EARLY PERSIAN POETRY FROM THE BEGINNINGS DOWN TO THE TIME OF FIRDAUSI
BY THE SAME AUTHOR PERSIA PAST AND PRESENT A BOOK OF TRAVEL AND RESEARCH +
Cloth, 8vo, xxxi
471 pages, with more than 200 illustrations
and a map.
New
York,
The Macmillan Company,
1906.
FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO THE HOME OF OMAR KHAYYAM TRAVELS IN TRANSCAUCASIA AND NORTHERN PERSIA FOR HISTORIC AND LITERARY RESEARCH Cloth, 8vo, xxxiii
+
317 pages, with over 200 illustrations and a
map.
New
York,
The Macmillan Company,
1911.
ZOROASTER, THE PROPHET OF ANCIENT IRAN Cloth, 8vo, xxiii
+
314 pages, with 3 illustrations and a map.
New York, Columbia
University Press, 1899 (reprinted
1919).
[Frontispiece]
KiN(i IvHrsRAr Paijviz seated ox his (From the Cochran
Throxe
Collection of Tei-sian Manuscripts in the MetropoUtan
Museum
of Art,
New York)
EARLY PERSIAN POETRY FROM THE BEGINNINGS DOWN TO THE TIME OF FIRDAUSl WITH TEN ILLUSTRATIONS
1.
V?^WILLIAMS JACKSON
PROFESSOR OF INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, AUTHOR OF 'PERSIA PAST AND PRESENT,' 'FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO THE HOME OF OMAR KHAYYAM,' AND 'ZOROASTER, THE PROPHET OF ANCIENT IRAN*
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1920 All righU re«»rv6d
COPTEIGHT,
1920,
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped.
Published April, 1920.
NortoootJ Wttss Berwick J. 8. Cushing Co.
—
& Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
TO
KATE
PREFACE This book
is
a labor of love
— the outcome
devotion to the study of Persia,
and
literature,
and
is
its
history,
of years of
languages,
in part the result of four journeys
through the Land of the Sun, in 1903, 1907, 1910, and 1918. Some of the records of these travels have appeared
The appreciation with which those were received has been an incentive to supplement
in print elsewhere.
studies
them by a
literary
presentation, in brief
earlier poetry of Persia
down
to about
include Firdausi's Shah-namah, or
*
1000
Book
form, of the a.d., so as to
of Kings,' the
poem of Persia. Perhaps the reception of the work may give encouragement enough to lead to
great epic present
the preparation of a couple of volumes on
Poetry
'
and on
^
'
Persian Mystic
The Lyric and Romantic Poetry
of
Iran.'
The aim
— and is
I
of the chapters included in the present
hope that they
to give succinctly the
may main
volume
not be found unduly long
—
outlines of the several early
now chosen for presentation, and to illustrate, by translations made from the original Persian, the characteristics of the various authors, regarding whom I have gathered material from all sorts of sources, native and foreign. Many of the citations are only small fragments of verse from Persian poets so long dead that they have been evoked almost as shades from the far-distant past; but there is something very human in their brief messages that makes their story more up-to-date than might be periods
imagined.
Some
of the rcliques of their works, however.
PREFACE
viii
are longer
episode of
and have a fuller metrical tale to tell. The Suhrab and Rustam, moreover, is a well-known a
classic in literatiu-e, so that
verse
may
new rendering
into blank
not be unwelcome.
In making
all
these translations
it
has been
my
en-
deavor to combine the feeling of the original with the element of a faithful reproduction in modern form. To be fairly
and
literal
not an easy task.
at the
How
same time fairly literary is have succeeded in attaining
far I
my
aim must remain for others to judge. It will be easy, for any one who cares to do so, to compare text and version by making use of the references to sources, conscientiously given in the footnotes regarding every passage I
have translated.
In the three brief selections where I
have chosen the English version by other scholars (Cowell, Pickering, Browne) references are likewise given directly after the passages.
In making the renderings there has been no attempt in general to imitate the Persian rhythms, which are elaborate and depend upon the quantity of syllables, heavy and
and thus do not lend themselves to English versification any more than do the Greek and Latin metrical But, on the other hand, the general system of schemes. rhyming in Persian has been imitated in a broad manner, occasionally even the favorite Persian monorhyme,^ and in all cases of departure from such schemes the footnotes call attention to the arrangement of the rhyme in the original The quatrain-form has been indicated to the eye stanzas. wherever it occurs, so that lovers of Omar Khayyam can quickly catch rubal verses that long antedate the famous Tentmaker of Nishapur. In one of the longer selections translated from the Shah-namah, moreover, an attempt has light,
1
Cf.
pages 29, 33-34, 36
n. 1,
52 n.
2.
PREFACE
IX
been made to suggest the rhythm and couplet-verse of
Any one who
Firdausi's epic.^
is
interested in the verse-
forms and the rhetoric of the Persians will find abundant material on the subject in the well-known works of Browne, Gladwin, Riickert, Blochmann, and Wahrmund, not to mention others. I have pm-posely omitted all diacritical marks which would indicate the length of vowels or differentiate between certain consonants in Persian names. These diacritical marks have been employed, however, in the Alphabetical List of Poets which I have included as part of the
They may
introductory matter (pages xx-xxi).
found
in
the very
also be
occasional transliterations from
Persian which I have given in
the
hope that neither the general reader nor the specialist may be embarrassed by my method in either case. Regarding the pronunciation of Persian
Persian bizarre
to
Khayyam,
names and
see the special note, page xxii.
style
us
—
I
italics.
its
poetic
are familiar
Sa'di, Hafiz, or
characteristics
to those
some
— often
who know Omar
of the rest
;
and though
I
have not yet reached the period of Persian poetry when the gul and the hulhul fill the verse with tuneful measures, I still hope that even without the nightingale and the though they are mentioned rose' this volume, with * lute, madrigal, and trump, may find gentle readers.' '
—
—
I
now take
the wished-for opportunity of expressing
thanks to some of the
many
to
whom
gratitude
is
my
due.
One of the first inspirations to write on Persian poetry came in the form of an invitation, in 1908, from the Johns Hopkins University, to deliver seven lectures on the subject, as Percy TurnbuU Lecturer, on the foundation established by Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull of Balti1
See pages 96-99.
PREFACE
X more, Md., in
memory
of a deceased
As a later Persia, came a
son.
sequel, in 1919, after a fourth journey to
request from the University of Chicago, through President
Harry Pratt Judson, who had been Director
of the Ameri-
can-Persian Relief Commission, to present the same general subject in three addresses in a lecture-series founded by
William Vaughn Moody. there
In addition to these sources
also a special inspiration from the audiences on the various occasions when I gave public in the halls of my Alma Mater, on Persian
came
present lectures,
Poetry and other topics relating to the Orient. I desire to express as well,
ment,
my
with grateful acknowledg-
indebtedness to the works of scholars in the
same field, especially to the writings of my friend Edward G. Browne, the most distinguished English authority on the literature of Persia, and also to the works of the late scholars Darmesteter of Paris and Horn of Strassburg. Ethe's erudite and creative contributions, which have left a standard to emulate for consulted
;
and
Pizzi's
all
name
time, have been constantly
always rank with those
will
The
of the foremost Persian scholars of Italy.
essays of
Pickering, though published long ago, became accessible to
me
press,
IV was practically ready for the but they have been constantly consulted, as the
only after Chapter
My
added references will show.^
indebtedness to these
scholars in particular, as well as to others,
may
best be
inferred from the abundant citations in the footnotes
and
in the List of \Yorks of Reference.
But there are likewise gratitude which I wish
special debts of obligation to
record.
My
assistant
and at
Columbia, Dr. A. Yohannan, whose birthplace was in Northwestern Persia and who has been my devoted helper ^
See the remarks,
p.
32
n.
2 and p. 47 n.
1.
PREFACE
Xi
for years, stood read}' at all times to give aid in the solu-
tion of difficult problems that presented themselves in the
texts translated.
My former student and ever friend, Dr. Louis H. Gray, whose scholarly contributions are too well known to need mention here, most generously read through the first rough draft of a considerable number of the chapters and gave valuable suggestions which I wish heartily to acknowledge.
But two highest
fellow- workers, always at hand,
meed
of thanks.
come
in for the
Dr. George C. 0. Haas, formerly
Fellow in Indo-Iranian Languages at Columbia, has not only read the proofsheets throughout, supplementing by his skilled eye the care bestowed
readers of the
Norwood
by the compositors and
Press, but has also prepared the
Index and aided with his advice in regard to
all
matters
make-up of the volume. Dr. Charles J. Ogden, who was formerly a student in the Department and who most generously supplied my place at Columbia during my eight months' leave of absence on the relief mission to Persia in 1918-1919, has worked almost daily with me on the volume as the sheets were passing through the press. To his broad scholarship, sound learning, wise judgment, and fine critical sense I owe more than I can readily state. To each and all of these willing helpers my most sincere
of detail connected with the
thanks are expressed anew. A. V.
Columbia University, February
12, 1920.
WILLIAMS JACKSON.
CONTENTS PAOI
Preface
vii
List of Illustrations
List of
xv
Works of Reference
xvi
List of Abbreviations
xix
Alphabetical List of Poets
xx
Note on Persian Pronunciation Chapter L
Persian Poetry of Ancient Days (From before 600
Chapter
II.
xxii
...
1
B.C. to about 650 a.d.)
The New Awakening of Persian Song after THE Muhammadan Conquest The Tahirid :
and Saffarid Periods (From about 800
Chapter
III.
14
to 900 a.d.)
Rays from Lost Minor Stars
:
Earlier Sama-
NiD Period
22
(About 900-950 a.d.)
Chapter
FV.
Rudagi, a Herald of the
Dawn
...
32
(Middle of the Tenth Century a.d.)
Chapter V.
Snatches of Minstrel Song From the Later Samanid Period to the Era of Mahmud :
OF Ghaznah
45
(The Latter Half of the Tenth Century a.d.)
Chapter VI.
Dakiki
59
(In the Latter
Chapter
VII.
Half of the Tenth Century a.d.)
The Round Table of Mahmud of Ghaznah: Court Poetry
66
(Early in the Eleventh Century a.d.)
Chapter
VIII.
Firdausi,
and the Great Persian Epic
.
.
82
(About 935-1025 A.d.)
Chapter IX.
The Shah-namah: Some Selections Trans-
Chapter X.
Epilogue
lated
Index
93
115 119
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS King Khusrau Parviz Seated on From tlie Museum
Cochran Collection of Art,
New
of Persian
his
Throne
Frontispiece
.
Manuscripts in the Metropolitan
York. PAGK
A Page
of an Avestan Manuscript with Pahlavi Translation
From
the Avestan Ms. Jp.
1
King Khusrau Parviz and the Minstrel Barbad From the Cochran Museum of Art.
Collection of
,
.
26
the author.
The Great Minaret of Bukhara From
a photograph by
12
Persian Manuscripts, Metropolitan
The Crumbling Mausoleum at Tus From a photograph by
4
in the Colimabia University Library.
Edward G.
36
Pease.
Embellished Introductory Page of a Persian Manuscript
72
From the Cochran Museum of Art.
Collection of Persian Manuscripts, Metropolitan
...
90
Ruined Walls of Tus at the Site of the Former Rudbar Gate
90
The Bridge over the Kashaf River at Tus From a photograph by
From
the author.
a photograph by the author.
Faridun's Grief at the Murder of his Son Iraj From the Cochran Collection of Persian Manuscripts, Metropolitan .
Museiun
.
100
of Art.
The Death of Suhrab at the Hands of Rustam From the Cochran Museum of Art.
his
Father
Collection of Persian Manuscripts, Metropolitan
IV
114
WORKS OF EEFERENCE
LIST OF This
list
includes only the works most often referred to as covering this par-
ticular period of Persian
books and papers Aruzi.
ChaMr Maqala
'Umar ibn Mirza
Detailed information regarding other
literature.
given in the footnotes.
is
(*
The Four
of
Ahmad
ibn
an-Nizami al-'Arudi as-Samarqandi, edited by
'Ali
Muhammad
('
Four Discourses
translated
In Journal of
613-663, 757-845.
1910.
vol. 11.)
The Chahar Maqala 'Arudi-i-Samarqandi,
London and Leyden,
Qazwin.
of
(Gibb Memorial Series,
Browne.
Discourses')
the
into
')
of Nidh^mi-i-
English by Edward G.
Royal Asiatic
Society, 1899,
pp.
[Reprint, pp. 1-139.]
Lubabu '1-Albab of Muhammad 'Awfi. Part 1, edited by Edward G. Browne and Mirza Muhammad Qazwini, London and Leyden, 1906 Part 2, edited by Edward G. Browne, London
Aufi.
;
and Leyden, 1903.
(Persian Historical Texts Series.)
was issued before Part Browne, Edward
A
G.
Times.
Volume
Volume
2,
[Part 2
1.]
Literary History of Persia from the Earliest
1,
From
From Firdawsi
the Earliest Times until Firdawsi; to
Sa'di.
London and
New
York,
1902, 1906.
[The standard work in English, and constantly
consulted, as
shown by the references
Biographies of Persian Poets of Mustawfi.
in the footnotes.] :
From
Tarikh-i Guzida
In Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1900-1901.
[See specitic references in the footnotes.]
See also Aruzi, Auli, Daulatshah, Mustaufi. Darmesteter, James.
[A
valuable
little
Les Origines de
la poesie persane.
Paris, 1887.
book of 88 pages.]
Tadhkiratu 'sh-Shu ara, 'Memoirs of the Poets,' of Dawlatshah bin 'Ala u 'd-Dawla, edited by Edward G. Browne. London and Leyden, 1901. (Persian Historical Texts Series.)
Daulatshah.
Eth6, Hermann.
Hamburg,
Die hofische und romantische Poesie der Perser,
1887.
[A
general presentation in 48 pages.]
Rudagi, der Samanidendichter. xvi
In Nachrichten von der
WORKS OF REFERENCE
LIST OF kuniglichen
der
Gesellsckajl
Wissenschaften zu
xvii
Oottingen, 1873,
pp. GG3-742.
Die Lieder des KisS'i.
In Sitzungsberichte der konig-
Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Munchen
lich bayerischeii
hist. CI.), 1874, vol. 2, pp.
(phil,-
133-153.
In Sitzungsberichte der koniglich
Firdusi als Lyriker.
Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Munchen 1872, pp. [Two articles. 1873, pp. 623-659. Cf Noldeke, Per-
bayerischen
275-304
;
—
sische Studien, 1
;
Wiener Sitzuiigsb. 126. 14 and
II,' in
also Pickering,
*
'
.
n. 3,
34
n.
Fiidausi's Lyrical Poetry,' in National Rev.,
Feb. 1890.]
Rudagi's Vorlaufer imd Zeitgenossen.
Forschungen:
ische
In Morgenldndr H. L. Fleischer gewidmet, pp.
Festschrift
33-68, Leipzig, 1875.
Neupersische Litteratur.
In Grundriss der iranischen
Philologie, vol. 2, pp. 212-368, Strassburg, 1896-1904.
Regum
Firdusii Liber
Firdausi.
J. A. Vullers
(et S.
Le Livre des 7 vols.
Libro dei
da Italo
^vols.
rois, traduit et
re,
Pizzi.
ed.
Leyden, 1877-1884.
commente par Jules Mohl.
poema
epico, recato dal persiano in versi
8 vols.
Turin, 1886-1888.
Konigsbuch (Schahname),
Firdosi's rich Ruckert, aus
3 vols.
3
Paris, 1876-1878. II
italiani
Schahname,
qui inscribitur
Landauer).
iibersetzt
dem Nachlass herausgegeben von
Berlin, 1890, 1894, 1895.
von Fried-
E. A. Bayer.
[Incomplete.]
The Shah-nama of Firdausi, done George Warner and Edmond Warner.
into English
by Arthur
1-7.
London,
Vols.
[To be completed in nine volumes.] The Shah-namah, translated by Alexander
1905-1915.
London, 1907.
The Shah Namah, verse by J. Atkinson.
New
York, 1886.
Grundriss
der
translated and abridged in prose and
Edited by J. A. Atkinson.
(Chandos
iranischen
London and
Classics.)
Philologie,
Geiger und Ernst Kuhn. Horn, Paul.
Rogers.
[Incomplete.]
2 vols.
herausgegeben von Wilhelm Strassburg, 1895-1904.
Geschichte Irans in islamitischer Zeit.
In Grundriss der
iranischen Philologie, vol. 2, pp. 551-604, Strassburg, 1896-1904.
WORKS OF REFERENCE
LIST OF
xviii
Leipzig,
1901.
(In the series Die Litteraturen des Ostens.) Asadi's neupersisches Worterbuch, Lughat-i Furs.
Ber-
Geschichte der persischen Litteratur.
(Abhandlungen der koniglichen Gesellschaft der
1897.
lin,
Wissenschaften zu Gottingen,
Neue
Klasse,
phil.-hist,
Folge,
vol. 1, no. 8.)
Jackson, A. V. Williams.
From
New 1899. Mustaufi.
Persia Past and Present
New York
and Research.
:
a Book of Travel
and London, 1906.
Constantinople to the
Home
of
Omar Khayyam
York and London, 1911. Zoroaster, the Prophet of Ancient Iran.
New
York,
(Reprinted, 1919.)
The
Ta'rikh-i-Guzida, or
'
Select History,' of
Hamdu'llah
Mustawfi-i-Qazwini, reproduced in Facsimile from a Manuscript,
with an Introduction. Part 1 (text), by Edward G. Browne, London and Leyden, 1910 Part 2 (abridged translation and indices), by Edward G. Browne and R. A. Nicholson, London and Leyden, 1913. (Gibb Memorial Series, vol. 14.) ;
Tarikh-i Guzidah, ed. and
J. Gantin.
tr.
Vol.
1,
Paris,
1903.
Das iranische Nationalepos.
Ndldeke, Theodor.
In Grundriss der
iranischen Philologie, vol. 2, pp. 130-211, Strassburg, 1896-1904. Pickering, Charles
J.
Three
articles
on Persian literature in the
National Review, vol. 15, London, 1890
:
(a)
A
Persian Chaucer,
pp. 327-340; (6) The Beginnings of Persian Literature, pp. 673-687 (c) The Last Singers of Bukhara, pp. 815-823. [See ;
the remarks below, p. 32 n. 2, p. 47 n. 1.]
Chrestomathie persane, avec un abrege de la gram-
Pizzi, Italo.
maire et un dictionnaire.
Turin, 1889.
Storia della poesia persiana.
Manuale
Shams
Al-Mu'jam
ad-Din.
2 vols.
di letteratura persiana. fi
Maayiri Ashari
on
by Shamsu 'd-Dm Qays ar-Razi, edited by Mirza Muhammad of London and Leyden, 1909. (Gibb Memorial Series,
Muhammad vol. 10.)
[Sketch.]
*l-'Ajam, a Treatise
the Prosody and Poetic Art of the Persians,
Qazwin.
Turin, 1894.
Milan, 1887.
ibn
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS For
full titles of publications cited in
the List of
A.
H
Works
abbreviated form in the footnotes, consult
of Reference, pages xvi-xviii.
(Anno Hegirae), Muhammadan
era.
Bh
inscription of Darius at Behistan.
c
(circa), about.
Cat
Catalogue.
ch
chapter.
Chr
Chrestomathie.
d ed
died. edition, edited by.
fl
(floruit), flourished.
fol
folio.
folios.
fols
Grundr.
.
.
.
....
id.
JRAS.
.
.
.
loc. cit.
.
.
.
M.
...
F.
Mem n op.
Grundriss der iranischen Philologie. (idem), the
same author.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, (loco citato), at the place previously cited.
Morgenlandische Forschungen. Memorial. note.
cit.
.
.
.
(opus citatum), the
work previously
Sitzb
Sitzungsberichte.
tr
translation, translated by.
Vd., Vend.
.
.
Yt
ZDMG.
cited.
recto (in manuscripts).
r
Vendidad. Yasht.
.
.
.
Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft.
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF POETS INCLUDED names with
Transliteration of
IN THIS diacritical
VOLUME
marks added
to denote the
more
technical spelling, and with dates g^ven wherever possible.
(Names only incidentally mentioned are omitted here
;
for fuller references consult
Index.)
A
'Abbas of Mer7.
pioneer in Persian poetry, master also of Arabic.
Died
815 or 816 a.d.
Abu
Abu Nasr
A
is
From
sumable
this
is
the pre-
date.
a later volume, Abii
poet.
Latter part of the 10th century a.d.
preserved.
The noted
Sa'id.
Abu 'l-Muzaffar Nasr al-Istighna'i of Tenth century a.d. Samanid poet, Abu '1-Malik Nasr Gilani, a
form,
Samanid
of Gilan.
stanza
Abu
In fnller
'1-Muzaffar.
Nishapiir.
Persian mystic poet (to be discussed,
Salik of Gurgan.
Born
58).
cf. p.
A
it is
hoped, in
967, died 1049 a.d.
poet of the later Saffarid period.
Flourished
about the end of the 9th century a.d.
Abu
Shukiir of Balkh. A poet of the earlier Samanid period. Flourished about 941 A.D., and completed the Afarln-ndmah, a work now lost, in 947-948 a.d. (a. h. 336).
Aghachi (or Aghaji). In fuller form, Abu '1-Hasan 'Ali ibn Ilyas al-Aghachi of Bukhara. A warrior-poet of the later Samanid period. About the middle of the 10th century a.d. or somewhat later. "AsjadT. In fuller form, 'Abdu 'l-'Aziz b. Mansur 'Asjadi. Associated with Firdausi as a poet at Mahmiid's court. Flourished 1025 a.d. Avicenna. See Ibn Sina. Bahrain Gur. Sasanian king, whom legend recounts to have composed verses. Reigned 420-438 a.d. Sasanian minstrel, called by Persian writers Barbad, and by Arab authors Bahlabad, Balahbad, or Fahlabad, being various forms of an older Persian Pahlapat. Flourished 600 a.d. Dakiki. In fuller form, Abu IVIansiir Muhammad Ibrahim b. Ahmad
Barbad.
Poet of the latter part of the Samanid period, and noted as Firdausi's predecessor in the epic. Died after 975 a.d. Farrukhi. In fuller form, Abu '1-Hasan 'Ali b. Juliigh (or Kuliigh) of Sistan. Associated as a poet with Firdausi at Mahmiid's court. Died 1037 or 1038 a.d. ad-Dakiki of Tus.
The famous
Firdausi. title,
*
of the
epic poet of Persia.
Garden
'
or
'
of Paradise.'
Hasan b. 'All of Tiis, though there About 935-1025 a.d.
His name Firdausi is a poetic In fuller form, Abu '1-Kasim
are variations in the nomenclature.
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF POETS A
Firuz al-Mashriki.
WHÂť
poet of the later Saffarid period.
Flourished about
A.I).
A
Haozalah of Badghis. b50
xxi
poet of the Tahirid period.
Flourished about
A.i>.
The famous
Ibn Sina, or Avicenna. discussed,
it is
philosopher, physician, and poet (to be
hoped, iu a later volume,
cf.
p.
Born
57).
980, died
1037 A.D. In fuller form,
Junaidi.
lingual
poet
Abu "Abdu
(Persian
'llah
and Arabic)
Muhammad
of the
A
al-Junaidl.
Samanid
bi-
Tenth
period.
century A.n.
Khabbaz
of
The baker-poet and
Nishapur.
Died
period.
Khabbaz's son.
95;3
Abu
physician
Samanid
earlier
;
A.D.
'Ali ibn
Hakim Khabbaz.
Composed
verses
;
see pre-
ceding entry regarding his father as a poet.
Khusrau Parviz. Sasanian king, to whom the composition of a couplet may possibly be ascribed. Reigned 590-628 a.d. Khasravani. In fuller form, Abii Tahir at-Tabib (' the Physician or atTayyib, the Sweet ') b. Muhammad al-Khusravani. A Samanid poet. '
'
Tenth century a.d. Kisa'L
In fuller form,
Cloak.'
A
Abu
Ishak (or
Abu
'1-IIasan) Kisa'i,
poet of the later Samanid period,
who
'
the
Man
lived on,
it
of the
seems,
somewhat beyond that
time. Date of death generally supposed to be but possibly later. Mahmud of Ghaznah. Famous ruler, and said to have been himself a poet as well as a patron of poets, especially of Firdausi. Reigned 9981030 A.D. Mantiki of Rai. In fuller form, Mansiir b. 'Ali al-Mantiki of Rai. A Bu-
1002
A.D.,
waihid poet. Flourished in the latter half of the 10th century a.d. In fuller form, Abu Ibrahim Isma'il Muntasir. Last of the Samanid princes, and a poet. Died 1005 a.d. Riidagi, or Rudaki. In fuller form, Abii 'Abdu 'llah Ja'far ibn Muhammad ar-Riidagi (or Rudaki). The most noted of the Samanid poets. About 880-954 A.D.
Huntasir.
A poet of the earlier Samanid period. Died about 950 a.d. See Abii Shukiir.
Shahid of Balkh. Shukiir.
'Umarah of Merv. In fuller form, Abii Mansiir b. Muhammad (or Ahmad) 'Umarah. Poet and astronomer (compare later, Omar Khayyam), of the later Samanid and the early Ghaznavid periods. Flourished end of the 10th and beginning of the 11th century a.d. 'Unsuri. In fuller form, Abu '1-Kasim' b. Ahmad 'Unsuri of Balkh. Poet laureate at the court of Mahmiid of Ghaznah, and famed through association with Firdausi's name. Died 1040 or 1050 a.d.
NOTE ON PERSIAN PRONUNCIATION
A brief
remark on the pronunciation
of Persian
may be
of
some
service
to the reader.
The syllable,
accent of
and
all
Persian words, with few exceptions,
method
this
of
accentuation
may
is
on the
last
in general be adopted
throughout the book. The vowels and diphthongs have, in the main, the Continental, or Italian, value.
kh is spirant, as give The consonant is always hard, as in go German noch zh is likewise spirant, as in 'azure'; '
(]
Scotch 'loch' or is
'
'
',
'
'
;
;
similarly a spirant, a sort of roughened
in
gh
g.
not necessary here to enter into a discussion of minor details regarding the matter of pronunciation. For a similar reason I have omitted, in the body of the text, all diacritical marks which would indicate the length of vowels or differentiate between certain consonants in Persian names. It is
These
diacritical signs, however, will
be found in the Alphabetical List
Poets which I have included as part of the introductory matter
They may
(p.
of
xx).
be found in the very occasional transliterations from the italics. I hope that neither the general reader nor the specialist may be embarrassed by my method in either case. also
Persian which I have given in
EAELY PERSIAN POETRY FROM THE BEGINNINGS DOWN TO THE TIME OF FIRDAUSI
EARLY PERSIAN POETRY CHAPTER
I
PERSIAN POETRY OF ANCIENT DAYS (From before 600 '
b.c. to
about 650 a.d.)
Metre of an antique song.'
— Shakespeare, Sonnets,
17. 12.
Persia has always been a land of poetry, nor has the been
lyric quality ever
The guide who
lost
from the voice of her people.
leads the traveller's cavalcade
Persia a
^^^^ across the mountains, and the master of the
°^ Poetry
caravan, as he heads the long camel train that winds
slow
way among
the
from poets centuries
can each
hills,
old.
troll
its
snatches of verse
The nightingale
still
pleads with
the rose '
That sallow cheek of hers
and the plaintive note
t'
incarnadine,'
of the wood-pigeon
seems yet to
harmonize in poetic tenderness with the delicate per-
fume
of the
narcissus.
Even the rays
of the
dawning
sun and the soft glances of the rising moon, as they touch the slender form of the tapering cypress, call back to the heart, as of yore, the myriad'
images used by the Persian
lover in paying court to the graceful damsel of his choice.
The beginnings of antiquity.
of Persia's poetry are lost in the mists
And
yet
—
if
we may judge from analogy
PERSIAN POETRY OF ANCIENT DAYS
2
— we
shall probably not be far astray if
earliest poetry
was
The
Beginnings Obscure
two
of
ballad,
and panegyric, and the epic
first
is,
itself is
The
of
all,
say that the
and the
epic.
later to develop into
forms as the
lyric,
hymn,
satire,
the recounting of a tale,
but a magnified and polished ballad,
was probably,
so that all poetry
a ballad.
types, the ballad
which was
^^q]^ diverse
we
at its original inception,
epic type in Persian poetry
admu-ably
is
represented in finished form in Firdausi's Shah-namah, or
*Book
which
of Kings,'
more easy
sets forth in
measured cadence,
remembered by the narrator than
to be
prose,
the deeds of the heroes of the race.^
Of the hypothetical primitive ballad no traces remain in Persian literature, nor
is
it
earliest Iranian records begin.
or Zoroaster,
— at
least SO far as extant
Seventh CenB.C. or
Earlier
For in Persia, as in other
1^^^^ of the East, the earliest note of poetry
zarathushtra
tury
with love poetry that the
„
,
burst forth yoice of
m
,
.
a prophet
specimens go
,
s
Zarathushtr a,
song.
or
It
—
was the
Zoroaster, the
great religious teacher of Persia, in the seventh century B.C.
or
earlier,
divine praise.
chanting in fervid tones an anthem of
His cry broke the silence of the night
perchance in some mountainous cavern in Northwestern Iran, or
heralded
the
morn
as he
wandered
priestlike
through the borders of Persia, preaching the story of his
communings with the god Ormazd and the
arch-
angels.^ 1
and '
Cf L. H. Gray, in Encyclop. Relig.
Prophet of Ancient Iran, pp. 34, 40-61,
Ethics,
New York,
.
Cf.
6. 2, d. (art.
Jackson,
'
Fiction
Zoroaster,
').
the
1899.
!
THE ZOROASTRIAN PSALMS
And what future to
life,
the burden of these ancient chants, or
is
psalms in verse
now
It is
?
a vision of heaven and the
and now an appeal
abandon the way
may
to
of the wicked,
mankind
and to
fol-
Zoroaster's
^°cientPsaims
be a note of despondency in the tone, since
deaf ears hearken not to his inspired word is
always at hand
;
to be
it is
but comfort
;
found in God and in the
marvelous works of His creation.
Hence
rises
hymn
of the Avesta, or Sacred
which begins with the
Tat Thwa pdrdsa
dras
—
of Zoroaster,
moi vaoca Ahurd me truly, Lord
tell it to
the ancient rhythm and I
divisions of
attempt to imitate here in
my
three
stanzas of
translation.
ZOROASTER DEVOUTLY QUESTIONS ORMAZD This I ask Thee
Who Who
—
tell it to
Father
the Sire was, the
pathway
This I ask Thee
Who
—
Who,
do I long,
Who
?
?
stars ordained ?
me
God, to know. truly.
Lord
!
the streams and trees did
to the
make ?
winds and clouds hath yoked
was the Founder of Good Thought?
Mazda,
benignant,
and
Lord
Holiness
moon doth wax and wane again ?
is't
tell it to
their swiftness
This I ask Thee
Who,
truly,
earth below, and kept the sky
set firmly
Sure from falling
Who
me
first of
for the sun
Who, through whom This and much else
—
in
refrain,
This I ask Thee
which
Book
to the
Maker
prophet's lips the impassioned question to his
that
repent,
to
For a moment
low the path of righteousness. there
3
tell it to
made
me
truly.
Lord
!
the darkness and the light ?
?
PERSIAN POETRY OF ANCIENT DAYS
4
Who,
Who
sleep
benignant,
and waking did create
to the wise, of duty's call ?
As reminders
?
noon, and evening did decree
the morning,
^
His own soul knows the answer, since Ahura Mazdah
(Ormazd) and the Zoroaster's
of
form ever the theme
celestial hierarchy
These psalms
song.
anthems,' they are called
— give
— Gathas,
hymns,
'
the outpourings of the
heart in rhythmic measures that resemble in meter
seer's
the Vedic verses of the bards of ancient India, though
somewhat
later
than the Vedas in time of composition.^
There are touches of poetry throughout the Avestan Yashts, or
*
praises
'
in metrical
stanzas
glorifying the
various personifications of divine powers or
The Avestan Yashts
^j^g
demigods and heroes of the
These
faith.
compositions in verse, sometimes mingled with prose, are later
than the Gathas in language and in time of redac-
tion,
though metrically (and in certain religious aspects)
The
older.
simplicity of the meter in the Yashts
shows
a more antique phase than the elaborate Gathic rhythms,
and possibly the mixture of prose and verse than in
commonly thought
is
more than one way.
be older
is
exphcable
The Yashts, moreover,
are doubt-
;
but this mixture
the work of various hands,
less
may
inspired
still
by Zoroaster,
but using material that presents religious aspects in part older than his time. 1
From
1. 148),
of
lines
the Avesta (ed. Geldner,
Yasna
44. 3-5.
The two
last
stanza 5 refer to the three
times for daily prayer. 2
The Gatha meters
types
:
7+9
stanza) verses)
;
+7 +7
4 7
;
(5 verses) (3 verses)
7+7 + 5 (2 verses each) 4 + 7 (2 verses) (3 + 5)
;
;
are of seven
syllables (3 verses in a
4+7
;
;
(one verse) twice repeated,
(4
+ 5 and (7 + 9) + and 3 + 5 7
A
Page of ax Avkstax
]\rAxr.s(
kipt with Pahlavi
Tkanslatiox (From
[
the Avestan Maimscript Jp. 1 in the CuUiuibia University Library)
To face paye 4 ]
:
THE AVESTAN YASHTS AS POETRY The
5
metrical stanzas of the Yashts, like numerous other
parts of
the Avesta, are composed in a somewhat
free
octosyllabic measure that resembles the Kalevala verse,
sometimes a Yasht passage poetry.
At random might
rises
and
to the height of
real
angelic host to
Ormazd.
'
'
be chosen a few lines from the
tenth Yasht, a composition that extolling the grandeur of
Hiawatha
;
so familiar to us through Longfellow's
is
devoted entirely to
Mithra as next only in the
the Supreme
Lord,
Ahura Mazdah,
or
Mithra, the angel of truth and the embodiment
of the sun's light, rides forth majestic in his chariot across
the heavens, guiding and watching over men, even in the battle
which
his
mighty power
sets in
motion, or sternly
punishing the sinner that breaks his word and pledge.
Here may be
cited a stanza
transliteration
and translation YASHT
from the Mithra Yasht in
10.
13-14
Yo paoiryo mainyavo taro
Haram
yazato
dsnaoiti
paurva-naemat amdsahe
hu yat aurvat-aspalie.
To paoiryo zaranyd-pnso srird bardsnava gdrawnditi
a8dt vlspdvi ddiSditi
Airyo-sayanam
yahmya
savisto,
sdstdro aurva
paoiris Ira rdzayente
A YASHT PASSAGE
IN PRAISE OF
MITHRA
Mithra, the celestial angel,
Foremost climbeth Mount Haraiti (Alburz) In advance
o'
the sun immortal,
;
PERSIAN POETRY OF ANCIENT DAYS
6
Which
is
drawn by
fleeting coursers.
He, the first, in gold adornment Grasps the beauteous lofty summits
Thence beneficent he glanceth Over
Aryan home-land,
the
all
Where
the valiant chiefs in battle
Range
their troops in countless numbers.*
Poetic strains
may
be caught here and there in other
parts the Avesta — sometimes prosaic passages — but they of
embedded
number
.2
not over-many in
are
of
in the midst
however, they are to show that the
Sufi&cient,
musical chord was struck nearly three thousand years ago in ancient Iran.
The note perhaps was sounded
festally at
earher date, far back in the legendary reign Legends of Ancient Song
Jamshid
King
of
(which tradition fancifully places at
gQQQ
^j^^^^^
even an
imagination of the
^^.-^^ f^j, ^^^^
poet Firdausi heard echoes of the bard singing at the
New
Year's banquet in the court of that monarch in the
Golden Age of
may
Iran.^
Catches of song, moreover,
believe the romantic history
we
by Xenophon, enlivened
the merry bouts in which the Median indulged, in the days
if
when Cyrus
monarch Astyages
the Great was
still
a boy.^
The
pillared
halls
of
the
great Achaemenian
Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, at Persepolis, 1
Avesta, Yasht
2
On
10. 13-14.
poetry in the Avesta compare
H. Moulton, Early Religious Poetry of Persia, Cambridge, 1911. 3 Firdausi, /S/iaA-nama^, ed. Vullers and Landauer, 1, 26, 1. 55 cf. tr. Mohl,
also J.
;
Livre des
ndma,
1.
rois, 1.
34
;
kings
must hkewise 37
;
Warner, Shd?i-
see also Mirkhond, His-
tory of the Early Kings of Persia, Shea, p. 107, London, 1832.
*Ci. 10.
Xenophon, Cyropaedia,
1.
tr.
3.
.
;
THE LOVE-TALE OF ZARIADRES AND ODATJS
7
have echoed at times to the ring of the poet's minstrelsy.
We may foiui:h
at least infer this from the fact that, late in the
century
Chares of Mytilene
B.C.,
re-
^^
qj^
Romance
ported that the Greeks in Alexander's train
retold in
had heard
'
barbarians
(Persians) singing the
'
Achaemenian ""*^
love of Zariadres and
tale of the romantic
Odatis, a story in which the lover
seen by the
first
is
heroine in a dream and later wins her hand in marriage.
So well known and prized among
was
this
romance
all
the peoples of Asia
Chares adds,
that, as
they have repre-
'
sented the story in paintings in their temples and palaces,
and even
own
in their
private houses.'
must have furnished
this
poet,
Avestan
the
as
especially
inspiration to
name
Zariadres
the brother
Zairivairi,
A
^
Vishtaspa, and hero of the
theme hke
more than one represents the
Zoroaster's
of
patron,
of the holy wars as re-
first
counted later in a Pahlavi prose epic fragment and in
Shah-namah?
poetic
Firdausi's
Although no verses of
the original love-story of Zariadres (Zairivairi, Zarir) and 1
So Chares
Mytilene
of
in
Andreas, in Rohde, Der griechische iJoman, 3 ed. p. 48, note, Leipzig, 1914.
the
tenth book of his 'History of Alexander,' as cited
by Athenaeu-s, Deip-
nosophistae, 13, ch. 35
;
Yonge,
tr.
2
Compare London, 1854. Rapp, in ZDMG. 20. also 65 Darmesteter, ies Oriyines de la poesie
919-920,
persane, p.
Zend-Avesta, pecially
2, 3,
1887
Paris,
Ixxxi
p.
G. Cowell,
id.
Le
and
es-
;
;
Life of
Edward
A
zine, July, 1847, pp. 25-29
Jackson, Zoroaster,
p. 73,
;
5.
112 seq.
the Pahlavi
prose
;
13. 101),
epic
and
Vdfkdr-i
Zarlrdn, as Zarer, and in Firdausi's
Shdh-ndmah, as Zarir, see Jackson, Zoroaster, .
The name '
pp.
104-115,
Zairivairi in
footnotes.
Avestan means
having a yellow (brass) breastplate
' ;
Magaalso
Justi, Iranisches NaTuenbrich, pp. 382,
and
231, Marburg, 1896.
;
of Athenaeus, in Gentleman's
in
and Odatis would be presumably the equivalent of an assumable Avestan cf adjective hii-zditi, of good birth
London, 1904 Persian Legend
Bj/ies Coioeii, pp. 27-31,
and E. B. Cowell,
j-or references to Zairivairi in the
Avesta (Yt.
3.
cf.
n. 6
;
'
'
;
^
PERSIAN POETRY OF ANCIENT DAYS
8
Odatis remain, Firdausi, in a different connection, has
woven
into the narrative of his great epic certain inci-
dents of the story that are easy to recognize.^
We may be
sure that the minstrel's craft did not dis-
appear, though
may have
it
languished, during the dark
ages of the Parthian rule
and following the Christian
directly preceding
Parthian Records (250 B.C.-
Qj.^
224 AD.)
—
^i^g
the centuries
in
when Iran was
time very ^
_
at
war
^
with Rome. 2 regret to us that
it is
Yet
must remain a source
it
no longer possible to
cite
of
a single
verse which dates from that particular era, nor has even
any Hterary monument
in prose survived
from the Par-
thian period, though some sporadic passages of the Avesta
may
possibly date from Parthian times.
Certain
we
are,
however, that the poet's art was a
cherished one in Sasanian times, or from the third to the . ^ ,-xTraditionof
Sasanian
seventh century a.d., even though ° all the literary remains that have survived in the Pah'
-^
Pocts
lavi,
have come down in
later, 1
or Middle Persian of that
Firdausi in the
Shdh-ndmah
Tradition, however, has
prose.* (tr.
period and
Yonge,
(tr.
1.
235),
which would be
Warner, 4. 329-332) makes Zarir's brother Gushtasp and the beautiful Ivitayun (or Katabun) the hero and heroine in a striking episode of his great heroic poem, which
applicable to Parthian as well as Sasa^
practically parallels the love-story of
(with
Zariadres and Odatis, as told above.
theory) see
Mohl,
238-243
4.
;
Cf. also the references
on
if
allusions to
we may judge from the Bahram Gur, below, p.
10, n. 4. s
For a discussion reference
to
Geldner,
of the
problem
Darmesteter's in
Grundr.
2.
33-39.
p. 7, n. 2.
2 For the custom of the Persian kings having songs and music at their
suppers
nian times,
*
Attempts to find verse in the ex-
tant
Pahlavi
works,
including
the
we have
the authority of Hera-
Ydtkdr-i
Kyme
(fourth century b.c.)
Artakhshir-i Pdpakdn, have thus far
cleides of
as cited
by Athenaeus, Deipn.
4.
26
Zanrdn and the Kdrndmak-i
proved unsuccessful, even though the
POETRY IN THE SASANIAN PERIOD
9
preserved the names of at least three court poets, besides
Barbad
(mentioned below) and the harper Sakisa
Nakisa),
who was no doubt
who
likewise of
tells
(420-438 ^
a.d.), ^'
two well-known Sasanian Kings
company with
in
his
of the
*
Heartsease,' the invention
rhyming couplet
music
the
'**°"^^
is
ascribed,
springing
their
to
was on an occasion when Dilaram,
had accompanied her lord upon a
Bahram, upon encountering the
hunt.
with
it
and held
it
lion,
lion
grappled
captive by the ears, then glorified
by likening himself, in what happened
his prowess
cadenced
pant
words,
a
to
elephant
wild
and
ram-
a
meter and compared him to a lofty mountain, the a
in
subjects of the
two
word
that and
latter heroic
romantic stories are found versified later
to
Dilaram caught up the cadence in the same
lion.
ending
in
lips
According to the story as preserved
in native sources, it
beautiful,
in Persian
souls
their
of
rhythmic verse.
be
Bah ram
King Bahrain Gur aa a Poet
.
beloved Dilaram,
the
but they
;
could turn a verse, and to one of these,
Gur
(or
nominum}
are mere umbrae
Legend
also a poet singer
by Firdausi
Shdh-ndmah.
in the
Consult Horn, Gesch.
d. pers.
pp. 43-44, Leipzig, 1901
;
Litt.
and espe-
rhymed with
the
line
close
of
Kitdh al-Mahdsin (ed. and the harper p. 363 Sakisa occurs in Nizami's Khusrau
al-Baihaki,
Van
Vloten),
and Shlrln,
A
;
as referred to
by Browne,
Literary History of Persia,
1.
18,
Horn, Asadi's neupersisches Worterbuch Lughat-i Furs, pp. 16-17, Berlin, 1897, where mention is made of F. C. Andreas's view that the Hajiabad Inscription contains a metrical
London and New York, 1902. But the name Sakisa is written Nakisa in the Nizami Mss. 7 and 8 described in Jack-
passage.
Nakiyya
cially
1
The names
referred to are
and
of the three minstrels
Afarin,
Madharaatani, as
Khusravani, recorded
by
son and Yohannan, Cat. Pers. Mss., New York, 1914 and it appears as ;
in the lithographed ed. pub.
at Teheran, 1312 a.h.
Query
—
cf. p.
12, n. 2,
2^a7»en6ucA, p. 289
('
(=1894 and
a.d.).
Justi, /ran.
Sarkaa
') ?
PERSIAN POETRY OF ANCIENT DAYS
10
Thus was rhyme born
his.^
!
But there are other
stories,
besides, regarding the origin of Persian rhyme.^
We
have also the authority of the
extant biog-
earliest
raphy of the Persian poets, the work of Aufi
1235 first
A.D.), for the
who
statement that
1210-
(fl.
Bahram Gur was
'
the
composed Persian verse,' and that he had seen
a collection of his Arabic
poems in Bukhara, from which
he quotes fragments of odes in Arabic, together with the
two Persian rhyming
Bahram
resents
Firdausi
verses.^
earlier rep-
still
as taking delight in verses that were
chanted to him to the accompaniment of the
even
if
'
that great hunter
'
may
not have had renown as
a king-poet, he nevertheless gave inspiration to later Persian verse
by
But
lute.^
many
a
and he thus
his adventurous deeds,
well deserves a share in the fame.
To another sovereign tic
and kingly lover
may
of the
House
of Sasan, the
Khusrau Parviz rhyming
possibly be ascribed a
roman-
(590-628
a.d.),
engraved on
distich
the walls of the palace of the beautiful Shirin, at Kasr-i 1 For this story see Daulatshah, Tadhkiratu ''sh-Shu'ard, ed. Browne, pp. 28-29, London, 1901; and compare
ad-Din ibn Kais, al-Mujam (ed. Mirza Muhammad, in Gibb Memorial 10), p. 169.
Browne, Lit. Hist, of Persia, 1. 12 Blochmann, Prosody of the Persians, p. 2, Calcutta, 1872 Eth6, Die hbfische und romantische Poesie der Perser, id. RudagTs p. 1, Hamburg, 1887 Vorldufer, in Morgenldndische Forschungen, p. 36 Darmesteter, Les Ori-
Muhammad,
gines de la poesie persane, p. 1
pp. 446, 474, 476,
2
;
;
;
;
Storia delta poesia persiana,
Turin, 1894 Persia,
;
;
Pizzi, 1.
65,
Bose Garden of Horn, Gesch. d.
Costello,
pp. iv-v
pers. Litt. p. 47.
;
Consult also Shams
See Browne, Lit. Hist.
1.
12-13.
Lubdb al-Albdb, chap. 4 (beginning), cf. ed. Browne and Mirza ^
Aufi,
1.
Eth6, in Morg.
20,
London, 1906; and
Forsch. p. 36
Browne, Lit. Hist. 1. 262. ^ cf, Shdh-ndmah, tr. Mohl,
;
cf.
516, 517
;
tr.
499-500,
Warner,
vol. 5,
509-510,
7. 51-52,
etc.
Observe in this connection the reference to Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 4. 26, given above, p. 8, n. 2.
THE FAIR SHIRIN
A COUPLET TO
and
Shirin,
legible in
still
thority for this
is
who
cites in his
the
statement of
the effect that
The
the tenth century.
Daulatshah in the fifteenth
memoirs
au-
centiu-y,
of the Persian poets
Abu Tahir
in the
<
11
Khatun
of
to
ascnbabieto ^ihusrau ii
time of Azud ad-Daulah
(590-628 A.D.)
Dailam
of
was a Buwailiid
[who
of the tenth century a.d.] there tion
prince
was found on an
inscrip-
at Kasr-i Shirin (" Shirin's Palace ")
upon the palace
Khanikin, which was not then entirely in
in the region of
ruins, the following couplet written in the antique Persian style
^ ':
huzhira, ba-gaihdn anushah hi-zi
jihan ra ba-dldar toshak bari
TO THE FAIR SHIRIN Ah, Beauteous One
Upon
!
this earth,
happy
do
for aye
live
!
Since to the world by thy mere glance such joyance thou dost give.*
I
had
in
memory
the lines of this distich, which
may
reasonably be ascribed directly to Khusrau Parviz himself, as I
wandered among the ruins
coming from Khanikin on
my
of
Kasr-i Shirin
when
fourth journey to Persia in
1918; but I could find no traces of any inscribed stones
among
the debris
;
yet a careful search
unearth a stone or a tablet, which lasting witness to the
enamored verse
Tadhkiratu "sh-ShuBrowne), p. 29. 2 Ordinarily the meaning of toshah, tushah in Persian is 'sustenance,' but I have rendered it by joyance,' cf. Skt. toaa, 'satisfaction, comfort.' Re1
Daulatshah,
'ard (ed.
'
may
may some day bear
still
more
of a Sasanian king.
garding this couplet consult, further-
more, A.
de Biberstein
Kazimirski,
Ditan de Menoutchehrl, p. 7, Paris, 1886, where a slightly different reading and a somewhat different translation and interpretation are given.
.
PERSIAN POETRY OF ANCIENT DAYS
12
The
fact that
Khusrau was
also a patron of poetry is
shown by the honor that he paid «
.
Bah lab ad,
or
.^
,
Barbad, the Sasanian Bard
to the minstrel
of his court.^ the sweet singer °
'
The story goes — and that
told
it is
bard
gifted
this
Bar bad,
by Firdausi
won
first
the
—
king's
ear by singing a ballad as he stood hidden amidst the
branches of a cypress tree in the royal garden on a moon-
So great was the minstrel's favor with the
light night.^
monarch that when the king's horse Shabdiz,
Black-as-
Barbad as the only one
night,' died, the courtiers selected
who might
*
venture to break the news to his Majesty, for
man
Khusrau had sworn to
kill
these tidings to him.
With consummate
the
that ever should bear art the child of
the Muses contrived to weave the tale into verse, accom-
panied by the plaintive wail of his lute, until Khusrau himself, in listening to the strain, suddenly divined the
truth and cried out, 'Ah,
dead
is
woe
is
My
me!
horse Shabdiz
^
!
'
Thus from those ages long ago the gentle thrum lute
strings
— the
faintly echoes 1
Persian
name
;
true
accompaniment of poesy
authors give
the
poet's
Ba^Ja6ad, which more correctly points back to an older Pahlavi-Persian form, Pahlapat. See Browne, Lit. Hist. 1. 14-15, where an excellent series of Bahlabad, Barbad, in is given
Persian and Arabic sources
;
and compare also Browne, The Sources and an Excursus of Dawlatshdh on Barbad and RUdagi, in JRAS. .
1899,
pp.
.
37-69.
—
still
and that echo makes us wish that we
as Barbad, but Arabic writers as
references to
of the
.
Consult
likewise
Justi, ('
2
')
,
pirdausi,
Le Livre dausi (loc.
the
Namenbuch,
Iran.
Barbad
p.
Shdh-ndmah,
des rois, cit.)
rival
7.
minstrel,
')
tr.
255-260;
gives also the
63
p.
237 (' Pahlapet
Mohl, Fir-
name
Sargish,
of
whom
Barbad supplanted in Khusrau's favor. s gee also Browne, Lit. Hist. 1. 1718.
Regarding a request made also to Shirin, to remind Khusrau a promise, see Browne, in JBAS.
Barbad by of
1899, p. 60.
Crff^-i^^-y
/
~
i
-^.-jjVi/^./
>/
\
\
â&#x20AC;¢ ,
,
i
Vj^/^'I."*?! U/^'^ifr^'A
":
jl.
-.^L,';.,Ccff?
j^^'/i-^'^^^-^'
j''vr^'A.v,
King Kju skac Pakviz and thk Mixstkkl livKUAD (From
the Cochran Collection of Persian Manuscript's in the Meti-opolitan
Museum
[
To fare paye
12'\
of Art,
New
York)
THE SASANIAN POET BARBAD might have been fortunate enough strains also
from others
of
13
to catch
bards
those
even a few
who sang
in
Pahlavi, the national language of Sasanian Persia in the
seventh century Conquest.
a.d., before
the cataclysm of the Arab
The tuneful numbers
have passed away
;
of
their
verse,
alas,
but the names at least of some of these
minstrels hved long enough after the
Moslem invasion
prove to the victors that, two centuries
later,
to
the hushed
music of Persian poetry would again awake to ring with the old-time spirit of Iran.
CHAPTER
II
THE NEW AWAKENING OF PERSIAN SONG AFTER THE MUHAMMADAN CONQUEST THE TAHIRID AND SATFARID PERIODS (From about 800 '
Disjecti
to
membra
900 a.d.) poetae.'
— Horace,
Satires, 1, 4, 62.
The Moslem Conquest meant to Persia in many respects what the Norman Conquest meant to England. The battles of Kadisia
and Nahavand (637, 642
^^^ Hastings of Persia
madan Conquest (Seventh
^]^q \^q^
blood, a certain
amount
—
of giving
infiltration of foreign
of fusion in language, a partial
But beyond the
blending in thought.
was
and with the murder
;
There followed, in consequence, an
it
were
Sasanian king, ° in 651, Persia came under the Muhammadan rule of the Arabs. ^f
Century A.D.)
as
a.d.)
up the old national
astrianism, vanquished Iran yielded
religion of Zoro-
little
victorious
Arab than Britain gave up
Norman,
If the Persian
— great
sacrifice
more
to
the
to the invading
vocabulary took on something of
a foreign tinge, the poetic verse flowed the smoother for it;
and
if
for a time
threw
off
the freedom of religious thought was fettered
by the bonds
of Islam, the true Persian spirit
the shackles two centuries later,
a semi-independence of
its
own upon 14
when
it
achieved
the decline of the
RENAISSANCE OF POETRY
15
Caliphate at Baghdad in the ninth century a.d., and with this
emancipation began the re-establishment of
life
and
laid the foundations
realm of
for
its
national
a renaissance in the
letters.^
Beginnings
may
Such was the
be small, but great results
case:
first,
Islam, but
it
The
was
infant cry
poetry ^'''°'°
muffled by the stifling hand of
was the vox humana.
Poetry, nursed for
two hundred years by the fostering care dynasties of the truer Iranian blood Saffarid (860-903),
follow.
with the reborn art of poesy in the
Province of the Sun. slender at
may
of three princely
— Tahirid (820-872),
Samanid (874-999), not
to
mention
the Buwaihids (also of the tenth century), or the eleventh
century Ghaznavids of Afghanistan
grow
in grace
and stature
voice changed into the
of the
destined
to
until the thin register of its
manly tone
the virility of the race within
The mastery
— was
its
of a Firdausi with all
compass.
newer speech, with
its
infusion of
— the Pahlavi tongue having now been transformed New Persian — was already complete, and could
Arabic into
develop only in range and power of expression.
The
language, in fact, has ever since remained essentially the
same, so that Persian has changed far
less in
a thousand
years than has English in the comparatively brief period
from Shakespeare
The 1
2
cradle of the literary renaissance
Cf. also
aia, 1. 6,
Browne,
Lit. Hist, of Per-
of
curiously analogous devel-
Persian
Misteli,
was Eastern
Iran,
Neupersisch und Englisch, in
Philologische Abhandlungen Schwei-
339-341.
On the
opment
to the present.^
and English
cf.
zer-Sidler gewidmet, pp. 28-35, Zuricli, 1891.
:
THE NEW AWAKENING OF PERSIAN SONG
16
Khurasan and Transoxiana.
or the provinces of
city,
in Russian Turkistan,
the Zoroastrian
of the
World/
as
it
still
be visited in
modern town that perpetuates the
the environs of the
name
may
Merv, the ruins of which
city of
The
was the
Marghu
was
This ancient
scene.
of the Avesta,^
and * Queen
entitled in medieval times,
had
witnessed the death of the last Sasanian king, but was destined to witness also the rebirth of Persian
Abbas of Merv
P^^^^y? ^^^ within its walls
Td 8*i°*or
816A.D.)
renown
Abbas
time before 800 a.d.,
whom common
was born, someof Merv, to
tradition, rightly or wrongly, ascribes the
of being the earliest minstrel to chant verse in
the newer Persian tongue.^
The occasion which
inspired the ejBfusion of the poet
was the triumphal entry made,
Mamun, fame.
the son of
in 809,
Harun ar-Rashid
by the Caliph
of Arabian Nights
Abbas, as a bard, was chosen to greet the monarch
with a panegyric in celebration of the event
;
and though
on other occasions he had made use of Arabic as the vehicle for his poetic compositions,
to be the
medium
of his
he now chose his native Persian
encomium.
A few
of these laud-
atory lines to
Mamun
we can hear a
faltering accent in the minstrel's tone as
have been preserved; and in fancy he
apologetically sings
1
Avesta, Vend.
1. 5,
7
;
Yasht, 10.
and of. in the Old Persian Inscriptions, Bh. 2. 7 3. 11 4. 25. 14
;
;
;
The year of the death of Abbas of Merv is recorded as (200 a.h. =) 815 or 816 a.d. The authenticity of the verses ascribed to him is generally 2
accepted by scholars, but is questioned by A. de Biberstein Kazimirski, Divan de Menoutchehri, pp. 8-9, Paris, 1886, and Browne, Lit. Hist. 1. 13, 341 2. ;
13.
Consult Pizzi, Storia dellapoesia
persiana,
1. 66.
:
;
THE EARLIEST VERSES IN NEW PERSIAN
17
FROM THE FIRST PERSIAN PANEGYRIC Before
me no
poet as yet, an ode in this fashion hath sung,
There is lack in the Persian speech,
manner of verse to begin Yet that is the reason I chose in this language TJiy praises to sing, That through lauding and praising Thy Highness, real grace and charm
true
it
may
"win.^
Perhaps a better idea of the
may
in this
lilt
of the original stanza
be obtained from a transcript of the Persian lines
themselves
Kas
minvdl pish az
bar-in
Mar Lek
man
chimin shiri na-guft,
zahdn-i Pdrsi rd hast td in nau'-i bain;
z-dn gujiam
man
Glrad az madh
xi
in
midhat turd
td in lughat,
§and'-i hazrat-i tu zib
u
zain.^
Echoes of the verse, no doubt, were heard throughout the land, for other poets
were emboldened, as a consequence,
own vernacular. One of these bards was Hanzalah of Badghis^ (about ° ^ Hanzalah 850 A.D.), who hved in the time of the of Badghis to raise their voice in their
Tahirids (820-872 a.d.), a dynasty more fa-
^^^^'^"soa.d.)
The
vorable to Arabic than to Persian culture.
early
Persian biographer, Aufi, praises the verses of Hanzalah
by saying,
^
the graceful flow of his expression
is
like the
"Water of Paradise, and his verses have the freshness of cool
wine (shamiil) and the agreeableness of the northern
wind 1
(shamal).'
So well
^
In rendering I have preserved the
rhyme 6 d of the Persian. 2 Aufi, Lubdb al-Albdb, 1. 21, ed. Browne and Muhammad al-KazvinI,
original
London, 1906 cf Eth6, EudagVs Vorldufer und Zeitgenossen, in Morgenldndiache Forschungen (Fest1. 21,
;
.
known were schrift
an
the poems of
Fleischer), pp. 37-38, Leip-
zig, 1875. s
jjadghis
was the name
of a district
northwest of Herat. *
Aufi,
Lubdb al-Albdb,
Browne, London, 1903 Morg. Forsch. p. 39.
;
2.
2, ed.
and Eth6,
in
;'
:
;
THE NEW AWAKENING OF PERSIAN SONG
18
Hanzalah that they were worth gathering into a Persian Divan, or 'Collection,' only a few fragments of which,
Here
however, remain.^
is
a quatrain (the earliest ruhai
thus far quotable), which contains an odd conceit founded
on an old superstition it is futile
;
the poet warns his sweetheart that
throw rue-seed on the
for her to
fire
to avert
the influence of the evil eye.^
RUE Though rue
KST)
THE EVIL EYE
into the fire
my
dear one threw,
Lest from the evil eye some harm accrue,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; either rue or â&#x20AC;&#x201D; her beauteous mole the rue
'Twould naught avail her
Her
More ascribed
face the
was the charm
potent, however,
!
in another stanza
to Hanzalah, for it inspired a simple
ass-herd
Chancing one day to read four of
win a crown.
to
fire
fire
Hanzalah's verses, this donkey-driver became fired with the ambition to
make an attempt
to gain the throne
and, rising triumphant over every obstacle, he
grasped
the
sovereignty.
served the ass-herd king, for his life's success
of
was
The
Ahmad
finally
stanza which
inspiring
of Khujistan, as a
motto
this
1 Mention of the Divdn of Hanzalah Badghis is made in the work, cited
Khayyam,
p. 119,
don, 1911
and
;
New York and Lon-
cf especially .
Elworthy,
by Nizami-i Aruzi, Chahdr Makdla, translated by Browne, in
Evil Eye, pp. 344-347, London, 1895. 3 j^or text see Auii, Lubdb al-
JRAS.
Albdb,2.
below,
1899, pp. 655-656
(=
reprint,
pp. 43-45). 2
On
the custom,
still
current in
of
Constantinople to the
;
;
burning sipand, 'rue,' to avert the evil eye, see Jackson, From
Persia,
2, ed. Browne, London, 1903 and Eth^, in Morg. Forsch. p. 40 cf. also tr. Browne, Lit. Hist. 1. 452
Home
of
Omar
;
Pickering, Nat. Bev. 15. 677; Pizzi, Storia,
1.
128.
;
HANZALAH AND FIRUZ
19
RUN THE RISK If lordship in a lion's jaws should hang,
Go, run the
Thine
Or
From or
'
risk,
and
seize it
else, like heroes,
from their founder
called
Yakub, the son of Laith,
we have
{saffar),
a couple of poets.
place,
1-1
7
.
One
A.D.
-7
a ^coppersmith'
was
of these bards
T
•
mashnkl
a.d.,
names and fragmentary remains
the '^
who was
872
in
al-Mashriki, or *the Easterner,' as his
appellative
890
and
thine be death to face.^
the period of the following dynasty, the Saffarids,
Braziers,' so
Firuz
from his fang
shall be greatness, glory, rank,
implies,
1 who T lived 1
i_
J.
of
^.^^ ai-Mashriki (about 890 A.D.)
about
Only three of his stanzas, however, seem to
have been preserved, even though his compatriot Aufi accounted his songs kuhlat-i
*
sweeter than a stolen kiss
duzdldah khushtar.^
descriptive of
The following two
'
— az
couplets,
an arrow, contain an odd fancy:
THE ARROW
A bird the arrow is — What marvel thou wilt say — A bird that maketh ever some living thing its prey. A gift the eagle gave it — from her own quills a plume. !
<
Wherewith 1
it
'
straightway bringeth her nestlings to their doom.*
For text and the whole story
see
the above-mentioned work by Nizami-i
Aruzi, Chahdr Makdla,
pp 1.
43-4.5;
355, 452.
tr.
Browne,
and cf. Browne, Lit. Hist. But cf. Mustaufi, TaWikh-i
Guzidah, ed. Browne in Gibb Mem. 14. 1, p. 379, who quotes the verses anony-
mously and applies the story to Saman, ancestor of the Samanid dynasty.
Rhyme, b d. 2 The name also is mentioned of Mahmud-i Varrak, the 'Copyi.st' or 'Bookseller,' who, like Hauzalah, be-
longed partly to the Tahirid period as See Eth6, in Grundr. 2. 218
well.
Horn, Gesch.
;
d. pers. Litt. p. 48.
See Aufi, Lubdb, 2. 2. For the text see Aufi, 2. 2 Eth6, in Morg. Forsch. p. 41, finds metrical reasons to include a nah 'not' That it may not carry away her but the manuscript young brood ' *
;
—
'
'
;
reading, adopted above in the rendercf. seems equally good Browne, 1. 453; Darmesteter, p.
ing,
;
also 9.
;
^
;
!
THE NEW AWAKENING OF PERSIAN SONG
20
in admiration of his
Another stanza of Firuz Mashriki, sweetheart, it
quite bizarre in its imagery.
is
also because
it
seems to have escaped notice elsewhere.
HER BEAUTIFUL All,
I translate
AND TEETH
LIPS
look at her beautiful teeth, and her lips with their exquisite line
They keep me
forever inflamed with the
warmth
of the passion
of love
Those teeth that
when
flash bright as the Pleiads,
aloft in the zenith
they shine
Those
lips that
moon above ^
This
is
seem halo of moonlight round the orb of the
full
^ !
the very ecstasy of love
from those very
! '
and
it
was perhaps
the kiss was stolen to which
lips that
Two
Mashriki' s verses are likened.
other stray distichs
of his poetry have been preserved in a chance quotation
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but enough The
!
poetic artery that throbbed in the pulse of Eastern
Iran must have had an answering beat as far westward Abu Saiik
^^ ^^^ Caspian Sea before the
ofGurgan
fapi(j era,
(about the
End
verse of
of the Ninth Century A.D.)
^
900
or
Abu
end of the Saf-
a.d., for it is
felt
in
Salik of Gurgan, who
the lived
^^^ latter part of that era, and was a
native of the district (Gurgan) which corresponds to the ancient Hyrcania.^ The
Abu
Salik,
fol. 17,
p.
found cited in Horn's Lughat-i Furs, 26, Berlin, 1897 (Abhand-
lungen
d.
Kgl. Gesellschaft
*
edition
text of
is
Asadi's
d.
Wiss.
zu Gottingen, Neue Folge, Bd. 1 Nr. 2 See Shams ad-Din b. Kais,
8).
at-
we
are told,
'
spread out
Mu'jam, ed. Muhammad KazvinI, in Gibb Memorial Series 10, pp. 267-268. 3 This province is the same as Varkana in the old Pers. Inscriptions, Bh. 2. 92.
'
;
STANZAS OF ABU SAUK the carpet of words
Nobility
of
thought
certainly
few rhymed stanzas that have
characterizes one of his
come down
21
sukhim) and raised aloft the
{hisS,t-i
banner of eloquence.'^
!
to us.
ONE'S Shed,
if
HONOR
own blood on the earth. own pure honor's worth worship idols than a man take heed, and practise he who can 2
thou
wilt, thine
—
Better than shed thine Better to
Give
ear,
;
!
Another surviving stanza, which has a sportive touch,
may on
be quoted as perhaps having formed part of a sonnet
his mistress'
eyebrow
!
TO HIS SWEETHEART'S EYEBROW With thy eyebrow
What
thou'st stolen
Two
robber rewarded
served, but that
and
few
their
may
me
— for heart-robbing, a fee Abu
?
!
Salik have been pre-
is all.*
these three or four verses,
— Tahirid and "We
?
That's passing belief
!
other chance distichs of
With
heart 'way from
dost judge with thy lips, and thy eyebrow the thief
!
Wilt thou claim a reward
A
my
we
Saffarid
names
of the olden-time poets,
bid adieu to the
—
of the
first
two epochs
newer Persian renaissance.
be happy at least that the voice of song had been
awakened from slumber. 1 Aufi, Lubdb, 2. 2-3 Eth6, .in Morg. Forsch., pp. 41-42. 2 For the text see references in the ;
preceding note. original
The rhyme
in the
p.
is
perhaps more
literally
'eyelash.' * See Shams ad-Din b. Kais, aiMu'jam, pp. 255, 276 (in Gibb Memo-
rial Series, vol. 10, cited above).
is 6 d.
'Aufi,
word muzhah
3;
Eth6,
p.
41.
The
CHAPTER
III
RAYS FROM LOST MINOR STARS EAELIER SAMANID PERIOD (About 900-950
When
'
A. D.)
the morning stars sang together.'
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Jo6, 38. The Samanid 1000
A.D.,
period, or the entire century
was a
down
to
true age of minstrelsy, and this day-
spring of song Samanid
7.
was marked, when the zenith
was reached, by the fame -^^^^gi ^^^
fFirsr^if f Tenth Century described in
whom
Dakiki, both of the next
two
of
and a
later
poets, will
be
chapter.
A.D.)
But around these twin
stars
was
clustered a
group whose magnitude was of the second degree, yet
from each of which a glimmer
of light has
through the ages, though the orb that gave
it
come down birth faded
from ordinary observation more than a thousand years ago. Scintillations
from one
of these lost stellar orbs
been caught in rays from the poet Abu shukur (fl.
941 AD.)
horizon for
Abu Shukurof
which might have disappeared forever
Omar Khayyam were quatrain-beams that may
Qf
if
have
Balkh, lovers
not scanning the be older than the
ruhals of the Tent-maker of Nishapiu*.
Abu, or
Bu
Shukur
as he is also called, appeared earlier than the bard
Shahid,
who
is
next mentioned, and prior to the renowned 22
;
:
A QUATRAIN BY Rudagi, from both of ball of excellence
—
'
whom
!
ABU SIIUKUR
he carried
off in
23
advance
'
the
from one of his
to use a polo phrase
native biographers.^
One
Shukur's works
of
written in 941 a.d.,- and is
is
recorded
among
as
having been
the reliques from his pen
a very early quatrain, which has, as in the case of
Hanzalah of Badghis, a
Yet there
whom
is
interest
special
in the four lines, written
for
Omarians.
on parting from one
he has loved, something of the bitter-sweet,
or
rather the venenum in cauda sting of a later-day Heine, at least as I read
them
A QUATRAIN BY SHUKUR — BITTER-SWEET Through grievous pangs for thee I am bowed low 'Neath separation's burden bent I go.
But ah
None
e'er
!
with hands wash'd of thy guile and wile
had moods and whims
But on another occasion
like thine, I know.^
to his love
— and
I quote
from
an out-of-the-way Persian source of nearly a millennium ago
— our poet Shukur says that he could never speak an
untruth to his beloved, because
that
fasten his neck into the yoke (ydgh)."^ of personahty in to
Abu
it
all.
And who
*
untruth would
There
is
a touch
will fail to put
down
Shukur's credit as a bard, that he was the earliest
writer to employ in his narrative poetry the mutakarih 1 So Valih, Riydz ash-Shu'ard, as quoted by Eth6, in Morg. Forsch.
p. 42. 2
Eth6, in Grundr.
train authors.
2. 219.
For text see Aufi, Lubdb, 2. 21 Eth6, in Morg. Forsch. p. 42. It is worth noting that there are only a half 8
dozen Arabic words in this quatrain proportion which it would be interesting to examine in other qua-
—a
;
*
Asadi, Lughat-i Furs, ed. Horn,
fol. 35, p. 66.
:
RAYS FROM LOST MINOR STARS
24
meter, which Firdausi later rendered immortal in his epic verse
^
?
Simplicity verse,
if
of
which
style,
we may judge from
mark
the
is
of
Shukur's
nearly a hundred stray lines
that can be gathered here and there from incidental quotation for
lexical
purposes in a Persian dictionary by
Firdausi's nephew, nearly a thousand years ago,
made
quality that
But we
his poetry live
among
was not a
his compatriots.^
of to-day can at least like one of his simple jingles,
because
reminds us of some of our childhood's verse,
it
and be glad that that old-time Persian dictionary-maker quoted Shukur's
little
to illustrate an unusual
lilt
for 'mendicant, pauper,' in
ordinary
'
The
beggar.'
word
the original, instead of the
lines are not
without naivete
PAUPER — A BEGGAR
A
pauper there was
Who
sank
('tis
— so Father
Dry bread he begged from door
is
;
to door,
— forever more
This was his trade
True, this
said,
beg his bread
told) to
!
^
commonplace verse; but brighter shone
the rays of another of those minor lights of the past o,- u -J r Shahid of
Baikh(d. about
Shahid of Balkh, who '
950
A.D.,
friend, Cf.
1
p.
23 2
;
and was mourned
the
renowned poet fol.
citations
by Shams
Shukur's Afarln-ndmah is lost, Browne, Lit. Hist. 1. 466. 3 Asadi, Lughat-i Furs (ed. Horn),
70
r,
p.
by
Rudagi.*
pers. Litt. p. 68.
ibn Kais, al-Mu'jam, pp. 268, 277, 383, cf.
in verse
Gesch. d.pers. Litt. p. 68. the references to Abu Shukur
by Asadi, add four 439.
some time before
Horn, Asadi's LughaUi Furs,
id.
To
died
—
117
;
cf.
his
Even
Horn, Gesch.
d.
Other stanzas also of Shukur are quoted in Asadi, e.g. fol. 18 r, 43 r. So likewise lines by Shukur's contemporary, Ma'rufi, cf. Horn, Asadi, p. 29 (introduction). * See Aufi, 2. 3 and cf. Pickering, ;
in Nat. Bev. 15. 329, 678, 682.
: ;
:
SHAH ID
A?fD HIS
SOMBRE NOTE
25
though we have native authority for the statement that Shahid was a person
'
of excellent mind, spirited in con-
versation, noble in views,
and a
scholar,'
the tinge of
^
melancholy that marks the few verses by which alone we can judge him, has somewhat justly entitled Shahid to be designated
'
the
pessimist
of
his century.'
^
Listen for
moment to the sombre cadence of one of his stanzas, made all the more impressive in its gravity by the altera
nation in the rhyme IF
GRIEF
HAD SMOKE
If grief had smoke, as hath the blazing
The world would be
fire.
for aye in darkness blind
;
Travel the world from end to end entire,
A The
wise
man wholly happy
thou'lt not find.'
serious earnestness of another of Shahid's stanzas
similar in spirit, though bizarre in expression
is
TWO OF Two
LIFE'S ARTISANS
artisans there are, heaven's vault below,
The one doth cut, the other spins with knack The first shapes naught but kings' high caps of show. While weaves the other naught save sackcloth black.
In a quatrain, earlier than which only one or two
exist,
as intimated above, Shahid gives voice to a lament over
the ruins of the city of Tus in Khurasan, left desolate by the ravages of invading hordes, too oft repeated later from 1
So after the Safinah-i Khvashgu,
imitated above
by Eth6, in M.F. p. 43. So Darmesteter, Origines de
p. 44; Pizzi,
cited 2
poesie persane,
p.
la
29.
from which text the original rhyme a b a b has been '
Aufi, Lubdb, 2. 4,
tr. Pizzi, â&#x20AC;˘
;
cf . also Ethfi, in
Storia,
1.
Text, Eth6, in
Chr. p. 67.
M. F.
Chrestomathie, p. 67; and 128.
M. F.
p.
45
;
Pizzi,
:
:
;
.
RAYS FROM LOST MINOR STARS
26
Any
over the Turkistan border.
among
as I have,
the
one who has wandered,
crumbhng remains
heap of dust, near modern Mashad,
of that ancient
will best appreciate
the raven-note of these dismal four lines
^ :
RUINED TUS — A QUATRAIN Last night by ruined Tus I chanced to go,
An
owl sat perched where once the cock did crow
Quoth
"
I,
he, "
Quoth
What message from
The message
is,
'
this
waste bring'st thou ? "
Woe, woe
—
all's
woe
!
'
*
"
Nature sad or glad sympathizes with the plaint of a
was Shahid's
lover,
and
plight
and sang
this
case
when he bemoaned
his
A LOVER'S PLAINT The cloud is weeping like a lover sad, The garden smileth like some maiden glad, The thunder moaneth, yea, like unto me, That make lament each dawn I'm doomed to
A store
of
world-wisdom
sad experience
—
is
see.'
— gathered, no doubt, through
locked up in the following
little jingle
by Shahid LEARNING AND WEALTH with learning and wealth like narcissus and rose. At the same time and place neither one of them grows For, where there is learning well, wealth is not there, And where there is wealth little learning's to spare.* 'Tis
;
— —
1
Cf. Jackson,
to the
Home
of
From Constantinople Omar Khayyam, pp.
»
Text, Eth^,
<
p.
Text, Aufi,
Original
Grundr.
2.
cf.
Eth^,
It is also to
219.
in
be ob-
served that in the old Persian diction-
286-295. 2
the form of a Dlvdn,
rhyme
Aufi, 2. 4
;
2.
4
;
;
Pizzi, Chr. p. 57 cf.
Eth6, p. 46.
is b d.
cf.
in original, b d.
44
Eth6, p. 45. Rhyme It may be noted that
Shahid was one of the earliest poets to leave a collection of his lyrics in
ary
of
Asadi,
Horn), Shahid
Lughat-i Furs is
cited
some
(ed.
thirty-
—
one on two times (mostly couplets Lost Youth, fol. 35 r), and among these quotations are four short stanzas
67) cf also Shams ibn al-Mu'jam, p. 204.
(fols. 8, 12, 40,
l^ais,
;
.
t
-
<-
The Ckumblixg Mausoleum at Tus (From
[
To face page
20"]
a photograph
by the author)
i
'
:
SHAHID AXD KUABBAZ Different both in in fancy,
for
had
mood and
manner, but not lacking
Khabbaz
was the baker-poet
Nishapur had
in
Nishapur â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
of
baker-poet as Niirnberg
its
shoemaker-bard Hans Sachs.
its
27
Khab-
ad.)
(d. 953
baz, or Khabbazi, flourished in the middle of
the tenth century, as his death
occurred in 953
recorded as having
is
His name (Khabbaz) means
a.d.^
and a well-known Persian tradition
Khabbaz
of Nishapur
fine bread,
and was
was
that
states
skilled in
Baker,'
*
'
Doctor
baking choice and
also clever in piercing the pearls of
words with the needle of speech.'^
Here
is
one of the
strings of pearls for his loved one's hair
THOSE TWO TRESSES OF HAIR Dost see those two tresses of
hair,
AVhich the wind waveth hither and yon ? Thou'dst liken them unto a swain,
Who
never hath constancy won.
Nay, like some lord chamberlain's hand, For his prince in full martial array, That waveth thee back from <
The
title
Hakim,
'
Abu
which
Ali Khabbaz, appears to
Khabbaz combined the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
to-day
!
when brought
Doctor,'
tion with the following verse,
son
afar,
Thou hast not any audience
'
into connec-
probably by his
is
show that the
practice of medicine with his call-
ing of loaf -making and his avocation as a poet
he lack a sense of humor, allusion in Cf. Eth6, in
*
Cf. Aufi,
if
;
nor did
we may judge from
Khabbaz Junior's
Grundr. 2. 221. Lubdb, 2. 27.
1
elder
^
the
lines:
Aufi, 2. 27
;
Eth6, in M.F. 50
;
cf.
also Pickering, in Nat. Rev. 16. 681.
;
;
:
RAYS FROM LOST MINOR STARS
28
THE QUACK'S RESPONSE To Doctor Khabbaz once '
Take heed no
sick
man
I gave this counsel pure
:
leaves thy door without a cure
Hopeful of healing, glad they to thy door repair Let no poor patient, then, depart in sad despair.' Said Papa,
'
Know'st thou
Wild game whose hour
To the
city of
no fault
not,
is
Nishapur belonged likewise
Muzaffar Nasr, who had
Abu'iMuzaffarWasr
q£
my
mine,
Son.
come, straight to the hunter run.' ^
is
is
'1-
the real touch
fancy in his verse, though he
only by the fragmentary stanza that
Abu
is
known
here rendered
HER BEAUTY One might
—
liken her unto the moon,
not for her tresses so
if
black,
Or
like unto Venus were Her radiant cheeks were
she,
her beauteous mole she did lack.
if
the sun,
I
had ventured
to say with
my
lips.
sun were but never obscured,
If the
and never once suffered
eclipse.2
To
the
Samanid
same epoch of
minstrel,
song
Junaidi,
Junaidi, as his fuller
name
belongs
or Abdullah
another
Muhammad
al-
Junaidi enjoyed an
given.
is
still
added repute among his contemporaries and successors as being
Shahid of
Balkh — a
—
like
Abbas
of
Merv and
master equally of the Arabic and
the Persian tongue, and as being skilled likewise in
of
He
the art of composing in prose as well as in verse. ^ 1
Text
from Valih,
Eiydz
by Eth6, in M. original, bdf.
Shu'ard, cited
Rhyme 2
in
Aufi, 2. 23
;
Eth^,
p. 48.
ash-
rhyme,
F. p. 51.
Hist.
Original
p. 49.
3
1.
b d.
Cf. also tr.
Browne,
Lubdb,
23-24
Lit.
467.
cf. Aufi,
2.
;
Eth6,
:
A WINE-SONG BY JUXAIDI
was an adept
certainly
turning a wine-song (perhaps
in
the earliest extant in Persian), even though
with
29
my
rendering,
attempt to imitate the Persian monorhyme of his
its
stanzas, only inadequately conveys the idea
DRDsK WINE
!
At dawn quaff a draft from the flagon of wine, By crow of the cock and the lute's plaintive whine.
When the sun lifts his head o'er the top of the hill, He were best put to blush by the cup and the vine. From From
the cup to the couch at the fall of night time. the couch to the cup at the dayspring's
As milk So
is
the food that for infants
men
let old
their diet to grape-milk confine.^
— that ancient Empire — was the home
Bukhara anid
city
year old tribute.
corded for fame
even
and
capital of the
numbers
of
Their names have lived, and that
song.
if
;
first sign.
is best,
Several of these
and among them
of devotees of is
a thousand
names should be
his poetic activity appears to belong
Samanid
period, the
name
of a prince of the
blood, Aghachi, or Aghaji, or
Abu
b. Ilyas al-Aghaji, of
Bukhara
sword and the
he was
pen,'
—
*
Aghachi, or Aghaji (about
jgnt^centu
'1-Hasan AJi ad. and some-
a man of the
what Later)
Aghachi was a con-
called."
temporary both of Shahid and of Dakiki (the
1
is
a pun in the Persian
and shirah, 'new wine' (milk of the grape). For the text, see Aufi, Lubdb, 2. 23 Eth6, p. 49 and
shir, 'milk,'
;
cf. tr.
latter of
sang his praises), and must, therefore, have
There
re-
may be mentioned now,
only to the middle or the latter part of the
whom
Sam-
;
Pickering, in Nat. Bev. 15. 681.
2
Lubdb al-Albab,
Aufi,
Eth6, in
Grundr.
M. 2.
F.
222.
pp.
1.
62-63;
flour31-32 id.
;
in
'
;
:
;
RAYS FROM LOST MINOR STARS
30
about the middle of the tenth century, or even
ished
somewhat In
later.^
spirit
and
Aghachi combined the
his fiery
and the poet,
soldier
temper brooked no taunt that stigmatized,
as a source of weakness, his court education, in accordance
with the regimen of princes
;
for against the attack he
hurled back four biting lines
A SOLDIER-POET'S EDUCATION who takest no account of what my skill may be, Thou wilt find I was not reared 'mid luxury abhorred
Ho, thou Test
!
—
Bring forth the steed, the noose, the bow, and bring the book to me, Verse, pen, and lute,
board
— bring on the wine, chess, and backgammon
!
The knightly chivalry
of the lover speaks in the next
fragment from the writings of this soldier-bard:
LOVE BEYOND COMPARE
—
Should thy heart require a fortress Fort
my
heart shall be for thee
Since thy love's beyond computing,
Countless
And
may thy
the fancy of the true poet
of the half-dozen stanzas
The
soldier's
As
imagination
*
years be
life's
!
hidden in one other
is
by which al-Aghachi is
known."*
is
not absent.
in
the
I have Aghachi in the present chapter rather than in the one
latter half of the tenth century,
but
after next.
1
to the date of Aghaclii, Eth6,
in Grundr.
place
to
has
222, evidently inclines
2.
Aghachi
authority
for
(Aghaji)
saying
'gehorte
zu den Zeitgenossen des Shahid und Dakikl (in M. F. p. 62) so apparently also Horn, Gesch. d. pers. Litt. '
p.
79
;
siana,
;
Pizzi, 1.
Storia della poesia per-
69-70, 130,
Also look up
Pickering, Nat. Rev. 15, 685.
preferred
2
Chr.
treat
to
Aufi,
32
1.
s
Aufi,
*
Aufi,
;
Eth^,
63; Pizzi,
p.
rhyme b d. Ethe, in M. F. p.
Original
p. 59. 1.
32
1.
;
32, has six
;
62.
Eth6 (M.
Asadi, F. pp. 62-63) quotes four. Lughat-i Furs, ed, Horn, of. p. 17,
rilE
SOLDIER-POET AGHACHI
31
A SNOW-FLURRY Oh, look at the sky with
How
amid
it
its
troops of flaked snow,
a flurry of wings
is
widespread
!
*Tis verily like to a troop of white doves
Panic-stricken with fear of the falcon so dread.
A
few
recorded,
from the for
more from these minor
glints it
is
might be
true; but these slender rays shot
Yet behind them they
leave to us a wish, unfulfilled though
we knew more
down gleam
stellar spaces of the long-forgotten past
an instant, and then are gone.
that
stars
of the galaxy of
it
must ever remain,
which they formed
a part in those star-regions of song that are no longer within our ken. cites
(un-
ten different single lines
rhymed)
of
Aghajl.
I
am
not sure
about the quatrain by Aghaji cited by Shams ibn Kais, al-Mu'jam (in Gibb
Memorial
Series, 10),
T^.
2H.
I
may
have missed noting others, which some one will doubtless add later, i For text, cf. Aufi, 1. 32 Eth6, p. ;
62
;
Pizzi, Chr. p. 59; cf . tr. Pickering,
i^at. iieu. 16.
686; Pizzi,
/Storia, 1. 130.
'
CHAPTER IV
DAWN
RUDAGI, A HERALD OF THE (Middle of the Tenth Century a.d.) '
But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill. Shakespeare, Hamlet,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
The dawn had Pleiades had set,
16&-167.
1. 1.
not yet fully broken; but though the
two morning-stars
still
lingered in the
The more
sky as heralds of the dawn.
brilliant
of
the twain, yet earliest to sink beneath the horizon, bore
name Rudagi
the
or
Rudaki.^
The
other, hardly less
luminous, but quenched before the great sun of Firdausi rose,
was
Only snatches
called Dakiki.
of the
swung have come down
the spheres in which their orbits
and
to us, but the notes that reverberate are true
To Rudagi, Samanid
the
music of
rich.
the older of these minstrels, as dominating era, this
chapter
devoted
is
Dakiki, his
;
later compeer, is reserved for another.
Rudagi may song.'
1
A.D.2
When
'
father of Persian
His birth-year appears to have been somewhere
around 880
954
justly be styled the real
I
a.d.,
and his death must have occurred about
He owed was
his
name
in Persia for the
there
fourth time (1918) I heard from lit^ erary men only the pronunciation
is
town Rudag,
manuscript authority for
it)
the reading Rudagi. 2
West
964
adopted (and
941
iJudail, although scholars of the
have more generally
to his natal
32
j^or the
view as to the
(=343 a.h.) as (= 330 a.h.), see
latter date,
contrasted with
Eth6, in Grundr.
!
TRADITIONS OF RUDAGI'S YOUTH
33
a small place beyond the river Oxus, located near either
Bukhara or Samarkand,
or possibly
Tradition has
was
that he
it
between the two.^
so clever as a Rudagi (about ^80-954 ad.)
boy that he knew the whole Kuran by heart
A
at the age of eight. ^
presage of his future greatness
Tradition reports also that, like Homer, Rudagi was born blind
;
but
if so,
makes
that
sense of color which
poetry
have
that
is
the more surprising the
all
shown
in the fragments
At
survived.^
nature
events,
all
his
of
endow^ed him not only with the gift of poesy, but also
with a rich voice for singing and a talent likewise for playing the lute (harhat).*
from
his lips,
with
its
from 2. 1.
221
and the burden of
Persian
original,
although Browne, Lit. Hist.
456, n. 2, cites authority for the date
940-941 A.D.
compare furthermore
;
C. J. Pickering,
A
Persian Chaucer,
in National Review, 15. 329, London,
327-540 (based on Eth6and Darmesteter), became accessible to me after this chapter was ready for the press, but references are added in the footnotes. 1 The standard monograph on Rudagi is by H. Eth6, RUdagi, der Sdmdnidendichter, in Nachrichten d. Kgl. Gesellsch. d. Wiss. zu Gottingen see also id. in (1873), pp. 663-742 Gtundr. 2. 220-221 compare likewise the artistic literary presentation (based on Eth^'s material) by Darmesteter, 1890.
This latter
article, pp.
;
;
Origines 11-28.
de
of song
la
poesie persane,
Compare
also
pp.
Pizzi, Storia
delta poesiapersiana, 1.7 l-li; Horn,
Oesch. d. pets. Litt. pp. 73-76
;
Browne,
has
the
early
Daulatshah
sources
Aufi,
of
For some consult
of
also
Browne), pp. 31-33
(ed.
Auli, Lubdb,
imitated
abandon
455-458.
1.
original
2
here
is
all
Lit. Hist.
the
came
his light-hearted verse,
chiming monorhyme, which
the ;
The burst
;
2. 7-9.
by Eth^,
cited
Nachrichten, pp. 669-670. 3 On the question of
in
Gott.
Rudagi's
blindness see (with citation of native
Eth6,
sources)
668-670;
2.6;
cf.
in
Auii,
Nachrichten, pp.
Lubdb
(ed.
also Pickering, Nat.
Browne) Rev. 15.
The case probably is that blindness came later in life there have been bUnd poets from 329, 678, 682.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Thamyris to Milton. ^ Compare on barbat, Steingass, Persian-English Dictionary,
p.
170
a,
and the note by Pickering, Nat. Rev. ' barbat, the pip^irop of 15. 329 Greece other authorities give 'ud, "lute."' Cf. Eth6, in Nachrichten, :
;
p. 671.
:
'
;
!
DAWN
RUDAGF, A HERALD OF THE
34 Byron's
line,
I
^
knew
it
was
or of Horace's Carpe Diem, as lyric
and
love,
'
;
I felt
it
was
glory,'
^
runs cheerily along in
it
measure
CARPE DIEM Live gay with maids dark-eyed, divine 'Tis a vain world,
and wind
!
is its sign.
What Cometh, thou shouldest rejoice at, No thought take of past, or repine. I've won me a musky-tressed damsel, Moon-faced, and of angel-born
line.
He's happy who giveth and getteth
Who
doth not,
Let be
—
\
—
his lot is of brine.
wind and cloud merely, Come bring hither the wine
This sad world
is
!
Sometimes the tone
is
a melancholy one, a piteous
note of unrequited love.
SHE REGRETS TOO LATE
When
My
dead thou shalt behold me, lips forever sealed,
Reft of
body.
its life this
Passion ne'er more revealed,
Then by my
And *
cold bier
sit
thou.
say with a caress,
Alas, 'twas
I who slew
thee
Heart-broken, I confess.'
Our own Chaucer
in his
youth could not have turned
the verse more gracefully — or more
sadly.
Fortune early selected Rudagi for her favorite, and led 1
him
to the
Byron,
Stanzas
court of the written on the
Boad between Florence and 2
Pisa,
Text, Eth^, in Nachrichten,
Pizzi, Chr. p. 61
;
Samanid prince Nasr II
tr. id.
Storia,
1.
16.
Text,
^
737
;
Eth6, in Nachrichten, Chr. p. 62
Pizzi,
p.
720
the version
1.
134.
Hist.
1.
by Cowell
458.
;
in
p.
compare Browne, Lit. also
'
RUDAGT'S POPULARITY AT COURT (913-942), which he graced
35
his royal patron's death.
till
During these halcyon days honors and riches were showered
him upon ^
abundance
in
formed a
his attendants
and the retinue
;
of
^
two hundred,
line of
,
.,
Rudagi
3
Princely
while double that number of camels was needed to carry his baggage.^
In addition to the royal favor of Nasr, Rudagi received generous recognition from his poetic peers, as
by
his fellow-minstrel
and
a verse which
said, in
friend,
is
Shahid of Balkh,
remained, that
has
proved
who
Bravo
'
!
(ahsand) might be praise for the lines of other poets, but
would be mere
ridicule for the
poems
of
Rudagi
;
^
and so
run the commendations from every Persian singer after him.^ Rudagi's popularity, moreover, with (for
he was a court poet) and in camp
was the one
story that he
of
was quick
his royal patron's
7,
*
and
3
Aufi,
Lubdb
that, as the Persian
he knew prose would not affect him, and
others, cf Eth^, in .
Nachrichten, p. 672. cf .
So well acquainted
moods
therefore had recourse to verse.'
2
win Nasr's
years
writers relate,
and
proved by the
that Samanid monarch
when
to improvise the means.
was he with
Aufi, 2.
at court
away from home, enchanted by the The bard's ready wit the region around Herat.
tarried four
charm
is
selected to try to
thoughts back to Bukhara
1
all alike
(ed.
Browne)
Eth6, in Gott. Nach.
2..
6;
p. 675, n. 3.
References are easily at hand to
the scholar (e.g. Eth6, pp. 675-677),
and as an illustration of Rudagi's renown might be instanced the fact that he is quoted no less than a hundred and sixty-one times by Asadi,
^
At the moment when
Lughat-i Furs,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in
fact
cf . ed.
Rudagi
is
Horn, pp. 18-19 the most often
cited author in that work.
Similarly
Shams ibn Kais, al-Mu'jam Gibb Mem. 10. 451, Index).
in
(in
Samarkand], Mirza Muhammad (Gi66 J/emoriai, 11), p. 33; tr. Browne, *
See Nizami-i Aruzi
C/ia/iar ilfaAtaia, ed.
in
JKAS.
63).
1899, p. 759
(=
reprint, p.
;;
:
RUDAGI, A HERALD OF THE
36
Nasr had quaffed his morning cup,
DAWN
Rudagi came
'
and
in
did obeisance, and sat
down
in his accustomed place
when
had
ceased, he
the musicians
;
and
;
took up the lute
(chang), and, playing the "Lover's air,"
began
this elegy,'
opening with the tender strain, Buy-i juy-i Muliydn dyad hami
The perfume sweet Remembrance,
comes aye to
of Muliyan's stream
Then, striking a lower key, he continued
THE PRmCE
IS
And
my
feet to
that rugged way,
me
appears to-day
Jihun's waves, for very joy
at their friend's face,
Rise to our waists in blithesome mood
Be
Thy
to
with fond embrace.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; since
Long live thou thee joyous comes thy life, thy own glad
joyful,
Here
:
TO RETURN TO BUKHARA
The sandy road by Oxus' banks, SOk-soft beneath
me
comes aye to me.
too, of longed-for friends
Bukhara glad
!
!
Prince.
and thou, the Sky In heaven's vault the Moon, behold, is mounting high
A
Prince, Bukhara,
cypress, he
Anon
!
is
the Moon,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Bukhara, thou
a garth ablow, the garden grow
the cypress shall within
* !
1 In the original Persian text of the Chahdr Makdla (p. 33) and Tadhkiratu 'sh-Shu'ard (p. 32) referred to above (p. 33, n. 1), and oft quoted, the rhyming refrain throughout is dyad harm, ' doth ever come so the alternating ;
'
fhjrme-lines might perhaps be a. b.
d.
/.
h. j. I.
more
literally
rendered thus
The perfumed Muliyan to me Remembrance of my friends to me
doth ever come doth doth doth doth doth doth
beneath my feet to me Waist-high in blithesome mood to me In joy thy prince, thy life, to thee Into the sky the moon, O see Silk-soft
!
The cypress
to his garth, to thee
For other versions of this noted ode of. Eth6, Browne, in JEAS. 1899, p. 760 (= reprint, p. 54)
:
p. ;
719
ever ever ever
ever ever ever ;
come come come come come come
Darmesteter,
p.
and (though available to
13
;
me
only later for this footnote reference) Pickering, in Nat. Rev. (1890), 16. 332.
The (ikeat Minaret of Bukhara (From a photograph by Edward G. Pease)
[
To face page 36]
A
FAMOUS ODE ON BUKHARA
37
So deeply touched was Amir Nasr, as the story goes, that without waiting to put on his riding-boots he leaped
upon the sentry-horse that stood saddled at the gate and never drew rein for eight miles, so that his boots had to
The
be carried after him.
joined in presenting to the successful
twice five thousand dinars.'
To
and
joyful courtiers
soldiers
poet a purse
'
of
^
the same Nasr the Fortunate, as his royal patron,
come down
are dedicated the few panegyrics that have
us from Rudagi.
many
of such
equal measure,
Graceful, but not fulsome, as are so
Persian courtly effusions, they show, in skill
courtly affection.^
why Nasr
to
and It is
refined taste, together with true
understand
easy, therefore, to
should have bestowed upon his protege a gift
of 40,000 dirhams (about $7000) for complying with his
request for a poetical translation of the famous Indian
book,
'
The Fables
under the
title
of Bidpai.'
This rendering by Rudagi,
Kalllah and JDimnah, was
made from an
Arabic version of the Pahlavi translation of the Sanskrit
which had been brought from India in the time
original
monarch Khusrau
of the Sasanian
(Anushirvan the
I
Just), in the sixth century of our era.^ This whole episode is given by Nizami Aruzi of Samarkand, op. cit. 1
pp. 31-33
tr.
;
pp. 767-761 2
(
Brov?ne in
= reprint,
JRA8.
For text and a translation
kasldahs,
see Eth^,
1899,
pp. 61-55).,
in
Gott.
of these
Nach-
richten, pp. 678-696; together w^ith a literary appreciation
pp. 16-18
also Pickering, Nat. Rev. but Ethfi later, in GruTidr. 220, doubts their authenticity.
15. 2.
by Darmesteter,
;
332-336
cf. ;
3
There
is
The
loss of this
a large mass of material
available regarding the original Sans-
Pancaand its ramifications through Persian and other literatures, a subject which belongs to the special stukrit collection of beast-fables,
tantra,
dent;
consult,
e.g.
J.
Hertel,
Das
G. N. Pancatantra, Leipzig, 1914 Keith-Falconer, Kalllah and Dimnah, ;
Cambridge, 1886; Lit. Hist.
1.
cf.
also
110, 275, 467.
Browne,
DAWN
RUDAGI, A HERALD OF THE
38
Persian rendering sixteen of
its
deeply to be regretted, as only about
is
couplets have survived through chance quo-
an eleventh-century lexicographical work.^
tations in
He
Rudagi's poetic productivity was great. to
of a
his
of
rank
to a foremost
whom
from
century,
he
number
being guided by the fact that
^
Omar
In the previoxisly mentioned Per-
sian lexicon, Asadi's Lughat-i Furs, ed. Horn, pp. 18-21
;
cf.
also
Browne,
Lit. Hist. 1. 457, 474.
;
Nachrichten, pp. 678-742, has gathered 52 fragments Gott.
(making up 240 couplets in all), and to these should now be added the material
later
available
in
Asadi's
Lughat^i Furs (ed. Horn), in which lexicon
close,
and
also
Rudagi
Fitzgerald.
'
stanzas (see
fols.
6
r,
9
r,
11
r,
21,
27, 30, 32, 33, 35, 40, 42 r, 43
61
r,
61, 71
r,
24, 50,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; two being quatrains, 9
r.
See also Horn, op. cit. pp. 1819, and observe his remark on the 11 r).
2 See references by Eth6, in Gott. Nach. p. 677 Browne, 1. 456-457.
in
its
the
it is
has been rendered into English by Professor
it
Cowell, the teacher of
Eth6,
Out
of such fragments I select one for presenta-
one best known, and striking for because
re-
lyric vein
be illustrated, perhaps, by his songs on wine.
tion, the choice
old
though they
His masterly touch in the
ceived just praise*
may
remnant (not
preserved,'^
him
are such in merit as to entitle poets
of
fourscore fragments, together
with other stray verses) has been
the
But
them.^
this fabled output only a scanty
much more than
among
among
verses, epic rhapsodies
,
3
reputed
have composed a million and three hundred thousand
Literary
i
is
(the
most
oft
quoted poet) is cited 161 times. The majority of these quotations by Asadi are single rhymed distichs but among the number I have found 17 short ;
couplets,
p.
To these likewise number of other stanzas now available in
21.
should be added a
fragments in Shams ad-Din ibn Kais, al-Mu'jam, ed. Mirza Muhammad, Gibb Memocf. Index, p. 451. rial, 10 * For appreciations by Rudagi's con;
temporaries see references above, 35, n. 3
455
;
;
also cf.
and add
to
Browne,
them the estimate by
Kisa'i in Asadi, op.
Horn,
p. 21).
p.
Lit. Hist. 1.
cit. fol.
8 r (ed.
»
;
:
RUDAGI IN PRAISE OF WINE
39
A WINE SONG BY RUDAGI "
me yon wine which thou
Bring
might'st call a melted ruby in
its
cup,
Or
a
like
unsheathed,
scimitar
in
the
sun's
noon-tide
light
held up. 'Tis the rose-water, thou might'st say, yea, thence distilled for
purity
sweetness
Its
falls
as
sleep's
own balm
steals o'er the vigil-
wearied eye.
Thou mightest
call
the cup the cloud, the wine the raindrop from
it cast,
Or say the joy that comes at
Were
fills
the heart whose prayer long looked-for
all
hearts would be a desert waste, forlorn
last.
there no wine
and black,
But were our bring
O
if
it
wine would
last life-breath extinct, the sight of
back.
an eagle would but swoop, and bear the wine up to the sky.
Far out of reach of done
! '
all
who would not shout
the base,
— Translation by Edward Byies A
*
Well
as I ? "
dozen other
lyric
fragments might be added
Cowell.
— some-
times an elegy, sometimes a eulogy, sometimes a lover's plaint.2
No
how
portray the pangs of separation from the be-
to
one knew better than Rudagi, for example,
loved,
and the joys
Here
is
of reunion
a rhapsody which
I
with the idol of his heart. translate
because
it
tells
the tale For
1
this
rendering by the late
Professor Cowell, Hist.
see
Browne,
Lit.
467-458; for the Persian text
1.
(with translation) see Eth6, pp. 722-
723
;
cf
.
pp. 14-16
Rev.
id. ;
Die hojlsche
cf.
16. 335.
.
.
.
Poesie,
also Pickering, in Nat.
Translations
2
of
some
of
these
which I chapter, will be
lyric effusions, besides those
have rendered in this found in the articles, already referred to,
by Eth6, Darmesteter, Pickering,
and ana,
in Pizzi, Storia della poesia persi1.
131-135.
;
'
;
!
!
;
RUDAGI, A HERALD OF THE DAWN"
40
REUNION AFTER SEPARATION FROM HIS BELOVED Of the pangs
of separation I have suffered
Than, through
And my
heart had quite forgotten
But what joy Light in
all
the charms of union sweet
after severance, with one's idol dear, to
'tis
So I turned
and borne more
the distant ages, any mortal being bore
all
me back and
spirits,
in gladness,
meet
back unto the camp and
my
and
light-hearted,
tent,
speech with lightness
blent
For there came enthralled
A
to
meet me
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; yet with bosom
all
unbraced-^
sweet maid with a cypress figure, tresses flowing to her waist.
How
*
me ?
hath fared thy heart without
'
'twas with coquetry she
said, '
Yea, and
Then
My
how thy
I spake
soul's ruin,
Snared
And
is
my
mischief-maker of
world in the
ringlets neat
I
am
me ?
'
all
circle of
did she add, while blushing red. '
thou face of heavenly birth.
beauties on this earth
thy locks as amber sweet,
caught like a ball with the mall-bat through thy curving
'tis
Deeply
soul without
and gave her answer,
am
filled
!^
I with anguish
by those eyes which arrows
dart,
anguished by those tresses, which rich showers of musk
impart.
Where were
night without the
moonbeam ? where were day without
the sun?
Where
the rose that hath no water ? where the
shun
mead
that rain doth
?
Then my bosom grew sweet through toying with her hyacinthine hair.
And my
lips
were sugared through kisses from that coral mouth so
fair;
Now
was she the ruby-buyer, and the ruby-seller I, While the nectarous wine she poured me, and I drained the goblet dry.2 1
The
ringlets are
compared
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
to the
curved head of a polo-stick a simile found elsewhere in Persian poetry. 2
For text see Eth^,
in Gott.
Nach-
richten
rhyme
(1873),
pp.
in the original
Cf. also
tr.
712-713.
The
df
h, etc.
is
a b
Pickering, pp. 836-337.
;
:
:
:
RUDAGI EVER THE LOVER
41
"With a passionate love like Rudagi's, the kiss, which
alone can bring relief to the heart,
So he whispers to his sweetheart
merits God's benison.
THE
KISS
my
Free
AND GOD'S BENISON
soul
With but
And
from pain and torment
kisses
two or three
in
limit
;
that gracious favor's guerdon
Allah's benison will be
Vain
a divine boon that
is
^ !
Rudagi gives the reason
!
in
rhythm
if
not
rhyme KISSES BITTER-SWEET Kar-i busah chu ah khvardan shur Bi-khvarl besh tishnahtar gardi. 'Tis with kisses as
with drinking of water that
The more you drink the
A whimsical
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
for the Persians
!
2
grew
old.^
is
have a quaint vein of
Somebody had twitted him on
his hair as he
is salt,
you grow
quatrain by Rudagi in a humorous vein
worth translating humor.
thirstier still
his vanity in dyeing
He promptly responds
in a
rubal
A QUATRAIN ON DYEING THE HAIR Not for this reason, black my hair I dye. To
look more young and vices
new
to try
People in time of grief don raiment black
my
I black 1
Text, Eth6,
p.
742;
cf.
Darme-
steter, Origines, p. 20. *
like
References as in preceding note.
Kisa'i
on the same
subject,
the
count
it
that
men
in old
age,
To dyeing
their hair should be fain; dyeing they cannot 'scape dying
By
at
is
next chapter (p. Khusravani's jingling four lines in
64;
Pickering, pp. 821-822):
A wonder I
It is
mentioned 51).
I render (see text, Pizzi, Chr. p. cf. also
thought that the original rebuke was made by Rudagi's contemporary, Abu Tahir Khusravani, who, 3
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
hair in grief at old age nigh.*
all,
But give themselves trouble *
in vain
Text, Eth6, in Gott. Nach.
!
p. 739.
!
Perhaps there was more in the
than we know. to have
last line of this
The lightheartedness
of
gone, especially after the loss
whom
and admirer, the poet Shahid, touching verse evil days.
of
to
friend
his
he mourned
Nasr, his royal patron, was dead
and poverty lent an added pang
quatrain
youth seems
and Rudagi had apparently
;
;
DAWN
RUDAGI, A HERALD OF THE
42
;
fallen
in
on
942);
(d.
the distress of ad-
The same cry which was uttered a
vancing years.
century earlier in Anglo-Saxon by the old English poet
Cynewulf, and has been echoed in the silence of the night by myriads since
life
began,
broke forth from
Rudagi's soul in a lamentation over the fleeting joys of
youth and the sorrows of approaching decay.
which
of Rudagi's, the opening lines of of
grim humor in
in full, even
if
still
This elegy
show a
flash
their realism, deserves to be rendered
present-day taste would excise several of
the verses.
KUDAGI'S LAMENT EN OLD AGE Every tootli, ah me has crumbled, dropped and fallen in decay Tooth it was not, nay say rather, 'twas a brilliant lamp's bright ray Each was white and silvery-flashing, pearl and coral in the light, Glistening like the stars of morning or the raindrop sparkling bright !
Not a one remaineth
to me, lost through
Whose
'Twas surely Saturn's planetary
the fault ?
*
No, the fault of Saturn 'twas *
What
then ?
'
rule,'
you
not, nor the long, long lapse of
answer truly
I will
weakness and decay.
:
'
say.
days
Providence which God
dis-
plays.'
Ever
like to this the
world
is,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
ball of dust as in the past,
its great law doth last. That same thing which once was healing, may become a source of
Ball of dust for aye remaining, long as
pain;
And
the thing that
now
is
painful, healing
balm may prove again
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
;
'
!
RUDAGrS LAMENT IN OLD AGE Time,
in fact, at the
43
same moment bringeth age where once was
youth,
And anon rejuvenateth what was gone in eld, forsooth. Many a desert waste existeth where was once a garden glad And a garden glad existeth where was once a desert sad. Ah, thou moon-faced, musky-tressed one, how canst thou e'er know or deem What was once thy poor slave's station, how once held in high ;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
esteem
?
On him now
thy curling tresses, coquettish thou dost bestow,
In those days thou didst not see him, when his
Time
there was
when he
in gladness,
own
rich curls did flow.
happy did himself
disport.
Pleasure in excess enjoying, though his silver store ran short
Always bought he in the market, countless-priced above the rest. Every captive Turki damsel with a round pomegranate breast. Ah how many a beauteous maiden, in whose heart love for him !
reigned,
night as pilgrim to him, and in secret there remained
Came by
Sparkling wine and eyes that ravish, and the face of beauty deep, HigTi-priced though they might be elsewhere, at
my
door were ever
cheap.
Always happy, never knew
And my Many a heart
I
what might be the touch of
pain,
heart to gladsome music opened like a wide champaign.
Yea, though
Ever was Ever
to silk
it
was softened by the magic of
were hard as
my
flintstone, anvil-hard, or
verse.
even worse.
my keen eye open for a maid's curled tresses long. my ear to listen to the word-wise man of song.*
alert
I had not, wife nor children, no, nor female family-ties, Free from these and unencumbered have I been in every wise. Rudagi's sad plight in old age. Sage, thou verUy dost see
House
;
In those days thou didst not see him as this wretch of low degree. In those days thou didst not see him when he roved the wide world o'er. Songs enditing, chatting gaily, with a thousand tales and more.^ 1
There
is
an allusion to the minstrel
mardum-i sukhun^^n, the man who knows the value of words. or poet in
'
'
Darmesteter, p. 25, sees in the
words hazdr dastdn a reference by Rudagi to his Kalllah and Bimnah, which was one of the sources of the famous Thousand and one Nights.'' '
;
;
DAWN
RUDAGI, A HERALD OF THE
44 Time
when
there was
that his verses broadcast tlirough the whole
world ran,
when he
Time
there was
Who
had greatness
I
it
bard of Khurasan.
all-hailed was, as the
Who
?
had favor, of
was, had favor, greatness, from the
all
people in the land ?
Saman
scions'
hand
own Amir, Nasr, forty thousand dirhams gave. And a fifth to this was added by the Prince of the Pure and Brave From his nobles, widely scattered, came a sixty thousand more
Khurasan's
^ ;
Those the times when mine was fortune, fortune good in plenteous store.
Now
the times have changed,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
changed and altered
I, too,
must succumb, Bring the beggar's
come
Thus
!
staff
here to
me; time
for staff
in
The
life.
strings
hushed, the echoes of his voice were
of
the silenced chords again This line
der
and
is
a
renders
Frommenseelenfursten
zahlte
einen
mehr
'
;
Pickering, p. 338, and
it,
'
Und
Vierzahl
similarly cf. n. 6.
also
This
rendering implies that by his generosity Nasr became 'a fifth CaUph,' i.e. on an equality with the first four Caliphs of Islam.
But the
would
more and sweep
?
Eth6
difficult one.
cf. n. 1)
Who
final
were
lute
his
stilled.
follow to catch up the lost strains once
(p. 702,
scrip has
dark shadows and deep sorrow closed the
days of Rudagi's
1
and
^
interpretation seems
strained.
I prefer to regard the allusion
as being to
CaUphs
some one
of the
of Rudagi's time.
main, Pizzi, Storia, 1. 134. ^ For Eth6, pp. text, Pizzi,
Chr., pp. 59-61;
Storia,
337-338. etc.
1.
133-134;
Original
(Pers. -an
cf.
Abbasid
So, in the
696-699; tr.
Pizzi,
Pickering,
monorhyme a
6wd throughout).
pp. b d,
'
CHAPTER V SNATCHES OF MINSTREL SONG FROM THE LATER SAMANID PERIOD TO THE ERA OF MAHMUD OF GHAZNAH (The Latter Half '
Hushed
is
of the
the harp
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Scott,
RuDAGi was of
singers
in
now
minstrelsy never
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the minstrel gone.
The Lay of the Last Minstrel,
his grave
silent
Tenth Century a.d.)
;
13.
But the voice
The far-famed dynasty
dies.
3L
he had joined the choir
the tomb.
in
5.
of
of
the
Samanids, in their capital at Bukhara, continued to foster the art of song
down
to the very close of their rule at
the end of the tenth century, and handed
it
on as a
treasured heritage to their successors at the Ghaznavid
Court in the eleventh century of our
era.
Thus
to the
patron-favor of the last Samanid princes and to the
hopes kindled by the rising sun of
Mahmud
new
of Ghaznah's
power, most of the minstrels of those days owed inspiration for their song.
The
verses of the bards
whose poetry
rainbow-arch that spanned varied in hue and shade all
be
;
this
later
of
Ghaznah
mounted the
throne.
Samanid
period,
but the prismatic colors can
made out undimmed down
Mahmud
lent tints to the
(a city
still
to the bright era
when
existing in Afghanistan)
This famous conqueror's seat was 46
^
SNATCHES OF MINSTREL SONG
46
near that bag of gold which rainbow's base
fabled to be found at the
is
and, being somewhat of a poet himself,
;
he joined in doling out the aureate metal to encourage minstrelsy, especially
to
those
bards
who chanted
his
praises in glowing verse.
Among those whose poetry spanned this period was Abu Ishak (or Abu'l-Hasan) of Merv, better known as Kisa'i, the Man of the Cloak,' from his Kisai, '
'
'
_
donning in
Latter Part of
Sufi.
later life the dervish garb of the
Kisa'i
had in
his
voice
tones
both
grave and gay, which served to link the strains of the passing age with the newer music of the coming era.^
His death
generally supposed to have occurred about
is
the year 1002 or 1003 a.d., but there are grounds
now
believing that he outlived considerably the elegiac
for
plaint to
which he gave utterance in a poem, written
about this time, on reaching the half century in
life's
run,
as referred to below.
Whatever may have been the date
of Kisa'i' s death,
flowers should have been planted on his grave, because, like Keats,
A
he had for flowers the true love of a poet.
stanza that survives from his pen would suffice to prove this.
They
are lines on the blue lotus or water-lily of the
Nile.
Who
can say whether Kisa'i's wanderings
have
A
led
him
may
not
in fact as well as in fancy to the borders of
ments of Kisa'i have been preserved by Aufi, Lubdb (ed. Browne), 2. 33-
Asadi (ed. Horn, cf. p. 27) including a couplet, fol. 36 r, and cf 60, 60 r see likewise Shams ibn Kais, al-Mu'jam
over sixty single verses of Kisa'i, moreover, are separately quoted by
(Gibb Mem. 10), p. 272. 2 gee p. 49 and on the below
1
39
:
number
of
the
poetic
frag-
.
;
;
;
;
:
Egypt's stream
ins LOVE OF FLOWERS
AXD
A'/.S.l*;
render the lines, at
I
?
47
events, as an
all
mood
expression of his poetic
THE BLUE LOTUS OF THE NILE The azure
Now
water-lily see, amidst the waters blue,
gleaming sword, now tinged with sapphire
like a burnished
hue Color like heaven, and like the heaven, as radiantly bright,
But cup Yet
all
yellow, as
Wearing from head
the moon a fortnight old monk during a full year's
in light
is
like a sallow pious
fast
to foot blue robes, with merit pure amassed.^
Nor again could any minstrel sing the beauty rose in verses
more quaint than those w^hich
many
they seem to rival
late, for
I
of the
next trans-
a later longer rhapsody
that came from the bards of Shiraz chanting the charms of that queen of flowers
when every
petal
was abloom.
THE ROSE The rose â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a rich
gift,
angel-brought from Paradise
!
In midst of rose-delights, man's soul more noble grows. Ah, rose-seller
Or what
!
How
for silver
canst the rose for silver
sell,
buy more precious than the
rose ?
2
question of the date of Kisa'i's death,
of Bukhara, in National Review,
consult Eth6, Neupersische Litteratur,
818,
and Kuhn, Grundrlss, 2. 281 and see Browne, Lit. Hist. 2. 161. 1 Text, Eth6, Die Aufi, 2. 35
essay, which,
in Geiger
;
;
d.
bayer.
Akad. Wiss. zu Munchen, 1874,
p. 144.
Lieder des Kisai, in Sitzb.
The rhyme
in the original Persian
is
15.
London, 1890. Throughout the present chapter I have enjoyed the advantage of consulting Dr. Pickering's though published long ago,
and based on Eth6 and Dar-
mesteter,
was not
accessible
to
me
before.
d f; and the image in the last two might be more literally rendered As the wayfaring monk, whose two cheeks are sallow [through fa.sting] a year and a month, Has matle his upper
* For the Persian text see Aufi (ed. Browne), 2. 35-36 also Eth^, Sitzb. 145, and d. bayer. Akad. 1874, p. Cf. also Browne, Pizzi, Chr. p. 63.
and lower garment of blue stuff.' For another translation into English consult Pickering, The Last Singers
Darmesteter,
b
lines
:
'
;
Lit. Uist. 2. 164 p.
;
46
Pickering, p. 818 ;
Horn, Gesch.
;
d.
pers. Litteratur, p. 77, Leipzig, 1901.
'
:
SNATCHES OF MINSTREL SONG
48
To every
reader of that stanza by Kisa'i there will
in-
Omar Khayyam's tone, Omar expresses
voluntarily recur a later reminiscence in lines,
when, in quite a different
marvel regarding the wine-sellers of Nishapur wonder only what the vintners buy One half so precious as the stuff they
I
It
is
sell.'
not surprising, therefore, that so refined a literary
critic of
Persian poetry as the French scholar Darmesteter
should add
:
*If
the rose had had to choose between these
four pretty verses of Kisa'i and the interminable dithy-
rambs of Hafiz,
I believe that she
out hesitation to Hafiz
:
"
The
note of the nightingale than Light-hearted in
rose loves better a single
all
its spirit is
would have said with-
the gardener's songs.'"
^
the following musical mes-
sage which Kisa'i caught from the carol of a bird.
THE BIRD'S MESSAGE Yon
caroling little bird a singer
is,
Giving a message like a lover to his love
What
sings he ?
Sings,
*
Take thou thy sweetheart's hand and
In
still
another vein
brief eulogy lauding the
;
Beloved, the night hath flown,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that
of the
in the garden rove.'
panegyric
new monarch Mahmud
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
is
a
of Ghaz-
nah, sovereign lord of Afghanistan, whose succession to the throne marked the year 998 a.d., and the sweep of
whose conquering sword soon brought under a large part of Persia and
Sad though
Kisa'i
much
may have
1
So likewise, Browne,
2
Darmesteter, Les Origines,
3
For the text see
p. 46. ;
Eth6,
sway
Northwestern India.
been at the setting sun of Sitzb. 1874, p. 148
2. 164.
Aufi, 2. 36
of
his
and
cf.
;
Pizzi, Chr. p.
Pickering, p. 820.
64
;
;
!
:;
VERSES GRAVE AND CAY the Samanid rule, he
may
nevertheless have felt glad, like
other poets of the hour, at the
dawn
of the rising
Ghaznah
Doubtless for that reason he hailed the upshoot of
day.
beams
its
49
somewhat extravagant
in these
lines, praising
the newly enthroned monarch (as translated by Pickering)
TO MAIIMUD OF GHAZNAH '*
Shah,
we
may
well
call
thy hand a jewel mine,
For thence thou scatterest gems
shower
in never-ceasing
Though God hath made thy soul of bounty and noblesse, How, when that soul is spent, to breathe hast yet the power ? "
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Translation by C. J. Pickering.'^ But fulsome
praise
and bombast were the fashion
of such
an hour
On blithe
reaching his
that
fiftieth year, all
and debonair
in
Kisa'i's
may have
gave place to a
verse
In a long kasldahA^xnQ.xii he
sombre note.
been
tells
mourn-
bards before and after him, of the lost joys of
fully, like
youth, and recalls in sadness the
years over which he
fifty
looked backward only with regret to the day
he saw the
light, that date
March
953
16,
a.d.-
when
first
being equivalent to Wednesday,
These despondent verses were com-
posed, according to Aufi, the earliest biographer of the
Persian poets,
and the hour
^
at the end of his
of departure.'
^
life,
If,
the time of farewell,
however, as more mod-
ern scholars have reason to believe, he lived long past the 1
15.
See Pickering, in National Review, 818;
Aufi,
2.
and for the 34
;
Eth6,
original
in Sitzb. d. bayer.
Akad. 1874, p. 142. 2 For the original text of see Aufi, 2. 38-39 and ;
Chr. pp. 62-63
;
text,
135-136
lament
also Pizzi,
Eth6, Sitzb. 1874, pp.
2.
163-164
Pizzi, Storia, 3
this
and for a translation see
;
Browne,
and
1.
Pickering, p. 819;
;
135.
Aufi, Lubdb, ed. cf.
Browne,
see p. 163)
;
Browne,
2.
Lit. Hist. 2. 161
Pickering, p. 819.
38 (but
:
SNATCHES OF MINSTREL SONG
50 age of
fifty,
it
may have
death's
grim visage in
dervish
robe
been at this moment, with
his
his
been associated, and, like
up
to the ascetic
he donned the
name Kisal has ever a Hindu Yogi, gave himself
which
with
view, that
calmly awaiting release through
life,
death.^
There
is
much
so
that
is
human
in such personal ex-
pressions that our hearts cannot but sympathize with a
melancholy touch in some of the fragmentary Khusravani
verses of another
Hhe title
Royal,'
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
was
his
Samanid poet. Khusravani,
pseudonym
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; perhaps
name being Abu Tahir
his full
bin
To
this
or,
according to another reading, at-tayyib,
was attached the cognomen
we had more than that have come down If
a laureate
Muhammad.
at-tahih,
'
'
physician,'
the sweet.'
the four or five poetic specimens
we might
to us,
find a brighter
tinge, as there are reasons for believing that his
possessed
it.^
But here
is
poems
one in the sombre tone among
those that have been preserved.
Fallen into dire
illness,
it
seems, Khusravani vents his spleen against four sorts
of
men who
bring
him not an atom
of comfort, namely,
and charm-mongers.
physicians, priests, astrologers,
FOUR SORTS OF USELESS MEN For me four
sorts of
men
as types of weakness stand,
Since not a whit of help comes from the four 1
2.
This latter 163,
is
the view of Browne,
follovdng
the deductions
of
some twenty-five single-line quotations from Khusravani in Asadi, Lughat-i (ed.
Horn,
Ethg, in Sitzb. 1874, pp. 133-153. 2 For the text and a German trans-
only rhyming lines I note are
lation of these fragments see Eth6, in
21
Sitzb. 1873, pp. 654-668.
There are
-Furs
r.
cf.
p.
23),
but the f ol.
17
r,
:
!
;
;
!
KHUSRAVANI AND ABU N ASR The leech, the priest, With drug, prayer,
star-wizard,
and the
51
sorcerer.
horoscope, and with spell-lore.'
In another four lines Khusravani bemoans, like Rudagi
and
Kisa'i, the
coming
gray hair, and inveighs against
of
dyeing the whitening locks, because of
That particular stanza has
avoiding the advance of age.-
been translated above
(p.
futility in
its
41, n. 3), but there
a special
is
reason for quoting here two other lines of Khusravani on
vanished youth, because they are immortalized in an elegiac plaint
by
who, when looking back over what
Firdausi,
seemed to be
lost
work
more than sixty years upon the
of
Shah-namah, and disappointed
in his hopes, cried out in
anguish of heart that Khusravani had once truly
My youth Alas for
I recall
my
youth
said,
from the days of my childhood Ah, alas, for my youth !
or as the original runs
man
Juvani
az kudaki yad
Darlghd juvani !
There
much
is
that province
The lament
Sea. is
once more
'
Alas
'
Dartgha juvani
same minor chord
of the
verses of another minstrel, of
ddram ;
Abu Nasrof
in the
sad
Gilan, a native
southwest of the Caspian
AbuNasr
of this seemingly lost soul
°* ^^^*°
The
!
'
lines,
which
I here versify, tell
only of the past joys of youth that are vainly recalled,
never to return. 1
Chr.
and
For text p.
64
cf.
tr.
;
Pizzi, see Aufi, 2. 20 Eth6, Sitzb. 1873, p. 666 Darmesteter, p. 34; Pick;
ering, p. 821. 2
64
;
The
verses of
Firdavisi's
tr.
Sitzb. 1873, p. 6.58
Pickering, p. 821
see above, p. 41, n. 3.
;
;
and
plaint,
verse, 2.
33;
are of.
Eth6, Sitzb. 1872, p. 299 also Pizzi, Chr. pp. 64, 65 and Browne, 2. 147. ;
For text, Eth6,
Pizzi, p.
'
which cite Khusravani's quoted by Aufi, Lubdb,
;
SNATCHES OF MINSTREL SONG
52
MEMORY OF YOUTH Like a cloud in spring or wind in autumn blown,
My
my
youthful days from out
Here have
how
I sat,
oft, in
hand have happy days,
flown.
Body
relaxed, heart glad, cheek ruddy grown, Ear never free from minstrels' roundelays, Nor hand without the Magian wine-cup known.i Thus to youth's memories back my heart now strays, '
Alas
my
youth
Some fragments
my
!
of
youth alas
!
I moan.^
'
the Samanid
other minstrels of
Bukharan court have been preserved, but
period and the
they are likewise only disjecta membra, and there
is
space
here merely to say something about two of their number,
although simply snatches of their verses have come
The one
to us.^
U mar ah
of these
Merv
of
is
Umarah, the other is Muntasir.
flourished in the latter part of the
tenth century and in the time of Umarah
whom
of
^^^
he eulogizes.^
Omar Khayyam), but it is not through name is known it is through the frag-
science that his
;
The Magians were
tolerant in re-
which was forbidden by 2
p.
For text see Eth6, in Sitzb. and cf. id. in Grundr. d.
Philol. 2. 223 note ing,
p.
822
;
;
cf.
Pizzi,
iran.
worth while.
The monorhyroe in is a 6 dfh.
and
also tr. Picker-
Storia,
p.
are found in Aufi
1873,
Muhammadan
Cf. below, p. 62, n. 1.
658,
yad, Abu'1-Fath,
by Eth6, Browne, and Pickering, besides chance citations from others by Asadi, etc. A new monograph on this entire subject would be
gard to the temperate use of wine, law.
Mahmud of Ghaznah, He is reported to have
been an astronomer of high repute (therefore
a forerunner of
1
down
130.
the original Persian
cited
*
Cf. Aufi, 2. 24
Forsch. I
am
p.
64
;
;
Ethfi, in
Morg.
Pickering, pp. 685, 686.
not sure on what authority
Horn
3
(Asadi, Lughat, p. 24) gives the year 'a.h. 360' (=970-971 a.d.) as the
alluded
date of Umarah's death; the state-
Fragments of some of the poets to, hke Faralavi, Abu' 1- Abbas, Ma'navi of Bukhara, Abu'l-Masal, Zarra'ah of Gurgan, Raunaki, Muvay-
ment
of
lived
till
Aufi,
2.
24,
implies that he
Ghaznavid times.
;
:
U MAR.MI OF MERV ments of
his verses,
and a vein
some
of
!
53
which have a madrigal turn
A
of real imagination.
number
of these poetic
snatches of song have been preserved from oblivion through
having been quoted, seven centuries ago, by Aufi, in the biography of Persian poets.
earliest extant
It is
^
from
that source that some of the specimens are here translated. This, for instance, to his sweetheart
might serve as a proto-
type for a modern love-missive sent on
A VERSE TO
HIS
my
Imprint on thy sweet
poet
in bliss,
it I
might
lip a kiss.'
story goes that in after days the
Abu
lines,
words,
among them
So when thou would'st sing
The
who and when he Sa'id,
is
learned that they were by Umarah,
visitation to his grave.' is
renowned mystic
mentioned below, once heard these
he said to a group of his disciples,
Here
Day
SWEETHEART
I should like to be one of
Slyly hidden
Valentine's
St.
*
Arise, let us
make a
^
a quatrain which shows that
Umarah had no
scruples about indulging in the juice of the grape.
THE WINE-CUP See in
my
silvern idol's
hand the wine,
Thou'dst say the sun and moon together shine
That cup on which the wine
its
shadow
Is a white rose-leaf joined with a tulip
Again the wine-cup gives Lubdh al-Albdb,
See Aufi,
Âť
Browne,
2.
24-26;
Forsch. pp. 63-68. (cf
.
ed.
Horn,
p.
Eth6,
in
ed.
Morg.
In Asadi'sLu(7/iat
57 1.
from Umarah, but no stanzas.
130 3
*
66
cf. Eth6, p. 64
;
;
Pickering, p. 686
;
24) there are refer-
ences to some forty single-line quotations
a pretty conceit
rise to 2
casts
line.''
;
id.
Darmesteter, ;
p.
Pizzi, Storia,
Chr. p. 59.
For references see note 2. For text see Aufi, 2. 25 Eth6, ;
Pizzi, Chr. p. 59.
p.
;
:
;
SNATCHES OF MINSTREL SONG
54
AND WATER COMMINGLE!
FIRE Hast ever seen
—
marvelous
— water and
fire
combine ?
Just cast thine eye upon this cup and then upon the wine,
Cup
crystal clear
—
all
red the wine, within this goblet single;
Acknowledge now, thou hast beheld water and
Graver in tone
and
this stanza,
is
fire
commingle.^
fitting in its applica-
tion to the old adage that pride goes before destruction in
world
this fickle
BEWARE OF PRIDE Be thou not proud
e'en
though the world hath chanced to make thee
great
Many
the great ones
whom
the world brings swift to low estate.
This world's a snake, — a charmer he, who seeks
The charmer ofttimes from the snake
The
of
Muntasir, 1005 AD.
last heir to the
i^nown as Muntasir, strove in vain to hold
from
fight
a poet 1
^
besides.^
In the original
2
rhyme (6d),
Aufi, 2. 25 1.
dynasty which was
seems odd to think that this
most of whose
Day and
life
was spent
in flight
night he was on horseback, and
Persian of this
cf.
and
fourth
Aufi, 2. 25;
Eth^, p. 66.
Browne,
effete
(dar gurlkhtan u amkhtan), should have been
'
stanza only the second verses
It
his grasp. ^
youthful warrior,
and
to bring
Samanids died with a song upon a
on his head the crown of the falling
power
now decadent throne Bukhara, Abu Ibrahim Ismail, who is better The
prince's lips.
d.
the
of
line
in his
receives a mortal sting.2
;
and
cf.
Eth6,
65
p.
;
467.
3 See Eth§, in Grundr. 2. 222 id. Die hofische Poesie, p. 24, in both of which places the date of Muntasir's death is given as 1005 a.d., while Horn, in Grundr. 2. 662, and ;
.
.
.
also Pickering, p. 823, both give the
endof the year 1004 a. d.; the difference depends simply upon the question in which part of the Muhammadan month Rabi I, 395 a.h., the event occurred (cf. Mustaufi, TaWikh-i Guzidah, tr. Browne, in Gibb Mem. 14. 2, p. 78). * So Aufi 1. 293 (ed. Browne), and Pickercf. Browne, Lit. Hist. 1. 468 ;
ing, p. 823.
;
:
MUXTASIR, THE WARRIOR-POET must have formed a picturesque
55
figure clad in a cloak of
coarse white cloth, which seems to have served alike as a
protecting mail aud
lowers
who
an inspiration to the devoted
fol-
attended hun in the guerilla warfare which
he maintained against inroading Tatar bands from be-
yond the Oxus
On
power.
as well as against the rising
Ghaznavid
one occasion, relates Aufi, the early
thir-
teenth century biographer of Persian poets, a group of his
companions, faithful amid the vicissitudes of fortune and
him
misfortune, asked
deck thyseK out in
King,
'
:
of royalty
may, at
this
'
The
^
regal
dost thou
not
and beguile thyself with
fine robes
among
instruments of music, which are ?
why
scion of
moment, have reined
the outward signs
the Samanid
House
and grasped
in his steed
a pen from the Jcalamdan-hox of one of his scribes, but at
any
came from
rate there
his lips a stern rebuke in verse
THE WARRIOR-POET They say
A
to me,
*
Wliy not adopt a face of merry
house adorned with carpets
Can
I,
rare,
cheer,
many hues bedecked ?
with
'
'midst warriors' shouts and cries, the voice of minstrels
hear?
Can
I,
What
'midst charging steeds in fight, the rose-bower sweet elect ? place can be for the gush of wine and Saki's luscious lips,
When
blood must gush in streams by which the corselet mail
is
flecked ?
My
steed and arms the banquet-hall and rose-garth far For lance and bow, the tulip fair and lily I reject !* 1
Cf.
Browne,
1.
468
;
Pickering, p.
823. 2
.
I
have followed the rhyme of the For the text see Eth6,
original, 6 d//i.
Sitzb. 1874, pp. 150-151;
Pizzi,
Chr.
64
p. .
53
.
;
;
cf.
also
tr,
Poesie, p. 24
Pickering, p.
;
eclipse
Eth6, Die hofische
Darmesteter, pp. 52823 Browne, 1. 469
Pizzi, Storia, 1. 136.
;
;
SNATCHES OF MINSTREL SONG
56
The end
was treacherously murdered, with
whom
in 1005,
he had taken refuge in
Khan, but he had
lord Ilak
was
of Muntasir's romantic career
poetic traditions of the
The glory capital city of
by an outlaw band from the Tatar
flight
and
lived true to the heroic
House
of Saman.^
Samanid sun which bad shone
of the
brilliantly during
He
tragic.
the
tenth
century, especially
so
the
at
Bukhara, did not set without having given
inspiration to other singers,
some
of
whose voices
still
continued to be heard in the early part of the Ghaznavid
The names,
period.
in fact, of several of the minstrels
mentioned in this chapter belong Then, too, while
as well.^
it
in part to that later era
is
true that the literary
supremacy of the Samanids, which lasted down to about
1000
A.D.,
was paramount
in Northeastern Persia
and
in
Transoxiana, poetry was not confined to these realms
The
alone.
poetic
was cultivated likewise
art
at
the
Dailamite court of the House of Buwaih, which, during
a large part of the century, dominated the southern and
A
Buwaihid Poet
southwestern provinces, with power reaching
eyen as far as Baghdad.^
A
example, by a Buwaihid poet,
Mantiki
Sahib Ismail
(936-995
ing his patron
panegyric, for
of Rai, eulogiz-
who was
a.d.),
minister under two successive Buwaihid rulers and himself
the author of
served. 1
On
It
is
the date
an Arabic dictionary, has been
fantastic '
1005,'
enough
see p. 54,
Âť
in its exaggerated hyper-
though the chapter
n. 3.
So,
for
example,
Kisa'i
Umarah, and possibly Aghachi,
and al-
pre-
'
Cf.
latter
haa been treated in
3.
Browne,
364, 365, 367, 374
Lit. ;
Hist.
2. 93.
1.
360,
:
MAN TIKI
A PANEGYRIC BY bole,
but
is
57
not without imagination, as shown by Professor
E. G. Browne's rendering
A PANEGYRIC "
Methinks the Moon of Heav'n
is
stricken sore,
And nightly grieveth as it wasteth What late appeared a great, round,
Now
like a mall-bat
more. silver shield,
enters heaven's
*
field.
The
Sahib's horse,
And
cast one golden horse-shoe in the sky."
you 'd
think,
had galloped by.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Translation by Edward Not only the House
Buwaihids
but also
the
G. Browne.'^
enlightened
of the Ziyarids in the Caspian province of Tabar-
istan (corresponding to the
modern Gilan and
xhe ziyands as Patrons
Mazandaran, south of the Caspian Sea) encouraged literary and learned men.
was the Ziyarid
prince,
One
of these rulers
Kabus, who, besides being a gen-
erous patron of letters, composed some poems himself.^
But among tection
is
the pro-
which he gave to the famous physician,
losopher,
known
renown as a patron
his titles to
and
poet,
so well to
Ibn Sina,
Europe and the
near Bukhara in 980 a.d.
he was a young man, led to his capital at
or
phi-
Avicenna, as he is West, who was bom
Avicenna's fame, even while
Mahmud
Ghaznah
to seek to bring
him
as one of the great lights of
the time, but he fled from the monarch's bidding and at last found
refuge at the
was long hospitably (1037 1
the
A
A.D.) at
the
is
in
seen between
moon and
curved head of a polo-stick.
the
which 2
of
Kabus, where he
and
entertained,
Hamadan,
resemblance
crescent of
comt
city his
Browne,
1.
he
later
tomb may 463
;
and
374, 453. Âť
Cf.
Browne,
1.
469-471.
cf.
died still id.
1.
58
SNATCHES OF MINSTREL SONG
be visited.^
A
consideration of the poems left by this
far-famed scholar, however, as well as of the quatrainverses of his
noted mystic poet (967-1049),
volume according
Yet a
Abu
contemporary and friend is
reserved
Sa'id, the for
to the plan adopted in this series. ^
special chapter, the following, belongs to
other poet, whose
name adds
the Samanid period;
it is
left
the renowned
more than snatches
of song,
worthy pioneer of Firdausi that we 1
*
one
lustre to the latter half of
Dakiki,the
runner of Firdausi in the realm of Epic Poetry. has
another
and
shall
it
is
Dakiki to this
next turn.
See Jackson, Persia Past and Present, pp. 166-167. See Preface, p. vii.
fore-
CHAPTER VI DAKIKI (In the Latter Half of the Tenth Century a.d.) '
The herald
that dropped dead in announcing the victory, in
whose
fruits
he was not to share/
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; LoMELL, Lecture on Marlowe, in Old English Dramatists, p. 64. A
pulses,
Marlowe's, were aflame, and whose raptures were
like all
YOUTH, generally known as Dakiki, whose
fire,
received the coveted gift
The
Muses.
lute
lover's
woman, and song were renown
kiki' s
rests
was
from the
his
;
Dakiki ^^^ ^°**
wine,
Yet Da-
his favorite themes.
rather on
the fact that the
few
bugle notes which he had just begun to sound in epic
poetry
made him the herald
the very sin's
of
Firdausi.
moment when he had given
dagger cut short his
life
at
the
Almost
call,
an early
at
an assas-
age, in
the
latter quarter of the tenth century of oiu* era.
Dakiki's
home
Tus, the native
is
commonly thought
place
though some sources
of
his
to
have
been
great successor Firdausi,
allow Bukhara
and
Samarkand
hkewise to share in the claim of having nurtured his genius.^
In any event he was, like the other early poets,
a child of Eastern Iran fact that *
some
;
and
this is borne out
by the
of the fragments of his verse are stanzas
Noldeke, Das iranische Nationalepos, in Grundriss der iranischen Phir
lologie, 2. 147-160.
69
:
;
'
DAKIKI
60
the last Samanid rulers, Mansur I (961-976 A.D.) and his son Nuh II (976-997).i
two
in praise of
of
This latter statement seems to be correct from the fact that Mustaufi (1330 a.d.) expressly says that Dakiki
was
Amir Nuh
the contemporary of
*
(976-997), and
it
Nuh
that
tradition
II
the Samanid
accordance with the accepted
in
is
(II)
assigned
him the task
to
writing the national legend of Iran in verse. ^ of this
may
it
of
In view
be inferred that Dakiki lived beyond the
year 975 a.d., which has been assigned for his death,
although he
With
may have met and
deservedly merits the
The
end early in Nuh's
regard to his poetical name,
verses, panegyric
which
his
form of
full
Mansur
From
Muhammad
bin
Dakiki's
Dakiki, or 'the Subtle,' by
title
his
of
well turned that he
lyric, are so
designation
literary
all
reign.^
real
he
is
commonly
known.
Abu
name, however, was
Ahmad, which preceded
it.
the last stanza of one of Dakiki's impassioned
odes, in which, after Persian fashion, he inserts his literary title,
we may
charmed
gain some insight into the delights that most
his heart.
he concludes this
After chanting the beauties of spring,
lyrical effusion
with these four lines
DAKIIQ'S CHOICE
Of
all
things good and evil in the world,
Dakiki's choice 1
Cf.
Browne,
Lit.
Noldeke, in Grundr.
Hist.
1.
is
given to these four
(
=
See Mustaufi, Ta'fikh-i Guzldah, p. 750 reprint, p. 30) id. ed. in Gibb
also Pickering, in Nat. Eev. 15. 683.
Browne, in JRAS. 1900,
Me7n. 14.
;
1,
p. 818; tr. 14. 2, p.
224
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
and Khvashgu's Safinah, referred to by Eth6 in Morg. Forsch. p. 57. Cf.
461
2. 147.
*
tr.
:
;
^
There seems to be a
slight incon-
sistency in the statements of 1.
372
;
2.
116
;
and
1.
Browne,
123, 460-461.
:
;
!
;
DAKIKI THE POET
61
The ruby lip, the lute's sad melody, The blood-red wine, and Zoroaster's lore.*
Even
the allusion to the religion of Zoroaster need
if
not be taken too seriously, although there are reasons for
taking
somewhat
it
we have
seriously,
of Dakiki's fondness for music in the
and no better evidence
proof
sufficient
melody
of his verse
ruby
of his devotion to
lips
need
be given than to cite the following lines in praise of one of his loves
TO raS BELOVED
Would
in this world there
Then from her
No
lips there
were no night,
were no
scorpion's sting were in
If that her tresses
made no
my
flight
heart,
smart.^
Did 'neath her lip no star-dent dimple play. The stars were not my comrades till the day.' Were she not moulded from all good above, My soul would not be motdded of her love And must I ever live sans my sweetheart, Then God, I pray, let life from me depart * !
With a
spirit like
Dakiki's that courted maidens and
the joyous
hour for wine, as the third of
his delights, especially
on a moonlight evening, could
minstrelsy,
1
For a
full
Eth6, in Morg.
text of this ode see
Forsch.
pp. 58-59;
Pizzi, Chr. p. 68.
the chin,' and secondly in the image of
'
counting the stars,
'
a rhetorical
expression for sleeplessness.
2 In Persian poetry the dark curled ends of the beloved's locks are often likened, because of their shape, to the sting of a scorpion. 3 There is a subtle turn in the repetition here of the Persian word kaukab, star,' which is used first in a metaphorical sense as dimple in '
'
*
The rhyme
in the original
is
a b
have varied my meter from choice. For the text see Aufi, 2. 12; Eth6 in Morg. Forsch. p. 60 Pizzi, Chr. p. 58 cf. also tr. Browne, 1.
dfhj;
I
;
;
461-462 Storia,
;
1.
Pickering, 129.
p.
684
;
Pizzi,
:
.
DAKIKI
62
His fondness for the juice of the
not pass by unheeded. grape, no doubt,
made him more
of a Zoroastrian than his
heart, for that ancient faith allowed a temperate use of
wine, which the stern mandates of the
Kuran
forbade.^
Dakiki in any event seems to have freed his conscience
from
all
qualms
of his lyrics
nodded
on wine, to
Thus
assent.
we may judge by one which Ben Jonson would have
in such matters,
if
to his cup-bearer he gayly sings
THE WINE CUP AND A MOONLIGHT EVENING Ah, bring me the wine cup, fair Idol, For bright
the world, full of sheen.
is
From up where the Moon now is shining, To yonder where Pisces is seen. When out from thy bower thou comest. Forth into this desert so drear.
Wherever thy glance thou bestowest Doth soft as Byzance silk appear. Come, quaff we the wine cup together, And let us be merry and gay. For now is the time for wine-bibbing. The time of the glad holiday.^
Some
sixteen or eighteen fragments of
Dakiki's lyric
poems have been preserved, numbering not much over a hundred
lines in all
of feeling 1
;
but these fragments show delicacy
Yet there
and genuine imagination.^
See above, pp. 29, 34, 39, 52
n. 1
;
460-461, are, 10 vrith 27 couplets is
Press)
gives 2 fragments with 5
Text,
Etli^,
in
Morg. Forsch.
The fragments in noted by Browne,
as
tional)
ad-Din cf.
,
2
couplets
;
2.7
;
;
b.
Kais,
also id.
al-Mu'jain,
Add
p. 444.
p.
255
couplets also
;
two
fragmentary stanzas in Asadi, Lughat-
p. 61. Âť
1
one
Eth6 (addi3 with 13 couplets and Shams
with
and consult Jivanji .Jamshedji Modi, Wine amongst the Ancient Persians, pp. 1-16, Bombay, 1888 (Gazette Steam 2
is
Aufi, Lit.
Luhdb, Hist.
1.
i
Furs,
fols.
59
r,
60,
sixty single-line citations.
among some
;
!
THE LYRIC A\D EPIC VEIN OF DAKIKI stanza, a quatraiu
iii
form, which,
almost Marlowesque in
and
is
G3
really Dakiki's,
if
is
attitude towards resignation,
its
well-nigh blasphemous,
alluding to God.'
if
Dar-
mesteter was somewhat fanciful in suggesting that the lines
were gasped out by Dakiki amid his sufferings on
that night
when
the assassin's fatal steel pierced his
But the quatrain
in
any case
is
side."^
w^orth quoting.
HAVE PATIENCE *
Patience,' they say,
*
that
He His
patience
show
'
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Show, yes but in another life, I trow. This whole life I with patience have endured It needs a next to
show His
patience, though.'
Dakiki's right to fame, however, as has already been
upon the
intimated, rests
basis of his epic genius, the
promise of which he showed in a remarkable degree. All too scanty as was the opportunity that was allowed
him
name
in the realm of heroic poetry, his
pioneer in this branch of composition.
stands as a
was wait-
Persia
ing for an epic poet, and to Dakiki, beyond any predecessor,
belonged the all-absorbing idea of narrating in lofty
verse the historic glories of ancient Iran.
He had
taken up the theme with a verve, and had
completed a thousand couplets
King Gushtasp, the patron ^
There
is
It is ascribed to
Dakiki only in Lutf ^Vlibeg Adhur's Atash-kadah (1760-79 a.i>.), cf. Eth6 in Morg. Forsch. p. 61, and hLs note yet see Pizzi, Chr. p. 58 (text), and ;
tr.
Storia,
1.
130
;
and
cf.
next note.
episode relating to
of Zoroaster,
some uncertainty about
the whole quatrain.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; an
and
his holy
war
Darmesteter, Origines de la poesie
2
jiersane, p. 43.
Text,
3
p.
58
;
tr.
Eth6, id.
p.
61
siana, 1.130 (after Eth6) ing,
Pizzi,
;
Chr.
Storia della poesia per-
Nat. Eev. 15. 685.
;
and Picker-
DAKIKI
64
against Arjasp, the ruler of Turan in the
hand
of a Turkish
minion
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; when
(for
whom
the poniard it is
thought
he entertained an unlawful affection) brought a tragic
end
to his poetic
The accounts
work.
of the fatal inci-
dent have sometimes intimated that the assassin's dirk
was drawn against the bard because on account
of a general hatred
toward the old Zoroastrian
of his leanings
creed.
Dakiki's thousand couplets, however, have
been ren-
dered immortal, since Firdausi incorporated them bodily into his
own
tells us,
the dead poet in a dream.
great epic
poem
after
having beheld, as he
As
these verses in
the Shah-namah form the particular section that relates to Zoroaster
and the development of the ancient religion
of the Fire-worshipers
the midst of
been as
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a
delicate subject to handle in
Muhammadan
much prudence
fanatics
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; there
may have
as loyalty on Firdausi's part in
constructing this chapter in his epic out of the verses left
by
his ill-starred predecessor, instead of
self
on the theme.
committing him-
In support, moreover, of Firdausi's
claim in the assignment,
it
is
agreed by scholars best
competent to judge, that the verses thus accredited to Dakiki actually show a difference in style and diction
from Firdausi's own manner
of
composition.
more, they prove, by their strength and
finish,
What
is
that Dakiki
himself was a master of the epic style, inherited, no doubt,
from 1
On
his predecessors,
this
whole subject
and
especially
of the epi-
sode and Dakiki's style see Noldeke,
from Rudagi.^
Nationalepos, in Grundr. 2. 148-150 Warner, Shdhndma, 5. 20-22.
;
DAKIKI AS FIRDAUSrS PREDECESSOR
The trumpet
call
to the
nation, sounded
from halfway up the heights of clear,
if
not
far-reaching
;
but
epic song, its
blast
before the full tone could be heard.
65
by Dakiki
was sharp and was cut short
The volume
of a
stronger trumpet blare was needed, the clarion note of a
Firdausi on the topmost to
it
that
quality which
realm of time.
summit
makes
of the height, to impart it
ring throughout
the
CHAPTER
VII
THE BOUND TABLE OF MAHMUD OF GHAZNAH COURT POETRY (Early in the Eleventh Century A. D.) '
And Peace
to
Mahmud on
— FitzGbbald,
his golden Throne.'
Rubdiydt of
Omar Khayydm,
11.
The court of Firdausi's patron, Mahmud of Ghaznah, who ruled from 998 to 1030 a.d., included a Round Table of
Poets
called,
—a
Divan,
'
Assembly,'
it
might have been
although in Persian literary usage that word
is
applied rather to a collection of the poems of an author.
Seats at the royal board or places in the assembly around
the aureate throne were occupied only by bards
who
could
claim their right to fame by infusing into their verse the spirit also of
the great conqueror's time or by lavishing
panegyrics upon their lord or on some court grandee.
Even Firdausi
in his great epic
had
to resort to a eulogy
Mahmud. Nevertheless, tinged though court poetry was with the fulsome flattery which prevailed in times when patrons, and not publishers, served to keep alive of
the Muses' song, there was heard often and again in the verse a personal note
— that
vox
humana mingled with
the vox seraphica — not drowned by the panegyric dominant.
It is
an echo
of the minstrel's
own
soul, that finer
M AH MUD feeling
which
thrills
HIMSELF A POET
67
with the universal chord and makes
the verse true poetry.
Mahraud
of
Ghaznah, fosterer of poets and learned men
though he was, was sword.
first
and foremost a man
His conquering blade brought under
^
its
of
the
sway a
large portion of Persia proper, far outside of the ancestral
domain
Ghaznah, the capital of a territory which
of
now forms
a part of Afghanistan.
He
launched, more-
over, a dozen or seventeen successful raids against North-
ern and Western India to give proof of the edge of his
trenchant
Yet with
steel. ^
no better way
to
it all
hand down
name than through
his
works of the poets and men of
he knew that there was
letters
and science
the
whom
he gathered to grace his court.
Mahmud,
himself, on
more than one occasion exchanged
the pen for the sword.
Six ghazals, or odes, are ascribed
to his authorship.'^
Among
the
poems attributed
vaunt in verse,' given °
in addition to a heroic
below, there exist three elegiac couplets that
show a tenderer
side of the conqueror's
The half-dozen
up.
Grulistwiy
'
Rose-garden,' she
this particular elegy give
was
called
.
*
pp.
Cf above, pp. 45-46. See Lane-Poole, Mediaeval India, .
14r-33,
1903; and
New York and
London,
History of India, ed. Jackson, 3. 14-35, London, 1906 consuit also V. A. Smith, The Oxford Hisid. in
;
tory of India, pp. 190-195, Oxford, 1919.
of
make-
— and
speak real devotion on Mahmud's part. 1
Mahmud
Ghaznah as a
lament over the death of a young
to a
voice
lines of
to him,
girl
—
they be-
So, with
the
3 Cf Eth6, in Grundr. 2. 224, 225 n. (where the question of authenticity is raised); Schefer, Chrestomathie persane, 2. 247-252 (Persian text), and pp. 242-246 (explanations), .
:
;
'
THE ROUND TABLE OF MAHMUD OF GHAZNAH
68 sad
of
strain
dust thou art, to dust retumest,' I
'
peat them here
re-
:
ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG GIRL Moon, beneath the dust dost
Since thou,
Dust
My heart laments
I say,
;
*
Heart, patient be.
This Cometh by an All-just God's decree
Man
is
of dust,
much
!
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and dust must aye remain
What's born of dust to dust returns
The
rest,
joins in union high with heaven's crest.
again.*
heroic vaunt in verse, alluded to above, bears so of the spirit of
Mahmud,
turning, as he does in the
face of grim-visaged Death, to God, that I feel the lines to be genuinely
Mahmud's (even though the authorship Accordingly I venture to trans-
has been questioned).^ late
them, with
boastfulness that gives place to
all their
deep religious humihation
THE KING â&#x20AC;&#x201D; AND DEATH Out of fear
for
my
my
and
conquering sword
mace that cleaves
strongholds amain.
The earth
is
subdued by
my
might,
as the
body subdued by the
brain.
Though
in glory
and power supreme,
I
am
never contented to
rest,
So from land unto land have I roamed,
in ambition's high con-
quering quest.
Oftentimes I gave place to
my
fancy
was a somebody great, king and pauper in equal
that I
In mine eyes have I now come to see estate.
If perchance thou should'st dig from
two graves
two
skulls of
the mouldering dead,
Muhammad
2 gee also Browne, Lit. Hist. on Daulatshah's citation and
Browne,
tion to Sanjar the Seljuk.
1
Text, Aufi (ed. Browne and MIrza KazvTni), 1. 26; cf. Lit. Hist. 2. 117.
2.
118,
ascrip-
M AH MUD'S COURT
POETRY AT
Who
knows which was crown head
hireling's
With one blow
of the
69
and which was the
king,
?
my
of
powerful
have
I
fist
thousands
of
strongholds laid low,
With one stamp
of
my
multitudinous ranks
foot have I scattered
of the foe.
But when Death cometh now
way
Lord that alone
'Tis the it is
naught availeth the
to assail me,
one has trod,
God
is
and the King above Kings,
abiding,
1 !
Poetry must have resounded at Mahmud's court, for
we
by Daulatshah that
are told
poets
'
(chahcir sad shair
The names
'
four hundred appointed
mutaayyin) thronged his
capital.^
more prominent are men-
of a score of the
who wrote in known.^ Some
tioned offhand by the Persian writer Aruzi,
the twelfth century, and
many
others are
of these minstrels, like Minuchihri,
sideration in a later volume.
But
tni the greater light of Firdausi all,
may come
chief amidst the galaxy,
came
The
Mahmud's
be
have
arrived at
palace, as related in the next chapter, speaks
own
alike for their
their generosity as
Unsuri, the was a native
merits as judges of real poetry and for
members
first of
of Balkh,
of the fellowcraft of song.
the trio that have been named,
and held rank at Mahmud's court
For the text here translated see
3
See
Daulatshah, p. 67 but consult especially the preceding note. Original
Makdla
rhyme o
JRAS.
;
6 d/, etc.
See Daulatshah, Tadhkirat, pp.
44-45.
when he
them
may
fact that these very three should
recognized Firdausi's superior genius
2
to outshine
were Unsuri and Farrukhi, while Asjadi also
mentioned.
1
in for con-
Kazvini) 46).
Aruzi,
Nizami-i
p.
1899,
28
;
p.
cf.
658
Chahdr
Muhammad
Mirza
(ed.
tr.
(=
Browne, in reprint,
p.
.
THE ROUND TABLE OF MAHMUD OF GHAZNAH
70
not only as a royal panegyrist but as poet laureate.
*King
was
of Poets'
his title,
and to Unsuri belonged,
by court appointment, the prerogative of havd.
ing to pass
1040 or
first
on every poetic composition
that was presented, before
could reach the
it
sovereign's ear.^
His accepted appellation was ^Master'
Unsuri, and the
other bards acknowledged
themselves
Although, in a way, he was a natural rival
his disciples.
of Firdausi, he proved himself a friend,
and won from the
Admiration was shown
great epic poet an encomium.^
Unsuri likewise by others of his fellow-poets.
(who died verses
1041
in
saman)
{harm, huy-i
perfume of his
a.d.) says that *the
was as sweet
the jasmine'
as the fragrance of
while Aruzi, more than a century
^
;
Minuchihri
adds a tribute in verse to the lasting qua]ity of his
later,
poetry.'*
His personality must have been attractive, since
*he combined the rank of a favorite courtier with that of poet' little
(mansah-i nadimi ha shairl).^
more
is
known
regarding Unsuri' s
he died in 1040 or 1050
With regard .,
Gift of
life,
a.d.«
which he exerted over
we have an
lord,
1
It
2
Daulatshah,
p. 45.
Daulatshah, Aruzi, op.
p. 42,
*
JBAS.
print, p. 48).
44-45,
pp.
Lit. Hist. 2.
3
Browne,
is
cit.
cf.
120-121.
p.
*
Daulatshah,
cf. Eth6, in Grundr. 2. 224.
28
;
cf
.
(=
Aruzi,
p. 44.
Chahdr Makdla, pp. 34-
tr.
26; cf. tr. Browne, JBAS. 1899, pp. 762-764 ( = reprint, pp. 56-68) cf
re-
also Pizzi, Storia,
20.
1899, p. 660
worth repeat-
« ''
1.
his sovereign "
Mahmud was
happened that one night, when
Daulatshah,
Browne,
and the
anecdote related by the
above-mentioned Aruzi, which ing.^
all,
except that
to Unsuri's personality, moreover,
influence
„ Unsun's
Yet after
;
1.
142, n. 5.
UNSURI'S GIFT OF IMPROVISATION •well
71
drenched with wine, he grasped a knife and was
about to shear
the luxuriant tresses of hair which
off
graced the temples of Ayaz, his favorite minion at court.
He
handed the
refrained, however, for the instant, but
blade to Ayaz,
own head and
who
laid
them before Mahmud.
himself next morning
have been
— the
from his
dutifully cut off the curls
— in
the
monarch was
act which he had caused
;
*
False
On coming to Dawn it may '
with despair at the
filled
and the court was plunged into
A poet's skill alone could save the day.
equal despondency.
Unsuri was ready with an improvised quatrain at once.
THE SHORN CURLS Though wrong,
What
'Tis time for
Trimming the
The
poet's
horizon was
Mahmud was
if
that thy Idol's tress be shorn,
cause to rise and
sit in grief
mirth and glee
—
forlorn ?
to call for
cypress' locks serves but
impromptu was a the
cleared,
t'
wine
flash of genius
court's
!
adorn.*
;
the royal
equanimity restored.
so well pleased with the quatrain, as the story
concludes, that he ordered Unsuri's lap to be filled three
times over with gold and
and for music,
to the
He
silver.
accompaniment
were repeated in song.
All
then called for wine of
was serene
which the verses
!
Unsuri's literary activity must have been great, for
have the authority of Daulatshah to the
we
effect that as
poet laureate *he was continually composing poems on the deeds and battles of the King, and there
is
a lengthy
panegyric of Unsuri's, about one hundred and eighty 1
Text, Aruzi, op.
cit.
The rhyme
p. 35.
original quatrain has a double
:
—
kdstan ast khdstan ast plrdsian ast.
ast
—
— khvdstan
THE ROUND TABLE OF
72
couplets, in
MAH MUD
OF GHAZNAH
which he recorded in encomium-verse
the King's battles, wars, and conquests.'
A
^
all of
Divan, or
collection of Unsuri's poems, has in fact been preserved.^
Mention may be made
Mahmud's the
*
of
a rather long eulogy on
which
brother. Prince Nasr,
question and answer
'
style {su^al
is
an example
u javah), the
of
lines
alternating throughout with an interrogation and a response.
The
first
dozen or sixteen verses read like a
rhapsody of love between a wooer and his beloved, then leading up to the burden of the song, which the
of
there
is
Among
prince.^
the
poetic
likewise one, the loss of which
regretted;
it is
of
a panegyric
works is
Unsuri
of
particularly to be
a romantic epopee, Vctmik and 'Adhra, on
a subject as old as Sasanian times
fragments
is
;
but only some stray
have been preserved through chance
it
quotations.^
Ethe's estimate of Unsuri's literary merits
high as was that of his
own
1
But there
Daulatshah,
is
one
Two of Unsuri's Mahmud will be
found translated into prose in Elliot and Dowson, History of India, 4. also a quat515-518, London, 1872 rain in praise of the same monarch, ;
op. cit. 4. 189
;
cf.
likewise Pizzi, Sto-
See Eth^, in Grundr. 2. 224, 225 n. , on a lithographed edition of Unsuri, which appeared in Teheran, a.h. 1298
Note might be made also of the fact that Unsuri is cited over a hundred times in Asadi's
(=
1881 A.D.).
he sought to
Lughatri Furs
I should like
(cf. ed.
Horn, pp. 24-
25), six or seven couplet-stanzas being
among 27
r,
the citations
40, 57, 58
r,
(cf. fols. 20,
21
r,
62 r).
For text see Daulatshah, pp. 45and for a translation of the panegyric, Browne, 2. 121-123. ^
46
;
via, 1. 142-145. 2
whom
poem which
little
p. 45.
long panegyrics on
so
contemporaries, and he finds
that Unsuri falls short of Rudagi, rival.^
not
is
*
Cf. Eth6, in
Grundr.
2.
239-240
;
Horn, Gesch. Pers. Litt. pp. 80, 177 and id. ed. Asadi's Lughatri Furs, p. also cf. Browne, 2. 275-276 25 Elliot and Dowson, History of India, ;
;
;
4. 189. *
Eth6, in Grundr.
2. 224.
r
ir
â&#x20AC;˘^i:%m-mwi
%'
Emukllismki,
Inti:.,,,, .t,,i;v
(From the Cochran
[To fact page
72'\
1'a(.i:
,.|.
a
1'ki;sia.n
.MAMsr,;|I-r
Collection of Persian Manuscripts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
!
!
OTHER POEMS BY UNSURI to quote, because of
its strain
— a miuor
73
chord seemingly
never absent from the music of these earlier Persian bards
— the note perhaps of an Unsuri a
mood
grown
older, writing in
Hamlet
of true poetic despondency.
soliloquizing
over Yorick's skull would have sympathized. IN
A REFLECTIVE MOOD
Alas, that from this bright world
Beneath a
we must
go,
pit of clay, turned all to dust
Body uncleansed from
earthly sin to
show
Before a God, All-pure, Perfect, and Just
That a mind, like tire's flash or water's flow, Should with the dust and wind find measure just
The second above-mentioned among the
* !
chief minstrel
group at Mahmud's court, and associated with Firdausi,
was
Farrukhi.
Thouerh ^
rankine; °
Unsuri in position at the court
below
circle,
he
is
Farrukhi, d.
1037 or
regarded by modern judges as his superior in literary
Farrukhi was a native of Sistan,
merit.
province which
still
forms a part of the border between
Persia and Southwestern Afghanistan.
that his personal appearance
and
his dress
uncouth
heavy turban as a
*
the
— we
Tradition has
it
was most unprepossessing can
still
see in
Sagzi,' or native of Sistan,
fancy his
— but we
are told that his native talents, his cleverness in poetic
composition, especially in impro\dsation, and his skill in
playing the lute (chang), were such that early in
life
he
obtained a position at the baronial hall of one of the great 1
Text, Mustaufi-iKazvini, Ta'ri/cA-i
Guzidah,
ed.
Series., 14. 1),
Browne p.
823,
(Gibb
Mem.
London, 1910
;
tr.
(=
Browne, in JRAS. 1900, p. 761 reprint, p. 41). Rliyme in the
original, b df.
THE ROUND TABLE OF
74
M AH MUD
GHAZNAH
OF
who gave him a
landed proprietors of his native place,
This salary was increased by the lord
yearly emolument.
manor when Farrukhi married, but
of the
the
insufficient, as
it
proved
still
So Farrukhi joined a
story goes.^
caravan that was starting from Sistan, taking with him
few
any
if
effects,
but furnished (as he himself says in a
verse) *
With
material spun in
And woven
my
in
my
brain
soul,'
and journeyed to the princely domain of one of Mahmud's vassals,
Amir Abu
'1-Muzaffar, lord of a district in Trans-
oxiana, whose reputation for munificence to poets
was
far-famed.
The
vassal Amir,
as well as to be
who happened
an appreciative
away from
listener to minstrelsy,
'
18,000
'
of
mares and
his
By
were being branded that spring.
chanced
engaged at
his princely residence, being
the branding-ground, where colts
to be a lover of horses
a happy
cir-
cumstance, however, a certain steward in high position at the palace, to talents
whom
Farrukhi applied, was a
and could himself
He
indite verses.
man
of
at once rec-
ognized Farrukhi's merits in the encomium-poem which the minstrel brought with him, as composed for presenta-; tion to the
Amir
was engaged
;
and
after telling
him that
in the round-up of colts,
the prince
which were being
lassoed for branding, suggested that a special
poem
suit-
able for the occasion should be prepared. 1
will
The whole account be found
Chahdr Makdla
in
of
Farrukhi
Nizami-i
Aruzi's
Mirza
Muham-
(ed.
mad, in Gibb Mem. Series, 11. 36-40); tr. Browne, in JRAS. 1899, pp. 764772
(=
reprint, pp. 58-66).
FARRUKIII IX QUEST OF A PATRON It
probably unparalleled
is
in
the
75
history of poetry
that the subject of branding steeds should be used as a poetic
theme but Pegasus was ;
there, as the sequel proved.
Overnight, Farrukhi improvised the verses which late
I trans-
below, and the friendly steward was amazed
mornmg upon
hearing them.
The vivid
next
description
of
the springtide, the graphic scene of the plain, dotted with tents in
which at evening convivial intercourse was held,
the lively picture of the scampering colts trying to escape the Amir's lasso, and fires
the
lurid
the branding
flare of
which blazed throughout the night,
all
revealed
Farrukhi's genius for portraying a situation.
Forthwith mounting the poet on a steed, the steward rode out with
him
to the branding-ground
him that same evening
When
and conducted
into the princely presence.
the wine had gone round, Farrukhi rose
modestly recited at
first
and
Amir
the brief panegyric on the
which he had previously prepared, and which began with the couplet describing
caravan to his court. of a poet,
and
showed pleasure
see.'
to the
The
;
but the steward added,
flagons were filled again,
accompaniment of the
so well to tune, in
how he had come from Sistan by The Amir, who was also something
lute,
and amid rapt
ing-ground
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
full of
graphic color
Wait
and Farrukhi,
whose strings he knew attention, broke forth
song with his newly improvised poem on '
'
'
the Brand-
:
THE BRANDING-GROUND Whilst the meadow hides
And
its
visage in a veil of emerald green,
the hill-tops wrap their foreheads in a fold of seven-hued sheen,
'
;
THE ROUND TABLE OF MAHMUD OF GHAZNAH
76
The fragrant
And It
earth, like inusk-deer,
an aroma boundless bears,
the willow, like the parrot's plume, a countless foliage wears.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; yester-midnight â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that
was yestern
the zephyr's breeze did
bring
A
vernal scent
Stored in
i'
the northern blast.
its sleeve,
the wind,
Whilst the garden, in
its
it
Hail to thee, breath of Spring
seems, fine powdered
musk
I
enfolds,
bosom, shining buds like puppets holds.
The
narcissus a bright necklace, set with shining gems, has on.
And
the red syringa wears in
its
ear rubies from Badakhshan.
Yes, the branches of the rose-bush, too, have donned a wine-hued
gown.
And
five-fingered leaves, like
down
human
hands, from the sycamore hang
;
While the garden's changing boughs and sprays match the chameleon's hue.
And
the pool from pearl
its
lustre takes, as the clouds drop pearls
of dew.
Robes of honor, you might fancy, So
full of color
And
the Royal
all
had won by
special grace,
the garden-mead of the Royal Branding-place
Ground
for
Branding
is
so joyous
and
elate
That our age stands now bewildered by its brilliancy's estate. And amidst the verdure's green on green, like stars within the Tent after tent, like fort on fort, you everywhere descry.
The greensward echoes constant
And
brave
*
Wassails
'
sky,
to the lute of minstrels fine.
in the tents resound, as the pages pour the
wine.
In every tent
On
is
a lover, close wrapt in his sweetheart's arms.
every grassplot
There are
is
a friend, to enjoy true friendship's charms.
kisses, love's embraces,
though coy damsels frown the while.
Or the song and dance of minstrels to deep sleep the maids At the door of the pavilion tent of Prince All-fortunate
beguile.
*
A branding-fire Its
is
blazing like the sun, without abate
gleaming flames like lances dart,
all girt
;
with gold brocade.
Hotter than a young man's passion, yellower than gold assayed.
Like branching corals the branding-irons take on a ruby glow,
And
the prong of each, 'midst the fiery heat, a pomegranate's grain
doth show.
!
A POEM ON THE BRANDIXG-GROUND Slaves that ne'er
know need
77
of sleeping, rank on rank all ready
stand,
Whilst the unmarked
colts,
aligned in rows, await the glowing
brand.
On
his gallant steed,
*
Stream-forder,' meanwhile rides the Prince
afar
Across the plain, lasso in hand, like young Isfandiar.
how
See,
Yet
its
the lariat curleth, as the locks of
hold
firm, like to the
is
This Just King,
some loved youth
bonds between old friends, in sooth
Bu '1-Muzaffar,
is
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
attended by his band.
He, the Prince and Lion-hunter, that holds
cities in his
In his puissant grasp the lasso
a serpent's fold,
coils like to
hand.
E'en as the rod turned to a snake in Moses' hand of old.
What steed soe'er by the noose's loop is caught in its circling swing On the forehead, flank, and shoulder bears the brand-mark of the King. Yet, whilst giving brands on one side, he grants likewise rich bequests.
His poets dowering with bridles, with caparisons his guests.*
The Amir was delighted with the poem.
His wit was
quick, as the outcome shows, to catch the point in the closing verse regarding a bridled
and caparisoned steed
as a reward for a poet who came as a guest to the brand-
His admiration was no doubt shared by the
ing-ground.^
courtier-throng with plaudits, or with a
and a
*
'
bravo
'
(ahsant)
wassail' {nush) as the goblets were replenished
once more, while the Amir, not lacking in a sense of
humor, called Farrukhi
him go out and catch up
colts as iText,
*
a cunning
own
for his
rascal,'
as
Daulatshah,
pp.
55-57;
Muhammad,
in Gibb
Browne,
JRAS.
'
bridles,'
1899, pp.767-769(=reprint, pp. 61-63).
'
headstalls
11.
37-39
many
of the round-
he could.
Aruzi, ed. MIrza
Mem.
and then bade
;
tr.
in
^It seems certain that the veiled allusion, in the closing lines, to
and fasdr, '), is
'
lagdm,
caparisons
'
(lit.
so to be interpreted.
;
MAH MUD
THE ROUND TABLE OF
78
Inspired by such a noteworthy
and
fired
by the
OF
mark
GHAZNAH
of princely favor,
taste of the court wine,
Farrukhi dashed
forth, as the narrative continues,
unwinding and waving
his long turban in order to catch
some
of the horses, yet,
for a considerable time, all in vain, wine-befogged as his
But
brain was. of the
at last he succeeded in driving forty-two
unbroken
colts
the
into
enclosure
of
a ruined
caravanserai, where they sought refuge from the chase
and then he lay down
to
sleep
off
the effects of
his
exertion and his over-copious drafts.
Next morning
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the account goes on â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Amir, after
having heard the story, summoned Farrukhi into his presence, gave him, besides the wild colts, a charger of state
with bridle and caparison, and bestowed upon him
a lordly tent, camels, slaves, Persian carpets, and a robe of honor to boot.
Farrukhi prospered in the Amir's there fortune soon led royal
palace
of
him
Mahmud
service,
and from
to his longed-for goal, the
Ghaznah, where he was
at
treated with so high favor that 'twenty servants, belted
with
silver
girdles,
rode
career he seems, like so
Mahmud' s good
of
court,
in
his
many
graces,
train.'
others, to
Later in his
^
have
fallen out
and was banished from the
though he survived that monarch and died in the
year 1037 or 1038 a.d.' 1
So Aruzi, Chahdr Makdla, above cf. also Browne,
f erred to
;
re-
Cf. Eth^, in
Grundr.
2.
224.
it
on his
The
he lamented in verse, translated in ElUot and Dowson, Hist, of India, 4. 189-190 cf. also Pizzi, Storia, 1. 140.
Khvandamir says that Farrukhi amassed great wealth at Mahhistorian
of
way to Samarkand,
Hist. 2. 128. 2
mud's court but was robbed
Lit.
;
a misfortune which
;
ASJADI ASSOCIATED WITH FIRDAUSI
The
poetical
Dlvan,^
works of Farrukhi were collected into a
and
extant,
still
79
his
verses
show, beside the
panegyric vein, a genuine power of description and a fine lyrical sense
have lived
but his fame as a poet would not perhaps
;
if
had not been for
it
with
his association
Firdausi.
The
named
third of the trio,
in the
same connection
with the coterie of four hundred court-bards, was Asjadi. Possibly his
survived
name would
when
in
putting
to
(pp. 87-89).
has been preserved from Asjadi's pen
and regarding
his life
was a native
of
probably the
)
Mah-
the latter was seeking admission to
Httle, alas,
a»
famous rhyming-test
the
mud's court, as told in the next chapter
Too
Asjadi ^^- ^°^5
he had not shared with Unsuri
if
and Farrukhi Firdausi
likewise not have
is
it
open to question whether he
Herat, Bukhara, or of Merv, though It
latter.^
may
be also a matter of debate
whether he really was a pupil of Unsuri.^
All the court
poets called themselves disciples
Laureate.^
Divan
of Asjadi
of
that
was not current even
in Daulatshah's
time, the fifteenth century, although verses
quoted in poetic collections.^ See Daulatshah, p. 57, 1. 13 and in Grundr. 2. 225 n. Browne, Observe that FarLit. Hist. 2. 124. rukhi is cited some ninety times in 1
cf.
;
EtM,
;
Asadi's Lughat-i Furs (ed. Horn), esp.
fols.
stanzas cited
;
he seems rather
Aufi, 2. 50, says Merv. Cf. furthermore
Ethg, in Grundr. 123.
2.
224
;
Daulatshah,
•
Cf Daulatshah,
^
Cf. Daulatshah, p. 47.
48
Mem.
r,
54,
Kals, al-Mu'jam
10), pp. 95,
325;
cf.
Daulatshah,
p. 17,
says Bukhara;
2.
1040 a.d. (=a.h. 432), according to Horn, Asadi's Lughat-i Furs, p. 24. '
r,
Browne,
Asjadi's death occurred about
for brief
17
likewise citations, pp. 197, 339, 438. 2
style
by him were
there are also two stanzas
by Shams ibn
(in Gibh
cf.
In
A
.
p. 47.
p. 44,
1.
23.
Also for
some of hLs fragments see Aufi, 2. 5053, and note that Asjadi is quoted more than fifty times in Asadi's
:
;
:
THE ROUND TABLE OF MAHMUD OF GHAZNAH
80
have
to
indulged It
effects.
in
artificial
was regarded
and rhetorical
devices
in Persian poetry, for example,
as a beauty and not as a defect to repeat the
two or three
or radical verses
Asjadi does this in four
times.
which are not easy
same word
to render
THE WEEPING LOVER Tear-drops, a-dripping, from
my
eyes I shed,
Like the cloud, or like the murmuring, murmuring stream
These drops the dripping rain have far outsped.
These murmurs
like
my
sad heart's murmurings seem.^
In a somewhat fanciful manner he says that, for weal or woe, he has
bums with
become a Zoroastrian, because
love like the flame of a fire-temple, and his
bloodshot eyes stream like a wine press
may
it
his heart
be noted, had no
scruples
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Magians,
about
making or
drinking wine.^
Among
be cited in this connection a quatrain which Asjadi's having
of
was
may
the stray bits of Asjadi's song, however,
red, but as
tells
looked upon the wine cup
the tale
when
it
having repented ASJADI THE PENITENT
Of wine and praise of wine I do repent. Of lovely maids, fair chins with silver blent. Lip-penitence Heart lusting still for sin !
God, such penitence thou dost resent Lughatri Furs
(cf . ed.
among them a couple quatrain form 1
For text
(cf. fols.
see
of r,
!
stanzas in
the original the repetition (five times each) of katrah, drop,' and khlrah,
33).
'idle
Horn, 8
!
^
p. 24),
Shams ad-Din Mu-
hammad ibn Kais ar-Razi, al-Mu'jam fiMa'dylriAsh^dri 'i-'JJam (ed. Mirza Muhammad, in Gibb Mem. Series 10), Observe in p. 316, London, 1909.
'
murmuring'
;
and consult
Horn, Gesch. Pers. LitL, p. 2 cf Horn, op. cit. p. 80 .
;
above, pp. 34, 39, 52 n. 1, 62. ' Text, Daulatshah, p. 47
Browne,
2. 123.
also
64.
;
and see cf.
also
STANZAS BY ASJADI As
this quatrain
was
been sighs and there
throng of courtiers lips,
ever,
there
was
courtiers,
;
recited
in
and pages
been whispers among the a madrigal
salvos.
Asjadi's voice
;
may have
by Asjadi, there
may have yet when
must have been
81
No
fell
from
his
tone heroic, how-
and the king, grandees,
alike, stood listening
till
a Firdausi
should arise and sing in strains of rhapsody an epic for all time.
CHAPTER
VIII
AND THE GREAT PERSIAN
FIRDAUSI,
(About 935-1025 '
EPIC
A. D.)
Shapes of epic grandeur are stationed around me.' Keats, Letters.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
The the
trumpet's blare resounds, the din of battle
fills
and the verse rings with the valorous deeds of
au*,
heroes and the proud triumphs of long lines
Persia's
Great Epic
Epic poetry has come into
of ancient kings.
being through the clarion voice of Fkdausi to give expression to the inherited pride of the nation in her glory
before
the Arab
recalls
to
the
Conquest.
memory
pristine fame, the
If
is
it
epic
poetry that
a folk the greatness of
of
Shah-namah does
this
its
for Persia as
enters
poem paramount, and Firdausi's masterpiece at the same moment into the list of the great
heroic
poems
its
epic
As already
of the world.
noted, the Arab Conquest
the
Norman Conquest
the
national feeling, but
battle of
much
of
Nahavand meant
England, it
did
of
Persia, like
may have weakened
not destroy
it.^
The
to Iran, in the realm of letters,
the same thing as the battle of Hastings meant to
Britain.
In each case there was born a poet-genius of 1
See above, pp. 12-15.
82
AN EXPRESSION OF NATIONAL FEELING
83
world-wide fame three centuries after the clash of arms
had ceased, though
it
must be emphasized that
Firdausi's
epic talents lay in a realm quite different from Chaucer's story-telling gifts.
A
closer parallel in the
and yet one vastly rhapsodist, Firdausi's icle
of
might
domain
advantage of the Persian
the
to
epic composition,
of
drawn between
easily be
Shah-namah and the rhymed chron-
Layamon's Brut, which recorded
Parallel
in
measured verse the History of the Early Kings of Britain. In both instances the poet-annalist harked back to themes in a national past otherwise long forgotten alike,
though separated from each other
made use
space and time,
ancient days; the
soul
of material
;
both bards
in the
realm of
handed down from
and in each case there was something of the poet commingled with the spirit
of
of
The comparison, however,
the historian and chronicler.
between the sixteen thousand double verses of the Brut,
uncouth in form, and the sixty thousand couplets of the
Shah-namah, polished to the
finest finish,
be overdrawn; nevertheless there would to add that
if
the British bard
from the vocabulary
of
was chary
might still
easily
be room
in using
words
the Norman-French conquerors,
the Persian rhapsodist was equally careful in avoiding, as far as possible, linguistic borrowings
of *
the Arab
victors.
from the speech
Firdausi might justly be called
a well of Persian undefiled.'
1 Yet on this entire question of employing Arabic words compare
Noldeke, Bos iranische Nationalepos,
^
in
Grundr.
Browne,
2. 149 n. 4, p.
150
Lit. Hist. 2. 145-146.
;
and
AND THE GREAT PERSIAN EPIC
FIRDAUSI,
84
As has been sents
cresting
the
Homer
of
Iran repre-
wave
of
patriotism.
the national
of
He was
Dakiki as Forerunner
the successor of
the gifted Dakiki,
^^^^ youthful herald whose tragic death
at the very fruits
first
seen already, this
moment when he was about of the
victory
epic
came
to proclaim the
whose triumph
in
he
himself was not to share.
The nation had been waiting was
ripe, the
path was
935 ^
member
Iranian stock and a
proprietors in Khurasan,
epic bard
;
the time
Northeastern Persia, about
in
(possibly five
j^
an
Firdausi seized the chance.
clear.
Born at Tus,
Inspiration for Firdausi
for
of the
whom
years earlier) of old
Dihkan
the
landed
class of
Arab Conquest had
not effectually displaced, and in whose families were preserved the oldtime legends and historic traditions of Iran,
Firdausi possessed an inherited aptitude for the theme.
His poetic talents and his enthusiastic zeal for the task qualified
him
alike.
Antiquarian sufficient
materials,
moreover, were
available
in
measure for the genius that could recognize their
national worth.
Chronicle-histories
of
Persian
Sources for ^^^
Media and Persia had been kept from the earliest times,
if
we may judge from
state-
ments in the Greek writers Herodotus, Ktesias, and Agathias, the
Armenian Moses
biblical authority of the
Book
Khorene, and from the
of
of Esther.^
that these annals were continued 1
Cf.
Herodotus,
Ktesias, Frag.
p.
Diodorus Siculus,
1.
98 2.
1-5, (ed.
22. 5
;
down
;
2.
27
;
67
;
Agathias,
to the time of the
Moses of Khorene, 2. 4. 30 and Esther, 6. 1 10. 2 see also Xenophon, Cyrop. 1. 2. 1.
214
Gilmore)
95,
seems clear
It
;
;
;
;
'
OTHER SnCRCES FOR THE EPIC later
Sasanian monarchs and must have been accessible
any court antiquarian.
to
85
Tradition makes
certain
it
that a collection from this storehouse, to which the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle
is
only a remote parallel, was made in
the form of a prose-epic, the Khvatai-namak, or
somewhere about 640
Sovereigns,'
III, the last of the
a.d.
Sasanian Kings.
Book
*
of
under Yazdagard
This epic thesaurus
was gathered together by one Danishvar, a member the dihJidn class of landed gentry,
it
interested in
Traces of the work have
the past records of his country.
been preserved, and
who was
of
must have been known
in the
tenth century, Dakiki's time, and surely served Firdausi,
however directly or
indu-ectly, as a source for his
famous
Shah-namah.
own ambition were
Dakiki's death and Firdausi' s
sparks that kindled the epic
We
can imagine *
fire
in
the Bard
quickened pulse-beat ^ ^
the
with which Firdausi saw in a dream
'
that
of
the Tus.
Firdausi'3
Dream
of
youth, Dakiki, of fair speech and of brilliant mind,' as he calls him, in a vision
when
his
and gave him the
dead predecessor appeared
inspiration that led
seek for a copy of that ancient chronicle-book.
own words
best tell the tale of
in its spectral apparition.,
here somewhat freely
meant
what the
him
Firdausi's
poet's shade,
to him, so I versify
them
:
My heart
was fired, as from his sight it turned Towards the world's Sovereign Throne, and inly yearned, May I lay hand upon that book some day
'
And
tell,
in
my own
words, that ancient lay
to
!
;
FIRDAUSI,
86
'
AND THE GREAT PERSIAN EPIC whom
Countless the persons
As
—
;
I
sought for aid,
I of fleeting time was sore afraid
Lest I in turn not long enough should
But
to another's
Nay more
—
hand the task must
lest that
my
live,
give.
means should
ne'er suffice,
For such a work there was no buyer's price
The age forsooth was
filled
A
was
straitened world
Some time Yet
my
of
it
in that condition did I live,
secret not a
Finding no person who
Nor
me with
act for
By
with wars of greed,
for those in need.
word did
my
give.
aims would share,
friendly patron care.
hap, a friend beloved at Tus I had
Thou would'st have said Two souls To me he spake, Good is thy whole '
'
Thy
foot toward fortune
now
That book, which written I'll
get for thee
Thine
To
is
tell
;
is
is
.
.
.
;
in one skin clad
!
project,
turned direct
in Pahlavi,
but slack thou must not be
the gift of speech, and youth
the tale of champions' deeds
is
— in
Do thou the Kingly Book anew relate And seek through it renown among the
;
thine fine,
great.'
When he at last that book before me laid He made ablaze with light my soul of shade
^ !
Without doubt, Firdausi had actually made long and conscientious preparation for his special task of rehabilitatFirdausi's Qualifications
i^g ^^^ national epos of his people, equipping i^ijjiself
by researches into the Pahlavi, or
Middle Persian, sources from which he could draw material
That he had a scholarly
for his long chronicle-poem. 1
Cf. Vullers, 1. 9
Mohl,
same
;
Pizzi,
1.112;
12; Warner, 1. 109. In the connection see furthermore
1.
Vullers-Landauer, 4.
287;
76-77.
Warner,
3. 5.
cf. tr. Mohl, 30-31; Pizzi, 5.
1495;
FlRDAUSrS YEARS OF PREPARATION
87
acquaintance with Arabic, despite his natural avoidance of that idiom in a Persian epic,
shown by
is
emplo}Tiient of occasional Arabic words
when they
could
Regarding his masterly con-
not absolutely be avoided. trol of Persian as
his accurate
comment need
a poet, no
the dignity of his style throughout
is
be
made
;
and
harmonious with
his heroic theme.
From
may
infer that Firdausi
was approximately
(about the year 974 a.d.) real
Shah-namah
incidental allusions in the
when he made
forty years old
the
was married and that he had had two children son,
whose death he mourned
other a daughter,
who
Career
that he
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the one a
in touching strains; the
survived him. For nearly twenty-five
home
years Firdausi appears to have labored at his
upon the cherished theme
of his
was doubtless then the cause the court of
Earlier
From poem we know
beginning of his monumental work.
other personal references in the
we
itself
Mahmud
of
in
Tus
His growing fame
life.
of his seeking preferment at
Ghaznah, where he found a
sovereign-patron that shed munificent favor so great at
the outset as to win from the poet a fervid eulogy of praise only to be later revoked.
form
still
The poem
commemorates the glory
of
in its final
Mahmud's name,
but the scathing satire from the pen of the bard,
dis-
abused of his hopes, as mentioned below, remains a lasting
stigma on the ruler's fame.^
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and the story old general setting â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that Firdausi
Tradition narrates true in its 1
See Jackson,
is
and probably
first
From
Constantinople to the
Home
of
approached
Omar Khayyam,
p. 281.
:
FIRDAUSI,
88
AND THE GREAT PERSIAN EPIC
Mahmud's Round Table
moment when
of court poets at a
The same
they were engaged in poetic composition. T
.
X
.•
X
Introduction at
Mahmud's
names
tradition ° sives the
minstrels
as
Unsuri, Asjadi, and Farrukhi.
may have
It
of the three chief
been natural for them not to
wish to admit an outsider into their favored all events,
their
At
circle.
the anecdote recounts that, to put to shame
unwelcome
intruder, they bade
him stand
the test of
matching one of the hardest rhymes in Persian poetry.
The words were
ruslian,
and jushan, ^ cuirass
'
month, and
twelfth,
'
bright,' gulshan,
— rhymes
as hard to
in
silver
'
rose-garden,'
mate as window,
English.
Firdausi,
they
thought, would not be able to complete the fourth line
with any rhyme at liness of *
all.
So Unsuri, in praise of the love-
a fair maiden, began
Thy
visage the light of the
Farrukhi matched this with '
No
moon doth
surpass.'
—
rose in the garth hath thy cheek's bloom, sweet lass.'
Asjadi continued by another puzzling catchword, '
Thine eyelashes pierce like a lance through
Firdausi instantly caught up the *
The
As
Giv's spear in combat did
rhyme
Pushan
cuirass.'
—
harass.'
*
readiness of the response and the interesting his-
torical allusion to Giv,
which was unknown
to the coterie,
together with Firdausi's quickness as he proceeded in perfect verse to tell the story of the eventful battle
the two heroes, Pushan and Giv, 1
For references in
detail see Jackson,
whom
From
between
he had thus men-
Constantinople, 't^^. 281-282, n.
2.
AT THE COURT OF
FIRDAl'SI tioned, immediately
won
and impressed by
Firdausi's poetic grace,
personality,
his
89
applause and generous admira-
Charmed by
tion fi-om the three.
M AH MUD
and learning,
gifts,
Unsm-i, Farrukhi, and Asjadi recognized him unhesitatingly as their compeer, or as their superior, and proceeded
advance him in every
to
If the story
way
in favor with the Sultan,
be true, such an example of disinterested-
ness would not be easy to parallel in the East nor could
be readily matched in the West.
it
Unfortunately this
story, although written in very choice Persian,
often regarded as mere fiction. detail should be emphasized)
it
now
is
Nevertheless (and this
conveys some idea of the
general estimation in which Firdausi's genius was held at least
by
Among other Mahmud had praised
tradition.^
one that
is
current tales, moreover, the newly-arrived bard
from Tus by saying that he had, through the Court into a
assumed
*
Paradise'
(Firdaiis),
this appellation as his poetic
his verses, turned
whence Firdausi
name
;
but other ex-
planations are possible.^ It
is
laureate court,
pieces
known
well
title,
that this poet,
lived long
more than worthy
in the sunshine of
who promised him a thousand for
each thousand lines
composition.
Sultan
Mahmud's
of
his
of a
Mahmud's
gold The
Years at
epic
^^""^
liberality
called
forth
from Firdausi the splendid panegyric, already mentioned, 1 See my article on Firdausi in Warner, The World's Best Literature, 10. 5735-5739, New York, 1917, and
ideas in the present chapter.
From Constantinople, pp. 281-282. From both of these works I have re-
2 gee Khvandamir, tr. Elliot and Dowson, History of India, i. 191 a.nd cf Browne, Lit. Hist. 2. 138, n. 3, 139 in which connection see footnote in my
peated in part some
From
also
paragraphs or
;
.
;
Constantinople, p. 284, n.
2.
FIRDAUSI,
90
AND THE GREAT PERSIAN EPIC
that was only to be eclipsed, years later, by the sav-
and scathing
ageness
which
the
poet
in
old
age poured out against his niggard patron when
dis-
satire,
appointed of the promised reward that was to crown his work.
Tradition recounts that Firdausi was a septuagenarian
when
the last line
of
the
60,000 couplets that
make
up the Shah-namah was completed, and the T^oysil
pieted; dis-
appointed
reward for his
life's
labor became due.
g^^ jealousy and intrigue against him had not been idle during his long residence at
Mahmud was
Instead of the promised gold,
court.
duced to send him 60,000 dirhams in is
said to
silver.
Firdausi
have been in the bath when the elephant
On
with the money-bags arrived. ception the
injured
in-
laden.
discovering the
de-
poet rejected the gift with scorn,
divided the silver into three portions, presenting one of
them
to the bath-steward, another to the elephant-driver,
while he
bestowed the
brought him a glass of the
venom
last
upon an attendant who
He
cordial.
famous
of his spleen in the
as immortal as the epic
itself,
born origin up to eternal
then gave vent to satire,
which
is
holding Mahmud's slave-
scorn.
The angry monarch
ordered that the poet should be crushed to death beneath the foot of his life
by
in poverty
an elephant, but Firdausi managed to save
fleeing
and
from the
city,
only to become an exile
dire distress.
For ten years the aged singer was a wanderer, though he ultimately found, in Tabaristan, a princely patron,
!Ji*^»Ji'*'t'i!A^
Tin; IJkux.k
(»\i:ii
the Ka.shaf IIivku at Tcs
(From a photograph by the author)
w
-
•'"?^'
Ruined Walls of Tus at the Site of the Former Rudkar
Gate (From a photograph by [
Til
face page
i)U]
the author)
FIRDAVSrS DISAPPOINTMENT AND DEATH
who sought
to
him with the unappreciative
reconcile
Owing
lord of Ghaznah.
91
to this prince's favor,
it is
said,
he was induced to expunge the biting lines written in
Malimud, though they
derision of
many
on as a stigma in
Shah-namah
To
his
fame
on
*
pirdausi in
^'^^*
of that despotic,
new benefactor
though
at the Tabaristan
court, Firdausi dedicated the long romantic in his old age,
live
manuscripts of the
to tarnish the
great, ruler.
still
poem, composed
Yusuf and Zulaikha,' or the love of
Potiphar's wife for Joseph
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; an acknowledged masterpiece
in the realm of versified romance. last days, for
he was now advanced to
his ninetieth year, the longing
seems to have come upon
In the bard's
him
to return to his old
home
there he died of a broken heart,
at Tus, it is
and
said,
on
The Bards ^*^^ ^^^^
hearing a child in the market-place repeating verses from his terrible satire.
An
old-time tradition relates that
Mahmud had mean-
while relented of his anger, and had despatched to the city of
to
Tus a magnificent caravan, bearing
the aged
poet gifts fully equivalent to
Mahmud Relents
the gold pieces of which he had been disappointed, and
bestowing upon him a robe of fame.
But
all
too late.
The
honor worthy of his
treasiu-e-laden camel train,
having crossed the Kashaf River at Tus, entered the city gate just as the funeral procession was conducting the
dead poet's body to the grave.
was about the year 1025
The date
a.d., or,
reckoning, the year 1020 a.d.
;
and
of
his
death
according to another his
body was interred
;
AND THE GREAT PERSIAN EPIC
FIRDAUSI,
92
though the
at Tus,
can no longer be Fame his
precise spot
which was
his burial place
identified.^
Though nearly a thousand years have passed since Firdausi's death, his name still lives
His Lasting
and
;
fame
Firdausi himself, even in the de
will last.
profundis moments of darkest despondency, rises to the heights of exultation in a personal passage in the great epic
when he exclaims
in a vaunt, proud as the boast of
Horace,
From poesy I've raised a tower high, Which neither wind nor rain can ever harm Over
this
And he
work the years shall come and go, that wisdom hath shall learn its charm
and again, with assurance the famous
poem with I shall live
Sown 1
See
Jackson,
nople to the
Rome
of
the verse
on
;
closes
:
the seeds of words have I
broadcast, and I shall not wholly die.^
From ConstantiOmar KJiayyam,
of pp. 284-285, 290-292.
undying renown, he
2
gee
Jackson,
nople, p. 293.
From
Constanti-
CHAPTER IX THE SHAH-NAMAH SOME SELECTIONS TRANSLATED '
The briefest
As
story of
full of
valour as of royal blood.'
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; SiiAKEsrEARE,
the
Bichatd the Second,
5. 5.
112.
Shah-namah may be described
in
terms as the chronicle history of Iran from the
age of the mythical ruler Kaiumars, or Gayumart,
whom
down
to the death of the last Sasanian king,
tradition places about
3600
B.C.,
of the
the historic Yazdagard III, in 651 a.d., and the events
accompanying the
fall
Arab
of the empire through the
Conquest.
The argument,
if
we
so
may term
with a poetic picture of the
rise of
in legendary antiquity, followed
the reign of
Babylon
the Iranian empire
by the golden age during
King Jamshid, succeeded by a thousand
years of foreign of
of the epic begins
it,
rule under Zahak, typifying the
for centuries
over Iran,
yoke of Semitic tyranny could at
be thrown
the renowned Faridun of fabled fame.
Turan and Iran next strife
the
and bloody
poem
of the
tells,
fill
sway
that usurping
till
last
cruel
off
by
Wars between
the scene as the result of civil
fratricide until, in
Minucliihr's reign,
how
the love
Rudabah gave
birth to
in a long romantic episode,
valiant Zal for the fair 93
THE SHAH-NAMAH
94
Rustam, the great hero of the
herculean labors, and signal triumphs
exploits,
them
Rustam's martial
epic.
combat
being, alas, the tragic slaying in single
Suhrab, his
own
son,
whom
(one of of
he did not recognize) occupy
a large part of the poem.
The majesty
of the
Kaianian
king after king
rulers,
and event following event, forms the burden
of the epic
song in chronicle order down to the time when Alexander the
The sway
Great invaded Iran.
Arsacids, however,
dred years,
is
Parthian
the
followed with a rule of five hun-
crowded into a period of quarter that length
of time (owing to to a
who
of
an established
tradition),
minor section as compared with the
and reduced rest
of
the
poem.
Yet poesy and history join hand in hand, cant grasp, rule, or
when
in fairly signifi-
Firdausi reaches the era of the Sasanian
from about 226
650 a.d.
to
It
may
furthermore
be added that throughout his whole work Firdausi deals
with his subject as a poetic chronicler and not as a cold historian
;
but he has succeeded withal in giving a certain
unity of purpose to his long sight the
aim which he had
poem by keeping
in view,
ever in
which was to exalt
the fallen glory of Iran.
There are translations of the Shah-namah into English, French, Italian, and (incomplete) into German.
They
are
referred to in the Bibliography at the beginning of this
volume, the best English translation being that by Arthur G. and
Edmond Warner.
I
have nevertheless ventured to
add here some translations which I have made of several
SURVEY OF THE EPIC selections,
the
first
95
excerpt being rendered into rhyme,
with a rhythm modelled somewhat after the mutakarib
;
the other three are in blank verse, which latter form I
have chosen also for the famous episode of Suhrab and
Rustam.
;
;
;
THE SHAH-NAM AH
96
KING JAMSHID OF THE GOLDEN AGE who was a
(This monarch,
pioneer in civilization,
is
supposed to have Uved
about 3000 b.c, and legend assigns to him a fabulous reign of seven hundred years.
sent
made
In translating the present selection an attempt has been
somewhat the rhythm and the rhyme
Then Jamshid,
to repre-
of the original Persian. )i
the scion of glorious line,
"With girt loins and full of his father's design, Ascended the radiant throne in his stead. In the manner of kings, a gold crown on his head. With glory majestic his form was bedight, The world, end to end, then conceded his right
The times ceased from tumult throughout
the whole land,
command
E'en Demons, Birds, Peris, obeyed his
!
Prosperity waxed in the world through his lead,
And
the throne of the kings became glorious indeed.
Quoth he, The office The hand
'
am
I
of
graced with the Glory Divine,
king and of priest
of the
wicked
I'll
Their souls toward the light
To
And
the
Through
And
making
skill of his
steel into
As mail and By the light For
He
combine
cut short from sin. it is I
weapons he
that shall win.
first
turned his hand,
portals, as heroes
demand.
majesty, iron he melted
helm, plate, and corselet he smelted.
cuirass or as trappings for steeds of his genius he 'complished these deeds.
years in this
fifty full
And
of
opened Fame's
I
manner he wrought,
treasures of that kind together he brought.
next worked on vestments,
That the Of linen,
folk
full fifty years
might have robes for the
silk, hair,
and
of soft floss he
more.
feast as for war.
made
Rich raiment, and also of fur and brocade. 1
Text, Vullers,
1.
23-26 1.
;
cf. tr.
137-141;
Mohl, 1. 33-37 Warner, cf. Rogers, p. 16 f. ;
1.
131-134
;
Pizzi,
;
;
;;
;;
KING JAMSHID AND THE GULDEN AGE Tlie people he taiip^ht botli to spin
And And when
and
to
97
weave,
beam to reeve wash and to sew
woof within warp on the loom's
To
it
was woven to him in detail did he show.
learn this from
A new plan he made when all this he had done So glad was the time and such joy he had won. A gathering from every profession he drew, And
spent in this
The
class of the Priests,
Who
way
a half cycle anew.
who
are worshipers deemed,
He now
set apart
from the
as clerics are
by a right
of
—
known their own
—
rest of the throng,
Assigned them the hill-tops for worship in song
Devotion and praise
Enwrapt
To
it is
theirs to combine,
in the glorious Presence Divine.
the next of the classes he then turned aside,
The Warrior Caste's name to them is applied. Whenever these lion-knights join in the fight. The army and realm gain in glorious light
To them
And The
it is
owing the king holds
the valorous
name
his throne,
of the country is
third class as Tillers of soil
known.
you may know
Obligation to no one they anywhere owe.
They
plant and they
and the harvest they rear no censure they hear. They brook no command, though in rags they be dressed. Nor by sound of complaint is their ear e'er distressed
And when men
till,
eat their products,
—
Exempt through their tilling the face of the ground. Exempt from all censure and talk that goes round. Dost know the quaint saw that the wise spokesman gave ? 'Tis idleness maketh the free man a slave.'
*
To
the fourth class the Artisan
Their hands they
all use,
and
name
is
their skill
applied is
;
their pride.
; ;
;
THE SHAH-NAM AH
98
And what
though a trade their
sole calling
Their heart from concern never wholly
may
be,
is free.
way another half century he spent, And benefits many to mankind thus lent. His own proper place through him each man attained To each one he showed how the path could be gained, So that each one his own fitting station might see And should know more or less what behooved his degree. In this
;
He ordered the Div-fiends To mix up with water the
of uncleanly birth
clay of the earth.
Then the crude mass, as soon as to shape it they knew. With skill into light moulded brick-forms they threw. With mortar and stone the foundations they raised. By architect's science the work was appraised. Hot baths thus were builded and palaces high,
And
halls of retreat
where from danger
to fly.
The rocks he searched next for their jewels so bright, And many the number his search brought to light There were jewels of all kinds that came to his hold. Such
as rubies, carnelian, with silver
and gold.
All these from the stones he by magic art drew,
As
the key for each separate mystery he knew.
Next perfumes
Which
delicious 'twas his to invent,
pleasure for mortals impart
by
their scent
Like balsam and camphor and musk of the deer,
Like
aloes,
and amber, and rosewater
clear.
Then leechcraft and healing for every known pain, The way to 'scape ills and sound health to regain
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
These secrets from hiding he
No
searcher like
all
did unfold
him hath on earth
e'er
been
told.
;
KIS'G JAMSlllI)
Anon on
And
;
;
A\D THE GOLDEN AGE
99
the sea in a ship he did toss,
swift from one hind to another did cross.
In manner like Naught else by
that, tifty years did pass still
this
time he saw hid from his
skill.
And when, by himself, all these deeds he had done, No mortal he saw saving himself alone And since through his skill all such things did transpire. He planted his foot to ascend a step higher. Yea, a glorious throne, sovran-worthy, he made, Incrusted with gems and with jewels inlaid.
The Divs
at his bidding did raise
it
on high.
Aloft from the plain far up into the sky,
In mid-air
it
shone like the glistening sun.
The king gave his edicts when seated thereon. The whole world assembled his bright throne around
And
;
stood at his glorious lot in astound.
While jewels on Jamshid were scattered and thrown
;
The day ever since has as New Year's been known, The first of God's New Year, the month Farvadin, '
'
Each man freed from toiling, each heart from chagrin. The grandees in gladness a feast did array. They called for the wine cup and minstrels to play
And
hence doth that glorious fete ever stand
To keep up
the fame of that sovereign so grand.
;
;
THE SHAH-NAMAH
100
THE HOSTS OF IRAN AND TURAN ENGAGE BATTLE
IN
(The inveterate warfare which raged between Iran and Turan grew out of the fratricidal strife between the famous Faridun's three sons, Iraj, Tur, and Salm, among whom respectively he had divided the kingdoms of Persia, Turan,
and China. The youthful Iraj, lord of Iran, was treacherously murdered by his two brothers but his son, Prince Minuchihr, became the avenger and led the Iranian hosts to battle and victory over the Turanians. This was the beginning of the continuous series of conflicts between these two countries, which forms the burden of a large part of the Shah-namah. The opening engagement, when the avenging Minuchihr gives the signal for battle, and victory lights ;
upon the standards
of Iran, is thus described in heroic verse.)
When dawn
i
burst forth from out the eastern sky,
Rending apart the darkness
of the night,
Prince Minuchihr advanced out from the ranks,
and Ruman casque.
Wearing
his corselet, sword,
A shout,
with one accord, the army raised.
Their lances lifted upward toward the clouds,
Heads
full of
wrath, brows knit with vengeful frowns
They plowed the very face of earth amain. The king arrayed his troops, as fits a host, and center, and the army's flanks. The earth became like ship upon the main. Thou might'st have said it was about to sink. Left, right,
The sign he gave, on his huge elephant. Then 'gan the ground to heave like azure sea The drummers marched before the elephants With din and roar like lions in a rage, The clarions and the trumpets sounded loud As though a festival were taking place. Both hosts advanced
A battle-cry rang 1
Text, Vuller-s,
1.
like
mountains from their base,
out on either side
109, 112
;
cf.
tr.
220, 221; Pizzi,
Mohl, 1.
1.
;
143-144, 146
273-274, 278.
;
Warner,
1.
219-
l\\i;i!>i \'s
(From
(ri;ii:i-
at the
Murder OF
HIS
Son
Ika.i
the Cochran Collection of Persian Manuscripts in the Metropolitan
Maseum \_To face
page 100]
of Art,
New York)
IRAN AND TURAN IN COMBAT
101
The plain became as 'twere a sanguine sea, Thou 'dst said that blood-red tulips sprang from
earth.
In streams of gore the elephants stood, knee-deep,
Mounted as 'twere on coral pedestals The air was clogged with fog from the horsemen's ;
.
.
.
dust,
Like lightning flashed their gleaming swords of steel, Thou might'st have thought the sky was all ablaze,
So shone earth's surface diamond-like with tlame.
;
THE SHAH-NAMAH
102
THE HERO SAM SLAYS A DRAGON (The warrior Sam, ancestor of Rustam, is one of the heroes of the poem. his deeds of prowess was the slaying of a dragon which had devastated
Among
The description of this Geste is somewhat fantastic in its hyperbole, not without parallel in medieval Western romance or even in our oldest
the earth.
but
is
English epic, which
When
tells of
the fire-breathing dragon which Beowulf slew. )
i
out from Kashaf's stream the dragon came
Lashing,
it
the whole world like to foam
^ ;
seemed stretched on earth from town
Its length
Its bulk
made
from
hill to hill
seemed
to town,
in expanse.
All hearts with panic were aghast at
it.
Keeping watch day and night continuously. Even the sky became bereft of birds,
The face of earth entire deprived of beasts The very vulture's wings singed by its blast, The world ascorch did with its venom blaze. drew from out the stream And eagles swift of wing from out the sky The earth, of man and moving thing was reft, The whole world yielded to it room and space. Fierce crocodiles
it
;
saw no human being left, Able to dare with it in hand combat, I, trusting God, the World-protector pure, Cast from my inmost heart each spark of fear. My loins I girt in name of God Most High, Mounting my steed, whose size was mammoth-like.
Then when
I
Ox-headed mace upon my saddle-cross, Bow on mine arm, my hauberk on my neck. 1
Text, Vullers,
Mohl,
1.
243-246
297; Pizzi, 63.
1.
;
1.
194-196
Warner,
;
1.
of. tr.
296-
399-401; Atkinson,
p.
2
The
river
Kashaf flowed by the home.
city of Tus, Firdausi's
;
:
;
;
103
THE HERO SAM SLAYS A DRAGON Forward
like furious crocodile
1
rushed,
breath he with sharp tlaming I with keen grasp, farewell. me a last All they that saw, bade mace I drew. dragon-monster As Vainst the mountain huge. a 'twere as 1 rerched it, -saw was dragging on the earth ; Its coil-like hair
an ebon tree, swarthy tongue looked like barred the path. yawning, wide Its gnashing jaws, were eyeballs Two pools of blood its gleaming furious sprang it roared, and
Its
I
At It
sight of
seemed
me
to me,
O thou
that hearest this.
frame.
As though it fire bore within its beneath my The ground seethed like a sea in smoke Or floated like a sombre cloud
eyes
of earth, Aghast was, at its roar, the face China's sea. The world empoisoned was, like
shout.
Then lion-like, I raised a fearful heart. As it behooveth man of valiant bow my on set forthwith an arrow
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; â&#x20AC;&#x201D; point was diamond It was a shaft whose
And
And
jaws amain. tongue within that awful mouth.
shot the arrow
Pinning
its
down
its
tongue outside yet remained a part of its stroke. that Beyond the cloven jaws after
And
shaft, throat I launched a second with pain writhed creature Whereat the horrid
Into
its
Then shot a third into its maw baneful spleen. The dragon's life gushed from its for my rage, But earth had grown too narrow adown.
-
bull-headed mace the Universe) (With strength from God, Lord of towards it, apace Spurring my mammoth steed
In wrath I drew
my famed
;
THE SHAH-NAMAH
104
And
smote with bull-topped mace the dragon's head,
(Thou
'Idst
say the sky a mountain had poured
Like a
mad
elephant
Venom
its
streamed over
It ne'er recovered
The ground
down
skull I crushed,
all,
like the
more from
my
River Nile.
blow's force
;
huge brain, was churned
rose mountain-like with its
While Kashaf's stream
Then peace and
to bitter bile
rest once
more
to earth returned.
!)
:
''
;
;
COMBAT OF SUHRAB AND RUST AM
105
THE FATAL COMBAT OF SUHRAB AND RUSTAM in which the warrior Rustam unwitcombat, is one of the most famoas epLsodes in the Shah-namah. Parallels in the Old High German epic fragment of Hildebrand and Hadubrand or in the tragic story of CucuUin and Conloch, preserved in the reliques of Irish poetry, are not far to seek. Matthew Arnold, in
(The episode
tingly shiys his
of
Suhrab and Rustam,
own son
in single
English, has modelled his Sohrab and Rustum on the theme, with a free treatment but with poetic art sustained to the tragic close. Blank verse is here '
chosen for
my
'
rendering from the Persian.)
RUSTAM PREPARES FOR THE FRAY AGAINST THE HERO OF TURAnI
1.
Rustam made ready, donned
And
his tiger-mail
girt the royal girdle 'bout his waist.
Vaulting on Rakhsh, his steed, he took the road.
To Zawarah, guard of the throne and host. He said Advance no further step from here Hearken to me rather than to the chiefs :
'
;
I
His gonfalon they bore along with him
Thus marched he
forth, vengeful
and
full of
wrath.
When he saw Suhrab and his neck and arms, And brawny chest like that of warrior Sam, He said to him, Come, let's aside from here. '
Let's to a field of fight outside the lines!
Suhrab clasped hands with him and then withdrew
To
the place of fight far from the serried ranks,
Saying to Rustam,
At
the place apart
On!
'
till
We
!
we
arrive
are the heroes twain
Not one need we from Iran or Turan, Enough that thou and I together fight. Yet on the field there is no room for thee. Not one blow from my fist thou could'st withstand Âť
Text, VuUers,
Mohl,
2.
116-117;
1.
487-489
Warner,
;
2.
cf.
tr.
161-
162 174.
;
Pizzi, 2.
263-266; Rogers,
p.
169-
; ;
;;
!;
THE SHAH-NAM AH
106
Tall though thy stature, stout thy chest and neck,
They
are enfeebled with the weight of years.'
Rustam
Upon
cast glance
upon the champion bold, and stirrups long
his shoulders, arms,
Gently to him he
said,
'
O
gentle youth,
The earth is cold, the air is mild and warm. Though old in years, I've many a combat seen, Many the army I have crushed to earth. Many the demon that my hand hath slain. Nor saw I yet when I have met defeat. Just wait
thou hast seen
till
me on
the field
Should'st thou survive, fear not Leviathan
my
For
seas
The
stars bear witness to
and
hills
^ !
combats have beheld.
my
feats achieved
Against the heroes famed of Turan's host In valor's realm the world Yet, pity
's
in
my
is
'neath
my
feet.
heart for rue of thee,
body I would fain not reave having such neck and arms Stay not with the Turks Thy compeer in Iran I ne'er have known.' Life from thy
—
When The
—
parley such from Rustam's lips had come,
heart of Suhrab throbbed, yearning towards him.
Quoth Suhrab, Just one question '
'Tis wholly
fit
I will ask
—
thou should'st the truth reveal
Thy
lineage
to
me
in all detail,
And
gladden thou
my
heart with thy good word,
tell
For I believe that thou art Rustam, aye, Sprung from the stock of famous Nariman.' Then out spake Rustam Rustam I am not. Nor sprung from stock, line of Sam Nariman :
1
(cf
The Persian word nahang .
Skt.
nihdkd
?)
or nihang
designates
monster of the deep;
it
is
some
generally
'
translated as
'
crocodile, alligator,
'
and
a synonym in the epic for something that is the extreme of ferocity. is
-
;
;
COMBAT OF SUHRAB A\D RUSTAM
A
hero, he
Nor throne
From Dark 2.
;
I his is
inferior
107
am,
mine, nor rank, nor diadem.'
Suhrab's hope came not a joyous ray, turned for him the brilliant light of day.
THE FIGHT BETWEEN SUHRAB AND RUSTAM
—
hand Forth to the field went Suhrab, lance in tale of his birth.i Still pondering on his mother's
A narrow place And
as field of fight they chose,
with their javelins short
began the attack
;
Nor point, nor joint upon the spears remained. Curb turned to left, they fought with Indian swords,
—
Pouring forth flame from out the edge of steel The blades by force of blows asplinter were Doom (Such blows might bring to pass the Crack of
—
Then grasped they each
their clubs of
!)
mighty weight.
smote each other, dealing blow for blow. Broken their maces from the fierce impact
And The
horses staggered, the furious
f
oemen
reeled
fell. Off from the steeds the armored trappings rent. was breast The corselet on each warrior's
Chargers and heroes worn and weak
alike,
No strength in cither's hand or arm remained.^ with dust. Their bodies sweating, mouths filled full burning thirst Their tongues all parched and cracked with all full of wounds the sire. Thus parted they
—
The son with pain and 1
full of anguish-fire
Suhrab's mother, on his departure the strange story
had told him Rustam was his father, though the sire knew not the truth, because at his birth she had sent the warrior hero word that a daughter was born
for war,
that
taken to him, lest that the child be
from
her.
may bdzu, ht. 'arm, here refer to the foreleg of the steed, AvesUn to carry out the parallel cf. »
Possibly
;
bdzu in Yt.
8.
22
;
Vd.
18. 70.
;
THE SHAH-NAM AH
108
NEXT MORNING THE BATTLE
3.
IS
RENEWED
l
When the sun's brilliant orb its wings had spread And black-plumed raven night its head had bowed, of mighty bulk, his tiger-mail Did don, and climbed his dragon-charger Rakhsh. Between the lines was two leagues' space of ground
Rustam,
Which none dared
tread or enter in the midst.
Suhrab the night had passed with wine and harp Telling his friend Human, in company,
How
sure he felt he had with
And
his misgivings at the
He,
dawn when
too, at
And
Rustam fought. coming fray.^
the bright sun arose
warrior-knights lifted their'
heads from sleep,
Arrayed himself in armor for the fight. His head with combat filled, his heart with mirth. Shouting he came into the battle-plain Wielding in hand a mace with bullock's head.
Of Rustam, then, he asked with smiling lips, (As had the twain the night together passed), '
How
Why
didst thou rest last night is
Throw
?
How
rise
to-day
?
thy heart's design on combat set ? down thy mace ^ fling off thy vengeful sword ;
Cast to the earth this unjust wicked
strife
I
Let us dismount, and down together sit. Making our sad cheeks bright with drafts of wine.
A
covenant in God's sight let us make, heartily repent of seeking war.
And
Let some one of the rest resort to fight, Be reconciled with me and join in feast. 1
tr.
Vullers,
Mohl,
168-171
;
2.
text,
Pizzi, 2.
pp. 178-184.
497-500
1.
12&-130
;
276-281
;
Warner, ;
cf
.
^
cf.
2.
in translating this paragraph sevhave been abridged. So the reading of Ms. P, with gurz,
eral lines
Eogers,
^ '
mace,' instead of
tlr,
'
arrow.'
!;
'
;
COMBAT OF SUHRAB AND RUST AM
My
109
heart for love of thee doth inly yearn
And
bringeth t^ars of shame into
my
face.
Seeing thy birth comes of heroic stock 'Tis
lit
Thy name
Now
make known
that thou
to
me thy line me conceal
thou shouldest not from
that in fight w^ith
me thou
art to join.
Art thou the son of Zal, son of brave Sam, The famous Rustam of Zabulistan ? Rustara replied,
O
'
seeker after fame,
In parley such as this we've ne'er indulged
!
—
Of wrestling we did speak a word last night make thou no use of them I stand no tricks ;
am
No
child
My
loins I've girt already to
I,
1
though thou thyself art young.
meet the
fray.
Come, let's engage and let the issue be That which the World-protector may ordain I'm well acquaint with pride and with its fall Nor am I man that speaketh guile and fraud.' 1
Suhrab replied
My
counsel
:
'
Old man,
— though
it
In time should'st quit thy
While those thou
A
leav'st
if
were life
thou dost spurn
my
wish that thou
upon thy bed,
behind should for thee make
tomb, thy soulless body to enshrine
Yet,
if
thy
life
within
At God's mandate
Down
I'll
^ ;
my hand take
it
—
is laid,
from that hand.'
from their battle chargers leapt the twain,
In mail and casque; cautious they made advance;
Each
And
tied his steed of
war
fast to a rock
then came on, ef ch with a troubled soul.
They grappled like two lions in desperate clinch, With sweat and blood in streams their bodies ran >
Literally fardz
u nishlb
is
'
ascent and descent
ment
in life).
'
(i.e.
exaltation
and abase-
;
THE SHAH-NAM AH
110
From dawn until the sun his shadows stretched They strove, in turn, each other to o'ercome. Suhrab attacked as some mad elephant,
And
sprang like roaring lion from his lair, Seized Rustam's girdle-band and tugged amain,
(Thou would'st have said he meant to rend the earth Then raised a cry, with wrath and vengeance filled, As he the lion Rustam dashed to earth.
As
raging elephant then he Rustam grasped.
Raised him aloft and hurled him
Then
sat
upon
his chest of
down
mammoth
again.
size.
His hands and face and mouth covered with dust, E'en as the lion smiteth with his paw
The wild ass, and it straightway meets its death. Then forth his dagger keen of blade he drew. Eager
head from
to cut his foe's
its
trunk.
Which seeing, Rustam lifted his voice and (' The hidden secret must at last come out Speaking to Suhrab, Master of
lasso,
'
said, I
')
Lion-queller bold,
mace, and dagger-thrust.
Our custom different is from that of yours. Our rule ordaineth something else than that. The man who joins in wrestling with his foe. And brings the chieftain's head down to the earth, Planting his shoulders squarely on the ground.
Though wroth takes not his head at the first fall But if he bring him down a second time, Winning by triumph thus the Lion Name,' He then may from its trunk the head cut off: '
Such
By
is
the custom which prevails with us.'
strategy like this he sought escape
From
out the dragon's clutch, and death t'elude.
!)
;
;
COMBAT OF SUHRAD AND RUST AM
111
The brave youth yielded to the old man's plea (Though Rustam's words, in sooth, were not in In part through contidence, in part through
place)
fate,
In part, no doubt, through greatness of his soul.
Suhrab freed Rustam from
Turned 4.
to the
COaiBAT
hand amain,
waste where wild deer scoured the plain.
.
.
.
RENEWED THE NEXT DAY â&#x20AC;&#x201D; SUHRAB WOUNDED TO DEATH ^
Once more
their steeds they tethered ere the fray
(Ill-destined Fate
When
his
was drawing
to its end.
Fortune once doth show malignity,
The flinty rock become th soft as wax !) Then took their grip to wrestle all anew. Each seized the other by the girdle-strap But as for gallant Suhrab, thou'ldst have said High heaven had bound in bonds his strength ;
Rustam
He
of hand.
in rage reached out to clutch his foe,
champion by his head and neck, Bent down the body of the valiant youth. Whose time had come, nor strength in him remained, And like a lion dashed him to the earth. Yet knew he well he would not stay beneath. So, from his belt quick drew his gleaming blade seized the
And
gashed the bosom of his valiant son.
gasped out Suhrab from his soul and writhed; *Ah Nor recked he then of either good or ill. !
'
Vengeance comes on me from myself,' he cried, 'Twas Fate that gave into thy hand the key Of this thou'rt blameless, that the vaulted sky Hath raised me up to cast me down so soon.
'
*
iVullers, text,
Mohl,
2.
1. 502-504; cf. 132-135; Warner,
tr.
2.
172-174;
Pizzi, 2. 284-287;
pp. 184-188.
Rogers,
'
'
THE SHAH-NAMAH
112
My
me with
peers in years will speak of
Because
my
scorn,
neck hath come thus to the dust.
My mother gave me signs to know my sire My love for him hath brought my life to an
;
Ever
I searched that I
'Tis thus I
my
gave
might see
life
end.
his face,
through that desire.
My search, alas! came to no lucky end. My father's countenance I ne'er have seen
1
Yet, shouldest thou become a fish in the sea,
Or Or Or
turn, like night, into the e'en
become
in
heaven
murky
air.
like a star,
blot the brilliant sun out of the world.
Vengeance on thee
When
he shall see
Some one
my father my pillow is
surely take.
'11
of clay
!
renowned warriors Will bring the proof to Rustam and the news " Suhrab's been slain and cast as a vile thing Away, while he was making search for thee " of those
:
!
As Rustam
heard, his brain turned in a whirl,
Darkling the world became before his eyes,
His body
From
and vigor ebbed, and swooned away.
failed, his strength
off his feet
he
fell
When once again back to He asked of Suhrab, with *
Tell
me what marks
(May For
I
deep groan and moan,
Rustam thou dost have,
name perish from the warriors' roll I) am Rustam Perish the name and may his
!
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
!
for
my
death
raised a cry, his blood within
him
seethed.
Zal, son of
He
of
himself he came
Sam,
sit
mourning
I
His hair he tore and uttered moan on moan.
When
Suhrab Rustam saw
His sense took
flight a
in such a state
moment from
his brain.
;
;
'
COMBAT OF sun RAD AND RUST AM Anon he spoke, If thou art Rustam true, Wanton and in bad blood thou hast me shiin thee, In every way I made advance to
,
113
'
But not an atom
Undo
the fastening of
my
corselet
—
now
my glowing body bare my arm regard — 'twas thme —
look upon
And
The onyx on
And
see
When
My
of thy love did stir.
;
how
a son hath
raised its voice before the gate, (cheeks stained with tears of blood. came
drum
the
mother
his father fared.i
by
—
—
Broken her heart because I had to go) And tied this onyx round about my arm. "A keepsake," said she, "from thy sire it is, Guard and preserve it till it comes of use."
And now
the use
is
past, the strife is o'er.
The son hath perished
'neath his father's eyes.'
When Rustam loosed the mail, the onyx saw. He rent the clothes upon his frame, and cried, hand slain, 'Ah! thou, my son, art by mine own Thou
hero, praised in every
company
I
He poured forth tears of blood, tearing his hair. face drenched with tears. Covering his head with dust
—
To him It
said Suhrab,
naught behooves
What
profit
The deed
is
6.
'
to
That fill
is
worse than bad.
thine eyes with tears
for thee to slay thyself ?
now
done, and done
it
was
to be.'
.
.
•
^ THE LAST WORDS OF SUHRAB
clamor from the camp arose, Suhrab to mighty Rustam spake once more.
And when a iThe reading
of
Ms.
C
in the translation of these
is
followed
two Unes.
«
Text, Vullers 1 ^05-^)6 cf tr Warner, 2. 176-176 2. 136-137
Mohl,
Pizzi, 2. 288-289.
^
;
.
! ;; ;
;; ;
THE SHAH-NAM AH
114 '
Now
that
my
day
passed away and gone,
is
The Turks' affairs have Do me this act of love ;
ta'en a different see that
hue
your King
Lead not in war his host against Turan. 'Twas but through my support, greedy of war, That towards Iran's frontier they turned their face. For many days I gave them tidings good. In many ways I did their hopes fulfil, How could I know O hero, named to fame That I should perish by my father's hand Not one of them must suffer on the retreat Have thou regard for them with naught save love.
—
—
In yonder fort
a captive brave of mine,
is
my noose Him oft I asked some sign for knowing thee — Thy image saw I ever in my eye — I
caught him with the slip-knot of
Yet was his answer everything but that. ('Twas his own fault a high post is unfilled!
)
Hopeless did I become at what he said,
And my Yet
bright day was turned to
see thou
who
of Iran's host he
No harm must come The
signs
my
mother gave
But, though I saw,
My
unto his
I
trusted not
evil fate was written on
That
I
should die by mine
Like lightning came
Happy
1
own
like the
his
in thee,
my
eyes
my brow
in heaven, perchance, I
Thus died Suhrab by
mourned
I,
is,
life for this.^
saw
I
murky gloom.
own
father's
wind
may
I
hand
go
thee
see.'
father's hand,
and Rustam
for his son
and would not be comforted.
A fine touch,
dying appeal to save a captive's
this
life.
THK
])KATI{
(From
OF SUHKAH UV TUK ]IaNI) OF HLS FaTIIKK
the f'ochran Collection of Persian
Museum \_To face paije 114]
of Art,
Itl
STAM
Manuscripts in the Metropolitiiu
New York)
CHAPTER X EPILOGUE '
The
intelligible fonofl of ancient poeta.'
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; CoLxmvQ*, Translation of Wallenstein, The
Part
I, 2.
4. 123.
chapters which have gone before on Early Persian
Poetry cover a long period
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a period
of nearly
sand years from Zoroaster to Firdausi.
song broke forth
first
two thou-
The verse
from Zoroaster's prophetic
of Iran's
lips,
chant-
ing praises divine in ages long before the Christian era.
Echoes of music from the palace halls of the great Persian kings in ancient times and from the courts of the Sasanian rulers,
when
minstrel verses charmed the assemblage on
festive occasions, still
memories
haunt the
ear,
but only as faint
of a by-gone past.
The shouts
of
Arab invaders drowned these
Persia's vanquished heart found
lays until nearly
strains,
no expression
two centuries had passed.
and
in tuneful
In brighter
national days the strings of the silenced lute and harp were
touched once more, and Persia, awakened, again raised voice in song.
A
brief stanza,
heard here or there, an ode,
panegyric, or stray quatrain, told that poetry
The
minstrel's voice rang out anew.
full of Ijrric grace, light-hearted in
tive in thoughtful vein,
its
It
was
was
reborn.
slender, but
buoyant fancy, or
reflec-
keen in S3anpathy for surroundings,
rich in a feeling for nature, and, above 116
all,
ever thoroughly
EPILOGUE
116
These we may count as some of the characteristics
human.
of the bards that sang
down
to the time
when
the epic
rhapsody of Firdausi's verse gave the assurance that Persian poetry was destined to live on. Firdausi was not only great in the heroic strain, but
was a
master likewise in the art of composing lyric and romantic verse, about It
seems
which more may be told at some
fitting,
however, to
manly voice amid the fanfare
let this
volume
later time.
close
with his
of trumpets, the din of battle,
and the martial deeds that ended
in triumph, but in death.
And deep in my heart I cherish the hope that sometime I may touch on that chord of mystic harmony, which long ago and always has thrilled the Persian soul, and that I may likewise revive for strains
Western
ears
some of the
later lyric
and some of the romantic melodies in song which
give to Persian poetry a place literatures of the world.
among
the great poetic
INDEX
INDEX Ahmad Abbas
of Merv, poet (d. 16-17 Abbasid Caliphs, 44 n. 1 Abdullah Muhammad al-Junaidi, poet, 28-29 Abu Ali Khabbaz, poet, 27-28 Abu Ibrahim Ismail, called Muntasir, poet (d. 1005), 54-56 Abu Ishak of Merv, called Kisa'i, see Kisa'i
Abu Abu Abu
Abu Abu Abu
'1-Abbas, poet, 52 n. 3 '1-Fath, poet, 52 n. 3 '1-Hasan or Abu Ishak, called Kisa'i, see Kisa'i '1-Hasan Ali b. llyas al-Aghachi (Aghaji), 29-31 '1-MasaI, poet, 52 n. 3 'l-Muzaflfar, Amir, patron of
Famikhi, 74-78
Abu '1-Muzaffar Nasr, poet, 28 Abu Mansur Muhammad bin Ahmad, poet,
see
Dakiki
Abu Nasr of Gilan, poet, 51-52 Abu Said, mystic poet (967-1049), Umarah of Merv esteemed by, 53 to be discussed in a subsequent
volume, 58
Abu
of Khujistan, king, inspired
by lines of Hanzalah, 18-19 815 or 816), Ahura Mazdah, a Gathic hymn addressed to, 3â&#x20AC;&#x201D;4 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 85 Anushirvan the Just (Khusrau Sasanian ruler, 37 Arab conquest of Persia, 14, 82
I),
Arabic, poems by Bahram Gur in, 10 infusion of, into Persian, 14, 15 Abbas of Merv wrote poetry in, 16 proportion of, in the Persian of
Shukur, 23 n. 3 the poet Junaidi a master of, 28 Rudagi translated his KaUlah and Dimnah from, 37
words avoided by Firdausi,
83,
87
Arjasp, ruler of Turan, in Dakiki's epic fragment, 64 Arnold, Matthew, the story of Suhrab and Rustam treated by, 105 Aruzi, Nizami-i, Samarkandi, on Hanzalah of Badghis, 18 n. 1, 19 n. 1
quoted on Rudagi, 35, 37 mentions poets at the court of Mahmud of Ghaznah, 69 remarks on Unsuri by, 70 account of Famikhi by, 74 n. 1, 78
of Gurgan, poet (9th Asadi, early Persian lexicographer, 20-21 nephew of Firdausi, quotes Abu Shukur of Balkh, poet (fl. 941), lines of Abu Shukur, 23 n. 4, 22-24 24 and n. 2 Abu Tahir of Khatun, quoted by quotes Shahid of Balkh some 32 Daulatshah, 11 times, 26 n. 4 Abu Tahir Khusravani, poet, a quotes 10 single lines by Aghaji, stanza by, 41 n. 3 30 n. 4 general account of, 50-51 quotes Rudagi 161 times, 35 n. 3, Achaemenian times, poetry in, 6-7 38 n. 3 Afarin, a Sasanian poet, 9 n. 1 quotes over 60 verses of Kisa'i, Afarin-namah, lost poem by Abu 46 n. 1 Shukur, 24 n. 2 quotes some 25 single lines by Afghanistan, 15, 45, 48, 67 Khusravani, 50 n. 2 Agathias, Greek writer, 84 quotes 40 single lines by Umarah Aghachi (Aghaji), Abu '1-Hasan Ali of Merv, 53 n. 1 b. llyas al-, poet (10th cent.), quotes Dakiki some 60 times, 62 29-31 n. 3 119
Salik
cent.),
INDEX
120 quotes
Unsuri
more than
100
times, 72 n. 2
quotes Farrukhi some 90 times, 79 n. 1 quotes Asjadi more than 50 times, 79 n. 5 Asjadi, poet (fl. 1025), 79-81 joined with Unsuri and Fairukhi in testing Firdausi, 88 astrologers, declared useless by Khusravani, 50-51 astronomer, Umarah of Merv an, 52 Astyages, songs at the court of, 6 Aufi, biographer (fl. 1225), statement of, regarding Bahram Gur, 10 praises Hanzalah of Badghis, 17 lauds the poems of Firuz alMashriki, 19
comment
of,
on Abu
Gurgan, 20-21
Bahram Gur, Sasanian
ruler (420438), invention of the rhyming couplet ascribed to, 9 said to have been the first to compose Persian verse, 10 Baihaki, al-, records the names of Sasanian poets, 9 n. 1
Balkh,
Abu Shukur
a native
Shahid a native of, 24 Unsuri a native of, 69 Barbad, a Sasanian poet
of,
(fl.
22
600),
12 beast-fables, Indian, 37 Bidpai, Fables of, translated into Persian by Rudagi, 37-38 branding of colts, a poem on, 74-78
Browne, Edward G., view
of,
re-
garding Kisa'i's old age, 50 n. 1 translation by, of a poem of Salik of Mantiki of Rai, 57 Bukhara, city, the home of numerKhabbaz ous poets, 29 a famous ode by Rudagi on,
a tradition regarding quoted from, 27 statement of, regarding Junaidi, 35-36 28 n. 3 the poet Ma'navi a native of, comment of, on Aghachi, 29 n. 2 52 n. 3 statements of, regarding Rudagi, the poet Muntasir a prince of, 54 33, 35 Avieenna (Ibn Sina) born near, 57 fragments of Kisa'i's poetry preDakiki possibly a native of, 59 served by, 46 n. 1 Asjadi possibly a native of, 79 statement of, regarding Kisa'i, 49 Buwaihid princes, poetry under the, snatches of Umarah's poems pre15, 56 served by, 53 C traditions regarding Muntasir related by, 54 n. 4, 55 Avesta, poetry in the, 2-6 a Gatha passage (Ys. 44. 3-5)
Caliphate at Bagdad, decline of the, 15 Chares of Mytilene, mentions the love-tale of Zariadres and Odatis, 7
from the, 3-4 a Yasht passage (Yt. 10. 13-14) chronicles, ancient, from the, 5-6 Persia, 84 Avieenna (Ibn Sina), refused to grace the court of
Mahmud
of
Cowell,
Edward
of
Media and
Byles, version of a
poem of Rudagi by, 39 Ghaznah, 57 found a patron in the Ziyarid CuculUn and Conloch, the Irish story of, a parallel to the prince Kabus, 57 episode of Suhrab and Rustam, tomb of, still preserved at Ra105 madan, 57 to be discussed in a subsequent Cynewulf, Anglo-Saxon poet, 42 volume, 58 Ayaz, favorite of
Mahmud of
Ghaz-
nah, 71
Azud ad-Daulah
of
Dailam, 11
Badghis, a district northwest of Herat, 17 n. 3 the poet Hanzalah a native of, 17 Bahlabad (Barbad), a Sasanian poet (fl. 600), 12
D Dakiki, poet (10th cent.), praised his contemporary Aghachi, 29 general account of, 59-65 stanzas by, translated, 60, 61, 62,
63 an epic fragment by, incorporated in the Shah-namah, 63-64 as forerunner of Firdausi, 65, 84 Firdausi's dream of, 85
IS'DEX Danish var, author
of a Sasanian prose epic, the Khvatai-naniak,
85 Darmesteter, James, quoted on Shahid of Balkh, 25 n. 2 explanation by, of a phrase in a poem by Ruda^, 43 n. 2 quoted in praise of Kisa'i, 48 comment of, on a poem of Dakiki, 6:i
Daulatshah,
Persian biographer (15th cent.), tells the story of King Bahram's invention of the rhyming couplet, 9, 10 n. 1 mentions a poetic inscription at Kasr-i Shirin, 11 on poets at the court of Mahmud
121
joined with Asjadi and Unsuri in testing Kirdausi, HH Firdausi. epic poet (c. 935-1025), mentions poets at the court of the legendary king Jamshid, 6 Zarir mentioned in the Shahnamah by, 7 represents Bahram Gur as enjojing poetry, 10 mentions the Sasanian poet Barbad, 12 quotes lines of Khusravani, 51 incorporated Dakiki's epic frag-
ment
in his
eulogy of
Shah-namah, 64
Mahmud
of
Ghaznah
became a,
by, 66, 87 the poet Unsuri praised by, 70 avoidance of Arabic words by, 83 the successor of Dakiki, 84, 85 account of the life of, 84-92 sources drawn on by, for his epio,
46, 50 Dihkan, class of landed proprietors, 84, 85 Dilaram, beloved of King Bahram
Unsuri, Asjadi, and Farrukhi joined in a test of, 88 the famous satire on Mahmud by,
of
Ghaznah, 69
statements 70,
of,
regarding Unsuri,
71-72
dervnsh, Kisa'i in later
life
Gut, 9
Divan
(collection
of
Hanzalah, 18 Shahid of Balkh
poems),
by
84-86
90,91 fame
lasting
the
one
of
earliest poets to leave a,
the
great
of,
92
epic
26 n. 4 Firuz al-Mashriki, 19-20
by Unsuri, still extant, 72 by Farrukhi, still extant, 79 by Asjadi, not current even in the 15th century, 79 dragon, conflict of the hero with a, 102-104
Sam
by,
see
Shah-
namah poet
flowers, Kisa'i 's love of,
(c.
890),
46-47
G Gathas, poetic aspects of the Avestan,
2^
ghazal (ode), translation from a, by Dakiki, 60-61 elegiac poetry, 42^4, 49, 51, 67-68 ghazals, six, ascribed to Mahmud epic, an early type of poetry, 2 of Ghaznah, 67 Dakiki 's fragment of an, 63-65 Ghaznah, city in Afghanistan, 45, the great Persian, see Shah57, 67 namah Ghaznavid princes, poetry under Esther, Book of, 84 the, 15, 48, 52, 56, 66-67, 69 Ethe, H., estimate of Unsuri by, 72 Gilan, the poet Abu Nasr a native evil eye, rue burned to avert the of, 51 influence of the, 18 Giv, hero, mentioned by Firdausi,
E
88 Gulistan, Farala\i, poet, 52 n. 3
beloved of
Mahmud
of
Ghaznah, 67
(HjTcania), Abu Salik a 73-79 native of, 20 a native of Sistan, 73 the poet Zarra'ah a native of, 52 found a patron in Transoxiana, n. 3 74-78 Gushtasp, Kling, hero in a lovecomposed a poem on the branding episode of the Shah-namah, 8
Farrukhi, poet
of colts,
(d.
1037 or 1038), Gurgan
74-78
at the court of nah, 78
Mahmud
n. 1
of
Ghaz-
Dakiki's epic fragment relates
63-64
to,
INDEX
122
H
Khusrau
II (Parviz), Sasanian a couplet ascribed to, 10-11 Hamadan, the a patron of poetry, 12 still preserved at, 57 Khusravani, a Sasanian poet, 9 n. 1 Hanzalah of Badghis, poet (c. 850), Khusravani, Abu Tahir, poet, a 17-19 stanza by, 41 n. 3 Heracleides of Kyme, cited, 8 n. 2 general account of, 50-51 Herat, Asjadi possibly a native of, Khvandamir, historian, on Far79 rukhi and his wealth, 78 n. 2 Herodotus, 84 explains P^'irdausi's name, 89 n. 2 Hildebrandslied, a parallel to the Khvatai-namak, Pahla\a 'Book of episode of Suhrab and Rustam, Sovereigns,' 85 105 Kisa'i, poet (10th cent.), 46-50 humor, Persians have a quaint vein in later life assumed dervish garb, of, 41 46,50
comment on, 48 tomb of Avieenna
ruler,
Hafiz, Darmesteter's
of, for flowers, 46 Darmesteter's comment on, 48 a paneg^Tic on Mahmud of Ghaznah by, 48-^9 wrote despondent verses in old
love
I
Avieenna Ilak Khan, Tatar ruler, the poet Muntasir fled from, 56 Ibn Sina,
see
improvisation, poetic, 71, 73 Iran, warfare between Turan and, 100 Islam, Zoroastrianism replaced by, 14 IsmaU, Sahib, Buwaihid minister, eulogized by Mantiki, 56
age, 49-50 Kitajnin, heroine in a love-episode of the Shah-namah, 8 n. 1 Ktesias, 84
Kuran, Rudagi
in
boyhood knew by
heart the whole, 33
Layamon's Brut, compared with the Shah-namah, 83 Jamshid, King, legend of poetry at love-poems, by Firuz al-Mashriki, 20 the court of, 6 by Abu Sallk of Gurgan, 21 selection from the Shah-namah by Abu Shukur, 23 about, 96-99 by Aghachi, 30 Junaidi, AbduUah Muhammad al-, by Rudagi, 34, 40-41 poet, 28-29 by Kisa'i, 48 by Umarah of Merv, 53
K
Kabus, Zij^arid poems, 57 Kadisia, battle
by Dakiki, 61
prince,
of,
composed
KaUlah and Dimnah, by Rudagi, 37-38, 43 n. 2 Kashaf, river, 91, 102 kasidah, Kisa'i wrote a mournful, 49 Kasr-i Shirin, a couplet inscribed on the palace at, 11
Katabun, heroine in a love-episode of the Shah-namah, 8 n. 1
Khabbaz 953),
of
Nishapur,
poet
(d.
27-28
Khabbaz, Abu
Ali, poet, 27-28 ruins of Kasr-i Shirin near, 11 Kiurasan, scene of literary revival in 9th century, 16
Khanikin,
IQiusrau niler,
I
(Anushirvan), Sasanian
37
M Madharastani, a Sasanian poet, 9 n.
14
Mahmud
of
1
Ghaznah (998-1030), a
panegyric on, by Kisa'i, 48-49 by Umarah of Merv, 52 Avieenna refused to grace the court of, 57 Round Table of poets at the court of, 66-81 himself a poet, 67-69 Unsuri at the court of, 69-73 a panegyric by Unsuri on, 71-72 Farrukhi at the court of, 73, 78 Asjadi at the court of, 79-81 Firdausi at the court of, 87-90 Firdausi's eulogy of, 87, 89-90 Firdausi's scathing satire on, 87, eulogized
90,91 praise of Firdausi by, 89
IXDEX ^Tahmud-i
Varrak,
'book-solU'r,'
'copyist' 19 n. 2
or Nishapur, the poet native of, 27
Maniun, Caliph, lauded in verse by Abhas of Mcrv, lG-17 Ma'navi of Bukhara, poot, 52 n. 3 Mansur I. Samanid ruler, praised by Dakiki in verse, iJO
Man tiki
of Hai, poet,
Maryliu, ancient Ma'rufi. poet, 24
Mashad, ruins
50-57 of Merv, 16
name n.
3
of ancient
Tus
123
near,
26 Merv, ruins
of the ancient city, 16 the last Sasanian king died at, 16 rebirth of Persian poetry at, 16 the birthplace of Abbas of Merv, 16 Kisa'i a native of, 46 the poet Umarah a native of,
52-54 Asjadi probably a native of, 79 meter, remarks on Persian, viii types of, in the Avestan Gathas, 4n. 2 of the Avestan Yashts, 4-5 the mutakarib, 23, 95 Mihj Yasht, the, of the Avesta, 5-6 Minuchihr, Prince, epic hero, 100 Minuchihri, poet (d. 1041), at the court of Mahmud of Ghaznah, 69 quoted in praise of Unsuri, 70 Mithra, a Yasht passage in praise of, 5-6 monorhvme, 29, 33, 36 n. 1, 44 n. 2, 52 n. 2 Moses of Khorene, Armenian author, 84 Muhammadan conquest of Persia, 14, 82 Muntasir, poet (d. 1005), 54-56 Mustaufi, author (fl. 1330), statement of, regarding Dakiki, 60 mutakarib, type of meter, 23, 95 Muvayyad, poet, 52 n. 3
Abu
Khabbaz a
Nasr a native
of,
Samarkandi,
on
'l-Muzaflfar
28 Nizanii-i
Aruzi
Hanzalah 1,
19 n.
Badghis,
of
18
n.
1
quoted on Rudagi, 35, 37 mentions poets at the court of Mahmud of Ghaznah, 69 remarks on Unsuri by, 70 account of Farrukhi by, 74 n. 1, 78
Nuh
II,
Samanid
ruler
(97(3-997),
directed Dakiki to write the national legend of Iran, 60 praised by Dakiki in verse, 60
O ode (ghazal), translation from an, by Dakiki, 60-61 odes, sLx, ascribed to
Mahmud
of
Ghaznah, 67
Omar Khayyam,
quoted, 48 in the Avestan
Ormazd, addressed Gathas, 3-4
P works, attempts to find verse in, 8 n. 4 panegyric, on the Caliph Mamun by Abbas of Merv, 16-17 on Nasr II by Rudagi, 37
Pahlavi
Mahmud
on
Kisa'i,
Mahmud
on
of
Ghaznah
by
of
Ghaznah
by
48-49
Umarah
of
Merv, 52
on the minister Sahib Ismail by Mantiki of Rai, 56-57 on Mansur I and Nuh II by Dakiki, 60
on
Mahmud
suri,
of
Ghaznah by Un-
71-72
on Prince Nasr by Unsuri, 72 on Mahmud of Ghaznah by Firdausi, 87, 89-90 N Parthian rule, no poetry surviving from the time of, 8 Nahavand, battle of, 14, 82 treatment of, in the Shah-namah, (Nakiyya), Sasanian a Nakdsa 94 harper, 9 n. 1 Nasr II, Samanid prince (913-942), Persia, Northeastern, the scene of literary activity in the 9th and Rudagi at the court of, 34-37, 10th centuries, 15-16, 56 42, 44 Nasr, Prince, brother of Mahmud of Persian, a couplet in antique, 11 little changed in 1000 years, 15 Ghaznah, panegyric by Unsuri analogous development of Engon, 72 lish and, 15 n. 2 New Year's Day, said to have been earliest verses in, 16-17 instituted by King Jamshid, Firdausi used remarkably pure, 83 99
INDEX
124
by
Khvashgu, quoted on Shahid of Balkh, 25 n. 1 Pickering, C. J., essays on Persian Sakisa, a Sasanian harper, 9 Sam, epic hero, conflict of, with a poetry by, 32 n. 2, 47 n. 1 dragon, 102-104 translation of a poem of Kisa'i Saman, ancestor of the Samanid by, 49 dynasty, 19 n. 1 poet laureate, Unsuri designated as, Samanid dynasty, poetry under the, 70 psalms, Zoroastrian (Gathas), 2-4 15, 22, 32, 34, 45, 52, 56, 60 pun, Junaidi ends a poem with a, Samarkand, Dakiki possibly a native of, 59 29 n. 1 Pushan, hero, mentioned by Fir- Sargish, poet, 12 n. 2 (cf. 9 n. 1) Sasanian rule, poetry under, 8-13 dausi, 88 treatment of, in the Shah-namah, Q 94 quatrain (ruba'i), the earliest known, Saturn, failings of old age attributed by Hanzalah, 18 to the planetary rule of, 42 a very early, by Abu Shukur, 23 Shabdiz, horse of Khusrau Parviz, an early, by Shahid of Balkh, 25-26 12 by Rudagi, 41 Shahid of Balkh, poet (d. about by Umarah of Merv, 53 950), 24-26 by Dakiki, 63 a contemporary of Aghachi, 29 Unsuri, 71 by quoted in praise of Rudagi, 35 by Asjadi, 80 mourned in verse by Rudagi, 42 R Shah-namah, national epic in finished form, 2 Rai, the poet Mantiki a native of, 56 52 n. mentions poets at the court of the Raunaki, poet, 3 rhyme, single (monorhyme), 29, 33, legendary king Jamshid, 6 36 n. 1, 44 n. 2, 52 n. 2 Zarir mentioned in the, 7 represents Bahram Gur as enjoyromance, the, of Zariadres and ing poetry, 10 Odatis, 7-8 mentions the Sasanian poet Barof Gushtasp and Kitayun, 8 n. 1 physicians,
declared
useless
Safinah-i
Khusravani, 50-51
ruba'i, see quatrain
Rudag,
birthplace
Rudagi, 32 (Rudaki),
Rudagi
of
poet
the
poet
(c.
880-
954), mourned Shahid of Balkh in verse, 24 traditions of the youth of, 32-33 at the court of Nasr II, 34-37, 42,
bad, 12 Dakiki's epic fragment incorporated in the, 64 one of the world's great epics, 82 compared with Layamon's Brut,
83 Arabic words avoided in the, 83
drawn on by Firdausi for 84-86 to return to composition of the, 87, 90 survey of the contents of the, 93-95 poetic productivity of, 38 lyric vein of, 38-39 translations of selections from the, 96-114 love poems by, 40-^1 lament of, in old age, 42-44 Shams ad-Din ibn Kais, the poet Abu Shukur quoted 4 times by, rue, burned to avert influence of the evil eye, 18 24 n. 2 Rustam, the fatal combat of Suhrab Shirin, a couplet addressed to, 11 and, 105-114 Shukur, see Abu Shukur Sistan, province, Farrukhi a native S of, 73 Saffarid dynasty, poetry under the, sorcerers, declared useless by Elhusravani, 50-51 15, 19 Firuz al-Mashriki lived in the Sufi, Kisa'i assumed the dervish robe of a, 46, 50 time of the, 19 Abu Salik lived in the time of the, Suhrab, the fatal combat of Rustam with, 105-114 20 44 persuaded Nasr Bukhara, 35-37
sources the,
4
IXDEX
125
V'ishtaspa (Gushlasp), King, hero in a iove-episodo of the 5ShahTabaristan, the Ziyarid princes in, namah, 8 n. 1 57 Dakiki 's epic fragment relates to, Firdausi took refuge in, 90 63-64 Tahirid dynasty, poetry under the, 15 Hanzalah of Badghis lived in the Warner, A. G. and E., translators time of the, 17 of the Shah-namah, 94 favorable Arabic than to more to wine, a poem by Junaidi in praise Persian culture, 17 of, 29 Nights, Rudagi's one Thousand and a poem by Rudagi on, 38-39 Kalilah and Dimnah one of the Zoroastrians allowed a temperate sources of the, 43 n. 2 use of, 52 n. 1, 62, 80 translation, by E. B. Cowell, of a
W
poem by Ruda^, 39 by C, J. Pickering, of Kisa'i,
lines
by
49
by E. G. Browne, Mantiki
of Rai,
of
a poem by
U of
Merv, poet (10th
52-54 Unsuri, poet
X
57
Transoxiana, scene of literary acti\'ity in the 9th and 10th centuries, 16, 56 Famikhi went from Sistan to, 74 Turan, warfare between Iran and, 100 Tus, city in Khurasan, lamented by Shahid of Balkh, 25-26 Dakiki probably a native of, 59 Firdausi born at, 84 Firdausi returned to, 91
Umarah
poems by Umarah of Merv on, 53,54 a poem by Dakiki in praise of, 62
Xenophon, songs at the court Astyages mentioned by, 6
of
Yakub, son
of Laith, founder of the Saffarid dynasty, 19 Yashts, poetic aspects of the Avestan, 4â&#x20AC;&#x201D;6 Yatkar-i Zariran, Pahlavi prose epic, 7
Yusuf
and
and
n.
2
Zulaikha, Firdausi, 91
poem
by
cent.), Zairivairi, brother of Vishtaspa, 7
about 1050), 69-73 Zarathushtra, Ahura Mazdah addressed by, in the Gathas, 2-4 other poets disciples of, 79 joined with Asjadi and Famiklii Zariadres and Odatis, the love-tale of, 7-8 in testing Firdausi, 88 Zarir, the love-story of, 7-8 Zarra'ah of Gurgan, poet, 52 n. 3 (d.
Ziyarid princes, patrons of litera-
Abu Shukur, 23 Vamik and 'Adhra, a poem by Valih, quoted on
Unsuri, 72 verse in Pahlavi works, attempts to find, 8 n. versification, in the
Avestan Gathas,
4n. 2 in the in the
95
Avestan Yashts, 4-5 mutakarib meter, 23-24,
ture,
57
Zoroaster, Ormazd addressed by, in the Gathas, 2-4 by supplanted Zoroastrianism, Islam, 14
a temperate use of wine allowed by, 52 n. 1, 62, 80 Dakiki's leanings toward, 61, 64 Asjadi fancifully calls himself a convert to, 80
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