shoes,” is the place near the door where the shoes of those who enter the house are left and where people of the lowest class sit. Hence I am assuming that these people are taken as the shoes among which they sit. Cf. the term sifla, “a low, mean, or ignoble person,” applied by Bashr to Malīkhā in the third distich after this.

1,511. This second hemistich is very elliptically and obscurely expressed. It means that Malīkhā spoke contemptuously of people as no better than dead, and so neither men nor women.

1,512. If sar-gushāda be for the comparative, sar-gushāda-tar, the sense would be, “A well more open than a road before (you).”

1,513. i.e., the decision of neither was founded upon the real nature of the water, although one of the two might have been so, since they were contrary or most widely opposed to one another, one being good, the other bad.

With respect to the literal meaning, the property of water which corresponds best with “clashing” is its forcefulness, especially when we keep in mind the other senses of āb, “water,” namely, “lake, river, sea, ocean.” Then āb itself too means “power, forcefulness”, as well as “lustre, radiance, effulgence”; and, as it signifies also the Universal Spirit, we may perhaps assume that this is the real meaning of the jar and water; for though the jar would seem to circumscribe, it will be noticed that when Bashr examines it more closely it appears to expand indefinitely.

1,514. i.e., taking the jar and water as the Universal Spirit (see the last Note)—all our philosophical disquisitions and formal inquiries into its nature result only in trouble and affliction to our individual, partial spirits. It can only be appreciated by the Ṣūfī saint who has attained to its position by following out the Path. (See C. E. Wilson’s Translation of Rūmī’s Masnavī, Book II.)

1,515. “The work”; more literally, “the picture or form (made)”; i.e., the result in this phenomenal world of God’s idea in the spiritual world was not what we thought it.

This seems to refer more to Bashr’s previous words regarding God’s pre-recordings, but with respect to the Universal Spirit it would mean that, though it may be appreciated by the Ṣūfī saint, the idea which the philosopher by formal inquiry conceives of it is not in accordance with its real nature.

1,516. i.e., no one can find a clue to the mysteries of the universe, because there is a veil between us and the spiritual world. The Author conceives the sky or sphere as a circular thread, of which the two ends are knotted together, so that no one can find the clue.

1,517. A durust is said in the Commentary to Graf’s Būstān to have been a dīnār or ashrafī. A dīnār was worth about ten shillings. The modern Persian ashrafī is worth about eight shillings, but the Indian ashrafī or muhr (mohur) is worth about £1 16s.

1,518. “The person of the house,” ahl-i sarā, probably means Malīkhā’s wife, the word ahl being used to avoid the use of a word which actually means “wife”.

1,519. Lit., “at last the water remaining in his mouth”; i.e., remaining to stay, so that he was suffocated.

1,520. Where many bodies are, so to say, stored; but jīfa-gāh, “a place of carrion carcasses,” is a name given to the world itself.

1,521. I read this second hemistich, bi-purad k’ān khvad āyad az magasī, where bi-purad means “he should be filled, or fill himself”. The verb is perhaps not commonly found, but it is used by Sa‘dī in the following line:—

Inā-ī ki pur shud digar chun purad? “How can a vessel filled be filled again?”

Parīdan means “to fly”, and this would naturally be associated with a fly, but it would make no sense here, and I think the Author is using the rhetorical device of seeming to say one thing whilst meaning another. It is possible he may intend by magas, “fly,” magas-i angubīn, “the honey-fly,” i.e., “the bee.”

1,522. Especially the last, I should think.

1,523. In the first hemistich “pearl” presumably means “face”. In the second “moist cornelian” means “dewy lips”, and the “dry impression” means the “veil”. The metaphor is drawn from the fact that the stone (here cornelian) of the seal-ring is moistened before the impression is taken.

1,524. The second hemistich could also be rendered, “She got a fair inkling (of the truth), and read his soul.”

1,525. i.e., he has seen a fairy, not a demon, and therefore he is not a demoniac, as one is supposed to become after seeing a demon. He is, however, in a way fascinated, possessed, or even crazed, that is, with love. (See Note 1,342.)

1,526. “The marriage-gift” or portion, kābīn, the Arabic mahr, which the bridegroom engages to pay the bride, part of it generally at once, mahr-i mu‘ajjal, and the rest, mahr-i mu‘ajjal, by instalments or on a divorce.

1,527. The evil eye is supposed to affect particularly one who is especially fortunate.

1,528. i.e., he restored her from a wretched to a happy condition: he made her Autumn, as it were, a Spring.

1,529. i.e., green dress, which suggests the Spring, is more suitable than yellow, which suggests the Autumn.

A contrast may also be intended between green, the sacred colour of Muslims, and the yellow cloth-badge, yahūdāna, pāra-yi zard, or girda, which the Jews were formerly obliged to wear in the East.

1,530. A tall, graceful person is often likened to a cypress.