A literary history of Persia - The Literary History of Persia, Volume 2

THE period of sixty-five years which we are now about to consider begins with the death of Maliksháh, described at the end of chap. iii, and ends with the death of his son Sanjar, who, though he reigned supreme in the Seljúq Empire only from A.D. 1117 to 1157, had ruled over Khurásán, and been the dominant figure in the House of Seljúq, from A.D. 1096. From the fratricidal wars which troubled this Empire before his succession, Khurásán, thanks to his wise and firm government, stood in large measure aloof, and only towards the end of his reign did it suffer at the hands of the Ghuzz Turks devastations which, frightful as they were, were eclipsed some seventy years later by the horrors of the Mongol invasion. The period which we are now considering may, therefore, fairly be called “the Period of Sanjar,” and with his death the epoch of the “Great Seljúqs” came to an end. Alike in length of life and brilliant achievements, according to ar-Ráwandí's Ráḥatu'ṣ-Ṣudúr, ^297a Sanjar surpassed all the other Seljúq monarchs. From the time he was made king of Khurásán by Barkiyáruq, he effected, during a period of forty years, nineteen conquests. He took Ghazna and made Bahrámsháh king over it, on condition that he should pay him a tribute of one thousand dínárs a day. He also took captive the king of Samarqand, Aḥmad Khán, who had rebelled on Barkiyáruq's death, in A.D. 1130, and subdued Sístán and Khwárazm. Yet from the political point of view the Seljúq power was no longer what it had been in the days of Alp Arslán and Maliksháh; for, apart from the fratricidal wars which marked the beginning of this period, the catastrophe of the Ghuzz invasion with which it ended, and the revolts of various turbulent amírs, which were Rivals of the Seljúqs. of constant occurrence, two or three rival powers, even in Persia, were always ready to contest the supremacy of the “Great Seljúqs.” Of these the most important were, in the north-east the “Kings of the mountains” of Ghúr, whose rising power gave to the House of Ghazna the coup de grâce; and the new dynasty of Khwárazm-sháhs, or rulers of Khiva, which, with the accession of Atsiz in A.D. 1127, became a formidable rival to the Seljúqs; while in the south-east the independent Seljúqs of Kirmán held sway. Almost more dangerous, because ubiquitous, was the sect of the Isma'ílís or “Heretics” (Maláḥida) of Alamút, whose achievements, notwithstanding numerous and violent repressive measures, maintained and extended the terror which they had already established, and who became a formidable force not only in Persia but also in Syria.

In literature and science this period was as brilliant as any which preceded or followed it; the number of Persian writers,

Following the plan hitherto adopted, we shall first take a general view of the political history of Persia and the neighbouring countries during this period, and shall then pass to the literary and other intellectual manifestations to which it gave birth.

Maliksháh left behind him on his death four sons—Barki-yáruq, aged eleven or twelve, Muḥammad, who was six months younger; Sanjar, aged eight; and Maḥmúd, a child of four. Of these the first, whose mother, Zubayda, was of the House of Seljúq, was at Iṣfahán, his native place, when his father's death took place. Maḥmúd's mother, the astute and Reign of Maḥmúd b. Maliksháh. ambitious Turkán Khátún, who was with her infant son at Baghdád, took advantage of her position to secure his accession to the throne. The Caliph al-Muqtadí was at first unwilling to consent, on account of Maḥmúd's tender years; but the influence of the Amír Ja'far, the Caliph's son by Máh-Malik, the sister of Maliksháh, secured, it is said, by bribes and flattery, finally enabled Turkán Khátún to gain her point. No sooner had she done so than she despatched Amír Búghá post-haste to Iṣfahán (which he reached in a week from Baghdád) to secure the person of Barkiyáruq, whom, however, some of the sons of the late Nidhámu'l-Mulk secretly carried off under cover of the darkness of night to Sáwa, Ába and Ray, where he was proclaimed King. At the time of his coronation he was under thirteen years of age, and the great jewelled crown had to be suspended over the young head still too weak to bear its weight. ^300a Abú Muslim, the Governor of Ray, presided over the coronation, and some twenty thousand soldiers assembled at the gates of the city to support the claims of the young King.

Meanwhile Turkán Khátún, aided by her advisers Majdu'l-Mulk of Qum, Táju'l-Mulk Abu'l-Ghaná'im, Amír Unrú Bulká, and others, the rivals and destroyers of the great Nidhámu'l-Mulk, had occupied Iṣfahán, against which Bar-kiyáruq now marched; but for a sum of 500,000 dínárs he consented to refrain from besieging it, and turned aside to Hamadán. Thereupon Turkán Khátún again began to intrigue against him, and, by a promise of marriage, induced his maternal uncle, Malik Isma'íl, to attack him (A.D. 1093) at Karach. Malik Isma'íl was defeated, and, on February 3rd, A.D. 1094, Barkiyáruq was formally proclaimed King at Baghdád; but soon afterwards Tutush, one of his paternal uncles, raised a much more formidable rebellion, defeated and took him prisoner, and brought him to Iṣfahán, where, though received with apparent kindness by his younger brother Maḥ-múd, he was imprisoned in the Kúshk-i-Maydán by Unrú Bulká, who decided to disqualify him from again aspiring to the throne by putting out his eyes.

Fortunately for him, ere this cruel intention had been carried out his brother Maḥmúd sickened with the small- Reign of Barkiyáruq b. Maliksháh. pox and died within the week, whereupon the Amírs placed Barkiyáruq once more upon the throne, and the disappearance of Turkán Khátún, who had been put to death in the autumn of A.D. 1094, doubtless tended to simplify matters. Barkiyáruq was in turn attacked by the disease which had proved fatal to his brother, but recovered, though his life was despaired of, and in the following year defeated and killed his uncle Tutush. Arslán Arghún, another rebellious uncle, was assassinated by one of his pages at Merv, and Barkiyáruq himself hardly escaped a similar fate at the hands of one of the “heretics” of Alamút. Shortly afterwards, having made his brother Sanjar king of Khurásán (A.D. 1096), Barkiyáruq returned to 'Iráq, but in A.D. 1099 his power was more seriously threatened by the rebellion of his brother Muḥammad, who was aided by the Mu'ayyidu'l-Mulk, the ablest of the late Nidhámu'l-Mulk's sons, whom Barkiyáruq had, by dismissing him from his service, converted into an irreconcilable foe. This unnatural war lasted with little intermission, and with varying fortune, till A.D. 1103-4, and five pitched battles were fought ere a truce was patched up a year or two before Barkiyáruq's death. During this period many fierce and cruel deeds were done; Barkiyáruq's mother, Zubayda, was taken prisoner and strangled by Muḥammad in her forty-third year (A.D. 1099); Majdu'l-Mulk of Qum, who had succeeded Mu'ayyidu'l-Mulk as Barkiyáruq's Prime Minister, was torn to pieces, notwithstanding his master's attempt to save him, by the infuriated soldiers, who suspected him of leaning towards the doctrines of the heretical Assassins; and Mu'ayyidu'l-Mulk was taken prisoner and decapitated in cold blood by Barkiyáruq. Peace was finally concluded between the two brothers in A.D. 1103-4, but towards the end of the latter year Barkiyáruq, being then but twenty-five years of age,

Muḥammad b. Maliksháh, entitled Ghiyáthu'd-Dín, who now became the practically undisputed ruler of the Persian Reign of Muḥammad b. Maliksháh. dominions of the Seljúq Empire, reigned rather more than thirteen years (A.D. 1105-18), during which time he sedulously strove to suppress the growing power of the Assassins, of whose development during this period we shall speak presently. Otherwise his reign was comparatively uneventful, save for his successful campaign, in A.D. 1108, against the noble Arabian Amír Ṣadaqa b. Mazyad, lord of Ḥilla and “King of the Arabs,” concerning which,

Sanjar was formally proclaimed King at Baghdád on the 4th of September, A.D. 1119, having already, as stated above,

Of the Seljúqs of Kirmán, four, Túránsháh (d. A.D. 1097), his son, Iránsháh (murdered in A.D. 1101 on the suspicion Seljúqs of Kirmán. of leaning towards the doctrines of the Isma'ílí heretics), Arslánsháh (cousin of him last-named, d. A.D. 1142), and Mughíthu'd-Dín Muḥammad, son of Arslánsháh, who inaugurated his reign by blinding some twenty of his brothers and nephews (d. A.D. 1156), are included in the period covered by the present chapter.

Of the 'Abbásid Caliphs of Baghdád, al-Muqtadí died about the beginning of this period (A.D. 1094), and al-Muqtafí about Contemporary Caliphs of Baghdád. the end (A.D. 1160); while of the three intervening Caliphs, al-Mustadhhir died in A.D. 1118, and al-Mustarshid and his son ar-Ráshid were both assassinated by the Isma'ílís, the former (by the instigation of Sanjar, it is said) at Marágha, where he was a captive in the hands of Sulṭán Mas'úd the Seljúq, on Sunday, August 29, 1135; the latter, two years after he had been deposed by the same Sulṭán, at Iṣfahán, on Tuesday, June 7, 1138. The Caliphs were, indeed, at this epoch, little more than puppets in the hands of the Seljúqs, so that al-Mustarshid said in a homily which he delivered at Kirmánsháh while on his way to make against their power that vain effort which cost him his life: “We entrusted our affairs to the House of Seljúq, but they rebelled against us, and time lengthened over them, and their hearts were hardened, and many of them were sinners.”^305a

The star of the House of Ghazna had long been on the wane, and the latter part of the period which now occupies The Houses of Ghúr and Ghazna. our attention saw its final extinction at the hands of the “Kings of the Mountains of Ghúr,” those fierce and hardy Afgháns of Fírúzkúh. The King of Ghazna at the time when this period opens was Ibráhím, who, to judge by an anecdote contained in the Siyásat-náma (ed. Schefer, p. 42), seems to have been a prince of some force of character. There was a dearth of bread in Ghazna, the bakers closed their shops, and the poor, in great distress, appealed to the King, who summoned the bakers before him and inquired as to the cause of this scarcity. They informed him that the Royal Baker had made a “corner” in flour in order to raise the price. Thereupon the Sulṭán caused the offender to be trampled to death by an elephant; his mangled body was then attached to its tusks and paraded through the city; and proclamation was made that the same fate would befall any baker who closed his shop. “That evening,” says the author, “at the door of every shop were fifty maunds of bread which no one would buy.”

Sulṭán Ibráhím of Ghazna died in A.D. 1099, and was succeeded by his son Mas'úd III, who died in A.D. 1114, and was followed in succession by his three sons, Shírzád (d. A.D. 1115), Arslán, and Bahrámsháh, who strangled his brother and possessed himself of the throne in A.D. 1118, and reigned till near the end of our present period (A.D. 1152). His name is associated with that of the first great mystic poet of Persia, Saná'í, who composed his Ḥadíqatu'l-Ḥaqíqat, or “Garden of Truth,” in A.D. 1131. His reign closed in disaster. In the autumn of A.D. 1135 Sanjar, suspecting him of disloyalty to his engagements, marched against him, and exacted an apology and a fine, and, after remaining at Ghazna for some months, returned to Balkh in July of the following year. ^306a Some twelve years later Bahrámsháh saw fit to put to death his son-in-law, Quṭbu'd-Dín Muḥammad, a prince of the House of Ghúr, whose brothers, 'Alá'u'd-Dín Ḥusayn and Sayfu'd-Dín Súrí avenged this deed in A.D. 1148, by driving Bahrámsháh out of Ghazna, where Sayfu'd-Dín established himself as Governor for his brother, 'Alá'u'd-Dín. A conspiracy was formed against him, however, in the following winter. When the roads were blocked with snow, Bahrám-sháh was invited back, and Sayfu'd-Dín, seized unawares, was paraded through the city with blackened face, mounted on a mule, and then hanged or crucified. For this outrage a terrible retribution was exacted by 'Alá'u'd-Dín Ḥusayn in A.D. 1155, three years after Bahrámsháh had died and been succeeded by his son Khusrawsháh. The title “Jahán-súz” (“the World-consumer”), gained by the fierce Ghúrí is sufficiently significant of what befell the proud city of Ghazna during his three days' vengeance; but it is notable, as indicating the respect in which literature was held, that, as we are informed in the Chahár Maqála (p. 48 of my translation), while “he sacked Ghazna and destroyed the buildings raised by Maḥmúd, Mas'úd, and Ibráhím, he bought with gold the poems written in their praise, and placed them in his library. In that army and in that city none dared call them king, yet he himself would read that Sháh-náma wherein Firdawsí says:—

‘Of the child in its cot, ere its lips yet are dry
From the milk of its mother, “Maḥmúd” is the cry!
Maḥmúd, the Great King, who such order doth keep
That in peace from one pool drink the wolf and the sheep!’”

More important in the history of Persia than the dynasties of Ghazna and Ghúr were the Khwárazmsháhs, or Kings of The Khwárazmsháhs. Khiva, who began with a favourite cup-bearer of Maliksháh named Anúshtigín in A.D. 1077, ^307a and, after completely displacing the Seljúqs, their former masters and suzerains, ended with the gallant Jalálu'd-Dín Mankoburní, the last bulwark of Islám against the devastating hordes of heathen Mongols (A.D. 1220-31). The power of this dynasty began in A.D. 1127 with the accession of the crafty and ambitious Atsiz, rumours of whose intentions reached Sanjar in the summer of A.D. 1138, and prompted him to march against Khwárazm. Atsiz was on this occasion defeated with heavy losses, which included his son, ^307b over whom he mourned most bitterly, and Khwárazm was taken and given in fief by Sanjar to his nephew, Ghiyáthu'd-Dín Sulaymán Sháh. But no sooner had Sanjar retired to Merv than Atsiz returned, regained possession of his capital, and sought to avenge himself by inciting the heathen of Cathay (Khaṭá) to attack Sanjar, whom they utterly routed in the summer of A.D. 1141, killing 100,000 of his soldiers, taking captive his wife, and driving the Seljúq King back on Tirmidh and Balkh, while Atsiz himself, having declared his independence, occupied Merv and killed or carried away captive a number of its leading men, including the theologian Abu'l-Faḍl al-Kirmání. ^307c This was, according to Ibnu'l-Athír, the first defeat sustained by Sanjar, and, as we have seen, was but the prelude to far worse disasters. In Níshápúr, which was occupied for a while, but otherwise unmolested, by Atsiz, Sanjar's name was suppressed in the khuṭba from May 28 till July 27, A.D. 1142. About a year after this, Sanjar again besieged Khwárazm, but, failing to take it, concluded a treaty of peace with Atsiz, whose death took place on July 30, A.D. 1156, only a short time before his rival's.

With the names of Sanjar and Atsiz ^308a are inseparably associated the names of four great Persian poets—Mu'izzí, Anwarí,

Concerning Anwarí and Rashídu'd-Dín “Waṭwáṭ” (“the Swallow,” so called from his small stature and insignificant Anwarí and Rashídu'd-Dín Waṭwáṭ. appearance) I shall only mention in this place their connection with the campaigns discussed above. Waṭwáṭ, who was the secretary and Court-poet of Atsiz, had aroused the anger of Sanjar in the first instance by writing a qaṣída, which began—

Chún Malik Atsiz bi-takht-i-mulk bar ámad,
Dawlat-i-Saljúq u ál-i-ú bi-sar ámad.

“When King Atsiz on the throne of power ascended,
The luck of Seljúq and his House was ended.”

Later, while Sanjar was besieging Atsiz in the fortress or Hazár-asp (a name which, being interpreted, means “a thousand horses”) in the autumn of A.D. 1147, he ordered Anwarí, who had accompanied him on the campaign, to compose a taunting verse, which, inscribed on an arrow, should be shot into the besieged town. Anwarí accordingly wrote:—

Ay Shah! hama mulk-i-zamín ḥasb turást;
Wa'z dawlat u iqbál jahán kasb turást:
Imrúz bi-yak ḥamla Hazárasp bi-gír!
Fardá Khwárazm u ṣad hazár asp turást!

There is little point, except the play on the name Hazárasp, in this verse, which means:—

“O King! all the dominion of earth is accounted thine;
By fortune and good luck the world is thine acquisition:
Take Hazárasp to-day with a single assault,
And to-morrow Khwárazm and a hundred thousand horses (ṣad hazár asp) shall be thine!”

The following reply from Waṭwáṭ's pen was shot back on another arrow:—^309a

Gar khiṣm-i-tu, ay Sháh, shawad Rustam-i-gurd,
Yak khar zi Hazárasp-i-tu na-t'wánad burd!

“If thine enemy, O King, were Knight Rustam himself,
He could not carry off from thy Hazárasp (or thy thousand
horses) a single ass!”

Thereafter Sanjar sought eagerly to capture Waṭwáṭ, and, having at length succeeded, ordered him to be cut into seven pieces. Muntakhabu'd-Dín Badí'u 'l-Kátib, ^310a an ancestor of the author of the Jahàn-gushà, who relates the story, succeeded in appeasing the King by making him laugh. “O King,” he said, “I have a request to prefer. Waṭwáṭ” (“the Swallow”) “is a feeble little bird, and cannot bear to be divided into seven pieces: order him, then, to be merely cut in two!” So Waṭwáṭ was pardoned because he had enabled Sanjar to enjoy a laugh.

To complete our brief survey of the political state of Persia at this period, it remains to consider that power which, though The Isma'ílís of Alamút, or Assassins. not a kingdom, was more than Seljúq, Ghaznawí, Ghúrí, or Khwárazmsháh in the wide influence which it wielded and the terror it inspired—to wit, the Assassins, or Isma'ílís of Alamút. The circumstances which led to the establishment of that power in Persia, and the change in its character wrought by the “New Propaganda” of Ḥasan-i-Ṣabbáḥ, have been already described in a previous chapter. That redoubtable heresiarch was still flourishing in the reign of Sanjar, for he did not die until the year A.D. 1124. For many years he had never stirred from the Castle of Alamút—hardly, indeed, from his own house—though his power reached to Syria, and his name was a terror throughout Western Asia. Austere in his way of living, he put to death his two sons on the suspicion of fornication and wine-bibbing, and named as his successor his associate, Kiyá Buzurg-Ummíd, who died in A.D. 1137-38, and was followed by his son Muḥammad, who died in A.D. 1162.

It would be impossible in a work like the present to follow in detail the history of the Assassins or Isma'ílís of Alamút Achievements of the Assassins. during the period which we are now considering, but the sect is so interesting and characteristic a feature of the times that certain manifestations of their activity must needs be recorded in order to present a true picture of the age. Under almost every year in the great chronicle of Ibnu'l-Athír mention occurs of the name of this redoubtable organisation, which, on the death of the Fáṭimid Caliph al-Mustanṣir, definitely severed its connection with the parent sect of Egypt and North Africa. Their political power began with the seizure of the mountain-stronghold of Alamút (“the Eagle's teaching,” áluh-ámù't) in A.H. 483 (= A.D.1090-91), which date, by a curious coincidence noticed by most Persian historians of the period, is exactly given by the sum of the numerical values of the letters composing this word. Their first great achievement was the assassination, two years later, of the Nidhámu'l-Mulk, which was followed at short intervals by the assassination of Barkiyáruq's mother's wazír, 'Abdu'r-Raḥmán as-Sumayramí (A.D. 1097); ^311a Unrú Bulká (A.D. 1100); Janáḥu'd-Dawla, in the mosque at Ḥims (A.D. 1102); the Qáḍí Abu'l-'Alá Sa'íd of Níshápúr (A.D. 1105-6); Fakhru'l-Mulk, one of the sons of the Nidhámu'l-Mulk (A.D. 1106-7); the qáḍìs, or judges, of Iṣfahán and Níshápúr, and 'Abdu'l-Wáḥid of Rúyán in Ṭabaristán (A.D. 1108-9); Mawdúd, in the Mosque or Damascus (A.D. 1113-14); Aḥmadíl b. Wahsúdán, in Baghdád (A.D. 1116-17); the Qáḍí Sa'd al-Hirawí at Hamadán (A.D. 1125-26); 'Abdu'l-Latíf b. al-Khujandí (A.D. 1129); the Fáṭimid Caliph al-Ámir bi'amri'lláh (A.D. 1130); Abú 'Alí b. Afḍal, the wazìr of his successor and cousin, al-Ḥáfidh (A.D. 1132); the 'Abbásid Caliph al-Mustarshid (A.D. 1135); his son and successor, ar-Ráshid (A.D. 1137-38); Jawhar, a favourite courtier of Sanjar (A.D. 1139-40), and many other persons of lesser note. Of course there were savage reprisals on the part of the orthodox: thus we read of a persecution of “heretics and free-thinkers” at Níshápúr in A.D. 1096; of a massacre of Báṭinís ordered by Barkiyáruq in June, A.D. 1101; of the crucifixion of Sa'du'l-Mulk, the wazìr, with four Báṭinís, and of the notorious Ibn 'Aṭṭásh and some of his followers in A.D. 1106-7; of a massacre of seven hundred Báṭinís at Ámid in A.D. 1124; of a yet greater slaughter of them by Sanjar in A.D. 1127, to avenge the death of the minister Mu'ínu'l-Mulk; and of 'Abbás of Ray, one of their most relentless foes, killed in A.D. 1146-47, who used to build pyramids of their skulls.

As has been already said, the civil wars which prevailed during the earlier part of this period enabled the Assassins to establish and consolidate their power in a way which would otherwise have been impossible. Barkiyáruq, indeed, was accused of being in sympathy with them, or at least of allowing them a large measure of toleration in return for their support or benevolent neutrality. Under the year A.H. 494 (A.D. 1100-1) Ibnu'l-Athír tells us that, having taken prisoner Mu'ayyidu'l-Mulk, one of the sons of the Nidhámu'l-Mulk, Barkiyáruq reviled him for having made this assertion, and then slew him with his own hand. ^312a In the same year, when he marched against his brothers Sanjar and Muḥammad at Baghdád, and the two armies confronted one another across the Tigris, the enemy taunted him and his soldiers with cries of “Yà Bàṭiniyya!” (“O Báṭinís!”). The massacre of Báṭinís which he ordered about this time was probably intended to dispel from the minds of his subjects this dangerous belief, a belief which might easily have led to his murder or deposition, as happened in the case of Aḥmad Khán, the ruler of Samarqand, and Íránsháh, the Seljúq prince of Kirmán, both of whom, not to mention numerous ministers and statesmen, like the Majdu'l-Mulk, suffered this fate because they were suspected of sympathy with the heretics. Such fear prevailed that it was not uncommon for those who had reason to dread the vengeance of the Assassins to wear a shirt of mail under their clothes, as was the custom of Bulká; but one day he omitted this precaution, and paid for his negligence with his life. Even when captured and put to death— often with torture—the fidá'ís of the Assassins often managed to wreak a further vengeance on their foes, as did the murderer of Fakhru'l-Mulk, who, being brought before Sanjar and interrogated, denounced as confederates of his order a number of prominent amìrs and officers of the Court, who, though probably innocent, shared his fate.

One of the most curious episodes connected with the history of these formidable heretics is very fully described by the Episode in the history of the Assassins at Isfahán. author of the Ráḥatu'ṣ-Ṣudùr (see J.R.A.S. for 1902, pp. 606-609) and by Ibnu'l-Athír; I mean the events which culminated in the destruction of the Assassin stronghold of Sháh Dizh or Dizh-i-Kúh near Iṣfahán, the crucifixion of Ibn 'Aṭṭásh and the slaughter of a great number of his followers, which occurred in the spring of A.D. 1107. 'Abdu'l-Malik 'Aṭṭásh, the father of the above-mentioned Aḥmad b. 'Aṭṭásh, was a man of letters resident in Iṣfahán, who, being persecuted there on account of his Shí'ite sympathies, fled to Ray, came under the influence of Ḥasan-i-Ṣabbáḥ, and embraced his doctrines. ^313a “I have fallen in with the Grey Falcon,” he wrote to one of his friends, “and this hath compensated me for what I have left behind.” His son, who was a linen merchant, professed the greatest detestation for the father's heretical doctrines, and was consequently suffered to remain unmolested.

Close to Iṣfahán stood the Castle of Dizh-i-Kúh, built by Maliksháh and named therefore Sháh-dizh, “the King's Ibn 'Aṭṭásh. Fortress.” In it were stored arms and treasure, and there dwelt certain of the royal pages and girls attached to the Court, guarded by a company of Daylamí soldiers. Thither Ibn 'Aṭṭásh, under the pretence of giving lessons to these young people, used to repair, and gradually, by means of fair words and presents, he succeeded in bringing over the garrison to his allegiance.

He next established a mission-house in the Dasht-i-gúr, hard by the gates of the city; and such was his success that the number of his converts and adherents ultimately reached thirty thousand, according to the statement of our historian. About this time the people of Iṣfahán began to be alarmed by repeated mysterious disappearances of their fellow-citizens. The mystery was ultimately solved by a poor beggar-woman, who, craving an alms from a certain house, and hearing from within a lamentable groaning and wailing, exclaimed, “May God heal your sick!” But when an attempt was made by the inmates of the house to induce her to enter, on the pretext of giving her food, she became suspicious, fled, and gave the alarm. A crowd soon surrounded the house, broke open the door, and found within in the cellars a horrible sight; for there against the walls and on the floor they beheld some four or five hundred unfortunate victims—some slain, some crucified, of whom a few still breathed—amongst whom many of those who had lately been missed by their friends were identified. The house in question belonged to a blind man named 'Alawí Madaní, and was a meeting-place of the Assassins. This man, staff in hand, used, about nightfall, to take his stand at the end of the long, dark lane which led to the house, and cry out, “May God pardon him who will take the hand of this poor blind man and lead him to the door of his dwelling in this lane!” So the unsuspecting victim who charitably complied with this request was lured to his destruction, for when he had come to the end of the lane he was seized by a number of the blind man's confederates, cast into the cellars, and there done to death. And this had been going on for several months ere the terrible discovery above mentioned was made. Vengeance swiftly followed, 'Alawí Madání, his wife, and some of his accomplices being burned to death in the market-place. Suspicion was rife, and fell, amongst others, upon the minister Sa'du'l-Mulk, but the King, whose confidence he enjoyed, refused at first to believe in his guilt. The Castle of Dizh-i-Kúh had at this period been besieged for some time, and Ibn 'Aṭṭásh, being nearly at the end of his resources, sent a secret message to Sa'du'l-Mulk to the effect that he could hold out no longer and desired to surrender. “Be patient for a week,” Sa'du'l-Mulk replied, “until I destroy this dog” (meaning the King). His plan was to take advantage of the King's habit of being bled every month to destroy him by poisoning the lancet used by the surgeon-barber, whom he succeeded in bribing to his purpose. The plot, however, was communicated by his chamberlain, who shared all his secrets, to his beautiful wife, who told her paramour, who told an officer of Sharafu'l-Mulk, who told the King. So the King summoned the surgeon-barber, and, on his arrival, caused him to be scratched with his own knife, whereupon, as the poison took effect, he turned black and soon expired in great agony.

Then the King was convinced of the guilt of his minister, whom he hanged or crucified together with four of his accomplices, including one Abu'l-'Alá al-Mufaḍḍal. Two days after this Ibn 'Aṭṭásh surrendered the Castle of Dizh-i-Kúh. He was paraded on a camel through the streets of Iṣfahán, a spectacle for thousands, pelted with mud and dirt, and mocked in derisive verses, of which a specimen (in dialect) is given in the Ráḥatu'ṣ-Ṣudùr; afterwards he was crucified, and hung on the cross for seven days. Arrows were fired at him as he hung there, helpless and tormented, and finally his body was burned to ashes. He pretended to have some considerable skill in astrology, and as he hung on the cross one of the bystanders asked him whether he had, by virtue of his science, been able to foresee this fate. He replied, “I perceived from my horoscope that I should traverse the streets of Iṣfahán with pomp and parade more than royal, but I did not know that it would be in such fashion.”^316a

Sulṭán Muḥammad, now thoroughly aroused and alarmed, began to take measures for the systematic extirpation of the Assassins and the reduction of the many mountain strongholds of which they had gained possession, but his death in A.D. 1118 put an end to these projects and gave the heretics a fresh chance, of which they were not slow to avail themselves, so that within the next ten or fifteen years they had, by force, stratagem, or bribery, added the Syrian fastnesses of Qadmús, Bániyás, and Maṣyáth to their possessions, which included in Persia, besides Alamút, Gird-i-kúh, and Shir-kúh, Ṭabas, Khúr, Khúsaf, Zawzan, Qá'in, Tún, Washm-kúh near Abhar, Khá-lanján near Isfahán, Ustunáwand in Mázandarán, Qal'atu'n-Ná dhir in Khúzistán, Qal'atu'ṭ-Ṭanbúr near Arraján, Khalládkhán, and many other strongholds in almost every part of Persia.

Having thus briefly sketched in broad outline the political condition of Persia during the period of Sanjar and his brothers,

Saná'í of Ghazna or Balkh, ^317a whose proper name was Abu'l-Majd Majdúd b. Ádam, is the first of the three great mystical Saná'í. mathnawì-writers of Persia, the second being Shaykh Farídu'd-Dín 'Aṭṭár, and the third Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí, who, though by far the greatest, had the humility to write:—

'Aṭṭár rúḥ búd, u Saná'í du chashm-i-ú;
Má az pay-i-Saná'í u 'Aṭṭár ámadím.

“'Aṭṭár was the Spirit, and Saná'í its two eyes;
We come after Saná'í and 'Aṭṭár.”

Of Saná'í's life we know very little, save that he was attached, at any rate during its earlier period, to the Court of Bahrám-sháh; for the account of his conversion from the worldly state of a Court-poet to the higher life of the mystic given by Dawlatsháh (pp. 95-97), and reproduced by Ouseley in his Lives of the Persian Poets (pp. 184-187), is not deserving of much attention, while neither his own preface to the Ḥadìqa, nor that of his disciple Muḥammad b. 'Alí Raqqám ^317b throw much light on his circumstances, save that they tend to confirm, as Rieu points out, the statement made by Jámí that the poet wrote the Ḥadiqa, his best-known work, in his old age, and died almost immediately after its completion in A.D. 1131. 'Awfí in his Lubàbu'l-Albáb (vol. ii, p. 252 of my edition) gives, as usual, no biographical information whatever; while certain facts to which Ethé has called attention ^318a are in contradiction with the chronological data deducible from the prefaces to the Ḥadìqa, and tend to show that the poet survived Mu'izzí and did not die much before A.D. 1150.

Saná'í's work, so far as it has come down to us, consists of seven mathnawís and a dìwàn. Of the former the Ḥadìqatu'l-Ḥaqíqat (“Garden of Truth”) is the only one which is at all celebrated; the other six, viz., the Ṭarìqu't-Taḥqiq (“Path of Verification”), Gharìb-nàma (“Book of the Stranger”), Sayru'l-'ibàd ila'l-Ma'àd (“Pilgrimage of [God's] servants to the Hereafter”), Kàr-nàma (“Book of Deeds”), 'Ishq-nàma (“Book of Love”), and 'Aql-nàma (“Book of Reason”), are very rare, and I have never seen them. ^318b Manuscripts of the Díwán are not common, but it has been lithographed at Ṭihrán in A.H. 1274 (= A.D. 1857-58). This edition comprises 271 pages, each containing some 45 couplets—in all, perhaps, some twelve thousand bayts distributed amongst the qaṣìdas, tarjì'-bands, tarkìb-bands, ghazals, and quatrains which compose the whole. The Ḥadìqa is much the most frequently met with of all Saná'í's works, and there exists a very fair Oriental edition, lithographed at Bombay in A.H. 1275 (= A.D. 1859). We shall confine our remarks to it and the Dìwán.

The Ḥadìqa, dedicated to Bahrámsháh, Sulṭán of Ghazna, is a moral and ethical rather than a purely mystical poem of about eleven thousand verses, divided into ten books, the first in praise of God, the second in praise of the Prophet, the third on Reason, the fourth on the excellence of Knowledge, the fifth on Carelessness, the sixth on the Heavens and The Ḥadíqatu'lḤaqíqat. Zodiacal Signs, the seventh on Philosophy, the eighth on Love, the ninth on the poet's own condition and circumstances, and the tenth in praise of Bahrámsháh, Sulṭán of Ghazna. The poem is written in a halting and unattractive metre, and is in my opinion one of the dullest books in Persian, seldom rising to the level of Martin Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy, filled with fatuous truisms and pointless anecdotes, and as far inferior to the Mathnawì of Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí as is Robert Montgomery's Satan to Milton's Paradise Lost. The following parable, illustrating the impossibility that man should be able to form more than a partial and distorted conception of God, may be taken as, on the whole, a favourable specimen:—

“Not far from Ghúr once stood a city tall
Whose denizens were sightless one and all.
A certain Sultan once, when passing nigh,
Had pitched his camp upon the plain hard by,
Wherein, to prove his splendour, rank and state,
Was kept an elephant most huge and great.
Then in the townsmen's minds arose desire
To know the nature of this creature dire.
Blind delegates by blind electorate
Were therefore chosen to investigate
The beast, and each, by feeling trunk or limb,
Strove to acquire an image clear of him.
Thus each conceived a visionary whole,
And to the phantom clung with heart and soul.

When to the city they were come again,
The eager townsmen flocked to them amain.

Each one of them—wrong and misguided all—
Was eager his impressions to recall.
Asked to describe the creature's size and shape,
They spoke, while round about them, all agape,
Stamping impatiently, their comrades swarm
To hear about the monster's shape and form.

Now, for his knowledge each inquiring wight
Must trust to touch, being devoid of sight,
So he who'd only felt the creature's ear,
On being asked, ‘How doth its heart appear?’
‘Mighty and terrible,’ at once replied,
‘Like to a carpet, hard and flat and wide!’

Then he who on its trunk had laid his hand
Broke in: 'Nay: nay! I better understand!
'Tis like a water-pipe, I tell you true,
Hollow, yet deadly and destructive too”;
While he who'd had but leisure to explore
The sturdy limbs which the great beast upbore,
Exclaimed, ‘No, no! To all men be it known
'Tis like a column tapered to a cone!’

Each had but known one part, and no man all;
Hence into deadly error each did fall.
No way to know the All man's heart can find:
Can knowledge e'er accompany the blind?
Fancies and phantoms vain as these, alack!
What else can you expect from fool in sack?
Naught of Almighty God can creatures learn,
Nor e'en the wise such mysteries discern.”

The Dìwàn, in my judgment, contains poetry of a far higher order than the Ḥadìqa; so much higher that one might almost be tempted to doubt whether the same author composed both, were it not for the unquestionable fact that Persian poets seldom excel in all forms of verse, so that, to take one instance only, the qaṣìdas of Anwarí excel those of Ḥáfidh by as much as the ghazals of Ḥáfidh excel those of Anwarí. The following specimens from the Díwán of Saná'í must suffice, though his work in this field well deserves a closer and more extended examination:—

“Boast not ^321a dervish-hood unless the store of storelessness ^321b be
thine:
Neither rogue-like deck thy visage, nor like craven-heart
repine.
Either woman-like adopt the toilet-tricks of paint and scent,
Or like men approach the field, and cast the ball across the
line. ^321c
All thou see'st beyond thy lusts is Heaven; clasp it to thy soul:
All thou findest short of God's an idol; break it, crush it fine!
Dance when like the headsman's carpet heart and soul lie
'neath thy feet:
Clap thy hands when earth and heaven in thy grasp thou dost
confine!
From the bowers of meditation raise thy head, that thou may'st
see
Those who still, though slain, are living, ^321d rank on rank and line
on line.
There are those who, like Ḥusayn, have fallen by the tyrant's
sword;
Here are these who, like Ḥasan, by poison met their fate
malign.
Wondrous is the zeal of Faith, wherein, like candle, waxing
faint,
By removal of thy head thy radiance doth brighter shine. ^321e
For the Jew in this arena fearless casts himself amain,
And the Brahmin in this temple burns his idol at the shrine.

* * * * * *

Years are needed ere the sunshine, working on the primal rock,
Yemen's blood-stone or Badakhshán's rubies can incarnadine.
Months are needed ere, by earth and water fed, the cotton-seed
Can provide the martyr's shroud, or clothe the fair with rai-
ment fine.
Days are needed ere a handful of the wool from back of sheep
Can provide the ass's halter, or the hermit's gabardine.

Lives are needed ere, by Nature's kindly fostering, the child
Can become a famous poet, or a scholar ripe and fine.
Ages needs must pass before a Bu'l-Wafá or an Uways ^322a
Can arise from Adam's loins to glorify the Might Divine.”

The following little ghazal, or ode, is also his (p. 168 of the lithographed edition):—

“That heart which stands aloof from pain and woe
No seal or signature of Love can show:
Thy Love, thy Love I chose, and as for wealth,
If wealth be not my portion, be it so!
For wealth, I ween, pertaineth to the World;
Ne'er can the World and Love together go!
So long as Thou dost dwell within my heart
Ne'er can my heart become the thrall of Woe.”

Here is another specimen of Saná'í's lyrical verse (p. 206):—

These specimens, selected almost at random, display both grace and originality; and there are probably few unexplored mines of Persian poetry which would yield to the diligent seeker a richer store of gems.

Abú Bakr (or Abu'l-Maḥásin) Azraqí, son of Isma'íl the bookseller of Herát, in whose house Firdawsí is stated by the Azraqí. author of the Chahàr Maqàla ^323a to have concealed himself for six months after he had incurred the anger of Sulṭán Maḥmúd of Ghazna, is best known (thanks to Jámí and Dawlatsháh) for the somewhat dubious literary performance ^323b which, in conjunction with the happily-improvised quatrain given in chapter i (p. 39 supra), is said to have secured him the favour and patronage of the Seljúq Prince Ṭughánsháh. He was famous in his own day as a qaṣìda-writer and panegyrist, and is placed by 'Awfí (vol. ii, p. 88 of my edition) only a little below the younger but more eminent Mu'izzí. Panegyrics, however grateful they may be to those whose praises they celebrate, and however much they may enrich their authors, for obvious reasons seldom interest posterity to the same extent as verse which appeals to the human heart for all time; and so it happens that Azraqí, like many of his more famous rivals, is to most Persian readers little more than a name, and that copies of his collected poems are exceedingly rare. Dawlatsháh, though he consecrates to Azraqí a separate notice (pp. 72-73 of my edition), cites of his verse only the quatrain to which allusion has been already made; but 'Awfí (vol. ii, pp. 86-104) quotes several long poems of his in full; and another long qaṣìda which he composed in praise of Amíránsháh, one of the Seljúq Princes of Kirmán, will be found in Muḥammad Ibráhím's History of that dynasty (ed. Houtsma, pp. 14-16). As we possess hardly anything of Azraqí's work except qaṣìdas, and as these are very difficult to translate, and, as a rule, unreadable when translated, I shall follow Dawlatsháh's example and pass on to another poet.

Mas'úd-i-Sa'd-i-Salmán ^324a (i.e., Mas'úd the son of Sa'd the son of Salmán) deserves to be remembered, if for no other reason, for Mas'úd-i-Sa'd-iSalmán. some original and pathetic verses which he wrote while imprisoned in the Castle of Náy by command of Sulṭán Ibráhím of Ghazna, who suspected him of intriguing with the Seljúq King Maliksháh. Of these verses the author of the Chahàr Maqàla, who records the story (pp. 72-75 of the separate reprint of my translation), says that, whenever he read them, his skin would creep and his eyes fill with tears at their eloquence and pathos. He quotes two of these Ḥabsiyyát, or “Songs of Captivity,” of which the first, a quatrain, is as follows:—

“O King, 'tis Maliksháh should wear thy chain,
That royal limbs might fret with captive's pain,
But Sa'd-i-Salmán's offspring could not hurt,
Though venomous as poison, thy domain!”

The second fragment runs thus:—

“Naught served the ends of statesmen save that I,
A helpless exile, should in fetters lie,
Nor do they deem me safe within their cells
Unless surrounded by ten sentinels,
Which ten sit ever by the gates and walls,
While ever one unto his comrade calls:
‘Ho, there! On guard! This cunning rogue is one
To fashion bridge and steps from shade and sun!’ ^324b
Why, grant I stood arrayed for such a fight,
And suddenly sprang forth, attempting flight,
Could elephant or raging lion hope,
Thus cramped in prison-cage, with ten to cope?
Can I, bereft of weapons, take the field,
Or make of back or bosom bow and shield?”

The King, however, remained obdurate till his death, and Mas'úd languished in captivity for twelve years.

The following poem by Mas'úd is given by Dawlatsháh (pp. 47-48 of my edition):—

“When I saw with eyes discerning that this World's the Home
of Woe,
And that o'er the best and noblest Death his cerement doth
throw,
And that Fate, false fríend, to cheat me and to rob me did
propose,
Then from off Ambition's sick-bed wholly cured, thank God, I
rose;
To the drug-shop of Repentance hastened, and did there be-
seech
Tonic medicines to give me strength to practise what I preach.
Therefore now this tongue, which lately sang the praise of
earthly Kings,
Unto God, the King Eternal, humble praise as tribute brings;
And my voice, retuned, melodious with a newer, nobler tale,
In the Garden of the Prophet hath become a nightingale;
And the glorious apparel, and the silken robes of yore,
Now a wider-seeing wisdom puts away for evermore.

Five yards of wool or cotton are sufficient to contain
A body free from vain desires, a calm untroubled brain.
Long while the praise and service of princes was my care;
To God I now will offer my service and my prayer!”

Dawlatsháh adds that Mas'úd was a native of Gurgán, and his father Sa'd, according to Dr. Ethé (p. 256 of his article in the Grundriss) was in the service of the Ziyárid princes of that little kingdom. “Men of letters and poets of distinction,” adds the Persian biographer, “have a high opinion of his verse, so that Falakí [of Shírwán], while lauding his own genius, thus alludes to Mas'úd's poetry:—

“Had Mas'úd such cunning in verse as is mine, from the Land
of the Dead
Sa‘d-i-Salmán, his father, would come, and blessings invoke on
his head.’”

The poet's death took place either in A.D. 1121, or, more probably, in A.D. 1131.

Abú Ṭáhir al-Khátúní is chiefly remarkable as the author of what must at present be regarded as the oldest Biography of Abú Ṭáhir al-Khátúní. Persian poets of which we possess any definite record, though unhappily the work itself is no longer known to exist. It is twice referred to by Dawlatsháh (pp. 29 and 58 of my edition), who cites it as authority for two of his statements, but if he really had access to the book it is surprising that he did not make greater use of it, and it seems probable that he only quotes it at second hand. Ḥájji Khalífa also mentions it in his great bibliography (ed. Flügel, vol. vi, p. 152, No. 13,026), adding that it was written in Persian, but omitting the date of the author's death, which he was presumably unable to discover. Mention is also made of al-Khátúní in several places in al-Bundárí's History of the Seljùqs (ed. Houtsma, pp. 89, 105-108, 110, 113). Thence we learn that he wrote against one of Muḥam-mad b. Maliksháh's Ministers a diatribe entitled Tanzìru'l-Wazìri 'z-zìri'l-khinzír, and that he was one of the most eminent men and wittiest writers of his time. ^326a Several of his satirical verses are quoted, but unfortunately those which he composed in Persian have been turned into Arabic. He flourished in the early part of the twelfth century of our era (A.H. 500), and seems to have derived the title of al-Khátúní from the fact that he was in the service of Gawhar Khátún, the Sulṭán's wife. One of his Persian verses is cited in Asadí's Lughat (ed. Horn, p. 31), but the editor's conversion of Khátúní into Ḥánútí is indefensible. ^326b The largest number of his Persian verses is, so far as I know, contained in the very rare Persian work on Prosody and Poetry by Shams-i-Qays (Or. 2,814 of the British Museum). ^327a Mention is also made of him in ar-Ráwandí's Ráḥatu'ṣ-Ṣudùr (J.R.A.S. for 1902, p. 598) as keeping the register of the game killed in the chase by Maliksháh. That he was in his time eminent in several ways is very clear from the older authorities, and it is curious that so little mention is made of him in more modern works, while the loss of his Manáqibu'sh-Shu'ará, or Biographies of the Poets, can only be described as a literary catastrophe. A somewhat coarse Persian epigram of two bayts, in which he satirises the stinginess of the Minister Majdu'l-Mulk of Qum, is also given in the Ráḥatu'ṣ-Ṣudùr (J.R.A.S. for 1902, p. 600).

Amír Mu'izzí, the poet-laureate of Sanjar, had already established his reputation as a poet in the reign of Maliksháh, from Mu'izzí. whose title Mu'izzu'd-Dín (“the Glorifier of Religion”) he derived his nom-de-guerre, as he himself relates in an anecdote contained in the Chahàr Maqála and already cited in full in chapter i (pp. 35-38) of this volume. He is called by the author of that work (p. 55 of my translation) “one of the sweetest singers and most graceful wits in Persia, whose poetry reaches the highest level in freshness and sweetness, and excels in fluency and charm.” 'Awfí says (Lubáb, vol. ii, p. 69) that three Persian poets attained, under three different dynasties, to a consideration and wealth beyond compare, namely, Rúdagí under the Sámánids, 'Unṣurí under the Sulṭáns of Ghazna, and Mu'izzí under the House of Seljúq. But Mu'izzí's end was a sad one, for he was accidentally shot by Sanjar while the latter was practising archery. Such, at least, is the ordinarily accepted story; but others say that he was only wounded, and recovered from his wound, in support of which view Riḍá-qulí Khán (Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá , vol. i, p. 571) cites the following verse, which, if genuine, certainly seems to bear out this view:—

“Minnat Khudáy-rá, ki bi-tír-i Khudáyagán
Man banda bí-gunah na-shudam kushta ráyagán!”

“Thanks be to God that by the arrow of His Majesty
I the innocent servant was not slain to no purpose!”

The same authority gives A.H. 542 (= A.D. 1147-48) as the year of his death, and quotes a few verses in which Saná'í mourns his loss. He adds that in the ghazal he follows the style of Farrukhí, and in the qaṣìda that of 'Unṣurí. Here is a fairly typical fragment from one of Mu'izzí's ghazals:—

“Her face were a moon, if o'er the moon could a cloud of
musk blow free;
And her stature a cypress, if cypresses bore flowers of anemone.
For if to the crown of the cypress-tree could anemone-clusters
cling,
Perchance it might be accounted right such musk o'er the
moon to fling.
For her rounded chin and her curvéd tress, alack! her lovers
all
Lend bended backs for her polo-sticks, and a heart for the
polo-ball!
Yet if hearts should ache through the witchery of the Hárút-
spells of her eye,
Her rubies twain are ever fain to offer the remedy.”

When 'Awfí remarks (p. 69 of vol. ii of my edition of the Lubábu'l-Albáb) that with Mu'izzí “the child of Rhetoric reached maturity,” he probably means that in his verse for the first time we find in constant use all the once original and striking, but now hackneyed, similes with which every student of Persian poetry is familiar. Thus in the four couplets cited above we have the familiar comparison of a beautiful face to the moon, of a mass of black and fragrant hair to musk, of a tall and graceful figure to the cypress, of red cheeks to the anemone (làla), ^329a of the chin and the heart respectively to a ball, of the back of one bent down by age or sorrow to a polo-stick, of the lips to rubies, and of witching eyes to Hárút, the fallen angel, who teaches magic to such as seek him in the pit where he is imprisoned at Babylon.

Here is another of his odes (Lubáb, vol. ii, p. 73):—

“Since that sugar-raining ruby made my heart its thrall,
Hath mine eye become a shell to harbour pearls withal.
Yea, as oysters filled with pearls must surely be the eyes
Of each lover who for those sweet sugar-liplets sighs.
Yet the shafts of thy narcissus-eye blood-drinking fail
To transfix my heart protected by thy tresses' mail.
Picture fair, by whose belovéd presence by me here
Seems my chamber now like Farkhár, now like far Cash-
mere,
If thy darkling tresses have not sinned against thy face
Wherefore hang they, head-dependent, downward in dis-
grace?
Yet, if sin be theirs, then why do they in heaven dwell,
Since the sinner's portion is not Paradise, but Hell?”

Again we are met by a whole string of the conventional similes of Persian erotic verse: the tearful eye is the pearl-yielding oyster-shell; sugar-raining rubies are sweet red lips; the narcissus is the eye, called “blood-drinking” or “bloodthirsty” because it wounds the hearts of lovers; plaited hair is curiously likened to chain armour; the beloved is a “picture” or “idol” more beautiful than the Manichæan pictures (Arzhang-i-Mání) of Transoxiana or the idols of India; and the sweet face of the beloved is Paradise. In short, it would not surprise me to learn that almost every simile employed by the later love-poets of Western Asia had been employed by Mu'izzí, and that most of them were first invented and brought into use by him. This perhaps, if true, accounts in some measure for his high reputation in his own country, for to us, who are sufficiently familiar with Ḥáfidh and other comparatively modern poets, Mu'izzí, unless we keep constantly in mind the epoch at which he flourished, does not appear as a poet of striking power or originality. Let us therefore turn to another poet whom we have already had occasion to mention in this chapter, Rashídu'd-Dín Waṭwáṭ (“the Swallow”).

Rashíd-i-Waṭwáṭ, whose proper name was Muḥammad b. 'Abdu'l-Jalíl al-'Umarí (so-called because he claimed descent Rashídu'dDín Waṭwáṭ. from the Caliph 'Umar), was by profession a scribe or secretary (whence he is often called al-Kátib), and, besides his poetry, was the author of several prose works, of which the most celebrated are the Ṣad Kalima, or “Hundred Sayings,” of the Four Caliphs, ^330a paraphrased and explained in Persian, and a well-known work on Rhetoric and Poetry entitled Ḥadá'iqu's-Siḥr, or “Gardens of Magic,” which latter, based, I believe, on the lost Tarjumánu'l-Balághat (“Interpreter of Eloquence”) of Farrukhí, has been lithographed in Persia, and is one of the most useful manuals on the Ars Poetica of the Persians. He was nicknamed “the Swallow” (Waṭwáṭ) on account of his small size and insignificant appearance, but, according to Dawlatsháh, his tongue was as sharp as it was active, and made him many enemies. Once, according to this biographer, he was disputing in an assembly at which his sovereign and patron Atsiz Khwárazm-sháh was present. It chanced that an ink-bottle stood before him, and Atsiz, amused at the violent torrent of words which issued from so small a body, exclaimed in jest, “Take away that ink-bottle that we may see who is behind it!” Rashíd-i-Waṭwáṭ at once rose to his feet and quoted the Arabic proverb: “A man is a man by virtue of his two smallest parts, his heart and his tongue!” Dawlatsháh adds that Waṭwáṭ lived to a great age and died in Khwár-azm, or Khiva, in A.H. 578 (= A.D. 1182-83). In A.H. 551 (= A.D. 1156-57) his patron Atsiz died, and the poet, with tears in his eyes, addressed his dead patron in the following quatrain:—^331a

“O King, the heavens before thy power did quake,
And humbly like a slave thine orders take:
Where is a man of judgment to decide
If this be bearable for kingship's sake?”

Seventeen years later, in A.H. 568 (= A.D. 1172), Sulṭán Sháh Maḥmúd, the grandson of Atsiz, succeeded to the throne of Khwárazm, and desired to see the now infirm and aged poet, who, being brought before him in a litter, apostrophised him in the following quatrain:—^331b

“From tyranny thy grandsire cleared the ground;
Thy father's justice made the broken sound:
'Tis now thy turn: what, therefore, wilt thou do
While Empire's robe still compasseth thee round?”

A good deal of incidental information about Rashíd-i-Waṭwáṭ is contained in al-Juwayní's great unpublished history of the Mongols, the Jahán-gushá, in the second volume, which deals with the history of the Khwárazmsháhs. Quite at the beginning of this volume, immediately after the account of Sanjar's defeat in his campaign against Khitá, and the sack of Merv by Atsiz, in A.H. 536 (= A.D. 1141-42), is inserted a long letter in Arabic from Waṭwáṭ to a certain Ḥakím Ḥasan Qaṭṭán (?), who, it appears, suspected the poet of having appropriated certain books of his which had been lost at Merv. In this letter the poet defends himself vigorously against a charge which he regards as particularly odious, inasmuch as he had, as he says, presented to various public libraries some thousand fine manuscripts and rare books “so that the Muslims might profit thereby,” in spite of which he is suspected without reasonable cause of stooping to lay hands on the little library of an eminent scholar, which, he disparagingly observes, if sold, bindings and all, in the market, would only realise an insignificant sum of money. Here follows the account of the siege of Hazár-asp, the execution of the poet Adíb-i-Ṣábir by Atsiz, and the narrow escape of Waṭwáṭ from Sanjar, whose anger he had aroused by verses already cited. A few pages further on we learn that about A.H. 547 (= A.D. 1152-53) Waṭwáṭ, together with his friend Kamálu'd-Dín b. Arslán Khán Maḥmúd, the Governor of Jand, incurred the anger of Atsiz, and was banished from the court of Khwárazm in disgrace, but succeeded in winning his pardon by sundry contrite verses, of which the following are cited by al-Juwayní:—

“Sí sál shud ki banda bi-ṣaff-i-ni'ál dar
Búdast madḥ-khwán, u tu bar takht madḥ-khwáh.
Dánad Khudáy-i-'arsh ki hargiz na ístád
Chun banda madḥ-khwání dar hích bárgáh.
Aknún dil-at zi banda-i-sí-sála shud malúl;
Dar dil bi-túl-i-muddat yábad malál ráh.
Líkin mathal zanand ki ‘makhdúm shud malúl,
Júyad gunáh, u banda-i-bí-chára bí-gunáh’.”

“For thirty years thy servant, standing meek
In shoe-rank, ^332a sang the praises thou didst seek:
Such praise, God wotteth well, as none before
Hath ever laid before a patron's door.

Thou'rt tired of him who served thee thirty years: ^333a
Such lengthy service bores thee, it appears.
‘The master seeks some fault’ (the saw runs so),
‘And the poor servant hath no fault to show.’”

Dawlatsháh says that Waṭwáṭ's Díwán comprises nearly fifteen thousand verses, remarkable for their ornate and rhetorical style and elaborate tropes. He was particularly fond of the artifice called tarṣí' (see pp. 47-48 supra), and boasted that before him no one had ever composed an entire qaṣìda in which this figure had been observed in every single line. His qaṣìdas are of the boastful and exaggerated type usually affected by Persian panegyrists at this period, and he owes his immortality less to them than to his treatise on the Poetic Art (the Ḥadá'iqu's-Siḥr), and a few occasional verses, such as those above cited, which are connected with historical events.

Amongst the rivals of Rashíd-i-Waṭwáṭ was the unfortunate Adíb-i-Ṣábir, whose tragic fate has been already mentioned.^333b

Of Adíb-í-Ṣábir's life we have few particulars, save what can be gleaned from his verse. He was a native of Tirmidh, and, though, according to Dawlatsháh, he spent most of his life in Khurásán, especially at Merv, the following fragment, quoted by 'Awfí (vol. ii, p. 123), composed by him on the death of a tyrannical noble of Tirmidh, named Akhtí, who choked himself with wine at a drinking-bout, and, to make use of 'Awfí's graceful expression, “took the aqueous road to hellfire,” shows that his own town was not wholly deprived of his talents:—

“O Akhṭí, the day thou drankest wine was the day thou didst
hie thee to hell;
A hundred thousand blessings rest on the day of thy drinking
wine!
Since thy departure once more the world is alive and all goes
well:
Cursed thou art, yet may mercy rest on this sudden death of
thine!”

He was entitled Shihábu'd-Dín (“the Meteor of the Faith”), and must evidently have been for a time on good terms with Atsiz, at whose hands he ultimately suffered death, since he has qaṣídas in his praise. He also appears to have been in relations, friendly or otherwise, with several poets besides Waṭwaṭ; thus we find in 'Awfí's Lubáb complimentary verses addressed by him to 'Imádí and Futúḥí, and recriminations addressed to Shimálí. The following lines were written by him to a man of position who had been attacked in an anonymous lampoon of which some persons declared Ṣábir to be the author:—

“They say, ‘Why hast thou spoken ill
Of him whom all the world doth praise?’

Such deed was never done by me;
Such word ne'er marred my noble lays.
What dirty scoundrel tells this tale?
This trick on me what blackguard plays?”

This violently personal style is, unfortunately, common enough with the poets, especially the Court-poets, of Persia,

“was a great patron of poets, and in his service were Amír 'Am'aq, Master Rashídí, Najjár-i-Ságharchí, 'Alí Pánídhí, Bishr of Dar-ghúsh, Bishr of Isfará'in, ^335a 'Alí Sipihrí, and Wajíbí of Farghána, all of whom obtained rich rewards and ample honours. The Poet-Laureate was Amír 'Am'aq, who had profited abundantly by that dynasty and obtained the most ample circumstance, comprising fair damsels, well-paced horses, golden vessels, sumptuous apparel, and servants, biped and quadruped, innumerable. He was greatly honoured at the King's Court, so that the other poets must needs do him reverence. Such homage as he obtained from the others he desired also from Master Rashídí, but herein he was disappointed, for Rashídí, though still young, was nevertheless learned in his art. The Lady Zaynab was the special object of his panegyrics, and he enjoyed the fullest favour of the King, who was constantly praising him and proclaiming his merits, so that Rashídí's affairs prospered, the title of ‘Prince of Poets’ (Sayyidu'sh-Shu'ará) was conferred upon him, and he continued to rise ever higher in the King's favour and to receive from him gifts of great value.

“One day, in Rashídí's absence, the King asked 'Am'aq, ‘What sayest thou of the verse of Rashídí, the Prince of Poets?’ ‘His verse,’ replied the other, ‘is excellent, being both chaste and correct, but it wants salt.’^336a

“When some time had elapsed, Rashídí entered, and, having made obeisance, was about to sit down when the King called him forward, and, teasing him as is the way of Kings, said, ‘I asked the Poet-Laureate just now what he thought of Rashídí's poetry, and he replied that it was good, but wanted spice. Now you must compose a quatrain on this topic.’ Rashídí, with a bow, sat down in his place and improvised the following fragment:—

‘You stigmatize my verse as “wanting salt,”
And possibly, my friend, you may be right.
My verse is honey-flavoured, sugar-sweet,
And salt with sweetmeats cannot give delight.
Salt is for you, you blackguard, not for me,
For beans and turnips is the stuff you write!’”

Khiḍr Khán was so delighted with this rude but spirited retort to the Poet-Laureate's criticism that, according to the Chahár Maqála, he bestowed on Rashídí a thousand gold dínárs, which were set out in his audience-hall on four trays, as was the practice of the princes of Transoxiana.

It is now time to say something more about the author of this Chahár Maqála, or “Four Discourses,” which has been so Nidhámí-i'Arúḍí of Samarqand. freely quoted in this and the preceding chapters, and which is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting and remarkable prose works in Persian, and one which throws a far fuller light than any other book with which I am acquainted on the intimate life of Persian and Central Asian Courts in the twelfth century of our era. The author was essentially a Court-poet attached to the service of the House of Ghúr, or “Kings of the Mountains,” with which, when he wrote the Chahár Maqála, he had been connected for forty-five years, as he himself tells us. His name, according to his own statement (Chahár Maqála, p. 10 of my translation) was Aḥmad b. 'Umar b. 'Alí, and his title (laqab), Najmu'd-Dín, but he is always known by his pen-name (takhalluṣ) of Nidhámí. Even amongst his contemporaries, however, there were, as will directly appear, several Nidhámís more celebrated than himself, not to mention his later, greater namesake, Nidhámí of Ganja, who is the Nidhámí par excellence of Persian literature; so the poet with whom we are now concerned is always spoken of as Nidhámí-i-'Arúḍí (i.e., “the Prosodist”) of Samarqand. Little of his verse has come down to us: Dawlatsháh (pp. 60-61 of my edition) quotes only one couplet from the Wísa and Rámín, which, unfortunately, appears not to be his work. 'Awfí, who gives him a notice of two pages (vol. ii, pp. 207-8), quotes five fragments, all of which are vers d'occasion, mostly of the personal and vituperative kind just spoken of, and adds that he was the author of several mathnawí poems, of which not even the names are preserved. All that we know of him is what he himself tells us in his “Four Discourses,” from which we are able to fix the following dates in his career. In A.H. 504 (= A.D. 1110-11) he was at Samarqand, hearing traditions about the early poet Rúdagí; in A.H. 506 (= 1112-13) he was at Níshápúr, enjoying the society of the celebrated astronomer-poet, 'Umar Khayyám; three years later he was at Herát; next year (A.H. 510 = A.D. 1116-17) he was at Níshápúr again, and also at Ṭús, where he collected traditions about the great Firdawsí, and visited his grave. About this time, it would appear, he succeeded, encouraged and assisted by Mu'izzí, Sanjar's Poet-Laureate, in bringing himself to the notice of the King, from which period his fortune and fame may be supposed to date. In A.H. 512 and 530 (=A.D. 1118-19 and 1135-36) we again find him at Níshápúr, and it was in the latter year that he paid that pious visit to the tomb of 'Umar Khayyám which has indirectly afforded so much occupation to members of the “Omar Khayyám Club,” who, because they have not read their Chahár Maqála, bestow on the rose a worship to which the peach-tree and pear-tree have a better claim. In A.H. 547 (= A.D. 1152-53) he was in hiding at Herát, after the defeat of the army of Ghúr by Sanjar the Seljúq. His Chahár Maqála was written sometime within the next nine years, since he alludes to Ḥusayn “the World-consumer” (Jahán-súz), who died in A.D. 1161, as still living. For a knowledge of his later life we have no data, and even the date of his death is, so far as I am aware, quite unknown. His claim to immortality rests entirely on this one book, the Chahár Maqála, of which the unique value has hitherto met with the most inadequate recognition, though it is now accessible to Persian scholars in the lithographed edition published at Tihrán in A.H. 1305 (= A.D. 1887-88), and to English readers in the translation which I published in 1899 in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, as well as in a separate reprint. The whole book is worth reading, and though I have quoted from it very largely in these pages, considerations of space have compelled me to omit much which I should like to have included. I will content myself with quoting here an autobiographical anecdote (No. xxi) with which the second of the “Four Discourses” (on poets) ends:—

“At the period when I was in the service of that martyred prince, the King of the Mountains (may God illuminate his tomb and exalt his station in Paradise!), that august personage had a high opinion of me, and showed himself towards me a most generous patron. Now on the Festival of the breaking of the Fast, one of the nobles of the city of Balkh (may God maintain its prosperity!), the Amír 'Amíd Ṣafiyyu'd-Dín Abú Bakr Mu-ḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn Rawánsháhí, came to the Court. Though young, he was an expert writer, a capable Secretary of State, richly dowered with culture and its fruits, and popular with all, so that his praises were on every tongue. At the moment [of his arrival] I was not in attendance.

“Now at a reception the King chanced to say, ‘Call Nidhámí.’ ‘Is Nidhámí here?’ inquired the Amír 'Amíd Ṣafiyyu'd-Dín. They replied that he was. But he supposed that it was Nidhámí-i-Munírí. ^339a ‘Ah,’ said he, ‘a fine poet, and a man of wide celebrity!’

“When the messenger came to summon me, I put on my shoes, and, as I entered, did obeisance, and sat down in my place. When the wine had gone round several times, Amír 'Amíd said, ‘Nidhámí has not yet come.’ ‘Nay,’ replied the King, ‘he is come; see, there he is, seated in such-and-such a place.’ ‘I am not speaking of this Nidhámí,’ said Amír 'Amíd; ‘the Nidhámí of whom I speak is another, and as for this one, I am not even acquainted with him.’ Thereat I saw that the King was vexed; and, turning to me, he straightway asked, ‘Is there another Nidhámí besides thee?’ ‘Yes, sire,’ I replied, ‘two others, one of Samarqand, whom they call Nidhámí-i-Munírí, and another of Níshápúr, whom they call Nidhámí-i-Athírí; while me they call Nidhámí-i-'Arúḍí.’ ‘Art thou better, or they?’ demanded he.

“Then Amír 'Amíd, perceiving that he had made an unfortunate remark, and that the King was vexed, said, ‘Sire, those two Nidhámís are quarrelsome fellows, apt to break up social gatherings by their brawls, and to cause trouble and do mischief.’ ‘Wait a while,’ said the King jestingly, ‘till you see this one drain a bumper and break up the meeting. But tell me, of these three Nidhámís, which is the best poet?’ ‘Of those two,’ answered the Amír 'Amíd, ‘I have personal knowledge, having seen them; but this one I have not previously seen, nor have I heard his poetry. If he will compose a couple of verses on this topic which we have been discussing, so that I may see his talents and hear his verse, I will tell you which of the three is the best.’ Then the King turned to me, saying, ‘Now, O Nidhámí, do not put us to shame, and say what the 'Amíd desires.’

“Now at the time when I was in the service of this prince I possessed copious talents and a brilliant wit, while the favours and gifts of my patron had so stimulated me that my improvisations came fluent as running water. So I took up a pen, and, ere the wine-cup had gone twice round, composed these five couplets, which I then submitted to the King:—

‘O Sire, there be Nidhámís three, and the world with their fame
doth ring;
Two are in Merv at the Sultan's Court, one here before the
King.
All are the pride of Khurásán wide in song, and I tell you true
That as water fluent, as wisdom wise, is the verse of the other
two.
But I am the wine, the headstrong wine, and so, when I them
o'ertake,
Their song they cease, they rest in peace, and the making of
verse forsake.’

“When I submitted these verses, the Amír 'Amíd Ṣafiyyu'd-Dín bowed and said, ‘O King, I know of no poet, let alone the Nidhámís, in all Transoxiana, ‘Iráq, and Khurásán, able to improvise five such verses, particularly having regard to their strength, energy, and sweetness, combined with such grace of diction and containing ideas so original. Be of good cheer, O Nidhámí, for thou hast no rival on the face of the earth! O Sire, he hath a pretty wit, a mind swift to conceive, and a finished art. By the good fortune of the King of the age, he hath developed into a unique genius, and will even improve upon this, seeing that he is young and hath many days before him.’

“Thereat the countenance of my lord the King brightened mightily, and a great cheerfulness showed itself in his gracious temperament, and he applauded me, saying, ‘I give thee the lead-mine of Warsá from this Festival until the Festival of Sacrifice. ^340a Send thine agent thither.’ So I sent Isaac the Jew. It was then the middle of summer, and while they were working the mine they smelted so much ore that in the seventy days twelve thousand maunds of lead accrued to me, while the King's opinion of me was increased a thousand-fold. May God (blessed and exalted is He) illuminate his august ashes with the light of His approbation, and gladden his noble spirit with all riches, by His Favour and Grace!”

Our poet, it will be seen, was not modest as to his attainments; but the frank delight in his cleverness here and elsewhere revealed is such as to disarm hostile criticism. Modesty, indeed, has seldom characterised the Persian poets.

Before we proceed to speak of Anwarí, the most celebrated of the poets associated with the Court of Sanjar, a few words must be said about two or three of his fellow-craftsmen, who, though less illustrious than he, or than those already mentioned in this chapter, are sufficiently conspicuous amidst the almost innumerable writers of elegant verse who flourished at this epoch to deserve at least a passing notice.

'Abdu'l-Wási' al-Jabalí was, as his nisba “al-Jabalí” (“the Highlander”) implies, originally from the mountainous district 'Abdu'l-Wási' alJabalí. of Gharjistán. Thence he came to Herát and Ghazna, where he was for a while attached to the Court of Sulṭán Bahrámsháh b. Mas'úd. When Sanjar marched against this ruler in A.D. 1135, ^341a the poet, according to Dawlatsháh (p. 74 of my edition), won the victor's favour by a rather graceful and original qaṣída, in which the following eight couplets occur:—

“Through the King's unswerving justice, through the Sultan's
catholic care,
Is the pheasant, the ant, the partridge, and the wild ass in
its lair,
The first the falcon's neighbour, the next to the serpent dear,
The third the hawk's bed-fellow, and the last the lion's fere.
The Lord of the World King Sanjar, with whom for evermore
In standard, policy, forehead and face are signals four;
In the first the pride of empire, in the second the people's
weal,
In the third all worldly splendour, in the fourth all godly zeal.
His fingers are in bounty, his lance where foes cry ‘Yield!’
His presence in festal banquet, his flag on the hard-fought
field,
The first a giver of guerdons, the next a seizer of souls,
The third joy's source, while the last-named attesteth Victory's
scrolls.
Null in his glorious epoch, void in his golden prime,
Found in his days of splendour, dimmed in his lustrous time,
Is, first, Kay-Khusraw's glory; second, Sikandar's fame;
Third, the renown of Ferídún; and, last, Núshirwán's name.”

Dawlatsháh repudiates, on grounds that do not in themselves appear very adequate, the well known, though possibly fictitious, anecdote ^342a (given by Sir Gore Ouseley in his Biographies of Persian Poets, p. 108) that 'Abdu'l-Wási' Jabalí, then a humble peasant lad, first attracted the attention of a rich and powerful patron by the following extemporised verses, wherein, unconscious of a human audience, he was apostrophising some camels which were trespassing on a cotton-field entrusted to his care:

“Flasked-necked camels, hence! Get out!
Well I know what you're about!
Those long necks which forward crane
Shall not touch my cotton-grain!”

Súzaní of Nasaf (or Samarqand, according to Dawlatsháh), whose proper name was Muḥammad b. 'Alí, is chiefly famous Súzaní. for the ribald and satirical verses to which in earlier life he mainly devoted his talent. These verses must have been exceptionally vitriolic, ^342b even for the time and place in which he lived, since Dawlatsháh, who is not, as his notices of Abu'l-'Alá of Ganja and Kháqání abundantly show, particularly squeamish, excuses himself from giving specimens; while 'Awfí, though regarding his facetiœ as full of talent, considers it best “to draw in the reins of utterance from putting forward such things,” and adds a pious hope that, in consideration of a few serious and penitential poems composed in old age, God may pardon the erring poet. His pen-name, Súzaní, is stated by 'Awfí to have been adopted by, or given to, him in consequence of an attachment which he formed to the apprentice of a manufacturer of needles (súzan). One of his rivals, between whom and himself many a duel of words seems to have been waged, was, according to 'Awfí (vol. ii, pp. 208-9), Ḥamídu'd-Dín al-Jawharí. Dawlat-sháh says that Súzaní died in A.H. 569 (= A.D. 1173-74). The author of the Ta'ríkh-i-Guzída says that God pardoned him at last for this verse:—

“Four things I bring, O Lord, to Thee, which exist not Thy
treasure within;
Need I bring, and nothingness, and my crimes, and my deadly
sin.”

Súzaní's own words sufficiently show that his life, to put it mildly, was open to criticism. Thus, in a fine poem quoted by Dawlatsháh (p. 100), he says:—

“I trod in the path of the Devil, I was snared in the Devil's
gin,
Till my evil conduct made me surpass the Devil in sin.
Unstained by sin in my lifetime I scarcely recall a day;
That I reckoned innocence sinful 'twere almost just to say.
From each of my limbs and members a crop of sins had
birth,
As weeds of every species will flourish in humid earth.
At To-morrow's great Uprising, which men to-day deny,
Each limb of my sinful body my shame will loudly cry.”

'Alí Shatranjí, the author of the “Stork qaṣída” (Qaṣída-i-Laklak , 'Awfí's Lubáb, vol. ii, pp. 199-200), Jannatí of Nakhshab, and Lámi'í of Bukhárá were, according to Dawlatsháh, amongst the pupils and imitators of Súzaní.

It would be useless to attempt an enumeration of all the poets of this period who achieved some celebrity in their day,

Of Mahsatí we know but little, and even the correct pronunciation and derivation of her name (also given as Mihsití,

“For thee hath Heaven saddled Fortune's steed,
O King, and chosen thee from all who lead;
Now o'er the Earth it spreads a silver sheet
To guard from mud thy gold-shod charger's feet.”

She is said to have been the mistress of the poet Táju'd-Dín Aḥmad ibn Khaṭíb of Ganja, and quatrains interchanged between these two are quoted in the Ta'ríkh-i-Guzída, ^345a which also gives two quatrains addressed by her to a butcher-boy of whom she was enamoured. ^345b The brief notice of her contained in vol. iii of the I'timádu's-Salṭana's Khayrát^un Ḥisán^un, or Biographies of Eminent Women (pp. 103-4), adds little to our knowledge of her life and work, but it is worth noticing that the last but one of the quatrains there ascribed to her is in the Ta'ríkh-i-Guzída ^345c attributed to another poetess named Bintu'n-Najjáriyya.

Of the innumerable minor poets of this period Faríd-i-Kátib (or -i-Dabír, both words, as stated above, meaning “the Faríd-i-Kátib, 'Imád-i-Zawzaní, and Ḥasan of Ghazna. scribe”), 'Imád-i-Zawzaní, and Sayyid Ḥasan of Ghazna are, perhaps, the most celebrated. The following quatrain composed by the first-named of these poets on the occasion of Sanjar's defeat by the Ghuzz about A.H. 535 (= A.D. 1140-41) is sufficiently celebrated to make it worth quoting:—

“O King, thy spear hath set the whole world straight;
Thy foes for forty years thy sword did sate:
If now ill luck befalls, Fate willed it so,
For God alone remaineth in one state!”

The most celebrated of all the poets whose names are associated with Sanjar's Court is without doubt Anwarí, whose work Anwarí, Kháqání, Nidhámí, and Dhahír of Fáryáb. will be considered, along with that of his younger contemporaries, Kháqání, Nidhámí of Ganja, and Dhahír of Fáryáb, in the following chapter, since their importance demands that they should be discussed at considerable length.

Of the most important Persian prose works of this period, two, the Ḥadá'iqu's-Siḥr (“Gardens of Magic”) of Waṭwáṭ and Persian prose works of this period. the Chahár Maqála (“Four Discourses”) of Nidhamí-i-'Arúḍí of Samarqand, have been already discussed, the latter very fully. Al-Ghazálí's work and influence have likewise been noticed, and it is sufficient to mention here the most celebrated of his Persian works, the Kímiyá-yi-Sa'ádat (“Alchemy of Happiness”), which is essentially an abridgement of the much fuller Iḥyá'u'l-'Ulúm, or “Quickening of the Sciences” [of Religion], composed by him in Arabic. Three other prose works of this period deserve at least a brief mention, viz., the great medical Ency-clopædia known as the Dhakhíra-i-Khwárazmsháhí; the Persian Maqámát of Ḥamídí; and the version of Kalíla and Dimna made by Abu'l-Ma'álí Naṣru'lláh.

The Thesaurus, or Encyclopædia of Medical Science, composed early in the sixth century of the hijra (twelfth of our The Dhakhírai-Khwárazmsháhí. era) by Zaynu'd-Dín Abú Ibráhím Isma'íl al-Jurjání, and dedicated to Quṭbu'd-Dín Khwárazmsháh, the father of Atsiz, need not detain us, as it does not fall into the category of Belles Lettres, and is, so far as I know, a mere résumé or digest of the medical theories and practice of Avicenna (Ibn Síná) and his successors, set forth in Persian for the benefit of laymen unskilled either in the healing art or in the Arabic language.^346a

The Maqámát, or Séances, of the Qáḍí Ḥamídu'd-Dín Abú Bakr of Balkh (a contemporary of Anwarí, who has eulogised The Maqámát-i-Ḥamídí. him in several of his poems) is an imitation in Persian of the similar but much more celebrated Arabic Maqámát of Badí'u'z-Zamán al-Hamadhání and of al-Ḥarírí, to whom this style of ornate writing owes its origin and popularity. The composition of the Persian Maqámát-i-Ḥamídí was begun in the summer of A.D. 1156, and it is especially mentioned by the author of the Chahár Maqála (p. 25 of my translation) as a model of style. It contains twenty-three (or, in the Ṭihrán and Cawnpore lithographed editions, twenty-four) Maqámát, and its author died in A.D. 1164. Its contents are fully stated by Rieu. ^347a Inferior though it be, alike in scope, finish, and ingenuity, to its Arabic prototypes, it is nevertheless highly esteemed amongst the Persians, as the following verses of Anwarí ^347b clearly show:—

“Every discourse which is not the Qur'án or the Traditions of
Muṣṭafá ^347c
Hath now, by the Maqámát of Ḥamídu'd-Dín, become as vain
words.
Regard as blind men's tears the Maqámát of Ḥarírí and Badí' ^347d
Compared with that Ocean fulfilled of the Water of Life.
Rejoice, O thou who art the Spirit [animating] the elemental
form of the followers of Maḥmúd! ^347e
Go [onwards], for thou art the Maḥmúd of the age, and we [but]
the idols of Somnáth! ^347f
Should I read a chapter of thy Maqámát over the numbers,
At once the ‘Surds’ would find deliverance from their speech-
lessness.
The Universal Intelligence meditated on a line thereof, and
exclaimed, ‘O Wonderful!
Does this most learned judge [Ḥamídu'd-Dín, the author] possess
the Science of the Transmutation of Speech?’
Live long, O powerful judgement, for in the World of Divine
Talent
Thou art an undeclining Sun and an enduring Heaven!”

The arrangement, as well as the nomenclature, of the Maqámát in the Ṭihrán edition differs considerably from that which obtains in the manuscript described by Dr. Rieu. Several of them are of the nature of munádharát, or disputations, as, for example, between Youth and Old Age, between an orthodox Sunní and a “heretical” Shí'í, or between a Physician and an Astronomer. Others deal with such things as Spring, Love, Autumn, and Madness. Others, again, contain enigmas, riddles, or acrostics, or deal with legal questions or mystical speculations. Two of the descriptive Maqámát, on the cities of Balkh and Samarqand, inspire hopes of more definite and tangible information, and even of autobiographical particulars, but the form ever prevails over the matter of the discourse, and we find our hopes doomed to disappointment. The laboured and artificial style of these Maqámát does not readily lend itself to translation, and, since the form is everything and the substance entirely subordinate, to give any idea of the original it is necessary to paraphrase rather than to translate. The following attempt, taken from the description of Balkh ^348a before and after it had been harried and looted by the barbarous Ghuzz in A.H. 548 (A.D. 1153), may serve as a sufficient sample of the whole:—

“But when to the confines of that country I at length drew near —and to those journeying from Balkh did lend my ear—far otherwise did things appear.

‘Who news of absent friends doth seek to know,
Must needs hear tidings both of joy and woe.’

“Thus spake informants credible:—'Haste thee not, for thy goal and aim—is no more the same—as that of days which are past—and a season which did not last:—those fragrant breezes now are changed to the desert's deadly gale—and that sugar-sweetness is transformed to draughts of lethal bale;—of those sweet beds of basil only thorns remain—and of those cups of pleasure naught save an aching pain.—What boots it to behold thy fair-faced fere—in weeds of woe and garments dark and drear—or to witness the spring-land of thy mays—a prey to dispraise—withered and sere?

“Said I:—‘What overlooker's evil eye did light—on those fair gardens bright?—And what dread poisoned desert-blast—of desolation drear hath past—to wreck their order, and their beauty to the winds to cast?’

“Then they, ‘O youth!—such evil change, in sooth—awaking in us boundless grief and ruth—too often hath accrued—from Fortune rude—and fickle Fate's undreamed vicissitude.—Heaven is harsh, I ween—yet is not what is heard as what is seen.—Haste thee, and onwards go—that thou may'st see and know;—for to attempt to picture the unseen—is vain, I ween.’”

I turn now to the last of the three Persian prose works of this period which I propose to discuss, I mean the translation The Kalila and Dimna of Naṣru'llah b. al-Ḥamíd. made by Nidhámu'd-Dín Abu'l-Ma'álí Naṣru'lláh b. Muḥammad b. 'Abdu'l-Ḥamíd of 'Abdu'lláh ibnu'l-Muqaffa''s Arabic version of the celebrated Book of Kalíla and Dimna. This translation was made for and dedicated to Bahrám-Sháh of Ghazna, who reigned from A.H. 512 until A.H. 544 or 547 or 548 (= A.D. 1118-50 or 1153-54), ^349b and, as Rieu has shown, ^349c probably after A.H. 539 (A.D. 1144-45). It also, as Rieu points out, is so highly esteemed in Persia that Waṣṣáf, the historian and panegyrist of the Mongols, praises it as a model of eloquence, while the author of the Haft Iqlím says that no Persian prose work was ever so much admired. An excellent lithographed edition appeared at Ṭihrán in A.H. 1305 (end of A.D. 1887 or beginning of 1888), and to this I shall refer when need arises.^349d

Few books in the world have achieved so great a success as that of Kalíla and Dimna, or have been translated into so many languages. Originally of Indian origin, it was brought to Persia in the sixth century of our era, in the reign of Kisrá Anúshirwán, and translated into Pahlawí; from the Pahlawí version sprung immediately the earlier Syriac and the Arabic versions; and from the Arabic it was rendered into numerous other languages, Eastern and Western. The literary history of Kalílah and Dimnah, or the Fables of Bidpai, is fully given in Keith-Falconer's work, published under this title in 1885 by the University Press, Cambridge; and a table showing the affiliation of the different versions, with their dates, is given on p. lxxxv. All these versions, except the Tibetan, which came immediately from the Sanskrit, are descended from the lost Pahlawí, from which the old Syriac version was made about A.D. 570 and the Arabic version of Ibnu'l-Muqaffa' about A.D. 750. The remaining known versions, including the later Syriac (tenth or eleventh century of our era), ^350a are all derived from the Arabic of Ibnu'l-Muqaffa', and comprise Greek, Persian, Hebrew, ^350b Latin, ^350c Spanish, Italian, Slavonic, Turkish, German, English, Danish, Dutch, and French renderings, of which the last, begun by Galland and completed by Cardonne in A.D. 1778, is the latest in point of time. Of the Persian versions, that which we are about to discuss is the oldest extant, though, as we have already seen, the tale had at a much earlier date been versified by the poet Rúdagí. By far the best known Persian version, however, is that made about the end of the fifteenth century of our era by Ḥusayn Wá'idh-i-Káshifí, and entitled Anwár-i-Suhaylí ; from which in turn were derived the third Persian version, known as the 'Iyár-i-Dánish, or “Touchstone of Wisdom,” made by Abu'l-Faḍl for Akbar, and the Turkish Humáyún-náma, or “Royal Book,” made by 'Alí Chelebi for Sulṭán Sulaymán I, both in the sixteenth century of our era.

Although the author of the Anwár-i-Suhaylí ostensibly aimed at simplifying and popularising Naṣru'lláh's earlier version, his style is in fact much more bombastic and florid. For purposes of comparison, let us take the short apologue of the Fox and the Drum which occurs near the beginning of the chapter of the Lion and the Ox, beginning with a translation of Ibnu'l-Muqaffa''s Arabic text of this tale (p. 106 of the Beyrout edition of 1884):—

“Said Dimna: ‘They allege that a certain fox came to a wood in which was a drum suspended on a tree; and whenever the wind blew on the branches of this tree, it stirred them so that they beat the drum, and there became audible in it a loud and sonorous sound. So the fox directed his steps towards it, because of what he heard of the loudness of its sound. And when he came to it, he found it bulky, and made sure within himself of an abundance of fat and meat. Wherefore he struggled with it until he had split it asunder; but when he perceived it to be hollow, containing naught within it, he said: “I know not whether perchance the feeblest of things be not the loudest in outcry and the greatest in bulk.”’”

Let us now take Naṣru'lláh's version of the same (p. 79 of the Ṭihrán lithographed edition of A.H. 1305):—

“He [Dimna] said: ‘They relate that a fox entered a thicket. There he saw a drum cast down by the side of a tree, and whenever the wind stirred, the branches of the tree reached the drum, and a terrific noise assailed the fox's ears. When the fox saw the bulkiness of its carcase and heard the majesty of its voice, he greedily imagined that its flesh and skin would prove worthy of the voice. He strove until he had rent it asunder. In fact he found nothing more than skin. Urging the steed of remorse into its course, he said: “I did not realise that wherever there is the greater bulk and the more terrible noise, there is the less profit.”’”

Turning now to the Anwár-i-Suhaylí, we find the story considerably expanded and padded, as follows (pp. 58-59 of the lithographed edition of A.H. 1270):—

“Dimna said: ‘They relate that a fox was passing through a thicket, and was wandering in every direction in hopes of food. [He came at length] to the foot of a tree by the side of which they had hung a drum; and whenever a wind blew, a branch of that tree was stirred and reached the surface of the drum, from which a frightful noise arose. The fox saw beneath the tree a hen, which was driving its beak into the ground in search of food. Crouching in ambush, it prepared to seize it, when suddenly the sound of the drum reached its ears. Looking up, it beheld a very stout body, while its voice sounded terrible. The greed of the fox was stirred, and it reflected within itself that the flesh and skin of this thing should be worthy of its voice. Quitting the ambush of the hen, it turned its face towards the tree. The hen, warned of the [impending] catastrophe, fled; while the fox, with a hundred toils, came up to the tree. Much it strove until it had rent asunder the drum, but naught did it find save a skin and a piece of wood. The fire of remorse fell into its heart, and the tears of regret began to pour from its eyes, and it said, “Alas, that for the sake of this bulky carcase, which was all wind, that lawful quarry [i.e., the hen] hath escaped from my hands, while from this form without sense no profit hath accrued to me.

“‘“The drum ever cries, but what good doth it do,
Since its carcase is hollow and empty within?
If wisdom be thine, then the Real pursue,
And be not deceived by a flatulent skin.”’”

In this particular instance the Anwár-i-Suhaylí version, though considerably expanded, not to say inflated, is comparatively faithful to its original; but in general it is full of absurd exaggerations, recondite words, vain epithets, far-fetched comparisons, and tasteless bombast, and represents to perfection the worst style of those florid writers who flourished under the patronage of the Tímúrids in North-Eastern Persia and Trans-oxiana during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of our era, and who, unfortunately, passing with Bábar into India, became models and exemplars to the bombast-loving people of that country. This is one and perhaps the chief reason why good and chaste Persian has very rarely been produced or admired in Hindustán, where we find a Baboo Persian precisely similar to the Baboo English which, in the immortal pages of the Biography of Honble. Chief Justice Mookerjee, has afforded us such exquisite material for mirth.

For purposes of comparison I here reproduce the above apologue of the Fox and the Drum from the Latin version of John of Capua, which was made about A.D. 1270 from the earlier Hebrew rendering of the Arabic:—^353a

“Ait Dimna: ‘Fuit vulpes quidam ambulans versus flumen, circa quod suspensum erat cimbalum in arbore; ventus autem ramos arboris agitabat et propulsabatur cimbalum. Et cum vulpes videret, estimavit esse aliquod pingue animal et plenum carnibus; que cum scinderet ipsum, invenit ipsum concavum et vacuum. Et ait: “Nolo credere res magni corporis et fortis vocis in se habere potentiam,” et abiit in viam suam.’”

It remains now to notice briefly some of the most epoch-making Arabic works composed at this period. To make a Important Arabic works composed at this period. selection of those most deserving of mention is by no means easy, and in doing so I have chosen rather what I deem valuable to the Persian student for purposes of reference than what enjoys the greatest celebrity.

The most notable Arabic authors and scholars whose deaths took place during the period which we are now discussing are,

The fuller consideration of these authors (although, as will be seen, most of them were Persians by birth) belongs rather to the history of Arabic Literature, and would be out of place here, even did space admit of it; but the serious student of Persian literary history will from time to time have occasion to consult the works of most of them, for, as has been already pointed out, till the Mongol Invasion and Fall of Baghdád in the middle of the thirteenth century of our era Arabic continued to hold its place in Persia as the language of science and literature, and in it the bulk of the most indispensable works of reference are composed. A few words may, however, be added about some of the authors above mentioned. I begin with one who, since he met his death in A.D. 1075, should properly have been mentioned in an earlier chapter, from which he was omitted by an oversight, I mean al-Bákharzí.

Abu'l-Qásim 'Alí b. al-Ḥasan b. Abí Ṭayyib al-Bákharzí was notable both as a poet and as a biographer of poets. In al-Bákharzí. the former capacity he is noticed at some length in vol. i of 'Awfí's Lubábu'l-Albáb (pp. 68-71 of my forthcoming edition). In the latter he continued the work begun by ath-Tha'álibí in the Yatímatu'd-Dahr, and wrote a most comprehensive work entitled the Dumyatu'l-Qaṣr, which contains notices of about 225 more or less contemporary poets and 20 notable men of letters of whom no poetry is recorded. ^355a Unfortunately, however, he confines his attention to those who wrote in Arabic, and entirely ignores the Persian poets concerning whom he might have given us such valuable and authentic information. His own verse is partly in Arabic and partly in Persian; as 'Awfí puts it, “he became a signal in the world in both writings, and snatched the prize of preeminence from the literary men of his age in both languages.” In his youth he was one of the secretaries of the Seljúq Sulṭán Ṭughril, but afterwards, preferring lettered ease, resigned that position, and ended a gay and apparently somewhat dissolute life by a violent death, resulting, as it would seem, from a drinking bout. Besides his other verses, he is stated by 'Awfí (loc. cit., p. 70) and Riḍá-qulí Khán (Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá, vol. i, pp. 343-4) to have written a Ṭarab-náma, or “Book of Delight,” consisting of Persian quatrains arranged alphabetically.

The following verses (Lubáb, vol. i, p. 69) form part of an Arabic qaṣída composed in praise of Ṭughril:—

“When we first set out, the Mirror of Time ^356a was a disc of silvery
sheen,
But now it is darkened, hath suffered eclipse, and can be no
longer seen. ^356b
Our camels haste to cross the waste, nor halt to let us view
The ash-strewn site of our sweetheart's camp, and revive her
image anew.
They shake their sides, and with eager strides they press and
they labour still
To bring us straight to the palace-gate of the glorious Prince
Ṭughril.”

Here is a translation of one of his Persian quatrains:—

“Night black as pitch she bids bright day bestride; ^356c
Two sugar-plums stars two-and-thirty hide;^356d

O'er the red rose a musky scorpion strays, ^357a
For which she keeps two antidotes well tried.”^357b

Here is another of his quatrains in praise of wine (Lubáb, vol. i, p. 70):—

“That wine which causeth joy do I desire;
Red as the jujube-fruit, the grape its sire;
Named wine, entitled ‘Alchemy of Joy’—
Strange water this, which sets the cheeks on fire!”

Lastly, here is the quatrain which (Lubáb, i, 71) he is said to have written at the moment of his death:—

“I go; come, cast on me a last long gaze:
Behold me tortured in ten thousand ways!
A stone above, my pleading hand beneath,
And there my friend, and there the sword which slays!”

A poet named 'Ayyáḍí commemorated his death in these lines (Lubáb, i, 71):—

“Poor Ḥasan 'Alí in this luckless strife
Faultless, like 'Alí's Ḥusayn, ^357c lost his life:
A lion he, who dwelt in Culture's glen:
Small wonder for a lion slain of men!”

The most interesting thing about 'Abdu'l-Wáḥid b. Isma'íl ar-Rúyání, an eminent jurisconsult of the Sháfi'ite school,

“His discernment reached such a point that in his time the accursed heretics ^358a sought for a decision (fatwá) ^358b on the following case which they had committed to writing: ‘What say the leaders of Religion as to a case where both plaintiff and defendant are content to abide by what is just and right, when a witness appears and bears testimony opposed alike to the claim of the plaintiff and the admission of the defendant? Can such testimony be lawfully heard, or not?’ This question, written on a piece of paper, they sent to the two Sacred Cities (Mecca and al-Madína); and the leading theologians of the Sacred Cities, Muḥammad Juwayní and Muḥammad Ghazálí, together with the Imáms of Baghdád and Syria, all wrote in reply that such testimony could not be adduced or heard. But he [i.e., ar-Rúyání], having glanced at the paper, turned his face towards the man [who had brought it], and exclaimed, ‘O ill-starred wretch! So much thankless labour will bring calamity upon thee!’ Then he ordered him to be detained, and assembled all the judges and religious leaders. ‘This enquiry,’ said he, ‘was written by the Heretics. The plaintiff and defendant are respectively the Jews and the Christians, and the witness they mean is our Apostle (Muḥammad, on whom be the Blessings of God and His Peace; for the glorious Qu'rán bears testimony as follows: “And they neither slew Him [i.e., Jesus Christ] nor crucified Him, but it was made so to appear to them.”’ ^358c They then enquired of the heretic, who admitted that for a whole year he had been sent hither and thither through the world to seek an answer to this enquiry. He was then stoned to death by the people of Ámul, and Fakhru'l-Islám [ar-Rúyání] enjoined the cursing of the progeny of the Heretics, until they sent [Fidá'ís, or Assassins] who treacherously slew that martyred Imám with blows of their knives at the door of one of the chapels of the Great Mosque of Ámul, on that side where stands the minaret. The knife is still preserved in his rooms in the College, where I have repeatedly seen it.”

The object of the Assassins evidently was to stultify the orthodox doctors of Islám by proving their law to be in contradiction with their theology. The Christians, who are the plaintiffs in the case, accuse the Jews, who are the defendants, of crucifying Jesus Christ. The Jews admit this, and are therefore agreed as to the facts, and are prepared to abide by the consequences. The Prophet Muḥammad, here following certain Gnostic sects, denies that Christ was really crucified by the Jews, and so “bears testimony opposed alike to the claim of the plaintiff and the admission of the defendant”; but, though all Muhammadans accept his testimony on this as on all other matters, they have, according to the decision of their own chief theologians and doctors, no justification for so doing. Ar-Rúyání's quickness in detecting the trap set by the “Heretics” for the moment confounded them, and ultimately led to his own death.

We have already sufficiently discussed that very artificial and ingenious style of composition which characterises all Maqámát,

This Wazír, on account of his excellent historical monograph on the Seljúqs (edited by Houtsma in the recension of Anúshirwán b. Khálid. al-Bundárí as the second volume of his Recueil de Textes relatifs á l'Histoire des Seldjoucides, Leyden, 1889), deserves some mention in this place. Nearly all that is known about him has been set forth by Houtsma in his preface (pp. xi-xxx) to the above-mentioned work, but the following notice, which I found in a manuscript of the 'Uyúnu'l-Akhbár (“Primary Sources of Historical Data”) preserved in the Cambridge University Library (Add. 2,922, f. 126^a), and published at pp. 861-2 of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1902, has not, I think, hitherto been translated. It occurs under the year A.H. 532 (= A.D. 1137-38), and runs as follows:—

“And in this year died Anúshirwán b. Khálid b. Muḥammad of Káshán [who bore the kunya] Abú Naṣr, the Wazír. He was born at Ray in A.H. 459 (= A.D. 1066-67), and, after various vicissitudes, became wazír to Sulṭán Maḥmúd [b. Muḥammad b.] Maliksháh in A.H. 517 (= A.D. 1123-24), with whom he came to Baghdád, where he took up his abode. He used to live in the Precinct of Ṭáhir ^361a in a house on the shore of the Tigris. He was dismissed from, and again restored to, his position of Minister: then the Sulṭán arrested him and cast him into bonds, but subsequently released him. The Caliph al-Mustarshid bi'lláh made him his Minister in the latter part of A.H. 526 (= A.D. 1132), and he continued his administration until he was dismissed in the year A.H. 528 (= A.D. 1134), after which he abode in his house in the Precinct of Ṭáhir, honoured by all, ^361b until he died in this year (A.H. 532 = A.D. 1137-38). He was one of the most accomplished of public men, characterised by generosity and nobility, and a friend to men of learning. He summoned to his house Abu'l-Qásim b. al-Ḥuṣayn, in order that his sons might hear from him the Musnad of Ibn Ḥanbal according to the reading of Abú Muḥammad ibnu'l-Khashsháb, and granted permission to the general public to be present at these lectures, of which permission great multitudes availed themselves. Ibn Jakíná the poet composed both panegyrics and satires on him, amongst the former, the following:—

“‘They asked me who was the greatest of men in worth:
I replied, “Their master, Anúshirwán;
And if he shows humility amongst us
That is but one of the signs of him whose rank is high;
For when the stars are reflected on the surface of water
It is not that they are lowly situated.”’

“The Qáḍí Náṣiḥu'd-Dín of Arraján wrote to ask him for a tent. Not having one, he sent him a purse containing five hundred dínárs, bidding him buy a tent. Al-Arrajání replied as follows:—

“‘Praise God for the bounty of such a man as Abú Khálid,
Who hath revived generosity for us after that it had departed.
I asked him for a tent wherein I might take shelter,
And he lavished on me a tent-full of gold!’

“He it was who caused the Maqámát of al-Ḥarírí to be composed, and to him does al-Ḥarírí allude at the beginning of his Maqámát where he says: ‘Then suggested to me one whose suggestion is as a decree, and obedience to whom is as a prize’ … And Anúshirwán was a Shí'ite—may God deal gently with him!”

A few words may be devoted to the great Mu'tazilite commentator and philologist Abu'l-Qásim Maḥmúd b. 'Umar az-Zamakhsharí. az-Zamakhsharí, who was born at Khwárazm (the modern Khiva) in A.D. 1074, and died near the same place in A.D. 1143. He lived for some time at Mecca, whence he is often entitled Járu'lláh (“God's neighbour”). Though a strong opponent of the Shu'úbiyya, who held the Persians to be superior to the Arabs, he composed an Arabic-Persian lexicon for the use of his countrymen, which was published at Leipzig by Wetzstein in A.D. 1844. The Kashsháf, his great commentary on the Qur'án; the Mufaṣṣal, a very notable work on Arabic grammar; his geographical dictionary, entitled Kitábu'l-Amkina wa'l-Jibál wa'l-Miyáh; and his “Collars of Gold” (Aṭwáqu'dh-Dhahab), all written in Arabic, are his most important and celebrated works.

Of Abu'l-Fatḥ Muḥammad b. Abi'l-Qásim b. 'Abdu'l-Karím b. Abí Bakr Aḥmad of Shahristán in Khurásán little ash-Shahristání. need be said save that he was born in A.D. 1086; visited Baghdád, where he resided for three years, in A.D. 1116-17; died in his native city in A.D. 1153; and, besides two or three less celebrated works, composed about A.D. 1127 his admirable Book of Sects, of which the Arabic text was published by Cureton in A.D. 1846, and a German translation with notes by Dr. Theodor Haarbrücker in A.D. 1850. For long this has been the only accessible Arabic work dealing with this important subject, but now at last the earlier, fuller, and almost homonymous work of the Andalusian Dhá-hirite theologian Ibn Ḥazm (b. A.D. 994, d. 1064) has been published at Cairo (A.H. 1317-21 = A.D. 1899-1903). For a copy of this fine edition of a most important book of reference hitherto absolutely inaccessible to all save a favoured few, I am indebted to my lamented friend and master, the late Grand Muftí of Egypt, Shaykh Muḥammad 'Abduh, the greatest man, the most able teacher, and the profoundest thinker produced by Islám in our days.

THE FOUR GREAT POETS OF THE LATE TWELFTH CENTURY, ANWARÍ, KHÁQÁNÍ, NIDHÁMÍ OF GANJA, AND DHAHÍR OF FÁRYÁB

IN this chapter I propose to depart from the chronological sequence of events which I have hitherto striven to observe, and to consider together four poets of the later Seljúq period, who are, by the general consent of their countrymen, amongst the greatest masters of verse whom Persia has produced. They were not strictly contemporary, and only one of them can be called a Seljúq poet, but they may conveniently be discussed and contrasted in a single chapter, since they are all figures in the literary world of Persia too important to be summarily dismissed. These four poets are Anwarí of Kháwarán in Khurásán, who, though he survived Sanjar some thirty or forty years, achieved his reputation in that monarch's reign; Kháqání, the poet of Shirwánsháh, born at Ganja (now Elizavetpol) in A.H. 500 (A.D. 1106-7); Nidhámí, also born at Ganja some thirty-five years later; and Dhahíru 'd-Dín Fáryábí, born at Fáryáb near Balkh, who, during the latter part of the twelfth century, frequented in turn the Courts of Ṭughánsháh of Níshápúr, Ḥusámu'd-Dawla Arda-shír of Mázandarán, and the Atábeks of Ádharbayján, and finally died at Tabríz about the beginning of the thirteenth century.

Of these four poets Anwarí is at once the most ancient and the most celebrated, and in the following well-known verse Anwarí. is even ranked as one of the three greatest poets whom Persia has produced:—

Dar shi'r si tan payambarán-and,
Qawlíst ki jumlagí bar án-and:
Firdawsí u Anwarí u Sa'dí,
Har chand ki ‘Lá nabiyya ba'dí’.^365a

It is difficult for an European student of Persian, however anxious he may be to give due weight to the opinion of native critics, to think of Anwarí as the equal of Firdawsí and Sa'dí, or as the superior of Náṣir-i-Khusraw or Nidhámí, but this is partly because, as I have already pointed out, the panegyric— and most of Anwarí's qaṣídas were panegyrics—however skilfully constructed, can seldom arouse much enthusiasm, save in the heart of him whose praises it celebrates. A friend of mine, Mírzá Muḥammad, one of the most learned and scholarly Persians whom it has ever been my good fortune to meet, is of opinion that Anwarí's reputation rests mainly on the comparatively small number of his qaṣídas which are not panegyrics, and this view is probably the true one. In most other forms of verse, such as the ghazal and quatrain, Anwarí is not specially distinguished, though his fragments (muqaṭṭa'át) often reveal a strong individuality.

Concerning the circumstances of Anwarí's life we possess but little authentic information, though a careful and critical examination of his poems would doubtless furnish us with some hitherto unremarked and trustworthy data for his biography. From other sources we learn but little on which reliance can be placed. 'Awfí in his Lubábu'l-Albáb (vol. ii, pp. 125-138 of my edition) as usual tells us practically nothing, save that the poet was skilled in Astronomy, Geometry, and Logic, a fact known to us from other sources, especially from one of Anwarí's own poems cited in the Ta'ríkh-i-Guzída, ^366a wherein he adds to these accomplishments Music, Metaphysics, Natural Science, and Judicial Astrology, and even declares himself proficient “in every science, pure or applied, known to any of his contemporaries.” According to Dawlatsháh (pp. 83-86 of my edition) he was born in Abíward at a village near Mihna in the Dasht-i-Kháwarán, on which account he at first wrote under the pen-name of Kháwarí, which he afterwards changed to Anwarí. He is said to have studied at the Manṣúriyya College of Ṭús, where he lived the cramped and straitened life of a needy student. One day—so runs the tale —there passed by the gate of the College a man gorgeously apparelled, mounted on a superb horse, and surrounded by servants and attendants. Anwarí, struck by his magnificence, inquired who he was, ^366b and on learning that he was a poet exclaimed, “Good heavens! Am I so poor when the rank of Science is so high, and is he so rich when the grade of Poetry stands so low? By the glory and splendour of the Lord of Glory, from to-day onwards I will busy myself with Poetry, which is the lowest of my accomplishments!” And that very night, it is said, he composed the celebrated qaṣída beginning—

Gar dil u dast baḥr u kán báshad,
Dil u dast-i-Khudáyagán báshad.

“If Heart and Hand can rank as Sea and Mine, ^366c
It is this Heart and Hand, O Sire, of thine!”

In the morning he presented himself at Sulṭán Sanjar's reception, and, having recited his poem, was asked whether he desired a present of money or a position at the Court; to which he replied:—

“Save at thy threshold in the world no resting-place have I;
Except this gate no place is found whereon my head would lie.”

Thereupon Sanjar made him an allowance and took him with him to Merv.

According to a very well-known verse cited by Dawlatsháh (p. 84), Kháwarán produced, besides Anwarí, three incomparable geniuses, namely, Abú 'Alí Aḥmad Shádán, who was for a time Prime Minister to Ṭughril Beg; Ustád As'ad of Mihna, a doctor of Theology and Law contemporary with al-Ghazálí, with whom he disputed; and the celebrated Ṣúfí Abú Sa'íd ibn Abi'l-Khayr, whose life and work have already been considered (pp. 261-269 supra).

Although Anwarí is said to have been one of the greatest astrologers of his time, he ventured on a forecast which, owing to the notoriety which it attained and its conspicuous non-fulfilment, considerably damaged his prestige. It happened that during Sanjar's reign all the seven planets were at one period in the Sign of the Balance, ^367a and Anwarí declared that this conjunction portended gales of such severity that buildings and trees would be overthrown and cities destroyed. Many people were so alarmed by these predictions that they dug cellars in which to take refuge from the impending calamity. But when the fateful night arrived there was so little wind that a naked light burned unwaveringly on the top of a minaret; nor was Anwarí's plea that the effects of such a conjunction did not appear at once, but took time to develop, more successful, for during the whole of that year there was so little wind that it did not suffice for the winnowing of the harvests ^367b about Merv, which consequently lay on the ground till the following spring. On this Faríd-i-Kátib composed a verse which may be thus paraphrased:—

“Said Anwarí, ‘Such fearful gales shall blow
As houses, nay, e'en hills, shall overthrow.’
The day proved breathless; Anwarí, I ween you
And Æolus must settle it between you!”^368a

This conjunction of the planets is generally considered to have taken place in Rajab, A.H. 581 (= October, A.D. 1185), or possibly, as hinted by Ethé, nearly a year later; ^368b so that Anwarí's death, the dates assigned to which by different biographers (and even by the same biographer in different passages of the same work) vary between A.H. 545 and 656 (= A.D. 1150-1258), must have taken place after (probably soon after) this event.

By far the fullest and best critical monograph on Anwarí is that published at St. Petersburg in 1883 by Professor Zhukovski's Memoir on Anwarí. Valentin Zhukovski, under the title of 'Alí Awḥadu'd-Dín Anwarí: Materials for a Biography and Characteristic-Sketch. It is unfortunately written in Russian, and is therefore inaccessible to the majority of Orientalists; but we owe to Dr. W. Pertsch an excellent epitome of the biographical portion, published in vol. ii of the Literatur-Blatt für Orientalische Philologie (Leipzig, 1884-5). The Russian work comprises xxiv + 146 pages, followed by 90 pages of Persian text, and consists of:—

A Preface (pp. i-vii);

An Introduction (pp. viii-xxiv);

Chapter i (pp. 1-30). Biography of Anwarí;

Chapter ii (pp. 31-78). Literary activity and characteristics of Anwarí;

Chapter iii (pp. 79-97). The commentaries on Anwarí's poems in general, and that of Abu'l-Ḥasan Faráhání in particular;

Chapter iv (pp. 98-102). The language of Anwarí and the Bibliography of his works;

Translations of qaṣidas (pp. 103-135);

Translations of ghazals (pp. 135-137);

A Table of the Muhammadan years mentioned in the course of the work, from A.H. 225 to A.H. 1273, with their Christian equivalents (pp. 138-141);

Alphabetical index of proper names (pp. 141-146).

The Persian texts at the end of the volume comprise:—

Selected qaṣídas (six in number), the first with full and the remainder with occasional commentary (pp. 2-72);

Selected ghazals, four in number (pp. 73-76);

Biography of Anwarí from the Tadhkira, or Memoirs, of Dawlat-sháh (pp. 78-83);

Biography of Anwarí from the Mirátu'l-Khayál of Shír Khán Lúdí (pp. 83-85);

Biography of Anwarí from the Átash-Kada of Luṭf 'Alí Beg (pp. 85-88);

Biography of Anwarí from the Haft Iqlím of Amín Aḥmad-i-Rází (pp. 88-90).

Amongst the mass of interesting matter collected by Zhukovski, attention may be especially directed to his table (on p. 29) of the various dates assigned to Anwarí's death by different authorities, and his list of the very numerous Arabic and Persian works (over sixty in number) to which Abu'l-Ḥasan Faráhání refers in his Commentary (pp. 89-96). As regards the former, the date of Anwarí's death is given:—

In the Átash-Kada of Luṭf 'Alí Beg (composed in A.H. 1180 = A.D. 1766-77) as A.H. 545 (= A.D. 1150-51) in Zhukovski's text, but as A.H. 656 (= A.D. 1258) or A.H. 659 (= A.D. 1261) in the Bombay lithographed edition of A.H. 1277 (= A.D. 1860-61);^370a

In the Taqwímu't-Tawáríkh of Ḥájji Khalífa (composed in A.H. 1058 = A.D. 1648) as A.H. 547 (= A.D. 1152-53);

In the Tadhkira of Dawlatsháh (p. 86 of my edition) as A.H. 547 (= A.D. 1152-53), but some MSS. give other dates, such as A.H. 548 and 556;

In the Mirátu'l-Khayál of Shír Khán-i-Lúdí (composed in A.H. 1102 = A.D. 1690-91) as A.H. 549 (= A.D. 1154-55);

In the Haft Iqlím of Amín Aḥmad-i-Rází (composed in A.H. 1002 = A.D. 1593-94) as A.H. 580 (= A.D. 1184-85);

In the Mujmal of Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Yaḥyá Faṣíḥ of Khwáf (composed in A.H. 845 = A.D. 1441-42) as A.H. 585 (= A.D. 1189-90);

In the Khuláṣatu'l-Ash'ár of Taqí Khán of Káshán (composed, so far as this earlier portion is concerned, in A.H. 985 = A.D. 1577-78) as A.H. 587 (= A.D. 1191);

In the Mirátu'l-'Álam of Muḥammad Bakhtáwar Khán (composed in A.H. 1078 = A.D. 1667-68) as A.H. 592 (= A.D. 1196);

While, lastly, the date A.H. 597 (= A.D. 1200-1) is given by d'Herbelot and Stewart.

As will be seen, most of these works are comparatively modern, only two, the Mujmal and Dawlatsháh's Tadhkira, reaching back even as far as the ninth century of the hijra (latter half of the fifteenth of our era). Of the older works from which information might be expected, the Chahár Maqála makes no mention whatever of Anwarí, while the Ta'ríkh-i-Guzída of Ḥamdu'lláh Mustawfí (composed A.H. 730 = A.D. 1330) and the Lubábu'l-Albáb of 'Awfí (early thirteenth century of our era), though they both consecrate articles to him, omit to mention the date of his death, as does the Arabic Átháru'l-Bilád of al-Qazwíní (ed. Wüstenfeld, p. 242, s.v. Kháwarán), which merely describes his poetry as “more subtle than water,” and says that it is in Persian what that of Abu'l-'Atáhiya is in Arabic—a comparison which seems to me singularly inapt. At present, therefore, no data are available for determining accurately when Anwarí was born or when he died, but, for the reasons given above, his death must have taken place subsequently to A.H. 581, and probably, as assumed by Zhukovski and Ethé, between A.H. 585 and 587 (= A.D. 1189-91).

Before proceeding to a fuller examination of Zhukovski's admirable work, allusion should be made to another monograph on Anwarí by M. Ferté, published in the Journal Asiatique for March-April, 1895 (series ix, vol. 5, pp. 235-268). This need not detain us, for it is quite uncritical; the author seems to have had no knowledge of Zhukovski's or Pertsch's work, and contents himself with translating a few of Anwarí's most celebrated poems and reproducing some of the best known, but probably in many cases apocryphal, anecdotes of the biographers.

Zhukovski begins his book with a brief Preface, in which he describes the materials which he had at his disposal, and explains the reasons which led him to select the six qaṣídas whereof the text is published at the end of the volume. The first of these, which is also the first in the Lucknow edition, begins:—

Báz in chi juwání u jamál-ast jahán-rá?

and is chosen because it is at once one of the most celebrated and one of the most difficult and complex of Anwarí's qaṣídas, and because Abu'l-Ḥasan Faráhání's commentary on it, which Zhukovski prints with the text of the poem, is particularly full.

The second, beginning:—

Agar muḥawwil-i-ḥál-i-jahániyán na Qaḍá'st,
Chirá majáriy-i-aḥwál bar khiláf-i-riḍá'st?

is chosen because, in Zhukovski's opinion, Nicolas, who translated it, has misunderstood it, and misrepresented Anwarí on the strength of it.

The third, already mentioned, which begins:—

Gar dil u dast baḥr u kán báshad,
Dil u dast-i-Khudáyagán báshad,

is chosen because it is generally considered to be alike the earliest and one of the most beautiful of Anwarí's qaṣídas.

The fourth, published by Kirkpatrick with an English translation, entitled “The Tears of Khurásán,” in the first volume of the Asiatic Miscellany, p. 286 et seqq. (Calcutta, A.D. 1785), is chosen on account of its historic interest, its human feeling, and its celebrity. It begins:—

Bar Samarqand agar bug'zarí, ay bád-i-saḥar,
Náma-í-ahl-i-Khurásán bi-bar-i-Sulṭán bar.

The fifth, beginning:—

Ay birádar, bishnaw ín ramzí zi shi'r u shá'irí,

is interesting as containing Anwarí's confession as a poet.

The sixth and last, beginning:—

Ay Musulmánán, fighán az jawr-i-charkh-i-chanbarí!

is chosen as one of the last and finest of Anwarí's poems (his “swan-song,” as Zhukovski terms it), and because of its biographical interest.

Of the ghazals only four are given, and Zhukovski has admittedly taken these more or less at random, considering that all of them are about equal in point of merit and interest.

The Preface is followed by an Introduction, dealing with the peculiar position of the professional poet in Persia, especially at this epoch, and emphasizing the necessity under which he laboured, if he wished to make money, of devoting his attention chiefly to political and panegyric verse, varied by satire, the natural counterpart of eulogy. Rhetoric in verse rather than true poetry was generally, as Zhukovski well says, the output of these Court-poets, who fulfilled to a certain extent the functions proper to the journalist in modern times, as well as the more intimate duties of the boon-companion and sycophant. The Court-poet frankly wanted and wrote for money. “If thou wilt give me a thousandth part of what Rúdagí obtained from the bounty of kings, I will produce poetry a thousand times as good,” said Shaykh Abú Zarrá'a al-Ma'marí of Gurgán to his patron. ^373a The poet was expected to show himself equal to every occasion, whether of joy or grief; to congratulate, as we have seen, the royal eye which first detected the new moon heralding the conclusion of the month of fasting, or to console for a fall from a restive horse, or a bad throw at backgammon, or even a defeat in the field of battle; ^373b even to offer condolence to a friend afflicted with toothache.

Another curious point which Zhukovski brings out is that every poet of note had his ráwí, or rhapsodist, to whom he entrusted the task of declaiming the poetry which he had composed. Firdawsí mentions Abú Dulaf as his ráwí; ^373c Abu'l-Faraj-i-Rúní says in a verse cited by Zhukovski: “My ráwí has recited in [your] audience-chamber the conquest of Merv and Níshápur”; while Mas'úd-i-Sa'd-i-Salmán, in a verse also cited by Zhukovski, bids his ráwí, Khwája Abu'l-Fatḥ, not to find fault with his verse, but remove by his heart-moving and wonderful voice such defects as mar its beauty. The obscurity of much of this high-flown, rhetorical, panegyric verse is such that copious commentary is needed to render it intelligible, and without this aid one is compelled to say, “the meaning of the verse is in the poet's belly” (Ma'na 'sh-shi'r fí baṭni 'sh-shá'ir).

Zhukovski ends his introduction by an endeavour to distinguish three periods of development in Persian poetry down to the earlier Seljúq period, namely, the epic which accompanied the revival of Persian national feeling under the Sámánids, and which culminated in Firdawsí; the venal panegyric, against which Náṣir-i-Khusraw and 'Umar Khayyám revolted; and the mystic verse to which the disappointed and disillusioned panegyrist (such as Saná'í, and, though too late for practical results, Anwarí also) so often turned at last.

The materials for Anwarí's biography are far less copious than we could wish, but from the eight biographical works enumerated on pp. 369-370 supra, in conjunction with what can be gleaned from the poet's own works, Zhukovski has put together in the first chapter of his book nearly as full a notice of his life as it is at present within our power to construct. Of Anwarí's birth and early life we know practically nothing. That he was, as his biographers assert, a diligent student, and well versed in most of the sciences of his age, is proved not only by the varied learning which he is so prone to display in his verse, but by his own explicit declaration in a rather celebrated fragment to which allusion has been already made, and which begins:—

Garchi dar bastam dar-i-madḥ u ghazal yakbáragí,
Ẓan ma-bar k'az nadhm-i-alfádh u ma'ání qáṣir-am.^374a

In another fragment quoted by Zhukovski (p. 7), Anwarí similarly boasts of his more frivolous accomplishments, such as his skill in calligraphy, chess, and backgammon; his knowledge of verse, both his own and that of the older poets; and his powers of satire, wit, and invective; so that, as he remarks to his patron, “You need have no fear of being bored.”

It is also clear that the biographers are right in their opinion that Anwarí, while little disposed to underrate his own merits as a poet, was not inclined to rate poetry very high. In a verse whereof the correct text (which materially differs in sense from the version contained in the lithographed editions at my disposal) ^375a is, I think, that given by 'Awfí (Lubáb, vol. ii, p. 117 of my edition), Anwarí says:—

“After all, I am like Saná'í, even though I be not like Ṣábir,”

Saná'í being, as we have seen, admittedly a poet of the first class, and far more celebrated than Adíb Ṣábir, whom, however, since he sang Sanjar's praises and died in rendering him a service, Anwarí probably deemed it improper to belittle. In the same poem he says:—

“Talent is, indeed, a disgrace in our time, else this verse
Declares that I am not [merely] a poet, but a magician!”

Again he says in another place (p. 694 of the Lucknow edition of 1880):—

“I have a soul ardent as fire and a tongue fluent as water,
A mind sharpened by intelligence, and verse devoid of flaw.
Alas! There is no patron worthy of my eulogies!
Alas! There is no sweetheart worthy of my odes!”

He likewise declares (p. 688) that his poetry goes all over the world, like carrier pigeons, and (p. 34, l. 5) that his style is, by common consent, the best amongst all contemporary work.

On the other hand, speaking of the art of poetry he says (p. 730):—

“O Anwarí, dost thou know what poetry and covetousness are?
The former is the child and the latter the nurse! …
Like the cock thou hast a crest of Science;
Why dost thou lay eggs like a hen?”

And he concludes by bidding himself no longer “fling the filth of poetry to the winds.” Another interesting fragment, which bears out, so far as it goes, the account given by the biographers of the motives which induced Anwarí to abandon learning for poetry, begins at the bottom of p. 629 of the Lucknow edition. He says:—

“Since my consideration may be increased by panegyric and ode,
Why should I consume my soul in the fire of thought?
I have thrown away twenty years in ‘perhaps’ and ‘it may be’;
God hath not given me the life of Noah!
Henceforth I will rein in my natural disposition,
If I see the door of acceptance and success open before me;
And if they vouchsafe me no gift, I will, after essaying praise,
Destroy with words of satire the head of such a patron!”

“Begging,” says Anwarí in another place (bottom of p. 41), “is the Law of the poets”; and he is ready enough with threats of satire—and that, generally, of the coarsest kind—when begging avails not. Yet he is keenly alive to the hatefulness of a courtier's life, while recognising, with anger and resentment against his time, that thus only, and not by the scholar's life which he would fain lead, can wealth be obtained. Thus he says (p. 711, ll. 2-4):—

“It is not fitting, in order to conform to the courtier's code,
Again to impose vexation on my heart and soul;

To wag my tongue in prose or verse,
And bring forth virgin fancies from my mind;
For the whole business of courtiers comes to this—
To receive blows and give abuse.”

As to the spitefulness of Fortune towards men of learning, he says (p. 39, l. 6):—

“How can any one realise that this blue-coloured hump-back [i.e.,
the sky]
Is so passionately fond of annoying men of learning?”

And so poor Anwarí, scholar by taste and poet by profession, is torn asunder between this and that, neither content to share the scholar's poverty, nor able to reconcile himself to the hollow insincerity of the courtier's life; keenly sensitive to the rebuffs to which his vocation exposes him, holding his way of life in bitter contempt, longing to follow in the steps of Avicenna, yet living the life of Abú Nuwás. In spite of his dictum that a poet ought not to write verses after he has reached the age of fifty (p. 725, l. 1), he himself practised the art of poetry for at least forty years; since two of his poems (pp. 636 and 651) mention A.H. 540 (= A.D. 1145-46) as the date of the current year, while he continued to write verses after his astrological fiasco, which, as we have seen, took place in or about the year A.H. 581 (= A.D. 1185-86). Yet at the end of his life, after he had, without fault on his part, as it would appear, incurred the resentment of the people of Balkh, he appears to have forsworn courts and the service of kings and nobles, and to have returned to the quiet, secluded, scholarly life which he loved. To this some of his poems bear evidence, notably the fragment printed, with English rendering, at pp. 8-10 of the tirage-à-part of the Biographies of Persian Poets which I translated from the Ta'ríkh-i-Guzída in the J.R.A.S. for 1900-1. Herein he speaks enthusiastically of the peace and quiet which he enjoys in his humble cottage, where dry bread with some simple relish is his fare, and the ink-bottle and the pen take the place of the wine-cup and the rebeck. In the same sense he says in another place (Lucknow edition of 1880, p. 733, ll. 15-16):—

“O Lord, give me, in exchange for that luxury which was of yore,
The contentment of Truth and an innocent livelihood,
Security, health, and acceptable devotion,
A loaf of bread, a ragged cloak, and to sit apart in some corner.”

Although Sayyid Nuru'lláh Shushtarí, the author of that great biography of eminent Shí'ites entitled the Majálisu'l-Mú'minín , or “Ássemblies of True Believers,” written about A.D. 1586, reckons Anwarí amongst the poets who belonged to the Shí'a sect, the following eulogies of 'Umar on pp. 53, 74, and 720 of the Lucknow edition of his poems, if genuine, would seem to prove conclusively that this was not the case, apart from the fact that a Court-poet of the Seljúqs, who were fanatical Sunnís, could hardly profess in public the heterodox doctrine. In the first of the verses referred to Anwarí speaks of “the chosen one of the Church of Islám, the chief of God's religion 'Umar, ^378a who inherits the justice and firmness of [the Caliph] 'Umar.” In the second he says that “the Holy Law was made manifest by 'Umar”; while in the third he says:—

“Through Muḥammad and 'Umar paganism was annulled and
religion strengthened;
Thy days naturally restored those days to life again.”

Nor, at least while he remained a Court-poet, was Anwarí inclined to observe at all strictly the Muḥammadan prohibition of wine. “Dost thou know any way,” he says (p. 688, ll. 4-5 of the Lucknow edition), “in which I can excuse my having got drunk and been sick?” And in another fragment (op cit., p. 698, ll. 12-14), he says:—

“O noble sir, thou knowest that, being afflicted with the gout,
I, thy servant, abstain from everything which is sour.
I asked for wine, and thou didst give me stale vinegar,
Such that, should I drink it, I should rise up at the Resurrection
like pickled meat.
Where is thy butler, then, so that I may pour
A cupful of it into the ears and nose of the scoundrel?”

These are the main facts which I have been able to glean from a cursory perusal of Anwarí's collected poems, but there is no doubt that the careful examination of a text more correct than any which we yet possess would supply us with further details of his life and fuller data for judging of his character. Let us now return to the anecdotes related by the biographers, which, though not worthy of much credence, ought not to be passed over without notice.

One of the most celebrated of these, taken from the Ḥabíbu's-Siyar (vol. ii, part 4, pp. 103-104 of the Bombay edition of A.D. 1857) gives another account of Anwarí's first appearance at the Court of Sanjar. According to this story, Mu'izzí, the Poet-Laureate, to whom was entrusted the duty of interviewing poets who desired to submit their verses to the King, and of keeping back all those whose merit was not sufficient to entitle them to an audience, had devised an infamous trick to discourage and turn away all applicants of whose talents he was jealous. His memory was so good that he could remember and repeat any poem which he had heard recited once; his son could repeat any poem which he had heard twice, and his servant any poem which he had heard three times. So when any poet desiring audience of the King came before him and recited his poem, he would hear it to the end, and then say, “That is my own poem, and in proof of what I say, hear me recite it.” Then, when he had repeated it, he would turn to his son and remark, “My son also knows it”; whereupon the son would also repeat it. Then in like manner he would cause his servant to repeat it, after which he would drive the unfortunate poet from his presence as an unprincipled plagiarist.

For a long while aspirants to poetical honours were in despair of outwitting Mu'izzí's stratagem, until at length Anwarí resolved to see what he could do. Dressing himself in absurd and grotesque apparel, he presented himself before Mu'izzí, and recited certain ludicrous and doggerel verses which aroused the ridicule of all who heard them. Mu'izzí, apprehending no danger from one whom he took for a buffoon, promised to present Anwarí to the King on the following day. When the time came, Anwarí, being called forward, appeared in a dignified and appropriate dress, and, instead of the expected doggerel, recited the first two couplets of the poem:—

Gar dil u dast baḥr u kán báshad,
Dil u dast-i-Khudáyagán báshad.

Then, turning to Mu'izzí, he said, “If you have heard this poem before, then recite the remainder; if not, admit that it is my own original composition.” Mu'izzí was confounded, and was compelled to witness his rival's complete triumph.

As a matter of fact the poem in question itself affords evidence that its author had already for some considerable time been engaged in verse-making, for in it he says:—

Khusrawá, banda-rá chu dah sál-ast
Kash hamí árzúy-i-án báshad,
K'az nadímán-i-majlis ar na-buwad
Az muqímán-i-ástán báshad …

“O Prince, since it is ten years that thy servant
Is possessed by this desire,
That if he may not be one of the intimates of thine assembly,
He may [at least] be one of those who stand at thy
threshold …”

Be this as it may, Anwarí's own words suffice to prove that he was held in high honour by the King. Thus he says in one place:—

Anwarí-rá Khudáyagán-i-jahán
Písh-i-khud khwánd, u dast dád, u nishánd;
Báda farmúd, u shi'r khwást azú …

“The Lord of the world called Anwarí
Before him, gave him his hand, and caused him to be
seated;
Called for wine, and asked him for poetry …”

Another incident recorded concerning Anwarí in the Haft Iqlím, and, in a somewhat different form, in the Baháristán, the Mujmal of Faṣíḥ, and the Lubábu'l-Albáb of 'Awfí (vol. ii, pp. 138-9) is connected with a warning which he received from a contemporary poet, Khálid b. ar-Rabí', when he was invited by the Ghúrí King 'Alá'u'd-Dín to visit his court. Outwardly this invitation boded no evil; but inwardly the King of Ghúr was filled with rancour against Anwarí, and sought to punish or destroy him, on account of certain satirical verses which he had, or was alleged to have, composed about him. Fakhru'd-Dín Khálid, knowing the true state of the case, wished to warn his friend, but feared to do so openly, lest he himself should incur the wrath of 'Alá'u'd-Dín. He therefore wrote him a letter to which he prefixed three Arabic verses, of which the translation is as follows:—

“Behold the World full-throated cries to thee,
‘Beware, beware of my ferocity!
Let not my smiles protracted lull thy fears;
My words cause laughter, but mine actions tears!’
The World to garbage stuffed with musk indeed
I best may liken, or to poisoned mead!”^381a

Anwarí, who was quick enough to take this hint of danger, refused to go, whereupon 'Alá'u'd-Dín sent another messenger, offering Malik Ṭútí, his host for the time being, a thousand sheep in exchange for the poet, who, however, succeeded in prevailing upon his patron not to surrender him to his foe. According to some biographers he also excused himself to the King of Ghúr in the poem beginning:—

Kulba'í k'andarán bi-rúz u bi-shab
fáy-i-árám u khurd u-khwáb-i-man-ast …^382a

which, in any case, evidently belongs to the latter part of his life, when he had abandoned the frequenting of Courts.

Anwarí is generally said to have passed the closing days of his life at Balkh, whither he retired after the loss of prestige which he suffered in consequence of the failure of the astrological prediction ^382b already mentioned in A.H. 581 (= A.D. 1185-86). Here also misfortune pursued him, for there appeared a satire on the people of Balkh entitled the Khar-náma , or “Book of Asses,” of which, though it was really from the pen of Súzaní, Anwarí was falsely supposed to be the author. According to other accounts, the offending poem ^382c was a fragment of five verses characterising the four chief cities of Khurásán (Balkh, Merv, Níshápúr, and Herát), composed by Futúḥí at the instigation of Súzaní and deliberately ascribed by him to Anwarí, in which Balkh is described as a town “filled with rogues and libertines,” and destitute of a single man of sense. In any case Anwarí was roughly handled by the people of Balkh, who, furious at what they considered an unprovoked outrage, paraded him through their streets with a woman's headdress on his head, and would have gone further had they not been dissuaded and pacified by some of the poet's influential friends, such as Sayyid Abú Ṭálib, Ḥamídu'd-Dín the judge, Ṣafi'u'd-Dín 'Umar the Muftí, Táju'd-Dín Aḥmad the Muḥtasib (or inspector of weights and measures), and Nidhámu'd-Dín Aḥmad the professor, to whom the poet bewails his adventure and offers his thanks in a qaṣída (No. 6 of Zhukovski, pp. 58-72 of the texts) of a hundred verses, beginning:—

Ay Musulmánán, fighán az jawr-i-charkh-i-chanbarí,
Wa'z nifáq-i-Tír, u qaṣd-i-Máh, u kayd-i-Mushtarí!

This qaṣída, I may remark, is the original of the piece called “Palinodia” which occupies pp. 63-80 of the late Professor E. H. Palmer's Song of the Reed (Trübner, 1877); a rendering so free that it can at most be described as a paraphrase, of which the first two verses, corresponding to the first three bayts of the original, are as follows:—

“Ah! the spheres are incessantly rolling,
And the Archer is shifting his ground,
And the moon is for ever patrolling,
And Jupiter going his round.
The water that tastes to another
Refreshing and cool on the lip,
Is as fire that no efforts can smother
In the cup which I sip.

“The dust that all quiet is lying
When others recline on the ground,
Around me in volumes is flying,
Like a desert where whirlwinds abound;
And Fate, in the ship of my being,
In happiness hurries me past,
But if ever from sorrow I'm fleeing,
It anchors me fast.”

Here, for comparison, is a literal translation of the original three bayts which the above stanzas represent:—

“O Muslims, alas for the tyranny of hoop-like heaven,
And the treachery of Mercury, the ill-intent of the Moon, and
the guile of Jupiter!
The action of the beneficent water on my palate is fire,
The state of the quiet earth in my abode is tempestuous!
With the boat of my life heaven ever deals in [one of] two
ways,
Urging it onward in time of gladness, anchoring it in time of
grief.”

Perhaps the most celebrated of all Anwarí's poems, at any rate in Europe, is that first translated into English verse by Captain William Kirkpatrick, under the title of “The Tears of Khorassan,” in vol. i of the Asiatick Miscellany, published at Calcutta in A.D. 1785, pp. 286-310; and again by Professor E. H. Palmer in his Song of the Reed, pp. 55-62.

“This poem,” says Kirkpatrick, “is one of the most beautiful in the Persian language. The sentiments are throughout natural, and not unfrequently sublime; the images are for the most part striking and just; the diction is at once nervous and elegant, animated and chaste; and the versification, although not everywhere equally smooth and flowing, seems, notwithstanding, to be happily adapted to the subject, the measure being, as I believe, the most slow and solemn that is used in Persian poetry.”

It has also a considerable historical interest, as giving a graphic description of the deplorable ravages wrought in what was previously one of the most flourishing parts of Persia by the barbarous Turcoman tribe of the Ghuzz, about the end of the year A.H. 548 (beginning of A.D. 1154). This tribe, whose pasture-grounds lay round about Khatlán, a dependency of Balkh, paid a yearly tribute of 24,000 sheep to the kitchen of King Sanjar. The harshness and greed of his steward (khwánsálár) having led to disputes and bloodshed, Qumáj, the Governor of Balkh, wrote to Sanjar to complain of the growing power and insolence of the Ghuzz, and asking to be appointed commissioner (shaḥna) over them, promising speedily to reduce them to obedience, and to raise their tribute to 30,000 sheep. Qumáj, however, failed to make good his promise, for he was defeated by them and driven out of their territories, and his son 'Alá'u'd-Dín was slain. Thereupon Sanjar was persuaded by his nobles to take the field in person, and to reject the apologies and indemnity of 100,000 dínárs and 1,000 Turkish slaves which the frightened Ghuzz now offered. When he drew near to their encampment they came out to meet him as suppliants, accompanied by their women and children, praying for forgiveness, and offering seven maunds of silver from each household. Again Sanjar was prevented by his amírs, Mu'ayyid, Yarunqush, and 'Umar-i-'Ajamí, from listening to their proposals; battle was joined, and the Ghuzz, now desperate, fought with such fury that they utterly routed Sanjar's army, took him prisoner, and brought him captive to Merv, his own capital, which they looted for three days, torturing the unfortunate inhabitants to make them disclose their hidden treasures. Thence, reinforced by thrice their number of disbanded soldiers and other rogues, they pushed on to Níshápúr, where, meeting with some resistance, in which several of their number were killed, they wrought so terrible a massacre in the Great Mosque that “the slain could not be seen for the blood wherein they lay.” They also burned the Muṭarriz Mosque, a building capable of holding 2,000 persons, and by the light of the conflagration continued their ravages. They camped outside the city, visiting it daily to kill, torture, plunder, and destroy. Amongst the victims of their cruelty, who numbered several thousand persons, were many eminent and godly men, such as Shaykh Muḥammad Akkáf and Muḥammad b. Yaḥyá, of whom the latter was mourned by the poet Kháqání in at least three different poems. ^385a So complete was the desolation of this once flourishing city that, says the author of the unique history of the Seljúqs entitled the Ráḥatu'ṣ-ṣudúr, Mu'izzí might have been thinking of it when he wrote:—

“Where once my charmer might be found in gardens fair with
friends around,
The owls and vultures now abound, the foxes, wolves, and jackals
stray:
Where stood the cups and bowls, the fleet wild-ass now tramples
with its feet;
In place of flute and fruit so sweet now crows and ravens wing
their way.

So utterly the dark-blue Sphere hath swept away those traces
dear
That no explorer now, I fear, could guess where once I wooed my
may.”

Throughout all Khurásán, with the exception of Herát, which successfully held out against them, the Ghuzz acted in the same way and for two years Sanjar was a captive in their hands. Then at length he succeeded, by bribing some of the Ghuzz chiefs, in effecting his escape from Balkh to Merv, where he began to collect an army; but grief at the ruin and desolation of his domains brought on an illness which proved fatal to him in A.H. 552 (= A.D. 1157). He was buried in the Dawlat-Khána at Merv.

The “Tears of Khurásán” was written during Sanjar's captivity, probably about A.H. 550 (= A.D. 1155), and, according to Kirkpatrick, is addressed to Muḥammad b. Sulaymán, Prince of Samarqand, though this is not certain. It is, unfortunately, too long to quote in full, for it comprises seventy-three couplets, but I subjoin a few of the finest passages in the renderings of Kirkpatrick and Palmer. Here are the first three stanzas of the former, corresponding to the first fourteen lines of the latter and the first five couplets of the original:—

“Waft, gentle gale, oh waft to Samarcand,
When next thou visitest that blissful land,
The plaint of Khorassania plunged in woe:
Bear to Turania's King our piteous scroll,
Whose opening breathes forth all the anguished soul,
And close denotes what all the tortur'd know.

“Whose red-tinged folds rich patriot blood enclose,
The mortal fine impos'd by ruthless foes,
And misshap'd letters prove our trembling fears:
Whose every word reveals a pungent grief,
Whose every line implores a prompt relief,
While every page is moistened with our tears.

“Soon as loud Fame our wretched fate shall sound,
The ear of Pity shall receive a wound,
And feel th'extreme of intellectual pain:
Soon as our dismal tale shall meet the view,
The melting orbs shall catch a purple hue,
And sanguine drops the mournful verse distain.”

Here, for comparison, is the corresponding portion of Palmer's rendering:—

“O gentle Zephyr! if o'er Samarcand
Some dewy morning thou shouldst chance to blow,
Then waft this letter to our monarch's hand,
Wherein Khorassan tells her tale of woe;
Wherein the words that for the heading stand
Are present danger and destruction nigh;
Wherein the words that are inscribed below
Are grief, and wretchedness, and misery;
On every fold a martyr's blood appears,
From every letter breathes a mourner's sigh;
Its lines are blotted with the orphan's tears,
Its ink the widow's burning anguish dries!
Its bare recital wounds the listener's ears,
Its bare perusal scathes the reader's eyes.”

Here, lastly, is the literal rendering of the original:—

“O morning breeze, if thou passest by Samarqand,
Bear to the Prince (Kháqán) the letter of the people of Khur-
ásán;
A letter whose opening is grief of body and affliction of soul,
A letter whose close is sorrow of spirit and burning of heart,
A letter in whose lines the sighs of the miserable are manifest,
A letter in whose folds the blood of the martyrs is concealed,
The characters of its script dry as the bosoms of the oppressed,
The lines of its address moist from the eyes of the sorrowful;
Whereby the auditory channel is wounded at the time of
hearing,
Whereby the pupil of the eye is turned to blood at the time
of looking!”

One more series of parallel passages, arranged in the same order, may be taken before we bid farewell to this remarkable poem:—

“Here upstart slaves, to fame and worth unknown,
Rear their proud crests, and in imperious tone,
Command, whom distant nations still revere:
Here Avarice scoffs at virtue in distress,
And spurns whose bounty grateful thousands bless—
Oh hard reverse! and fate too, too severe!

“View where sage elders, prostrate at the door
Of some low wretch, in vain relief implore;
In vain their anguish and their wrongs disclose:
Behold the sons of rank debauchery bind
Yon holy anchorite, by Heav'n resigned,
A prey to dungeons and to sharpest woes!

“Is there, where Ruin reigns in dreadful state,
Whom Fortune smiles on, or whom joys await?—
'Tis yonder corpse descending to the tomb:
Is there a spotless female to be found,
Where deeds of diabolic lust abound?—
'Tis yonder infant issuing from the womb!

“The mosque no more admits the pious race;
Constrain'd, they yield to beasts the holy place,
A stable now, where dome nor porch is found:
Nor can the savage foe proclaim his reign,
For Khorassania's criers all are slain,
And all her pulpits levelled with the ground!

Palmer's translation of this passage runs as follows:—

“Good men to bad men are compelled to stoop
The noble are subjected to the vile,
The priest is pressed to fill the drunkard's stoup.
No man therein is ever seen to smile,

Save at the blow that brings release—and doom
No maiden lives whom they do not defile,
Except the maid within her mother's womb!
In every town the mosque and house of prayer—
To give their horses and their cattle room—
Is left all roofless, desolate, and bare.
‘Prayer for our Tartar rulers’ there is none
In all Khorassan, it is true—for where,
Where are the preachers and the pulpits gone?”

Here, lastly, is the literal translation:—

“O'er the great ones of the age the small are lords,
O'er the nobles of the world the mean are chiefs;
At the doors of the ignoble the well-born stand sad and be-
wildered,
In the hands of libertines the virtuous are captive and con-
strained.
Thou seest no man glad save at the door of Death,
Thou seest no girl a maiden save in her mother's womb.
The chief mosque of each city for their beasts
Is a resting-place, whereof neither roof nor door is visible.
Nowhere [it is true] do they read the khuṭba in the name of
the Ghuzz,
For in all Khurásán there is neither preacher nor pulpit.”

We now pass to the second chapter of Zhukovski's book, in which he treats of the literary activity and characteristics of Anwarí. As regards the models whom he imitated, the following Arabic and Persian poets and men of letters are mentioned in different passages of his poems: al-Akhṭal, Jarír, A'shá, Ḥassán [b. Thábit], al-Buḥturí, Abu'l-Firás, Badí'u'z-Zamán al-Hamadhání, al-Ḥarírí, 'Unṣurí, Firdawsí, Farrukhí, Abu'l-Faraj, Amír Mu'izzí, Saná'í, Adíb Ṣábir, Rashídí, Ḥamídu'd-Dín, Rashídu'd-Dín Waṭwáṭ, Shujá'í and Kamálu'd-Dín Isma'íl; a list which, as Zhukovski observes, shows that he was equally familiar with the old classical poets and with his contemporaries. Amongst the latter he was, as we have already seen, on very friendly terms with Ḥamídu'd-Dín, the author of the Maqámát, with whom he exchanged letters in verse. Of these some graceful specimens are given by Zhukovski (pp. 34-37), including the well-known verse:—

“This grasshopper's foot to the Court of Sulaymán
It shames me to send, and I ask for his pardon;
I fear to imagine the scorn of the basils
For this thorn of acanthus I send to their garden.”

Amongst the poets he seems, according to the Ta'ríkh-i-Guzída and the Haft Iqlím, to have especially admired and imitated Abu'l-Faraj-i-Rúní, who was a native of Lahore and the panegyrist of the Kings of Ghazna, and whose death took place not earlier than A.H. 492 (= A.D. 1099). The princes, rulers, and men of note most frequently mentioned by Anwarí include Sulṭán Sanjar, Abu'l-Fatḥ Ṭáhir b. Fakhru'l-Mulk, the grandson of the Nidhámu'l-Mulk, Sulṭán Ṭughril-tigín, 'Imádu'd-Dín Fírúzsháh, the Governor of Balkh, Khwája-i-jahán Majdu'd-Dín Abu'l-Ḥasan 'Imrání, Sayyid Abú Ṭálib, and the above-mentioned Ḥamídu'd-Dín. Zhukovski concludes this chapter with a discussion of Anwarí's different styles, as exemplified in the qaṣída, the ghazal, the quatrain, the satire, and the fragment; a selection of his verses illustrating the contempt which he felt for the art of poetry; and the metrical criticisms composed by Majdu'd-Dín Hamgar, Imámí ^390a and another poet in reply to a question propounded to them as to the respective merits of Anwarí and Dhahír of Fáryáb, whereof it need only be said that all agree in preferring the former to the latter.

The third chapter of Zhukovski's book discusses the difficulty of Anwarí's verse and the aids for its comprehension, especially two commentaries thereon by Muḥammad b. Dá'údi-'Alawí of Shádábád (who also commentated Kháqání's poems), and Abu'l-Ḥasan Faráhání, who flourished in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Of the latter, who used oral as well as written sources (whereof sixty-eight different works are enumerated), Zhukovski expresses a very high opinion.

The fourth and last chapter, which deals with Anwarí's style and language, and with the various European contributions to our knowledge of his work, does not appear to me to need any special remark.

It is now time for us to leave Anwarí, and turn to the consideration of Kháqání, a poet notorious for the difficulty and Kháqání. obscurity of his verse, which, like that of Anwarí, chiefly consists of qaṣídas, though he has one long mathnawí poem, the Tuḥfatu'l-'Iráqayn, or “Gift of the two 'Iráqs,” which describes his pilgrimage to Mecca, and supplies us with a good deal of material for his biography. Here again we have an excellent monograph to guide us, the Mèmoire sur Khâcâni, poëte persan du XII^e siècle, published both in the Journal Asiatique and as a separate reprint (the form in which alone I here cite it) in 1864-65 by Monsieur N. de Khanikof, who truly observes that this poet, “one of the most brilliant figures of the Persian Parnassus,” has transmitted to us an exact portrait of several intimate scenes of the life of his epoch.

From a verse in his celebrated ode to Iṣfahán, it appears that Afḍalu'd-Dín Ibráhím b. 'Alí of Shirwán, originally known as Ḥaqá'iqí but later as Kháqání, was born in A.H. 500 (= A.D. 1106-7), at Ganja, the modern Elizavetpol. ^391a His father 'Alí was a carpenter, and his mother a Nestorian Christian converted to Islám (Tuḥfa, p. 199, l. 6), who appears to have been a cook by profession. His grandfather, as he informs us (Tuḥfa, p. 189, l. 9) with his usual frank prolixity, was a weaver, while his paternal uncle, Mírzá Káfí b. 'Uthmán, to whom he chiefly owed his education, was a medical practitioner. At an early age he was left, whether by the desertion or the death of his father, entirely to the care of his uncle, who for seven years acted “both as nurse and tutor,” and taught him, beyond the rudiments of learning, Arabic, Medicine, Astronomy, and Metaphysics, but not, as we learn, without tears, for his relative, though actuated by the most kindly motives, was, after the fashion of his time and country, little disposed to spoil the child by sparing the rod. When Kháqání was twenty-five years of age his uncle died, being then only in his fortieth year, and thereupon the poet's general education came to an end.

His skill in the art of verse-making, however, he owed to another tutor, to wit, the old poet Abu'l-'Alá of Ganja, one of Abu'l-'Alá of Ganja. the Court-poets of Minúchihr Shirwánsháh, to whom in due course he presented his brilliant pupil, who received permission to change his pen-name from Ḥaqá'iqí to the more royal style and title of Kháqání. He also gave Kháqání his daughter in marriage, a mark of favour which caused some annoyance to another of his pupils, the young poet Falakí of Shirwán, who was, however, finally pacified by a gift of 20,000 dirhams, “the price,” as Abu'l-'Alá remarked, “of fifty Turkish handmaidens infinitely more beautiful than” Kháqání's bride. Shortly after this, however, Abu'l-'Alá, being annoyed, apparently, at certain signs of growing arrogance on Kháqání's part, addressed to him the following insulting verse:—

“My dear Kháqání, skilful though you be
In verse, one little hint I give you free:
Mock not with satire any older poet;
Perhaps he is your sire, though you don't know it!”^392a

Kháqání, furious, demanded explanations and apologies, whereupon Abu'l-'Alá renewed his attack in the following lines:— ^393a “O Afḍalu'd-Dín, if the truth I should tell thee,
By thy soul, with thy conduct I'm terribly pained;
They called thee in Shirwán ‘the son of the joiner,’
The name of Kháqání through me hast thou gained.
Much good have I wrought thee, I trained thee and taught
thee,
Enriched thee, and gave thee my daughter to wife:
Why wilt thou neglect me, and fail to respect me,
Who called thee my Master, my son, and my Life?
How often this slander wilt lay to my credit—
Black slander, of which I no memory keep?
What matter if I or another one said it?
What matter if thou wert awake or asleep?”

To this Kháqání replied with a satire of inconceivable coarseness, for which Khanikof, who publishes it with a translation (pp. 16-22), offers an apology, reminding his readers that “it is a cry of anger uttered by a Persian of the twelfth century, an epoch at which, even in Europe, language was not always remarkably chaste.” Not content with accusing his former friend and master of the vilest crimes, Kháqání does not hesitate to bring against him a charge incomparably more dangerous than any suspicion of moral delinquency, declaring roundly that he is a follower of Ḥasan-i-Ṣabbáḥ and a confederate of the Assassins of Alamút. Khanikof is of opinion that this satire was composed, for reasons into which he fully enters, between A.H. 532 and 540 (A.D. 1138-46), and that it was about this time that

“Du solltest mit Pietät, mich däucht,
Behandeln solche Leute;
Der Alte ist dein Vater, vielleicht,
Von mütterlicher Seite.”

Kháqání left his native town and betook himself to the Court of the then reigning Shirwánsháh, Akhtisán b. Minúchihr, who had transferred his capital from Garshásp, in Ádhar-bayján, to Bákú. At the Court, however, things did not go altogether well with him, for Shirwánsháh appears to have been exacting, suspicious, and hard to please. That he was very ready to take offence is shown by the following wellknown anecdote. ^394a Kháqání had on one occasion addressed to him this verse:—

Washaqí dih ki dar bar-am gírad,
Yá wisháqí ki dar bar-ash gíram.

“Give me a mantle to embrace me,
Or a fair young slave whom I may embrace.”

The Kháqán thereupon ordered the poet to be put to death; but he, divining the cause of his master's anger, took a fly, cut off its wings, and sent it to the offended prince, saying, “This is the real criminal; I wrote bá (‘with’), not yá (‘or’), but this fly alighted on the single dot of the b while the ink was still wet and converted it into the two-dotted y.” “Such,” adds Dawlatsháh admiringly, “was the magnanimity of the nobles of that time, and such the wit of its poets and men of letters; but now if a poet should ask for two hundredweight of turnips from his patron men would see nothing despicable therein, but would rather be thankful that he should give so little trouble!”

At length Kháqání succeeded in obtaining permission to undertake the pilgrimage to Mecca, which he had already performed as a youth (presumably with his uncle) thirty years before, and we have poems describing his departure from Shirwán, his passage of the Safíd Rúd, and his view of the snow-clad mountain of Sabálán. At this time, as Khanikof shows, he seems to have entertained the idea of visiting Khurásán, attracted, no doubt, by what he had heard of Sanjar's liberality towards poets, but there is no evidence that he ever succeeded in carrying out this plan. On this subject he has several qaṣídas, one of which (Kulliyyát, vol. i, pp. 440-443) begins:—

Chi sabab súy-i-Khurásán shudan-am na-g'zárand?
'Andalíb-am, bi-gulistán shudan-am na-g'zárand?

“For what reason will they not suffer me to go to Khurásán?
I am a nightingale, yet they will not suffer me to visit the
rose-garden.” ^395a Another (loc. cit., pp. 443-445) begins:—

Bi-Khurásán shawam, in sha'a'lláh;
Az rah ásán shawam, in sha'a'lláh.

“I will go to Khurásán, if God will;
I will go easily by the road, if God will.”

A third (loc. cit., pp. 526-535) begins:—

Rah rawam, maqṣad-i-imkán bi-Khurásán yábam,
Tishna-am, mashrab-i-iḥsán bi-Khurásán yábam.

“I will go my way, I will find the goal of this world in
Khurásán;
I am thirsty, I will find the source of benefits in Khurásán.”

Kháqání seems, however, to have got as far eastwards as Ray, where he appears for some reason to have been forbidden to proceed further, for he says in a poem entirely addressed to that city (loc. cit., pp. 940-941):—

Chún níst rukhṣa súy-i-Khurásán shudan mará
Ham báz-pas shawam; na-kasham man balá-yi-Ray.
Gar báz raftan-am súy-i-Tabríz ijázat ast,
Shukrána gúyam az karam-i-pádishá-yi-Ray.

“Since I have not permission to proceed to Khurásán
I will even turn back; I will not endure the affliction of Ray.
If leave be granted me to go back to Tabríz,
I will give thanks for the favour of the King of Ray.”

He seems to have imagined that in Khurásán he would meet with greater appreciation, for he says in a verse from the qaṣída cited above:—

Chún zi man ahl-i-Khurásán hama 'anqá bínand,
Man Sulaymán-i-jahán-bán bi-Khurásán yábam.

“Since the people of Khurásán see in me a complete phœnix
('anqá),
I may find in Khurásán the Solomon who rules the world.”

The last reference is evidently to Sanjar, who is, indeed, explicitly mentioned a little further on; and this poem was evidently written before the disastrous invasion of the Ghuzz (A.D. 1154), one of the victims of which, as already mentioned, was the learned and pious doctor Muḥammad b. Yaḥyá, with whom Kháqání corresponded during his life, ^396a and whom he mourned in several fine verses after his violent and cruel death. ^396b That he was also in relation with the Court of Khwárazm is proved by several panegyrics addressed to Khwárazmsháh, and a laudatory poem (loc. cit., pp. 469-472) on his laureate Rashídu'd-Dín Waṭwáṭ, who had sent Kháqání some complimentary verses. But after the death of Sanjar and the desolation wrought by the Ghuzz it is unlikely that Kháqání any longer cherished the desire of visiting Khurásán.

Of Kháqání's second pilgrimage, as already remarked, we possess a singularly full account in the rather prosaic Tuḥfatu'l-'Iráqayn , of which a lithographed edition was published in Lucknow in A.H. 1294. This poem is divided into five maqálas, or discourses, of which the first consists chiefly of doxologies, the second is for the most part autobiographical, the third describes Hamadán, 'Iráq, and Baghdád, the fourth Mecca, and the fifth and last al-Madína. Khanikof has given (pp. 37-41) some account of the contents (including a list of the persons mentioned), which, therefore, I will not further describe. Besides the Tuḥfat, several of Kháqání's finest qaṣídas were inspired by this journey, including one, justly admired, which begins (Kulliyyát, pp. 319-321):—

Sar-ḥadd-i-bádiya 'st: rawán básh bar sar-ash;
Tiryák-i-rúḥ kun zi sumúm-i-mu'aṭṭar-ash!

“Here are the confines of the Desert: advance upon it;
And draw from its fragrant breeze healing for the spirit!”

It was on his return from the pilgrimage that Kháqání visited Iṣfahán, where a mischance befell him very similar to that which befell Anwarí at Balkh. He was at first well received, but a satirical verse on the people of Iṣfahán, composed by his pupil, Mujíru'd-Dín of Baylaqán, somewhat injured his popularity, and called forth from the Iṣfahání poet, Jamálu'd-Dín 'Abdu'r-Razzáq, a most abusive reply. ^397a In order to exculpate himself from his pupil's indiscretion and restore the Iṣfahánís to good humour, Kháqání composed a long and celebrated qaṣída in praise of that city, in the course of which he says, after describing the tributes of praise which he had already paid it:—

“All this I did without hope of recompense, not for greed,
Nor hoping to receive crown or gold from the bounty of
Iṣfahán.
That stone-smitten (rajím) ^397b devil who stole my eloquence

Rebelled against me if he dared to satirize Iṣfahán.
He will not rise with a white face in the Resurrection,
Because he strove to blacken the neck of Iṣfahán.
Why do the people of Iṣfahán speak ill of me?
What fault have I committed in respect to Iṣfahán?”

This poem, as internal evidence proves, was composed after A.H. 551 (A.D. 1156-57), probably, as Khanikof conjectures, in the following year.

On his return to Shirwán shortly after this, Kháqání, whether on account of his greatly increased self-esteem (a quality in which he was at no time deficient), or because he was accused by his detractors of seeking another patron, incurred the displeasure of Akhtisán Shirwánsháh, and was by him imprisoned in the fortress of Shábirán, where he wrote his celebrated ḥabsiyya, or “prison-poem,” given by Khanikof at pp. 113-128 of his Mèmoire. As to the length of his imprisonment and his subsequent adventures until his death at Tabríz in A.H. 582 (= A.D. 1185) ^398a we have but scanty information, but we learn from his poems that he survived his patron Akhtisán, and that he lost his wife and one of his sons named Rashíd, a child not ten years of age. Concerning the elegy in which he bewailed the loss of his wife, Khanikof speaks (p. 49) as follows:—

“Of all Kháqání's poems this is, in my opinion, perhaps the only one wherein he appears as one likes to imagine him, that is to say, as a good and sensible man. Grief causes him to forget his erudition; his verse does not glitter with expressions hard to interpret or grammatical artifices, but goes straight to the heart of the reader, and interests him in a domestic misfortune from which seven centuries separate us.”

Kháqání was buried in the “Poets' Corner” at Surkháb, near Tabríz, between Dhahíru'd-Dín Faryábí and Sháhfúr-i-Ashharí, and in 1855 Khanikof was informed by two old men of Tabríz that they remembered his tomb as still standing before the great earthquake which laid most of the monuments of this cemetery in ruins. Excavations which he instituted in the following year failed, however, to produce any sign of it. Amongst the men of letters with whom Kháqání corresponded, besides those already mentioned, were the philosopher Afḍalu'd-Dín of Sáwa and the poet Athíru'd-Dín of Akhsíkat. Other poets whom he mentions, generally in order to boast his superiority over them, are Mu'izzí (p. 702), al-Jáḥidh (Ibid., but the lithographed text absurdly reads Ḥáfidh, and reiterates this gross anachronism in a marginal note thoroughly characteristic of Indian criticism), Abú Rashíd and 'Abdak of Shirwán (p. 703), Qaṭrán of Tabríz (p. 759), Saná'í of Ghazna (p. 795), 'Unṣurí and Rúdagí (p. 799).

Like Anwarí, Kháqání is essentially a qaṣída-writer, and it is on this form of verse that his reputation rests, though he also has a complete Díwán of odes, a large number of quatrains, and the mathnawí already mentioned, viz., the Tuḥfatu'l-'Iráqayn, besides some poems in Arabic. His style is generally obscure, extremely artificial, and even pedantic. The comparison instituted by von Hammer between him and Pindar is fully discussed and criticised by Khanikof at pp. 61-64 of his Mèmoire. Kháqání's poems are voluminous, filling 1,582 large pages in the Lucknow lithographed edition. In one very curious qaṣída published by Khanikof (Mèmoire, pp. 71-80; Kulliyyát, pp. 271-278) he makes display of all his knowledge of the Christian religion and ritual, and even proposes (though he afterwards asks God's forgiveness for the proposal) to enter the service of the Byzantine Emperor, embrace the Christian faith, and even, should the Qayṣar (Cæsar) so please, “revive the creed of Zoroaster.”

Let us now turn to Nidhámí of Ganja, the third great poet of this period, the acknowledged master of romantic mathnawí, whose influence and popularity in Turkey as well as in Persia Nidhámí of Ganja. remain, even to the present day, unsurpassed in his own line. On him also we have a very careful and scholarly monograph by Dr. Wilhelm Bacher, published at Leipzig in 1871, and entitled Niẓâmî's Leben und Werke und der zweite Theil des Niẓâmîschen Alexanderbuches, mit persischen Texten als Anhang, on which I shall draw largely in this portion of my work. In this monograph Bacher has followed the only safe method of constructing trustworthy biographies of the Persian poets, that is to say, he has ignored the utterly uncritical statements of Dawlatsháh and other biographers, ^400a and has drawn his information almost exclusively from the best of all sources, the poet's own incidental allusions to his life. Thus the dates of Nidhámí's death given by the biographers vary from A.H. 576 (= A.D. 1180-81) by Dawlatsháh (p. 131 of my edition) to A.H. 596-99 (= A.D. 1199-1203) by Ḥájji Khalífa, but Bacher conclusively proves that the latest of these dates is the correct one, and further establishes the following important chronological data in the poet's life. He was born at Ganja (now Elizavetpol) in A.H. 535 (A.D. 1140-41); wrote the first of his five great mathnawí-poems (known collectively as the Khamsa, or “Quintet,” or as the Panj Ganj, or “Five Treasures”), to wit, the Makhzanu'l-Asrár (“Treasury of Mysteries”), about A.H. 561 (A.D. 1165-66); wrote the second, the Romance of Khusraw and Shírín, in A.H. 571 (A.D. 1175-76); wrote the third, the Romance of Laylá and Majnún, in A.H. 584 (A.D. 1188-89); wrote the fourth, the Romance of Alexander the Great, in A.H. 587 (A.D. 1191); wrote the fifth and last, the Haft Paykar, or “Seven Effigies,” in A.H. 595 (A.D. 1198-99); and died at the age of sixty-three years and a half in A.H. 599 (A.D. 1202-3).

Nidhámí's proper name, as Bacher shows (p. 9), was probably Ilyás (Elias), while his kunya was Abú Muḥammad, and his laqab, or title (from which his pen-name was derived), was Nidhámu'd-Dín. His father, Yúsuf the son of Zakí Mu'ayyad, died when he was still young, and his mother, who was of a noble Kurdish family, seems not long to have survived her husband. He also alludes to the death of an uncle on the mother's side, who, as Bacher conjectures, very probably took care of him after his father's death. A brother of his named Qiwámí-i-Muṭarrizí (of whose poems a fine old fourteenth-century manuscript, Or. 6464, has been acquired by the British Museum) also achieved considerable reputation as a poet, and is the author of the qaṣída illustrating all the artifices of Persian rhetoric which was given in chapter i. It also appears from various passages in his works that Nidhámí was thrice married, and that he had at least one son named Muḥammad, who must have been born about A.H. 570 (A.D. 1174-75), since he was fourteen years of age when the Laylá and Majnún was written. Dawlatsháh (p. 129 of my edition) says that Nidhámí was a disciple of the Shaykh Akhú Faraj of Zanján, whose name Bacher gives as Akhú Farrukh Rayḥání.

Of Nidhámí's life, beyond the above facts, we know very little, but it is clear, as Bacher points out (pp. 14-15), that he had a far higher conception of the poet's aims and duty than the countless panegyrists and Court-poets of whom Anwarí is the type, and that, as tradition and internal evidence both show, he eschewed panegyric and avoided Courts, though he so far adhered to the prevailing fashion of his time as to dedicate his poems to contemporary rulers. Thus the Makhzanu'l-Asrár is dedicated to Íldigiz the Atábek of Ádharbayján; Khusraw and Shírín to his two sons and successors, Muḥammad and Qizil Arslán, ^402a as well as to the last Seljúq ruler in Persia, Ṭughril b. Arslán; Laylá and Majnún to Akhtisán Minúchihr, King of Shirwán, whom we have already met with as the patron of Kháqání; the Sikandar-náma to 'Izzu'd-Dín Mas'úd I, the Atábek of Mawṣil (Mosoul), and afterwards the revised edition of it to Nuṣratu'd-Dín Abú Bakr Bísh-kín, who succeeded his uncle Qizil Arslán as Atábek of Ádharbayján in A.H. 587 (A.D. 1191); and the Haft Paykar to the same Nuṣratu'd-Dín.

Dawlatsháh says (p. 129 of my edition) that, besides the above-named five poems which constitute the Khamsa or “Quintet,” Nidhámí's odes and lyrical verses amounted to nearly 20,000 verses, and Bacher (p. 7) cites a verse from the Laylá and Majnún which he considers a proof that the poet arranged his Díwán about the same time that he wrote this poem, viz., in A.H. 584 (A.D. 1188-89). 'Awfí, on the other hand (vol. ii, p. 397), says:—“Save for these mathnawí-poems little poetry has been handed down from him. In Níshápúr, however, I heard the following recited as his by a certain great scholar”; and he then cites three short ghazals, each comprising five bayts, of which the last bewails the death of his son. Dawlatsháh (pp. 129-130) cites another of eight bayts, in the last of which the pen-name Nidhámí is introduced, but it must be remembered that there were several other poets of this name, whom this very inaccurate biographer is quite capable of confusing with the subject of the present notice. If such a Díwán ever existed in reality, it appears long ago to have been lost and forgotten.

Nidhámí's high rank as a poet alike original, fruitful, and o?? rare and noble genius, is admitted by all critics, Persian and non-Persian, including 'Awfí, Qazwíní, Dawlatsháh, and Luṭf 'Alí Beg amongst biographers, and Sa'dí, Ḥáfidh, Jámí and 'Iṣmat amongst the poets. ^403a And if his genius has few rivals amongst the poets of Persia, his character has even fewer. He was genuinely pious, yet singularly devoid of fanaticism and intolerance; self-respecting and independent, yet gentle and unostentatious; a loving father and husband; and a rigorous abstainer from the wine ^403b which, in spite of its unlawfulness, served too many of the poets (especially the mystical poets) of Persia as a source of spurious inspiration. In a word, he may justly be described as combining lofty genius and blameless character in a degree unequalled by any other Persian poet whose life has been the subject of careful and critical study.

A few words must now be said about each of the five poems constituting the Khamsa or “Quintet,” though it is impossible in a work of the size and scope of the present to give them anything approaching adequate notice. There are several Eastern editions, of which I use the Ṭihrán lithograph of A.H. 1301 (A.D. 1884), a volume of about 600 pages, containing about 50 bayts to the page.

The Makhzanu'l-Asrár, or “Treasury of Mysteries,” is both the shortest and the earliest of the Quintet, and is of quite a The Makhzanu 'l-Asrár. different character to the others, being rather a mystical poem with illustrative anecdotes, after the fashion of the Ḥadíqa of Saná'í, or the later Mathnawí of Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí, than a romance. It also appears to me inferior in quality, but perhaps this is partly due to the fact that I dislike its metre, which runs:—

It comprises, besides a good deal of introductory matter and several doxologies, twenty maqálas, or “Discourses,” each of which deals with some theological or ethical topic, which is first discussed in the abstract and then illustrated by an apologue. The following short specimen, which embodies the well-known story of how the wise and courageous Minister of one of the Sásánian Kings rebuked his master for his injustice and neglect of his people's welfare, may suffice to give some idea of the style of this poem (p. 22):—

“Intent on sport, Núshirwán on a day
Suffered his horse to bear him far away
From his retainers. Only his Wazír
Rode with him, and no other soul was near.
Crossing the game-stocked plain, he halts and scans
A village ruined as his foeman's plans.
There, close together, sat two owls apart,
Whose dreary hootings chilled the monarch's heart.
‘What secrets do these whisper?’ asked the King,
Of his Wazír; ‘what means the song they sing?’
‘O Liege,’ the Minister replied, ‘I pray
Forgive me for repeating what they say.
Not for the sake of song mate calls to mate:
A question of betrothal they debate.
That bird her daughter gave to this, and now
Asks him a proper portion to allow,
Saying: “This ruined village give to me,
And also others like it two or three.”
“Let be,” the other cries; “our rulers leave
Injustice to pursue, and do not grieve,
For if our worthy monarch should but live,
A hundred thousand ruined homes I'll give.”’”

In the romance of Khusraw and Shírín, Nidhámí, both as regards matter and style, follows Firdawsí rather than Saná'í;

The poem is a long one (pp. 48-192 of the Ṭihrán lithograph), containing about 7,000 couplets. The following passage (p. 129) describes the lamentation and death of Farhád when, at Khusraw's command, false tidings are brought to him of Shírín's death at the time when he has all but completed the task imposed on him of cutting through the mountain of Bísutún, ^405a for the accomplishment of which Shírín's hand was to be his recompense.

“When Farhád heard this message, with a groan
From the rock-gulley fell he like a stone.
So deep a sigh he heaved that thou wouldst say
A spear had cleft unto his heart its way.
‘Alas, my labour!’—thus his bitter cry—
‘My guerdon still unwon, in grief I die!
Alas the wasted labour of my youth!
Alas the hope which vain hath proved in truth!
I tunnelled mountain-walls: behold my prize!
My labour's wasted: here the hardship lies!
I, like a fool, red rubies coveted;
Lo, worthless pebbles fill my hands instead!
What fire is this that thus doth me consume?
What flood is this which hurls me to my doom?
The world is void of sun and moon for me:
My garden lacks its box- and willow-tree.
For the last time my beacon-light hath shone;
Not Shírín, but the sun from me is gone!
The cruel sphere pities no much-tried wight;
On no poor luckless wretch doth grace alight!
Alas for such a sun and such a moon,
Which black eclipse hath swallowed all too soon!
Before the wolf may pass a hundred sheep,
But on the poor man's lamb 'tis sure to leap.

O'er my sad heart the fowls and fishes weep;
For my life's stream doth into darkness creep.
Why am I parted from my mistress dear?
Now Shírín's gone, why should I tarry here?
Without her face should I desire to thrive
'Twould serve me right if I were boned alive!…
Felled to the dust, my cypress quick lies dead:
Shall I remain to cast dust on my head?
My smiling rose is fallen from the tree:
The garden is a prison now to me.
My bird of spring is from the meadow flown,
I, like the thunder-cloud, will weep and groan.
My world-enkindling lamp is quenched for aye:
Shall not my day be turned to night to-day?
My lamp is out, and chilly strikes the gale:
My moon is darkened and my sun is pale.
Beyond Death's portals Shírín shall I greet,
So with one leap I hasten Death to meet!’
Thus to the world his mournful tale he cried,
For Shírín kissed the ground, and kissing died.”^406a

The romance of Laylá and Majnún, which forms the third poem of the Quintet, has been since Nidhámí's time one of Laylá and Majnún. the most popular, if not the most popular, of all love-stories in the East, not only in Persia but in Turkey, where Fuḍúlí of Baghdád gave the sad tale of the Distraught Lover and the Night-black Beauty a fresh impulse towards the West of Asia. ^406b In Arabic also there is current a Díwán of love-poems, many of them of extreme beauty, ascribed to “the possessed” (Majnún) Qays al-'Ámirí, ^406c “an almost mythical personage,” as Brockelmann says, “who is supposed to have died about A.H. 70 (A.D. 689).” In this poem the scene is laid not in Persia but in Arabia, and the hero and heroine are no longer royal personages but simple Arabs of the desert. The colouring, however, as was to be expected, is almost entirely Persian. The metre chosen by Nidhámí for this poem runs thus:—

The poem occupies pp. 194-278 of the Ṭihrán edition, and probably comprises rather more than 4,000 verses. The following passage describes how Zayd in a dream sees Laylá and Majnún in the Gardens of Paradise, and might serve to prove, were proof needed, how false is the European superstition which pretends that the Muhammadans deny immortality to women, or lightly esteem a pure and faithful love.

“Now when once more the Night's ambrosial dusk
Upon the skirts of Day had poured its musk, ^407a
In sleep an angel caused him to behold
The heavenly gardens' radiancy untold,
Whose wide expanse, shadowed by lofty trees,
Was cheerful as the heart fulfilled of ease.
Each flow'ret in itself a garden seemed;
Each rosy petal like a lantern gleamed.
Each glade reflects, like some sky-scanning eye,
A heavenly mansion from the azure sky.
Like brightest emeralds its grasses grow,
While its effulgence doth no limit know.
Goblet in hand, each blossom of the dale
Drinks to the music of the nightingale.
Celestial harps melodious songs upraise,
While cooing ring-doves utter hymns of praise.
Beneath the roses, which like sunsets gleam,
A couch was set beside a rippling stream.
With fair brocades and fine this couch was spread,
Lustrous and bright as heaven's azure bed.
Thereon were seated, now at last at rest,
The immortal angels of these lovers blessed,
From head to foot adorned with robes of light,
Like hourís fair in heaven's mansions bright.

Amidst eternal spring their souls they cheer
With heav'nly wine, and commune mouth to ear.
Now from the goblet ruby wine they sip;
Now interchange their kisses, lip to lip;
Now hidden mysteries of love unfold;
And now in close embrace each other hold.^408a

* * * * *

‘Two virgin jewels these, who long did lie
Sealed in a casket of pure constancy.
No joy was theirs within that world of pain,
Nor ever there did they their hopes attain.
Here never shall they suffer grief again,
But as thou seest them shall e'er remain.
Who in that world hath suffered pain and grief,
Thus in this world shall find at last relief.
Who in that world was sorrowful and sad,
His in this world shall be a portion glad.’”

The Haft Paykar or Bahrám-náma, though in reality,

An interesting episode, illustrating the proverb that “practice makes perfect,” occurs in this romance. Bahrám Gúr, it is said, had a favourite handmaiden named Fitna (“Mischief”) whom he used to take with him on his hunting expeditions, where she would beguile him, during the intervals of repose, with the strains of the harp, in which she was skilled. One day the King had displayed his prowess in the chase and in archery to the utmost, expecting to win from his favourite some expression of admiration and wonder; but—

“The maiden, prompted by mere wantonness,
Refused her admiration to express.
The King was patient, till a wild ass broke
Forth from its lair, then thus to her he spoke:
‘My skill, O Tartar maid, thy narrow eyes ^410a
Behold not, or beholding do despise.
My skill, which knoweth neither bound nor end,
Entereth not thy narrow eyes, O friend!
Behold this beast, and bid my skill impale
What spot thou wilt between its head and tail.’
‘Wouldst thou,’ said she, ‘thy skill to me make clear?
Then with one shaft transfix its hoof and ear.’
The King, when this hard test was offered him,
Prepared to gratify her fancy's whim;
Called for a cross-bow, and forthwith did lay
Within the groove thereof a ball of clay.
Straight to the quarry's ear the pellet shot,
Whereat the beast, to soothe the smarting spot,
And to remove the clay, its foot on high
Did raise, whereon the King at once let fly
An arrow like a lightning-flash, which sped
Straight to the hoof, and nailed it to the head.
Then to the maid of China said the King:
‘Success is mine! What think you of this thing?’
‘For long,’ said she, ‘the King this art hath wrought,
In tricks long practised to succeed is naught!
What man hath studied long, he does with ease,
And solves the hardest problems, if he please.
That thus my lord the quarry's hoof should hit
Proves not so much his courage as his wit.’”

The King, infuriated at his favourite's impertinence, handed her over to one of his officers to be put to death; but she by her entreaties, and assurances that her royal lover would repent of his hasty action, induced him to spare her life and to conceal her in his hunting-lodge in the country. In this lodge was a staircase of sixty steps, and she, determined to prove the truth of her assertion that “practice makes perfect,” obtained a newly-born calf, and every day carried it on her shoulders up and down these stairs, her strength increasing with its growth. After some time her host, the officer, entertained King Bahrám in this country-house, and Fitna, veiling her face, seized the opportunity of displaying her accomplishment to her former lover, who, filled with admiration at this athletic feat, demanded to see her face, and recognised with joy and forgiveness his sweetheart whom he had supposed to be dead.

The fifth poem, the Iskandar-náma or “Alexander-book,”

Far less known and read than the three poets already discussed in this chapter is Dhahír (in full Dhahíru'd-Dín Ṭáhir Dhahíru'd-Dín Fáryábí. b. Muḥammad) ^412a of Fáryáb, who owes such celebrity as he possesses chiefly to the well-known verse (by whom composed I know not)—

Díwán-i-Dhahír-i-Fáryábí
Dar Ka'ba bi-duzd, agar bi-yábí.

“Steal the Díwán of Dhahír of Fáryáb, even if you find it in
the Ka'ba.”

We have already alluded to the versified judgements of Majdu'd-Dín Hamkar, Imámí and a third poet as to the respective merits of Dhahír and Anwarí, and though all three decisions are in favour of the latter, the fact that the question could be raised at all clearly shows that, however little Dhahír's poems are read now, they were once ranked very high. They have been lithographed at Lucknow by Nawal Kashor, but the only text at my disposal has been an undated but good manuscript (O??. 6. 46) belonging to the University Library of Cambridge, comprising 160 folios, each containing (save for titles and empty spaces) twenty-two couplets, eleven on each side, or in all something over three thousand couplets, forming qaṣídas, fragments, ghazals, and quatrains.

'Awfí includes a somewhat lengthy notice of Dhahír in vol. ii of his Lubáb (pp. 298-307), in which he rates this poet very high, even declaring that “his verse has a grace which no other verse possesses,” and adds that, though born at Fáryáb, in the extreme north-east of Persia, he enjoyed the greatest fame in 'Iráq, where he was especially patronised by the Atábek Nuṣratu'd-Dín Abú Bakr b. Muḥammad “Jahán-Pahlawán” b. Íldigiz of Ádharbayján.

Dawlatsháh also devotes a lengthy article (pp. 109-114 of my edition) to Dhahír, in which he says that the poet was a pupil of Rashídí of Samarqand, that he left Khurásán for 'Iráq and Ádharbayján in the reign of the Atábek Qizil Arslán b. Íldigiz (A.D. 1185-91), having previously been in the service of Ṭughán, the ruler of Níshápúr, and that some critics consider his verse “fresher and more delicate” than that of Anwarí. He was also previously to this, as we learn from Ibn Isfandiyár's History of Ṭabaristán (pp. 71-3 of my translation), in the service of the Ispahbad of Mázandarán, Ḥusámu'd-Dawla Ardashír b. Ḥasan (murdered on April 1, A.D. 1210), and to the generosity of this ruler he makes regretful reference in the line:—

Sháyad ki ba'd-i-khidmat-i-dah sál dar 'Iráq
Nán-am hanúz Khusraw-i-Mázandarán dihad.

“Perhaps after ten years' service in 'Iráq
The Prince of Mázandarán may still provide me with bread.” ^413a He also visited Iṣfahán, but, being displeased with his reception by the chief judge of that city, Ṣadru'd-Dín 'Abdu'l-Laṭíf of Khujand, he remained there only a short while. Mujíru'd-Dín of Baylaqán, whom we have already met with as the satirist of Iṣfahán and the object of Kháqání's anger, was one of his rivals, of whom he says, alluding to the fine clothes which he affected:—

“If by robes of rich brocades a man may claim to be the best,
Shall we count as man the lizard or the wolf in satin dressed?” ^413b Towards the end of his life Dhahír, like so many other panegyrists, renounced the life of Courts and retired into pious seclusion at Tabríz, where he died at the end of A.D. 1201, ^413c and, as we have seen, was buried in the cemetery of Surkháb by the side of Kháqání and Sháhfúr-i-Ashharí. His poems, however, show no trace of religious feeling, and are conspicuously worldly in their tone, so that, if indeed he repented at the end of his life, we must suppose that his renunciations included the practice of his art.

I have taken the trouble to read through the manuscript of his poems mentioned above, but the result is disappointing, the references to current events or dates being very few, and the verse nearly always of the same polished, graceful, rather insipid kind characteristic of Persian Court-poets, without the occasional outbursts of invective, satire, or deep feeling which redeem the poems of Anwarí and Kháqání. The qaṣídas and fragments, with a few ghazals, amount to 185, and these are followed by 97 quatrains. The Díwán also contains at least one panegyric on Qizil Arslán in mathnawí form, but no mathnawís proper.

The kings and princes to whom these poems are addressed (so far as they are indicated in the course of the poems, for Patrons of Dhahír. there are no explanatory titles) are as follows:— 'Aḍudu'd-Dín Ṭughánsháh b. Mu'ayyad, ^414a called “King of the East” (Khusraw-i-Sharq and Malik-i-Sharq), seven or eight poems; Ḥusámu'd-Dín Ardashír b. Ḥasan, King of Mázandarán, ^414b three poems; Akhtisán Shirwánsháh (Kháqání's patron), one poem; Qizil Arslán b. Íldigiz, Atábek of Ádharbayján, ^414c eleven poems, besides two further allusions to his death; Nuṣratu'd-Dín Abú Bakr Bíshkín b. Muḥammad b. Íldigiz, nephew and successor of Qizil Arslán, thirty-five poems; Ṭughril [b. Arslán], the last ruler of the House of Seljúq in Persia, ^414d one poem. Other persons addressed are:—Bahá'u'd-Dín Abú Bakr Sayyidu'r-Ru'asá , four poems; Táju'd-Dín Ibráhím, two poems; Majdu'd-Dín Muḥammad b. 'Alí Ash'ath, four poems; Sa'du'd-Dín, two poems; Raḍiyyu'd-Dín, two poems; Iamálu'd-Dín Ḥasan, three poems; Shamsu'd-Dín (wazír), five poems; Jalálu'd-Dín, Sharafsháh, 'Imádu'd-Dín (wazír), Muḥammad b. Fakhru'l-Mulk (wazír), Ṣafiyyu'd-Dín of Ardabíl, 'Izzu'd-Dín Yaḥya of Tabríz, and Nidhámu'd-Dín (wazír), each one poem; and last, but not least, the celebrated Ṣadru'd-Dín Khujandí, one of the most powerful Sháfi'ite doctors of Iṣfahán, who was killed in A.H. 592 (A.D. 1196) by Falaku'd-Dín Sunqur, and to whom eight of these poems are addressed. Concerning Dhahír's relations with the Ṣadr of Khujand, whose proper name was 'Abdu'l-Laṭíf, Dawlatsháh (pp. 112-113 of my edition) writes as follows:—

“They say that Dhahír went for a tour from Níshápúr to Iṣfahán. At that juncture Ṣadru'd-Dín 'Abdu'l-Laṭíf of Khujand was the chief judge, and one of the most notable men of that country. One day Dhahír attended his audience, and observed that the places of honour were occupied by scholars and men of learning. He, having proffered his salutations, seated himself, like a humble stranger, in a [modest] place; but, not receiving such attention as he expected, he was vexed, and handed to the Ṣadr the following fragment of poetry which he had extemporised:—

‘Riches, Your Eminence, are not so great
That they with pride your heart should thus inflate.
Virtue you have, and science: wherefore be
So proud of adventitious luxury?
Scholars of talent how can you despise?
Your own distinction in your talents lies!…
Hear now my counsel, though it hurt your pride,
And strive to make it in your life a guide.
Each for the wrongs which he has wrought one day
Must give redress, and you must cast away
That shield of self-complacency whereby
You seek to safeguard your position high,
Else of all sins for which you will be judged
You most shall fear for kindly words begrudged!’^415a

“Thereafter, notwithstanding all the attention and civility which the Ṣadr showed him, he would not remain in Iṣfahán, but went to Ádharbayján, where he was generously patronised by the Atábek Mudhaffaru'd-Dín Muḥammad b. Íldigiz.”

This story does not altogether agree with the fact that several poems are addressed to the Ṣadr, in one of which the poet speaks of having attended for two years at this “fortunate threshold,” and begs his patron not to allow him, the possessor of “a thousand treasures of talent,” to be in need of the patronage of “a parcel of low fellows.” It seems much more probable that the poet, after remaining for two or three years at Iṣfahán, was disgusted at not receiving as much favour as he had expected from the Ṣadr, and therefore determined to seek his fortune in Ádharbayján.

Although we cannot fill in the details, the main outlines of Dhahír's life are clear enough. He began to write poetry while still resident in his native town of Fáryáb, which in one poem he speaks of as his “dwelling-place” (maskan). Thence he seems to have gone to Níshápúr, in praise of whose ruler, Ṭughánsháh, the son of Mu'ay-yadá of Ába, he has, as we have seen, several poems. As this prince died in A.D. 1186-87, those poems must have been composed before this date; and as, from one rather obscure line, it appears that the poet was already producing verse at the age of thirty, we may fairly suppose that he was at this period not much above or below this age, and may conjecture that his birth took place about A.D. 1156. As he reached Ádharbayján while Qizil Arslán was still alive, his visits to the Court of Ḥusámu'd-Dín Ardashír b. Ḥasan, King of Mázandarán, and to Iṣfahán would seem to have taken place between A.D. 1187 and 1191, in which year his chief patron, the Atábek Nuṣratu'd-Dín Abú Bakr, succeeded his uncle, Qizil Arslán. If his death really took place in A.D. 1201 (and I know of nothing against this date), we may suppose that for the greater part of the ten remaining years of his life he continued attached to the Court of Abú Bakr, and that his retirement at Tabríz included only the last year or two of his life.

Apart from the persons addressed (several of whom, unfortunately, I am unable to identify), we find here and there more explicit references to the poet's circumstances. Thus in one poem, written, probably, towards the end of his sojourn in Níshápúr, he says:—

Mará bi-muddat-i-shish sál ḥirṣ-i-'ilm u adab
Bi-khákdán-i-Nishápúr kard zindání;
Bi-har hunar ki kasí nám burd dar 'álam
Chunán shudam ki na-dáram bi-'ahd-i-khud thání.

“For a period of six years desire for science and culture
Has kept me imprisoned in this dust-heap of Níshápúr;
In every accomplishment which any one has mentioned in the
world
I have become such that I have no second in my time.”

In the same poem I find an allusion which, in conjunction with another passage, inclines me to think that Dhahír was one of those who ridiculed poor Anwarí on account of his unfortunate astrological prediction for September, A.D. 1186, for he mentions:—

Risálatí ki zi inshá-i-khud firistádam
Bi-majlis-i-tu bi-ibṭál-i-ḥukm-i-ṭúfání—

“A tract of my own compilation which I sent
To thy Court, to disprove the predicted storm.”

The other passage in which allusion is made to this “storm” contains, if I am not mistaken, a definite reference to Anwarí. It runs:—

An kas ki ḥukm kard bi-ṭúfán-i-bád guft
'Ásíb-i-án ‘imárat-i-gítí kunad kharáb:’
Tashríf yáft az tu, wa iqbál díd u jáh:
Dar band-i-án na-shud ki khaṭá guft yá ṣawáb.
Man banda chún bi-nukta'í ibṭál karda-am
Bá man chirá zi wajh-i-digar mí-rawad khiṭáb?

“That person who predicted the storm of wind said,
‘The hurt thereof will destroy the prosperity of the world.’
He obtained from thee a robe of honour, and gained fortune
and rank:
He cared nothing whether he spoke truly or falsely.
Since I, your servant, have falsified [his prediction] with one
criticism,
Why am I addressed in a fashion so entirely different?”

Dhahír, then, was probably acquainted with Anwarí, or at least with his verse, and I am much mistaken if Dhahír's poem beginning:—

Ay Falak sar badán dar áwurda
Ki tu gú'í ki khák-i-páy-i-man-ast

be not a ‘response’ to, or parody of, Anwarí's—

Kulba'í k'andarán bí-rúz u bi-shab
Jáy-i-árám u khurd u khwáb-i-man-ast.

Apart from these indications, I can find no clear reference to any contemporary poet, unless the following be to Nidhámí, whose romance of Khusraw and Shírín (or Farhád and Shírín), was, as we have seen, completed in A.H. 571 (=A.D. 1175-76):—

Wa lík bíkh-am azín dar 'Iráq thábit níst:
Khushá fasána-i-Shírín u qiṣṣa-i-Farhád!

“But on this account I am not firmly rooted in 'Iráq:
Lucky the story of Shírín and the tale of Farhád!”

And indeed it is likely enough that Dhahír was jealous of his two great contemporaries; for his poems display all the egotism, greed of gain, readiness to take offence and shameless opportunism which, with occasional outbursts of contempt for their own time-serving profession, are so characteristic of these panegyrists. His views in this respect singularly resemble those of Anwarí. To one much earlier poet, namely, Pindár of Ray, who flourished in the eleventh century of our era, there is the following clear reference, which Dawlatsháh (p. 43, l. 4) both mutilates and misquotes:—

Shi'r-i-Pindár, ki guftí bi-ḥaqíqat waḥy-ast,
Án ḥaqíqat chu bi-bíní buwad az pindárí.
Dar nihán-khána-i-ṭab'am bi-tamáshá bingar,
Tá zi har záwiya'í 'arḍa diham dildárí!

“The verse of Pindár, which thou didst declare to be ‘in truth
inspired,’
That ‘truth,’ when thou lookest into it, arises from an illusion.
Glance for delectation through the secret gallery of my genius,
That out of its every corner I may reveal some new charmer!” ^419a Here again, though there is no question of rivalry, we observe the same note of disparagement towards the work of others.

Like most Court-poets in Persia, Dhahír was evidently addicted to wine, and, though apparently professing the Sunní doctrine, was probably entirely careless of religion. Thus in one of his quatrains he says that “it is better to be drunk in Hell than sober in Paradise,” while in another (alluding to Alexander's journey, under the guidance of the mysterious immortal Saint Khiḍr, into the Land of Darkness in quest of the Water of Life) he declares himself “the slave of that Khiḍr who brought thee forth from the Darkness of the Grape.” That he professed himself a Sunní appears clearly from the manner in which he speaks of the Caliphs 'Umar and 'Uthmán. Of the first he says:—

“How long wilt thou speak of the lily and its ‘freedom’? ^419b
Art thou then without knowledge of the service of the world's
King,
Nuṣratu'd-Dín 'Bú Bakr, the wise and just ruler
Who hath adorned the whole world with the justice of 'Umar?”

Of both he says, in another place:—

“The most great and kingly Atábek, whose justice
Is the restorer of God's Religion and the Prophet's Law,
'Bú Bakr by name, and like 'Uthmán in modesty and clemency,
Who, by virtue of his knowledge and justice, equals Fárúq (i.e.,
'Umar) and Ḥaydar (i.e. 'Alí).”

To no class, however, does the Arabic proverb an-Násu 'alá díni Mulúkihim (“Men follow the creed of their kings”) apply more strongly than to Court-poets, and it would be a mistake to attach any great significance to these utterances, which at most show that Dhahír was not a convinced adherent of the Shí'a sect.

Our poet, as we have said, was an importunate beggar, and yet had sense enough to see how bad a use he was making of his talents. The following verses are typical samples of a large portion of his poetry. The first is from a long qaṣída addressed to the Ṣadr of Khujand.

“A whole world dances on the waves through thy bounty,
While my bark is thus heavily anchored.
Ask me not of the state in which I am to-day,
For should I tell it thou wouldst not believe.
Trouble lies in ambush round about me,
Poverty unmasks its hosts before me…
Dost thou not desire that, for a little effort [on thy part],
I may spread thy praises through the world?
In [seeking] means of livelihood there cannot be
Love for Abú Bakr or friendship for 'Umar. ^420a
There is no jeweller in 'Iráq, so it is natural
That they should not recognise the value of a jewel.
Oh, my heart is pure like a purse of silver,
While my face is sallow like a bag of gold.
I have no fortune beyond this, that I have become
The chief amongst the poets.”

In another qaṣída addressed to Bahá'u'd-Dín Abú Bakr Sayyidu'r-Ru'asá he says:—

“I have not yet given tongue in thy praise,
Though thy generosity demands an apology from [even] a
hundred qaṣídas. ^421a
My mind has conceived a distaste for poetry,
For it impairs the status of a scholar.
My object is to praise you, else
Where is poetry and where is he! ^421b
I, whose soul in the arcana of the [Divine] Power
Occupies the station of ‘[a bow-shot] or even less,’ ^421c
How can I take pride in poetry, because
My name is on the roll of the poets?
Not that poetry is bad in itself;
My complaint is of the vileness of my colleagues!”^421d

Again he says in another poem:—

“My talent, indeed, yields me no means of livelihood,
Whether you suppose me at Hamadán or in Baghdád.
Such advantage as I have seen in the world from my scholar-
ship
Was from the harshness of my father and the blows of my
tutor.
My poetic talent is my least claim to distinction,
For at its hands I have suffered sundry injustices.
Before whomsoever I recite a line commemorating his praises,
He thenceforth, so far as he is able, remembers me not.
Of poetry the best kind is the ode (ghazal), and that, moreover,
Is not a stock-in-trade on which one can found expectations.
The edifice of my life is falling into ruin: how long

Shall I decorate the House of Passion with the colour and fra-
grance of the fair?
What doth it profit me what sweet-lipped loveling dwells in
Kashmír?
What doth it avail me what silver-bosomed darling inhabits
Nawshád? ^422a
Content thee with this much, and say naught of the nature of
panegyric,
For I cannot describe the heart-burnings to which it gives rise!
The finest flower which blossoms from it for me is this,
That I call myself a ‘slave’ and the cypress-tree ‘free.’ ^422b
Now I entitle a fractious negro ‘a Houri of Paradise,’
And now address as ‘noble’ some miserable drunkard!”

Surely no more cynical avowal was ever made by any one practising the trade—for such we must call it—of the panegyrist! And as a trade, indeed, does Dhahír regard his calling, for he says in another poem:—

“I am not a landowner nor a merchant, that I should have
Granaries full of corn, and purses full of silver and gold.”

So he must even make money out of his poetry, and to that end must stoop to devices which he despises. He must take what he can get, and then find some pretext for demanding more, as, for instance, when, having received a gift of a fine robe and an ambling mule, he says:—

“I still hope for a saddle and bridle,
Else how can I tell that the mule is good for riding?”

If praise fails to produce money, satire may prove more efficacious; nay, with the rivals and enemies of the victim it may command a better price than panegyric, as the following lines show:—

“O Sire, it is more than a year that I
Drink the wine of thy praises from the goblet of verse.
I have not seen from thee anything which I can mention:
I have not obtained from thee anything which I can put on.
If in any company they question me concerning thy bounty,
I am obliged to stop my ears with cotton.
Be not misled if, in consequence of my virtues,
I remain philosophical, good-tempered, and silent.
When I mount my Pegasus with intent to produce verse,
My colleagues are proud to carry my horse-cloths on their
backs.
In praise, like all the rest, on occasions of complaint or thanks-
giving,
I shine like the sun or rage like the sea.
If I should recite to a certain person a verse or two of satire
on thee,
He would place in my embrace the treasures of the world.
Since, then, they are ready to buy satire of thee for red gold,
It is but right that I should sell at the best market-price.”

Often the mere threat of satire seems to have been enough to loose the purse-strings of those who were least susceptible to flattery, for the actual number of satires in the collection is very small. The following, addressed to an ecclesiastic named Muḥiyyu'd-Dín, is of a mildness and delicacy very rare in this kind of poetry:—

“O learned prelate and Muftí of the age, Muḥiyyu'd-Dín,
By knight and castle dost thou excel all creatures! ^423a
Twice or thrice have I recited qaṣídas in thy praise,
But no effort of thine has loosed the knots of my condition. ^423b
To-day some fellow stood up in front of thy pulpit,
Crying, ‘I repent of my deeds!” Thou didst exclaim, ‘Well
done!’
Then thou didst demand for him money and clothes from the
congregation,

Which they gave readily and willingly, without demur or diffi-
culty.
Now since thou hast given me nothing for my verse, at least
Give me something for repenting of that art which thou hast
inspired in me!”

It would be easy to multiply instances of the poet's demands for money and complaints of poverty and debt: “Creditors are stationed at my threshold,” he says in one place, “as Fortune is stationed at yours.” But the above specimens are sufficient, and fairly represent the tone and quality of the whole. Of erudition Dhahír, in spite of his boasts, shows far fewer signs than Anwarí and Kháqání, whose poems, as we have seen, teem with allusions to the most recondite sciences. It is perhaps worth noticing the following verse, which can hardly be regarded otherwise than as a quotation from the Gospels:—

Shutur bi-chashma-i-súzan birún na-khwáhad shud:
Ḥasúd-i-khám-ṭama', gú, darín hawas bi-g'dáz!

“The camel will not go through the eye of a needle:
Bid thine envier with his crude ambitions melt in this vain
endeavour!”

I do not know on what principle Dhahír's Díwán is arranged, for the order of the poems is neither chronological nor alphabetical. It would seem as though an attempt had been made to put the best poems at the beginning, and it is remarkable that, of the first five, three are chosen as specimens of the poet's work by 'Awfí in his Lubáb (vol. ii, pp. 298-307) and a fourth by Dawlatsháh (p. 110). The first poem, which consists of thirty-seven verses, seems to me quite the best in the whole collection, and I will conclude my notice of Dhahír with a few lines from it.^424a

“That thou may'st fill thy belly and clothe thyself withal,
Behold how many a harmless beast to pain and death is thrall!
For thee what grievous burdens insect and reptile bear,
What agonies befall the beasts of earth and birds of air!
Some harmless creature, fearing naught, is grazing on the veldt,
Whilst thou thy knife art sharpening to strip it of its pelt.
With bitter toil poor weakly worms weave for themselves a
nest,
That thou of silks and satins fine may'st clothe thee with the
best.
Eager thy jaded palate with honey sweet to please,
Thou sittest watching greedily the toiling of the bees.
From the dead worm thou strip'st the shroud to turn it to thy
use:
Can any generous soul accept for such a theft excuse?”

I have written thus fully of Dhahír of Fáryáb, not because I would place him on an equality with Anwarí, Kháqání, or Nidhámí, much less with Firdawsí or Náṣir-i-Khusraw, but because he may be taken as a type of the innumerable Court-poets of his time and country, such as Athír of Akhsíkat, Mujír of Baylaqán, Faríd-i-Kátib, Shufurvah of Iṣfahán, and dozens more neither greatly superior nor greatly inferior to himself, of whom it is impossible to give detailed and separate accounts in a work of such scope and character as this.