Persian Lyric Poetry in the Classical Era, 800-1500: Ghazals, Panegyrics and Quatrains: A History of Persian Literature Vol. II 9781788318242, 9781786736666, 9781786726605, 1788318242

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
A Note from the Editorial Board of a History of Persian Literature
Contents
Contributors
Foreword
Chapter 1: The Panegyrical Qaside—A Brief Historical Preview
1. The Qaside in the Samanid Era (819–1005)
2. The Early Ghaznavid Period
3. Later Ghaznavid Poetry in Lahore and Ghazna
Chapter 2: The Panegyric Qaside in the Eastern Iranian World: Court Poetry in the Samanid and Ghaznavid Periods
1. Introduction
2. The Qaside and the Court: The Art of Celebration
3. Elegies and Invective Poems
4. Invective Poems
5. Formal and Rhetorical Strategies
6. Conclusion
Chapter 3: The Qaside After the Fall of the Ghaznavids 1100–1500 CE
1. The Survival of the Qaside
2. The Rise of the Saljuqs
3. Two Early Saljuq Poets
Lâmeʿi of Gorgân
Borhâni of Nishapur
4. Amir Moʿezzi
5. Anvari
6. Zahir of Fâryâb
7. Two Qaside Poets in Isfahan
Jamâl-al-Din Mohammad
Chapter 4: Qasides of the Khwârazmshâhid Court: Vatvât and Adib Sâber
1. Introduction
The Qarakhanids
Amʿaq of Bukhara
Khwârazmshâhid Poets
2. Khwârazm and Khwârazmshâhids
Vatvât and the Khwârazmshâhids
Adib Sâber and the Khwârazmshâhids
3. Vatvât and Adib Sâber: Figurative Language and Rhetoric
Vatvât’s Style
Adib Sâber’s Style
4. Rashid-al-Din Vatvât
Vatvât: Education
Vatvât: Personality
Vatvât’s Other Works
Vatvât’s Patrons
5. Vatvât’s Qasides
6. Adib Sâber Termedhi
Adib Sâber’s Personality
Adib Sâber’s Education
Adib Sâber’s Patrons
7. Adib Sâber’s Qasides
8. Conclusion
Chapter 5: The Qaside in Western Persia—Persian Poetry Goes West
1. Asadi of Tus
2. Qatrân of Tabriz
3. Khâqâni
Chapter 6: The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods
1. Introduction
2. The Khwârazmshâhs
Literary Background
3. The Mongol Period
Sociopolitical Backdrop
Literary Milieu
4. Minor Courts
The Older Courts
The Five Smaller Dynasties
5. Beyond the Iranian Territories
6. Timurid Period
Sociopolitical Background
Literary Milieu
7. Qaside: its Literary Status and Principal Features in the Thirteenth–Fifteenth Centuries
Patronage
Socioeconomic Position of Panegyrists
Style of Qaside
8. Componential Features
9. Thematic Division of the Qaside
Exordium
Transitional Line(s)
Encomium
Prayer
Renewal of the Opening Distich
10. Linguistic Considerations
Macaronic Poems
The Entry of Mongol Words
11. Themes of the Qaside
Praising Secular Powers
Glorification of the Sacred
Invocation to God (monâjât)
Felicitations
Elegy
Complaints
Self-reproach
Homily
Satire
Celebration of Wine Drinking
Description of Natural Phenomena
Miscellaneous
12. Rhetorical Features
General Considerations
Overuse of Metaphor
13. Conclusion
Chapter 7: Stanzaic Poems
1. The Tarjiʿ-band and Tarkib-band
Prosody
Prosodical Theory
History
2. Mosammat
Prosody
Prosodical Theory
History
3. Conclusion
Chapter 8: The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry
1. A Brief Survey of the Subject
2. The Prosody of the Ghazal—The Classical Form of the Ghazal
3. The Contents of the Ghazal
The Genre of the Taghazzol
Lover and Beloved
Modes of Speech and Style
The Purpose of Writing Ghazals
Love in the Abstract
Mysticism in the Ghazal
4. The Pre-classical Ghazal (Tenth–Eleventh Centuries)
The Ghazal in Arabic Poetry
Textual History
Rudaki
Onsori and Farrokhi
5. The Age of Sanâ’i (Late Eleventh–Twelfth Centuries)
Masʿud-e Saʿd
Othmân Mokhtâri
Sanâ’I
Seyyed Hasan Ashraf
Suzani
Abd-al-Vâseʿ Jabali
Anvari
Khâqâni
Nezâmi of Ganje
Jamâl-al-Din of Isfahan
6. The Age of Saʿdi (Thirteenth Century)
The Historical and Cultural Context
The Expansion of Sufism and the Ghazal
Three Great Mystical Poets of Ghazals
The First Followers of Saʿdi
7. The Age of Hâfez (Fourteenth Century)
Politics and Persian Culture during the Fourteenth Century
Hâfez of Shiraz
Some Samples of Hâfez’s Ghazals
Hâfez and Other Poets of the Ghazal
8. The Age of Jâmi (Fifteenth Century)
9. Conclusion
Chapter 9: The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains
1. Introduction
2. The Quatrain’s Origins, Rhyme, and Meter
3. Early Collections of Quatrains
4. Quatrains and the Genre of Prosimetrum
5. Wandering Quatrains
6. Later Collections of Quatrains
7. Amatory Motifs in Collections of Quatrains
8. Collections with Mystical Contents
9. Omar Khayyâm and the Persian Quatrains
10. Khayyâmian Motifs Employed by Other Poets
11. Quatrains of Saʿdi
12. Rumi as a Poet of Quatrains
13. Fakhr-al-Din Erâqi (d. 1289) and Homâm-al-Din Tabrizi (d. ca. 1314–15)
14. Quatrains by Hâfez (ca. 1315–1390)
Language, Rhetoric, and Distinctive Features of Hâfez’s Quatrains
Use of a “Pen Name” (Takhallos) in Quatrains
15. Quatrains by Hâfez’s Contemporaries
16. The Quatrain’s Use in Public
17. Conclusion
Chapter 10: Shahrâshub
Chapter 11: Hajv and Profane Persian
Abbreviations of Books and Journals Frequently Cited
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Secondary Literature
Index

Citation preview

A History of Persian Literature Volume II

Volumes of A History of Persian Literature

I General Introduction to Persian Literature II Persian Lyric Poetry in the Classical Era, 800–1500

Ghazals, Panegyrics and Quatrains



III Persian Narrative Poetry in the Classical Era, 800–1500



IV Heroic Epic

Romantic and Didactic Genres

The Shahnameh and its Legacy



V Persian Prose VI Religious and Mystical Literature VII Persian Poetry, 1500–1900

From the Safavids to the Dawn of the Constitutional Movement

VIII Persian Poetry in the Indian Subcontinent

Divans, Biographical Anthologies and Literary Criticism



IX Persian Literature from Outside Iran



X Persian Historiography XI Literature of the Early Twentieth Century

The Indian Subcontinent, Anatolia, Central Asia, and in Judeo-Persian From the Constitutional Period to Reza Shah

XII Modern Persian Poetry, 1940 to the Present Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan

XIII Modern Fiction and Drama XIV Biographies of the Poets and Writers of the Classical Period XV Biographies of the Poets and Writers of the Modern Period; Literary Terms XVI General Index Companion Volumes to A History of Persian Literature: XVII Companion Volume I: The Literature of Pre-­Islamic Iran X VIII Companion Volume II: Oral Literature of Iranian Languages Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik

Anthologies: XIX Anthology I: A Selection of Persian Poems in English Translation XX Anthology II: A Selection of Persian Prose in English Translation

A HISTORY OF PERSIAN LITERATURE Founding Editor—Ehsan Yarshater

Volume II

Persian Lyric Poetry in the Classical Era, 800–1500

Ghazals, Panegyrics and Quatrains

Edited by Ehsan Yarshater Sponsored by The Persian Heritage Foundation & The Ehsan Yarshater Center for Iranian Studies, Columbia University

I.B. TAURIS Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, I.B. TAURIS and the I.B. Tauris logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2019 Reprinted 2020 Copyright © 2019 The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York The right of The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York to be identified as the originators of this work has been asserted by The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-7883-1824-2 ePDF: 978-1-7867-3666-6 eBook: 978-1-7867-2660-5 Series: A History of Persian Literature, Volume II Layout and typesetting: Claudius Naumann

To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

A History of Persian Literature Editorial Board Mohsen Ashtiany J. T. P. de Bruijn Dick Davis Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak Franklin Lewis Paul Losensky

A Note from the Editorial Board of A History of Persian Literature The editor of the present volume, Professor Ehsan Yarshater, passed away in September 2018, while the volume was in its final stages of preparation. He had already written the foreword and a note about the volume. As the founder of the series A History of Persian Literature and the chairman of its board of editors, Professor Yarshater took an active interest in all the volumes in the series. The steady production and success of the volumes published so far owe a great deal to his formidable energy and erudition. That he himself should have decided to single out to edit the volume on lyrical poetry should not come as a surprise to those familiar with his writings. His love of music and poetry had instilled in him a life-long appreciation of lyrical poetry. In his entry on the characteristics and conventions of the ghazal in the Encyclopædia Iranica, he referred to the ghazal as the “most intense expression of love and beauty, with a universality of application peculiar to itself.” These observations on manifold aspects of lyric poetry, further developed in a later entry, an “Overview” of Hafez, bear all the hallmarks of his scholarship: deep learning and acute critical observations. And they offer even more: he manages to maintain a soberly analytical tone befitting a contribution to a reference work, along with a distinctly defiant and idiosyncratic voice: rejoicing in the subtle wit with which poetry could do the work of theology liberated from its stultifying pieties and pretenses. Professor Yarshater passed away before writing his intended introduction. What he has left behind enhances our sense of loss.

CONTENTS CONTRIBUTORS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix CHAPTER 1: THE PANEGYRICAL QASIDE—A BRIEF HISTORICAL PREVIEW (J. T. P. de Bruijn). . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1. The Qaside in the Samanid Era (819–1005)  . . . . . . . . . . 2 2. The Early Ghaznavid Period  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 3. Later Ghaznavid Poetry in Lahore and Ghazna  . . . . . . . 15 CHAPTER 2: THE PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD: COURT POETRY IN THE SAMANID AND GHAZNAVID PERIODS (Julie Scott Meisami) . . . . . . 19 1. Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 2. The Qaside and the Court: The Art of Celebration  . . . . . 26 3. Elegies and Invective Poems  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 4. Invective Poems  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 5. Formal and Rhetorical Strategies  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 6. Conclusion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 CHAPTER 3: THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS 1100–1500 CE (J. T. P. de Bruijn) . . . . . . . . . 102 1. The Survival of the Qaside  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 2. The Rise of the Saljuqs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 3. Two Early Saljuq Poets  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Lâmeʿi of Gorgân  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Borhâni of Nishapur  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 4. Amir Moʿezzi  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 5. Anvari  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 6. Zahir of Fâryâb  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 7. Two Qaside Poets in Isfahan  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Jamâl-al-Din Mohammad  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

ix

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA CHAPTER 4: QASIDES OF THE KH WÂRAZMSHÂHID COURT: VATVÂT AND ADIB SÂBER (Alireza Korangy)  . . 162 1. Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 The Qarakhanids  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 Amʿaq of Bukhara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Khwârazmshâhid Poets  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 2. Khwârazm and Khwârazmshâhids  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Vatvât and the Khwârazmshâhids  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Adib Sâber and the Khwârazmshâhids  . . . . . . . . . . . 169 3. Vatvât and Adib Sâber: Figurative Language and Rhetoric  . 169 Vatvât’s Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 Adib Sâber’s Style  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 4. Rashid-al-Din Vatvât  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Vatvât: Education  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Vatvât: Personality  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Vatvât’s Other Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Vatvât’s Patrons  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 5. Vatvât’s Qasides  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 6. Adib Sâber Termedhi  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Adib Sâber’s Personality  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Adib Sâber’s Education  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Adib Sâber’s Patrons  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 7. Adib Sâber’s Qasides  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 8. Conclusion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 CHAPTER 5: THE QASIDE IN WESTERN PERSIA— PERSIAN POETRY GOES WEST (J. T. P. de Bruijn)  . . . . . . 185 1. Asadi of Tus  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 2. Qatrân of Tabriz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 3. Khâqâni  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 CHAPTER 6: THE QASIDE IN THE MONGOL AND TIMURID PERIODS (M. Keyvani)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 1. Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 2. The Khwârazmshâhs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Literary Background  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 3. The Mongol Period  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Sociopolitical Backdrop  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Literary Milieu  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

x

Contents   4. Minor Courts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 The Older Courts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 The Five Smaller Dynasties  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213   5. Beyond the Iranian Territories  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216   6. Timurid Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Sociopolitical Background  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Literary Milieu  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219   7. Qaside: its Literary Status and Principal Features in the Thirteenth–Fifteenth Centuries  . . . . . . . . 227 Patronage  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Socioeconomic Position of Panegyrists . . . . . . . . . . . 229 Style of Qaside  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231   8. Componential Features  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234   9. Thematic Division of the Qaside  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Exordium  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 Transitional Line(s)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Encomium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 Prayer  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 Renewal of the Opening Distich  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 10. Linguistic Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 Macaronic Poems  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248 The Entry of Mongol Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249 11. Themes of the Qaside  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 Praising Secular Powers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Glorification of the Sacred  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Invocation to God (monâjât) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258 Felicitations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Elegy  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 Complaints  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264 Self-reproach  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Homily . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268 Satire  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 Celebration of Wine Drinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 Description of Natural Phenomena  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 Miscellaneous  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 12. Rhetorical Features  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 General Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 Overuse of Metaphor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 13. Conclusion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

xi

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA CHAPTER 7: STANZAIC POEMS (G. van den Berg)  . . . . . . 293 1. The Tarjiʿ-band and Tarkib-band  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 Prosody  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 Prosodical Theory  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 2. Mosammat  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 Prosody  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 Prosodical Theory  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 3. Conclusion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 CHAPTER 8: THE GHAZAL IN MEDIEVAL PERSIAN POETRY (J. T. P. de Bruijn)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 1. A Brief Survey of the Subject  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 2. The Prosody of the Ghazal—The Classical Form of the Ghazal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317 3. The Contents of the Ghazal  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 The Genre of the Taghazzol  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 Lover and Beloved  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 Modes of Speech and Style  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338 The Purpose of Writing Ghazals  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339 Love in the Abstract  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342 Mysticism in the Ghazal  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343 4. The Pre-classical Ghazal (Tenth–Eleventh Centuries)  . . . . 345 The Ghazal in Arabic Poetry  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 Textual History  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349 Rudaki  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351 Onsori and Farrokhi  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355 5. The Age of Sanâ’i (Late Eleventh–Twelfth Centuries)  . . . . 358 Masʿud-e Saʿd  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360 Othmân Mokhtâri  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364 ­Sanâ’i  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367 Seyyed Hasan Ashraf  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384 ­Suzani  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387 Abd-al-Vâseʿ Jabali  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388 Anvari  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390 Khâqâni  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394 Nezâmi of Ganje  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397 Jamâl-al-Din of Isfahan  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

xii

Contents 6. The Age of Saʿdi (Thirteenth Century)  . . . . . . . . . . . . 404 The Historical and Cultural Context  . . . . . . . . . . . . 404 The Expansion of Sufism and the Ghazal . . . . . . . . . . 405 Three Great Mystical Poets of Ghazals  . . . . . . . . . . . 405 The First Followers of Saʿdi  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426 7. The Age of Hâfez (Fourteenth Century)  . . . . . . . . . . . 431 Politics and Persian Culture during the Fourteenth Century  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431 Hâfez of Shiraz  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433 Some Samples of Hâfez’s Ghazals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448 Hâfez and Other Poets of the Ghazal . . . . . . . . . . . . 457 8. The Age of Jâmi (Fifteenth Century)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471 9. Conclusion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485 CHAPTER 9: THE FLOURISHING OF PERSIAN QUATRAINS (A. A. Seyed-Gohrab)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488 1. Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488 2. The Quatrain’s Origins, Rhyme, and Meter  . . . . . . . . . 489 3. Early Collections of Quatrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496 4. Quatrains and the Genre of Prosimetrum . . . . . . . . . . . 499 5. Wandering Quatrains  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503 6. Later Collections of Quatrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507 7. Amatory Motifs in Collections of Quatrains  . . . . . . . . . 513 8. Collections with Mystical Contents  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518 9. Omar Khayyâm and the Persian Quatrains . . . . . . . . . . 521 10. Khayyâmian Motifs Employed by Other Poets  . . . . . . . 529 11. Quatrains of Saʿdi  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537 12. Rumi as a Poet of Quatrains  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545 13. Fakhr-al-Din Erâqi (d. 1289) and Homâm-al-Din Tabrizi (d. ca. 1314–15)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549 14. Quatrains by Hâfez (ca. 1315–1390)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550 Language, Rhetoric, and Distinctive Features of Hâfez’s Quatrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552 Use of a “Pen Name” (Takhallos) in Quatrains  . . . . . . 553 15. Quatrains by Hâfez’s Contemporaries  . . . . . . . . . . . . 555 16. The Quatrain’s Use in Public  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561 17. Conclusion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567 CHAPTER 10: SHAHRÂSHUB (Sunil Sharma)  . . . . . . . . . 569

xiii

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA CHAPTER 11: HAJV AND PROFANE PERSIAN (Paul Sprachman) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579 ABBREVIATIONS OF BOOKS AND JOURNALS FREQUENTLY CITED  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603 BIBLIOGRAPHY  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605 Primary Sources  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605 Secondary Literature  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611 INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629

xiv

CONTRIBUTORS Johannes Thomas Pieter de Bruijn is Professor Emeritus of Persian at the University of Leiden. His publications include Of Piety and Poetry (1983, on Sanâ’i of Ghazna), Persian Sufi Poetry (1997), a Dutch translation of Sa‘di’s Golestân (1997); an anthology of classical Persian poetry (2002), and articles on Persian literature and the history of Persian studies in Europe. He is a contributor to the Encyclopædia of Islam and the Encyclopædia Iranica, the Consulting Editor of the latter for Persian Classical Literature, and the Vice-Chairman of the Editorial Board of A History of Persian Literature. Majdoddin Keyvani is Professor Emeritus of Applied Linguistics and Translation at Kharazmi University, Tehran and a member of the Higher Scientific Council of the Great Islamic Encyclopaedia. He is the author of several books in the areas of the principles of learning and teaching languages, psychology, education, mysticism, Sufism and history and literature. He is also a distinguished translator. Among his translations are A. H. Zarrinkub’s Persian Sufism in its Historical Perspective (2002) into Persian and Pelleh pelleh tā molāqāt-e Khodā into English as Step by Step up to Union with God (2009), and the first volume of A History of Persian Literature into Persian (2010). Alireza Korangy has been assistant professor of classical Persian and contemporary Iranian linguistics at the University of Virginia and has taught at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2007 and is currently the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Persian Literature and acting president of Societas Philologica Persica. His recent books include Development of the Ghazal and Khaqani’s Contribution: A Study of the Development of Ghazal and a Literary xv

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Exegesis of a 12 th c. Poetic Harbinger (2013) and an edited volume, Essays in Islamic Philology, History, and Philosophy (2016). Julie Scott Meisami has taught at the University of Tehran (1972–80), the University of California, Berkeley (1981–82), and was University Lecturer in Persian at Oxford University (1985–2002) until her retirement. She now lives in California. She has published several books, including Medieval Persian Court Poetry (1987), Persian Historiography to the End of the 12 th Century (1999), Structure and Meaning in Medieval Arabic and Persian Poetry (2003), numerous articles and translations from Persian, including Nezâmi of Ganja’s Haft Peykar (1995). Ali-Asghar Seyed-Gohrab is Associate Professor at Leiden University. His publications include Layli and Majnun: Love, Madness and Mystic Longing in Nizami’s Epic Romance (2003); Mirror of Dew: The Poetry of Ālam-Tāj Zhāle Qā’em-Maqāmi (2014); Courtly Riddles: Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry (2008). He has translated several volumes of modern Persian poetry into Dutch, including the poetry of Sohrâb Sepehri, ­Forough Farrokh­ zâd, and Mohammad-Rezâ Shafi‘i Kadkani. He is the founding general editor of the Iranian Studies Series at Leiden University Press and the Modern Persian Poetry Series. Sunil Sharma is Professor of Persianate and Comparative Literature at Boston University. His publications include Amir Khusraw: The Poet of Sufis and Sultans (2006) and Mughal Arcadia: Persian Poetry in an Indian Court (2017). He is a participant in a multi-year project entitled “Veiled Voyagers: Muslim Women Travelers from Asia and the Middle East” with the support of the Leverhulme Trust (UK) with Siobhan Lambert-Hurley (Sheffield University, UK) and Daniel Majchrowicz (Northwestern University). Veiled Voyagers will recover, translate and analyze Muslim women’s travel writing from a range of languages in order to draw out the gendered relationships that inhere between travel and Muslim identities, nationalism, and the shaping of global power. The project’s final output will include an annotated book edition, as well as an online repository of Muslim women’s travel texts in both the original and translation. xvi

Contributors

Paul Sprachman is a Professor Emeritus who taught at Rutgers University. He has worked and studied in Afghanistan and Iran. He is the author of Suppressed Persian: An Anthology of Forbidden Literature (1995); Language and Culture in Persian (2002), and Licensed Fool: The Damnable, Foul-mouthed ‘Obeyd-e Zakani (2012). He is also the translator of a number of works from Persian including Jalâl Al-Ahmad’s Plagued by the West; Ahmad Dehqân’s Journey to Heading 270 Degrees (2006); A Man of Many Worlds: The Memoirs and Diaries of Dr. Ghasem Ghani (2006); and Chess with the Doomsday Machine (2008) by Habib Ahmadzadeh. Gabrielle van den Berg is Senior University Lecturer in the Cultural History of Central Asia and Iran at the University of Leiden and Principal Investigator in the NOW VICI project Turks, Texts and Territory: Cultural Production and Imperial Ideology in Central Eurasia. She has held positions in Leiden, Cambridge and Brussels. Her research interests include Persian literature and the history of Iran and Central Asia; she has published in particular on the oral traditions of the Ismailis Badakhshan and the Shâhnâmeh manuscript tradition. Her publications include Minstrel Poetry from the Pamir Mountains. A Study on the Songs and Poems of the Ismailis of Tajik Badakhshan (2004). Ehsan Yarshater was Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies, Columbia University, and the Founding Editor of the Encyclopædia ­Iranica. Among his publications are Persian Poetry under Shâhrokh (1955, in Persian); Myths and Legends of Ancient Iran (1959, in Persian); A Grammar of Southern Tati Dialects (1970); and “The Persian Presence in the Islamic World” (1998). Among the books he has edited are Highlights of Persian Art (with R. Ettinghausen, 1979); Cambridge History of Iran, Volume III in two parts (1983); Persian Literature (1988); the general editor of the annotated translation of Tabari’s History (40 vols., 1979–2006); and the founding General Editor of the Persian Heritage Series, Persian Studies Series, and Modern Persian Literature Series.

xvii

FOREWORD In the 1990 s, I gradually became convinced that the time had come for a new, comprehensive, and detailed history of Persian literature, given its stature and significance as the single most important accomplishment of the Iranian peoples. Hermann Ethé’s pioneering survey of the subject, “Neupersische Litteratur” in Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie II, was published in 1904, and E. G. Browne’s far more extensive A Literary History of Persia, with ample discussion of the political and cultural background of each period, appeared in four successive volumes between 1902 and 1924. The English translation of Jan Rypka’s History of Iranian Literature, written in collaboration with a number of other scholars, came out in 1968 under his own supervision. Iranian scholars have also made a number of significant con­ tributions throughout the twentieth century to different aspects of Persian literary history. These include Badiʿal-Zamân ­Foruzânfar’s Sokhan va sokhanvarân (On Poetry and Poets, 1929–33); Mo­ hammad Taqi Bahâr’s Sabk-shenâsi (Varieties of Style in Prose) in three volumes (1942); and a general history of modern Persian literature (ca. 1900–1960) by the scholar and noted writer of novels and short stories, Bozorg Alavi (Ge­schichte und Entwicklung der Modernen Persischen Literatur, Berlin, 1964), designed explicitly to supplement the works of Browne and Rypka; and a number of monographs on individual poets and writers. The truly monumental achievement of the century in this context was Zabihollâh Safâ’s wide-ranging and meticulously researched Târikh-e adabiyyât dar Irân (History of Literature in Iran) in five volumes and eight parts (1953–79). It studies Persian poetry and prose in the context of their political, social, religious, and cultural background, from the rise of Islam to almost the middle of the eighteenth century. xix

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Nevertheless, it cannot be said that Persian literature has received the attention it merits, bearing in mind that it has been the jewel in the crown of Persian culture in its widest sense and the standard bearer for aesthetic and cultural norms of the literature of the eastern regions of the Islamic world from about the twelfth century; and that it has profoundly influenced the literatures of Ottoman Turkey, Muslim India, and Turkic Central Asia—a literary corpus that could inspire Goethe, Emerson, Matthew Arnold, and Jorge Luis Borges among others, and was praised by William Jones, Tagore, E. M. Forster, and many others. Persian literature remained a model for the literatures of the above regions until the nineteenth century, when the European influence began effectively to challenge the Persian literary and cultural influence, or in some cases until the twentieth century, when nationalist aspirations elevated the vernacular to full literary status. Whereas Persian art and architecture, and more recently Persian films, have been written about extensively and at different levels, for a varied audience, Persian literature has largely remained the exclusive domain of specialists. It is only in the past few years that the poems of Rumi have drawn to themselves the kind of popular attention enjoyed by Omar Khayyam in the nineteenth century. A History of Persian Literature (HPL) was conceived as a comprehensive and richly documented work, with illustrative examples and a fresh critical approach, written by prominent scholars in the field. An Editorial Board was selected and a meeting of the Board arranged in September 1995 in Cambridge, UK, in conjunction with the gathering that year of the Societas Europaea Iranologica, where the broad outlines of the editorial policy were drawn up. Fourteen volumes were initially envisaged to cover the subject, including two Companion Volumes. Later, we added an additional volume devoted to historiography, and two devoted to Persian literature from outside Iran (the Indian subcontinent, Anatolia and the Ottoman Empire, post-Timurid Central Asia—i. e., the Uzbek khanates and modern Tajikistan—and Judeo-Persian literature). The titles of all the volumes are listed in the beginning of this volume. Of the Companion Volumes, the first deals with pre-Islamic Iranian literatures, and the second with the literature of Iranian languages xx

Foreword

other than Persian, as well as Persian and Tajik oral folk literature. It is hoped that the multi-volume HPL will provide adequate space for the analysis and treatment of all aspects of Persian literature. As is evident from the title of the volumes, A History of Persian Literature’s approach is neither uniformly chronological nor entirely thematic. Developments occur in time and to understand a literary genre requires tracing its course chronologically. On the other hand, images, themes, and motifs have lives of their own, and need to be studied not only diachronically but also synchronically, regardless of the time element. A combination of the two methods has therefore been employed to achieve a better overall treatment. Generous space has been given to modern poetry, fiction, and drama in order to place them in the wider context of Persian literary studies and criticism.

About the present volume The second volume in this series presents the reader with an extensive study of some major genres of Persian poetry from the first centuries after the rise of Islam to the end of the Timurid era and the inauguration of Safavid rule in the beginning of the sixteenth century. The authors explore the development of poetic genres, from the panegyric (qaside), to short lyrical poems (ghazal), and the quatrains (roba‘i), tracing the stylistic evolution of Persian poetry up to 1500 and examine the vital role these poetic forms within the rich landscape of Persian Literature. As the Editor of the volume, and the General Editor, I would like to express my profound gratitude and appreciation to Mohsen Ashtiany and Mahnaz Moazami for their valuable suggestions and comments and particularly for their editorial assistance in the final stages of the publication. Ehsan Yarshater General Editor

xxi

CHAPTER 1 THE PANEGYRICAL QASIDE— A BRIEF HISTORICAL PREVIEW J. T. P. de Bruijn The qaside is a fundamental poetical form in Persian literature. Other lyrical forms have usually been defined as derivates of the qaside, particularly with regard to its main prosodic feature, the monorhyme pattern. Notwithstanding this central role, the qaside is also the form that is most closely linked to its historical predecessor, the Arabic qaside. The Bedouin Arab poets of pre-Islamic times had already used it as their most developed type of poetry. After the rise of Islam, it was taken over, with most of its characteristic features, and refined in literary circles of urban society in all Arabic speaking lands in the Middle East and as far west as the Maghreb and Andalusia. The qaside has survived into modern times, in spite of the rise of new forms in Arabic poetry. According to a frequently proposed etymology, the qaside is a poem written “with a specific purpose,” insofar as the term is thought to have been derived from the Arabic root q-a-ṣ-d, meaning, among other things, “to be headed for” or “earmarked for.” This not only refers to the quest motif of the poet as he travels through the desert in search of his beloved—a frequent feature of the pre-Islamic qaside—but also more specifically to the extra-­ literary purpose it serves as a means of drawing the attention of the addressee, beseeching this person to fulfill the poet’s wishes. In later centuries, when the qaside had moved on from the desert tents of the Bedouins to the mansions and palaces of the cities, the function of the poem as a means to flatter a patron remained intact. It became the most appropriate form for court poetry. 1

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

The Islamized Persian rulers mostly chose to style their court rituals on the basis of elaborate conventions inherited from, or attributed to, pre-Islamic Iranian kings. It seems certain that some kind of oral minstrel poetry set to music was a part of courtly entertainment in the pre-Islamic Persian court.1 However, it is doubtful if any form of immediate address to the royal patron—an essential component of the Arabic qaside—was in use at the Sasanid court. In the rare references to the origins of Persian Islamic poetry, the assumption is that at the genesis of the Persian panegyric qaside, there was a “translation” (both in a cultural and in a linguistic sense) from the Arabic tradition.2

1. The Qaside in the Samanid Era (819–1005) The semi-independent emirates of eastern Persia that emerged in the ninth and tenth centuries recognized the great advantages of poets who would compose eulogies in the vernacular through which the name and fame of their patrons would spread. It may be that from the beginning, these poems were put into writing, as was the case with Arabic poems of the same period. However, frequent invasions by nomadic tribes, the rise and fall of dynasties, and periods of devastation may have contributed to the destruction of much of the poetry composed at these early Persian courts. But the loss of almost the entire poetical corpus of the tenth century ce cannot have been caused solely by historical events. To a large extent, it must also be attributed to changes in literary appreciation and taste that took place in the course of subsequent centuries. In modern literary histories of Persia, this shift has been described in terms of a transition from a comparatively simple “style of Khorasan” (sabk-e Khorâsâni) to the more elaborate and sophisticated 1 2

The classic study on this subject is M. Boyce, “The Parthian Gōsān and Iranian Minstrel Tradition,” JRAS (1957), pp. 10–45. See e. g., the statement by Mohammad b. Vasif (fl. 9 th century), the S­ affarid court secretary for correspondence, cited in Târikh-e Sistân, ed. M. T. Bahâr (Tehran, 1935), pp. 209–10; cf. HPL I (2009), p. 15.

2

THE PANEGYRICAL QASIDE—A HISTORICAL PREVIEW

“style of Erâq” (sabk-e Erâqi).3 Although this was a gradual process, it must have had, at an early date, an adverse impact on the prospects of survival for the poetry of the Samanid era, discouraging its retention in living memory and diminishing its chances of being copied. Eventually, no more than stray lines, preserved accidentally in lexicographical sources such as Asadi’s Loghat-e fors assembled in the mid-eleventh century, or anthologies such as Owfi’s Lobâb al-albâb from the early thirteenth century, could survive. It is nearly always impossible to say which type of poems these fragments represent. Although the poetry written for the Samanids who reigned over a fairly extensive state in Transoxiana and Khorasan has survived to a considerable extent, there are only a few more or less complete qasides from this period still extant. Rudaki. Abu Abdallâh Jaʿfar Rudaki was the leading court poet under Samanid emir Nasr II (r. 914–43). He is generally acknowledged as the first great Persian poet, but unfortunately the passage of time has not spared his works. Nevertheless, the fragments assembled by modern scholars show that he was a prolific and versatile poet who could handle various poetic forms. According to legend, he was blind from birth and was a fine lute player. His musical accomplishments indicate that he was still close to the ancient Persian tradition that did not yet differentiate between the art of the poet and that of the minstrel. It seems likely that during his lifetime, and for a short while after­wards, he was regarded as a celebrated poet and his poems were assembled in a divan; but if so, the tome has been irretrievably lost. The Divân-e Rudaki that is extant in some manuscripts, and has even been printed as such, is in fact a collection of poems by the eleventh-century poet Qatrân.4 Only one more or less complete qaside by Rudaki has survived, because it was cited in full by an anonymous historian of the Sistan province with a report of the occasion for which it was written.5 It was intended to be dispatched with a caravan laden with presents sent by Rudaki’s patron Nasr b. 3 4 5

See on this classification of styles HPL I (2009), pp. 4–10. Cf. F. de Blois, PL V, pp. 223–24. Târikh-e Sistân, pp. 316–24.

3

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Ahmad (r. 914–43) to his governor in Sistan, Abu Jaʿfar, who had chastised one of the emir’s enemies. Among the gifts was a sealed bowl of wine; this inspired the poet Rudaki to open his poem with a long prologue on the subject of viniculture, fancifully depicting how the “children”—the grapes—of the “mother” vine are maltreated and incarcerated so as to produce a sparkling wine. Mâdar-e mey-râ bekard bâyad qorbân Bachche-ye u-râ gereft-o kard be-zendân Bachche-ye u-râ az-u gereft nadâni Tâ-sh nakubi nokhost-o z-u nakashi jân Joz ke nebâshad halâl dur bekardan Bachche-ye kuchek ze-shir-e mâdar-o pestân Tâ nakhworad shir-e haft mah be-tamâmi Az sar-e ordibehesht tâ bon-e âbân Ângah shâyad ze-ruy-e din-o rah-e dâd Bachche be zendân-e tang-o mâdar qorbân Chun besepâri be-habs bachche-ye u-râ Haft shabânruz khire mânad-o heyrân Bâz chu âyad be-hush-o hâl bebinad Jush bar ârad benâlad az del-e suzân It behoves thee to sacrifice the mother of wine [the vine] To seize her daughter and throw her into prison. Thou canst not take her daughter away from her Without first striking the mother and taking away her soul. Only it is not lawful to take away A little child from its mother’s milk and breasts, Until it has drunk that milk for full seven months From the end of Ardibehesht to the beginning of Âbân.6 Then [it is lawful] according to the tenets of Religion and the ways of Justice [To set] the child in a narrow prison and sacrifice the mother. When you confine her child to prison For seven days and nights the child is stupefied and bewildered. When it comes to its senses, and sees its condition It seethes and sighs from [the depths of] its burning heart. 6

Ardibehesht (later pronounced Ordibehesht) is the second month of the Persian calendar corresponding to March–April; Âbân is the eighth month corresponding to October–November.

4

THE PANEGYRICAL QASIDE—A HISTORICAL PREVIEW

Rudaki goes on to describe the fermentation of the wine, comparing the process to the purification of gold and to the behavior of an enraged (mast, literally “drunk”) camel. During this period, the vintner tends to the wine and clears the froth so that the rest settles down. When the wine has turned resplendently red like rubies, coral, and agate, exuding the scent of precious perfumes like musk and amber, the vintner keeps it under a closed lid until spring arrives. Ângah agar nime shab dar-ash bogshâ’i Chasme-ye khworshid-râ bebini tâbân Zoft shavad râd mard-o sost delâvar Gar bechashad z-u-o zardruy golestân Var be-bolur andar-sh bebini gu’i Gowhar-e sorkh-ast-o kaff-e Musâ-ye Emrân Then if at midnight you remove the lid You will see the sun shining. The miser becomes generous, and the feeble Becomes brave if he drinks of it, and the pale man turns rosy-cheeked. And if you look at it in a crystal jar you will say It is a red jewel and the hand of Moses, son of ‘Imran.7

Such a splendid beverage, capable of dispelling all cares and sorrows, “even if they were ten years old,” is worthy to be savored at a royal banquet. This forms the transition to the second theme of the qaside: the description of a festive gathering (majles) at the court of the “Emir of Khorasan,” i. e., the Samanid ruler. A lavishly bedecked seance is evoked where all the beauties and joys of Paradise are to be enjoyed. The emir is seated in the middle, with court notables standing on the two sides of his throne in the order of their ranks, with Balʿami, the emir’s vizier and secretary, in the foremost position. The emir is quoted as offering a toast to the governor to whom a cup of this wine will be sent. The poem then enters its final stage: the eulogy of the patron. This lengthy address constitutes the underlying purpose of the composition. The poet enumerates 7

When Moses displayed his hand to the onlookers it had turned white; this miracle is mentioned in the Qor’an, vii: 108 and xxvi: 33. It is often used in Persian poetry as a trope for extreme whiteness.

5

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

his virtues as a warrior, a ruler, and a dispenser of justice, and he also pays much attention to the scholarly qualities of the emir and his benevolence towards poets and men of culture: Khalq hame az khâk-o âb-o âtesh-o bâd-and V-in malek az âftâb-e gowhar-e Sâsân Farre bad-u yâft molk-e tire-o târi Adn bad-u gasht pir giti-ye virân Gar to fasihi hame manâqeb-e u guy V-ar to dabiri hame madâyeh-e u khwân Var to hakimi-o râh-e hekmat ju’i Sirat-e u gir-o khub madhhab-e u dân Ânke bad-u bengari be-hekmat go’i Inak Soqrât-o ham Falâtun-e Yunân V-ar to faqihi-o suy-e shar’ gerâ’i Shâfe’ inak-at-o Bu Hanife-o Sofyân Gar bogshâyad zafân be-elm-o be-hekmat Gush kon inak be-elm-o hekmat-e Loqmân All men are composed of earth, water, fire, and wind But this king is descended from the sun of the Sasanian stock.8 The universe, somber and desolate, through him became gay, A world in ruins, thanks to him, became the Garden of Eden. If thou art eloquent, recount all his virtues, If thou art a writer, recite all his praises. And if thou art a philosopher and seek the path of knowledge Copy his way of life and believe well his doctrine. He of whom, if you regard him from the point of view of a philosopher, you would say: “Here is Socrates and Plato of Greece.” If thou art a Doctor of the Law and art following the Law In him thou wilt find a Shâfeʿi, a Bû Hanifa, and a Sofyân.9 If he loosens his tongue in knowledge or in wisdom You will listen to the knowledge and wisdom of Loqmân.10   8 The Samanids regarded themselves as descendants of Bahrâm Chubin, the famous Sasanid general.   9 Founders of three Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence, of which the school of Sofyân al-Thowri was still widespread in Rudaki’s era. 10 Translation by E. Denison Ross, who was the first to publish Rudaki’s poem with philological notes by Mohammad Qazvini, “A Qasida by Rudaki,” JRAS 2 (1926), pp. 213–37.

6

THE PANEGYRICAL QASIDE—A HISTORICAL PREVIEW

Daqiqi. The poet Abu Mansur Mohammad Daqiqi (d. between 975–80) is best known as Ferdowsi’s predecessor in versifying the sagas of the ancient kings of Iran.11 He was, moreover, a prominent panegyrist of the Samanids and other local princes of their period. Only the prologue (nasib) of one of his qasides has survived. Like Rudaki’s qaside cited above, it is much longer than the nasibs normally found in panegyric qasides. In forty-six couplets, an “idol with the face of a fairy,” who is the poet’s beloved, is described and then quoted as reproaching the lover for his unfaithfulness. Peri-chehre boti ayyâr-o delbar Negâri sarv-qadd-o mâh-manzar Siyah-chashmi ke tâ ruy-ash bedidam Sereshk-am khun shod-ast-o bar moshajjar Agar na del hami khwâhi sepordan Bad-ân mozhgân-e zahrâlu-sh mengar Vagar na bar balâ khwâhi godhashtan Bar âtash bogdhar-o bar dar-ash mogdhar An idol with a fairy’s face, a deft heart-stealer, A beauty, cypress-like in stature, resplendent as the moon. A black-eyed beauty; ever since I saw her face, My tears have turned into blood and my breast rent asunder. If you do not wish to lose your heart, Do not glance at those poisoned lashes. And if you do not wish to face a calamity Pass through a fire but do not cross the beloved’s door.

These opening lines evoke the image of the merciless beloved of a Persian ghazal, which also frequently appears in the prologues of classical qasides: the beloved is portrayed as an object of passionate desire as well as a source of deep fear given his or her wanton capriciousness. No name or gender is mentioned, but the overwhelming evidence of Persian love poetry points to a youthful male.12 The irresistible beauty of the beloved is depicted with conventional tropes borrowed from nature and a luxurious lifestyle. Worthy of note are 11 12

See further HPL I (2009), p. 339. On gender in classical Persian poetry, see further the chapter on the ghazal in this volume, chap. viii.

7

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

the references to religious lore, including the story of Joseph (Yusof) and his father Jacob (Yaʿqub) derived from the Qor’an, where it is told that Jacob wept so bitterly over the loss of his favorite son that he became blind; further, there is an allusion to the hardship of the second Imam of the Shiʿites, Hasan b. Ali, at the hands of Moʿâviye the son of Abu Sufiyân, who, according to several early sources, was involved in the poisoning of Ali. These motifs provide a transition to the main theme of this prologue, namely, the poet’s intense agony and his fear of the beloved’s unfaithfulness: Ayâ nâpâkvâr in khwâriy-am bas Bed-in andar nayâram sar ba-chanbar Cherâ nanvisi-yam bâri madihi Ze-mir-e nâmdâr ân shâh-e mehtar? Kodâm-ast ânke gu’i ruy-e giti Beyafruzad be Bu Saʿ d-e Mozaffar? be-man deh tâ bedâram yâdgâri be-parde-ye chashm benvisam be-anbar be-halqe-ye zolfak-e khwish-ash bebandam chu taʿvidhi foru âvizam az bar O wicked man, I have been humiliated enough! I will no longer put up with this! Why don’t you write for me a poem of praise On the famous emir, that mighty king? For, whom else could you name, who would be able To shed light on the world, like Bu Saʿd, son of Mozaffar?13 Give it to me as a keepsake, that I may write it With amber on the curtain of my eyes [i. e., my eyelids]. I will attach it to my little ringlet And let it hang on my breast as an amulet.

These words upset the poet. He becomes anxious that his sweetheart might leave him. In anticipation of this, he bursts into tears, but the effect of his weeping is startling and provides a new twist to the poem. 13 According to Gilbert Lazard, a reference to Daqiqi’s patron Abu Saʿd Mohammad b. Mozaffar, the emir of Chaghâniyân, a vassal state of the Samanids. In astrology, saʿ d is the fortunate aspect of the planets.

8

THE PANEGYRICAL QASIDE—A HISTORICAL PREVIEW Betarsidam ke nâgahân kenâr-am Tohi gardânad az bostân-e abhar Chu az man bogsalad key binam-ash bâz Key âyad in godhashte ranj-râ bar Foru bârid abr az didegân-am Bar ân khwarshid k-ash bâlâ senowbar Hami begristam tâ z-âb-e chahshm-am Chu ru-ye yâr-e man shod ru-ye keshvar Chu ru-ye yâr-e man shod dahr gu’i Hami ârez beshoyad b-âb-e kowthar I feared that suddenly my side would become bereft Of the narcissus of the orchard, When the beloved would forsake me, would we ever meet again? Would all my suffering bear any fruit? A cloud burst and poured down from my eyes Upon that Sun towering like a cypress. I feared that suddenly my side would become bereft Of the narcissus of the orchard; if the beloved Did leave me, when would I see him again? How could this suffered loss be recompensed? I kept on weeping until through the water from my eyes The soil of the land became like the face of my beloved. Yes, the world became just like the beloved’s face, it was as if Water of the river of Paradise washed the cheeks.

This imaginative conceit brings the poet’s mind back to reality and returns to the purpose of his qaside. His dream corresponds to the beauty of the emir’s palace garden depicted as it appears at one of its most splendid moments: the dream portrays the early morning when the prince holds an audience where the grandees of his court arrive to pay homage. Be sad gune negâr ârâste bâgh Be-naqsh-e vashshi-o naqsh-e mosayyar Be kâkh-e Mir-e mâ mânad be-khubi Goshâde bar hame âzâdegân dar Sahargâhân ke bâd narm jombad Bejombânad derakht-e sorkh-o asfar The garden was adorned with a hundred statues Like images on printed silk.

9

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA It resembled the palace of the emir, so beautiful, With its gates open wide to all the noble retinue, At daybreak when a tender breeze moves Shaking the red and yellow blossoms of the trees.

The poem ends where one would expect the poet’s eulogy to begin. It seems likely that the extant text is only the lengthy prologue to a much longer poem.14 It may be that these two qasides owe their survival to their long and attractive prologues. Already in the Ghaznavid period, the court poets attached much shorter introductions to their panegyrics, usually no longer than the size of an independent ghazal poem, although there are examples of elaborate prologues in the divans of later poets.15 However, the fragmentary state of the poetry left by Samanid poets does not allow us to draw any conclusions about the general character of the qaside at this early stage. The evidence that the qaside was widely used during the tenth century is abundant. One of the most celebrated names of the period is Abu Shakur of Balkh; however, although he was certainly a professional court poet, the bulk of the surviving lines in his name belong to an early didactical mathnavi, the Âfarin-nâme (Book of Praise), completed in 947.16 Another notable poet at the court of Bukhara was Abu’l-Abbâs Rabenjani, who in 943 wrote an elegy on the death of Emir Nasr II, celebrating at the same time the accession to the throne of his son Nuh. This proves that the qaside was already used for elegiac poetry at that time. In the next century, the Ghaznavid poet Farrokhi still praised Abu’l-Abbâs as a “master poet” (shâʿeri ostâd).17 Another name that was still remembered later was Shahid of Balkh, who was particularly renowned as a philosopher. 14 15 16 17

Or “Book of Blessing.” The reconstruction of Daqiqi’s qaside by G. Lazard is based on Jâjarmi’s Mo’nes-al-ahrâr and other anthologies; cf. Les premiers poètes persans (Tehran and Paris, 1964), I, pp. 144–47; II, pp. 151–54. See, e. g., the qasides by Amʿaq and Zahir of Fâryâb discussed further in this chapter. See further HPL III, forthcoming. On the biography of these two poets see de Blois, PL V, 61–62, 105–8.

10

THE PANEGYRICAL QASIDE—A HISTORICAL PREVIEW

Among the fragments of Rudaki’s work were several specimens of wisdom literature. His contribution to this genre consisted of a number of didactic mathnavis, including a versification of the well-known collection of animal fables, Kalile va Demne, and the moralistic poem, Barlaam and Josaphat, based to some extent on the life of the Buddha. The contents of such fragments had apparently withstood the vicissitudes of time better than the panegyrics.

2. The Early Ghaznavid Period The Persian Samanids, whose roots were in the ruling elite of the Sasanid period, were succeeded by upstarts, the Turkish Ghaznavids, rising to power from the ranks of the military slaves of the Samanids. This background had made them familiar with the courtly ceremonies of their former masters, and they emulated them with remarkable success. Yamin-al-Dowle Mahmud b. Sebüktegin (998–1030) was the first fully independent ruler of the dynasty and the true founder of the Ghaznavid empire. At the end of his reign, his domains included present-day Afghanistan, Khorasan, Transoxiana, and the western part of the Indian subcontinent. In addition to his military prowess, Mahmud possessed a keen sense of literary propaganda. He strove to turn Ghazna into a glittering center of learning and artistic activities, thereby achieving considerable personal prestige within the Abbasid Caliphate. The patronage of the poets at Mahmud’s court set a model for later centuries. The Persian qaside prospered greatly through this and soon became the most important form of literary art, fulfilling many functions in the ritual of the court and commemorating important events of his reign. The expectation of a rewarding employment in the sultan’s service attracted many ambitious men. In order to create a mechanism by which a selection could be made from the pool of candidates, the office of “Prince of the Poets” (emir or malek al-shoʿarâ) was established. The main task of the poet laureate was to put prospective court poets to the test before they were allowed to appear before the sultan’s throne. According 11

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

to the anthologist and biographer Dowlatshâh (fl. about 1500), Sultan Mahmud appointed Abu’l-Qâsem Hasan Onsori (d. 1039 or later) to this post, admitting him at the same time to the inner circle of his companions.18 Onsori was handsomely rewarded for his services, and his name became proverbial for the fortune that could be made from professional poetry. The high reputation of his qasides survived him for several generations, as attested by their frequent imitation by poets of the eleventh and twelfth century, and from the great number of his lines quoted in early rhetorical and lexicographical sources, such as Râduyâni’s manual of rhetoric Tarjomân al-balâghe and Asadi’s Loghat al-fors. However, in the thirteenth century, the high status of Onsori as master of the qaside declined, undoubtedly as the result of the changes of poetic style that were initiated in particular by the Saljuq poet Anvari, and are known now as sabk-e Erâqi, referred to earlier in this section. Most of Onsori’s poems are in praise of Mahmud and his brother Abu Nasr. Particularly famous are the qasides he wrote to celebrate the sultan’s victories in the expeditions to the Indian subcontinent, the so-called “records of victory” (fath-nâmes). His style bears witness to his dexterity in constructing panegyric argumentations. Favorite rhetorical devices of Onsori included structuring a poem as a succession of questions and answers (soʾ âl va javâb), and the artful enumeration of the terms of his eulogy by listing the laudable qualities of his patron (taqsim al-sefât).19 No less successful as a poet of the court was Abu’l-Hasan Ali Farrokhi (d. between 1030 and 1040). He was the son of a military slave from Sistan. An anecdote told by Nezâmi Aruzi in his Chahâr maqâle well illustrates how the career of an ambitious young poet could get under way. At first, Farrokhi learnt the trade of professional poetry at the court of a local ruler in his homeland. He then tried his luck with Abu’l-Mozaffar, the emir of Chaghâniyân in the mountains of northeastern Khorasan. By presenting two qasides—one of which described the branding of the colts of his 18 Cf. HPL I (2009), p. 25, and EI2 , s. v. Malik al-shuʿarāʾ. 19 Cf. EI2 , s. v. ‘Onṣorī, and de Blois, PL V, pp. 232–37 with further references. Divân, ed. M. Dabir-Siyâqi (Tehran, 1963, reprint 1984).

12

THE PANEGYRICAL QASIDE—A HISTORICAL PREVIEW

patron—he passed the initial test and was given his first assignment as the ruler’s encomiast. From here, he took a giant step to solicit a position at the sultan’s court in Ghazna. Eventually, he established his renown as a composer of panegyrics of the sultan, his ministers, and his courtiers. Like Rudaki, he was not only a poet, but also a master harpist. His poetry is still attractive to modern readers, because of his extraordinary skill as a writer of prologues (nasibs) to his eulogies. In these parts of his qasides, he evokes idealized landscapes associated with amorous themes and wine poetry. The beloved with whom he dallies is often identified as a Turk—perhaps a slave soldier in the army of the sultan is intended. Like Onsori, he also composed qasides about his patron’s military exploits, of which the description of the raid on the Hindu temple at Somnath in the Indian province of Gujarat is the most notable specimen. Equally renowned is Farrokhi’s elegy mourning the death of Sultan Mahmud in 1030, the most evocative poem of this genre in Persian poetry. His poetic style has been praised for its “inimitable artlessness” (sahl-e momtane), although he did not shun the use of intricate rhetorical figures.20 The third important poet of the Ghaznavid court in the early eleventh century was Abu’l-Najm Ahmad (d. in 1040 or later), who derived his penname Manuchehri from his first patron, the Ziyarid prince Manuchehr b. Qâbus (1012–29), who reigned in Central Persia and the Caspian region of Gorgân. It appears that he came to Ghazna only after Mahmud’s death and was active during the reign of Mahmud’s son Masʿud I (1030–40). Besides qasides, he composed eleven stanzaic poems in the form known as mosammat, exhibiting his superb descriptive talents.21 20 An excellent monograph on Farrokhi is Gholâm-Hoseyn Yusofi, Farrokhi Sistâni bahthi dar sharh-e ahvâl va ruzgâr va sheʿr-e u (Tehran, 1962); see also J. T. P. de Bruijn, EIr, s. v. Farrokī Sīstānī with further references; de Blois, PL V, pp. 18–21. Divân, ed. M. Dabir-Siyâqi (Tehran, 1956 and later reprints). G. E. Tetley, The Ghaznavid and the Seljuk Turks. Poetry as a Source for Iranian History (London and New York, 2008) investigates in detail the political and historical context of his poetry. 21 See J. W. Clinton, The Divan of Manūchihrī Dāmghānī. A Critical Study (Minneapolis, 1972); de Blois, PL V, pp. 187–91. Divân, ed. M. Dabir-Siyâqi (Tehran, 1947 and later reprints).

13

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

During the first half of the eleventh century, the court of Ghazna swarmed with eager would-be poets, but most of them have left little more than their names. The only extant volumes of collected poetry belong to the three prominent poets mentioned above. The poetry of others survive as mere fragments preserved in later sources, particularly in books mixing biography with anthology, known as tadhkeres. Some of the poets of the period deserve a special mention. The name of Kesâʾi of Marv (953–1000 or later) is of interest mainly because he is cited frequently in the qasides of the Ismaili poet and philosopher Nâser-e Khosrow, who regarded Kesâʾi as a precursor of the tradition of religious Shiʿite poetry. Kesâʾi was, however, also a panegyrist; he wrote at least one poem in praise of Sultan Mahmud, who was renowned for his staunch defense of Sunni Islam and the rights of the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad.22 In the early eleventh century, poets writing in Persian for rulers outside the Ghaznavid lands were still very rare. One was Abu Zeyd Mohammad Ghazâʾeri (his pen-name was according to some early sources Ghazâri), a court poet of the Shiʿite Buyid rulers of Rayy who held on to the city until 1029. Nevertheless, long before the Ghaznavids drove them out and conquered Rayy, Ghazâʾeri had sent qasides praising Sultan Mahmud to Ghazna, for which he was well rewarded. It has been claimed that his rivalry and polemics with Mahmud’s poet laureate Onsori constitute the oldest specimen of poetic criticism in the history of Persian literature. For example, it is present in a qaside known as the Lâmiyye, after its rhyme on the letter lâm of the Arabic alphabet.23 Less certain are the Ghaznavid connections of Labibi, a poet whose full name and biography are entirely missing from the historical record. He must have been a contemporary of the great poets of Ghazna, but it seems that his own patrons were the local 22 Mohammad Amin Riyâhi, Kesâ’i Marvazi: zendegi, andishe va sheʿr-e u (Tehran, 1988). 23 Cf. Safâ, TADI I, pp. 570–75. The full text of the lâmiyye qaside is preserved in a late source, the nineteenth-century tadhkere of Rezâ-qoli Khân Hedâyat, Majmaʿ al-fosahâ.

14

THE PANEGYRICAL QASIDE—A HISTORICAL PREVIEW

princes of Chaghâniyân, in whose court Farrokhi had begun his career.24 Little more is known about Abu Nazar Abd-al-Aziz Asjadi, who probably came from Marv, and wrote eulogies for Mahmud and his son Masʿud I (1031–40). He celebrated the former’s conquest of Somnâth. Asjadi’s poetic talents must have made some impression, as evidenced by numerous citations in various sources, and by the fact that he was mentioned later by the leading Saljuq poet Moʿezzi.25

3. Later Ghaznavid Poetry in Lahore and Ghazna By the mid-eleventh century, the glorious days of Ghaznavid patronage were over; their lands were overwhelmed by a new flood of Oghuz Turkish invaders, led by the clan of the Saljuqs. They took control of the Central Asian provinces of the Persian empire and Khorasan, leaving the Ghaznavids only their territories in eastern Afghanistan and in the Indian subcontinent. Although they retained control of their capital Ghazna, the city was no longer the center of Persian Islamic civilization that it had been in the preceding half-century. Only at Lahore in the Punjab, the capital of Ghaznavid Hindustan, did the tradition of court poetry continue to thrive under the aegis of the viceroys (maleks), who were princes of the sultan’s house. A first sign of a revival was the installation in 1076 of Seyf-al-Dowle Mahmud as governor of Ghaznavid Hindustan, which established in power the son of the ruling Sultan Ebrâhim. This event was commemorated in qasides by the two figures destined to become the most prominent court poets of their generation. The older poet was Abu’l-Faraj Runi (d. about 1115), who may have come from a Khorasanian family that had settled in the Punjab 24 A critical edition of the fragments of Labibi’s poetry by J. Rypka and M. Borecký appears in “Labibi,” Archiv Orientální 14 (1943), pp. 261–307; see also Safâ, TADI I, pp. 547–50; EI2 , s. v. Labībī; de Blois, PL V, pp. 180–82. 25 Cf. Safâ, TADI I, pp. 577–80; de Blois, PL V, p. 90.

15

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

after the Ghaznavid conquest. Throughout his career, he stayed in Lahore, although he also described the victories of the sultan in his Indian campaigns, for which the Punjab was the starting point. His divan has only survived in incomplete manuscripts, and still awaits a critical edition. His qasides show a number of stylistic features that set them apart from the style of the earlier Ghaznavid poets. In several of his poems, he omits the conventional prologue, opening at once with the eulogy of his patron. Equally remarkable are the introduction of uncommon compounds, original metaphors, and a great density of rhetorical artifices. More often than his predecessors, he made references to scientific and religious lore. In the twelfth century, these innovations were appreciated by Anvari, who himself was an important pioneer of the renewal of the Persian qaside.26 Better known to posterity than Runi was Masʿud b. Saʿd b. Salmân (d. probably in 1121). He owed his lasting reputation partly to his long imprisonment by the vindictive Ghaznavid sultan Ebrâhim, and partly to the poems he wrote on this topic that became famous under the heading habsiyyât (prison poems). About half a century after the event, an account of his plight was given by Nezâmi-ye Aruzi in Chahâr maqâle (Four Discourses), his anecdotal survey of various professions in the service of a Persian ruler. As well as writing poetry, Masʿud served as an official in the administration of Lahore and as a courtier to the viceroy Seyf-alDowle Mahmud. When his patron fell under the suspicion of planning a rebellion against his father, he was deposed and Masʿud was sent into exile to remote fortresses in the Afghan mountains. From there, he directed poetical pleas for a pardon to Sultan Ebrâhim, but this was only granted to him by Ebrâhim’s successor Masʿud III (1099–1115). He spent his final years in Ghazna serving as a court poet and librarian. He was a very inventive poet, not merely in his many qasides, but also in other short poems of various forms, including ghazals, occasional poems, and a brief mathnavi 26 Cf. J. T. P. de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry. The Interaction of Religion and Literature in the Life and Works of Ḥakīm Sanāʾī of Ghazna (Leiden, 1983), p. 150; idem, EI2 Suppl., s. v. Abū’l-Faradj Rūnī; de Blois, PL V, pp. 510–12.

16

THE PANEGYRICAL QASIDE—A HISTORICAL PREVIEW

describing in a mixture of panegyrics and satire the gathering of the attendants at the court of Lahore.27 Another major poet of this period was Othmân Mokhtâri (about 1075–about 1120), a wandering poet who visited many different courts over the years, including that of the Saljuqs of Kerman, the Ismaili ruler of the oasis of Tabas, some Central Asian grandees, and two Ghaznavid sultans, Masʿud III (1099–1115) and his son Malek Arslân (1116–18). At the court of Malek Arslân, he reached the position of a poet laureate. He also wrote a qaside in praise of his fellow poet Masʿud-e Saʿd, and was acquainted with his younger contemporary Sanâʾi, who collected a copy of Mokhtâri’s divan. A remarkable feature of his qasides are the poetic descriptions (vasfs), often in the form of a riddle. Their subjects include the conventional emblems of royalty, such as the sword, the bow, the pen, and the horse, but also a fire, a winter scene, and a palace. In a short mathnavi, the Honar-nâme, he demonstrated his skillful handling of this device in an attempt to win the favor of new patrons.28 In more than one way, Majdud Sanâʾi of Ghazna (d. 1131) stands apart from the qaside writers of this period. He began his career as a novice panegyrist praising several different patrons in Ghaznavid society, among them state officials, military men, scientists, Islamic scholars, and other poets, but not the reigning sultan of his early years, Masʿud III. Before he could gain entrance to the court, he left Ghazna for Khorasan. For some time, he lived in a number of cities in Khorasan, in particular at Sarakhs. Here he found the patronage of a scholar and preacher with a prominent administrative function, the chief judge (qâzi al-qozât) Seyf-al-Haqq Mohammad b. Mansur, for whom he wrote poems in many different forms besides 27 Most recent edition of his Divân ed. M. Mahyâr (Tehran, 2011). A monograph on Masʿud-e Sa’d is Sunil Sharma, Persian Poetry at the Frontier (New Delhi, 2000). See further: de Blois, PL V, pp. 412–16. See also J. T. P. de Bruijn, EI2 Suppl., s. v. Ḥabsiyyāt. 28 Cf. J. S. Meisami, EI2 , s. v. Mukhtārī; de Blois, PL V, pp. 428–35. The divan was edited in an exemplary fashion by Jalâl-al-Din Homâ’i, Divân-e ­Othmân-e Mokhtâri (Tehran, 1962), whose further studies on the poet were posthumously published in his Mokhtâri-nâme (Tehran, 1981). On his riddles see A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, Courtly Riddles (Amsterdam and West Lafayette, Ind., 2008).

17

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

the qaside, such as ghazals, occasional poems (moqattaʿ ât), stanzaic poems, and a mathnavi, the Seyr al-ʿebâd elâ’l-maʿ âd (“The Journey of the Faithful to the Place of Return”). Later in his life, he returned to Ghazna and caught the attention of the Ghaznavid ruler, Bahrâmshâh (1117–about 1152), whom he eulogized as an example of the perfect Islamic ruler in his monumental didactic poem Hadiqat al-haqiqe (“The Garden of Truth”).29 During his wandering years, he achieved great fame through his poems on religious and ethical themes, which are also mixed with Sufi ideas. However, in many of these homiletic compositions, there are panegyrical passages as well, showing that Sanâʾi’s literary life was still by and large dependent on the support of secular patronage. In some early manuscripts of his divan, his panegyrics (madhiyyât) and his homiletic poems (zohdiyyât) were arranged in separate sections.30 During the long reign of Bahrâmshâh, a considerable number of poets attended the sultan’s court for varying lengths of time. The most notable among them is Seyyed Hasan of Ghazna (d. about 1160), also known as Seyyed Ashraf. In 1149, when towards the end of his reign Bahrâmshâh was driven away from Ghazna by Ghurid invaders, Seyyed Ashraf also left the city to seek refuge with the Saljuq sultan Sanjar and his successors. He wrote panegyrics, but was also renowned as a man of religion and a preacher whose tomb became a sanctuary to which pilgrimages were made.31

29 Cf. the chapter on the didactical mathnavi in HPL III, forthcoming. 30 Cf. de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry; de Blois, PL V, pp. 517–34. Divân of Sanâ’i, ed. M. T. Modarres Razavi (2 nd ed., Tehran, 1962) to be used with caution; for an assessment of this edition see de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, pp. 93–95. 31 Cf. A. L. Beelaert, EI2 , s. v. Sayyid Ḥasan Ghaznawī; de Blois, PL V (2004), pp. 333–35. Divân, ed. M. T. Modarres Razavi (2 nd print, Tehran, 1983).

18

CHAPTER 2 THE PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD: COURT POETRY IN THE SAMANID AND GHAZNAVID PERIODS Julie Scott Meisami

1. Introduction The panegyric qaside lies at the heart of the Persian poetic tradition. It constitutes the standard by which poetic eloquence is judged, and furnishes most of the examples used to illustrate ideals of form, imagery, rhetoric, and style. The qaside is not a genre but a form, or rather a framework, into which various content-­ oriented genres—love song (nasib, taghazzol), description (vasf), praise (madh), invective (hajv), self-praise (fakhr), gnomic or ascetic topics (hekmat, zohd), admonition (vaʿz), and others—may be incorporated. This flexibility facilitates the qaside’s adaptation for uses other than courtly panegyric, elegy (marthiya), and invective.1 This chapter will focus on the qaside’s development during the Samanid and, especially, the Ghaznavid periods. Little early poetry survives, but the extant examples, mostly fragmentary, from the late Samanid period (especially from the reign of Nasr II b. Ahmad

1

See further J. S. Meisami, “Genres of Court Literature,” HPL I (2009), pp. 233–69. On adaptations of the qaside see idem, “Poetic Microcosms: the Persian Qasida to the End of the Twelfth Century,” in S. Sperl and C. Shackle, eds., Qasida Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa (Leiden, 1996), I, pp. 137–82.

19

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

[914–43]) provide a partial picture of the themes and images of this style of poetic artistry.2 Under the Samanids, despite the increasing patronage of literature in Persian, the dominant language of poetry was still Arabic, although many poets were bilingual (dhu’l-lesânayn). It was Mahmud of Ghazna (998–1030) who, with his court officials and his vassal princes, provided unprecedented patronage for poetry in Persian—so much so that Mahmud became a celebrated exemplar for posterity for his largesse towards poets;3 it was Mahmud’s court poets who developed and manipulated the Persian qaside in ways that influenced all later poetry. Although Mahmud’s encouragement of Persian poets has been seen as “inspired by a keen sense of the propagandistic value of patronage”—which it undoubtedly was—the quality of the poetry produced at his court lifts it far above mere propaganda.4 It has been argued that early Persian poetry was “a single literature expressed in two languages,” Arabic and Persian.5 Gilbert Lazard states: “Since lyrical poetry both in Arabic and in Persian was addressed, at least in aristocratic circles, to the same audiences and readers and often shared the same authors, it naturally dealt with the same subjects, in the same way. It is obvious that the Arabic lyric imposed its patterns upon the Persian.”6 Lazard asserts that, by the late ninth/third century, the “subjects and forms” of Persian 2

See G. Lazard, Les premiers poètes persans (Tehran and Paris, 1964) for discussion, texts, and translations of poetry prior to Rudaki; see also idem, “The Rise of the New Persian Language,” CHIr IV (1975), pp. 595–632. 3 See, e. g., Abu Nasr Otbi, Ta’rikh al-Yamini (2 vols., Cairo, 1869), II, p. 55. Mahmud’s panegyrist Onsori advised aspiring poets: “sokhan bedu bar tâ bakht ze to ârad rakht / del-at bedu deh v-ângah del-e moluk setân.” “Take your poetry to him, so that good fortune will come to you; give your heart to him, and take (in exchange) the hearts of kings.” Onsori, Divân, ed. M. Dabir-Siyâqi (2 nd ed., Tehran, 1970), p. 264, l. 2521. 4 J. T. P. de Bruijn, EI2, “Iran. vii. Literature.” 5 R. N. Frye, Bukhara: The Medieval Achievement (2 nd ed., Costa Mesa, Calif., 1997), p. 60; cf. also A. Bausani, “Letteratura Neopersiana,” in A. Pagliaro and A. Bausani, eds., Storia della letteratura persiana (Milan, 1960), p. 311. 6 Lazard, “The Rise of the New Persian Language,” p. 615; see also p. 612, where New Persian poetry’s sources are identified as “Arabic literature and oral Iranian literature.”

20

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

poetry “were fixed and the same tradition was to inform all the poetry which followed;”7 Hans de Bruijn argues that the constraints of convention meant that “creative invention [could] only be applied on the smallest elements of the poem, i. e., the individual lines (beyts) and the images and metaphors on which they are based.”8 Such assertions reflect traditional views both of literary influence, which assume the impact of a strong literary tradition (or of a particular writer or writers) upon a passive recipient or recipients, and of literary conventions, viewed as fixed rules which act as constraints on creativity. However, the poets of the Samanid period, such as Abu’l-Abbâs Rabenjani, Daqiqi, and Rudaki, were already composing panegyrics in a recognizably Persian style, and writing poetry of a degree of sophistication that suggests a prior period of development which remains shrouded in obscurity. Persian poets engaged with, rather than merely following, Arabic models; what borrowing took place was, in most cases, not merely imitative but rather creative. It is somewhat misleading to speak of “the qaside” as if it existed independently of the poets who used and developed the form. Its prosodic requirements are minimal: monometer, rhyme in the first two halves of the opening line (matlaʿ), and monorhyme throughout. The number of lines can range from ten or twelve to over a hundred; moreover, neither the sequence nor even the presence of its various “movements” is fixed. As far as prosody is concerned, it is less constraining than, say, the sonnet, with its fixed length and rhyme schemes, the Spenserian stanza, the terza rima, or other fixed forms that exist in European languages. A qaside typically consists of several parts or movements: an exordium or prelude (nasib, tashbib), which is usually a love song (taghazzol) or a description (vasf), e. g., of a garden, a palace, or a royal feast; a transitional section (takhallos, gorizgâh), which leads to the panegyric and normally includes the name of the mamduh (the person praised), followed by a few lines of general praise; and the encomium (madih), which usually begins in the third person (“he who is,” “he who did,” etc.), then changes to direct address (“O 7 8

Ibid., p. 596. de Bruijn, EI2 , “Iran. vii. Literature.”

21

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

you who …”). After praising his patron, the poet might incorporate more personal material (hasb-e hâl): expressions of gratitude, complaints of poverty, suits of favor, attacks on rivals (hajv), reproach (etâb), or self-praise (fakhr). The qaside ends with a doʿ â, a prayer for the wellbeing of the mamduh. Since the order of progression is not rigidly fixed, a poet might dispense with the exordium, incorporate a descriptive passage into the madih, or insert a doʿ â at the point of transition from one topic to another. However, because the general outlines of the qaside form were well known, variations would have attracted the attention of sophisticated audiences. In contrast to the nasib of the Arabic qaside, which, even when composed in an urban, courtly environment, retained its ancestral desert motifs (e. g., the mention of the atlâl, the ruined traces of tribal encampments, or of the za’â’en, the tribe’s departing women), the nasib of the Persian qaside typically focuses on the world of the court (i. e., the garden, the feast) or on courtly or urbanized themes of love. The beloved of the Persian nasib is no tribal Arab lady, but rather a beautiful male cupbearer or a young Turkish gholâm (military slave) who is unnamed—no generic Salmâs or Hinds populate the Persian nasib. There are exceptions, especially when a poet deliberately imitates Arabic models; Manuchehri provides a good example, but even in his case we see not merely imitation, but a blend of Arabic and Persian elements, e. g., the substitution of typically Persian landscapes (snow-capped mountains, icy windswept steppes) for the landscapes of the Arabian desert. These are found in the rahil (the journey to the patron, which continued to be an important component of the Arabic qaside even in its later manifestations), which many Persian poets either dispense with altogether or modify to suit their needs. The night journey under a starry or stormy sky is a prominent feature of such passages. The doʿ â, a standard feature of the Persian qaside, is less frequent in Arabic; it was viewed negatively in Arabic criticism, except in the case of royal panegyrics, “because rulers like to hear these things.”9 9

Abi Ali al-Hasan b. Rashiq al-Qayravâni, al-Omda fi mahâsen al-sheʿr wa-âdâbehi wa-naqdeh, ed. M. M. Abd-al-Hamid (2 vols., Beirut, 1972), I, pp. 240–41.

22

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

These features combine to give the Persian qaside its distinctively Persian character. The qaside’s flexibility is enhanced by the fact that, because its conventions set up certain expectations, variations demand the audience’s attention. The nasib may introduce motifs in terms of which, through relationships of contrast or congruence, the madih must be understood. The analogy between lover and beloved in the nasib, and poet and patron in the madih, already well known in Arabic poetry, is a prominent feature of the Persian qaside.10 The madih typically contrasts the mamduh’s ruthlessness towards his foes with his generosity towards his friends and supporters. Other topics include his justice, virtue, eloquence, magnanimity, forbearance, and so on. According to later critics, a strict decorum governs the madih: for example, one should not praise a religious leader for enjoying feasting and wine (although many poets did); nor should one celebrate the horsemanship of one who has never sat on a horse; nor should someone be praised for such “accidental” qualities as his physical appearance (although, again, some poets did so).11 The poet should beware of opening his poem with a line or lines that might offend the patron or be taken as a bad omen. These conventions are not “rules” to be followed slavishly (and one should beware of the critics’ understandable tendency to schematize); rather, they provided both guidelines and safeguards for the poet. The panegyric qaside was composed for public performance: on ceremonial occasions, before the mamduh and the assembled court, or on less formal occasions, such as feasts and drinking parties. The poem was usually performed by the poet’s râvi, a trained professional skilled in the arts of song and recitation, although poets like Rudaki and Farrokhi, who were also musicians, performed at least some of their own poems. Poets frequently mention their râvi 10

11

See S. M. Sperl, “Islamic Kingship and Arabic Panegyric Poetry in the Early 9 th Century,” JAL 8 (1979), pp. 20–35; idem, Mannerism in Arabic Poetry: A Structural Analysis of Selected Texts (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 19–27; J. S. Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry (Princeton, 1987), pp. 54–59, 66–67. See Shams-e Qeys Râzi, Al-Moʿ jam fi maʿ âʾ ire ashʿ âr al-Ajam, ed. M. Qazvini (Leiden and London, 1909), pp. 329–30; Keykâvus b. Eskandar b. Qâbus, Qâbus-nâme, ed. G.-H. Yusofi (Tehran, 1966), pp. 190–91.

23

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

either by name or by the terms râvi or motreb (minstrel). We know little about the performance of these poems; but there is evidence to suggest that the nasib at least (like the ghazal, which is discussed in Chapter 8) was sung, probably to musical accompaniment, while the madih may have been rendered in a more declamatory style. In any case, this issue requires further study.12 Panegyric poets have been accused of praising unworthy patrons in a bombastic and hyperbolic style in order to gain reward. Poets did indeed expect to be rewarded, and to receive support and protection from their patrons; but patronage governed all relationships at court, as in society at large.13 Poetry was, moreover, a profession, although poets might also be employed in other occupations. It was also part of the system of gift giving and exchange upon which court life was based. Public occasions were marked by the presentation of tributes to the ruler and the bestowal by him of gifts and robes of honor (khelʿat), stipends (selat), and the like. If the poet presented an image of the ruler as a generous supporter of those dependent upon him, the ruler was expected to live up to this image by playing out the role of the magnanimous benefactor. To some extent, the panegyric qaside presents less a true picture of an actual ruler or patron than an idealized image, which the mamduh is encouraged to emulate. Some rulers—Mahmud of Ghazna, for example, of whom his poet laureate (malek al-shoʿarâ) Onsori (d. 1039?) said, az-in pishtar bud gush-e moluk / suy-e shâʿerân-e ­maʿnigozâr // ke tâ har che guyand mâ ân konim / ke mânad ze-mâ nikuyi yâdgâr, “Formerly kings listened to poets in order to emulate what they said; but now poets look to his deeds as their exemplar”—inspired genuine admiration; others, perhaps, did not.14 12 See, e. g., F. D. Lewis, “Reading, Writing, and Recitation: Sanâ’i and the Origins of the Persian Ghazal,” Ph. D. diss., 2 vols., University of Chicago, 1995. 13 On clientage see R. P. Mottahedeh, Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society (2 nd ed., London and New York, 2001). Although this study focuses on the Buyid period, its observations, with appropriate modification, are applicable to other periods as well. 14 Onsori, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), p. 85, ll. 1033–34. On Mahmud’s image see C. E. Bosworth, “Mahmud of Ghazna in Contemporary Eyes and in Later Persian Literature,” Iran 4 (1966), pp. 85–92.

24

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

While the panegyrist had his obligations, his poem could serve as a vehicle for advice or criticism, expressed through imagery or through subtle variations on its conventions. Panegyrics did, of course, serve pragmatic purposes. Royal panegyrics were designed both to legitimate the ruler and to propagate his image and publicize his achievements both at home and abroad; they were important weapons in the propaganda wars between rival courts. Panegyrics of other patrons—court officials, members of the military, religious leaders, judges, scholars, and so on—were meant to bolster their public image. Jan Rypka has argued that the “political orientation” of the Persian qaside began with Onsori;15 but nevertheless, political motives had informed the Arabic qaside from its beginnings in tribal Arabia, and were from the outset an important dimension of the Persian praise poem. Poets were closely involved in the life and politics of the courts they served; a well-crafted poem could make the poet’s political sympathies clear, even if these were expressed only obliquely. A more long-term function of the panegyric was to ensure not only the ruler’s present, but also his posthumous fame. As Nezâmi Aruzi, writing in the early twelfth century, states: “So a king cannot dispense with a good poet, who shall conduce to the immortality of his name, and shall record his fame in díwáns and books. For when the king receives that command which none can escape, no trace will remain of his army, his treasure, and his store; but his name will endure for ever by reason of the poet’s verse.”16 Aesthetic judgments on the qaside have often been grudging. It has been said that the “social function of Persian court poetry … did not hinder its reaching at times a high degree of artistic perfection”17—as if poets (and their audiences) were unconcerned with artistry—and, conversely, that panegyric poems “impress the reader with a very special aesthetic vision of the world.”18 The assumption that there is a disjunction (or even a conflict) between the 15 Rypka, HIL, p. 175. 16 Nezâmi Aruzi, The Chahâr Maqâle (“Four Discourses”), tr. E. G. Browne (Hertford, 1899), p. 45. 17 De Bruijn, EI2 , “Iran. vii. Literature,” p. 56. 18 Lazard, “The Rise of the New Persian Language,” p. 621.

25

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

functional and the aesthetic aspects of a poem is perhaps not surprising if one adheres to either a Romantic or an “art for art’s sake” view of poetry. But as indigenous critics point out, a good poem is not only one which serves its purpose, but also one which does so by giving aesthetic pleasure. Moreover, we should not view praise poems simply as words on a page (as is the tendency especially when using printed editions, in which all sense of occasion and immediacy is lost), but as living texts intimately connected with the rhythms of court life, and (perhaps not least) as performances. The qaside was a complex and sophisticated form; its success, in both pragmatic and aesthetic terms, depended on the poet’s artistry in a particular context.

2. The Qaside and the Court: The Art of Celebration The primary function of the panegyric qaside was to celebrate the ruler (or other patron) and his achievements. Qasides were presented on public occasions, were performed at banquets and drinking parties, and were disseminated abroad. In what follows, I shall begin by discussing the various occasions for which qasides were composed—recurrent feasts (both Islamic and Persian), for which the poet was expected (not to say required) to present a poem, and more personal, non-recurrent occasions for celebration or congratulation. Then, I will go on to consider a variety of other aspects and features of the qaside. Before looking at the poetry, one further caveat is in order concerning the geographical and chronological parameters and periodization of the Persian qaside. This chapter will deal primarily with the development of the qaside at the Ghaznavid courts; poetry composed outside the Ghaznavid domains is discussed in later chapters of this volume. But while it has become customary to speak of two distinct poetic “styles” or “schools”—the “Khorasani” (eastern) and the “Erâqi” (western)—this distinction should be viewed with caution, not least because poets often traveled between different courts, and addressed qasides to rulers or 26

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

patrons in different geographical areas. For example, the “Ghaznavid” ­panegyrist Othmân Mokhtâri, finding no patronage in Ghazna, spent some time in Saljuq-ruled Kerman before becoming panegyrist to the Ghaznavid ruler Arslânshâh b. Masʿud, and composed panegyrics and other poems for various local rulers and their officials. Contacts between the two “schools” were ongoing, as was competition between poets. Thus it is somewhat misleading to treat poetry composed in different geographical areas as if it had developed in isolation. Poems of general praise. Many qasides mention no specific occasion, although they may have been composed for one or another of the occasions discussed below. This lack of specificity may help to establish some thematic parameters for the panegyric qaside. We may take, for example, the first qaside in the divan of Farrokhi of Sistan (d. ca. 1037), addressed to Mahmud of Ghazna, and much imitated by later poets.19 It begins as follows. An indigo-colored20 cloud arose from the surface of the indigo-­ colored sea, shifty as lovers’ judgment, frenzied as the heart-bereft.

The nasib elaborates the image of the rain-bearing cloud and the accompanying storm. The cloud arises from the “indigo-colored sea” (nilgun daryâ; for “sea” read “river”; daryâ is used for any large body of water). The storm is wild and frenzied, like a herd of elephants scattered over the “sea-green plain” (âbgun sahrâ; the frame nilgun daryâ/âbgun sahrâ links the first two lines through the antithesis [motâbeqe] of sea and plain). The dust raised by the storm is like rust on a Chinese mirror (mirrors were made of metal), like squirrel fur on turquoise-colored brocade; it covers the sky’s green 19 Farrokhi, Divân, ed. M. Dabir-Siyâqi (2 nd ed., Tehran, 1970), pp. 1–3, incipit bar âmad nilgun abri ze-ruy-e nilgun daryâ; cf., for example, Masʿud-e Saʿd-e Salmân, Divân, ed. R. Yâsemi (Tehran, 1960), pp. 21–23; Divân, ed. M. Nuriyân (2 vols., Isfahan, 1985–86), pp. 18–20; Moʿezzi, Kolliyyât, ed. N. Heyyeri (Tehran, 1983), pp. 40–41. 20 Dabir-Siyâqi reads pilgun, “with the color of an elephant,” following Mohammad b. Ali Zahiri Samarqandi, Sendbâd-nâme, ed. A. Ateş (Tehran, 1983, reprint), p. 56.

27

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

dome (which resembles a verdant meadow) like Phoenix chicks in flight. The sky is by turns light and dark, the sun now visible, now hidden, “like chips filed from sandalwood on a slab of turquoise, like amber sifted over a slab of blue enamel.” In this descriptive nasib the elements of the natural landscape are assimilated to others associated with the courtly environment: objects of value (turquoise, amber, fur-trimmed brocades), the court’s military aspect (elephants), and the milieu of the courtly love poem (distraught lovers, disdainful beloveds, and so on). These features are already seen in a panegyric by Rudaki to an unnamed Samanid vizier, of which only the nasib survives.21 Rudaki first describes the coming of spring as the heavens’ mustering of an army: its troops are dark clouds, led by the east wind; its fire-thrower (naffât, referring to the use of Greek fire, naphtha) is the lightning, its drummer the thunder. Then he switches to the love motif: the cloud weeps like one in mourning, the thunder moans like a distraught lover. The sun occasionally peeps from behind a cloud, like a secluded lady;22 the rain pours down musk, and draws off the linen-like covering of snow. The effect is both to animate the scene and to assimilate it to the world of the court. The transitional lines (takhallos, gorizgâh) of Farrokhi’s qaside make this assimilation in a manner characteristic of Persian panegyric. From [the cloud’s] hue, the bright air grew dust-covered and dark, like the hearts of unbelievers from the sword of the exalted ruler: Yamin-e dowlat, with whom fortune (dowlat) has adorned the world; Amin-e mellat, with whom the world has adorned the faith (mellat). Support of the Prophet’s faith, King Mahmud, fosterer of religion; of kingly deeds and kingly conduct, kingly dread and kingly mien.

The poet singles out one specific attribute for which to praise the ruler: his support of the true faith, manifested by his ceaseless 21 Rudaki, Rudaki, ed. K. K. Rahbar (Tehran, 1964), pp. 1–3; S. Nafisi, ­Mohit-e zendegi va ahvâl va ašʿ âr-e Rudaki (2 nd ed., Tehran, 1962), pp. 492–93; incipit âmad bahâr-e khorram bâ rang-o buy- e teyyeb. 22 Khatib-Rahbar and Nafisi both read chonân hesâreʾ i ke gozar dârad az raqib, “Like a prisoner looking out for the guard.”

28

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

campaigns against unbelievers. Rulers all over the world are sleepless from fear of his nine-man mace; Christians (tarsâ), knowing that he will destroy their faith, are fearful (tarsâ), and wear mourners’ garb (an allusion to the dark robes worn by Christian priests). The military theme dominates the madih, except for a brief transitional passage where the poet refers to the sultan’s palace and to the subject of praise itself: “One must have a tongue to sing his praises today; one must have eyes to look upon his face tomorrow.” After again noting Mahmud’s generosity towards his subjects, his anger towards his foes, and his might, the poet addresses the ruler directly, developing the motif of generosity, especially towards poets. “You have made it your custom, when drinking and feasting, to shower treasures upon all; you are more joyful at the sight of your panegyrist than was Vâmeq at the sight of his beloved Adhrâ” (two famous lovers about whom Onsori wrote a romance in verse). Poets circumambulate in Mahmud’s palace as if they were at the holy shrine of Ka’ba. Of all the kings of the world, you deserve poems of praise, for words, in praising you, become at once resplendent.

These words lead to the concluding doʿ â: As long as, in the dark of night, the stars shine from the sky, as you would scatter brilliant pearls upon turquoise brocade: Now like a Chinese mirror the full moon shows its face; now like a silver bead brilliant Venus makes a show: Be the equal of joy, and the mate of enduring rule; be the comrade of pleasure, and the companion of youthful fortune. And ever, in the joyous party, take the brilliant wine, now from an idol of Khollakh, now from an idol of Yaghmâ.

The doʿ â’s imagery resonates with that of the nasib, except that before the heavens were disturbed by the rainstorm, while now they are calm and bright. In the context of the ruthlessness/generosity doublet, the storm scene anticipates the praise of Mahmud’s martial prowess which dominates the first section of the madih, while the peaceful night sky (in the description of which the images of turquoise brocade, now scattered with pearls, and the Chinese mirror, now shining brightly, are reprised) prefigures the opulence 29

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

and joy of the feast. There is a thematic division between Mahmud abroad, fighting the enemies of the faith, and Mahmud at home, feasting and dispensing largesse; the link between the two is the brief reference to the palace in which the feast is held. The ruthlessness/generosity doublet is a standard constituent of the panegyric qaside; it is linked to the traditional Iranian image of the ruler, whose chief occupations are razm (warfare) and bazm (feasting). In his treatment of the doublet, Farrokhi shows his innovative nature; more often the doublet is presented simply in alternation, as for example in a Nowruz qaside by Onsori, which begins:23 The Nowruz breeze rains pearls and becomes a maker of idols, till through its craft each tree becomes another idol. The garden is filled with brocades, like a draper’s shop; the breeze is filled with musk, like a perfumer’s tray.

The transitional lines state: Each day the days increase, like the might of the king, and the nights ever decrease, like the lives of his foes: Ruler of the East, Yamin-e dowlat, that king of the Persians, praises of whom become the crown upon Fortune’s head.

The poet briefly praises Mahmud’s eloquence and magnificence, then moves to his generosity and military might, and continues to alternate between these topics for the remainder of the poem, occasionally weaving in other themes. Like Farrokhi, Onsori draws attention to the subject of praise itself: If, in praising anyone, the essence of language is the same, when it comes to praising him, the essence of language is transformed … Uttering praise in other than his name is wasted speech: when seeds are sown in salty ground, they become wasted and barren.

Having observed some general features of the panegyric qaside, and how they might be treated differently by different poets, we now look at poems composed for specific occasions. 23 Onsori, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 24–26, incipit bâd-e nowruzi hami dar bustân botgar shavad; compare Moʿezzi, Divân-e Amir Moʿezzi, ed. A. Eqbâl (Tehran, 1939–40), pp. 132–33.

30

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

Festivals and feasts. The major festivals for which poets were expected to produce panegyric qasides were the Persian festivals of Nowruz (the New Year, celebrated at the vernal equinox), Mehregân (the autumn festival, coinciding—in theory at least—with the autumnal equinox), Sade (the winter solstice), the Islamic feasts of Id-e Fetr (at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan), and Id-e Azhâ (the sacrificial feast of the pilgrimage). Other minor Persian festivals were also celebrated, but we have fewer poems for such occasions (see the section on Other Persian festivals below). While the Persian festivals are geared to the Persian solar (shamsi) calendar, the Islamic ones follow the Islamic lunar (qamari) calendar, which loses approximately ten days per solar year; thus, Islamic and Persian festivals may occur at the same time, and many poems reflect this correspondence. Nowruz. Nowruz is the spring festival, celebrated around the time of the vernal equinox, the beginning of the Persian solar year.24 Calendrical problems are the concern of scholars; for the poets, Nowruz equates with the arrival of spring, and the astrological correlates are often noted, for example by Abu’l-Faraj Runi:25 The leader of the planets has come from the Fish and placed his burden upon the Ram … With the ruler of equity, he has made day and night equal as the lines of a ruled page (jadval).

In pre-Islamic Persia, Nowruz was the occasion for a ritual reaffirmation of the ruler’s authority. The festival included the presentation of tributes by the ruler’s vassals, provincial governors, officials, and other members of his court; the poet’s tribute was, of course, the praise poem. The custom was adopted by the Abbasid caliphs; yet although Nowruz was celebrated in Baghdad with great pomp, 24

See G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville, EI2 , “Nawruz”; Abd-al-Hayy Gardizi, Zeyn al-akhbâr, ed. A.-H. Habibi (Tehran, 1968), p. 241. 25 Abu’l-Faraj Runi, Divân, ed. M. Mahdavi Dâmghâni (Tehran, 1968), p. 91; incipit âmad az Hut bar nehâde theql. For the coincidence of Nowruz and the month of Farvardin see also Masʿud-e Saʿd, Divân (ed. Yâsemi), p. 466; Hasan-e Ashraf of Ghazna, Divân-e Seyyed Hasan-e Ghaznavi, ed. M. T. Modarres Razavi (Tehran, 1949), p. 165.

31

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

it is seldom referred to by Arabic poets—who do however celebrate the coming of spring—except under the Persianizing Buyids.26 It was however a major event in the life of Persian courts. A Nowruz qaside usually begins by celebrating the arrival of spring, and describes either a natural landscape renewed by spring or a spring garden. Spring’s revivifying powers present a figure of the ruler’s life-giving powers; the two are often identified, as in a qaside by Farrokhi to Mahmud of Ghazna’s son Amir Mohammad,27 which begins, Greetings, splendid Balkh! [Sent] with the spring breeze, coming from the gates of Nowshâd or the garden of Nowbahâr.

The poet describes the beauties of Balkh’s gardens in terms evocative of its ancient Buddhist temple, the Nowbahâr, which was in ruins in Farrokhi’s time, although its frescoes were still visible.28 But although Balkh is “most fair, the Balkhis can keep Balkh; my care is for the towns of Guzgânân.” It is Guzgânân where “spring has unloaded its burden,” whose “gardens and slopes, hills, and plains seem like two-sided figured silks,” and from whence, at dawn, comes “the odor of heavenly Paradise,” for the arrival of its governor, Mohammad, enables Nowruz to confer its largesse upon the ruler’s domains. The conceit that the appearance of spring depends on the ruler has many variations. In a qaside to Mahmud, Farrokhi observes: bahâr emsâl pendâri ke az bazm-ash berun âyad ke khub âyad chenân chun mehr-e yakdel dustân bâshad You’d think that spring, this year, comes forth from [Mahmud’s] feast, it comes so fair, like the love of sincere friends.29 26 See Muhammad Manazir Ahsan, Social Life Under the Abbasids (London, 1979), pp. 286–89. 27 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 107–9, incipit marhabâ ey Balkh-e bâmi hamrah-e bâd-e bahâr. 28 See A. S. Melikian-Chirvani, “L’évocation littéraire du bouddhisme dans l’Iran musulman,” in Le monde iranien et l’Islam: societes et cultures, ed. J. Aubin (Geneva and Paris, 1974), II, 49–51. 29 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), p. 29, l. 617.

32

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

Masʿud-e Saʿd (d. ca. 1121) depicts spring as coming to pay tribute to the prince (Mahmud b. Ebrâhim, who was then governor of India):30 Ze-bahr-e majles-at yâ shâh abr-o bâd âmad Yaki ze-kuh-e boland-o yaki ze-bahr-e qa’ir Nethâr-e majles-at âvard abr-o bâd-e ravân Yaki ze-daryâ dorr-o yaki ze-kuh anbar For the sake of your majles, O king, the cloud and wind have come: one from the high mountains, one from the deep sea. The cloud and the freshening wind have brought tributes to your gathering: the one pearls from the sea, the other fragrance from the mountain.

Spring also mirrors the ruler’s qualities. Masʿud-e Saʿd begins a Nowruz qaside to Mahmud b. Ebrâhim, modeled on Farrokhi’s qaside to Mahmud quoted previously (see the section above, Poems of general praise), which employs the image of the spring raincloud:31 The army of the spring cloud passed from the sea over the plain; it bore a tribute of lustrous pearls from the plain to the sea, Like dust kicked up by the hooves of the sovereign’s steed from the face of the dusty earth on the face of the Green Dome.

The description of the cloud leads to that of the spring garden, a veritable earthly Paradise. Selected rhyme-words—sahrâ (plain) and, especially, khazrâ (green)—are repeated; this is technically a fault, but is permissible if the words occur in different contexts and is here used to emphasize the verdancy and fertility brought by spring.32 The mamduh is named at the very center of the poem and linked with spring: Tulips’ smiles have made the world like the character of the Ruler of the East; the cloud’s weeping has made the world like the nature of the King of the World, King Mahmud, son of Ebrâhim son of Masʿud son of Mahmud … 30 Masʿud-e Saʿd, Divân (ed. Yâsemi), p. 245; Divân (ed. Nuriyân), I, p. 402. 31 Masʿud-e Saʿd, Divân (ed. Yâsemi), pp. 21–22; Divân (ed. Nuriyân), I, pp. 18–20; incipit sepâh-e abr-e Neysâni ze- daryâ raft zi sahrâ. 32 On this defect of the rhyme, termed itâ’, see Shams-e Qeys, Al-Moʿ jam fi maʿ â’ire ashʿ âr al-Ajam, pp. 255–58.

33

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

The seasonal imagery is taken up again in the madih— Like the cloud, his fortune and kindness rain life (baqâ) at the time of feasting; like the wind, his magnificence and rage bring death (fanâ) at the time of battle: From the one in spring the rose becomes red as pure coinage; from the other the foe’s cheeks become yellow as autumn leaves —

This is recapitulated in the movement to the doʿ â: Spring has come, and has brought the spring wind and the cloud; both worlds have become fresh and fragrant, like your character and nature. The garden breeze wafts precious amber over the orchard; the sea’s mists scatter lustrous pearls over the plain: In victory and good fortune, sit and drink the wine, to the sound of harp and tanbur, of rabâb, barbat, and anqâ.33

In a twist on this conceit, in a qaside by Onsori to Mahmud the coming of spring represents the ephemerality of the seasons’ cycle.34 “What benefit is there in spring’s images and paintings?” asks the poet; for if they are renewed in this season, they will be destroyed by autumn. “True spring is praise of the ruler,” a “garden made from the poets’ talent and thought.” Bahâr-e maʿni-rang-o bahâr-e hekmat-buy Bahâr-e aql-thabât-o bahâr-e kuh-baqâ A spring the hue of thought, a spring fragrant as wisdom; a spring as firm as reason, a spring as enduring as the mountain.

A similar variation on the “identity” topos is seen in a qaside by Manuchehri to an unnamed vizier: although this “fine and elegant spring” will be effaced by “Âbâns and Âzars” (autumn months), 33 The anqâ (“phoenix”) is probably a harp in that shape, originating from China (Prof. Bo Lawergren, Hunter College, CUNY, personal communication). Ali-Akbar Dehkhodâ, Loghat-nâme (Tehran, 1946–81) cites other examples. 34 Onsori, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 1–3, incipit del-e ma-râ ajab âyad hami ze-kâr-e havâ.

34

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

“the Khwâja’s beauty [is] a fresh and happy spring, which, with Âbâns, grows greater, nor does the cold wind harm it.”35 A slightly odd identification of Nowruz with the ruler, which also manages to separate the two, is seen in a qaside by Manuchehri addressed to Masuʿd I.36 Composed for Nowruz (1040), the poem celebrates Masʿud’s “victory” over the Qarakhanid chief Buritegin (Böritegin). The contemporary historian Abu’l-Fazl Beyhaqi provides details of this campaign, which took place in mid-winter and nearly ended in disaster.37 The nasib, which occupies half of the qaside’s sixty-seven lines, is an elaborate extended metaphor: Nowruz, personified as a ruler, has journeyed forth from his kingdom; Winter has taken advantage of his absence to invade and pillage his domains. When Nowruz learns of this from his spy, the North Wind, he determines to attack Winter; he sends the feast of Sade (see the section on Sade below) before him as his advance guard, and bids Sade to tell the “King of Kings” (i. e., Masʿud) of his intent—not directly, because “his magnificence is too great for you to speak face to face and openly to him,” but through a chamberlain, who will convey the message to the ruler. Nowruz details the many tributes he will bring the ruler and predicts a brilliant future for him; this passage takes the place of the madih. Towards the end of the poem, Masʿud’s building of a bridge over the Oxus and his “defeat” of Buritegin are briefly noted, (although Buritegin, in fact, escaped and lived to fight another day, while Masʿud was forced to retreat for fear that the Saljuqs would cut him off.) It is only in the final lines, as he refers to “our ruler”, that the panegyrist speaks in his own voice; and the concluding doʿ â, couched in the third person (“May God protect him …”), further enhances the effect of distance. 35 Manuchehri, Divân, ed. M. Dabir-Siyâqi (3 rd ed., Tehran, 1968), pp. 1–2; incipit nowbahâr âmad-o âvard gol-o yâsmenâ; the mamduh was probably Masʿud I’s vizier Ahmad b. Abd-al-Samad. 36 Ibid., pp. 30–33; incipit bar-e lashkar-e zemestân nowruz-e nâmdâr. On this poem see also J. S. Meisami, “Medieval Ghaznavid Panegyrics: Some Political Implications,” Iran 28 (1990), pp. 39–42. 37 See Abu’l-Fazl Beyhaqi, Târikh-e Beyhaqi, ed. A. A. Fayyâz, (Mashhad, 1971), pp. 745–46, 749–50; C. E. Bosworth, tr. and M. Ashtiany, rev., The History of Beyhaqi (3 vols., Cambridge, Mass., 2011), II, pp. 244–45, 247–78.

35

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Mention should also be made of a Nowruz qaside by Farrokhi addressed to Mahmud, which was probably composed for the spring muster of the troops in 1023.38 It begins with an appropriate spring song: bekhandad hami bâgh chun ruy-e delbar bebuyad hami khâk chun moshk-e azhfar The garden is ever smiling, like the beloved’s face; the earth is perfumed like fragrant musk,

and has several noteworthy features. The first is the prayer in the nasib that spring may remain forever (“O auspicious, joyful spring! Remain thus year after year, and do not leave”)—not exceptional in itself, but when linked with the return to garden imagery in the doʿ â, it seems to express a preference for the peaceful garden. The second is the presence in the madih of three catalogues (not a typical feature of panegyric). These comprise a catalogue of Mahmud’s vanquished foes, a catalogue of the elephants acquired in his latest campaign (which were, we may assume, along with their mahouts, on display at the muster), and a more general catalogue of Mahmud’s achievements, all of which are characterized by anaphora: “Opposition to you” brought about the ruin of Mahmud’s enemies; “You have emptied the lands of India of fighting men and of horrendous elephants, like … and like … ;” and “How many warriors have opposed you … How many treasures have you taken,” and so on. The use of this anaphora (also unusual in panegyric), and the repetition of phrases like “How many …” (basâ), links this qaside with the homiletic poem and the ubi sunt topos. While Mahmud’s achievements are presented as an object lesson (ebrat), this lesson, ostensibly intended for his foes, may be understood as extending to the ruler himself, and the poem may be interpreted as an argument for peace and the cultivation of the garden of the state, rather than further expensive campaigns. 38 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 82–85; see also Meisami, “Ghaznavid Panegyrics,” pp. 34–36. Compare Onsori, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 12–43 (incipit ayâ shenide honarhâ-ye khosravân be-khabar), where the motif of opposition (khelâf ) to the ruler is also stressed, and those whom he has vanquished are listed.

36

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

Nowruz poems often generate exceptional descriptive passages. In a qaside to a certain Khwâja Ali b. Mohammad, Manuchehri, after briefly describing the spring garden, devotes a lengthy section of the nasib to the effects of the spring rain.39 Now one must, like the rose, drink wine in the shade of the rose, so that the nightingale—your minstrel—may sing poetry; So that the cloud may mix rainwater with the wine; so that the breeze may scatter loads of musk into the wine. See those drops of rain dripping from the cloud: the tip of every leaf bears jewels from those drops … And see those drops of rain that pour down at night upon the meadow, on the cheeks of the red pomegranate-flower: You’d say: like grains of fragrant camphor, which a perfumer has scattered over crimson silks … And that drop of rain which falls upon the rose: it is like a bride’s tear which falls upon her face. And that drop of rain which falls upon the unripe corn: it’s like a drop of mercury falling upon rust … And those drops of rain upon the mountain iris: you’d say, the Pleiades, against this turning dome.

Many more examples could be cited, but this should suffice to show that, despite recurrent motifs and imagery, Nowruz poems vary, and they are often put to specific topical and political uses. Mehregân. Mehregân is the autumn festival.40 As in the case of Nowruz, calendrical problems do not concern us here; for the poets, Mehregân meant autumn. Like Nowruz poems, Mehregân poems often begin with a description of the garden: its flowers fading, its leaves showering down like golden coins; also, as with spring songs, autumnal descriptions often involve the animation of the garden. In a qaside to Amir Yusof, Farrokhi depicts the narcissus as heavy with sleep; the water lily disappears beneath the water’s veil, the red rose draws a green cloak over its head, the Judas tree dons a veil of 39 Manuchehri, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 36–39; incipit hangâm-e bahârast-o jahân chun bot-e Farkhâr; the mamduh is unidentified. 40 See J. Calmard, EI2 , “Mihragān”; Ahsan, Social Life, pp. 289–90.

37

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

blue.41 The garden’s “blazing candles” (tulips) have been put out by the autumn wind; rosy apples and yellow quinces mimic the faces of beloved and lover; and (the poet asks) “did the blooming rosebush commit Adam’s sin, that like Adam, it has been stripped of its garments?” Now that the cold season has arrived, “instead of tulips and the fresh perfume of blossoms, seek brilliant wine, the smoke of incense, and the scent of rosewater.” If the nightingale no longer sings in the garden, the prince’s minstrels and musicians make music aplenty. The reason for spring’s disappearance is now given: it drank so much wine from the rose’s goblet that it became drunk and fell asleep. Autumn arrayed its troops before the garden’s gates, intending to destroy “spring’s dwelling”; when spring awoke and saw itself in the enemy’s hands, it fled. Then it thought, “If, one day, the king’s brother should summon me … autumn, bewildered, will repent of its act ….” With this, the poet moves to praise of the prince. At Mehregân, poets celebrated the grape harvest and the preparation of next year’s wine. This gave rise to a symbolic narrative, seen early on in a qaside by Rudaki that begins, “The mother of wine must be sacrificed, and her child seized and put in prison.”42 The “mother” (the grape) is beaten and slain, and her seven-month “child” (the wine) is imprisoned in the vat, where it remains, dazed, for seven days and nights. When it awakens, its blood boils with grief and foams with anger. Its “guardian” removes the froth, and the purified wine is sealed in the vat, where it remains until spring. Then it emerges, red as a ruby, brilliant as the sun, fragrant as the rose; he who drinks a joyous cup will never again suffer illness or sorrow. There follows a description of the feast: the Amir of Khorasan (the Samanid Nasr b. Ahmad), seated on his throne and flanked by his noble Turkish cupbearers, drinks to the health of the Amir Abu Jaʿfar Ahmad, the ruler of Sistan, for whom the poem was composed and to whom it was sent. 41 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 10–12; incipit chu sir gasht sar-e narges-e ghonude ze-khvâb. 42 Rudaki ap. Nafisi, Mohit-e zendegi va ahvâl va ašʿ âr-e Rudaki, pp. 506–8, incipit mâdar-e mey-râ bekard bâyad qorbân. For the circumstances of the poem’s composition and an English translation see The Târikh-e Sistân, tr. M. Gold (Rome, 1976), pp. 257–64.

38

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

Farrokhi incorporated a version of this narrative into a Mehregân poem addressed to Amir Abu’l-Mozaffar, the Chaghâniyân ruler and the poet’s first royal patron.43 Autumn launches an attack on the North Wind; the once limpid water trembles like one who is frozen, the wind showers pure gold coins (leaves) on the garden, the cloud heaps up silver coins (snow) on the mountains. “They have cut the throats of the vine’s nurslings, so that the grapes have become feverish and fainted away,” says the poet. Their blood has been cruelly drawn; a clay prison (the vat) has been prepared for every drop, filled, sealed, and left “to the care of months and years.” Since no one has sought blood-wit for the grapes, it appears that “their blood is licit (halâl) in the wise man’s eyes;” but in case it should be illicit (harâm), the poet will pay the blood-wit to the musicians at the feast, who will play as he sings the ruler’s praises. Manuchehri employed this narrative in no less than seven poems—three qasides and four mosammats (strophic poems)—dedicated to Masʿud I or to some of his officials. William Hanaway has argued that since the poems were composed at a time when Mehregân corresponded closely with Id-e Azhâ (the feast of sacrifice held during the pilgrimage; see the section on Id-e Azhâ below), the linking of the idea of blood sacrifice in two contiguous cultures at the same time of year, and the resonance of this idea with Iranian and other ancient myths, could help account for the poet’s success in repeating this narrative for seven years. It appears to be a unique instance in Persian literature.44

However, while the narrative itself occurs seven times, more than one poem dates from the same year, and the only years when Id-e Azhâ and Mehregân fell close together were 1037 and 1038. Manuchehri’s development of this narrative may have been a personal 43 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 219–21; incipit tâ khazân tâkhtan âvard suy-e bâd-e shomâl. On Farrokhi’s attachment to this ruler see Nezâmi Aruzi, Chahâr Maqâle, eds. M. Qazvini and M. Moʿin (Tehran, 1955–57), pp. 58–66. For another (brief) wine narrative see Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 312–14. 44 W.  L. Hanaway, “Blood and Wine: Sacrifice and Celebration in Manuchihri’s Wine Poetry,” Iran 26 (1988), pp. 69–80, at p. 75.

39

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

specialty that ensured that he would be called upon regularly on this occasion.45 Although later poets sometimes invoked this narrative (often allusively), none cultivated it in such a sustained and deliberate fashion. Mokhtâri, for example, observes that autumn “has made the grape pregnant without a husband, like Mary; while the grape, like Mary’s mother, gives birth only to daughters” (az-ân angur shod bi shuy hamchun Maryam âbestan / ke raz chun mâdar-e Maryam nazâyad bachche joz dokhtar).46 But the narrative is not developed; the allusion is simply part of a long description of the effects of autumn on the garden and of autumnal fruits. When Mehregân fell in the fasting month of Ramadan (as happened several times during Mahmud’s reign), there was of course no banquets or drinking. In a qaside to Amir Yusof, Farrokhi laments that Ramadan has put an end to the Mehregân festivities. He had been enjoying wine and music, celebrating Mehregân, “until the month of the fast became mingled with it;” but now, because of the fast, “things have become straightened.” His sole consolation is “Mir Abu Yaʿqub, that noble lord,” in a variation on the deprivation/consolation motif.47 After several such seasons, Mehregân’s coincidence with Id-e Fetr, when drinking was permitted, was an occasion for rejoicing. Farrokhi observes in a qaside to the vizier Ahmad b. Hasan Meymandi,48 One day remains of the noble month [of fasting]; one can now go courting the ways of Mehregân. The sounds of harp and barbat, the fragrant scent of wine: when were these things appropriate to the fasting month?

“If these words sadden you,” says the poet, “take this message to Mehregân, and bring me his answer.” 45 For analysis and translations of Manuchehri’s poems see Hanaway, “Blood and Wine,” pp. 69–80. 46 Mokhtâri of Ghazna, Divân, ed. J. Homâ’i (Tehran, 1962), p. 121. 47 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), p. 288. 48 Ibid., pp. 153–55; incipit yakruz mânde bâz ze-mâh-e bozorgvâr; composed in 1031, after Masʿud I’s reinstatement of Meymandi as vizier. On Meymandi see Muḥammad Nāẓim, The Life and Times of Sulṭān Maḥmūd of Ghazna (Cambridge, 1931), pp. 130–32, 135–37.

40

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD Say: Last year too you came in the fasting month; last year no one paid any attention to you. Since no one who is fasting dares to look upon you, why don’t you avoid the fast, O virtuous one. Yes: since you don’t know your proper time and date, you are despised in the eyes of the king and the vizier …

Sade. Sade is the feast of the winter solstice. The historian Abu’lFazl Beyhaqi has left a vivid description of a Sade celebration during the reign of Masʿud I, in December 1034. First, gaz (tamarisk) wood was collected; then, On the plain where the river ran, they heaped up snow until it was the height of a fort. They built four tall arches (tâq) of wood and filled them with gaz. They gathered more gaz … [until] it reached the height of a large hill. That night they captured many eagles and pigeons, as is the custom.

On the first night of the feast, Masʿud sat on that bank of the river where they had erected a tent. The nadims (boon-companions) and musicians came, the wood was ignited … and they released the pigeons, covered in naft (kerosene oil), and the wild beasts, covered in pitch and flames, began to run about. It was a Sade the likes of which I never saw again, and it ended cheerfully.49

A single verse by Abu’l-Abbâs Rabenjani congratulates the Samanid Nasr II b. Ahmad on his thirty-first celebration of this feast, but reveals nothing about the nature of the poem.50 In a qaside to Mahmud, Onsori states that he has not congratulated the sultan on the “dehqân’s feast”—when people kindle fires “powerful as your attack, pure as your justice, lofty as your aspiration, brilliant as your judgment.”51 This is because 49 Beyhaqi, Târikh, pp. 571–72; for translation, see Bosworth and Ashtiany, The History of Beyhaqi, II, pp. 98–99. On Sade see also Gardizi, Zeyn al-akhbâr, pp. 246–47. 50 See Lazard, Premiers poètes, I, p. 85. 51 Onsori, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 257–60; incipit khodâyegân-e bozorg âftâb-e molk-e zamân.

41

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA To mard-e dini-o in rasm rasm-e gabrân-ast Ravâ nadâri bar rasm-e gabregân raftan Jahâniyân be-rosum-e to tahniyat guyand To-râ be-rasm-e kasân tahniyat naguyam man You are a man of true belief, while this custom is the Zoroastrians’; you do not hold with following Zoroastrian customs. Men congratulate you according to your own customs, so I shall not congratulate you according to everyone’s custom.52

The most conspicuous feature of Sade qasides is their description of the bonfires. Onsori himself congratulates Mahmud’s brother Amir Nasr on this feast:53 “Sade is the feast of famous kings, the memorial of Faridun and Jam; you’d say tonight the earth was Mount Sinai, for the light of the epiphany manifests itself from there.” The fires turn night to day and fill the world with light and flame, so that these regions resemble Paradise. “What is that tree of brilliant light, whose one root boasts a hundred thousand branches?” asks the poet. “If [the month of] Bahman falls in the season of winter, why is the world tonight [bright] as a garden of tulips?” In the takhallos, this fiery brightness is linked with the amir’s anger towards his foes. Farrokhi begins a qaside addressed to an unnamed vizier by asking: “If the world’s custom is not completely changing, why is the dark night brighter than day?”54 The sky’s brightness comes from the bonfire lit by the vizier, from which the flames rise from his palace to the heavens. Miraculously, the fire takes on a different form at every moment: Now it scatters jewels, now becomes the color of jewels; now it rains down jewels, now becomes a buyer of jewels. Now it raises its head in the air like a golden tree; now, like a beauty clad in crimson silks, it rushes to the embrace. Now it shows its face from behind a rust-colored veil; now it disappears inside a rust-colored vault. 52 Ibid., p. 260, l. 2480; Yahyâ Qarib, Divân (2 nd ed., Tehran, 1962), p. 159 reads be-rasm-e Kayân, “according to Kayanid custom.” 53 Onsori, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 21–23; incipit sade jashn-e moluk-e nâmdâr-ast; cf. pp. 34–36, also addressed to Amir Nasr on Sade. 54 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 48–51; incipit gar na âyin-e jahân az sar hami digar shavad; the vizier is probably Meymandi, and the poem probably dates from his reinstatement in office by Masʿud I.

42

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

This description, which extends over some twenty lines, is a veritable tour de force of imagery. As in Onsori’s poem, the takhallos links the fire and the vizier: Does this fire have some kinship with the vizier’s anger, that its heat makes the mountain’s granite turn to ashes?

Manuchehri dedicated a Sade qaside to the general Abu Harb Bakhtiâr (a Buyid commander who went over first to the Ziyarids and then to Masʿud I).55 He begins by requesting the sâqi to bring wine; after a few lines of praise he describes the bonfire: The Feast of Sade, O Amir! is the custom of great men, the usage of Kayumarth and Esfandiâr. Light that tonight which has, in an enclosure, its own enclosure, Amir! kindled by the fire-sticks. That fire which, you’d say, is a palm tree bearing fruit, its roots made of light, its branches made of fire. When you regard its breadth, it seems to be a mountain; when you regard its height, a cypress or a plane tree — If a cypress were to bear jewels upon its branches; if a mountain were to bear an amber veil upon its head.

According to Jalâl-al-Din Homâ’i, the later Ghaznavid rulers (especially Ebrâhim and Masʿud III) paid little attention to the old Iranian festivals, which were, however, revived by Arslânshâh (Malek Arslân, r. 1116).56 Nowruz and Mehregân poems still occur (though there seem to be fewer than previously); Sade poems are rare. A qaside by Mokhtâri addressed to Arslânshâh begins,57 Shab-e sade-ast biyâ ey cherâgh-e rudnavâz Az âtash-e mey gham-râ besuz-o chang besâz It is the eve of Sade; come, O string-caressing lamp, and with the wine’s fire burn up grief, and play your harp. 55 Manuchehri, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 21–22, incipit sâqi biyâ ke emshab sâqiyi be-kâr bâshad; on the identity of the addressee see the notes, ibid., pp. 244–45. 56 Jalâl-al-Din Homâ’i, Mokhtâr-nâme (Tehran, 1981–82), p. 203. 57 Mokhtâri, Divân (ed. Homâ’i), pp. 226–27; incipit shab-e sade-st biyâ ey cherâgh-e rud-navâz.

43

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

“When you sing poetry, sing in description of this Sade eve,” he continues; “strike up a song concerning (the fact that) tomorrow is the king’s jashn-e sang-andâz.”58 But the fire imagery typical of Sade poems is not developed; rather, the fire in the poem is metaphorical, emanating from the brilliant wine. Other Persian festivals. Other minor Persian festivals were celebrated by the poets, but without any seeming regularity and, it seems, without distinctive imagery or themes. These included festivals when, in accordance with the traditional Iranian calendar, the name of the day and the month corresponded. For example, the poets celebrated Bahmanjane, the second day of the month of Bahman (approximately mid-January).59 Farrokhi addressed a qaside to Amir Yusof on Bahmanjane, but it features only typical celebratory and congratulatory motifs.60 In a Bahmanjane qaside which begins with a lengthy description of Mazandaran, Manuchehri mentions some of the occasion’s traditional features: preparation of the dig-e Bahmanjane (the “Bahmanjane stew-pot”), whose bubbling warmth is particularly welcome in mid-winter, and the melody played by the minstrels (Ganj-e gâv, “The Cow’s Treasure”).61 In another Bahmanjane qaside, Manuchehri bids an unnamed ruler to “ready an army at dawn to combat grief,” with the sultan in the center, “the blood of the grape in your hand,” the “sâqis on the left flank, the minstrels on the right.” After enumerating the melodies the musicians will play, he prays that the ruler may enjoy many more such feasts in all seasons.62 58 The jashn-e sang-andâz (the “stone-throwing feast”) was celebrated on the last day of Shavvâl; see Mokhtâri, Divân (ed. Homâ’i), p. 227 n. 2. 59 On Bahmanjane see Gardizi, Zeyn al-akhbâr, p. 246. 60 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 354–56; incipit az pey-e tahniyat-e ruz-e now âmad bar-e shâh. 61 Manuchehri, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 66–69; incipit bar âmad ze-kuh abr-e Mâzandarân; perhaps addressed to the Ziyârid ruler Manuchehr b. Qâbus (1012–29), although this is disputed by J. W. Clinton, EI2 , “Manuchihri.” Discussion and English translation in A. D.H. Bivar, “Manuchihri’s Mâzandarân Ode: An English Version,” JRAS (1990), pp. 54–63. 62 Manuchehri, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 86–88; incipit rasm-e Bahman gir-o az now tâze kon Bahmanjane; probably to Masʿud I.

44

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

Mokhtâri composed a Bahmanjane poem for Arslânshâh,63 but it features no distinctive thematics or imagery, as is also the case with a qaside by Runi congratulating Masʿud III on the jashn-e Âbân, which, at the time, corresponded with Id-e Fetr.64 Another qaside by Mokhtâri for Arslânshâh celebrates the jashn-e gol-­ afshân, the “rose-scattering festival,” the radif of which (i. e., the word or phrase repeated after the rhyme) is, appropriately, gol (rose).65 The king’s feast has lifted the rose’s affairs to the skies; the days of the rose have, from the king’s activity, become like gold.

From the sultan’s largesse, gold rains down like rose-petals, while falling petals resemble a shower of gold. Desiring pleasure, roses poured into the king’s embrace; the sphere placed felicity in the arms of the rose, And, from the rose’s glory, sent to my mind, from heaven, a poem, the choicest poem on the custom of the rose.

“Just as the rose is the springtime of the kings of the world,” says the poet, “the world-ruler’s feast is the springtime of the rose … Just as, on the day of the king’s audience, the rose kissed the ground, the sun did obeisance on the day of the rose’s audience.” May the rose not be the memorial of the world-ruler’s feast, but till Resurrection may his feast be the memorial of the rose.

This feast was adopted by the Abbasid caliphs, and was termed, in Arabic, shâdhgola. Qâzi b. Zobayr relates that the caliph Mo­ tawakkel, wishing to celebrate this festival out of season when no roses were in bloom, had thin golden dirhams struck, some painted and some left as they were, and had them scattered as if they were

63 Mokhtâri, Divân (ed. Homâ’i), pp. 509–10; incipit bahmanjane-st khiz-o mi ârây cherâgh-e Rey. 64 Runi, Divân (ed. Mahdavi Dâmghâni), pp. 55–56; incipit shâh-râ ruy-e bakht golgun bâd. 65 Mokhtâri, Divân (ed. Homâ’i), pp. 300–2; incipit bazm-e malek be charkh rasânid kâr-e gol.

45

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

rose-petals. “The wind kept the dirhams suspended between the earth and sky just as it does roses.”66 Id-e Fetr. This, the most important of the Islamic feasts, marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, as the sighting of the new moon announces the beginning of the month of Shawwâl. Qasides composed for this occasion celebrate the permissibility of wine and other pleasures prohibited during the fasting month (e. g., music, sex). A qaside by Farrokhi begins,67 Tâ khom-e mey-râ bogshâd mah-e dushin sar Zohd-e man nist shod-o towbe-ye man zir-o [ze]bar When last night’s moon opened the vat of wine, my abstinence became naught, my repentance turned upside-down.

Repentance and abstinence, which were proper during the fasting month, are so no longer. Impatient, he declares: The eve of the Feast has come; I shall run up to the roof, and ask, “What news is there of the new moon?”

As soon as he hears such news, he will “toss down two or three cups, till my face grows red, and then come down, ready to party.” He will “take up the harp and the wine-cup until the next day,” when he will present himself at the mamduh’s feast. In another qaside, Farrokhi announces that, having completed the fasting month with the appropriate prayers, it is time for “the wine-cup, sweet music, and that moon-faced boy.”68 Instead of enduring thirst and hunger, he will “take wine from the hand of the one my eye’s upon, embrace the one my heart desires,” and ask him at night for a kiss (and whatever may follow) to make up for the preceding month of 66 Ibn al-Zubayr, Kitāb al-Hadāyā wa al-Tuḥaf (Book of Gifts and Rarities), translated and annotated by Ghāda al-Ḥijjāwī al-Qaddūmī (Cambridge, Mass., 1996), pp. 142–43. 67 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 155–56; incipit tâ khom-e mey-râ bogshâd mah-e dushin sar; to Ahmad b. Hasan Meymandi[ze] added as emendation. 68 Ibid., pp. 173–75; incipit bordam in mâh be-tasbih-o tarâvih be-sar; addressed to Mahmud’s boon-companion (nadim) Abd-Allâh Hasiri.

46

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

abstinence. “The scholar of the city wants the same,” he says; but “he doesn’t say so, like me, who am stupid, and mad as an ass.” Ramadan is often depicted as a guest who has departed before outstaying his welcome, and whose departure is not regretted (a motif already seen in earlier Arabic poetry). In a qaside to Amir Yusof, Farrokhi says,69 Last night Ramadan swiftly left our tent; the auspicious Feast arrived, with a cup of wine. I asked people, “How do you feel about three draughts of wine?” all answered, “That is right, and right, and right!”

He continues: “What can we do if the Fast has turned his face from us? We can’t tell him not to do so; so, if he’s bound to depart, say, ‘Let him go gracefully; let his departure free us all from suffering.’ If the Fast seeks his freedom, he can’t be bound, like prisoners, with a rope.” Although continual fasting “has destroyed our brains,” the restorative powers of wine and music will put things right; accordingly, “when both of us are prepared” (that is, the poet and “this precious Id”), “we will go to the Mir …” Another qaside by Farrokhi, to Amir Mohammad, begins:70 Ramadan has departed, and has undertaken a long journey; happy is he who observes Ramadan properly to the end. This month is greatly honored; but what can I say? Better one bound to leave, depart, and commence his journey.

This qaside was composed in September 1030, only a few days before Mohammad was arrested and deposed in favor of his halfbrother Masʿud I; the imagery thus takes on a topical significance. Ramadan clearly figures the recently deceased Mahmud; the arriving Id suggests the impending arrival of Masʿud. Farrokhi’s poem was widely imitated; Manuchehri was clearly inspired by it in a qaside to an unnamed vizier which begins:71 69 Ibid., pp. 15–16; incipit ruze az kheyme-ye mâ dush hami shod be-shetâb. 70 Ibid., pp. 104–5; incipit Ramazân raft-o rahi dur gereft andar bar; see also Meisami, “Ghaznavid Panegyrics,” pp. 36–38. 71 Manuchehri, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 88–90; incipit mâh-e ramazân raft-o ma-râ raftan-e u beh; the vizier was Ahmad b. Abd al-Samad; the

47

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA The month of Ramadan has left; to me, it’s better that it’s gone; the feast of Ramadan has come, by the grace of God! Better that that person who’s coming should arrive, and he who’s due to leave should have gone on his way.

Farrokhi begins a qaside to Ahmad b. Hasan Meymandi’s son Abd-al-Razzâq with a metaphorical narrative of the moon’s quest for her beloved, the sun.72 For several nights the moon was separated from the sun. she wandered round the sphere, searching for the sun. She became bent from separation, and grew pale with grief; she became thin from love, and was melted by love’s fever.

When at last the moon found the sun, she rejoiced, sat down next to him, and disclosed her brilliant face and her eyes, as dark as night. When the two had consorted for two days and two nights, the stars became aware of the situation; the moon grew ashamed (“don’t be surprised at one who is shamed by love”), and “last night, at the time of the night prayer,” drew a blue linen veil over her face. But if she went far from the sun, this is allowable, “for by her withdrawal the Arabs’ month was renewed,” and all began to celebrate the Id. The celestial imagery is sustained in the madih: the removal of the moon’s veil “has made licit to us what the Lord has forbidden,” and the stars (who were shocked by the consortion of moon and sun) “continually utter [the vizier’s] name;” the poem ends with a prayer for the vizier’s prosperity. Given the conventional associations between sun and ruler, moon and vizier, the nasib seems to be more than a charming account of the moon’s waxing and waning, and of the appearance of the new moon which heralds the feast; it may, I think, be read as relating to Masʿud I’s restoration of Meymandi as vizier in 1031 (see n. 48). We may also note that the later Ghaznavid poets also offered congratulations on the arrival of Ramadan. Thus Masʿud-e Saʿd addresses an unnamed ruler:73 poem can be dated to 25 June 1039/30 Ramadan 430. For another imitation see Moʿezzi, Divân (ed. Eqbâl), pp. 216–18; ed. Hâ’eri, pp. 215–17. 72 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 16–18; incipit z-âftâb jodâ bud mâh-e chandin shab.

48

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD The fasting month has come, O king; good health to you!73 may your fasting month be fortune-favored and auspicious. That noble, precious month has [now] arrived, and your golden cup has rested from the bitter wine.

Id-e Azhâ. The feast of sacrifice (Id-e Azhâ, Id-e Qorbân) is performed in connection with the pilgrimage, on the tenth day of the lunar month of Dhu’l-Hejja, not only at Mecca but also throughout the Islamic world. Fewer poems celebrate this occasion than Id-e Fetr, and no special thematics or imagery seem to be associated with it.74 A qaside by Farrokhi to Amir Mohammad,75 whose final line states, “May this Id-e Qorbân be blessed for him,” begins with a taghazzol describing the previous night’s party. The poet, who was drinking wine and listening to music in the company of beautiful “idols”, found himself unable to decide which was most desirable, and so spent the night enjoying the company of all, “with no one aware of this except the door and roof.” “Why have I told my story to the ruler of mankind?” he asks in the transitional line, and launches into the encomium without answering his own rhetorical question. The rhythms of court life. Many qasides celebrate non-fixed (that is, non-calendrical) but recurrent occasions in the life of the court and its members. Such poems, generally termed tahniyat, “congratulations,” range from highly formal, ceremonial pieces (victory poems, accession poems, and the like) to less formal compositions celebrating such occasions as investiture in office, the birth of a son, the completion of a palace, and so on. Some occasions generate recurrent thematic motifs, imagery, and structural strategies; these we will attempt to identify in what follows.

73 Masʿud-e Saʿd, Divân (ed. Yâsemi), pp. 64–65; Divân (ed. Nuriyân), I, pp. 1115–16; incipit mâh-e siyâm âmad ey malek be-salâmat. 74 An exception may be the wine-sacrifice poems discussed above, under Mehregân. 75 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 224–25; incipit dush tâ avval-e sapide-ye bâm.

49

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Victory poems. The victory poem (sometimes termed fath-nâme​ ­—a term also applied to prose compositions circulated after a victory—and sometimes simply tahniyat) may celebrate a specific military triumph, or may consist of general praise of a ruler’s (or a notable’s) military achievements, and may or may not include a narrative of the events referred to. We may compare, to begin with, two qasides on the same event—Mahmud of Ghazna’s victory over the Khwârazmians at the battle of Hazâr-asp in 1017—the first by Onsori, and the second by Farrokhi.76 Onsori’s qaside, which employs the popular rhyme -ar, begins with an allusion to another famous victory poem: Abu Tammâm’s (d. ca. 845) qaside on the Caliph Moʿtasem’s victory over the Byzantines at Amorium in 838. Its opening line is one of the most famous in Arabic poetry:77 The sword is truer in tidings than [any] writings: in its edge is the boundary between earnestness and sport. Onsori’s poem begins: So do the swords of kings show their effects; so do great men do when work must be done. Look at the ruler’s sword, don’t read the book[s] of the past; for his sword is far more truthful than [any] books.

“When a man trusts in his own skill,” the poet continues, “he goes to confront the enemy, seeking battle; he has no need of guides or of astrologers, but goes forth to battle as did the King of the East, with the Age as his guide and the stars as his support.” (The “writings” referred to by Abu Tammâm were the astrologers’ predictions of “marvels” in the month of Safar, when the battle took place.) A brief narrative describes how Mahmud crossed the Oxus with troops so numerous they made the broad river look like a mountain; in the battle which 76 Onsori, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 73–77; incipit chonin nemâyad shamshir-e khosravân âthâr; Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 204–6; incipit bar kash ey tork-o be-yaksu fekan in jâme-ye jang. On the events in question see M. Nāẓim, The Life and Times of Sulṭān Maḥmūd of Ghazna (Cambridge, 1931), pp. 56–60. I am grateful to Dr. G. Tetley for bringing to my attention the striking differences between these two qasides. 77 The translation is by A. J. Arberry, Arabic Poetry: A Primer for Students (Cambridge, 1965), p. 50.

50

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

followed (which is not described), the plain became ruby-red with the enemies’ blood. The pitiful state of the slain, the wounded, and those taken captive is dwelt on at some length, as is the abundance and richness of the booty taken in the sack of the Khwârazmians’ capital, Gorgânj: “He slew the enemy, seized [their] treasure and carried off [their] wealth, in order to support the faith of the Chosen [Prophet] Mohammad.” This campaign against fellow-Muslims was justified, “because the soil of Gorgânj, its city and its dwellings, were the abode of Qarmatis [Carmathians] and the source of unbelievers.” The doʿ â concludes: “May a thousand such victories and a thousand such campaigns come to him, and [may] Onsori celebrate [them] in poetry.” Farrokhi’s qaside, which uses the rarer and more difficult rhyme -ang, begins on a quite different note, with a nasib in which the poet entreats his beloved “Turk” to “put aside your quiver and your garments of war; take up your harp, put down your buckler and sword.” The army has rested from battle, and it is time for the beloved to do the same. The takhallos links beloved and ruler: “What need have you for arrows,” the poet asks, “[you] whose eyebrows are bows, whose lashes arrows?” The arrow of your lashes strikes the heart and soul like the spear-point of the King of the East [pierces] iron and stone: The warrior-king Mahmud …

Mahmud’s previous conquests are briefly mentioned in four lines linked by the anaphora ânke, “he who” (“He who leveled the fort of Tâgh in one attack; he who opened with one arrow the gates of the Arg of Zarang,” etc.), ending with the most recent:78 He who, when he set his face towards Khwârazm, from fear of him the face of the commander of Khwârazm became furrowed [with wrinkles].

The “commander of Khwârazm” was foolhardy enough to confront Mahmud; it was his foolishness and temerity that brought about the Khwârazmians’ defeat: 78 The line refers to Mahmud’s conquest of Sistan in 1002–3; see Nāżim, The Life and Times of Sulṭān Maḥmūd of Ghazna, pp. 67–70. It is followed by further references to his conquests in India.

51

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA How could he think this battle could be concluded by strategies and tricks, deceits and wiles … [And] that he would be borne towards the gates of Gorgânj, hung upside-down, with the others, from the necks of elephants?

In marked contrast to Onsori, Farrokhi lauds the ruler’s gentle nature and his forbearance. After further praise of his conquests, in the doʿ â he returns to the imagery with which the poem began: Be happy, city-conquering king, for in the enemy’s mouth honey has turned to colocynth because of your awesomeness. Day and night, may you embrace a beloved fresh as a cypress; year and month, may your hand grasp wine brilliant as the shining rays [of sun and moon].

Perhaps the most outstanding example of a victory narrative is Farrokhi’s qaside on Mahmud’s campaign against the Indian city and temple of Somnath in 1025.79 The poetic skill involved in maintaining tight control over this carefully structured poem of 175 lines is every bit as formidable as Mahmud’s military skill. The poet begins by contrasting the exploits of Alexander the Great (whose story is a legend) with those of Mahmud (whose story is the truth): The tale of Alexander has become an ancient legend: bring forth new discourse, for the new has a different sweetness … If you would tell a tale that is both sweet and pleasing, take up the tale of the world-ruler, and do not stray from it.

The contrast embodies oppositions between present and past, new and old, truth and falsehood (or “legend”), faith and unbelief, high purpose (Mahmud) and royal whim (Alexander). Whereas Alexander’s campaigns were dictated by impulse, Mahmud “seeks to please God and the Prophet;” Alexander did not venture beyond the bounds of human habitation, but Mahmud led his armies through regions in which even demons would become lost. The poet describes the journey to Somnath, the fortresses taken on the way, the battle and the destruction of the temple, and the return 79 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 66–74; incipit fesâne gasht-o kohan shod hadith-e Eskandar; on the campaign see Nāżim, The Life and Times of Sulṭān Maḥmūd of Ghazna, pp. 115–21, 209–24.

52

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

journey; in the madih, Mahmud’s activity is contrasted with the indolence and self-indulgence of other rulers. You burned Somnath to the ground in the month of Bahman, while other kings were burning sandalwood and amber …

Few poets could compete with Farrokhi in this sort of extended narrative. Several of Abu’l-Faraj Runi’s qasides include narratives, among them one (to an unidentified mamduh) in which the battlefield is compared to a chessboard;80 however, these are generally brief. On Mokhtâri, more will be said later. In general, he tends to eschew narrative, for his preferred technique is the insertion of descriptive passages into his praise poems (including portrayals of the mamduh’s horse, sword, and so on). By contrast, Masʿud-e Saʿd’s victory poems often contain narratives of campaigns in which he himself participated. One such qaside celebrates Mahmud b. Ebrâhim’s conquest of Agra.81 In the opening nasib, the poet addresses the morning breeze, bidding it to “take these fath-nâmes” and deliver one to every region. He tells the breeze, “You are a bearer of good tidings,” and states that its route has been decked with roses “by new spring and fresh Nowruz.” When you pass through each region with these good tidings, the cloud will scatter royal pearls upon you … When you pass by the garden, branches [heavy] with fruits and flowers will everywhere bow down in homage to you …

He tells the breeze that he will give it “a message to the seven climes,” to be delivered with the fath-nâme; then, he says: [But] you witnessed this affair, and you were present at the king’s battle; what use [to you is] my message? 80 Runi, Divân (ed. Mahdavi Dâmghâni), pp. 1–3; incipit ghazv govârande bâd shâh-e jahân-râ; the poem may relate to Masʿud III’s victories in Qannowj. 81 Masʿud-e Saʿd, Divân (ed. Yâsemi), pp. 260–64; Divân (ed. Nuriyân), I, pp. 201–8; incipit ayâ nasim-e sahar fath-nâmehâ bardâr. On the campaign see C. E. Bosworth, The Later Ghaznavids. Splendour and Decay. The Dynasty in Afghanistan and Northern India, 1040–1186 (New York, 1977), pp. 66–67; Bosworth dates the event to between 1066/479 and 1070/483.

53

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

The narrative begins: “Say: When the ruler of the age, Sword of State and Religion, took his army to India, for the support of Islam …” The prince took 40,000 of his finest cavalry to the hitherto unconquered fortress of Agra. Its ruler, after a portentous dream that clearly indicated victory for the Muslims, sued for peace; but Mahmud—who had set his heart on taking a “virgin fortress”—refused, and laid siege to the fort. The poet provides an eyewitness (if hyperbolic) account of the siege and of Mahmud’s feats of prowess. Turning to direct address, he incorporates a verse from Onsori’s Hazârasp qaside: In India your sword showed the effects of victory: Even so do the swords of kings show their effects.

Another lengthy qaside by Masʿud-e Saʿd, addressed to the general Abu Nasr Pârsi, celebrates the latter’s victories in India during Ebrâhim’s reign.82 It begins with some topical details: before Abu Nasr was given absolute control of the army, warfare was neglected and “swords were imprisoned in their sheaths.” Now, however, “the stories of your battles have effaced for all time the tales of Rostam and Esfandiâr.” There follows a detailed account of Abu Nasr’s night raid on Jâlandhar in the Punjab, in which the poet himself presumably took part: One night you led an army from Dahagân [Dhagan] to Jâlandar, mighty and strong as time, vengeful as Fate.

By dawn, “there remained in that region no warrior or infidel;” all had been slaughtered, and their dwellings put to the torch. On the return journey, Abu Nasr was menaced by a band of 10,000 rebel foot-soldiers from Dahagân; he defeated them in battle, and their leader, one Sâberi (i. e., Sayyerâ), was drowned as he tried to flee across the nearby river Zâda, whose “waters seized him and held him, till the Guardian of Hell took his soul to Hell.”

82 Masʿud-e Saʿd, Divân (ed. Yâsemi), pp. 169–76; Divân (ed. Nuriyân), I, pp. 224–31; incipit ey yal-e hâmun-navard ey sarkash-e Jeyhun-gozâr; see also Bosworth, The Later Ghaznavids, pp. 64–65.

54

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

The purpose of this poem ultimately reveals itself as not merely celebration, but also as an encouragement to further campaigns, along with a specific request: The month of Tir, the field of battle and your season of warfare, came and brought to you, as tribute, Sâberi’s defeat. [But] the Rajas of Sele are ever secretly plotting rebellion, although, from fear of you, they manifest obedience. Should you wish ten such victories this winter, consider them accomplished; I guarantee all ten; lead your troops towards Jâlandar.

And (he entreats) while he himself is “the least of your servants, with the fewest troops, place me over them and, with God’s help, I will annihilate idol-worship in those lands.” This poem resembles an earlier one by Farrokhi addressed to Mahmud of Ghazna on Nowruz.83 From its rubric (“In praise of Sultan Mahmud and on his campaigns and victories in the Ganges”), one would expect that its purpose was to celebrate Mahmud’s recent triumphs in the Ganges region in 1018. Unusually for a victory poem, the qaside begins with a nasib, a spring-song combined with a taghazzol; the request to the beloved to bring wine indicates that it was composed for performance at a banquet. Spring’s beauties blend with those of the beloved: “Your face is my garden, and you my gardener; give no one [else] a rose from my garden—beware!” The gorizgâh neatly links beloved and ruler: “You have no need of scent or ornament— just as, in battle, the ruler has no need of a helper.” Mahmud “has emptied a thousand cities of a thousand kings; he has forced a thousand rulers to flee from a thousand forts.” In battle he is bold as a tiger; at the feast he is generous as the rain-cloud. The tales of his conquests have heated the storytellers’ bazaar. After more in this vein (the qaside runs to 117 lines [beyts] as printed, and contains several lacunae), the poet begins a narrative of Mahmud’s triumphs in India. He led his troops through inhospitable terrain, across impassable rivers, and took many 83 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 60–66; incipit bahâr tâze damid ey be-ruy rashk-e bahâr; see also Nāẓim, The Life and Times of Sulṭān Maḥmūd of Ghazna, pp. 106–10.

55

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

well-protected fortresses, until he reached the Ganges: “no river, but a sea, with no shore in sight.” He took his troops safely across, and subdued various princes. “Now he who used to read the stories of the Shâhnâmes reads only the book of Mahmud’s deeds.” But this is no time for the ruler to rest on his laurels, as the poet declares, “O great king, a great campaign has presented itself which is more incumbent on you than the wars of the past … Go towards it with auspiciously (ba-farrokhi), a good omen, a felicitous portent.” Here, he exhorts with a pun on his own name, meaning, perhaps, that Mahmud should take the poet with him, and continues, “and with your sharp blade quickly bring ruin upon the foe. Don’t give your opponents a single day of time; for, given time, the snake will become a dragon … God willing, in a short space of time you will achieve your desire against the treacherous foe.” Who is the foe? “Ali Tegin? What danger does he hold for you, O king? Consider him taken, and executed in the plain.” Mahmud’s past victories constitute the proof that he will triumph over this new enemy.84 An interesting example of a victory poem composed at long distance is the qaside sent by Mokhtâri (who was then at the Saljuq court of Kerman) to Masʿud III in Ghazna, via his vizier Yusof b. Yaʿqub (to whom Mokhtâri also addressed a qaside asking for assistance), in the hope that the sultan would provide him a place at court.85 Written after a fath-nâme announcing Masʿud’s recent victories in India had arrived at the court of Kerman, its narrative of events was presumably based on that fath-nâme. It begins as follows: O kingdom of Kerman, rejoice at the good tidings of the sovereign’s fath-nâme from the regions of India.

The defeated Indian ruler, while secretly plotting rebellion, had sent gifts to Masʿud, along with his son (presumably as hostage). The 84 Mahmud campaigned against Ali Tegin, the ruler of Bukhara, who had given assistance to the Saljuks in 1024/415; Ali Tegin escaped and returned later to menace Masʿud I. See Nāẓim, The Life and Times of Sulṭān Maḥmūd of Ghazna, pp. 53–54, 63. 85 Mokhtâri, Divân (ed. Homâ’i), pp. 353–64; incipit to-râ beshârat bâd ey velâyat-e Kermân. For the qaside addressed to Yusof ebn Yaʿqub see ibid., pp. 171–78. See also Homâ’i, Mokhtâr-nâme, p. 210; Bosworth, The Later Ghaznavids, pp. 84–85.

56

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

gifts, which are described in detail, included a thousand ox-loads of armor and weaponry, a thousand more of camphor, aloes, amber, and gems, another thousand with carpets, weapons, and gems, and yet another thousand with perfumes and precious objects, plus four elephants laden with gold. Masʿud pardoned the ruler and spared his life; then, he marched against the fortress of Sanâm, over which “the breeze of Islam had not yet passed.” Surrounded by the sea, with twenty-four prosperous villages around it contributing fabulous wealth, it was seemingly impregnable; nevertheless, Masʿud took the fortress and destroyed the temples. “He made of city and plain a rose garden and a blazing hearth;” he “drenched the earth with blood from the throats of warriors,” and “sat death down at the feast from the slaying of men.” The king’s dagger was the proof of Noah’s miracle, and testified the truth of the Flood to the infidel. Although in India the sages do not believe in the Flood, the truth of the Flood was proven to them by this event.

The poet ends with his suit; although he has “some little respect” in Kerman by virtue of his association with the Ghaznavid court, God knows that Ghazna is far dearer to him than Kerman. “Should the good tidings of his acceptance reach this exile,” he will “turn from this dark earth to the Garden of Paradise, and come from burning sands to the Fountain of Life.” Another victory poem was composed by Hasan of Ghazna to celebrate Bahrâmshâh’s victory over the Ghurid Seyf-al-Din Suri, who occupied Ghazna in 1148 and assumed the title of sultan.86 The qaside begins: T’were proper Gabriel should mount upon this turquoise-hued menbar, and address the far horizons in the name of the faith-nourishing king.

86 Hasan-e Ashraf of Ghazna, Divân (ed. Modarres Razavi), pp. 81–90; incipit sazad gar Jebrâ’il âyad bar-in piruze menbar; on the event see Bosworth, The Later Ghaznavids, pp. 108, 113–15; Ghulam Mustafa Khan, “A History of Bahram Shah,” Islamic Culture 23 (1949), pp. 200–204. Khan quotes 26 verses of Hasan’s qaside (ibid., pp. 201–3); it seems doubtful that he had the entire poem (94 verses in the printed edition) at his disposal.

57

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Heaven and earth should shower tributes upon the ruler, whose victory “has made the sun’s heart brilliant and the spheres’ body exalted.” After more praise of Bahrâmshâh, the poet announces, “I shall go from praise of the king—may his reign ever endure!— to speak of the seditious Suri—may he be dust and ashes!” Suri is showered with abuse. The “sun” of the ruler’s generosity made Suri imagine that he was the moon; he gathered an army, while the world cried out against his impudence. Now, with his defeat, order has been restored. “He came with hope of a war-elephant, but at the end made peace on an ass,” says the poet, referring to Suri’s ultimate fate, for he was paraded around the city on a camel before he was beheaded; then, his head was sent to the Saljuq sultan Sanjar, and his body gibbeted. His head would have a crown, his body a throne: [now] see his might! His head in the plain with no pillow, his body in town with no bed.

The interest of this qaside lies not merely in its elevated rhetorical style—it is, indeed, a masterpiece—but in its circumstances. The poet had remained in Ghazna during Suri’s occupation, and (in Bosworth’s opinion) “may well have been ready to accommodate himself to the new regime;” when Bahrâmshâh defeated Suri and regained his throne, Hasan “found it prudent to depart.” He sent the poem from Nishapur, from whence “he addressed to the sultan poems of apology;” yet he never returned to the Ghaznavid court.87 In this qaside he asks the ruler for forgiveness: “Without your beauty the Seven Climes are a prison to me; I am not content in heart and soul, nor aware of sleeping nor eating … God forbid that I should flee from your decree, wherever I may be; you are such a noble ruler, and I such a bad slave.” He begs the sultan to “signal some [official] of clear judgment to clarify my state; when my crime is made certain, spread over it the train of your pardon. With one command free me from my shame; with one [act of] mercy extricate me from my distress.” He then reverts to further praise of Bahrâmshâh’s victory over Suri, noting the date (12 May 1144) and inserting a pseudo-narrative of the battle, which includes praise of 87 Bosworth, The Later Ghaznavids, p. 108.

58

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

the sultan’s three sons (Masʿud, Khosrowshâh, and Shâhanshâh) and of his general. “From his praise and his victory—one rose, the other nightingale—Moʿezzi’s talent struts, and Alexander’s soul rejoices,” he states, referring to the fact that Suri’s head was sent to Sanjar, whose panegyrist was Moʿezzi, before concluding with the doʿ â. Here we might also note a qaside in which the poet urges the ruler to abandon a projected campaign. Masʿud-e Saʿd begins a qaside to Arslânshâh by noting the ruler’s enthronement in his new palace.88 After a brief passage of praise, he observes that poets can express things freely in their verses because “kings consider as auspicious the omens they hear from poets.” In this qaside your servant has avoided praise — for although his talent saw no limit to your praise, He cannot utter one thousandth of that praise — [because] he wishes to speak of specific matters (hasb-e hâl).

“Although your grandfather and your father pursued holy war for the sake of the faith,” he continues, “you should not resolve to go to India; one Turk of yours in India is sufficient.” The king is served by Turkish cupbearers and Turkish warriors; however, the poet cautions, he “must not empty the treasury of gold and silver” by purchasing more Turkish slaves. You must not constantly buy Turks with gold and silver; there is a door wide open, there is a very easy way.

This “easy way” is to march on Turkestan (insofar as nothing can be gained from the ruined Indian territories); the sultan will take so many Turks as booty that his army will be swelled beyond measure. “In this spring of your reign,” says the poet, punning on rabiʿ (spring), the general Rabiʿ Shaybâni has come to pay homage, bringing a gift of elephants. “Now is the time for rest and pleasure,” he concludes, “so drink wine;” he prays that the sultan may “remain in this blessed palace for a thousand years,” and have a thousand panegyrists like Masʿud-e Saʿd, ever voicing praise. 88 Masʿud-e Saʿd, Divân (ed. Yâsemi), pp. 385–87; Divân (ed. Nuriyân), I, pp. 584–88; incipit negâh kon be-bozorgi-yo jâh in eyvân.

59

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Accession/Confirmation of rule. Qasides that celebrate a ruler’s accession, or the anniversary of his rule, express joy at this event coupled with an emphasis on the ruler’s legitimacy. Accession poems often include references to the ruler’s predecessor, with indications that the latter has passed on the mantle of power to his successor. A qaside by Farrokhi congratulating Amir Mohammad on his accession begins as follows:89 Whoever rejoiced in Yamin-e Dowlat [Mahmud] has given his heart to love of Jamâl-e Mellat [Mohammad]. Whoever recognizes the rights due his beneficence has given our amir the promise of his service.

On his deathbed (says the poet), Mahmud entrusted “his army, both slaves and nobles,” to Mohammad. He told him, “Ascend the throne so that, through you, my name will be remembered,” and instructed him to restore whatever “might have, through my neglect, fallen into ruin.” Elegiac verses on Mahmud are combined with expressions of loyalty and devotion to Mohammad: We have a candle that we will put before us, even if the wind has put out our lamp … If the world has taken a lamp from us, it has placed a candle before us [in its stead].90

Addressing Mohammad, the poet praises him for bringing order to the realm (a standard topic in such poems), and predicts that soon the caliph “will send [an envoy] with his congratulations, if he has not [already] done so.” Since caliphal recognition was an important symbolic affirmation of legitimacy, this topic is a recurrent feature of accession poems. Masʿud-e Saʿd celebrates Arslânshâh’s accession in a qaside which announces the precise date of that event:91 89 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 40–42; dated April–May 1030 / khordâd 421; incipit har ke bud az Yamin-e dowlat shâd. 90 This line is also found in Abu’l-Abbâs Rabenjâni’s qaside to the Samanid Nuh b. Nasr (see the section Elegies below); it may be a tazmin (quotation). 91 Masʿud-e Saʿd, Divân (ed. Yâsemi), pp. 317–18; Divân (ed. Nuriyân), I, pp. 435–37; incipit be own-e izad shesh ruz rafte az Shavvâl.

60

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD With the aid of God, on the sixth day of Shavvâl, the sun of perfection appeared from the heaven of fortune, Five hundred and nine Arab [lunar] years after the Hejira: what a blessed month! and what a blessed year!

“That noble king adorned the world with justice,” he continues, and, again, emphasizes the date: What day was it that, before the sun’s fount set, the lives, souls, and fortune of his foes declined? It was Wednesday [when] the four corners of the throne obtained victory, [divine] support, fortune, and good luck.

“What will the realm be [like] after the year 500 of the Hejira? Know that it will prosper for another five hundred years,” the poet states, and predicts that the “new moon” of Arslânshâh’s reign will ascend to the zenith, and be ever safe from waning or eclipse. In conclusion, he exhorts the ruler to treat his subjects well so that his reign may endure. In another qaside, Masʿud-e Saʿd celebrates the caliph’s confirmation of Arslânshâh’s rule.92 The banner, covenant and address (khatâb) of the caliph in Baghdad: may God most mighty make them auspicious for the king, Abu’l-Moluk Malek Arslân b. Masʿud …

“Today is a great festival (jashn) for the realm;” not only the king and his subjects, but also the entire world rejoices. “The caliph has sent you presents without limit, the likes of which he has sent to no one else,” he continues, and describes the arrival of the caliph’s envoy, who acquired honor when he set foot on the ruler’s carpet, and who conveyed the caliph’s prayer that the ruler might live forever. He concludes: It is not surprising if people congratulate you, since your reign has answered their cries [for help]. All the angels congratulate you on [your receipt of] the covenant and standard from the caliph in Baghdad.

92 Ibid., ed. Yâsemi, pp. 113–14; ed. Nuriyân, I, pp. 135–37; incipit lavâ-o ahd-o khatâb-e Khalife-ye Baghdâd.

61

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Mokhtâri celebrates Arslânshâh’s coronation in his new palace, built for the occasion, which the nasib describes in hyperbolic terms.93 “The minds of the kings of the age became amazed at that paradisiac dome, that seat of kingship, founded by Sultan Abu’lMoluk Malek Arslân,” he states in the gorizgâh. Mokhtâri emphasizes the ruler’s great good fortune and his triumph over his foes, which is expressed in peaceful terms, insofar as all kings pay homage to him. He notes that the caliph has written to the ruler legitimizing his claim, and that when the “governor of Khorasan” (the Saljuq sultan Sanjar) heard of his accession, he was greatly pleased, and sent his envoy with countless gifts. He ends with a prayer for the sultan’s enduring rule. Under the later Ghaznavids, the custom arose of celebrating the anniversary of the ruler’s accession. (No earlier poems appear to do so explicitly; one may perhaps attribute this to the instability of Ghaznavid rule following the murder of Masʿud I.) The practice may have begun by Ebrâhim, for at least one poem by Abu’l-Faraj Runi refers to the anniversary of his rule as his “special (or personal) festival” (jashn-e khâss).94 A qaside by Mokhtâri celebrates the first anniversary of Arslânshâh’s reign, in February 1117.95 (There was to be no second.) It begins with a taghazzol in which the poet entreats his beloved to revive him with sweet wine, and expresses his jealousy at the wind’s playing with his beloved’s curls. If it does not desist, “I shall burn it with the fire of the tip of the ruler’s sword,” he declares; this leads to the takhallos and to an address to the ruler, which includes the date of his accession and an assertion of his divine election to succeed to “the crown, throne, and cushion of Mahmud, which were ever only desirous of you.” The poem concludes with wishes for Arslânshâh’s continued rule. Congratulatory poems on other occasions. The occasions for congratulatory qasides ranged from events pertaining to public life—such as an official’s investiture in or restoration to office, or a 93 Mokhtâri, Divân (ed. Homâ’i), pp. 51–53; incipit gardun-e pir markaz-e molk-e jahân nehâd. 94 Runi, Divân (ed. Mahdavi Dâmghâni), p. 74. 95 Mokhtâri, Divân (ed. Homâ’i), pp. 90–92; incipit shod mostahaqq buse-o mostajab kenâr.

62

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

review or general muster of the army—to more personal ones: the birth of a son to the mamduh, his building of a palace, his recovery from an illness, and other happenings which provided occasions for rejoicing, feasting, and distribution of largesse. Several occasions might be celebrated in a single poem. The related ceremonies were customarily marked by the bestowal of robes of honor, money, and gifts. These were known collectively as khelʿat, which means (literally) a robe of honor doffed by the patron to present to a favored individual (the term derives from the Arabic verb khalaʿa, “to take off, remove”), but the largesse would also include other gifts.96 Investiture in office involved the presentation of the relevant documents and insignia as well as the bestowal of robes of honor and gifts. Farrokhi composed a qaside on the investiture of Hasan b. Mohammad Mikâli (Hasanak) as Sultan Mahmud’s vizier in 1025, after the previous vizier, Ahmad b. Hasan Meymandi, had been removed and imprisoned.97 He praises the ruler’s choice of a wise and experienced vizier who is peerless in the world, just as no other ruler is the equal of Mahmud. The people have long awaited such a vizier, who will dispense justice everywhere. “Those days are gone,” he says, when “the unfortunate man was prisoner to the tyrant;” now, “[those] affairs that were crooked as a strung bow will, through his good policies, become [straight] as an arrow.” He warns the “tail-docked foxes” to “creep into your lair, for the lion’s roar has come from the kingdom’s meadow.” This image is repeated in another qaside in praise of Hasanak: “A lion has begun to strut in the kingdom’s meadow; those days are gone when the meadow was empty. Those foxes who occupied the lion’s place have slunk away into serpents’ holes.”98 In several qasides, Farrokhi celebrates Masʿud I’s reinstatement of Ahmad b. Hasan Meymandi as vizier in 1031. (The poet appears 96 See N. A. Stillmann, EI2 , “Khilʿa.” 97 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 189–91; incipit nik ekhteyâr kard khodâvand-e mâ vazir. On Hasanak see Mohammad Shafiʿ, “The Sons of Mikal,” Proceedings of the Idara-e-Ma’arif Islamia (Lahore, 1933), pp. 124– 31; Nāẓim, The Life and Times of Sulṭān Maḥmūd of Ghazna, pp. 135–37. 98 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 191–92; incipit ey tork-e delfarib del-e man negâhdâr.

63

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

to have had a long association with Meymandi and other members of his family.) The nasib of one such qaside begins:99 O Turk, the heart ever returns to where it was, abandoning that temperament at which it played before.

For six years that heart “continually grieved and suffered for you;” now, it is time to release the heart from its suffering. The poet entreats his beloved, “Come to me and remove this heavy burden of grief from my heart;” he prays that God may forgive any sins he might have committed in the name of love, “for, after obedience to God, I was always the loyal servant of the king’s vizier … Abu’lQâsem Ahmad, who purchased [my] praise and lauds with heart and eyes.” Since the vizier’s shadow was withdrawn from Mahmud’s realm, that realm was like a ruined house: “The army cried out, the kingdom was agitated, the treasury was destroyed;” the realm, in short, was bankrupt. Even so, “however ruined Khorasan is today, however depopulated it may be, next year the vizier’s fortunes and blessing will transform it into a spring garden, full of flowers.” Another qaside to Meymandi begins, “The cloud has lifted, and once again the world is bright … The garden, which was not reached by water, is now renewed, and flowing water has found its way there … The adornment of the state has returned to make the realm prosperous as paradise.”100 A number of Masʿud-e Saʿd’s qasides celebrate Mahmud b. Ebrâhim’s investiture (or confirmation) as governor of India. One begins with the wish that the sultan’s khelʿat may prove auspicious for the prince.101 After praising Mahmud and boasting about his own poetry (which is, of course, inadequate to the prince’s praise), the poet addresses the khelʿat: O auspicious khelʿat, how should I describe you? For your rank has been augmented by the ruler of Iran. Your grandeur will not increase if you are praised; nor, if you are not praised, will it suffer any loss.   99 Ibid., pp. 156–58; incipit ey tork hami bâz shavad del be-sar-e kâr. 100 Ibid., pp. 303–5; incipit migh bogshâd-o degar bâr beyafrukht jahân. 101 Masʿud-e Saʿd, Divân (ed. Yâsemi), pp. 376–78; Divân (ed. Nuriyân), I, pp. 549–52; incipit in neʿmat-o in rotbat-o in khelʿat-e soltân.

64

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

Addressing the prince, he exhorts him to “act in such wise that every year you will be sent one khelʿat after the other, like drops of rain.” You have become fresh and new through this khelʿat; indeed, the garden ever becomes fresh through rain.

“As long as the sun shines in the heavens,” he says, “and from its light jewels in the mine increase, may you be like the sun, and through you your treasuries filled, like the mine, with many-colored gems. May your command be obeyed throughout the world; and may the sultan’s khelʿat prove auspicious and royal to you.” The bestowal of khelʿats was sometimes collective. Farrokhi describes Mahmud’s distribution of such gifts to his troops; while no specific occasion is mentioned, this may have occurred either at the annual spring muster or at one of the reviews of the troops which took place on the major feast-days.102 “An army which has the likes of Mahmud as ruler,” he begins, “has good fortune on its right hand (yamin, punning on Mahmud’s title Yamin-al-Dowle) and abundance on its left.” The army’s assembled tents look like waves; groaning with booty, their dwellings are like heavily laden ships. Praise of the troops leads to praise of Mahmud and an excursus on the good fortune that accrues to those who serve him—especially today, when he has rewarded his worthy servants with sumptuous khelʿats. Through Mahmud’s generosity his troops boast golden belts and richly accoutered mounts; even more, they have earned both the sultan’s pleasure and God’s, and can look forward to yet more rewards of the sort that are now described as present in the meydân (square) for all to see, after having been dispensed by the ruler. Some early Ghaznavid poems describe the sultan’s parade ground (meydân) on the occasion of a review of the army. Onsori composed several such qasides (one assumes that, as malek al-shoʿarâ, this was one of his regular duties). One, composed for Nowruz, begins with a spring song which seems to describe 102 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 55–59; incipit har sepâhi-râ ke chun Mahmud bâshad shahriyâr.

65

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

a garden filled with beautiful “idols” boasting newly sprouted beards, who resemble crows with roses in their talons and tulips in their beaks.103 Each is like a tree with silver roots and crimson fruit. Some wear golden sword-belts studded with rubies, red as the bloody tears which lovers shed upon cheeks yellow as gold with love-sickness. The array of war-elephants decked with gold resembles hills covered with saffron blossoms. “What is this place,” asks the poet, “save the meydân of the sultan, the ruler of the age, the campaigning sovereign?” Another also begins with a spring song:104 “It seems as if, once more, the Creator has brought forth a new world.” Again, this “garden” is peopled with beautiful “idols”, each with a face bright as day, crowned with hair dark as night, their belts brilliant with jewels, their tunics of scarlet Chinese brocade shining so brightly one would think that a brazier of amber were shooting forth tongues of flame. Again, the poet asks, “What is this new world, adorned with pictures by victory and fortune, but the meydân of the great sultan?” More personal events also provided occasions for congratulation. A qaside by Farrokhi, congratulating Amir Yusof on the birth of a son, begins with an extended metaphor on daybreak:105 At dawn, when the sky rent the veil of night, day came forth from the mountain-top [clad] in a fine linen (qasab) cloak. The army of white day had set off towards Turkestan (Chin); the army of black night had set off towards Aleppo …

The stars gathered to bid farewell to night; along with the stars, the Pleiades “followed night like seven silver stars in a bark of iron.” Stars are more brilliant in the dark of night; if the stars are partisans of night, ’tis no surprise … When the white bird [the sun] plunged into the dark blue water, 103 Onsori, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 38–41; incipit monaqqash âlami ferdows-kerdâr; probably composed in 1016, when Nowruz and Id-e Fetr coincided. 104 Ibid., pp. 69–72; incipit bedân mânad ke yazdân-e garugar. 105 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 8–10; incipit sapide dam ke havâ bar darid parde-ye shab.

66

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD [and] the brilliant star in the heavens became concealed from sight, A star appeared from within the amir’s palace which gave increase to beauty within the Lord’s creation … It appeared that very moment when, from the east, the brightness of dawn appeared, and [dark] night was put to flight … The amir found this God-given son worthy of him; may he be like the amir, and find honor through sword and pen (qasab).

The repetition of qasab (meaning, first, fine linen voile, and second, the reed from which pens are cut) links this line with the opening one and marks the center of the poem. The poet now turns to praise of the amir, who has “shown his skill through both implements” (sword and pen): “With the pen he sprinkles water on the liver of friends; with the sword he casts fire on the liver of foes.” Elsewhere, Farrokhi combines congratulations to Amir Yusof on his son’s birth with praise of his newly-completed palace.106 In the nasib, the poet’s beloved asks him if his weariness is because of the hardships of his recent journeys. He replies that it is not his travels that have made him thin and wasted, but his separation from the amir’s court. Now that he has returned, he has “become strong through hope [and] wealthy through pleasure … My heart is at ease, my suffering has ended, [for] I have arrived at a time when to [Yusof’s] line an angel has been added from the stock of this angelic prince,” born at an auspicious time and with a felicitous portent. Congratulations are all the more obligatory since the son’s lineage is noble on both sides. Farrokhi continues: “In this world Amir Yusof owns a tree which bears no fruit save good tidings and congratulations. I think I am that very tree; but who has seen a praise-singing tree? I am no tree, but I think that God created a tree to congratulate the amir; for since I have been in his service I cannot attend to other things because of congratulating him; now on account of an elephant, now on account of a gholâm (young 106 Ibid., pp. 128–30; incipit ma-râ beporsid az ranj-e râh-o shoghl-e safar. On this poem, and on Persian palace poems in general, see further J. S. Meisami, “Palaces and Paradises: Palace Description in Medieval Persian Poetry,” in O. Grabar and C. Robinson, eds., Islamic Art and Literature (Princeton, 2001), pp. 21–54.

67

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

male slave); may things be ever thus!” Then he moves to praise of the palace, which, with its garden (both of which are described in some detail), provides visible proof of the prince’s magnificence and might. The image of a tree and its fruit is seen frequently in birth congratulations. Masʿud-e Saʿd, congratulating Arslânshâh on the birth of his son Khosrow Malek, states, “When God wished the kingdom to become fruitful, he brought forth an auspicious branch from the kingdom’s tree.”107 A different twist on this topic is seen in a qaside by Farrokhi to Amir Mohammad:108 They bring fathers congratulations on sons, and that is proper; for the father is like a tree, and the son like the fruit. I have brought the son congratulations on the father, because I have seen no other like him in this world. No prince’s son has a grandfather like Mahmud; no prince’s son has a father like Mohammad.

Unlike births, weddings and betrothals seem rarely to have been celebrated by the poets, perhaps because (in this milieu at least) open references to noble women were considered improper. (Outside the Ghaznavid domains, both panegyrics to and elegies on women were not at all uncommon.) A qaside by Farrokhi to Amir Yusof, which combines several occasions for congratulation, provides a partial exception. In the nasib, the poet invites his beloved to come with him to look at the palaces “at the door” of the prince’s residence, each of which is in itself a brilliant world. Inside the most recently completed palace, the prince’s servants are distributing largesse or preparing for the feast; minstrels make music, slaves scatter gold, the prince’s “well-wishers drink wine, while [his] ill-wishers grieve.” Why has the amir done all this? He has built the palace for his Hâjeb (senior commander), the slave Toghrel, whom he had raised as his own son and for whom he has now found a noble bride. Finding Toghrel’s service praiseworthy, the amir “bestowed upon 107 Masʿud-e Saʿd, Divân (ed. Yâsemi), pp. 131–32; Divân (ed. Nuriyân), I, pp. 185–87; incipit hazâr khorrami andar zamâne gasht padid. 108 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), p. 379, ll. 7678–80; incipit pedarân-râ be-pesar tahniyat ârand-o ravâst.

68

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

him crown and belt” (referring to his investiture as Hâjeb): “such is [true] nobility, lordship and generosity; such is true beneficence.”109 The building of palaces and palace-complexes (including gardens) was a princely and aristocratic occupation. Farrokhi congratulates Mahmud on the completion of the garden, lake, and palace-complex of Bâgh-e Now (the “New Garden”) in Balkh.110 The garden is more than beautiful, it is Paradise itself, as signaled by the fact that Rezvân (the gatekeeper of Paradise) sits before its gate (a recurrent topos in such poems). One gate the sun has called the east, one gate the moon has called the west; in it dwell the moonfaced beauties of the majles; it is the abode of the army’s lion-takers; and it is a place for both hunting and feasting. In the middle of the garden rises a palace whose parapets scrape the heavens; within the palace are paintings of the ruler, now in battle, now feasting. A stream flows through the palace, “swift as the sultan’s command.” The garden boasts a deep lake on which boats sail and in whose waters swim “fish like brides, with rings in their ears studded with pearls and gems;” beside the lake is a pavilion where the ruler sits to drink wine. The doʿ â concludes: “Happy the palace and garden which you, rejoicing, own; drink wine in this palace, and enjoy it!” With later Ghaznavid poets, palace descriptions become both less frequent and less concrete. Mokhtâri’s divan contains two qasides congratulating Arslânshâh on his new palace. The first begins by stating that Rezvân would rejoice should God command him to become “the doorman of the sultan’s royal abode,” which rivals Paradise itself. “Is this the sphere? It would seem so, if Saturn is its turret! Is it Paradise? It must be so, if Rezvân is its doorkeeper!”111 Hyperbole also reigns in a qaside by Hasan of Ghazna addressed to Bahrâmshâh’s vizier Hasan-e Ahmad, which begins with an 109 Ibid., pp. 131–32; incipit khiz tâ har do be-nezâre shavim ey delbar. On Toghrel and Amir Yusof (whom Toghrel ultimately betrayed) see Beyhaqi, Târikh-e Beyhaqi, pp. 329–31; for translation, see Bosworth and Ashtiany, The History of Beyhaqi, I, pp. 357–59. 110 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 53–55; incipit be-farkhonde fâl-o be-farkhonde akhtar. 111 Mokhtâri, Divân (ed. Homâ’i), pp. 171–75; incipit ey chun zamâne ruz-o shab mâye-ye ebar.

69

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

apostrophe to the building, a feature not (apparently) seen in earlier poetry, but increasingly common among later poets. This “blessed building,” whose “head ever scrapes the heavens,” is to the eye “a lofty building,” and to nature “an expansive plain.” “You resemble the world-seeing cup,” says the poet, “for you show everything that exists.”112 There are no physical details of the building; it is simply more lofty, more impressive, more pleasing, and more all-inclusive than anything that can be imagined. We are meant to be impressed by its magnitude and by the might of its builder. Another occasion for congratulations was the mamduh’s recovery from an illness. (Visiting the sick was an obligation, in terms both of Islamic values and of clientage, and poets often apologize for their failure to do so.) In a qaside to Amir Yusof, Farrokhi states:113 God has made a thousand obligations incumbent upon us, for he has made us rejoice in our noble amir.

A thousand hands were raised in prayer for his recovery; for when the ailing prince “neither ate nor mounted up, people’s hearts were not at ease.” “Did you hear the lute’s song coming from any garden? Did you hear the singer’s voice from any house?” No one drank wine; everyone, distressed, prayed, “God, do not show us anything hateful.” The poet in particular suffered anxiety for his prince; but “God had mercy on my heart,” and restored the prince to health. Now “the age is renewed, and the world is young again; the amir has recovered, and now feels like drinking wine.” Hunting, polo, and other activities. Various sporting activities, especially the hunt (which was often likened to warfare), were an important component of kingly and noble pursuits, and were duly celebrated by poets. Persian poems on the hunt—unlike the Arabic tardiyya, which has a well-established repertoire of topics and imagery—often lack concrete descriptive elements, insofar as the 112 Hasan-e Ashraf of Ghazna, Divân (ed. Modarres Razavi), pp. 178–79; incipit ey mobârak-bonâ che khosh jâ’i. 113 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 389–90; incipit hazâr mennat bar mâ farize kard khodâ.

70

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

hunt primarily provides another occasion to praise the mamduh’s military prowess.114 There are, however, exceptions. In a qaside to Amir Mohammad, Farrokhi describes the prince’s hunting ground.115 His gholâms surround the plain, forming an enclosure from which no bird nor beast can escape; the plain is dark with masses of game. The prince rides into the enclosure, his bow strung, “with magnificence, good fortune, conquest, and victory,” and shoots down countless prey. A somewhat grisly description of his feats and of slain, wounded, and fleeing beasts leads to a conflation of the hunt with warfare: “You would have said that [the slain prey were] like the Khân’s defeated army before Mahmud, the ruler of Iran, on the Plain of Katar … No king in the world ever had such a hunt; no king on this earth ever hunted so.” Farrokhi begins a qaside to Mahmud in narrative style.116 “The ruler of the world,” who is in all respects most praised, When the sun’s head rose from behind the eastern mountain, sent for wine, and went off to the hunt.

He climbed the mountain, sat in a hide, and placed an arrow in his bow: He ever drew his bow in the Prophet’s name, and loosed his poplar arrows in the name of God.

In his direct address to the ruler, praise of Mahmud’s hunting skills blends into praise of his martial prowess; the hunt, described both realistically and ritualistically, becomes a secular surrogate for holy war. An amusing twist to the hunt poem is seen in a qaside by Farrokhi addressed to Amir Mohammad, which begins:117 Four things are the choicest pursuits of kings: triumph in polo, warfare, feasting, and hunting. 114 See J. E. Montgomery, “Tardiyya,” in J. S. Meisami and P. Starkey, eds., Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature (London, 1998). 115 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 115–17; incipit bâ man emruz ke bude-st bedin dasht andar. 116 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 206–8; incipit khodâygân-e jahân khosrow-e bozorg-owrang; probably composed in 1029, after Mahmud’s conquest of Ray. 117 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 102–4; incipit chahâr chiz gozin bud khosravân-râ kâr.

71

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Mohammad adds to these another four: “Keeping his oath, honoring rights, revering religion, and speaking the truth.” After several lines of praise, the poet states that he will tell of the prince’s accomplishments on a single hunt, on which he himself accompanied the prince, along with “the servants and observers.” The prince slew much game, and ordered his Hâjeb to bring it to him; but when “not one-fifth” had been brought before him, “gazelles’ eyes made the whole plain [seem] like the beloved’s eyes, and gazelles’ horns like the beloved’s twisting curls.” The poet, reminded of his own gazelle-like beloved, burst into tears; one of the prince’s servants saw this and informed the amir, who selected some of his own “gazelles” and sent them to the poet. A brief qaside by Farrokhi on the occasion of Mahmud’s playing polo, after which he and his accompanying troops were entertained by one of his sons (which one is not stated), contains nothing that enables us to envisage either the polo game or the party.118 (Qasides celebrating a ruler’s visit to a prince or an official, which provides an occasion for praise of both, appear frequently in the divans of later Saljuq panegyrists; one imagines that their purpose is to glorify the prince or official through association with the ruler.) Perhaps unique is Farrokhi’s qaside on the branding-ground of the Amir of Chaghâniyân, composed as a test of his poetic skill when he traveled to that prince’s court seeking patronage in the spring of 1016.119 The opening imagery—“When the meadow drew an indigo silk over its face …”—anticipates that of Farrokhi’s qaside to Mahmud with which this chapter began. The poem is well worth study; however, since it is both unique and highly circumstantial, it cannot be dealt with here. We may however quote a few lines from the translation by E. G. Browne.120 Branding-fires, like suns ablaze, are kindled at the spacious gate Leading to the state-pavilion of our prince so fortunate. Leap the flames like gleaming lances draped with yellow-lined brocade, Hotter than a young man’s passion, yellower than gold assayed. 118 Ibid., p. 21; incipit ey feʿ l-e to sotude-o goftârhâ-t râst. 119 Ibid., pp. 175–80; incipit chun parand-e nilgun bar ruy-e pushad marghzâr; cf. Nezâmi Aruzi, Chahâr Maqâle (eds. Qazvini and Moʿin), pp. 60–63. 120 Browne, LHP II, p. 127.

72

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD Branding-tools like coral branches ruby-tinted glow amain In the fire, as in the ripe pomegranate glows the crimson grain … On his horse, the river-forder, roams our genial Prince afar, Ready to his hand the lasso, like a young Esfandiyár … But, though on one side he brandeth, gives he also rich rewards, Leads his poets with a bridle, binds his guests as though with cords.

Poems on the hunt, or polo, become less frequent in the later Ghaznavid period (and also with Saljuq poets); such topics are generally confined to occasional insertions within the larger praise poem. The poet in the poem. Many qasides, while still fulfilling their primary function of praise, include more personal elements: references to the poet’s circumstances (hasb-e hâl), suits (taqâzâ), boasts (fakhr), attacks on rivals (hajv), reproaches (etâb), apologies (eʿtezâr), and so on. The personal element usually follows the praise passage, but formal disposition may vary. Onsori begins an apology to Amir Yusof with a nasib in which the lover’s complaint at separation from his beloved anticipates the poet’s complaint of separation from his prince.121 “How can I gain union with that heart-ravishing idol?” he asks; “for separation’s fire has consumed my heart!” Nothing is more desirable, nor more difficult, than for the lover to enjoy the company of his beloved, to whom he must, perforce, give up his heart, with no hope of reclaiming it. “Perhaps through some stratagem I may be united with him,” he says, then turns to praise: What good are love-songs and the description of beauties? Why do you not describe and praise the glory of mankind, That bright star of good actions, Mir Abu Yaʿqub …122

Addressing the amir, he states that “two amazing things” have befallen him: first, his feeling that the prince had “become tired of his 121 Onsori, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 78–80; incipit chegune bar khoram az vasl-e ân bot-e delbar. Onsori was apparently accused of addressing a poem to Yusof that had originally been composed for someone else; see G.H. Yusofi, Farrokhi Sistâni: bahthi dar sharh-e ahvâl va ruzgâr va sheʿr-e u (Mashhad, 1962–63), p. 90. 122 Preferring the variant setâre, “star,” to the text’s salâle, “offspring, progeny.”

73

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

eloquent slave,” which so distressed him that he gave up poetry and ceased to attend the amir; and second, his bewilderment at being told that he has offended his lord by offering him a poem composed for someone else. He protests his innocence: If I composed that poem in other than your name, know that I am a faithless ingrate before God and His Prophet.

“May the mouth of that person who bears false tales to you be filled with earth and ashes!” he exclaims, and asks the prince to “judge with the eye of wisdom; by your virtue be an arbitrator between us.” I have no need to steal poetry; for conceits gush forth from my mind and my talent.

He links his poetic talents with the inspiration provided by the amir (“You are nobler than all meanings; whatever I may say, my thoughts are always inferior, praise of you superior”), and concludes with the customary doʿ â. A qaside by Mokhtâri to Soltânshâh b. Ebrâhim, which includes an apology for rejecting that prince’s gifts, begins with a lengthy passage on poetry.123 “Since princes own the earth, it is clear what servants owe to kings,” he states; Poetry is the adornment of the kings of the earth, because it shines brightly like the stars in the skies.

Poetry praises worthy rulers; without their patronage (tarbiyat), “who could have composed a single fragment?” Nevertheless, although panegyrics ensure a second life for those they praise, poverty and lowliness (i. e., lack of patronage) have debased the honor of this craft. Rostam lives through Ferdowsi’s verses; because of Mahmud’s gold, Onsori composed priceless poems. Poets were created to praise kings, but poetry is an exacting profession and deserves reward (sele, “stipend”). “Supporting poetry and giving gifts is the practice of our king and of our prince, Mir Soltânshâh,” the poet states in the gorizgâh. Addressing the prince, he boasts, 123 Mokhtâri, Divân (ed. Homâ’i), pp. 40–43; incipit khosravân-râ sepehr zir-e havâ-st.

74

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

“You know that your slave Mokhtâri is a daring panegyrist and a superior poet. Serving you is his concern, and his praise is beautiful to you.” You, lord, are the cloud, and he the pearl-shell; you, amir, are the sun, and he the chameleon. The dust of your horse, the response to a greeting, is, for your slave, your khelʿat and your gift. The courage to reject your silver and your robe: who among the people of this age would have such [courage]?

The fault was not his, he declares, but that of “that cold, vile guard” who delivered the gifts (and, presumably, treated the poet with disrespect). “I know which deeds are fitting and which are wrong before princes,” he states; “but all creatures are prone to error; you must accept [your slave’s] apology and, in turn, ask [him to accept] yours. For if your slave committed one error, that guard has a thousand upon his head.” Two, probably late, qasides by Farrokhi to Mahmud combine complaints and suits. In one, he stresses that he has no more precious or worthy occupation than serving the ruler, and will do so as long as he lives.124 To abandon Mahmud’s service would be to “abandon the straight path;” through this service he, a poet, has been made the equal of noble men. Mahmud has bestowed upon him many gifts: fine riding horses, beautiful slaves, silver and gold, and so on. This year ’tis thirteen years, and going on more, that I, O king, am at this prosperous court. When you are at home, I am here in your presence; when you are on campaign, I am with you on your travels. O king, I do not say this—for such should not be done — to enumerate my services to you, O king; I said this for this reason: so that all should know how many years I’ve been continually in this place.

When, the day before, a friend asked him how much pay he received from the amir, he replied: “My pay is greater than my talent; 124 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 231–33; incipit ey shahi k-az hame shâhân chu hami dar negaram.

75

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

but now, for two years, because the Amir has not ordered it, I have neither bread, nor barley for my horse.” He rejects his friend’s offer to provide these, for it would not be proper for him to serve the amir and “take bread” from another. (We can see here an attempt at shaming the ruler to produce what he has promised.) In the second qaside, Farrokhi addresses Mahmud’s nobles and boon companions (nadims).125 “You,” he says, “can tell the worldruler the words of his servants. I too am one of the sultan’s servants, although today I am no longer among you; but today I have a need to speak.” The ruler of the world [once] held me dear; day and night, my name was on his tongue.

“He would summon me frequently,” says the poet—sometimes to play the lute, sometimes to recite poetry. “Always I heard ‘bravos’ for my ghazals, and received rewards for my praise.” The ruler would bestow upon him gold and horses; he “enjoyed a spring without fear of autumn;” and “had gardens full of roses and fields full of anemones.” But “a wind came from the mountain” and destroyed all; “nothing is left but grief and suffering, as if it was all a dream, or some idle talk.” Deprived of sight of the king, he is like Adam banished from Paradise, or as if struck by the Evil Eye. There follows a lengthy narrative whose purpose is to exonerate the poet from accusations against him. “The king became angry with me for a sin I did not commit,” he says. Word reached the king’s majles that Farrokhi had been drinking wine “in such and such a place, with such-and-such a person.” This slander “became like the divine decree, from which one cannot flee.” He entreats his addressees to “be upright and virtuous” in telling his story to the sultan, “who renders his servants their due and respects them.” He swears that at that time, “except for that one day, I drank no wine, by God!” On that day, he had visited someone “to ask for news which would relieve my suffering.” Having obtained it, he was eased, and “sought to return home, to give alms and make sacrifices [in thanks];” however, his acquaintance insisted that he stay 125 Ibid., pp. 267–69; incipit ey nadimân-e shahriyâr-e jahân.

76

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

“and drink a few cups in celebration.” That was the only reason he was a guest there; “if this was a crime,” the poet exclaims, let him be beaten or exiled, but not driven away. “The ruler of Iran is too noble to let a heart like mine become wasted from grief,” he concludes, and prays for the ruler’s long life and prosperity. The necessity to juggle competing commitments is reflected in a qaside by Farrokhi addressed jointly to the Amirs Yusof and Mohammad.126 The rubric states, “On [his] circumstances (hasb-e hâl), Amir Yusof’s tiring of him, his rejection from service for three years, and Amir Mohammad’s intercession.” The nasib describes the arrival of spring—a spring “which confers no obligation (mennat),” a “Paradise which has no gatekeeper”—and which surpasses last year’s spring, whose beauties failed to please the poet, because he was suffering from separation “from a personage whose auspicious service brought me both fame and bread.” He was never absent from that prince’s service: “At banquets he would say, ‘Come, play the lute;’ at feasts he would say, ‘Come, sing poetry.’” If the poet erred, the prince would not grow angry; if angry, he would not withhold his beneficence. But a slanderer’s words separated him from that prince, who nevertheless understood his obligations towards others and accorded them due respect. After three years, the poet begged Amir Mohammad to intercede for him. He tells him the whole story, skillfully incorporating praise of Amir Yusof, followed by his apology: “If I was absent from your service for a long while, at least I was not serving your enemy; I was in the service of a king who is of one heart with you” (namely, Mohammad, whom he has heard Yusof praise “a thousand times.”) “Since the house of the two of you is one,” he asks, “what harm is my coming and going from one to the other?” Losing the patron’s favor and being banished from his court were constant threats to the court poet. Hasan of Ghazna complains of such a situation in a qaside addressed to an unnamed ruler.127 After 126 Ibid., pp. 185–88. 127 Hasan-e Ashraf of Ghazna, Divân (ed. Modarres Razavi), p. 18; incipit ey shâh dowr-e chatr-e to degar chode-st. The ruler was probably Bahrâmshâh, and the poem was most likely composed after his victory against Suri (see the section with the heading Victory Poems above).

77

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

praising the king’s virtues and the brilliance of his court, he entreats: “Do not make the world a cage for that slave who is the nightingale in the garden of your feast, for he has lost his wings.” In the garden of your state, a sapling blossomed forth: water it with your favor, for it’s leafless, without fruit.

“O lustrous pearl,” he pleads, “look on me once with mercy, for my affairs are in ruins; show mercy to the dried-up soul of your slave, although he is afflicted by shame at your mercy.” Poets often complain of the times in which they live; although such complaints are often generally phrased, they are frequently geared to a specific purpose. Manuchehri begins a qaside to the general Ali b. Emrân,128 O world, what a bad-tempered, bad-natured world you are, and, like a merchants’ market, all disorder! In every matter that I have tested you, you are all deceit, all loss, from start to end. And should I try you a thousand times again, you’ll ever be the same, the same, the same …

In the transition to the madih, the poet contrasts the heartless world with the mamduh: I have a customer far better than you; so why should I serve you for nothing in return? My customer is the crown of the Emrânis; and you yourself are the servant of the crown of the Emrânis.

After brief praise he moves to reproach, exhorting the mamduh to heed him, “as is due [your] nobility, as is due [my] youth.” “Listening to poets’ verses is a characteristic act of princes; so, even if you show your servant little favor, [at least] do not cause him distress.” He reminds the mamduh that he (the poet) has traveled a long way to wait upon him; after a brief description of a camel journey, he compares himself to celebrated Arab poets, who sought the patronage of rulers by whom they were richly rewarded. “In the same 128 Manuchehri, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 116–20; incipit jahânâ che badmehr-o badkhu jahâni. The mamduh was a former vassal of the Buyids who first went over to the Ziyarids and later served Masʿud I of Ghazna.

78

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

way Manuchehri of Dâmghân came to the crown of the Emrânis. You are not lesser than those rulers … [Even] if you are lesser than they in beneficence, you are greater than they in aspiration … and I am no lesser poet than those [poets].” The poet reminds the mamduh of his earlier favor; in conclusion, he notes that his poem was composed in the same meter as a qaside by the Arabic poet Abu’lShis (d. ca. 812), from which he quotes the opening line. A qaside by Manuchehri to Masʿud I incorporates madh (praise), fakhr (boasting), and hejâ (satire, invective) with a suit for favor.129 In the opening nasib he asks his “well-protected idol” if he is not otherwise occupied: “Why not arrange a party? Why not bring the wine?” If his “Turk” truly loves him, he must court him better than this; for if he persists in being cruel to the poet, who has given him his heart, he will summon “a Tartar Turkish trooper from the court of the King of kings,” Masʿud, to chastise him. A brief passage of praise is followed by an invitation to the ruler to take his ease and drink wine, followed by an expression of the poet’s gratitude. After a passage of fakhr, he begins his attack. Here in Masʿud’s court, one cannot make false claims about poetry, because the masters of poetry have tested him (Manuchehri) and proven his worth. Because his poetry pleased the king, a rival accused him of insincerity—a charge he duly refutes: “Since I have been in these lands I have offered praise to no one, save my praise and lauding of the king for his great justice.” The reproach, while ostensibly directed at the rival, clearly extends also to the prince, to whom the poet has dedicated his poetry and from whom he expects support in return. In the later Ghaznavid period, we find a growing number of “complaints of the times;” these, too, usually have a specific purpose. Masʿud-e Saʿd begins a qaside to Amid Hasan as follows:130 129 Ibid., pp. 98–102; incipit ey loʿ bat-e hesâri shoghli degar nadâri; on the date of composition (1035) see ibid., pp. 205–6; see also J. W. Clinton, The Divân of Manuchihri Dâmghâni: A Critical Study (Minneapolis, 1972), pp. 82–90; Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry, pp. 60–66. 130 Masʿud-e Saʿd, Divân (ed. Yâsemi), pp. 59–60; Divân (ed. Nuriyân), I, pp. 101–2; incipit hich kas-râ gham-e velâyat nist. The Amid may have been Hasan b. Mansur of Qâ’en, who later became Bahrâmshâh’s vizier, and who was praised by Sanâ’i and Mokhtâri; see Sanâ’i, Divân, ed. M. T. Modarres Razavi (2 nd ed., Tehran, 1962), Introduction, pp. ṣḥ–ṣṭ [pp. 98–99].

79

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA No one is concerned about the kingdom; no one looks after the affairs of Islam. In all these regions there is not one soul who has not been infected by weakness of will.

After complaining about the injustice and corruption of the times, the poet addresses the mamduh: “O Khwâje Amid Hasan, you show no favor towards these corrupt people; no one is more rightly guided than you.” Then he asks: “What has happened? There are no more men, no weapons, no standards, drums, or banners; there is no army experienced in warfare, nor any able commander. [If] this is the way it is—thanks be to God!—one can’t complain about it. But what should I do? For [even] you are no longer concerned about the kingdom.” “I tell all this story myself,” he concludes; “it is not related from anyone, nor do I consider this support for which I ask to be a crime. I said ‘kingdom’ (velâyat) clearly; it means what is apparent, it is no metaphor (kenâyat); in this a divine sign (âyat) has come to you, even if today is not the time for such miraculous messages.” A major practitioner of the complaint poem was Sanâ’i, who begins one such qaside with the following,131 In this age there are few men of sense; or if there are, they end up blamed for this. For clever men, at kings’ and scholars’ gates, it is the time of worms, not of largesse.

(The poet plays on the words kerm, “worm”, and karam, “nobility, largesse.”) Any virtuous person who values honor prefers obscurity to public life. Sanâ’i catalogues the faults and vices of all classes of society: kings are preoccupied with greed and lust, amirs are tyrannical and corrupt, jurisprudents seek only financial gain, scholars are marked by sectarian prejudice, the Sufis seek only carnal gratification, hypocritical ascetics wish to be admired for their abstinence and false piety, physicians hope for illness as a means of acquiring rich gifts (khelʿat) and renown, and so on. All are evil; 131 Sanâ’i, Divân (ed. Modarres Razavi), pp. 81–83; incipit marde-e hoshyâr dar in ahd kam-ast.

80

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

but each one says, “If I am evil, so is the next man.” Why is this? It is because all have abandoned true piety: their “Bu’l-Qâsem” is “Bu’l-Hakam”, which means that they have abandoned the Prophet’s teachings to follow the ways of his pagan opponent, Abu Jahl. In another qaside, Sanâ’i laments that “amongst men deeds have gone; only words remain.”132 There are no more eloquent and refined persons; justice has been replaced by injustice. Gone is Mahmud’s kingdom, but his praise remains upon all tongues; Onsori is dust, but his sayings endure throughout the world. Since all is now baseness and corruption, he concludes: Henceforth, Sanâ’i, ’tis best you utter no more praise, since your mamduhs are nothing but stew-cooks and greengrocers. Elsewhere Sanâ’i decries the changes wrought by time:133 O Muslims! men have altered the state of things! Out of irreverence they have made good deeds despised.134

Religious leaders are corrupt; kings have no compassion for the weak and oppressed; rule has been given into the hands of Turks; religious law has been put aside in favor of philosophy; and religious scholars, seeking gain, “have placed themselves at the service of every Qaymâz and Qaysar” (that is, Turks and other “foreign” gholâms). It is widows’ bloody tears which, at the time of the morning cup, the princes of the realm pour into wine-cup and goblet.

Landowners (dehqânân) have become like bailiffs (avvânân); cultivators see no profit from their harvest; the coinage is debased; poets find no support; merchants are all thieves; and so on. “Alas, for a Mahdi [to appear]!” the poet exclaims, “for a world of rapacious Dajjâls have raised their heads!” He ends on a similarly apocalyptic note: O Muslims! the times have changed altogether, because the people of the times have altered everything —Sanâ’i! Give less advice, for in this End of Days, a bunch of donkeys and cattle have been raised high! 132 Ibid., pp. 146–48; incipit kard raft az mardomân andar jahân aqvâl mând. 133 Ibid., pp. 148–50; incipit ey mosalmânân khalâyeq hâl-e digar karde and. 134 Literally, they have made the maʿruf, “good deeds,” equivalent to the monkar, “evil deeds.” Princes, in particular, were enjoined to “command the maʿruf and forbid the monkar.”

81

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Complaint poems—whose subjects range from the general to the personal—are designed, first and foremost, to affect and influence the person(s) to whom they are addressed. Poets often complain of poverty or of debt, as does Mokhtâri in a brief qaside in which he observes that he has spent much of his life in vain, and has not had a moment of happiness in return.135 The reason for his present distress is that he has been obliged to seek a loan “from an avaricious little man, uncaring, vile as a dog.” One morning, before he could rub the sleep from his eyes, there was his creditor, leaning on the poet’s bed and demanding his money. The poet tries everything: “Out of the bag of lies I placed before his beard the Shâhnâme’s history and the stories of Sendbâd; I told him so many lies that his head became swollen as a gourd.” When the creditor has finally gone, he sweeps his dust from the room; although the creditor is stupid and repulsive, “his claim is just; I am the one who flees from justice. This is my state,” he concludes, “and a thousand times worse; O unique, righteous man: find a solution to my problem!” A qaside by Mokhtâri in praise of Masʿud-e Saʿd-e Salmân incorporates a complaint on the lack of poetic patronage at the court of Ghazna.136 It begins, The arena [of poetry] has become straightened for poets, and every eloquent [poet] has lost his place.

At Masʿud-e Saʿd’s court, however, patronage is abundant, and he is “served by all the poets of the gathering.” Mokhtâri praises him as much, if not more, for his military skills as for his poetic achievements. After extolling Masʿud-e Saʿd’s eloquence, his prowess, his horse, and his sword, Mokhtâri reverts to his complaint: I know that, of the state of those of the capital, you have understood much and have seen much: How, with the gems and brocades of words and meanings, the praise of all remains bare and unadorned, 135 Mokhtâri, Divân (ed. Homâ’i), pp. 80–81; incipit yak chand omr-e khwish be bihudegi be-bâd. No mamduh is named; the poem may be incomplete, or may simply be an occasional piece. 136 Ibid., pp. 405–15, incipit bar ahl-e sokhan tang gasht meydân; composed when Masʿud-e Saʿd was governor of Jâlandar.

82

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD Because they see the suffering hearts of poets, but do not see the way to the remedy.

“Even were the [poets’] verses the sun’s adornment,” he says, “the way to the shade of their palaces is difficult; were it not for fear of poets’ desires, doorkeepers would have no hope of livelihood.” Thus, he suggests that were it not for the poets assaulting the doors of patrons, or prospective patrons, there would be little employment for doorkeepers assigned to keep unwanted visitors out, and they would not earn their keep. Moreover, everyone expects to be praised for free. Now he moves from the general to the particular: “Alas! Why should I not speak of myself? Stupid, babbling, witless me? Having no one, in the midst of a city I am more solitary than in the desert.” Poverty and grief have made his “spring-like nature” “more leafless than a branch in winter,” he complains, punning on barg, which means both “leaf” and “provision” or “wealth”. He is without honor because “I did not, like my fathers, learn shamelessness from my brethren. I do not sit at [someone’s] gate each morning, nor arrive [uninvited] at the feast each night. [But] should I obtain patronage (tarbiyat) from a noble lord, I [too] would become a noble of the city.” He then admonishes himself: “One can’t fight Fate; Othmân, don’t be a troublemaker; stop complaining, just write your poetry, take it to the Khwâje and recite it; give your heart to his magnificence, and take from him a magnificent reward.” A common theme of complaint is old age. A qaside by Rudaki begins as follows:137 All the teeth I had have become worn and fallen out. These were not teeth—nay! They were shining lamps.

The loss of his teeth anticipates the poem’s major theme, that time changes all, and not least (as he tells his youthful beloved) the poet’s own fortunes. “You see Rudaki now,” he tells his “moonfaced 137 Rudaki ap. Nafisi, Mohit-e zendegi va ahval va ašʿar-e Rudaki, pp. 498–99; incipit ma-râ besud-o foru rikht har che dandân bud. Onsori, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), p. 78 perhaps alludes to this poem when he states, in a qaside to Mahmud, that the forty thousand dirhams gained by Rudaki for a single poem pales in comparison to Mahmud’s generosity to poets.

83

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

one”; “but you did not see how he was then.” Gone are the days when he was happy and wealthy: Gone are the days when he had the friendship of generous men; Gone are the days when he was the advisor of princes … Gone are the days when his poetry travelled the whole world; Gone are the days when he was the Poet of Khorasan.

In every noble dehqân’s house, “there was for me [both] silver and beasts of burden;” the Amir of Khorasan (the Samanid ruler) “gave me forty thousand dirhams and more,” and his nobles were also generous. [But] now the times have changed, and I too have changed; bring [my] staff, for it is now time for staff and [beggar’s] scrip.

A particular class of complaint poem is the habsiyye (prison poem), for which Masʿud-e Saʿd, who spent many long years in prison, is especially well-known. Such poems typically include detailed descriptions of the poet’s sufferings, coupled with requests for support or expressions of gratitude for such support. Masʿud-e Saʿd begins a qaside to his long-time patron Theqat-al-Molk Tâher with a passage of praise, followed by a plea to the mamduh to “consider my state … Fortune has bidden me farewell, without ever having said hello.”138 He describes his deprivation—though not yet an old man, prison has made him old—and his anxiety about his family. After thanking Theqat-alMolk for providing him with clothing and carpets, he entreats, Hear my praise; but concerning my sins, hear not the words of my devious envier and my scheming foe.

As God knows, his enemies’ words are all lies and absurdities. “I do not fear suffering,” he declares, “but the abuses of the ignorant will [surely] kill me. I am the slave of your magnificence; [however,] the slave requires bread; I depend on your generosity; my claims must be honored.” Prison has made my mind dull and black, like a blade; one polishing and whetting will make it bright and cutting. My tree, which spread its shade over the whole world, 138 Masʿud-e Saʿd, Divân (ed. Yâsemi), pp. 312–14; Divân (ed. Nuriyân), I, pp. 428–32; incipit be Tâher Ali âbâd shod jahân-e kamâl.

84

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD found no water, and dried up from destitution. Now, if you would seek the fruit of praise from my branches, O friend, with your own hand pluck me from the branch.

In another habsiyye addressed to Theqat-al-Molk Masʿud-e Saʿd, the poet reproaches the mamduh and asks him to secure his freedom.139 I recall that it is three years, no more and no less, that you have not mentioned your servant on one night in the meadows before that palace … [Once] from your slave’s poems your minstrels raised songs to the skies, and in thanks for your favors your servant improvised soaring songs.

But now things have changed; for previously the poet was one of the nobles, held a position, and uttered praise, but now he has nothing, but is imprisoned in the fortress of Maranj, where his entire occupation is “praising the sultan and reading the Koran.” No one will give him writing materials, and no one will heed his cries. He entreats the mamduh to bring him out of prison, seat him at his feast (“for my sole desire is bread; when there is no bread, there is no life”), and give him “the khelʿat of your favorites (khâsse), as you did before.” In return, “at every moment I will sing such praises as no panegyrist has ever sung.” In a qaside to sultan Ebrâhim, Masʿud-e Saʿd recalls his father’s service to the court and his own circumstances.140 “For sixty years Saʿd b. Salmân served [the court], now as tax-governor of some region, now as a noble.” As for the poet himself, he has “a young daughter, a son, and two sisters in India; my daughter’s eyes are blinded by tears; my son is confounded by Fate. Thirty or forty relatives and dependents have bound their souls to your ease, asking God for the continuance of your reign and your kingdom.” “O you who have freed people from their misery,” he exhorts the sultan, “free your slave from his misery as well. Even though my crime is great, you have forgiven a hundred such … I am the king’s panegyrist: from whom should I seek glory? I am the king’s slave: from whom should I seek bread?” 139 Ibid., ed. Yâsemi, pp. 453–57; ed. Nuriyân, I, pp. 580–84; incipit kard hamtây-e rowze-ye Rezvân. 140 Ibid.; this passage: ed. Yâsemi, p. 375; ed. Nuriyân, I, p. 329; incipit shast sâl tamâm khedmat kard.

85

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

3. Elegies and Invective Poems Elegy (marthiya) and invective (hajv, hejâ) are considered by indigenous critics as sub-categories of madh (praise). Elegy, instead of praising a living mamduh, eulogizes one deceased, enumerating his virtues and lamenting his loss. It employs the past tense (“he was,” “you were”) rather than the present (“he is,” “you are”), and, like panegyric, often contains a direct address to the deceased, as well as a substitute for the nasib, usually a gnomic meditation on the transience and treachery of this world. Accession poems frequently include elegiac passages on the newly enthroned ruler’s predecessor.141 Hajv (invective), is the opposite of madh; instead of praising its subject it attacks him, delineating his vices rather than his virtues, and often descending to obscenity. However, this vitriolic descent into obscenity is more frequent in the qatʿe, which is the preferred vehicle of most poets for hajv, than in the qaside, in which the attack is primarily on the jealousy and slanders perpetrated by the victim. Invective poems (hajviyyât) may also begin with a nasib, although this is less frequent in Persian poetry than in Arabic verse.142 Elegies. Few examples of elegy survive from the period under discussion, which leads one to ask whether elegy was less prominent in Persian poetry than in Arabic poetry. (More elegies appear in the divans of poets active outside the Ghaznavid domains; the strophic tarkib-band and mosammat forms were also used for elegy.) The practice of conjecturing a poet’s death-date on the basis of the absence in his divan of an elegy on a major patron—by Manuchehri on Masʿud I, for example—should thus be viewed with caution. Several verses of a qaside by Abu’l-Abbâs Rabenjani addressed to the Samanid Nuh I b. Nasr (943–54) on his accession include elegiac verses on his predecessor Nasr II b. Ahmad.143 Rudaki, in an elegy on the poet Abu’l-Hasan Morâdi of Bukhara, ruminates 141 On the typical features of the Persian elegy see W. L. Hanaway, EI2 , “Marthiya. 2. In Persian Literature.” 142 See G. J. H. van Gelder, EI2 , “Hija”; C. Pellat, EI2 , “Hidj.” 143 See Lazard, Premiers poètes, I, p. 87; II, p. 68.

86

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

on the transience of earthly life and the meaning of death: “Morâdi died, but nay, indeed he did not die; he returned his precious soul to his father [God], and delivered his dark form to his mother [earth].” In conclusion, the poet exhorts himself: “Be silent! For the king has erased your name from the book of poetry!”144 The most prominent example of an early Persian marthiya is Farrokhi’s elegy on Sultan Mahmud.145 It begins with a description of the bereaved capital: The city of Ghaznin is not the same one I saw before; what has happened, that this year things have taken on a different hue?

The city’s houses are filled with lamentation, its streets are in uproar, seething with mounted troops. Its shops are empty, their doors nailed shut; its palaces are deserted, and the court has moved from the suburbs to the inner city. Men of state, commanders, noble ladies, secretaries and financial officials, musicians and entertainers, and the army—all are overcome with grief. “Is this the same city, the same land I saw last year?” the poet asks, feigning ignorance. (Out of favor with Mahmud, Farrokhi was not in Ghazna when the sultan died; his feigned ignorance enables him to depict the situation in terms which vividly convey a state of political upheaval and divided loyalties.) “Has the king not returned this year from fighting the infidel? Has an enemy come against this city, these lands? Has every household lost some loved one this year? Was the king ill this year, like the year before last? Nay, I did not see such a commotion then!”146 144 Rudaki, Rudaki (ed. Rahbar), pp. 7–9; Rudaki ap. Nafisi, Mohit-e zendegi va ahvâl va ašʿar-e Rudaki, p. 496; incipit mord Morâdi na hamânâ ke mord. Rudaki’s editor reads the last line quoted as meaning that the poet senses that his own time has come; but it might also be taken as referring to the reversal in his fortunes (cf. the “lament for old age” discussed in the section above: The poet in the poem.) 145 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 90–93; incipit shahr-e Ghaznin na hamân-ast ke man didam pâr; see also C. E. Bosworth, “Farrukhī’s Elegy on Mahmūd of Ghazna,” Iran 29 (1991), pp. 43–49. 146 Bosworth, “Farrūkhi’s Elegy,” translates be-nâlid as “lamented”; but since nâlidan also means “to complain (of an illness),” I take this as referring to the illness contracted by Mahmud in India in 418/1027, of which he ultimately died (see Nāẓim, The Life and Times of Sulṭān Maḥmūd of Ghazna, pp. 123–24).

87

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

The poet begs someone to tell him what has happened: “Speak, if you can; I am no stranger; do not hide the matter from me!” Then he begins his lament: Would that that night and day I feared had never come, that happiness had never turned to grief!

Despairing, he seeks to deny this calamity; perhaps the king is only sleeping off the effects of last night’s wine, and everything is silent so as not to disturb him. “Arise,” the poet entreats; “Come forth from your chamber, for you have slept too long!” Rise, O King; the world is full of clamor and commotion! Put down this disturbance, and spend night and day in joy!

He urges the monarch to resume his customary activities and to receive his “cherished son” (unnamed), who has “come in haste” to see him; or, if he has “slept too deeply, to rise again” yet one last time and “entrust [the kingdom] to your son!” The sultan never used to sleep so much; his “habit was ever riding out, campaigning”—a journey from which there was always hope of return. But “this year you have a long journey ahead of you, which has no visible end … You used to leave in autumn every year; what haste made you depart, this year, in spring?” How can Mahmud endure separation “from that brother you nourished at your bosom” (Yusof), who is now wasted by grief? The poet depicts the whole world—subjects and enemies alike, the birds and fish, even Mahmud’s Victory Palace in Ghazna—as joining in his lament. In the final doʿ â, he asks God to forgive the ruler, and dwells further on his (unnamed) heir: may Mahmud’s name live for ever through him; may he in turn gladden the grieving heart of Mahmud’s brother; and may God make Mahmud’s own heart rejoice in Paradise. C. E. Bosworth has discussed both the details of Mahmud’s divided succession and Farrokhi’s manipulation of the qaside form, in which the description of grief-stricken Ghazna takes the place of the panegyric nasib. We do not know the date of the poem; Bosworth suggests that it was composed shortly after Mahmud’s death and Mohammad’s enthronement, but notes some remaining ambiguities, not least the identity of the “cherished son”, who (if 88

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

the poem was composed some months later) “might conceivably be Masʿud, who had by then received the support of his uncle the Amir Yusof. This would obviously entail a change of allegiance by Farrokhi himself.” (In fact, Farrokhi addressed a poem to Masʿud, who was then in Isfahan, entreating him to return to Ghazna.147) Farrokhi’s manipulation of the nasib places this poem close to the urban elegies composed on sacked or ruined cities.148 The picture of Ghazna in chaos echoes historical accounts of conditions in that city after Mahmud’s death and throughout Mohammad’s brief reign.149 Ghazna is not merely in mourning, but in political turmoil. The few surviving elegies from the later Ghaznavid period are rarely (if at all) for rulers, but rather they are composed for the poet’s patrons or friends. Masʿud-e Saʿd composed a marthiya on one Sayyed Hasan which begins, “My heart grieves for you, Sayyed Hasan, for it never had a comforter like you; my wasted body laments you, for it never had a friend like you,” and goes on to enumerate the deceased’s many virtues, referring to the poet’s imprisonment and to Sayyed Hasan’s support and his constant letters to the poet, who mourns not merely for the deceased but also for the age, which will never know his like again.150 In another elegy, Masʿud-e Saʿd laments the death of Sultan Ebrâhim’s favorite, Emâd-al-Dowlat Abu’l-Qâsem.151 He begins with a meditation on worldly transience: Do you imagine that Time will be loyal to you? Do not imagine this; look at its shamelessness.

Treacherous time knows neither fear nor shame; it is “a scale weighted by Fate: light in the pan of good, heavy in the pan of evil.” 147 See Bosworth, “Farrukhī’s Elegy,” pp. 43–44, 47. For Farrokhi’s poem to Masʿud see Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 299–301; incipit ey barid-e shâh-e Irân az kojâ rafti chonin. 148 See Hanaway, EI2 , “Marthiya. 2. In Persian Literature.” 149 See, e. g., Gardizi, Zeyn al-akhbâr, pp. 194–96. 150 Masʿud-e Saʿd, Divân (ed. Yâsemi), pp. 62–63; Divân (ed. Nuriyân), II, pp. 822–23 [a qetʿe]; incipit bar to seyyed Hasan del-am suzad. The identity of the deceased is uncertain. 151 Masʿud-e Saʿd, Divân (ed. Yâsemi), pp. 215–18; Divân (ed. Nuriyân), II, pp. 338–45; incipit gomân bari ke vafâ dârad-at sepehr magar.

89

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Armor is of no use when Fate looses its bow, nor can shields protect against the blows of destiny. “If you wish to see an object lesson” of time’s perfidy, he observes, “consider the death of the favorite (khâssa) of the Sultan of the Age, Emâd-al-Dowlat Abu’l-Qâsem,” whose magnificence “gave to the world’s riches a new nature.” Addressing the deceased, he states, “O noble lord, the calamity of your [death] has afflicted all, as the diamond cuts the jewel … Your limitless weapons and countless soldiers were of no use to your life against death’s attack.” After praising Emâd-al-Dowlat and noting the general sorrow at his death, he states, There was none like you; and that is not surprising, since you were nourished by that king who nourishes the faith, Zahir-e Dowlat o Din Abu’l-Mozaffar Ebrâhim — and concludes with a few lines of praise for the sultan.

4. Invective Poems Few invective poems survive from this period, and the inclusion of passages of hajv in a longer qaside also seems to occur infrequently. There is nothing comparable to (for example) the numerous hajviyyât composed by Suzani of Samarqand (d. 1173–74), although, admittedly, this was Suzani’s specialty, and makes him exceptional. While it has been argued that invective poetry constitutes satire, and should be considered as a type of humor, this is not always the case.152 While invective poems often provoke mirth, usually at the expense of the victim, their intent is, as often as not, deadly serious, and might have either a personal object (e. g., the vilification of a poet’s rival) or a political one (e. g., an attack on the ruler’s enemies). Scattered verses of invective survive in the poetry of Abu’l-Abbâs Rabenjani, but it is impossible to determine whether or not these are fragments from longer poems.153 We may note that the persons attacked are often named, and that their vilification is 152 See A. Bausani, EI2 , “Hidjâ’. ii. Persia.” 153 See Lazard, Premiers poètes, I, pp. 86–93.

90

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

frequently couched in terms of illegitimacy, gluttony (including the eating of excrement), physical defects, and the like. Above we saw a qaside by Manuchehri addressed to Masʿud I that combined madih, fakhr, and hejâ (in the section above: The poet in the poem). Another qaside by the same poet, also addressed to Masʿud I and evidently composed a year after the above-mentioned poem (it refers to the poet’s quarrel with his rival “a year ago”) differs from the earlier poem in that madih plays a far smaller part; the poem consists almost wholly of abuse of the rival and of self-praise.154 The qaside begins, My enviers are jealous of me—I, who am so unique! Give justice to the wronged, O Glory of the Caliph! … My envier always puts himself before me—’tis his mistake! The rose freezes if it blooms before the month of Farvardin.

The poet recounts and rebuts his rival’s accusations at some length. He states, for example: My envier says, “Why are you at the king’s court?” Behold true spite! Behold true ignorance! Wherever there’s a garden, there is the song of birds; wherever there’s a bird, there is the piercing arrow. My envier says, “I am old, and you are young; young men are not the equal of the old in wisdom.” If the wisdom of the base increased with age, the cursed Eblis would not be more disgraced each day …

Finally, Manuchehri addresses his rival directly (we may note the parallel with panegyric): O jealous one, you are a poet, and I, too, am a poet; but poetry like yours is weak, and mine robust. Your poetry is poetry, but inside, it’s full of flaws; there are often many worms inside the precious pearl.

“Better not to utter poetry than to utter [that] which is unsound,” he continues; “better not to give birth than to miscarry at six 154 Manuchehri, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 79–82; incipit hâsedân bar man hasad kardand-o man fard-am chonin; Dabir-Siyâqi dates the poem to 1036/427 (see notes, p. 252).

91

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

months.” He complains, “You have raised nothing but outcries since I came to the sultan’s court; if you act thus with every poet who comes into the king’s presence, how sorrowful you must be!” He refers to his quarrel with his rival the previous year; since the rival has taken up the quarrel again, “Let’s see whose turn it will be this year.” He notes further that the sultan had commanded the rival to compose a response (javâb) to another poem, but after a year he has produced nothing. “Had he so ordered me, I would have composed an answer better than your whole divan.” Finally, Manuchehri launches into a passage of fakhr, boasting of his own knowledge (as compared to his rival’s ignorance) and his esteem in the ruler’s eyes: The King of Iran summoned me from Rey, on the back of an elephant; you could not even have imagined such a thing in all these years.

He recalls the ruler’s generosity to him, and tells his rival: “Go back to Shervân, where they used to give you the flesh of a monthdead pig, and barley bread.” He concludes: He who is grateful is among the troop of the noble; he who is ungrateful is in the troop of the frustrated.

5. Formal and Rhetorical Strategies Brief mention should be made of qasides structured according to some deliberate constraint, either self-imposed by the poet, or demanded of him as proof of his poetic skill. This may involve the use of a specific rhetorical figure or figures throughout the poem, the repetition of a word or phrase, adherence to a specific radif (especially in the case of a javâb; see further below), the casting of the poem (or a significant portion of it) as a dialogue, a doʿ â, a boast, an oath, and so on. Such strategies rarely affect the poem’s basic thematics or imagery. Poems based on a single rhetorical figure or a combination of several, or on some other eltezâm (constraint), e. g., the repetition of a certain word or phrase in every line, are generally termed qaside 92

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

masnuʿa (an “artificial” or “mannered” qaside). As an example of an eltezâm we may mention a qaside by Farrokhi that repeats the phrase har âyena—roughly, “in any case”—in each line.155 A favorite figure on which to base a qaside is jamʿ va-taqsim, “combination and division”; an example of this by Masʿud-e Saʿd was noted earlier (see the section: Festivals and feasts). There are many variants of this figure, which belongs to a group of figures known collectively as taqsim (division).156 Among the many poems based on this figure is a qaside by Farrokhi to Mahmud of Ghazna which begins as follows:157 So verdant is the world, so fresh the spring, so brilliant is the wine, so beautiful the idol: One like Eden’s Paradise, one like desire for the friend; one like Balkh’s rosewater, one like the Vihara’s idols.158

The transitional lines state: The age has become obedient, the heavens in attendance, the populace joyful, and the world happy in the king: One in need of him, one ennobled by him, one with hopes of him, one glorying in him.

The poem concludes: His palace with lovely faces, his kingdom by his justice, his carpet from the lips of kings, his gate with horsemen: One has become like a temple, one has become like Paradise, one has become full of images, one has become strong.

A Nowruz qaside by Manuchehri addressed to Masʿud I also employs this figure; its opening line provides an illustration:159 155 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 314–15 to Khwâja Hajjâj Abu’l-Hasan Ali b. Fazl Esfarâ’ini; incipit bot-e man ân be do rokh chun shekofte lâlestân. 156 See Rashid-al-Din Vatvât, Divân (includes his hadâ’eq al-sheʿr fi daqâ’eq alsheʿr), ed. S. Nafisi (Tehran, 1960), pp. 694–95; Vatvât notes that Persian poets employ taqsim “so that the device is maintained to the end of the qaside.” 157 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 145–46; incipit bedin khorrami jahân bedin tâzegi bahâr. 158 “Vihara” (Persian: bahâr) refers to the Buddhist temples in Eastern Iran; see Melikian-Chirvani, “L’évocation littéraire,” pp. 8–9, pp. 41–51. 159 Manuchehri, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 27–29; incipit abr-e âdhâri bar âmad az karân-e kuhsâr.

93

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA The cloud of [the month of] Âzar arose from the mountainside; the breeze of Farvardin quickened from the meadow: The latter took roses from the meadow to the mountain; the former brought rosewater from the mountain to the meadow.

Another form of this figure is seen in a qaside by Farrokhi to Amir Mohammad, from which the following lines are quoted:160 In the lands of Guzgânân, during these recent times, he has built four famous things, for the sake of [eternal] reward: The Friday mosque; the lofty minaret in Meymane; the dam on the Sudyâb River; and the Now-Sarâb canal.

A qaside by Farrokhi addressed to Mahmud illustrates a figure known as radd al-ajoz elâ al-sadr, “returning the end to the beginning,” i. e., repeating the same word at the beginning and end of a line.161 The opening line will suffice as illustration: Last year (pâr) that trace of musk was not evident; this year comes the scent of musk for which I wished last year (pâr).

Many qasides, or parts of qasides (usually the nasib) are based on the rhetorical figure known as so’âl o javâb (question and answer).162 Formally, this involves the repetition of the formulaic goftam/goftâ (I said/he said), or similar words. A qaside by Onsori addressed to Amir Nasr announces its form in its incipit:163 Whatever question I put to those moist lips last night, he answered every single one. I said, “Can you be seen only at night?” He said, “Moonlight is [only] visible at night.”

The transition employs the suffering/compensation motif: I said, “I’m suffering for love of you.” He said, “Indeed, the lover is always in torment.” 160 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), p. 8, ll. 145–46; incipit dar diyâr-e Guzgânân andarin ahd-e qarib. 161 Ibid., pp. 88–89; incipit pâr ân athar-e moshk nabude-st padidâr. This figure, too, has a number of variant forms; see Vatvât, Divân (ed. Nafisi), pp. 638–44. 162 See Vatvât, Divân (ed. Nafisi), pp. 679–80, who, again, notes the propensity of Persian poets to base an entire qaside on this pattern. 163 Onsori, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 7–9; incipit har so’âli k-az ân lab-e sirâb.

94

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD I said, “What is the way for me to find relief?” He said, “Hasten to the service of the amir.” I said, “Will I gain good from serving him?” He said, “There is nothing but goodness in his nature.” The praise continues in the dialogue form; the doʿ â concludes: I asked, “What should I pray God grant to him?” He said, “Long life, and the season [?] of youth.”

The dialogue in such poems is usually between the poet and his beloved. A variation on this technique (although it does not set the pattern for the entire poem) is seen in a Mehregân qaside by Farrokhi to Amir Nasr.164 Here, a series of rhetorical questions are posed and answered by the poet himself. Why have the vines become yellow? From dread of autumn. With whom is autumn at war? With the army of the vine …

Following the transition and the naming of the mamduh, the poet asks: What shall I say to him? What shall I sing before him? Praise! What shall I kiss of his? The earth; what shall I give to him? My life! What does he spill in battle? The blood of the foe. What does he take when hunting? The savage lion … What does he show in battle? Courage and manliness. What does he show at the feast? Generosity and beneficence.

The poem continues largely in this manner until the concluding doʿ â. A number of panegyrics take the form of a doʿ â. An early example is a qaside by Farrokhi to Mahmud, which begins as follows:165 As long as the world endures, may rule be that of the king of the world; may it be with eternal reign (dowlat) and with youthful fortune. 164 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 298–99; incipit chu zar shodand razân az che az nahib-e khazân. The rubric states that the poem was addressed to Amir Yusof, but the mamduh is identified as Amir Nasr by name and konya. The poet combines so’ âl o javâb with the figure known as tajâhol al-âref, “feigned ignorance,” i. e., the rhetorical question; cf. Vatvât, Divân (ed. Nafisi), pp. 678–79. 165 Farrokhi, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 36–37; incipit chandân ke jahân-ast malek shâh-e jahân bâd.

95

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

A number of Mokhtâri’s panegyrics to Arslânshâh (who reigned only eighteen months before he was deposed and killed by his brother Bahrâmshâh) take this form. In one, for example, the poet states:166 May the boast and majesty of the caliph in Baghdad come from wishing you well and [sending] greetings to you. May the oration, coinage, and embroidery of Iraq be in your name in two months’ time …167 May [all], from the borders of Balkh to the lands of Egypt be in the shadow of your tents.

Contrasting with the doʿ â form are qasides bar zabân-e mamduh (“on the tongue of the mamduh,” that is, in his words), which would be classed as fakhr were they in fact the words of the speaker. Mokhtâri begins such a qaside, again for Arslânshâh, with the kind of boastful statements typical of such poems:168 Accept that rule of the world is according to our wish; accept that our command is accepted by the sphere … We are Malek Arslân [the son of] Masʿud: accept that our name is the litany of the saints.

A qaside might also take the form of, or include, an oath (sowgand; hence the term sowgand-nâme, which is often applied to such poems). Hasan-e Ghaznavi, after his flight to Nishapur (see the section above: Victory poems), addressed a qaside to Bahrâmshâh which incorporates such an oath.169 After a lengthy introduction, which 166 Mokhtâri, Divân (ed. Homâ’i), pp. 47–48; shahriyârâ falak be-kâm-e to bâd; this passage: incipit fakhr-o ezz-e khalife-ye Baghdâd. 167 The relevant terms are khotbe, “sermon” (the pronouncement of the ruler’s name in the Friday sermon); sekke, “coinage” (coins struck with the ruler’s name); and terâz, “embroidery” (the embroidered band with the ruler’s name upon it which adorned ceremonial garments.) 168 Mokhtâri, Divân (ed. Homâ’i), pp. 99–101; incipit molk-e donyâ bekâm-mâ shode gir. For an early example (in Arabic), placed in the mouth of the Saffarid Yaʿqub b. Leyth, see S. M. Stern, “Yaʿqub the Coppersmith and Persian National Sentiment,” in C. E. Bosworth, ed., Iran and Islam. In Memory of the Late Vladimir Minorsky (Edinburgh, 1971), pp. 541–43. 169 Hasan-e Ashraf of Ghazna, Divân (ed. Modarres Razavi), pp. 149–55; incipit goshâd surat-e dowlat be-shokr-e shâh dahân; this passage: p. 153, incipit khodâyegânâ gandom nakhorde chun Âdam.

96

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

includes congratulations to Bahrâmshâh on his conquests, he begins his lengthy oath, swearing “by that God to whose Lordship all atoms attest,” by the twelve houses of the Zodiac, by the seven spheres and their indwelling planets, by the Prophet Muhammad and those prophets who preceded him, by the heroism of Ali b. Abi Tâleb and Rostam, by the ruler’s own attributes—good fortune (dowlat), wine cup, drum, crown, khotbe (see n. 166), magnificence, and so on, and, finally, by the ruler’s covenant and his forgiveness, and by his own life (the two are carefully linked). Then he addresses the ruler: O lord, without even eating wheat, I have, like Adam, fallen, all of a sudden, from Rezvân’s Paradise.170 The blooming rose of [your] rule, lovely as a myriad idols: alas for the nightingale of my talent, the prisoner of thorns!

“Alas for me!” he exclaims in the following lines, a prisoner in his house, separated from his prince, and he entreats that prince to forgive the poet whom he once held dear. An increasingly popular device, especially among later Ghaznavid poets, was to begin the poem with a riddle (loghaz or chistân, because of the frequent repetition of chist ân, “what is it that …?”).171 Onsori begins a qaside to Mahmud with a riddle on a sword:172 What is that water [which is] like fire, that iron [which is] like silk; its form a body without a soul, clear and pure as the soul in the body?

Masʿud-e Saʿd opens a qaside to Mahmud b. Ebrâhim with a riddle on a mirror:173 What is it whose fire is as polished as water, which is brilliant as a gem, as lustrous as a pearl?

Many other examples of rhetorical and prosodic devices could be cited; this selection should be sufficient to demonstrate to what 170 Adam’s sin, in Muslim lore, was cupidity for a grain of wheat; see J. Pedersen, EI2 , “Âdam.” 171 See Shams-e Qeys, Al-Moʿ jam fi maʿ â’ire ashʿ âr al-Ajam, p. 397. 172 Onsori, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 247–50; incipit chist ân âbi chu âtesh-o âhani chun parniyân. 173 Masʿud-e Saʿd, Divân (ed. Yâsemi), pp. 37–39; Divân (ed. Nuriyân), I, pp. 37–39; incipit chist ân k-âtesh-ash zodude chu âb.

97

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

rhetorical heights the poet could rise when called upon to demonstrate his skill and/or to divert his patron. But before leaving this topic, one more area should be noted in which the exhibition of poetic skill was paramount: the javâb, the “response poem”, composed in the same meter and rhyme as the poem which it answers. I use javâb here as an all-inclusive term; in fact, responses take many forms, ranging from positive to decidedly hostile, but a thorough discussion of this topic is beyond the scope of this chapter.174 We may take as an example a response by Onsori to a qaside by Ghazâ’eri Râzi, which the latter had sent to Sultan Mahmud and which (in Onsori’s view) was filled with extravagant boasts and unseemly demands for money.175 Ghazâ’eri’s poem begins: If perfection lies in grandeur and in wealth (jâh o mâl), Behold my state, and you will see perfection in perfection (kamâl andar kamâl).

He boasts of his talent and fame and of the riches heaped upon him by Mahmud (so much, he says, that he has grown tired of wealth), then mingles praise of Mahmud with reminders of his previous generosity and hints of what might be forthcoming. Your generosity has not yet given your slave a gift; nor has your slave yet asked for it.

Poets immortalize princes, and are appropriately rewarded; thus, he hopes for the princely sum of one hundred thousand dinars for this poem. Onsori responds to this piece of self-promotion by standing it on its head. His opening lines incorporate, in reverse order, Ghazâ’eri’s opening rhymes (jâh o mâl, kamâl). 174 For an extensive discussion of the various types of “response poem” and the terminology involved see P. E. Losensky, “‘The Allusive Field of Drunkenness’: Three Safavid-Moghul Responses to a Lyric by Baba Fighani,” in S. P. Stetkevych, ed., Reorientations/Arabic and Persian Poetry (Bloomington and Indianapolis, Ind., 1994), pp. 227–62; idem, Welcoming Fighānī: Imitation and Poetic Individuality in the Safavid-Mughal Ghazal (Costa Mesa, Calif., 1998). See also R. Zipoli, The Technique of the Ǧawāb: Replies by Nawāʾ i to Ḥāfiẓ and Ǧāmī (Venice, 1993). 175 Onsori, Divân (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 180–88; incipit khodâyagân-e Khorâsân-o âftâb-e kamâl. For Ghazâ’eri’s poems see ibid., pp. 173–79 and pp. 189–92.

98

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD The lord of Khorasan, that sun of perfection (kamâl), to whom the Creator has granted might and majesty … From his generosity a tree has sprung to heaven whose leaves are all grandeur (jâh), whose fruits are all wealth (mâl).

Throughout the poem Onsori turns Ghazâ’eri’s rhymes against him, to expose what he considers the rival poet’s self-seeking boasts and flattery. Response poems are found in the divans of all the poets of this period, and to cite them at length would be tedious. Responses may be (as in Onsori’s case) to a contemporary poet, or to a specific poem by an earlier one. Poets often name the poet to whom they are responding, and/or incorporate a line or lines from his poem. Masʿud-e Saʿd, in a lengthy javâb to a qaside by Labibi (a court poet of Masʿud I), which includes a generous amount of invective against his own detractors and plenty of fakhr, states:176 In this qaside which I’ve sung, I’ve followed (eqtedâ) Master Labibi, who is the chief of poets: I’ve built this qaside upon that manner (tariq) in which he said: “A discourse that they put to verse must be sound and right.” … Ask for such a qaside from Masʿud-e Saʿd-e Salmân; for Masʿud-e Saʿd-e Salmân composes such qasides.

Other response poems may identify themselves as such by beginning with a clearly recognizable variation on the opening line(s) of a famous qaside. (Several examples have been noted in the earlier sections of this chapter.) Franklin Lewis has studied a series of javâbs composed on the radif (the refrain after the rhyme) of âtash o âb (fire and water), all in the same meter (mojtath).177 Lewis attributes the first poems in this series to Masʿud-e Saʿd, who states that he has imitated Sanjar’s panegyrist Kamâli of Bukhara, whose divan has not survived. 176 Masʿud-e Saʿd, Divân (ed. Yâsemi), pp. 56–57; Divân (ed. Nuriyân), I, pp. 74–76; incipit be-nazm-o nathr kasi-râ agar eftekhâr sazâ-st (to Mahmud b. Ebrâhim). 177 F. D. Lewis, “The Rise and Fall of a Persian Refrain: The ‘Radīf Ātash u Āb’,” in Stetkevych, ed., Reorientations, pp. 199–226.

99

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Masʿud-e Saʿd composed at least three qasides with this radif. The first, addressed to Masʿud III, begins:178 I sit here covered from head to toe in fire and water; do you imagine it’s possible to sit calmly, thus, in fire and water?

A second qaside with this radif was also addressed to Masʿud III, and a third to Abu Nasr Pârsi.179 Other Ghaznavid poets who took up this radif were Abu’l-Faraj Runi (to Abu Nasr Pârsi and Theqat-al-Molk Tâher) and Sanâ’i to the poet Mohammad b. Nasr al-Alavi, who himself is said to have composed a panegyric with this radif for Masʿud III. Runi’s poems are (according to Franklin Lewis) “self-referentially aware of the literary popularity which the fire-and-water radif was then enjoying,” as the opening line of (his second) poem shows: The horseman “fire and water” has conquered both the east and the west; An object of envy throughout the realm, that successful combination of water and fire.

Lewis also notes other poems on this radif, or allusions to it, by Mokhtâri and Hasan-e Ghaznavi, and, outside the Ghaznavid domains, by Rashid-al-Din Vatvât (two poems addressed to the Khwârazmshâh Atsiz) and by Moʿezzi (one poem addressed to an unnamed official).180 Lewis suggests that “the fashion for this refrain began to lose steam in Ghazna during the latter part of the reign of Bahrâmshâh,” and that it may have “become burdensome [and] its possibilities … well-nigh exhausted … The passage of time had extinguished the social circumstances and the audience which earlier fueled the fashion for this refrain, leaving neither the post nor the patrons who had once delighted in fire-and-water’s elixir.” He situates the “development of this radif” in an “extra-literary” context: “as an act of ritual 178 Masʿud-e Saʿd, Divân (ed. Yâsemi), pp. 23–25; Divân (ed. Nuriyân), I, pp. 42–47; incipit neshaste am ze-qadam tâ sar andar âtesh-o âb. Lewis, “Rise and Fall,” p. 204; Lewis’s translation. Lewis dates the poem to Masʿud III’s accession in 1099, or possibly to the period between 1106–14. 179 See ibid., pp. 204–5, and the references cited. 180 See ibid., pp. 206–7, and the references cited.

100

PANEGYRIC QASIDE IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN WORLD

homage to the ruler,” who could compete with other rulers in the literary realm as well as on the battlefield, for having a poem with a certain radif dedicated to him allowed him to appropriate the symbols of power of his royal rivals.181 Thus, Sanjar and Atsez could compete with Masʿud and the Ghaznavid dynasty, with its fabled array of poets—as it were, could match the literary weapons in the Ghaznavid arsenal—by sponsoring their own fire-and-water poems. This is perhaps overstated. One wonders to what extent the competition was between rulers, or between the poets themselves, who were perhaps playing their own poetic game. Did Moʿezzi, or Rashidal-Din Vatvât, feel some sort of “anxiety of influence” with respect to the Ghaznavid poets? Or was the harping on this radif, especially during Bahrâmshâh’s reign, when the Ghaznavids were virtual vassals of the Saljuqs, a manifestation of appropriation rather than of rivalry? Such questions await further investigation; nevertheless, Lewis’s study provides important insights into the mechanics of the javâb.

6. Conclusion Many more poems might have been considered here; we have attempted only to provide a representative selection. The study of the Persian panegyric qaside is still in its infancy, having long been hampered by prejudices against what has been seen as the bombastic flattery of unworthy princes. There are many poems which present themselves as suggestive, enigmatic, in need of elucidation; but such problem-solving is beyond the scope of this chapter. Here, it is hoped, we have shown what the qaside meant to poets, patrons, and audiences, while we have noted the levels of sophistication it could reach and the various topical purposes of its composition. We have not been able to consider the interaction of the qaside with other poetic forms (panegyric ghazal; panegyric passages in mathnavis; and strophic forms of poetry); this topic remains virtually unexplored, and its study must await another occasion. 181 Ibid., pp. 207, 211.

101

CHAPTER 3 THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS 1100–1500 CE J. T. P. DE BRUIJN

1. The Survival of the Qaside In Chapter 2, the various applications of the qaside as a panegyric in Persian court literature were enumerated and described. The examples were taken from poems composed under the rule of the Samanid and the Ghaznavid dynasties in the Eastern Iranian lands and Transoxiana, covering the late ninth to the early twelfth century ce. During this period, Persian poetry rapidly grew into an independent tradition. The Persian language established a place of its own next to Arabic, the shared medium used for literary purposes by Muslims, whatever their ethnicity, ever since the Arab invasion had brought the downfall of the Sasanid Empire and its civilization. As Julie Meisami has remarked, already in the time of the Samanids the poets at their court appear to have developed “a recognizable Persian style.”1 This became particularly evident in the latter part of this period, when poets writing in Persian enjoyed the patronage of the Ghaznavids, the first Turkish dynasty ruling over much of Eastern Persia, Transoxiana, present-day Afghanistan, and the Punjab. In the following chapters, the literary story of the qaside after the downfall of the Ghaznavid Empire will be studied in its three stages. 1

See Chapter 2, J. S. Meisami, “The Panegyric Qaside in the Eastern Iranian World: Court Poetry in the Samanid and Ghaznavid Periods” in this volume.

102

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS

The present chapter deals with the era of the Saljuqs, the leading Turkic clan of newly arrived invaders on the Persian plateau, around the middle of the eleventh century. For more than a century, the Ghaznavids still held power in the eastern parts of their former dominions, in present day Afghanistan, where they continued their tradition of patronage. Here, however, the focus will be on the central court of the Great Saljuq sultans, although occasionally the patronage of local rulers emerging from within the empire will also be taken into account. Accordingly, two centers of patronage contemporary with, but outside the direct rule of the Saljuqs, will be discussed: in the north-east, the Turkish courts in Central Asia (Transoxiana); and in the north-west, the small courts of Atabegs in the Transcaucasian lands. Both areas produced some remarkable poets, who distinguished themselves as writers of panegyrical qasides. Finally, the treatment of our subject will be concluded with a chapter on the practice of the panegyrical qaside after the end of the Saljuq period. It would be superfluous to follow the approach chosen in the preceding chapter. Although the Saljuq poets and their successors added several novel traits to the qaside, the basic elements and functions of this kind of court poetry did not change in essence. It seems therefore more useful to focus here on the major poets of the Saljuq period in a chronological order, showing their individual characteristics and the way individual poets dealt with the tradition of courtly panegyric inherited from the masters of Ghaznavid court poetry. The qaside was still the dominant poetical form in which court poets praised their patrons. However, from the twelfth century onwards it found itself increasingly in competition with the ghazal, originally a form of short poems of love usually performed with musical accompaniment, sometimes with an added panegyric dimension through the addition of brief eulogies (see Chapter 8 on ghazals). An entirely different development was the growing importance of didactic and homiletic themes in the qaside that might or might not be combined with its panegyric function. This alternative kind of qaside, particularly associated with the names of Nâser-e Khosrow, Sanâ’i, and Khâqâni, is the subject of a full discussion in another volume of HPL, dealing with religious and mystical literature (Vol. VI). 103

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

2. The Rise of the Saljuqs Ghaznavid rule did not end abruptly with a sudden downfall, but rather through a gradual decline in the course of over a century. The dynasty encountered its first debacle in 1040 when the Ghaznavids suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of the Turkish Saljuqs from Central Asia, with the concomitant loss of Khorasan and other areas. The crisis also had an adverse impact on the cultural climate of their capital Ghazna. During the last decades of the eleventh century, the patronage at their court appears to have descended to a low ebb.2 However, even before the end of the century, a new generation of poets cultivating the qaside emerged at Lahore, the capital of Ghaznavid Hindustan (modern Punjab), usually governed by the heirs-apparent of the reigning sultan. This revival soon appeared at the central court as well and reached its apex during the long reign of Bahrâmshâh (1117–ca. 1152), who had only succeeded to the throne through the help and by the direct intervention of the Saljuq Sultan Sanjar (1097–1157, from 1118 as the head of the Saljuq dynasty). In 1150, the Ghurids conquered Ghazna, and in 1186 they dealt the final blow to the remainder of the once glorious dynasty, which had retreated to Lahore. Among the prominent poets who flourished during this indian summer of Ghaznavid literature were Bu’l-Faraj Runi (d. after 1102), Masʿud-e Saʿd (d. ca. 1121), Mokhtâri (d. after 1119), and Sanâ’i (d. ca. 1131). The new Saljuq rulers soon adopted the royal traditions of their predecessors, including the patronage of court poets. The Saljuq sultans were most of the time itinerant, traveling through the realm from one major city to another with their attendant retinue, including the poets.3 During his long reign, Sultan Sanjar resided mostly in the city of Marv. The art of the panegyrical qaside reached a new height of rhetorical refinement during the twelfth century in the works of Moʿezzi and Anvari. In Central Asia, yet another Turkish 2 3

Cf. J. T. P. de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry (Leiden, 1983), pp. 148–51. See D. Durand-Guédy, “Where Did the Saljūqs Live? A Case Study Based on the Reign of Sultan Masʿūd b. Muḥammad (1134–1152),” Studia Iranica 40 (2011), pp. 211–58 on their migratory habits.

104

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS

dynasty had emerged, the Qarakhanids (the Karakhanids, also known as the Ilig or Ilek-khans). They were divided into an eastern and a western branch. The western Qarakhanids, residing at Samarkand, attracted several Persian poets, among whom Amʿaq (d. ca. 1147) and the satirist Suzani (d. 1161) were the most prominent. In this period, the tradition of Persian court poetry, which had been founded in the eastern regions, also reached the western Persian lands. Local rulers (known as Atabegs) in Azerbaijan and Arran, emerging from the Saljuq empire, were patrons of Khâqâni (d. 1198), one of the greatest poets of the Persian qaside, and other contemporary poets from the same area. Other centers, such as Kerman and Isfahan, and the littoral regions of the Caspian, offered less promising prospects to poetical talents. Zahir of Faryâb (d. 1201) is one of the poets who in the later twelfth century traveled from court to court in order to earn a living as a professional encomiast. The emergence of the Saljuq Empire in the mid-eleventh century offers an impressive spectacle of the speedy assimilation of a group of nomadic Turkish invaders, still by and large living by the norms of a tribal society, into the highly urbanized civilization of Persia. To a certain extent, this event could be explained by the historical circumstances fostering the establishment of their rule over a great part of the Islamic Middle East. Already in Central Asia, the Saljuqs had converted to Sunni Islam. After the conquest of Western Persia and Iraq, they could act as saviors and defenders of the much weakened Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad, which was under threat of being overwhelmed by Shiʿites of various denominations. By their conquest of Khorasan, the Saljuqs became the successors of the Ghaznavids in a region where the latter’s administration was well established. They could avail themselves of the services of the class of Persian secretaries and clerks, who soon formed the backbone of the apparatus of the Saljuq state. Emblematic of this development was the career of Abu Ali Hasan b. Ali of Tus, better known by his honorific as Nezâm-al-Molk (1018–92). His early years as an official were spent in the service of the Ghaznavids, but after the takeover by the Saljuqs he entered their service, soon reaching the position of a vizier in Khorasan, and finally becoming the dominant statesman of the empire under the two most successful Great 105

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Sultans, Alp Arslân (1063–73) and his son Malekshâh (1073–92). During the reign of the former, the transformation of the Saljuq sultanate into a genuine Persian kingship with all its salient characteristics had already been completed.

3. Two Early Saljuq Poets Lâmeʿi of Gorgân Alp Arslân, one of the first Saljuq sultans, already showed an interest in Persian court poetry. Little of this early poetry has been preserved, except for a small divan of qasides, about 1200 couplets, by Abu’l-Hasan Lâmeʿi of Gorgân (ca. 1011–after 1067). He was in the sultan’s entourage when in 1055, Toghrel Beg entered Baghdad and also served his successor Alp Arslân. He followed in the footsteps of the great poets of Ghazne, in particular Manuchehri, with whom he shared a predilection for natural imagery. In the prologue to a poem in praise of one of the Sultan’s ministers, he evokes the coming of a new day in a palace garden by citing a catalogue of flowers and birds, who come to life again at the arrival of spring: Jahân az khold guyi mâye girad chun bahâr âyad Be chashm az dur har dashti basât-e por negâr âyad Balâ-ye khiri-o dard-e shaqâyeq-râ pezheshk âyad Gham-e nasrin-o gorm-e yâsmin-râ ghamgosâr âyad Bar ârad gol sar az golzâr-o zendân beshkanad lâle Beyoftad shambalid az bâr-o âdhargun be bâr âyad Begeryad az bar-e bâgh abr-o khandad bar chaman z-u gol Shenidi khande-yi k-u az gerestanhâ-ye zâr âyad Nafir-e bolbol az timâr-e joft-o nâle-ye solsol Gah az bâlâ-ye sarv âyad gah az shâkh-e chenâr âyad It is as if the world draws strength from Paradise when spring arrives: Seen from a distance every plain appears like an embroidered spread. A healer comes to cure the gillyflower’s affliction,4 the anemone’s pain, 4

Khiri, “gillyflower,” French la giroflée; cf. C.-H. de Fouchécour, La description de la nature dans la poésie lyrique persane du XIe siècle (Paris, 1969), p. 86.

106

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS Someone to assuage the wild rose’s chagrin and the jasmine’s grief. The rose peeps out of the flowerbed, the tulip breaks out of its prison, The fenugreek drops its burden, the poppy is in flower. The clouds shed tears upon the garden making the roses on the lawn smile: Have you ever heard of laughter prompted by bitter tears?5

Borhâni of Nishapur Much less is known about the poetry of Abd-al-Malek of Nisha­ pur (d. ca. 1073), although he must have also been a favorite of Alp ­Arslân. The sultan even allowed him to derive his pen name Borhâni from the honorific Borhân Amir-al-mo’menin (“Proof of the Commander of the Believers”) that he himself had received from the Abbasid Caliph al-Qâ’em (1031–75). At the Saljuq court, Borhâni also held the office of amir al-shoʿarâ, “Prince of the Poets”. In 1073, when Malekshâh came to the throne, he wrote a short poem to recommend his son Moʿezzi to the new sultan as his successor.6 Apart from a few scattered pieces, the only extant poem of some length by Borhâni is the prologue to a lost qaside, cited in the fourteenth-century anthology Mo’nes al-ahrâr by Mohammad Jâjarmi (II, pp. 481–82). The last line of this fragment shows that the qaside was addressed to a governor (ra’is) of Qazvin by the name of Dhu’l-saʿâdât Sharafshâh Jaʿfari. Borhâni made use of the first part of this patron’s name for the choice of the rhyme, which is the syllable -ât, used as the plural suffix of the feminine in Arabic grammar. The poem is also remarkable for its theme. It consists of a declaration of libertarianism by a debauchee who revels in his life in the tavern (kharâbât), drinking wine and listening to love songs. At the same time, he ridicules pious people and Sufis for 5 Safâ, TADI II, pp. 386–88, where other poems by Lâmeʿi are cited. His Divân was published by S. Nafisi (Tehran, 1940) and M. Dabir-Siyâqi (Tehran, 1974); cf. also J. W. Clinton, EI2 , s. v. Lāmiʿī; and the appraisal of his use of imagery in M.-R. Shafi‘i-Kadkani, Sovar-e khiyâl dar she‘r-e fârsi (Tehran, 1987), pp. 641–48. 6 Nezâmi Aruzi, Chahâr maqâle, eds. M. Qazvini and M. Moʿin (Tehran, 1954), pp. 65–69.

107

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

their hypocrisy (lebâsât), their strict performance of religious duties (ebâdât), and their ecstatic utterances (tâmât). There are further examples derived from the Qor’an: the prophet Moses, who goes to the “place of appointment” (miqât) for his encounter with God, and the Pharaoh, the emblem of arrogant assumption of Divine power.7 A very similar qaside is to be found in the divan of Moʿezzi, but even more remarkable is the fact that the prologue of Borhâni’s poem also occurs in the divan of Sanâ’i as a short poem resembling a ghazal. Mohammad Moʿin drew the conclusion that Sanâ’i must have plagiarized his poem from the much older Borhâni, adapting it to his own quite different purposes.8

4. Amir Moʿezzi Borhâni’s son, Abu Abdallâh Mohammad b. Abd-al-Malek of Nishapur, received his professional name as a token of favor from the Saljuq ruler. Among several signs of the sultan’s appreciation of the young poet’s talent was the right to adopt the pen-name Moʿezzi, derived from Malekshâh’s own honorific Moʿezz-al-Donyâ va’lDin, “Supporter of the World and the Faith.” Nezâmi Aruzi’s account of this dates from the year 1116, when the author met with the elderly poet, who, looking back on his career, appeared to be skeptical about his personal gains from the office of a poet laureate. It had cost him a lot of money to keep up with the requirements of his office at court, while the occasion of private and intimate audiences with the sultan were few and far between. Nonetheless, it is evident from his poetry that Amir Moʿezzi—as he became known 7 Cf. Qor’an, Sura 7, al-Aʿrâf. 8 Sanâ’i, Divân, ed. by M.-T. Modarres-e Razavi (2 nd print, Tehran, 1962), pp. 73–75; cf. M. Moʿin in his edition of Nezâmi Aruzi, Chahâr Maqâle, pp. 198–203; reprinted in Majmuʿe-maqâlat-e doktor Mohammad Moʿ in, ed. M. Moʿin (Tehran, 1985), I, pp. 240–52. See further: J. T. P. de Bruijn, “The Qalandarriyyât in Persian Mystical Poetry,” in L. Lewisohn, ed., The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufism (London and New York, 1992), pp. 75– 86; G. E. Tetley, The Ghaznavids and the Seljuk Turks. Poetry as a Source for Iranian History (London and New York, 2009), pp. 91–94.

108

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS

to posterity—did all he could to fulfill his duties as the leading court poet faithfully, not only to Malekshâh, but also to the latter’s successors Barkiyâroq (1094–1105) and, in particular, Sanjar. He also wrote poems in praise of other rulers, including Bahrâmshâh of Ghazna, the Amir of Tabas, some of the Khwârazmshâhs, and the Abbasid Caliph. The long list of his patrons further includes high officials of the Saljuq administration, especially the grand vizier Nezâm-al-Molk and his relatives. Several panegyrics are addressed to him, to his sons Mo’ayyad-al-Molk and Fakhr-al-Molk, and to his son-in-law Moʿin-al-Molk. According to legend, Moʿezzi was fatally wounded by a stray arrow discharged by Sultan Sanjar during a hunt. There are indeed references to such an incident in his own poems, as well as in a short elegy by his contemporary Sanâ’i. However, the connection between his death and the arrow wound remains unclear. The datings of his death differ widely, both in traditional sources and in modern scholarly estimates. It is most likely that it occurred between 1125 and 1127.9 In its modern printed edition, the divan of Moʿezzi is a voluminous collection of about 18,000 distichs, mostly qasides.10 The editor, Abbâs Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, admitted to the deficiencies in the sources available to him. The earliest manuscripts of the divan that he consulted were from the sixteenth century. An older copy, not yet exploited for the philological investigation of Moʿezzi’s poetry, is contained in a famous manuscript in the British Library, copied in the fourteenth century and known as the “six divans” after the number of poets represented in the manuscript. Moʿezzi’s section contains no more than a selection of about 4,000 distichs, but it is undoubtedly of great importance to a future critical edition.11   9 Cf. Rypka, HIL, p. 195. The much later datings 1147 or 1157 are hardly possible (pace F. de Blois, PL V, p. 423). 10 Divân-e Amir Moʿezzi, ed. A. Eqbâl Âshtiyâni (Tehran, 1959). The more recent edition by Nâser Hayyeri (Tehran, 1983) offers a text almost identical to the former edition. The verses cited here follow the readings of the Eqbâl edition. 11 Ms. (former) India Office, H. Ethé, Catalogue of Persian, Turkish, Hindûstânî, and Pushtû Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library (2 vols., Oxford, 1889– 1930), No. 913; cf. de Blois, PL V, p. 423.

109

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Individual poems also appear in the medieval anthologies by Owfi and Jâjarmi. The former remarked that in his days—the early thirteenth century—most of Moʿezzi’s poems had already been collected together (modavvan). “Hence the inclusion of his entire divan would induce undue length, and prolixity renders a book tiresome,” and Owfi states that he had therefore opted for a few ghazals. In fact, except for one complete qaside, nearly all his citations are essentially prologues excised from longer panegyric poems.12 Jâjarmi places a few of Moʿezzi’s qasides next to poems by Onsori and Farrokhi, to which the former are quite evidently javâbs (responses), e. g., a poem in the form of a dialogue marked by the words goftam (“I said”) and goftâ (“he/she said”) used in alternation at the beginning of each half-verse. Insufficient though the extant divan may be, similar gaps in the early transmission of manuscripts were also the fate of other medieval Persian poets. In the case of Moʿezzi, his poems are full of names and other historical and topical references, which appear compatible with the time of the poet’s life. So we may assume that the great majority of the poems available in the printed divan constitute on the whole authentic material for the study of his work. This does not of course imply that there is no need for a critical scrutiny of individual lines and emendation of corrupt readings. The contextual references in his poetry show that he was a prolific court poet who commemorated the great events in the lives of the Saljuq sultans whom he served, especially their military campaigns, travels, and hunting expeditions; the annual festivals celebrated at court, such as Nowruz and the autumnal festival of Mehregân; and Islamic festivals such as Id-e Fetr, ending the fasting during Ramadan, and Id-e Azhâ, the day of sacrifice, which concludes the pilgrimage to Mecca. Personal events calling for a topical poem were the birth of a prince, a circumcision, or a bereavement. One of Moʿezzi’s most celebrated poems is an elegy written in 1092, when Nezâm-al-Molk was assassinated, followed by, shortly afterwards, the death of Malekshâh at the age of 58. The poem opens with an evocation of the immense shock that the sultan’s demise had caused in the world: 12 Owfi, Lobâb al-albâb, ed. E. G. Browne (2 vols., Leiden, 1906), II, pp. 69–86.

110

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS Shoghl-e dowlat bi khatar shod kâr-e mellat bâ khatar13 Tâ tohi shod dowlat-o mellat ze shâh-e dâdgar Moshkel-ast andâze-ye in hâdethe dar sharq-o gharb Hâyel-ast âvâze-ye in vâqeʿe dar bahr-o bar The affairs of state have lost their stature, the people of the land face peril; The state and the community have lost the Righteous King. The size of this event threatens East and West, The rumor of this incident spreads terror over sea and land.

The conventions of courtly eulogy as well as political prudence did not allow the poet to refer to the actual circumstances of the disappearance of the two most powerful men in the Empire. However, there may be an intended allusion when Moʿezzi refers to the forecast of a heavy storm given for the month of Shavvâl 485 Q. (November 1092) as predicting the Sultan’s sudden death. Some suspected that the real cause was poisoning. Also, concerning the murder of his vizier Nezâm-al-Molk in October of the same year, there were rumors of foul play on the part of the Saljuq court.14 Raft dar yak mah be ferdows-e barin dastur-e pir Shâh-e bornâ az pey-e u raft dar mâhi degar Shod jahân por shur-o shar az raftan-e dastur-o shâh Kas nadânad tâ kojâ khwâhad rasid in shur-o shar In balâhâ hich zirak-râ nabod andar zamir v-in havâdeth hich dânâ-râ nabod andar fakar kard nâgah qahr-e yazdân ajz-e sultân âshkâr qahr-e yazdâni bebin-o ajz-e soltâni negar In one month the old minister left for Lofty Paradise, The young King followed him in the next month. The departure of minister and King caused an upheaval in the world And no one knows whither this upheaval may lead. Not even a man of discernment could have presaged such dire events No learned man could have thought of such a calamity. Suddenly the Almighty showed how vulnerable the sultan was. See how mighty the Divine is! Look how helpless worldly power! 13 Rhetorically, the first line of the qaside is based on a pun involving two opposite meanings of the word khatar: “power” and “danger.” 14 See C. E. Bosworth, EI2 , s. v. “Malik-shāh”; s. v. “Niẓām al-Molk.”

111

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

The poet reiterates the implicit political tenet of dynasties such as the Saljuqs that the death of the ruler dealt a severe blow to the Islamic community (mellat), of which the sultan was the protector, as much as it did to the political body (dowlat); yet the blunt assertion that in the last resort the sultan had to submit to the divine will is noteworthy. This is stressed again in the following lines, in which Grief appears in the allegory of a roaring sea overwhelming all the lands governed by the Saljuqs: Mowj zad daryâ-ye gham tâ shâh-e daryâdel bemord Hast zir-e mowj-ash az Antâkiya tâ Kâshghar Ân che vahni bud k-az Keyvân be eyvân-ash rasid Tâ ze-eyvân-ash be Keyvân shod khorush-e nowhegar A sea of sorrows raged: a king died whose heart was an ocean;15 An ocean whose waves enveloped all, from Antakya to Kashgar. How did Saturn manage to erode his royal portal So that mourning went up from the palace to Saturn!16

All this does not diminish the sultan’s crucial role as the safeguard of wellbeing in the world. After all, he was God’s “shadow on the earth.” Secular and religious motifs are mixed in the description of the laments of his subjects: Dâsht giti bâ baqâ-ye u dari andar janân Dârad aknun bâ fanâ-ye u dari andar saqar Dar saqar dud-o sharar bâshad bali v-inak shod-ast Didehâ az marg-e u por dud-o delhâ por sharar As long as he was alive the earth had a gate opening to Paradise; Now he has gone, it has only a gate to Hell. To Hell belong smoke and flames, most certainly; look around: Because of his death eyes are filled with smoke, hearts with flames.

In the composition of this poem Moʿezzi resorts to a topos of Persian elegiac poetry—known to him undoubtedly from the famous poem Farrokhi wrote on the death of Sultan Mahmud of 15 I. e., as bountiful as an ocean. 16 Saturn (Persian: Keyvân), the highest planet in the Ptolemaic universe, determines what will happen in this world. Saturn is also associated with melancholy in astrology.

112

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS

Ghazna—by feigning not to understand why the body of the deceased had become so still and motionless: Khosrowâ gar masti az masti be hoshyâri gerây Var be khwâb-e khosh dar-i az khwâb-e khosh bar dâr sar Tâ bebini ommati-râ khaste-ye tir-e qazâ Tâ bebini âlami-râ baste-ye band-e qadar Tâ bebini bâgh-e melkat-râ shode bi rang-o buy Tâ bebini shâkh-e dowlat-râ shode bi barg-o bar Molk bini monqaleb gashte ze-gunâgun shegeft Dahr bini moztareb ze-gunâgun ebar Oh Khosrow, if you are drunk, sober up again! Or if you are in the depth of a refreshing sleep, rise up from sleep! And behold a community wounded by Fate’s arrows!17 Behold a universe tied up by the chains of Destiny! Behold the garden of your kingdom bereft of all color and scent, Behold the branches of the dynasty, leafless and barren. You will see a kingdom in turmoil from such strange events, A juncture agitated by so many happenings.18

Moʿezzi’s divan contains numerous poems that are closely related to historical events in the late eleventh and early twelfth century, the heyday of the Saljuq period, and illustrates them from the point of view of a eulogizing poet. This feature, which has been drawn upon too little, makes it a valuable source for this period.19 It deserves attention, not so much for its documentary information, but for the many descriptive passages reflecting the ideology and the mood of the Saljuq period. The poems that Moʿezzi wrote at the time of the conquest of the Ghaznavid capital by Sultan Sanjar in 1118 are an example of this. On the face of it, this was an intervention by the Saljuq army in support of the return of Bahrâmshâh to the Ghaznavid throne, from which he had been ousted by his rival and half-brother Malek Arslân. The person who benefitted most from this victory was, however, Sanjar himself, since victory finally gave the Saljuqs 17

Moʿezzi speaks here of the ommat, a term with the same religious connotation as mellat. 18 Moʿezzi, Divân, ed. Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, pp. 405–6; ed. Hayyeri, pp. 379–80. 19 On the importance of Moʿezzi’s poetry as a historical source, see Tetley, The Ghaznavids and Seljuk Turks, pp. 91–195.

113

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

suzerainty over their archrivals, the house of the mighty Mahmud of Ghazne. Moʿezzi refers to the campaign in several poems in which the event is celebrated as a great triumph for his patron Sanjar. In the same year, Sanjar succeeded to the supreme position in the Saljuq commonwealth and Moʿezzi dutifully alludes to this coincidence: Be do chiz-ash hami emsâl dowlat tahniyat guyad Ke har do dar sefat hastand zibâtar ze-yakdigar Yaki ân-ast k-u bestad be Ghaznin takht-e soltânân Degar ân-ast k-u bar takht-e soltâni neshast idar Ze mardi ânche kard emsâl dar Ghaznin-o dar Kâbol Nakard andar ajam Rostam nakard andar Arab Heydar Hazimat kard shâhi-râ be ham bar zad sepâhi-râ … Fortune congratulates him this year on two accounts, Each of which appears to be more beautiful than the other: One is that he took the throne of the Sultans in Ghaznin. The other that he sat down on the throne of a Sultan here: The valor he displayed this year in Ghaznin and Kabul, Neither showed Rostam among the Persians, nor Ali among the Arabs. He put a king to flight and dispersed an army …20

In a qaside on a fortress (hesâr), that is depicted hyperbolically in these words: Âsmân-e bi madâr-ast in hesâr-e ostovâr Âftâb-e bi zavâl-ast in mobârak shahriyâr Bar hame âlam hami tâbad be taʾyid-e Khodây Âftâb-e bi zavâl-o âsmân-e bi madâr A heaven, but not in orbiting, is this solid fortress; A sun that never goes down is the blessed ruler. With God’s support they give light to the entire world, This sun without setting and this heaven without orbit.

In all likelihood, by this the citadel (qohandez), near Nishapur, built by Malekshâh to house the booty from his campaigns, is 20 Divân, ed. Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, pp. 196–98; ed. Hayyeri, pp. 196–99. An alternative view of the conquest of Ghazna and its political consequences is reflected in the panegyric section of Sanâ’i’s didactical poem Hadiqat al-hadiqa or Fakhri-nâme, which was dedicated to Bahrâmshâh; cf. the edition by Maryam Hoseyni (Tehran, 2003), pp. 231–83.

114

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS

intended. Although no name is given to this stronghold, its special purpose is clearly indicated: In hesâr az bahr-e ân kard-ast tâ benhad dar-u Mâlhâye bi hesâb-o ganjhâ-ye bi shomâr Tâ na bas bud-o beyârad mâl-e Mesr-o ganj-e Rum Bar kashad bar gardan-e gardân badin farrokh hesâr Ey shahenshâhi ke zir-e ekhtiyâr-e to-st dahr Charkh-râ bar ekhtiyâr-e to nabinam ekhtiyâr This fortress was built so that he may store in it Measureless riches, and countless treasures, Large enough to store the riches of Egypt and treasures of Byzantium That brave men carry on their shoulders to this splendid fortress. O King of Kings, the age is under your command, The Heavens have no choice than whatever is your choice.21

If it is beyond dispute that Moʿezzi should be given a place among the great Persian court poets, worthy to be studied as an eyewitness to the historical events of his days, his literary status is a different matter. On the subject of his artistic merits, opinions differ widely, especially among modern Iranian critics. Already in the late 1920 s, the distinguished historian of Persian poetry Badiʿ-alzamân Foruzânfar delivered an unfavorable verdict on Moʿezzi’s poetry, stating that both in his treatment of amatory themes for the prologues of his qasides and in his panegyrics, he was inferior to his most important models, Onsori and Farrokhi. He dismissed Moʿezzi as “a superficial, unoriginal poet, who does not deserve his high reputation in literature.”22 In the introduction to his edition of the divan, Abbâs Eqbâl Âshtiyâni strongly defended Moʿezzi’s literary reputation, stating that he was “a poet in the full sense of the term, and his words have a most powerful effect on every man of taste who appreciates elegance and eloquence.” He “stands out as one of the artistic virtuosi 21 Divân, ed. Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, pp. 404–5; ed. Hayyeri, pp. 377–79. On the building of Qohandez, see A. K.S. Lambton, CHIr V (1968), p. 223. 22 Moʿezi shâʿeri sathi va moqalled ast va ba andâze-ye shohrat maqâm-e adabi nadârad; cf. Badiʿ-al-zamân Foruzânfar, Sokhan va sokhanvarân (2 nd ed. in one vol., Tehran, 1971), p. 232.

115

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

of the Persian language.” Eqbâl Âshtiyâni rebuked those modern critics who demand that poetry should deal with wisdom and not be judged mainly on its aesthetic merits for their anachronistic views and their failure to understand the historically valid standards by which medieval court poetry should be judged, such as “style, sweetness of speech, elegance of expression, and eloquence of ideas.”23 Foruzânfar’s line of criticism was taken up again by Mohammad-Rezâ Shafiʿi-Kadkani, who criticized Moʿezzi’s artistic merits even more severely than his predecessor, adducing additional arguments. Shafiʿi-Kadkani considered his work within the framework of his own investigation on the development of imagery in classical Persian poetry. His basic criterion for evaluating ancient poetry was a twentieth-century concept of creativity, scanning these poems primarily for the use of original imagery and a fresh observation of the objects described. He labeled Moʿezzi as the perfect court poet, who considered praising his patrons as the highest aim of his art, but lacked the talent to invent original and powerful images and similes for his poetry. Even as an imitator of the great poets of the Ghaznavid court, Moʿezzi failed to live up to their standards. His divan was really a sign of the decline of Persian poetry as a creative art form at the end of the eleventh century. The stylistic analysis by Mohammad-Rezâ Shafiʿi-Kadkani, weighing carefully the poetic merits of each of the two greatest Saljuq poets, leaves one preliminary question unanswered: how is one to deal with the historical perspective that should be taken into account in any appraisal of medieval poets who were highly appreciated by their contemporaries?24 Even a cursory reading of Moʿezzi’s poems suffices to convince one that such severe criticism is essentially anachronistic, as Eqbâl Âshtiyâni had already convincingly argued. Dhabih-Allâh Safâ has pointed out that medieval critics already admired the simplicity of his language, which often approached the common speech of his 23 Cited after A. J. Arberry’s translation in his Classical Persian Poetry (London, 1958), pp. 112–13. 24 M.-R. Shafiʿi-Kadkani, Sovar-e khiyâl dar sheʿr-e fârsi (3 rd ed., Tehran, 1987), pp. 626–40.

116

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS

age, and his skill to express sophisticated content in a style devoid of artificiality or ambiguity.25 Western students of Persian literature have not paid serious attention to Moʿezzi’s divan, and usually follow respectfully the high regard expressed by most traditional commentators.26 Meisami, however, has detailed “the variety and subtlety of his lyricism, his mastery of panegyric topics, the personal note of his hasb-e hâl, and his skilful use of transitions.”27 Unquestionably, Moʿezzi followed in the footsteps of the Ghaznavid court poets who, in the course of the eleventh century, had brought the panegyric style to a high level of perfection. He must have been well acquainted with their work, and frequently modeled his qasides on their poems. Examples of this are found in the fourteenth-century anthology of Jâjarmi referred to above. In this context, he stayed within the limits of a highly normative tradition, which required of the poet to respect the boundaries set by this legacy. However, his aim was emulation, not slavish imitation; he preferred to play his own game of poetic invention within the framework of the conventional stock of imagery. Edward Browne may have exaggerated when he attributed to him the invention of most of the similes used by later poets, but the wide range of his poetic repertoire is quite evident.28 The scope of Moʿezzi’s original contributions to the lyrical idiom of Persian poetry still needs to be determined on the basis of a detailed comparison with the works of his predecessors. For this kind of research, there is abundant material available in his divan. An example of this kind of research is a recent study by Ali Asghar Seyed Gohrab dealing with riddling in Persian court poetry. Moʿezzi’s use of this device in the prologues of his qasides is included and compared to that of his contemporaries.29 Sometimes 25 Safâ, TADI II, pp. 508–23; Dhabih-Allâh Safâ, Ganj-e sokhan (3 vols., Tehran, 1968), I, pp. 235–46. 26 See for instance the words of Nezâmi Aruzi and Owfi cited by E. G. Browne, LHP II, pp. 327–30. 27 J. S. Meisami, EI2 s. v. Muʿizzī. 28 Browne, LHP II, pp. 329–30. 29 A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, Courtly Riddles. Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry (Amsterdam–West Lafayette, Ind., 2008), pp. 126–49.

117

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

these prologues are marked as loghaz (enigma), in the headings (probably all later additions to the divan), or by expressions such as chistân (literally, “what is that?”) or che (“what?”) in the opening line of the poem. The technique of riddling in poetry consists mainly of applying a number of striking metaphorical allusions to the item described without actually naming it. Although the solution is often not difficult to grasp for anyone familiar with the poetic idiom, guessing at the meaning must have been entertaining to a convivial audience by realizing three goals at a stroke: the poet could put his poetic ingenuity on display, the audience could take pride in their own powers of detection, and the performance as a whole would become more sophisticated.30 Moʿezzi chose for his riddles objects of symbolic significance in a courtly environment, such as wine, the pen, the horse, the sword, and bow and arrow. In addition, he treated in the same manner immaterial items belonging to the same social sphere, such as generosity, the virtue of a patron particularly cherished by a court poet, and bazm va razm, “feasting and fighting,” epitomizing the lifestyle of a ruler. To one qaside, addressed to Sultan Sanjar, a prologue has been added which contains the account of a dream. The narrator meets with a handsome young man sitting under a tree “extending its shadow from Qandahar to Qayravan, and scattering blossoms from Qayravan to Qandahar.” The meaning of the allegory of a tree—the leaves, branches, and fruits of which are scholarship (elm), reason (aql), and learning (fazl)—is explained by the youth as “the divine religion of the Prophet,” whereas he himself represents the “State” (dowlat) resting safely in the vicinity. Then, the narrator puts to him three riddles referring respectively to the sultan’s horse, his sword, and his bow and arrow, all circumscribed very ingeniously by appropriate similes. The argument underlying this display of lyrical virtuosity is to prove how indispensable the services of a court poet are to the ruler.31

30 Ibid., p. 129. 31 Divân, ed. Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, pp. 349–51. Cf. Seyed-Gohrab, Court Riddles, pp. 139–43.

118

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS

The use of riddles is one of the special forms of the art of poetic description (vasf), in which Moʿezzi was an acknowledged master. An alternative device for poetical description resorted to in his divan is the “strife-poem” (in Arabic and Persian called monâzare or moʿ âraze), known also by the Italian term tenzone. In this type of poem, two allegorical protagonists—persons as collective types, animals, plants, material objects, or even abstract ideas—enter into a debate in which they vie with each other boasting of their respective qualities. This literary device, which is attested both in medieval Europe and in the literatures of Muslim peoples, has its roots in antiquity as far back as the literature of the Summerians and of the Akkadians. In Persia, the tenzone has an equally long history. The Middle-Persian text Draxt ī āsōrīg ud buz, featuring a “Babylonian” tree and a goat in a verbal contest, was put into writing only in Islamic times, but must have been current in an oral version already in the Parthian period.32 In classical Persian literature, the most famous examples were the five tenzones in the form of a qaside written by Asadi of Tus in the mid-eleventh century, in which the contestants are a lance and a bow; heaven and earth; a Muslim and a Zoroastrian; an Arab and a Persian; and day and night.33 Moʿezzi resorted to this device in the prologue of a qaside praising Sultan Malekshâh. The pen and the sword, here called kelk and tigh, are well-known symbols of administrative and military authority, often chosen as suitable themes for eulogizing people in power by Moʿezzi’s contemporaries, in particular by the Ghaznavid court poet Othmân Mokthâri. The present qaside has also been transmitted as the work of a certain Fakhr-al-Din, of whom no other works are known. Hermann Ethé, who found it in an anthology entitled Daqâ’eq al-ashʿ âr in an Oxford manuscript under 32 Cf. M. Boyce, “Middle Persian Literature,” HdO II/1 (1968), pp. 31–79, at p. 55; M. Macuch, “Pahlavi Literature,” HPL XVII (2008), p. 170. 33 The first comprehensive study of Persian tenzones is the essay, with German translations, by H. Ethé, “Über persische Tenzonen,” in Verhandlungen des fünften internationalen Orientalisten-Congresses (Berlin, 1882), II/1, pp. 48–135. N. Purjavâdi also dealt with the tenzones in his monograph, Zabân-e hâl dar erfân va adabiyât-e pârsi (Tehran, 2006).

119

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

the latter’s name, published the poem with a German translation.34 However, the reference to Malekshâh makes it more likely that it is indeed a genuine poem by Moʿezzi, since it is also found in the manuscripts of his own divan. This is probably the first instance of the use of these items, the pen and the sword, in a Persian poetical context, though there are older instances in Arabic poetry.35 In the opening line, the two items are designated by the materials from which they are made, “iron” and “reed”, because this enables the poet to open his discourse with references to the Qor’an: Âhan-o ney chun padid âmad ze-sonʿ-e kerdegâr Dar miyân-e kelk-o tigh oftâd jang-o kârzâr Tigh goftâ fakhr-e man z-ân-ast k-andar shân-e man Gâh vahy âmad “w-anzalnâ’l-ḥadīd” az kerdegâr Kelk goftâ âmad andar shân-e man “Nūn wa’l-qalam” Ham bar in maʿni ma-râ fakhr-ast tâ ruze-e shomâr Ever since iron and reed appeared through the work of the Creator, There has been strife and conflict between the Pen and the Sword. The Sword said: “I take pride in that I was once referred to In the revealed words of the Creator: ‛We sent down the iron.’”36 The Pen replied: “About me it was said, ‛Nun and the Pen;’37 That will be the source of my pride until the Day of Reckoning.”

There are several allusions to military power and administrative authority in this prologue. The sword boasts of his qualities as a fighter and defender of the realm; the pen points to his services as the instrument of judges, moralists, and writers: Tigh goftâ lown-e man lown-e sepehr âmad dorost Hast az in maʿni ma-râ bar gardan-e mardân godhâr Kelk goftâ shekl-e man shekl-e shahâb âmad dorost Mardom-e sheytânparast az man nayâyad zinhâr Tigh goftâ hastam ân makkâr k-az makr-e man-ast Kâr-e giti mostaqim-o band-e shâhi ostovâr 34 Ethé, “Über persische Tenzonen,” pp. 72, 118–22; this attribution was followed by de Blois, PL V, p. 325. 35 Cf. Purjavâdi, Zabân-e hâl dar erfân va adabiyât-e pârsi, pp. 490–93; ed. Hayyeri, pp. 226–27. 36 Qor’an 57,25. 37 Ibid., 68,1.

120

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS Kelk goftâ hastam ân naqqâsh k-az naqsh-e man-ast Khub-o zesht-o nik-o bad dar din-o donyâ âshkâr Tigh goftâ qovvat-e Merrikh dârad jerm-e man Dar masâf-o jang bâshad jerm-e man Merrikhvâr Kelk goftâ az Atâred bahre dârad feʿ l-e man Dar hesâb-o dar ketâbat hastam u-râ ekhtiyâr The Sword: “My color is just like the color of the Heavens; That is why I cleave the necks of brave warriors.” The Pen: “My shape is like the shape of a shooting star: I do not spare people who worship Satan.” The Sword: “I am the deceiver through whose guile Worldly matters are straightened out and kingship held together.” The Pen: “I am the painter whose paintings Reveal what is fair or ugly, good or bad in the world and in religion.” The Sword: “I am the embodiment of the power of Mars, Firm like Mars on parade and in battle.” The Pen: “What I do belongs to the realm of Mercury; He has chosen me for his calculations and writings.”38

Moʿezzi sometimes combined several themes in a single poetic discourse. He did so in a poem for the Saljuq notable Sharaf-al-Din Abu-Tâher-e Saʿd, using the structure and the conventional motifs of a classical Arabic qaside. In the anthology of Jâjarmi, this poem is quoted as a specimen of his skill in making comparisons (tashbihât).39 The prologue relates the arduous journey of a camel-driver (sârbân), whom the poet urges not to halt until he has reached the place to which his beloved has migrated. This topos of the old Bedouin poets is adapted to Iranian conditions. The ruins the traveler finds along his journey are not the remnants of a deserted camp, but a dilapidated portico (ivân) of a palace, situated in a meadow that was deserted by the elegant ladies—with Arabic names such as Saʿdâ, Salmâ, and Leylâ—and the musicians. The building has walls broken like the backs of worshiping shamans, and wondrous statues (temthâlhâ-ye bu’l-‘ajab), looking as if they have rent their 38 Divân-e Mo’ezzi, ed. Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, pp. 227–28. 39 Jâjarmi, Mo’nes al-ahrâr, ed. M. Sâleh Tabibi (Tehran, 1958), I, p. 144 + LH– LT (on these pages a lacuna in the basic manuscript is filled in from other sources.) Also in the Divân-e Moʿezzi, ed. Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, pp. 597–99.

121

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

shirts in grief. The prologue ends in traditional fashion with a ride on a swift camel (bisorâk). Another example of a polythematic poem is the elegy that Moʿezzi wrote for a son of Mojir-al-Dowle of Arjestân, a vizier of Sultan Sanjar. The qaside opens with a riddle describing natural phenomena and touches upon various areas of symbolic imagery such as the sea and war: Bengar in piruzegun daryâ-ye nâpeydâ kenâr Bar sar âvarde ze qaʿr-e khish dorr-e shâhvâr Kashti-ye zarrin dar-u gâhi boland-o gâh past Zowraqi simin dar-u gâhi nehân gah âshkâr Bengar in ghâleb do lashkar bar jenâh-e yakdegar Lashkari az hadd-e Rum-o lashkari az Zangbâr Look! This turquoise sea, with no end in sight, [the sky] Has brought up from its depth a pearl worthy of a king. A golden ship rises and goes down again on this sea; [the sun] A silver boat vanishes from view, and then is visible again. [the moon] Look at these two conquering armies on opposite flanks: One marching from the borders of Rum, one from Zanzibar. [day and night]

This continues with similar references to the clouds; a thunderstorm; and the mineral and animal kingdoms. The enigmatic description leads up to a direct mention of human beings, and ends on a religious note, a refutation of the materialistic worldview that assigns a creative role to the Planets (“the Seven”) and the Natural Elements (“the Four”) next to the Divine Maker: Bengar in tarkib-e mardom bengar in taqlib-e hâl Bengar in tadhhib-e surat bengar in tartib-e kâr In badây ʿv-in tabâyeʿ-râ bebâyad sâneʿ i Gar be sâne ʿnist hâjat hojjeti qâteʿ beyâr Gar kavâkeb kard sâneʿpas ke-râ khwâni ze-haft V-ar tabâyeʿ kard sâneʿpas kodâm-ast az chahâr Az chahâr-o haft del bogsel ke maʿ bud-at yaki-st Mosta ʿ ân-e bandegân-o molk-e u nâmostaʿ âr Look how humans are put together! Look at this transformation! Look at this gilded form! Look how it is put into order!

122

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS These marvels and these natural elements require a Maker, Or else, you should bring decisive arguments why they do not! If a Maker made the stars, who would he be among the Seven? If He made the elements, whom would you choose among the Four? Do not any longer care for the Four or the Seven! Serve only the One Who answers to the needs of His servants as the absolute Sovereign.40

Only after these preliminaries does Moʿezzi turn to his designated agenda: the mourning of his patron’s son and the praise of the father.

5. Anvari According to one of the anecdotes about Owhad-al-Din Mohammad (or Ali) Anvari, one day, while he was still a poor student, he saw a wealthy man dressed in magnificent clothes strolling by his school. He asked who this man was and was told he was a successful poet at the court; some sources go further and identify him as the poet laureate of the Saljuq sultan, Amir Moʿezzi. This prompted Anvari to abandon at once his ambition to become a scholar without any prospect of ever becoming rich, and embark on the much more lucrative career of a professional poet. Another anecdote tells us that he presented himself at the court of the Saljuq sultan Sanjar where, like all prospective poets, he had to pass a talent test imposed by the poet laureate of the sultan, who happened to be the same Moʿezzi. As the story goes, the great man was jealously guarding his high position against possible rivals emerging from the ranks of ambitious young poets. By playing tricks, he had always succeeded in presenting arguments to turn them down. The future poet Anvari, however, was a clever young man who saw through the machinations of his examiner and was able to outwit him. The interesting point about these anecdotes is that they link the two most prominent poets of the Saljuq court together. In the eyes of posterity, their lives constituted a succession of splendid court poetry stretching over a hundred years. That was enough 40 Divân-e Moʿezzi, ed. Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, pp. 363–65; ed. Hayyeri, pp. 342–43.

123

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

to give some credit to these stories, although there is no historical evidence to substantiate them. Anvari occasionally cited lines from his predecessor’s qasides, but it is not known if they ever met in person. We cannot even gauge the possibility of this, insofar as neither the year of Moʿezzi’s death nor Anvari’s birth date is on record. Although both achieved fame during their lifetime, outside their poems hardly any solid information exists concerning their lives. Moreover, the surviving evidence has been handed down with many variations. In the case of Anvari, there is even uncertainty about his name. The anthologist Owfi, writing less than a century after the poet’s death, calls him Mohammad, but other sources give Ali as his first name. The name of his father is also mentioned variously as Mohammad or Eshâq, but it could be that the latter was the name of his grandfather. The family originated from Abivard in Dasht-e Khâvarân near the town of Mehne in Khorasan, where in the eleventh century the great mystic sheikh Abu-Saʿid Abi’l-Kheyr had lived. Anvari is said to have used at first the pen name Khâvari, but no instance of such use appears in his divan. The pen name under which he became a celebrity seems to be based on the high appreciation of his art, insofar as it is derived from the adjective anvar, “most resplendent”. According to his own statement, it was bestowed upon him by others. How and when he became attached to the court of Sultan Sanjar, whose court usually resided in the city of Marv, is not known. His activities as a poet of the court must have covered more or less the second half of Sanjar’s reign, or the middle years of the twelfth century. He was a witness to the invasion of the Guzz tribes, who took the Sultan captive in 1155, only two years before the latter’s death. Anvari’s most famous qaside describes the devastation wrought by these Turkish nomads upon the land of Khorasan.41 The panegyrics of Anvari contain the names of many other patrons of various ranks, including viziers and officials as well as military commanders. His most important patron was Majd-al-Din Abu’l-Hasan Emrâni, a trusted counselor (modabber) of Sanjar 41

See above: “2. The Rise of the Saljuqs.”

124

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS

until 1150, when he fell into disgrace and was executed by the order of the sultan. Another patron, Qâzi Hamid-al-Din of Balkh (d. 1163), the author of a well-known volume of maqâmât (prose pieces with a highly ornate diction), stood by him when Anvari was falsely accused of having written a pamphlet insulting the people of Balkh.42 Among the rulers eulogized in his qasides were Soleymân Shâh (r. 1160–61), the ruler of the western part of the Saljuq Empire, and Mowdud b. Zangi (r. 1140–70), the Atabeg of Mosul. The last date mentioned in connection with Anvari’s life is 1186, when he was proven wrong in his alleged prediction of a violent storm on the basis of astrological calculations. This would have been extremely damaging to his reputation as a scholar, and would have perhaps led to his expulsion from the court. The occurrence itself is probably historical, but there are doubts about Anvari’s involvement.43 On the other hand, the fact that in his later years he abandoned court poetry and went to live in seclusion in the city of Balkh appears plausible, although it could also be no more than a biographical topos. For the year of Anvari’s death, a long list of dates has been given in the sources, ranging from 1152 to 1191. There is a near-consensus among modern scholars that he must have died at some time during the second half of the 1180 s, but François de Blois, who found that the latest date that can be connected with one of his poems was 1164, has proposed a much earlier dating.44 The transmission of Anvari’s poems is fairly reliable, at least compared to that of most other medieval Persian poets. The oldest surviving manuscript of his divan dates from the end of the thirteenth century, and there are a few others still extant that were copied in the fourteenth century. The qasides constitute the main part of his poetic legacy, and the high esteem for his poetry was based exclusively on these poems. There is also an extensive collection of fragmentary poems (moqqataʿ ât)—containing brief poems in which Anvari with much wit and often satire reacts to 42 Hamid-al-Din Abu Bakr Omar b. Mahmudi Balkhi, Maqâmât-e Hamidi, ed. R. Enzâbi-Nejâd (Tehran, 1986). 43 See further M. Minovi, “Ejtemâʿ-e kavâkeb dar sâl-e 582,” MDAT 2/4 (1955), pp. 16–53. 44 De Blois, PL V, p. 257.

125

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

topical events in his environment—and collections of ghazals and quatrains.45 The best edition published so far was prepared by ­Mohammad-Taqi Modarres-e Razavi, who could avail himself of the medieval manuscripts, and added a comprehensive essay on Anvari’s life and works.46 Valentin Zhukovsky was the first Western scholar to devote a monograph to Anvari, in Russian, containing some specimens of his qasides.47 There exists a consensus that Anvari was indeed one of the greatest masters of the Persian qaside. According to a “well-known Persian verse”: The sphere poetic hath its prophets three, (Although “There is no Prophet after me”) Ferdowsi in the epic, in the ode, Saʿdi, and in qaside Anvari.48

This reputation is even acknowledged by those modern critics who are loath to attribute any artistic merits to “mercenary” panegyric poetry. The Persian scholar Mirzâ Mohammad Qazvini once tried to limit this statement to “the comparatively small number of his qasídas which are not panegyrics,”49 however, this contradicts the high opinion traditional critics have always had of his virtuosity as a eulogist. The evidence for this is overwhelming and consists not only of explicit statements, but also of the many quotations from 45 Various aspects of Anvari’s poetry were investigated in D. Meneghini, ed., Studies in the Poetry of Anvari (Venice, 2006). M.-R. Shafiʿi-Kadkani, Mofles-e kimiyâforush. Naqd va tahlil-e sheʿr-e Anvari (2 nd print, Tehran, 1995), provides a selection from the Divân with analytical comments. 46 In two volumes, Tehran, 1959–61, and later prints. The earlier edition by S. Nafisi (Tehran, 1958) is uncritical, but still valuable on account of its extensive introduction. On the textual tradition of the Divân of Anvari, see Modarres-e Razavi’s essay, Divân-e Anvari, ed. M.-T. Modarres-e Razavi (2 nd ed., Tehran, 1968), I, pp. 125–53, and de Blois, PL V, pp. 256–66. 47 V. Zhukovsky, Ali Aukhadeddin Enveri. Materialy dlya yego biografii i kharakteristiki (St. Petersburg, 1883); condensed in English by Browne, LHP II, pp. 365–71. The state of scholarship in the early twentieth century and the then prevailing aesthetic assumptions are well reflected in K. B. Nasim, The Life and Works of Hakim Auhad-ud-Din Anwari ( Lahore, 1967). 48 Cited and translated by Browne, LHP II, p. 116; the Persian text: ibid., p. 365; these lines have been ascribed to Jâmi. 49 Ibid., p. 364; Browne relates here a personal communication.

126

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS

his poetry in dictionaries and works on poetics such as Shams-e Qeys’ al-Moʿ jam fi maʿ âʾ ire ashʿ âr al-ʿajam. It is quite remarkable, therefore, that Anvari himself has expressed in a number of poems his serious doubts about the worth of his own profession, aiming in particular at the manner in which it was practiced at the court. One of his most forceful pronouncements is in a qaside without panegyric elements that is devoted entirely to the subject of “poetry and the craft of the poet” (sheʿr-o shâʿeri) that begins with a word of warning: “Do not take any one of us—a bunch of beggars—for an honest man!” The irony is that the poet does not exclude himself from the group of people he derides so severely. He first stresses that the profession is a pretty useless one by comparing it to other crafts that provide real services to mankind. Introducing two fictitious persons he states: Kâr-e Khâled joz be Jaʿ far key shavad hargez tamâm Z-ân yaki jowlâhegi dânad degar barzangari Bâz agar shâʿer nabâshad hich noqsâni fetad Dar nezâm-e ʿ âlam az ruy-e kherad gar bengari Âdami-râ chun maʿunat shart-e kâr-e sherkat-ast Nân ze-kannâsi khorad behtar bovad k-az shâʿeri Ân shenidasti ke nohsad kas bebâyad pishevar Tâ to nâdâneste-o bi âgahi nâni khori Khâled’s job would be incomplete without Jaʿfar’s: the one does the weaving, the other tills the land. But if there were no poets, nothing would be missed in the order of the world, if you look into it rationally. For his livelihood a man must do a useful job; To earn your bread as a sweeper is better than to be a poet. Have you never heard that nine hundred workmen are needed To allow you to eat your bread unknowingly?

Further on in this indictment of his own trade, he strikes a more serious note. Earning one’s living as a poet is to be condemned, both from a religious and a moral point of view, and also because it is harmful insofar as it affects your honor and your chances of eternal bliss: Man nayam dar hokm-e khwish az kâferihâ-ye sepehr Varna dar enkâr-e man che shâʿeri che kâferi

127

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Doshman-e jân-e man âmad sheʿr chand-ash parvaram Ey mosalmânân feghân az dast-e doshmanparvari Sheʿr dâni chist dur az ruy-e to heyz-al-rejâl Qâyel-ash gu khwâh Keyvân bâsh-o khwâhi Moshtari Tâ be maʿnihâ-ye bakr-ash nangari zirâ ke nist Heyz-râ dar mabda’-e fetrat gozir az dokhtari Gar ma-râ az shâʿeri hâsel hamin âr-ast-o bas Mowjeb-e towbe-st-o jây-e ânke divân bestari Through the heathen oppression (kâferihâ) of Fate I cannot control myself; Otherwise, what would I care about being a poet or a heathen? Poetry has become the enemy of my soul, should I nurture it any longer? O Moslems, cursed be the hand that nurtures my enemy! Do you know what poetry is? Disgusting male menstrual blood! No matter how exalted the composer; Be it Saturn or Jupiter! Do not take notice of its virginal ideas, for by law of nature, girls cannot escape from menstruation. As poetry has not brought me anything but dishonor, it is time for me to repent, to erase my collection of poems.

It is much better to follow the example of the lily (susan), to hold your tongue and withdraw into a solitary place: Garche susan sadzabân âmad chu khâmushi gozid Khatt-e âzâdi nebesht-ash gombad-e nilufari Although the lily has a thousand tongues, as she has chosen to be silent, The blue heavenly vault decreed that she should be set free.50

This kind of criticism, often amounting to an outright rejection of poetry as it was practiced at royal courts, is an idiosyncratic feature of Anvari’s poetry. It recurs in several of his informal epigrams, the 50 Divân, ed. Modarres-e Razavi, No. 184. The paradox of the lily having ten or a hundred tongues yet remaining silent is a frequent conceit. Khatt-e âzâdi is a certificate of manumission, the opposite of khatt-e gholâmi. The heavenly vault is understood to have the blue color of a waterlily (nilufar). A full English translation is presented in D. Meneghini’s essay, “Anvari Speaking of Poetry in His Qeṭʿes,” in D. Meneghini, ed., Studies on the Poetry of Anvari (Venice, 2006), pp. 37–76, especially pp. 38–40.

128

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS

moqattaʿ ât.51 Anvari contrasts this with his praise of intellectual and spiritual pursuits of a higher order: Mard-râ hekmat hami bâyad ke dâman girad-ash Tâ shefâ-ye Bu Ali binad na zhâzh-e Bohtori Wisdom should get a man in his grip; then he will see The sanity of Bu Ali, not the silly words of Bohtori.52

Anvari used to boast of his great knowledge of music, the natural sciences, mathematics, astrology, logic, philosophy, and music. In his panegyrics, traces of this learning can be found, through which he substantially extended the range of conventional themes and images. He was indeed the first Persian poet who could rightly be called a poeta doctus, a “learned poet,” and he set a new trend to be followed soon afterwards by poets in the western provinces of Iran such as Khâqâni and Nezâmi. Moreover, there was an increase in the use of Arabic vocabulary in his poems. These features were in later times recognized as part of the stylistic innovation known to modern literary historians as the Iraqi style (sabk-e Erâqi). Since Anvari has not left any scholarly works of his own, it is impossible to say whether the application of learned features to his verse by itself justifies the view that at heart he was a scholar who just could not fulfill his ambition, or in the words of Edward Browne: ­ poor Anwarí, scholar by taste and poet by profession … neither … content to share the scholar’s poverty, nor able to reconcile himself to the hollow insincerity of the courtier’s life … longing to follow in the steps of Avicenna, yet living the life of Abú Nuwás.53

The apparent contradiction between a long and successful career as a court poet on the one hand, and the scorn with which he treated 51 See Meneghini’s essay cited in the previous note, with many examples in translation. 52 Divân, ed. Modarres-e Razavi, Qaside No. 184; the allusions are to Abu Ali b. Sinâ (Avicenna)’s medical work al-Shefâ’ and the famous Arab poet Bohtori (821–97). 53 Browne, LHP II, p. 377. Abu Novâs (d. about 814) was an Arabic poet at the court of the Caliph Hârun al-Rashid, who was renowned for his outspoken love poems.

129

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

so often the very same profession on the other, has sometimes been explained by his biography. Towards the end of his life, Anvari would have realized how he had wasted his lifetime on an intrinsically worthless pursuit. After that, he would have left the court to end his life in solitary retirement. External data pointing to such a withdrawal are mainly to be found in traditional sources, and are therefore not entirely reliable. Moreover, his utterances condemning poetry are too many to be attributed to a brief period during which he is supposed to have written hardly any poetry at all. It seems more plausible to regard the theme of “condemning poetry” as an intrinsic part of Anvari’s literary repertoire. He was not the first to express these ideas. Earlier, we find them expressed by poets who stood more or less outside courtly life, such as Nâser-e Khosrow and Sanâʾi of Ghazna. In Anvari’s case, it seems to have become already a commonplace theme that counterbalanced the rhetoric of the panegyrics that the court poet was obliged to display in front of his patrons. As Julie Meisami has observed, what could be said in an informal poem was unfit for a panegyric written to please a patron.54 This does not mean that the content of the former consists of nothing but frivolous talk. It is more likely that such utterances are a sign of a development in the intellectual attitude of the Persian court poets towards their environment and their own craft. From this time onwards, they felt themselves freer to express ideas that went beyond, and even counter to, the—usually quite insincere—eulogies that were their normal stock-in-trade. The turn in the stylistic history of Persian literature known as the Iraqi style, in particular the increased use of learned lore and Arabic words and expressions in poetry, forms a part of the same development, in which Anvari seems to have played an important role. This is a subject that needs to be treated more thoroughly than is possible here. Nearly all his qasides were written as eulogies for one of his many patrons and contain extensive sections of praise. In several poems, the conventional prologue (nasib) is omitted and the poet starts at once with his eulogy (madih). This was not an innovation, however, for it occurs also in earlier poems, in particular in 54 Cited by Meneghini, “Anvari Speaking of Poetry in His Qeṭʿes,” p. 74.

130

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS

the divan of Abu’l-Faraj Runi, a poet in Ghaznavid Lahore of the late eleventh century, whom Anvari greatly admired and studied carefully.55 Another notable feature of his qasides is the insertion of a second opening line (matlʿ) by means of which a caesura in the poet’s discourse could be made very effectively.56 More striking than these structural features are the stylistic characteristics of Anvari’s verse. His language is comparatively simple, although he uses far more Arabic words and expressions than his predecessors. Sometimes, Anvari divides a line into short phrases, as in reporting a dialogue or adding a brief explanation of what he was saying. This provides his verse with a liveliness that is rare in classical Persian poetry.57 This simplicity of language stands in contrast to the notorious difficulty of his rhetorical expression. Already, an early critic like Owfi called his qasides both “artificial” and “natural.” The artificiality of Anvari’s style was caused by his ingenious use of metaphors exploiting the semantic potentials of the conventional imagery. From the set of rhetorical figures placed at his disposal by the literary tradition, he preferred semantic (maʿnavi) figures to those exploiting the phonetic features of words (lafzi). His favorite figures of speech were hyperbole (mobâlaghe) and poetic causality (or fantastic etiology, hosn-e taʿ lil). The difficulty of his vocabulary, his rhetoric, and his use of imagery have incited the writing of commentaries, the earliest of which was compiled in the sixteenth century. The best known is Sharh-e moshkelât-e Divân-e Anvari by Abu’l-Hasan Hoseyni Farâhâni, written about 1606 in Shiraz. Similar works were composed in subsequent centuries. As late as 1979, Seyyed Jaʿfar Shahidi wrote a commentary on traditional lines. The publication of this work, as well as Mohammad-Rezâ Shafiʿi-Kadkani’s volume Mofles-e kimiyâforush, composed with the aim to bring a famous poet from the past closer to the present generation of students, shows that even 55 Cf. Modarres-e Razavi’s introduction to Anvari’s Divân, ed. Modarres-e Razavi, I, pp. 104–7. 56 See Divân, Qasides No. 69, 75, 83, and 85. Also in this case older examples are extant in Ghaznavid poetry. 57 See the remarks by Shafiʿi-Kadkani in Mofles-e kimiyâforush, pp. 44–45.

131

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

today there is a need for guidance towards the difficult but rewarding works of this master of the qaside, who, together with Ferdowsi and Saʿdi, has been hailed as “one of the three prophets of poetry.”58 A fair evaluation of Anvari’s mastery of the qaside can only be made on the basis of his panegyrics. The following sketch of one of his eulogies, addressed to his most important patron, Sanjar, may serve as a specimen of his craftsmanship. To illustrate the structure of Anvari’s discourse, the poem is divided into its main four sections (A–D). A. Lines 1–11. Leaving out the conventional prologue (nasib) on a lyrical theme, the poet starts immediately with the first part of his eulogy (madih), in which the patron’s name is introduced in the second double verse: Gar del-o dast bahr-o kân bâshad Del-o dast-e khodâyegân bâshad Shâh Sanjar ke kamtarin bande-ash Dar jahân pâdeshâhneshân bâshad Pâdeshâh-e jahân ke farmân-ash Bar jahân chun qazâ ravân bâshad If heart and hand were ever a sea and a mine, They would be the heart and hand of the Great Lord: King Sanjar, whose lowest slave Is a king maker in this world;59 The ruler of the world whose decree Rules all over the world like Fate. [lines 1–3]

He talks about him in the third person, briefly characterizing him as an ideal ruler. The topics belong to the catalogue of the qualities of kingship followed by all panegyrical poets: the absolute rule, the king’s wealth and liberality, his military prowess, his absolute power over men and demons, and his justice. However, his majesty is also a dreadful force, insofar as his wrath destroys life on earth like the Angel of Death: 58 Cf. Browne, LHP II, pp. 116, 365. 59 Probably a reference to the hero Rostam, who is often qualified as a king maker in the Shâhnâme.

132

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS Ânke bâ dâgh-e tâʿat-ash zâyad Har ke z-abnâ-ye ens-o jân bâshad V-ânke bâ mohr-e khâzen-ash ruyad Harche z-ajnâs-e bahr-o kan bâshad Daste-ye khanjar-ash jahângir-ast Garche yak mosht-e ostekhwân bâshad Adl-ash ar bâ zamin be khashm shavad Amn birun-e âsmân bâshad Qahr-ash ar sâye bar jahân fekanad Zendegâni dar ân jahân bâshad Marg-râ dâyem az siyâsat-e u Tab-e larz andar ostekhân bâshad Man or demon, they are already born Branded with the mark of his allegiance. All that the sea and the mines produce Bears the seal of his treasurer. The handle of his dagger conquers the world, Though it is nothing but a piece of bone. If his justice is enraged by the earth There would be no safety left under the heavens. When his wrath casts its shadow over this world, There can only be life in that Other World. Death is so fearful of his chastisement That a fever keeps rattling His bones. [lines 4–9]

To this panegyric, the two most important trappings of Islamic kingship are added: the issue of coinage bearing the name of the ruler (sekke), and the laudatory insertion of his name in the sermon delivered during the communal intercessory prayers on Fridays (khotbe). The poetic description involves comparisons with items that are normally associated with royal status: his liberality and his treasury are symbolized by the sea and the mine; the emblem of his military superiority is the dagger. The dominant figure of speech applied to these similes is hyperbole. Abstract concepts are personified: Fate the patron is an absolute ruler whose decrees govern the entire world; in fact, even Death is afraid of his rulings when he sits in judgment. His role as a protector of his subjects is compared to a shadow, alluding to the Arabic dictum, zell Allâh ʿalâ’l-arż, “the king is the shadow of God on the Earth.” 133

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

B. Lines 12–36. The second and longest part of the eulogy consists of the poet’s direct address to the patron in the second person. The transition is made by means of a vocative: ey qazâ qodrati, “O mighty like Fate.” The same themes introduced succinctly in the first part of the eulogy are developed here in greater detail. The purpose of this second part is twofold: first, to elaborate and complete the portrayal of the patron as the Perfect Prince (and by implication also as the Perfect Man); secondly, to demonstrate the poet’s rhetorical skills and his metaphorical ingenuity. The latter forms the logical prelude to the request that follows in section C. The image of the patron as a mighty warrior is emphasized and pictured through forceful strokes of bold hyperbolic statements: Mi naguyam ke joz khodây kasi Hâlgardân-o gheybdân bâshad Guyam az raʾ-o râyat-at shab-o ruz Do athar dar jahân ayân bâshad Raʾy-e to râzhâ konad peydâ Ke ze-taqdir dar nehân bâshad Râyat-at fetnehâ konad penhân Ke cho andishe bi karân bâshad I do not say that besides God anyone Can change conditions and know hidden things. I only say that from your counsel and banner Two effects are clear in the world, day and night: Your counsel reveals the secrets, That are predetermined to remain hidden; Your banner does away with controversies The ends of which are beyond imagination [lines 14–17].

His benevolent rule is said to be the cause of the wellbeing of mankind and even of the existing world: Lotf-at ar mâye-ye vojud shavad Jesm-râ surat-e ravân bâshad Baʿs-at ar bâng bar zamâne zanad Gorg-râ sirat-e shabân bashad Would your kindness be the root of existence, The body would take the shape of the soul.

134

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS Would your boldness resound in the course of Time, If your severity would censure the ways of the world, The wolf would conduct itself like a shepherd. [lines 18–19]

This eulogy of the Sultan as a mighty warrior culminates in a battle scene: Ruz-e heyjâ ke az derakhsh-e senân Gard-râ kesvat-e dokhân bâshad Dar tan-e azhdahâ-ye râyathâ-yesh Bâd-râ eʿtedâl-e jân bâshad Shir-e gardun chu aks-e shir dar âb Pey-ash shir-e alam setân bâshad Ham enân-e amal sabok shavad Ham rekâb-e ajal gerân shavad Har sabu k-az ajal shekaste shaved Bar lab-e chashme-ye senân bâshad Har kamin k-az qazâ goshâde shavad Az pas-e qabze-ye kamân bâshad Ashk bar derʿ hâ-ye simâbi Naskhat-e râh-e kahkashân bâshad In the heat of the battle, when the flickering of spears Covers the dust with a garment of smoke,60 The wind blows the equilibrium of life Into the bodies of the dragons on your banners.61 The heavenly Lion, like a lion’s reflection in the water, Has fallen to earth at the feet of the [heraldic] lions on his flags. The reins of hope are slackened As the stirrups of Death become weightier.62 Every pitcher broken by Death Has been drinking at the fountain of [your] lances.63 60 Shafiʿi-Kadkani paraphrases: “makes the dust of the battlefield look like smoke.” 61 I. e., the equilibrium of the natural elements in a healthy living body. The wind breathes life in the heraldic creatures on the Sultan’s banners. 62 According to Shafiʿi-Kadkani, referring respectively to “the free gallop of the horse,” and “the rider’s driving his horse;” expectations are given free rein as the deadly attacks of the riders gain force. 63 A pun on on the words chashme, “fountain” and chashm, “eye”; the lances are like the sharp points of the eyelashes by which a beloved “kills” the lover.

135

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Every ambush that Fate has laid Follows upon [your] grip of a bow. The tears streaming over quicksilver mails Look like a copy of the Galaxy. [lines 24–30]

Besides the features of a secular ruler, religious motifs have also been used, apparently to emphasize the role of Sanjar as a guardian of the Muslim community: the eulogy abounds in personifications of Death, Fate, the Resurrection, Victory, and the Heavens. C. Lines 37–43. A sketch of the poet’s personal situation (hasb-e hâl) introduces a request (talab) from the patron. Again, the transition to this part of the qaside is marked by a vocative (khosrovâ, “O Khosrow”).64 Having waited for ten years at the periphery, he begs to be admitted as one of the regular poets at Sanjar’s court. If these lines are interpreted literally as biographical information, the poem marks an important moment at the start of Anvari’s career. D. 44–50. Concluding prayer (doʿ â) for the patron’s wellbeing and longevity. The conclusion of this qaside has an unusual length. In a grand finale, it continues the eulogy and the exhibition of the poet’s talents by means of another series of striking metaphors in the conventional enumeration of assurances for the permanence of the patron’s flourishing state: Khotbehâ râ zabân be dhekr-to tar Tâ mamarr-e sokhan dahân bâshad Sekke-hâ râ dahân be nâm-e to bâz Tâ ze zar dar jahân neshân bâshad Moddat-at lâzem-e zamân-o makân Tâ zamân lâzem-e makân bâshad Hemmat-at molkbakhsh-o maleksetân Tâ be giti deh-o setân bâshad Dar jahân molk-e jâvodân-at bâd Khod chonin molk jâvodân bâshad 64 The name of the mythical king Khosrow could be used for any ruler, like the name of Caesar in the West.

136

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS May tongues be refreshed by preaching for you,65 As long as anywhere words are spoken. May the coins loudly proclaim your name As long as any gold is found in the world. Your longevity may be connected to Time and Place As long as Time and Place stick together. Your zeal may give and take kingship As long as any giving and taking takes place on earth. May you govern the world eternally, Just as long as government is eternal.66 [lines 47–50]

Anvari’s poetical skills also include the descriptive artistry that had been a prominent feature of Persian court poetry ever since Ghaznavid times. In a recent study of description (vasf) in his divan, Asghar Seyed-Gohrab lists a great number of such passages, all serving as prologues to a panegyric. They derive their subjects from nature in spring or in autumn, from the cosmos (the heavenly spheres and the signs of the Zodiac), and especially from the environment of the court in which he spent most of his life: palaces; pavilions; pleasure gardens; audiences; and horses. The praise of the city of Baghdad that introduces a qaside addressed to the Atabeg of Mosul is striking, and is probably connected to the poet’s plan to travel to the west and perform the pilgrimage to Mecca.67 This description of vernal nature in Anvari follows the conventions of the Ghaznavid poets, but it is far more than a simple imitation. The poet displays his extraordinary descriptive skill by his handling of metaphors that belong to the common stock of Persian nature poetry. Apart from the hyperbole usually involved in his statements, a prominent role is given to the rhetorical figure of poetic etiology (hosn-e taʿ lil), in which fantastic causes are attributed to the events happening in nature during the season of spring. This rhetorical figure has been defined by Hellmut Ritter with respect to the manneristic style of Nezâmi, 65 I. e., by holding a khotbe, the Friday sermon spoken in the name of the ruler of the realm. 66 Divân, ed. Modarres-e Razavi, Qaside No. 60. 67 Cf. A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, “Description (wasf ) and Ekphrasis in Anvari’s Poetry,” in Studies on the Poetry of Anvari, pp. 111–26.

137

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

such that “in almost every line a spatial, temporal or physiological correlation is newly interpreted as a phantastic one.”68 The latter, alternative correlation is presented as the “real” cause of the connection between the two items. Accordingly, Anvari applies this device to various aspects of vernal nature in this nasib. The poetic reasons adduced fall into a number of categories: 1. [sound and movement] The waving of cypress is seen as a dance caused by the song of the nightingale [line 6]; 2. [moisture and scent] by emptying its bladder, the musk-deer gave to the soil the moisture and scent of amber and benzoin [line 7]; 3. [colors] a playful cause explains why the flowers gave their colors to the water of the brook, namely the use of “washable” colors by the wind when it painted the flowers [line 8].69 Some of the poet’s constructions are particularly manneristic in their use of imagery, e. g., in Anvari’s picture of the melting snow on the mountains.70 The process by which the white cloth of snow is removed from the mountain tops is described in a series of metaphors derived from mineralogy (diamonds) and meteorology (hail storms in early spring), as well as a reference to epic lore (Rostam’s bow). Bâdâm do maghz-ast ke az khanjar-e almâs Nâdâde lab-ash buse sarâpâ-ye fasân-râ Zhâle separ-e barf bebord az ketf-e kuh Chun Rostam-e Neysân be kham âvard kamân-râ Ke beyze-ye kâfur ziyân kard-o gowhar sud Bini ke che sud-ast mar-in mâye ziyân-râ The mountain was split into an almond with two nuts By diamond daggers that never kissed the lips of the whetstone.71 68 H. Ritter, Über die Bildersprache Niẓāmīs (Berlin, 1927), p. 7: “… dass fast in jedem Vers ein räumlicher, zeitlicher oder physiologischer Zusammenhang in einen neuen phantastischen umgedeut wird.” 69 The expression khâm bastan used here by Anvari refers to the application of an easily removable paint instead of a paint that would stick permanently. 70 Divân, ed. Modarres-e Razavi, Qaside No. 5, p. 9, ll. 11–13. 71 In this intricate conceit, the “diamond daggers” are the rays of the sun piercing the snow that are sharpened though not by rubbing them against a whetstone.

138

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS The hail lifted the shield of snow from the mountain’s shoulders When the Rostam of April (Nisân) tended his bow. The mountain lost its egg of camphor, but grinded the pearls.72 See how a loss can be turned into a profit! [lines 11–13]

Another example is his explanation for the outpouring of rain from the clouds, which is conventionally welcomed as the bringer of wholesome showers in springtime: Az ghâyat-i tarri ke havâ-râ-st ajab nist Gar khâssiyat-e abr dehad tabʿ-e dokhân-râ Gar nâyezhe-ye abr nashod pâk boride Chun hich enân bâz napichad seylân-râ Var abr na dar dâyegi-ye tefl-e shokufe-st Yâzân suy-e abr az che goshâd-ast dahân-râ The air has become so moist, it would not be surprising If the clouds have merged their proper nature into the fog. If the drainpipe [or: the throat] of the clouds had not been cut completely, How could the bridle of the floods had gone so much out of hands? And if the clouds were not nursing the blossoms like children, Why would their mouths be widely open towards the clouds? [lines 14–16]

Anvari introduces much more “learned” arguments than his predecessors, including Moʿezzi. An example from the sphere of physics is the explanation for the revival of vegetation by the release of “fumes from the earth” (jamre) [line 3 a]. In an elaborate legal argument, reasoning is provided for the succession of the seasons, autumn, and spring: the meadow acts as the representative of the nightingale, who at the arrival of spring deposes his claim for the return of the rose: Dar bâgh chaman zâmen-e gol gasht ze-bolbol Ân ruz ke âvâze fekandand khazân-râ Aknun chaman-e bâgh gereftast taqâzâ Âri badal–e khasm begirand zamân-râ 72 The piles of snow, white as camphor, melt down producing droplets of clear water, like pearls that are ground down; from the stem sud of the verb sudan, “to grind,” the alternative meaning “profit” is used to make the connection with its logical opposite “loss” (ziyân) in the second half-verse.

139

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA In the garden the meadow gave pledges for the return of the rose To the nightingale when autumn was heralded. Now the meadow brings his claim before the garden; Yes, instead of the opponent the pledge is taken. [lines 4–5]

The transition from the prologue to the eulogy is made through linking an element from the natural world to an item symbolizing the military exploits of the patron, i. e., the tender reddish reeds of spring are compared to the spears tainted by the blood of the king’s enemies: Ney ramh-e bahâr-ast ke dar maʿrake kardast Az khwun-e del-e doshman-e shah laʿ l-e senân râ The reeds are the spearmen of Spring which it has sent to the battlefield; Ruby [hues] on the heads of their spears is blood from the heart of the King’s enemy. [line 18]

The task of the Persian court poet was not limited to composing eulogies at certain ceremonial occasions at court. He was also a member of the royal household and took part in its less official gatherings. To this end, he was expected to contribute to the entertainment poems in the less formal genres, such as ghazals, quatrains, and other topical poetry. The divan of Anvari, in which the latter are preserved in sizable numbers, provides an excellent view of the variety of tasks as they are expressed in his literary output. In some cases, his qasides show other aspects of his artistic life. As Paola Orsatti has argued, several of these poems are more than obligatory compositions of the ceremonial kind. They contain passages of a personal interest to the poet, which make them look like exchanges of correspondence between poet and patron.73 An example is the qaside addressed to the vizier Nâser-al-Mella va’l-Din Abu’l-Fath Tâher. In the opening passage, Anvari strikes a didactic note that one would not expect in a panegyric: “If Destiny was not turning over the conditions of all those who are in this world / why would the course of things be so unsatisfactory?” 73 Cf. P. Orsatti, “Anvari’s Qaṣides as Letters and the Problem of Identifying the Addressee,” in Studies on the Poetry of Anvari, pp. 79–109.

140

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS

The nasib thus introduced is a complaint of the tyranny of Destiny or Fate, a personification that controls all the good and bad things that happen to the creatures in this world. Therefore, all our deliberations turn out to be at fault. Of the thousand pictures painted by Fate, not a single one is in accordance with our own imagination. No one can explain why this is so, because the workings of the painter of happenings (i. e., the Divine Creator) are beyond any reasoning. In the transition to the eulogy, these abstract thoughts are applied to a specific situation. The poet has been unable to visit the patron’s court by an “accident” (hâdethe)—perhaps a physical impediment. Fate (zamâne) had chained his feet. Now, the poet makes his excuses: Be dast hâdethe bandi nehâd bar pây-am Ke hamchu hâdethe gâhi nehân-o gah peydâ-st Sabok be surat-o chunân gerân be qovvat-e tabʿ Ke posht-e tâqat-am az bâr-e u hamishe dotâ-st Nazar be hile ze-aʿzâ jodâ nami konad-ash Ke-râ-st band bar aʿzâ ke ân ham az aʿzâ-st Asâ-st pâ-yam-o dar shart-e âfarinesh-e khalq Shenide-i ke kasi-râ be jây-e pây asâ-st Agarche del hadaf-e tir-o mehnat-ast-o gham-ast Va-garche tan separ-e tigh-e âfat-ast-o balâ-st Ze-ruzgâr khosh-ast in hame joz ânke lab-am Ze dastbus-e khodâvand-e ruzgâr jodâ-st. Through an accident [Fate] has put chains on my feet; Which, like all accidents, are at times hidden, at times visible. They are light in form, yet heavy through the force of my nature; The back of my strength is constantly bent down by their weight. Insight knows no trick to remove them from my limbs; Has anyone had chains on his limbs that consist of the limbs themselves? My legs are sticks; have ever sticks been created instead of a pair of legs? Although the heart is a target to the arrows of affliction and sorrow, And the body a shield against the sword of misery and trial. All this is good fortune compared to this: that my lips Are unable to kiss the hand of the Lord of Fortune.74 74

Divân, ed. Modarres Razavi, Qaside No. 18, ll. 17–21.

141

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

The repertoire of the court poet naturally also included the writing of an elegy (marthiye) in times of mourning. Although the form of a Persian elegy could vary according to the circumstances, certain stylistic features and motifs can be noticed that could be said to be characteristics of this genre. In a qaside mourning the decease of Majd-al-Din Abi Tâleb, who was the head of the community of the descendants of the Prophet (Seyyed al-sâdât) in the city of Balkh, Anvari opens with such a motif—the device of “feigned ignorance”—of a funerary discourse: Shahr por fetne-o por mashghale-o por ghowghâ-st Seyyed-o sadr-e jahân bâr nadâd-ast kojâ-st Dir shod dir ke khorshid-e falak ruy namud Chist emruz ke khorshid-e zamin nâpeydâ-st Bârgâh-ash ze bozorgân-o ze aʿyân por shod U na bar âdat-e khod ruy nehân karde che-râ-st Dush goftand ke ranjurtarak bud âri Bâr nâdâdan-ash emruz bar ân qowl gavâh-ast Pardedârâ to yaki dar show-o ahvâl bedân Tâ chegune-st be hosh hast ke delhâ darvâ-st ­… Var chonân-ast ke hâli-st na bar vefq-e morâd Khod magu barg-e niyushidan-e in hâl ke-râ-st The town is full of discord, full of turmoil, full of uproar; The Master and Ruler of the world does not grant an audience, where is he? Already long, long ago the sun of the heavens has shown its face; Why is the Sun of the Earth nowhere to be seen today? His court has been filled with grandees and notable people; But he has not shown himself, this is most unlike him. Yesterday it was rumored that he was not quite well; The fact that he does not sit in court today confirms this. Chamberlain, go inside to see what has happened to him! How is he? Is he still conscious? Our hearts are very worried. ­… If you find that the situation is not as one would like, Do not tell us, because who could bear to hear this?75 75 Divân, ed. Modarres Razavi, Qaside No. 19, ll. 1–5, 8. The same device was used already in Farrokhi’s famous elegy on the death of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna; see further: J. T. P. de Bruijn, EIr, s. v. Elegy.

142

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS

In the second half of the twelfth century, the political stability of the Saljuq empire started to decline. As a consequence, the central court of the Great Sultans became less and less important as the mainstay of court poetry, and by the end of the century it had entirely lost this function. Although this was a gradual process, there was a dramatic event that could be seen is a turning point. In 1153, Sultan Sanjar tried in vain to withhold an invasion of the rebellious Ghuzz, a Turkish tribe related to the Saljuqs, who had continued their nomadic way of life in western Central Asia. They had risen against the tax collectors of the sultan, and threatened to march on his residence in Marv and to assault other cities in Khorasan. After being defeated by the Ghuzz, Sanjar was captured together with his army commanders. Whereas many of the Turkish officers and members of the religious elite were slaughtered, the sultan himself was spared and treated with the respect due to his royal status: “They placed Sanjar on a throne each day and, initially at least, kept up the pretense that he was the master and they his obedient slaves.”76 After an abortive attempt to escape, however, he was put into an iron cage. Only in 1156 did Sanjar manage to escape from the hands of the Ghuzz. His death one year later ended one of the longest reigns in Islamic history. The resulting havoc inflicted upon Khorasan by these invaders is reflected in Anvari’s most famous topical poem. As early as the eighteenth century, it became well known in Europe through a translation by Captain William Kirkpatrick, published under the heading “Tears of Khorasan.”77 Anvari wrote this qaside probably in 1155 as a plea to Rokn-al-Din Qilij Tamghâj Khan, the ruler of Samarqand, to intervene and put an end to the sufferings of the people of Khorasan. E. G. Browne translated the following two fragments, keeping closer to the original than his predecessors: 76 C. E. Bosworth, CHIr V (1968), p. 154. 77 W. Kirkpatrick, tr., “The Tears of Khorasan,” in The Asiatick Miscellany (Calcutta, 1785), I, pp. 286–310. A free rendering was later made by E. H. Palmer, for his anthology Song of the Reed (London, 1877), pp. 55–62; cf. Browne, LHP II, p. 384–89, who compared the two English translations adding his own literal translations of fragments. For the orginal poem see Divân, ed. Modarres Razavi, No. 82, I, pp. 201–8.

143

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA O morning breeze, if thou passest by Samarqand, Bear to the Prince the letter of the people of Khorasan; A letter whose opening is grief of body and affliction of soul, A letter whose close is sorrow of spirit and burning of heart, A letter in whose lines the sighs of the miserable are manifest, A letter in whose folds the blood of the martyrs is concealed, The characters of its script dry as the bosoms of the oppressed, The lines of address moist from the eyes of the sorrowful; Whereby the auditory channel is wounded at the time of hearing, Whereby the pupil of the eye is turned to blood at the time of looking! ­… O’er the great ones of the age the small are lords, O’er the nobles of the world the mean are chiefs; At the doors of the ignoble the well-born stand sad and bewildered, In the hands of libertines the virtuous are captive and constrained. Thou seest no man glad save at the door of Death, Thou seest no girl a maiden save in her mother’s womb. The chief mosque of each city for their beasts Is a resting place, whereof neither roof nor door is visible. Nowhere [it is true] do they read the khutba in the name of the Ghuzz, For in all Khorasan there is neither preacher nor pulpit.78

In the east, the patronage of court poetry was taken over by the Khwârazmshâhs, who from being governors for the Saljuqs had developed into an independent dynasty, extending their power first to Khorasan and in the early thirteenth century further into Persia. The leading poet at their court was Rashid-al-Din Mohammad Omari, better known by his nickname Vatvât, “the Bat” (d. 1177 or 1182). He was a highly influential poet who communicated with several poets living outside the lands ruled by the Khwârazmshâhs. He is also the author of Hadâ’eq al-sehr fi daqâ’eq al-sheʿr (The Gardens of Magic on the Niceties of Poetry), one of the most authoritative handbooks of Arabic and Persian poetics.79 The most striking development, however, was the shift of literary Persian language and poetry to the areas west of Khorasan. In spite of the Iranian background of the Buyids, vernacular poetry 78 Browne, ibid. The Persian text is contained in Anvari’s Divân, ed. Modarres-e Razavi, Qaside No. 82, I, pp. 201–3. 79 On the Hadâ’eq al-sheʿr, see N. Chalisova in HPL I (2009), pp. 151–58.

144

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS

had not yet made much progress under their rule, although some early Persian poets are known to have attended the court of their vizier Sâheb b. Abbâd (d. 995) at Rayy, a famous center of Arabic literary culture.80 From the eleventh century, the name of Qatrân could be mentioned, who died in 1072 or 1092 at Tabriz. About the same time, Asadi of Tus made an effort to make the idioms of eastern Persian poetry better known to the west through his dictionary Loghat al-fors (The Vocabulary of the Persians). From the middle of the twelfth century, prospective court poets increasingly sought the patronage of local rulers outside Khorasan. At these smaller courts, poets could not easily secure a permanent position fulfilling their aspirations, and so they were forced to travel from one center to another. The Caspian coastal areas, Isfahan in the center of Persia, and northwestern Azerbaijan became the places where one would try one’s luck as an ambitious encomiast.

6. Zahir of Fâryâb A poet whose biography exemplifies this new condition of the profession was Zahir-al-Din Abu’l-Fazl Tâher b. Mohammad, who used Zahir as his pen name. He was born about 1156 in the small town of Fâryâb (modern Dowlatâbâd), not far from Balkh. His first employment as a poet was in the service of Azod-al-Din Toghânshâh, a local ruler of Nishapur. In 1186, his patron died and he moved on to Isfahan. At the time, Isfahan was not a place to seek royal patronage, for the function was partly taken over by Islamic scholars who also exercised political power in the city. However, Zahir soon looked around for a more promising position and found it in the coastal area of the Caspian Sea, at the court of Hosâmal-Dowle Ardashir (r. 1173–1206) of the Shiʿite Bâvandi dynasty. With the consent of this patron, he headed west to Azerbaijan and finally settled down as the encomiast of the Turkish Eldigüzid (or Ildigizid) Atabegs. He wrote panegyrics for three successive rulers 80 Rypka, HIL, p. 112.

145

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

of this house, most notably for Nosrat-al-Din Abu Bakr (r. 1191– 1210). It is said that towards the end of his life, he retired from the court to live at Tabriz, where he died in 1201. He was buried in the “graveyard of the poets” in nearby Sorkhâb, where Khâqâni and other poets were also laid to rest.81 Shortly after his death, his poems were assembled by the poet Shams Sojâsi (d. 1205), who was probably also the author of a prose introduction preserved in some manuscripts of Zahir’s divan.82 The qasides are the best-preserved part of his collected poetry, although in an early printed edition of Zahir’s divan there has been some confusion with the divan of a contemporary, the poet Shams-e Tabasi.83 His reputation as a writer of qasides was still considerable in the thirteenth century, when Majd-e Hamgar (d. 1279) placed his panegyric style on a par with Anvari.84 His models were no longer the qasides of the great Ghaznavid poets; instead, he followed the new style with its Arabisms, learned allusions, and rhetorical mannerisms that around the mid-twelfth century was developed by Anvari, Khâqâni, and other poets of Azerbaijan. The anthologist Owfi, a near-contemporary of his, praised Zahir’s eloquence and remarked that “his poetry was sought after by preachers (khatibân) and bought by kings in Iraq [i. e., the western areas of Persia, called ‘Persian’ Iraq].” The first of the three qasides by Zahir cited by Owfi has a lengthy nasib, which is a display of didactic themes after the manner of Sanâʾi of Ghazna. In spite of its moralizing introduction, the qaside is a secular panegyric addressed to a vizier. The poet describes a visionary experience at daybreak. He is addressed by the maidens of Paradise, who warn him not to linger in this transient realm, since there is another place where he might enjoy himself better. He should be aware that he lives in a dangerous environment, as no more than a guest among strangers. He should be careful, because they might suddenly have enough of him and 81 Cf. de Blois, PL V, pp. 557–61. E. G. Browne devoted a long section to Zahir (calling him “Dhahír”) in LHP, II, pp. 412–25 with several translated fragments. 82 De Blois, ibid., p. 536. 83 Safâ, TADI II, p. 837. 84 Rypka, HIL, p. 209.

146

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS

turn against him. To prove their point, the maidens describe to him how humans are exploiting and oppressing other beings: Bebin ke tâ shekam-at sir-o tan-at pushide-st Che mâye jânvar-and az to khaste-o ranjur Che bârhâ-st ze-to bar tan-e sovâm-o havâm Che dâghhâ-st ze-to bar del-e vohush-o toyur Be dasht janvari khâr mikhorad ghâfel To tiz mikoni az bahr-e salb-e u sâtur Konâg-e chand zaʿ ifi ze-khun-e del betanad Be mahfel âri k-in atlas-ast-o ân seyfur Bedân tamaʿ ke dahân khosh koni ze ghâyat-e hers Neshaste-i motarassed ke qey konad zambur Ze-kerm-e morde kafan bar kashi-o dar poshi Miyân-e ahl-e morovvat ke dârad-at maʿ dhur Be vaqt-e ruz shavad hamchu sobh maʿ lum-at Ke bâ ke bâkhte-i eshq dar shab-e deyjur Be bâde dast meyâlây k-ân hame khun-ast Ke qatre qatre chekida-st az del-e angur Look how many living beings have to suffer So that you may fill your stomach and clothe your body; How many burdens you load onto all kinds of creatures, How much pain birds and beasts suffer because of you! A beast is grazing unaware on the plain While you sharpen your carving knife to skin it. A tender silk worm spins threads with its heart’s blood For you to flaunt in public your satin, and fine brocade. In order to gratify your gluttonous appetite You are stalking the bees until they start to spew. You rob the shrouds of dead caterpillars to put them on. Which chivalrous man would not condemn this? When the sun rises it will become clear as daylight to you With whom you have made love during the dark night. Do not touch wine, for it is nothing but the blood Trickling down from the heart of the grape, drop by drop.

These words did not fail to have their effect on the poet. He repents from his life of pleasure: Del-e marâ chu garibân gerefte jadhbe-ye haqq Feshând dâman-e hemmat be khâkdân-e ghorur

147

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Beshod ze khâter-am andishe-ye mey-o maʿshuq Beraft az sar-am âvâz-e barbat-o tambur Ze har che kardam-o goftam konun pashimân-am Be joz doʿ â-o thanâ-ye khodâyegân-e sodur Vazir-e mashreq-o maghreb Nasir-e Dowlat-o Din Ke bâd raʿyat-e âli-yash tâ abad mansur85 My heart was seized by this Divine attraction; Resolutely it abandoned this ash-heap full of vanity and deceit. I put both wine and sweetheart out of my mind, And no longer care for the sound of lutes and drums. I have repented now from everything I did and said Except the prayer and praise of the High Lord of the notables, The minister of East and West, Nasir-e Dowlat-o Din, Whose high standard be forever victorious!

7. Two Qaside Poets in Isfahan Under the Great Saljuqs, Isfahan had been one of the foremost political and cultural centers in the Persian lands. Even today, the architectural monuments dating from Saljuq times bear witness to this glorious phase in the history of the city, notably the impressive Friday Mosque. Given the lack of a strong central authority after the death of Sultan Sanjar, local forces vied with each other to fill the power vacuum. Their claim to political dominance was based on the authority they possessed as religious scholars and holders of the Islamic judiciary office of a qadi. There were two rival factions, split according to their adherence to a particular school of Islamic Law: the Shafi’ites, led by scholars of the Khojandi family, on the one hand, and the Hanafites controlled by the Sâʿedi clan, on the other. The factions lived in separate quarters of Isfahan. Their controversies were fierce, and 85 Owfi, Lobâb al-albâb, ed. Browne, II, pp. 298,17–307,10. On Zahir’s poems see also Amir Hasan Âbedi, “Ashʿâr-e tâze az Zahir Fâryâbi,” in ­Nâmvâr-­ye doktor Afshâr VI, eds. I. Afshâr and K. Esfahâniân (Tehran, 1991), pp. 3561–91.

148

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS

not only fought out in words, but also occasionally in violent confrontations.86 These communal leaders not only assumed the powers of secular rulers, but also arranged their social life in a fashion usually associated with the life of a royal court. The Hanafite Sâʿedis in particular distinguished themselves as patrons of court poetry. They were fortunate in attracting the services of two outstanding poets, father and son, who were able to acquire a permanent place in Persian literary history, particularly in the development of the courtly qaside.

Jamâl-al-Din Mohammad The father, Jamâl-al-Din Mohammad b. Abd-al-Razzâq, was born in Isfahan, at an unknown date, in a family of artisans, and died there most probably in 1192. According to his own statement and that of his son, who devoted a qaside to his memory, he was at first a goldsmith (zargar) and a painter (naqqâsh). He left these trades to study at a madrasa, acquiring a thorough training in the Islamic sciences and Arabic. Eventually, he found employment as a poet patronized by the qadi Rokn-al-Din Masʿud, the head of the Sâʿedi clan. Most of his life was spent in his home town, apart from occasional trips to the Ildegizid court in Azerbaijan and perhaps to the Bâvandi rulers of Mazandaran. He dedicated a few eulogies to them as well as to some of the later Saljuq sultans, presumably to probe the possibilities of a more lucrative literary career. Interesting too are his contacts with the most prominent poets of his age: he wrote poems addressed to Khâqâni, Anvari, and Zahir, as well as to the Khwârazmshâhi poet Rashid-al-Din Vatvât. He further declared his admiration for the older poet Hasan of Ghazna, also known as Seyyed Ashraf. However, his most obvious model was 86 This period in the history of Isfahan is studied by D. Durand-Guédy in his Iranian Elites and Turkish Rulers. A History of Isfahan in the Saljūq Period (Abingdon, 2010). See also S. Nafisi, “Khânedân-e Sâʿediyyân,” in Mélanges d’orientalisme offerts à Henri Massé (Tehran, 1963), pp. 85–101; M. Glünz, Die panegyrische qaṣīda bei Kamāl ud-dīn Ismā’īl aus Isfahan (Stuttgart, 1993), pp. 10–11.

149

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Sanâʾi of Ghazna, some of whose homiletic qasides he tried to emulate, though he did not reach the high standard of his predecessor.87 About his personal life we know very little, beside the fact that he had two sons and his own admission that he suffered from a speech impediment.88 Vahid Dastgerdi, who edited Jamâl-al-Din’s divan, complains of the poor state of the textual tradition. Especially in the older manuscripts, the poems often contain fewer lines than in later copies. This underlines the necessity for a critical edition that could take into account the medieval material that is still available.89 The style of his qasides is described by Dhabih-Allâh Safâ as “free from artificiality, fluent, easy, and simple” (khâli as takallof va ravân va sahl va sâde). These characteristics distinguish him from the other, more sophisticated poets of the qaside in his age. He was also a talented writer of ghazals, and is regarded as an important precursor of Saʿdi.90 Besides his panegyrics, he left many homiletic poems with complaints about the tyranny of Time (ruzgâr), warnings of approaching death, and descriptions of the Resurrection and the Last Judgment. As in the case of his model Sanâʾi of Ghazna, these themes are not strictly speaking Sufi, but express ideas about Muslim piety that would have been highly appreciated by his scholarly patrons. The following fragment of a qaside without a panegyric contains several eschatological motifs: Nedâ rasad suy-e ajzâ-ye marg-farsude Ke chand khwâb-e fanâ gar nakhorde-id afyun Berun jahand ze-katm-e adam ezâm-e ramim Ke mânde bud be matmure-ye adam masjun Hami gerâyad har jozʾ suy-e markaz-e khwish Ke hich jozʾ nagardad ze digari maghbun Ezâm suy-e ezâm-o oruq suy-e oruq Oyun be suy-e oyun-o jofun be suy-e jofun 87 Foruzânfar, Sokhan va sokhanvarân, pp. 547–78. 88 See further D. Durand-Guédy, in EIr, s. v. Kamāl al-Din Esfahāni. 89 Ostâd Jamâl-al-Din, Divân-e kâmel, ed. H. V. Dastgerdi (Tehran, 1941, reprint 1983). The ten manuscripts on which this edition is based are not specified. Cf. also de Blois, PL V, pp. 345–48. 90 Safâ, TADI II, pp. 731–40.

150

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS Be eqtezâ-ye maqâdir moltaʿem gardand Na hich jozʾ be noqsân na hich jozʾ fozun A Call will go out to the limbs withered by death: “Enough of this deadly sleep! Did you swallow opium?” The corrupted bones will jump forward from the non-being’s hiding,91 After lying incarcerated in the cavern of non-being. Every limb will move towards the centre to which it belongs, No limb part will be mistaken in finding its other part. Bones will go to bones, vessels be connected to vessels; Eyes will find eyes, eyelids will join eyelids. They will come together as it has been decreed, No part left wanting, no part too many.92

However, the genres of admonition and eulogy do often go together in Jamâl-al-Din’s poetry. He situates his pessimistic view of human endeavor in a cosmological context in a lengthy litany leading up to the praise of one of his patrons by the name of Shehâb-al-Din Khâles: Bengarid in charkh-o estilâ-ye u Bengarid in dahr-o in abnâ-ye u Mehnat-e man az falak hamchun falak Nist peydâ maqtaʿ-o mabdâ-ye u ­… Mi nagardad joz be âb-e chashm-ye man In sepehr-e âsyâ-âsây-e u Bâsh tâ az sarsar-e qahr-e fanâ Bar sar âyad dowr-e jânfarsâ-ye u Bâsh tâ seham-e qiyâmat bogsalad Chambar-e in târom-e mina-ye u Bâsh tâ az mowj-e daryâ-ye adam Âb girad markaz-e ghabrâ-y u Bash tâ ârâm girad âqebat Jumbesh-e in gumbad-e khazrây-e u Look at this Heavenly Wheel and its tyranny, Look at Time and its progeny: I am tortured by the Spheres (Falak) as if by a bastinado (falak); 91 “Reviver of the corrupted bones” (Mohyi-ye ezâm-e ramim) at the Resurrection is an epithet of Jesus. 92 Jamâl-al-Din, Divân, ed. Dastgerdi, pp. 278–81.

151

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA With neither its ending, or beginning in sight. It is going round and round only through the water from my eyes, This Celestial Globe (sepehr), just like a mill. Wait till the stormy violence of annihilation Will put to a hold its circulation that wears out life; Wait till the arrows of the Resurrection tear apart The circling ring of its azure dome. Wait till the waves of the ocean of non-being Will bring water to its earthen centre. Wait till it will finally come to rest, the movement of its green cupola.

Deplorable in particular is the ever-deteriorating fate of the talented writer: Har kojâ bini honarmandi ke hast Gush-e gardun por gohar z-enshâ-ye u Az miyân-e mowj-e khun âyad berun Noktehâ-ye naghz-e jânafzây-e vey Tiretar az pâr mar emsâl-e vey Battar az emruz mar fardâ-ye u Wherever you find a man of skill and talent who has Filled the ears of Heaven with the jewels of his writings, Know that only from torrents of blood do emerge Those fine, life-enhancing maxims of his. Worse than last year is his present year, Worse than today will be his tomorrow.

Even the Heavenly bodies, who represent the archetypes of his creative powers, are themselves in an inferior status according to the fanciful interpretations of their situation by our poet: Moshtari gar teylasân dârad che sud Hendu-yi beneshaste bar bâlây-e u V-ar Atâred khâme-yi dârad che sud Zir pây-e Motrebi shod jây-e u If Jupiter wears the hood of a learned man, what good is this?93 When above him a Hindu slave is enthroned. 93 Teylasân, the headgear and scarf (covering the head and the shoulders) distinguishing a religious scholar.

152

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS And if Mercury holds the pen, what good is this? When he is placed under the feet of a Minstrel.94

As the poem continues, it becomes clear that the real target of Jamâl-al-Din’s criticism is the place of the poet in a courtly ambiance. Although this the place where he can seek the benefits of patronage and his art can flourish, it comes with the price of having to suffer penury and humiliation. Also, the birds which are emblematic of such a princely environment are shown to be really in a servile condition: Bolbol inak mafrash az gol sâkht-ast Varche sadlahn-ast dar âvây-e u Pishe-ye seyd ar bedân âmukht bâz Tâ shavad dast-e shahân maljâ-ye u Lâ jaram bâshad hamishe gorosne Dukhte ham narges-e binâ-ye u Tuti az manteq agar dam mizanad Shod hesâr-e âhanin ma’vâ-ye u The nightingale must make a nest of clay95 Although he holds a hundred melodies in his throat. Has the falcon only learned the art of hunting To rely on the support of the hands of kings? No wonder that he is always hungry: The narcissus of his sight has been sewn. Though the parrot is proud of his speech, He is confined to live in an iron fortress.96

In another qaside concerned with the poet’s situation, he elaborates on the theme of “self-praise” (fakhriye), a license of the professional eulogist who had to bring his professional merits to the attention of patron: 94 The black Hindu slave is the planet Saturn; the planets Venus and Mercury are respectively associated with music and minstrelsy, and with scribes and writers. 95 Reading gel, “clay,” instead of gol, “rose,” the editor Dastgerdi takes this line to mean that in spite of all its talents as a singer, the nightingale has to make its nest out of clay. 96 Ibid., pp. 314–16.

153

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Man-am ke gowhar-e tabʿ-e man-ast kân-e sokhan Man-am ke zende be lafz-e man-ast jân-e sokhan Man-am ze-jomle aqrân-o hamsarân emruz Ke pir-e aql-am khwânand-o nowjavân-e sokhan Chu man naruyad shâkhi ze-bustân-e honar Chu man nakhizad morghi z-âshiyân-e sokhan I am the one whose essential nature consists of words.97 I am the one who infuses life into the souls of words. I am the one among all my peers and equals today, Who is called “old” as well as “young” in words.98 Like me no branch grows in the orchard of art, Like me no bird flies upwards from the nest of words.

Jamâl-al-Din goes further than proclaiming the unique rhetorical virtuosity of his poetry; this inborn talent (tabʿ) is also inspired by supernatural sources, by “a heavily loaded caravan of words” arriving from “the gate of Wisdom”: Ze bas natâyej-e fekr-o ze-bas maʿ âni-ye bakr Ze-bineshâni-ye man mideham neshân-e sokhan Sokhan musakhkhar-o monqâd-e tabʿ-e man gasht-ast Az ânke tigh zabân-ast qahramân-e sokhan With all the fruits of my mind and all my fresh ideas I bring forth from my unseen self the visible signs of words. The words are subdued and obedient to my talent Because the tongue is a sword, a defender of words.

The loftiness of his poetry would have enabled him to climb “the Celestial Wheel along a ladder of words,” but instead, he only met with an indifference which he interprets as a sign of cultural decline in his time: Na zar-o sim ze-khalq-o na rowshani ze-falak Hami ze-bim-e chu khaffâsh dar jahân-e sokhan Jahân-e fazl kharâb-ast chun sarây-e karam Redâ-ye jud siyah shod chu teylasân-e sokhan 97 I. e., my natural talents are a quarry where the precious stones of my words are dug (playing on the two meanings of jowhar, “essence” and “precious stone.”) 98 I. e., both “wise” and “original” as a poet. The word for “old” (pir) also denotes a spiritual guide or a Sufi sheikh.

154

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS No gold and silver from anyone, no light from the Spheres; Terrified I flitter like a bat through the world of words. The world of erudition is in ruins, as is the home of generosity; The cloak of liberality has become black like the hood of words.99

Nevertheless his poems are subjected to the judgment of invidious and malicious critics devoid of any erudition or talent, who are guided by the demons of their jealousy.100 A different element in Jamâl-al-Din’s poetry are his riddles. The enigmatic description of a public bath serves him as the prologue to a eulogy of the aforementioned Shehâb-al-Din Khâles. He starts with testing the intelligence of his public by drawing, through a series of poetic conceits, the main features of the subject’s physical appearance: Che guyi chist ân shekl-e modavvar Ke dârad kheyme bâ gardun barâbar Chu eyvâni kashide bar sar-e âb Chu khargâhi zede bar ruy-e âdhar Havây-ash rowshan-o âb-ash movâfeq Zamin-ash sâfi-o saqaf-ash mosavvar Cho kholq-e âqelân ham pâk-o ham khosh Cho tabʿ-e zendagi ham garm-o ham tar Zamin-e u be rang-e charkh-e azraq Havâ-ye u cho jerm-e mâh-e anvar Nadide khâk-e u hargez takhalkhal Nagashte âb-e u hargez mokaddar What would you say this is: a circular structure With a tent matching the heavenly dome, Like a portico rising above the water, Like a huge pavilion on top of a fire. The air pellucid and the water agreeable; Its floor is bright, the ceiling illuminated.101 Like a sage’s disposition: pure and felicitous; Like the natural condition of life: both warm and moist.   99 Referring to the frugality of patronage in his days. On the “hood” (teylasân) see above n. 91. 100 Jamâl-al-Din, Divân, ed. Dastgerdi, pp. 298–300. 101 The walls and ceilings in a bathhouse were often covered with images.

155

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Its ground has the color of the blue skies; Its air is like the body of the shining moon. Its earth has never become dry and withered, Its water has never been polluted.

However, while treating this mundane item, he cannot refrain from bringing in one of his favorite themes: the Day of Judgment. Berehne gashte dar vey hamchu dar hashar Bozorg-o khord-o darvish-o tavângar Ze khoshi râst pendâri beheshti-st Ke duzakh hast dar ajzâ-yash mozmar Behesht-ast u az-ân maʿni ke hargez Na sarmâ andar-u bini-o na khor Be-duzakh nik mimânad az ân ruy K-az âtesh mishavad kâr-ash moqarrar Hame âludegân âyand dar vey Berun âyand az-u pâk-o mutahhar Here they all go naked, as at the Resurrection, The young and the old, the poor and the rich. A Paradise you would imagine it to be, so shining As if a Hellish fire were embedded in its parts. A Paradise it is indeed, for never there Can one detect severe cold or inclement heat. You could say as well: it is like Hell, Since its workings all revolve due to fire. The filthy and the soiled all enter here And leave clean and purified.102 Kamâl-al-Din Esmâʿil

One of the two sons of Jamâl-al-Din was Kamâl-al-Din Esmâʿil, who not only followed in his father’s footsteps, but also equally enjoyed the patronage of the Sâʿedis, at first Rokn-al-Din Mahmud and then his son Rokn-al-Din Masʿud. His earliest known poem was written in 1189, shortly before his father’s death, which he commemorated in an elegy. Kamâl-al-Din hardly ever left Isfahan, and if he occasionally wrote eulogies for the rulers of his time, such as the Khwârazmshâh Tekish (r. 1172–1200) and Hosâm-al-Dowle 102 Ibid., pp. 190–92.

156

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS

Ardashir in Mazandaran (r. 1173–1206), he never became attached to their courts. According to some reports, his fame as a poet was also accompanied by material success, and this enabled him to lead a luxurious life, earning himself the reputation of “an excellent backgammon player and a lover of wine.”103 In some poems, he complains of the losses he had suffered during the continuing unrest in the city as the result of communal fighting. His situation appears to have been that of a well-to-do citizen enjoying the good things of life in an environment full of uncertainties. This picture seems to contradict his leanings towards Sufism, which are evident from his correspondence with the sheikh Shehâb-al-Din Abu Hafs al-Sohravardi (d. 1234) in Baghdad, who was the founder of one of the largest Sufi brotherhoods in medieval Islam; in addition, this attitude seems opposed to many of his homiletic qasides. Towards the end of his life, he retired into the life of an ascetic in a hermitage outside Isfahan, where on 22 December 1238 he was killed by marauding Mongol troops. Some modern scholars, in particular Jan Rypka and A. J. Arberry, have condemned Kamâl-al-Din for the duplicity in his moral attitudes, but as Michael Glünz has rightly remarked, this mingling of piety with secular concerns is commonly found among the poets of his age, and corresponds to the demands imposed on them by their social environment.104 In the course of the twelfth century, this became a characteristic trait of Persian poetry as a profession. The homiletic qaside initiated by Naser-e Khosrow and Sanâʾi had become an integrated item in the repertoire of poets for whom the condition of their trade left no other choice but to adhere to the rules of conventional court poetry. Kamâl-al-Din was already noted and praised by early critics for his virtuosity in handling poetic motifs. The honorific “Creator of Concepts” (khallâq al-maʿ âni) bestowed on him quite early on refers to this quality of his poetry. Michael Glünz, who has closely studied his panegyrical qasides, mentions as the essential 103 J. Rypka, CHIr V (1968), pp. 585–86. 104 M. Glünz, Die panegyrische qaṣīda bei Kamāl ud-dīn Ismā’īl (Stuttgart, 1993), pp. 18–19.

157

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

characteristics of his poetry “the mastery over the external form in tackling the problems of rhetorical development” and “the almost playful handling of the conventional topoi of poetry and the semantic connections of language in the application of conceptual techniques.”105 He achieved this by means of rhetorical devices such as the choice of difficult radif rhymes and “obligations” (eltezâmât), i. e., extra rules to be followed in a poem such as the repetition of the same word in every distich. The fifteenth-century anthologist Dowlatshâh cites as an example of the latter the use of word mu (hair) in a qaside that “was impossible to emulate and contained much freshness and brilliant motifs.”106 Although these embellishments of the poetic style were highly appreciated in the later medieval period, Dowlatshâh’s contemporary Abd-al-Rahmân Jâmi had his reservations when he condemned the exaggeration in Kamâl’s stylistic subtleties as “exceeding the limits of clarity (salâsat) and fluency (ravâni).”107 A famous specimen of the use of radif in Kamâl’s qasides is the poem that is based on the word barf (snow), which opens with an evocation of a mountainous landscape covered by an exceptionally heavy snowfall: Hargez kasi nadâd bedinsân neshân-e barf Guyi ke loqme-i-st zamin dar dahân-e barf Mânand-e pambe ke dar pambe taʿ biye-st Ajrâm-e kuhhâ-st nehân dar miyân-e barf Nâgah fetâde larze bar atrâf-e ruzgâr Az che ze-bim-e tâkhtan-e nâgahân-e barf Gashtand nâ-omid hame jânvar ze-jân Bâ jân-e kuhsâr chu peyvast jân-e barf Bâ mâ sepidkâri az had hami barad Abr-e siyâhkâri ke shod dar zamân-e barf 108 105 Glünz, Die panegyrische qaṣīda, p. 22. 106 Dowlatshah, Tadhkerat al-shoʿarâ, ed. E. G. Browne (London and Leiden, 1901), p. 149. 107 Jâmi, Bahârestân, ed. A. Khân Afsahzâd (Tehran, 2000), p. 146. 108 A double entendre: in abr-e siyâhkâr, meaning “black cloud” (being the bearer of snow) there is also an allusion to siyâhkâr, “someone who commits a dastardly deed.”

158

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS No one has ever reported such an amount of snow, It is as if the earth is a mere morsel in the mouth of snow.109 Like cotton flocks wrapped in cotton The massive mountains have disappeared under the snow. All of a sudden everywhere there is fear and trembling, From what? From the sudden onslaught by snow Every living soul is in fear of its life now that The mountainside’s soul has merged with the soul of snow. This whiteness exceeds all boundaries with us, Even the dark clouds are in the grip of the snow.110

This poem is not intended to be a simple piece of nature poetry. The poet’s aim is to exploit to the full the semantic spectrum of the item selected for his radif rhyme. Although he does not transgress the boundaries set by the conventional imagery of Persian poetry, he explores every possibility to stretch them in order to create rhetorical effects that would captivate his audience. An example is his description of the extinction of a fire by the snow: the hands and feet of fire are “paralyzed” so that “the birds of the sparks cannot fly up from the nest of snow” [line 8]. In the next line, the snow has become a grey horse, “swift as the wind and freed from its reins.” This image leads up to the representation of Time (zamâne-ye ablaq) as a “pie-bald” horse, having put on the horse-armor (gostovan) of the snow to protect itself against the “arrows of the stars” and “the sword and more specifically the blade (tigh, meaning ‘ray of sunshine’) of the sun” [line 10]. The snow is also an army conquering the world under the command of Bahman, the winter month of the Iranian solar calendar, whose name also recalls a legendary hero, insofar as Bahman is also the name of the Iranian king who avenges the death of his own father, Esfandiyâr, at the hands of Rostam, by marching on Sistan, having Rostam’s son Farâmarz executed, and putting Rostam’s father Zâl in chains.111 109 According to Hoseyn Bahr-al-Olumi, nân-e barf is a kind of white bread mentioned later in the poem [line 7034]; cf. his commentary in Kamâl-alDin, Divân, ed. H. Bahr-al-Olumi (Tehran, 1969), p. 1033, on the authority of Jalâl Homâ’i. 110 I. e., because they are heralding fresh loads of snow. 111 Cf. Ferdowsi, Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings, tr. D. Davis (London, 2007), pp. 434–39.

159

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

However, as a proper qaside, the poem has a topical purpose as well. The effects of snowfall on the circumstances of human lives also come into the poet’s range of vision. “People would have plenty of bread and clothing / if the feeble body of snow would be flower or cotton.” [line 15]. The rich are of course able to cope with the hardships of winter: Vaqti chonin neshât kasi-râ mosallam-ast K-asbâb-e eysh dârad andar zamân-e barf Ham nân-o gusht dârad-o ham hizom-o sharâb Ham motrebi ke bar zanad-ash dâstân-e barf Maʿshuqe-yi morakkab az azdâd-e mokhtalef Bâten be sân-e âtesh-o zâher be sân-e barf Golgune-yi bovad be sepidâb bar zade Har jorʿe-yi ke rizad bar jorʿedân-e barf Tâ rang-e ruy bâz nemâyad barin qiyâs Baʿzi az-ân-e bâde-o baʿzi az ân-e barf Mey mikhorad be kâm-o zanakh mizanad be jed Dar gush-e khod rahâ nakonad suziyân-e barf Ân-râ ke pushesh-o mey-o khargâh-o âtesh-ast Vaqt-e sabuh mozhde dehad bar neshân-e barf At a time like this, only he can be assured of conviviality Who has the wherewithal of feasting in the time of snow. When he has bread and meat, firewood and wine, As well as a minstrel to recite to him the story of the snow. And a sweetheart, full of contrasts: Fiery inside, and outwardly white as snow With rosy cheeks, enhanced by white-lead, Is every draught poured into the glass of the snow, So that it shows the color of his cheeks in this analogy, Part of it belonging to the wine, part of it to the snow. He who drinks wine with gusto, talks seriously, Not lending his ear to concerns about snow, Who has clothing, wine, a shelter and fire, Brings with the morning drink the good tidings of snow. [lines 19–25]

In contrast to this cozy and snug scene of the good life, Kamâlal-Din depicts and deplores his own miserable condition at a time when “every moment the chilly wind / brings the icy message spoken by the snow”: 160

THE QASIDE AFTER THE FALL OF THE GHAZNAVIDS Dast-e tohi be zir-e zanakhdân konad sotun V-andar havâ hami shomarad pud-o târ-e barf Khâne tohi ze-chiz-o malâ az khorandegân Âbi be riq mo khorad az nâvdân-e barf Deltang-o bi navâ cho batân bar kenâr-e âb Khalqi nashaste-im karân tâ karân-e barf Gar qovvat-am bodi ze-pey-e qors-e âftâb Bar bâm-e charkh raftami az nardebân-e barf He lets his chin rest on the pillar of his empty hand And counts the woof and warp woven in the air by the snow. There is nothing left in the house but there are plenty of diners. He takes his breakfast with drops dripping from the spout of the snow. Downhearted and helpless like ducks at the brink of a stream We are a bunch of people surrounded on all sides by snow. If I had the strength I would go after a slice from the sun. I would climb to the roof of the heavens along a ladder of snow.112 [lines 24–29]

112 Safâ, Ganj-e sokhan, II, p. 99–103. Kamâl-al-Din, Divân, ed. Bahr-alOlumi, pp. 407–10 (not consulted). On the popularity of this poem, even in modern times, see Glünz, Die panegyrische qaṣīda, p. 208.

161

CHAPTER 4 QASIDES OF THE KH WÂRAZMSHÂHID COURT: VATVÂT AND ADIB SÂBER Alireza Korangy

1. Introduction The Qarakhanids When at the end of the tenth century the empire of the Samanids disintegrated, the rulers lost the power to check the invasions of nomadic tribes from the Eurasian steppes. From about 1000 onwards, the lands to the north of the river Oxus were conquered by new rulers, known to western historians as the Qarakhanids or Karakhanids (“the people of the supreme khans”) or the Ilig-khâns (Ilak-khâns), after the royal title of their leaders. In Persian, they are also called Âl-e Afrâsiyâb, on the basis of a mythical association with the Turanians of Iranian epic and their legendary king. The Qarakhanids belonged originally to the Qarluq confederation of Turkish tribes, who, in the course of their immigration to the west of Central Asia, were converted to Sunni Islam, adopting the Hanafite school of Muslim law. Soon their empire split into two parts; in both, the political and cultural influence of the Persian civilization of the preceding Samanids was noticeable in varying degrees. Under the eastern khans, whose main center was at Kashgar, Turkish traditions remained strong enough to allow the emergence of an Islamic literature that followed Persian examples but adopted the Turkish language. This oldest literature of the Islamicized Turks includes several works of distinction, such as Yusof Khân Hâjeb’s Qudatghu Bilig (Wisdom of Royal Glory), 162

QASIDES OF THE KHWÂRAZMSHÂHID COURT

a didactical poem written after the model of a Persian mathnavi, and the dictionary Divân loghât al-Tork by Mahmud of Kashgar, which with its wealth of verse quotations also serves as a major source of early Turkish poetry. The western parts of Central Asia were in the hands of another branch of the Qarakhanids. They had their power base in Transoxiana, the “land beyond the river Oxus,” and occupied what was once the heartland of the Samanid emirate with the ancient cultural centers of Samarkand and Bukhara. Their rule lasted until 1212, when they were ousted by the Khwârazmshâhs. These Turkish rulers tried to conform more closely to the Persian model of kingship and courtly ritual. This model included the patronage of court poetry with all that this tradition entailed. In contemporary sources, several names of the poets and their compositions in verse are mentioned, in particular Nezâmi Aruzi’s Chahâr Maqâle and Mohammad Owfi’s Lobâb al-albâb, but only a very small part of their poetry has been preserved. The divan of Mohammad Suzani (d. 1166) is the only individual collection that has survived. A comprehensive collection of the remnants of Qarakhanid Persian poetry was assembled by Saʿid Nafisi.1 In the early twelfth century, the Ghaznavid poets Mokhtâri and Hasan of Ghazna visited their court and wrote panegyrics in praise of the Qarakhanid rulers.

Amʿaq of Bukhara The best-known poet of this period is Shehâb-al-Din, who wrote under the unusual penname Amʿaq.2 He was probably born at Bukhara in the middle of the eleventh century, and according to some biographers, died a centenarian around 1147. The heyday of his career as a court poet occurred during the reigns of the Qarakhanid Nasir-al-Din Nasr b. Ebrâhim (1068–80), for whom he 1 2

Published in Nafisi’s additions (taʿ liqât) to his edition of Abu’l-Fazl Mohammad Beyhaqi’s Târikh-e Beyhaqi (Tehran, 1953), III, pp. 1270–1565. No satisfactory explanation has yet been given for this name in spite of several attempts; cf. J. T. P. de Bruijn, EI2 , Suppl., s. v. ʿAmʿaḳ; F. de Blois, PL V, pp. 253–56.

163

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

wrote his first datable poem, and his brother Khezr (1080–81). The latter appointed Amʿaq as his poet laureate, but according to an anecdote cited by Nezâmi Aruzi, his position was challenged by Rashidi and other fellow-poets.3 He also wrote a panegyric for the Saljuq sultan Arslân and an elegy for Sanjar’s daughter Mâh-e Molk Khâtun. In the sixteenth century, his verses were still frequently cited, although his divan was no longer extant.4 Little more than eight hundred couplets were retrieved from various sources and assembled in a reconstructed divan by Saʿid Nafisi.5 Amʿaq was an innovative poet who contributed to the renewal of the stylistic conventions that took place in the course of the twelfth century. This had an impact on his contemporaries and on posterity. Even Anvari, a most inventive poet himself, admired him and designed one of his own poems after the model of one of Amʿaq’s qasides.6 He made an impression, in particular, through his clever use of rhetorical devices. An example is his qaside based on the figure of eltezâm, i. e., the imposition by the poet of an extra obligation on himself. In the prologue of this poem, the obligation is that every line should contain the words “hair” (muy) and “ant” (mur), an artifice that develops the basic symbolic aspects of these images, such as the “blackness” and “fragrance” of the beloved’s hair and the slenderness of the beloved’s waist. The latter could refer both to a tormented lover’s emaciated body and to a beloved’s slimness: If ever an ant could speak and if a hair could have a soul, I am such a speaking ant, I am such a hair with a soul. My body is like the shadow of a hair, my heart like an ant’s eye Because my love is gone, whose hair was scented with musk, Whose waist was slender as the waist of an ant. …7

3

Nezâmi Aruzi, Chahâr Maqâle, eds. M. Qazvini and M. Mo’in (Tehran, 1955– 57), p. 28, ta’liqât, pp. 46–47. On the poet Rashidi, see de Blois, PL V, pp. 507–8. 4 Amin Ahamad Râzi, Haft eqlim, ed. J. Fāzel (3 vols., Tehran, 1961), III, p. 510. 5 Amʿaq, Divân-e ‘Amʿaq-e Bokhâri, ed. S. Nafisi (Tehran, 1960). 6 Cf. Anvari, Divân-e Anvari, ed. M.-T. Modarres-e Razavi (2 nd ed., Tehran, 1968), I, pp. 205, 274. 7 Owfi, Lobâb al-albâb, eds. E. G. Browne and M. Qazvini (2 vols., Leiden and London, 1903–6), II, pp. 181–82.

164

QASIDES OF THE KHWÂRAZMSHÂHID COURT

Equally remarkable is Amʿaq’s choice of unusual images, by which he extended significantly the conventional stock inherited from the Ghaznavid poets. For instance, in a nocturnal scene—one of his favorite motifs—he imagines that the night is a preacher, who from his pulpit extols the virtues of the city of Bukhara.8 For some of his qasides, Amʿaq wrote long and elaborate prologues. An interesting example is a long qaside in praise of the Qarakhânid Nasr b. Ebrâhim with a prologue of no less than one hundred couplets. The poem brings to mind the short mathnavis, mixing narrative with eulogy and satire, that in the next century were composed by Sanâ’i and Khâqâni. The conceit used in this prologue is that the narrator addresses the wind (shemâl), urging it to deliver a message to his beloved. The message is the account of a spiritual journey during the night. On the back of the prophet Jesus’s donkey, the lover, who is in a bad state because of the separation from his friend, passes through an allegorical world and beholds bizarre appearances, which are emblems of human vices: So I traveled on till I reached a stony desert, Dangerous as the pit of Hell and likewise unfathomable, A valley like a corner of the underworld Where stinking, despicable creatures dwelt. Some among them were naked devils Driven into a corner like the Jews of Kheybar, Like demons in the storehouses of Solomon, Like monks in the stables of Caesar’s horses, Robbed of their shadows, stoned, eaten by their grief. Nobodies like the Nasnâs, stupefied like swine, Like Gog without measure, like Magog without number. …9

The qaside contains an amazing mixture of motifs and genres. It is a parody on poetic themes concerned with travel, such as the timeworn description of a poet’s journey in search of a beloved (or a 8 Amʿaq, Divân-e Amʿaq, p. 176. 9 Ibid., p. 149. The similes belong to various stories, e. g., the conquest of the Jewish city of Kheybar by Ali b. Abi-Tâleb in the time of the Prophet; ­Solomon subduing the demons; and the legends of the people of Yagog and Magog associated with eschatology. The Nasnâs were supposed to be subhuman beings moving around by leaping.

165

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

patron), and at the same time an allegory of a heavenly journey and the retribution of sins; further, it contains panegyrics and satire. In spite of the highflown imagery, the descriptions serve a mundane purpose, namely to highlight the scorn of the poet’s rivals, who had blackened him in the eyes of his patron.10

Khwârazmshâhid Poets Although there are only two heralded twelfth century Khwârazm­ shâhid poets, this does not detract from their powerful influence on the qaside of their epoch, which was superb, both in rhetoric and in thematic expression. Poetically, Khwârazmshâhid poets made their most significant strides in their use of figurative language and artificial devices, yet they were not nearly as influential in the thematic development of the qaside as were the poets of Azerbaijan and Central Iran. In essence, they were almost wholly different from the Saljuqid poets of the twelfth century in the eastern Persian-speaking world. Vatvât and Adib Sâber did not shrink from the overutilization of rhetorical devices of the “art of embellishment,” so much so that their divan—especially the contribution of Vatvât—could simply be considered as a book of rhetoric in verse, and thus the poetry of the two Khwârazmshâhid poets might be characterized merely as boastful displays of rhetoric. In view of their forced attempts to better their poetic counterparts in Shervân, Arrân, and Azerbaijan, it must be admitted that they only managed to emulate their themes and appropriate already established rhetorical devices.

10

Cf. the analysis by Dhabih-Allâh Safâ in Mehr 3 (1935), pp. 177–81, 289–95, 405–11; see also Safâ II, pp. 535–47.

166

QASIDES OF THE KHWÂRAZMSHÂHID COURT

2. Khwârazm and Khwârazmshâhids Khwârazm is located in the northeast of the twelfth-century Persian-­speaking world, in what is today the Republic of Uzbekistan and parts of Turkmenistan. The political history of this dynasty in the twelfth century is marked by its constant struggles with the Saljuqid Sultan Sanjar. Atsez Khwârazmshâh, for whom Vatvât and Adib Sâber composed a large number of their panegyrics, was formerly a slave who was given the governorship of Khwârazm by Sanjar due to his strength of character. Eventually, the deterioration of Saljuqid power, and specifically Sanjar’s loss to the Qara-Khânids in 1140, facilitated a rebellious break by Atsez, after which he viciously sacked Marv and Nishapur. This event, however, did not mark the end of animosities between the two rulers, for seven years later (1147) Atsez was defeated by Sanjar. As compared to their poetae docti counterparts in Shervân, Arrân, and Azerbaijan, “the Azerbaijan school,” Vatvât and Adib Sâber, fared relatively better in this court, as is reflected in their poetry.11

Vatvât and the Khwârazmshâhids Vatvât’s interests in this court and dynasty seem to have been genuine. He also served at Khwârazmshâh’s court as a head secretary (Sâheb-e divān-e enshâ). He speaks of the lavish gifts and endowments given to him by these rulers.12 Âthâr al-Belâd, under its entry for “Balkh,” mentions him and claims that Atsez Khwârazmshâh built him a palace facing his, so that he could further his conviviality with him.13 Even if one is to believe this with great caution, it is clear that the Khwârazm patron was a supporter of the arts.

11 Rypka, HIL, pp. 201–9. 12 Rashid-al-Din Vatvât, Divân-e Rashid Vatvât, ed. S. Nafisi (Tehran, 1960), p. 152. 13 Zakariyyâ b. Mohammad Mahmud b. Mahmud Qazvini, Athâr al-Belâd (Beirut, 1960), p. 334.

167

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

After Atsez’s passing (1156), his son, and two of his grandsons, became rulers of Khwârazm. It appears from a study of his divan that Vatvât did not compose any panegyrics for them. This can be attributed to the fact that Vatvât’s relationship with the Khwârazmshâhid court ended on a sour note. According to Târikh-e jahângoshâ (History of World-Conqueror), a few years before Atsez Khwârazmshâh’s death (1153), his relations with Vatvât had deteriorated, as can be deduced from a quatrain Vatvât composed after Atsez’s death: Your lordship, the celestial sphere would shiver from your punishments; It exercises servitude in your mighty court. Where is that wise one, who can reason, Whether all that rank was worth this!14

It seems that Atsez had at some point contemplated Vatvat’s execution, as this response (ca. 1153) from one of his panegyrics seems to imply: Don’t go after my blood! Due to not having your patronage, I have kept my cheeks rosy with my own blood already! Heed me! Heed me! I swear to Hoseyn it is true.15

Apparently, he was accused of having had ties with Kamâl-al-Din Mahmud b. Arslân, the governor of Jand:16 The God of this universe knows well That no one ever uttered encomiums for their sovereigns as I have done for you. Now after thirty years of servitude, in your heart of hearts you are upset with me.17

However, at the age of eighty, he was summoned to the court when Takesh b. Il-Arslân (r. 1172–1200) came to throne. This quatrain 14 Ibid, p. 615. 15 Vatvât, Divân, ed. Nafisi, p. 8. 16 C. E. Bosworth, EI2 , “Djand.” 17 Alâ’-al-Din Mohammad b. Mohammad Jowayni, Târikh-e jahangoshâ (3 vols., Leiden, 1911), I, p. 11.

168

QASIDES OF THE KHWÂRAZMSHÂHID COURT

recited by Vatvât in his presence affirms that he did not compose panegyrics for any of the other Khwârazmshâhs after Atsez: Your grandfather washed any sign of injustice from the face of time. Your father’s justice made all wrongs right. O, you who have been endowed with this sudden honor! What will you do now? It is your time!18

Adib Sâber and the Khwârazmshâhids Sanjar sent Adib Sâber to the court of Atsez Khwârazmshâh, supposedly as a token of good will at a time when there was a relative peace between the Khwârazm ruler and Sanjar. It is an indication of the times that in fact Adib Sâber was sent there as an informer to report on the goings-on of the court. While there, he composed panegyrics, and was rewarded generously, for his poems at the court of Atsez Khwârazmshâh. His inclusion as a poet of Khwârazm is a matter of technicality, since a large number of his panegyrics lionized that court, whereas compared to Vatvât, who was a mainstay at the court of Atsez, almost all of his panegyrics sang the praises of Atsez.

3. Vatvât and Adib Sâber: Figurative Language and Rhetoric These poets, akin to most of the Persian-speaking world, and unlike the poets of Azerbaijan, preferred the use of metaphor to that of tropes. However, they also utilized many of the other rhetorical conventions that were not frequently used in the twelfth century— especially supererogation. Their divan is a compilation of poems that can be read as a “who’s who” of lesser used and often shunned rhetorical figures and artificialities.19 It is quite apparent that Vatvât 18 Vatvât, Divân, ed. Nafisi, p. 612. 19 Rypka, HIL, p. 200.

169

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

and Adib Sâber were concerned more with the verbal embellishment of their poems than with the significations in their poetry. In any case, Adib Sâber experimented with more themes than Vatvât.

Vatvât’s Style His poetry indicates that Vatvât was influenced by the poetry of Onsori. However, the fluidity that is evident in Onsori’s divan is lacking in Vatvât’s poems, due to his penchant for over-burdening verbal embellishment and his ultra-hyperbolic language. Considering his immense knowledge of many sciences, it is unfortunate that his poetry can simply be marked by the aforesaid traits. A derivative of supererogation—apocope—was Vatvât’s favorite. Here is an example of the apocope when the poet does not use the letter alef:20 Khosrow-e molk-bakhsh-e keshvar-gir Ke ze kholqash be-adl nist nazir Khosro-e sharq ka-z sar-e tighash Hast doshman hamishe nafir That domain-bestowing, realm-conquering king, Whose sense of justice stands un-paralleled; The master of the East, from whose tip of the blade, The enemy stands in awe and remains demeaned.

Adib Sâber’s Style Adib Sâber’s legerdemain in the use of figurative language and rhetorical figures is by no means threadbare. He was also very apt in using the prosodic refrain.21 Owfi cites Anvari who says, “even 20 Vatvât, Divân, ed. Nafisi, p. 276; in another qaside, Vatvât writes a panegyric with all the letters in the Persian alphabet that do not have dots. So, be, pe, te, zhe, etc. are not used (see ibid., pp. 331–32). 21 Adib Sâber, Divan-e Adib Sâber Termedhi, ed. M.-A. Nâseh (Tehran, 1964), pp. 121, 163, 173.

170

QASIDES OF THE KHWÂRAZMSHÂHID COURT

though I am not as good as Sâber, at least I am as good as Sanâ’i,” and also cites some of his artificially ornamented poetry (masnuʿ). In a panegyric’s exordium (fifteen lines) he repeats his use of the words ruby (yâqut) and the cypress tree (sarv):22 Sarv-e simini o simin-s sarv râ yâqut bâr Jazʿ-e man bi sarv o bi yâqut-e to yâqut bâr Gar na qut az dide-ye yâqut-bâr-e man gereft Pas cherâ âvard simin-sarv-e to yâqut bâr? Sarv o yâqut-at cho qut az dide-ye man yâftand Chon marâ nad(a)hi be-dân sarv o be-dân yâqut bâr?

In a panegyric, he has combined simile (tashbih-e jamʿ) and fold and spread (laff va nashr) in every single line, while there is supererogation of the words first (yeki), second (dovvom), and third (sevvom): O beloved! The viceroys of your visage, eyes, and tress Is first, the flower, secondly a narcissus, and thirdly ambergris. The Sultan of beauty has coined your visage in three coinages: Firstly, unique, secondly all pleasing, and thirdly a heartthrob.23

His greatest contributions to the qaside are his masterful and elegant exordiums in the panegyric qaside (taghazzol). Even though the thematic shift in the exordiums of the twelfth century is clearly visible in the qasides of Adib Sâber, his exordium points to a contrived effort by the poet to make the exordium come into its own, making it a distinctive thematic entity. This was done by versifying ghazal-like themes that were congruent throughout and longer than a typical ghazal; in this way, the poet creates a clear thematic division between the qaside and the taghazzol. Although there are some hesitations amongst the literati in judging his poetics, rhetoric, and style, there is one consensus: he admired the poetry of his predecessors, i. e., Farrokhi (d. 1037), Moʿezzi (d. 1125), and Onsori (d. 1039). Arab poets such as A’shâ’ (530–629), Hossân b. Thâbet (d. 672), Bohtori (821–97), Abu-­Tammâm (796–834), and Motannabi (915–65), among others, 22 Mohammad Owfi, Lobâb al-albâb, ed. S. Nafisi (Tehran, 1956), p. 329. 23 Adib Sâber, Divân, ed. Nâseh, pp. 213–17.

171

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

wielded a tremendous influence on his poetry. In his poetry, there is particular attention to Onsori’s poems. Foruzânfar claims that Adib Sâber, in attempting to fuse the styles of Onsori and Farrokhi, failed in reviving the fluidity of Farrokhi and the logical, thematic progression of Onsori: Writing panegyrics is a tough task. But when it is for you is easy as can be. When your personality is such as it is, How hard can it really be?

Onsori says: Even a non-poet, when attempting to praise him, His ink will become sweet like the fountains of heaven. Since lionizing him brings forth only beautiful truth, The compilation of his traits can embody all layers of the sphere: Seven!24

4. Rashid-al-Din Vatvât Rashid-al-Din Mohammad Kâteb-e Balkhi Vatvât was born in Balkh in the year 1083.25 Due to his small size and sharp tongue, he was nicknamed Vatvât (the bat). It is said that once in the court of Atsez Khwârazmshâh, there was a heated discourse when Vatvât 24 Badi’-al-Zamân Foruzânfar, Sokhan va sokhanvarân (2 nd ed., Tehran, 1971), pp. 240–41. Also see the extent to which he had Arab poets in mind when versifying in Vatvât, Divân, ed. Nafisi, pp. 209, 259, 329, 354, 525, 536. 25 His birth date is registered in differently in various sources. For more biographical information on Rashid-al-Din Vatvât see F. de Blois, EI2 , “Rashīd al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Djalīl al-ʿUmarī, known as Waṭwāṭ”; Owfi, Lobâb, pp. 78–83; Rezâ-Qoli Khan Hedâyat, M ­ ajmaʿ al-­ fosahâ’, ed. M. Mosaffâ (6 vols., Tehran, 1957), II, pp. 655–71; A. Khayyâmpur, Farahang-e Sokhanvarân (Tehran, 1961), pp. 229–30; Safâ II, pp. 628– 36; Ali-Qoli Khan Dâghestâni, Riyâz al-shoʿarâ, ed. S. H. Qâsemi (Rampur, 2001), p. 257; Dowlatshâh Samarqandi, Tadhkerat al-shoʿarâ, ed. M. Abbâsi (Tehran, 1962), pp. 98–103; Foruzânfar, Sokhanvarân, pp. 322–32; Amir Shir-Ali Khan Ludi, Merʿ ât al-khiyâl, ed. M. M. K. M. Khan (Bombay, 1906), pp. 32–33.

172

QASIDES OF THE KHWÂRAZMSHÂHID COURT

was showing off his incredible verbal prowess. Atsez sarcastically said, “Could someone move the vat of ink, so that I can see who is speaking from behind it?”26

Vatvât: Education He attended the Nezâmiye School in Balkh, where he made a name for himself as an excellent scholar of philosophy and philology. He is said to have made critical observations on some of the works of the great theologian and grammarian Zamakhshari (d. 1143–44), forcing him to concede to Vatvât’s corrections.27

Vatvât: Personality Vatvât was one of the most grandiloquent poets of the twelfth century, second only in his use of dense images to Afzal-al-Din Khâqâni Sharvâni (d. 1198). One of the best explanations for this is that Vatvât was quintessentially a panegyric poet, who was simultaneously entrusted with and immersed in duties and tasks within the court. He was one of the few twelfth-century poets whose reputation and income remained intact despite the fact that most of the Persian-speaking world, including Khwârazm, was in a state of constant warfare, leaving little time for the patrons to concentrate on the arts.28 However, it seems that he was also a charitable individual. In a correspondence with an individual named Eyn-al-Zamân Hasan Qottân Marvazi, he mentions that he has endowed over a thousand books and manuscripts to the community for public use (vaqf).29 His success led to the jealousy and hatred—as his sharp tongue led to the anger—of some of his contemporaries including 26 Dowlatshâh, Tadhkerat al-shoʿarâ, p. 98. 27 See Mohammad Kord-Ali, Rasâ’el al-bolaghâ (Cairo, 1946), pp. 296–98. 28 For more on Atsez Khwârazmshâh and his archenemy Sanjar, see E. G. Browne, LHP II, pp. 307–8. 29 Jowayni, Jahangoshâ, I, pp. 6–7.

173

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Khâqâni, who utterly disliked him later in the course of their acquaintance. There are numerous invective poems (six) written by this twelfth-century poet directed at Vatvât.30

Vatvât’s Other Works One of the earliest rhetorical treatises in classical Persian belles lettres, Vatvât’s Hadâ’eq al-sehr fi daqâ’eq al-sheʿr, “The Gardens of Magic Embedded in the Subtleties of Poetry,” was written as a response to the shortcomings of Râduyâni’s book of rhetoric, Tarjomân al-Balâgha, “Interpreter of Eloquence,” which was written after 1088:31 One day, the great lordship Atsez Khwârazmshah commanded my presence and after having been blessed with his command, he showed me a book that was written in the art of verbal embellishment titled Tarjomân al-balâghe. After having looked at it, some of the cited works representing the rhetorical devices seemed inappropriate to me. So I found it incumbent upon myself to do something about it.32 Ironically, Foruzânfar shares the sentiment of Vatvât in his analysis of it. He finds it sorely deficient for the same reasons that Vatvât cites in regard to Râduyâni’s book.33 Another of his other prose works is “The Translation of One Hundred Sayings” (Tarjome-ye sad kalame), which is a commentary by manner of prose and poetry on one hundred sayings of Amir al-Mo’menin Ali b. Abi Tâleb. Subsequently, he composed a commentary on the hundred sayings of the first three caliphs.34

30 See Afzal-al-Din Khâqâni Shervâni, Divân-e Khâqâni Shervâni, ed. Z. D. Sajjâdi (Tehran, 1966), pp. 780, 919, 931. 31 Rypka, HIL, p. 200. 32 Vatvât, Divân, ed. Nafisi, p. 621. 33 “He has misrepresented—and convoluted—some of the rhetorical figures by giving inappropriate poetic examples” (Foruzânfar, Sokhanvarân, p. 326). 34 For a complete listing of all his prosaic works see Vatvât, Divân, ed. Nafisi, p. 29 (intro); also see de Blois, EI2 , “Waṭwāṭ.”

174

QASIDES OF THE KHWÂRAZMSHÂHID COURT

Vatvât’s Patrons As mentioned, almost all of Vatvât’s panegyrics lionized Atsez Khwârazmshâh; however, the remainder of his encomiums were dedicated to other rulers and dignitaries outside the peripheries of Khwârazm. Khaqan Soleymân Khan from the Âl-e Afrâsiyâb (Karakhânids), who Nafisi seems to think is the Soleymân Boghrâ Khan Musâ b. Seteq Boghrây, was a “second-rate ruler of this dynasty in the middle of the 12 th c., whose sister was the sister of Sanjar.”35 Further, Vatvât composed twelve panegyrics for Sanjar’s niece, Khosrow Turân. He also dedicated panegyrics to Tâj-al-Din Nasr b. Tâher (r. 1089–1163), a descendant of the Saffarids, who ruled in Nimruz, and Fakhr-al-Din Manuchehr Shervânshâh (r. 1131–61), for whom he composed a panegyric in a return-tie (tarjiʿ-­band). He dedicated two panegyrics to Adib Sâber Tarmadhi: one for Mojir-al-Din Beylaqâni, and one for his future archenemy Khâqâni Shervâni.36 Vatvât died in Balkh in the year 1182.37

5. Vatvât’s Qasides Vatvât composed 223 panegyrics: 153 qasides, return-ties (tarkibbands), and refrain-ties (tarjiʿ-bands) are in fact panegyrics dedicated to Atsez (Alâ -al-Dowla Khwârazmshâh [d. 1156]).38 The qasides composed for Atsez are undoubtedly paragons of panegyric excellence. Most of Vatvât’s panegyric qasides lack the exordium (taghazzol); hence, they are moqtazeb (without an exordium). Too 35 Vatvât, Divân, ed. Nafisi, p. 6 (intro.). For a short study on the Karakhânids (the black Khans) and other Turkish tribes pre-dating the great Saljuqs see R. N. Frye, “Turks in the Middle East before the Saljuqs,” JAOS 63/3 (1943), pp. 194–207. 36 There are fourteen other lesser-known dignitaries for whom Vatvât sang praises. For a thorough enumeration of their names see Vatvât, Divân, ed. Nafisi, pp. 9–10 (intro.). 37 Foruzânfar, Sokhanvarân, p. 329. Also see Rypka, HIL, p. 200. 38 Vatvât, Divân, ed. Nafisi, p. 5 (intro.).

175

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

often, he begins immediately with his eulogy. Throughout his divan, his expressions of hyperbolic imagery borderline “exaggeration possible neither to reason nor to experience” and at best can be considered “exaggeration possible to reason but not to experience.”39 It is a pity that he does not utilize his vast knowledge in expanding his thematic range. A combination of his rhetoric and his excellent knowledge of philosophy would have sufficed him well.40 In one qaside, the diminishing of some of the largest elements in nature project the ruler as a divine figure, as in the following encomium dedicated to Khwârazmshâh: The sphere is a speckle of dust when compared with your magnificence And compared to your depths, the ocean is like a brook.41

And: The king, who on the day of battle, Turns the field of battle into “a bloody river Oxus”. His hand is like an ocean when it comes to granting rank. His height is that of the heavens. The days of the learned and times of the pious, Get blessed from the sight of him.

Exaggerations of this kind, pure fabrication, and the apotheosis of the sovereign are happily accepted.42 Images such as “a bloody river Oxus,” and “a height equaling that of the heavens,” are images that almost every poet in this period uses in their laudatory expressions in some form or another. Albeit rhetorically masterful, the images in his divan are generally quite weak. It is in the few occasions when he uses the exordium that his panegyric is truly representative of his considerable talents. When he—although seldom—utilizes the exordium (taghazzol), and then as a matter of poetic protocol escapes (takhallos) into the eulogy portion (madiha) of his qaside, his usual hyperbolic imagery is momentarily jettisoned for a passionate languor, which offers a 39 E. J. W. Gibb, A History of Ottoman Poetry (6 vols., London, 1900–9), I, p. 112. 40 Foruzânfar, Sokhanvarân, p. 324. 41 Vatvât, Divân, ed. Nafisi, p. 160. 42 Mohammad b. Abd-al-Rahmân Khatib Qazvini, Izah fi’l-olum al-balâgha, ed. M. A. al-Khaffâji (Cairo, 1949), p. 65.

176

QASIDES OF THE KHWÂRAZMSHÂHID COURT

glimpse into his true emotions and possibly the way he felt about his physical appearance. This is then further strengthened by his fantastic transition from the taghazzol into the panegyric (hosn-e takhallos): That beautiful visage stole my heart, With that wild ambergris tress. The separation of that wild tress, Paints my face with bloody tears. My heart is in turmoil from his love. Oh, so many a lover who have suffered the same fate. What am I doing in this business of love? Should anyone like me go on that road? Should I occupy myself in begetting the favor of the pretty ones? Oh heart, don’t even think about love, And if you do, infuse that love into the eulogy for the great king. The great king, Atsez, who in every field, He is master and commander, And everyone a cavalryman on foot in his subservience.

In this qaside, every line (26 distichs) contains the rhetorical figure epanadiplosis (radd al-ajoz alâ’l-sadr): Qarâr az del-e man rabud ân negâr Be-dân anbarin torre-ye bi-qarâr Negâr ast rokhsâre-ye man ze khun Ze hejrân-e rokhsâre-ye ân negâr Kenâr-e man az dust tâ shod tohi Ma-râ por shod az khun-e dide kenâr43

This heavy use of epanadiplosis in every line detracts from the prosodic musicality of the poem. Even though it creates a proximal flow in the prosody of each couplet on an individual basis, it diminishes the musicality in the vertical axis of the poem. The use of refrain (radif) does exactly the opposite, however, for Vatvât seldom elects to use the refrain.44 43 Vatvât, Divân, ed. Nafisi, pp. 243–44. 44 The best example of his infatuation with all the artificial devices of Persian rhetoric is perhaps best highlighted in a panegyric composed for Qezel ­A rslân of Azerbaijan (Vatvât, Divân, ed. Nafisi, pp. 221–29.); he uses a different rhetorical figure in every single line, in total numbering eighty-two.

177

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

The following qaside is another in which Vatvât begins with an exordium; although compared to the other exordiums of this period it is quite short, especially when compared to those of his contemporaries from Shervân, Falaki and Khâqâni. It is an amatory prelude to a panegyric composed for Kamâl-al-Din Mahmud: Due to the separation of your visage and your lips, I have drawn bloody pictures upon my yellow cheeks. My desires are all unfulfilled, Even though I have brought all your desires to realization. I am not happy with you, Even though I have nourished you passionately.

After this exordium, as in the few others in his oeuvre and the one mentioned above, he expresses his anger with an earthly being, whom he has held in high esteem, and who has in return ignored him. These instances of romantic prelude seem to make the world a dismal place for the poet; at this point, he turns to his patron for protection (hosn-e takhallos), who is treated as a divine figure by his use of hyperbolic language. The difference between his exordiums and many others in the twelfth century is that Vatvât never blames Fate and its vicissitudes. The one constant is that the sovereign remains an antithesis to the beloved, and as Stefan Sperl puts it, “the individual is protected from all evil by the sovereign.”45 Hence, the poet, or the protagonist, begins to rely solely on the beneficence of the patron, ignoring the object of his exordium: We have lost our reputation in seeking you. May no one ever fall into the trap of these idles. It is too late for me to achieve your union. However, God does not close all the doors on his subjects. The great Khâqân, Kamâl-al-Din Mahmud, Is like the sun a source of light and like the heavens high. Mahmud, the one, who like the skies, is filled with blessings. He, who is the definition of truth, And yet represents all that is surreal. From the sight of his visage the legions of victory are joyous. And from his resilience the shoulders of the realm are strong. 45 See S. M. Sperl, Mannerism in Arabic Poetry (Cambridge, 1989), p. 19.

178

QASIDES OF THE KHWÂRAZMSHÂHID COURT His guidance takes the day to its destination of the night. His beneficence has made cleared the path for Islam. A strike of his sword and a large army of enemies: An attack by Bijan and a whole bunch of wild boars.46

6. Adib Sâber Termedhi Adib Sâber b. Adib Esmâʿil Termedhi (d. 1148) was originally a native of Termedh and later lived in Balkh and in Khwârazm.47 At a young age, he left Bukhara for Khorasan and undertook his education in Herat.48 An additional point of interest in a discussion of Adib Sâber, one that sheds some light on the chaotic nature of the times, is the fact that he, albeit a recognized poet, was also involved in espionage. The most popular account of his death in the biographies points to a plot by Atsez to assassinate Sanjar. At the time, Adib Sâber was in Atsez’s court under the auspices of courtesy from Sanjar. This plot was later reported to Sanjar by Sâber, who revealed the identity of the culprit with a sketch, which was then secretly sent to Sanjar by an old woman, who had hidden this sketch in her shoes. Once the plot was unveiled, and after the aforesaid culprit was dealt with, Atsez Khwârazmshâh began to suspect Sâber. It seems that Adib Sâber was drowned in the Oxus River in 1148 on the orders of the Khwârazm sovereign.49

46 Vatvât, Divân, ed. Nafisi, pp. 281–83. The reference is to the famous story of Bijan and Manije in the Shâhnâmeh and to Bijan’s successful hunt of the wild boars which were ravaging the countryside. 47 For a thorough biographical study of Adib Sâber see Owfi, Lobâb, pp. 229– 34; Hedâyat, Majmaʿ al-Fosahâ’, II, pp. 821–42; Khayyâmpur, Farhang, p. 35; Safâ II, pp. 643–50; Dâghestâni, Riyâz, p. 15; Dowlatshâh, Tadhkerat al-shoʿarâ, pp. 103–4; and Foruzânfar, Sokhanvarân, pp. 240–41. 48 Adib Sâber, Divân, ed. Nâseh, p. 1. 49 Jowayni, Jahangoshâ, II, p. 8; Dowlatshâh Samarqandi dates his death at 546/1151, which according to F. de Blois seems too late (de Blois, EI2 , “Ṣābir b. Ismāʿīl al-Tirmidhī.”)

179

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Adib Sâber’s Personality Adib Sâber finds his own poetry to be the epitome of eloquence. Compared to many of his contemporaries both in Khwârazm and elsewhere, his self-appreciation can be considered mild. From his poetry it appears that he was man who constantly sought pleasurable conviviality: It seems that in life my hands and my nature really got accustomed to two things: My nature constantly sought the intoxication of love and my hands a cup of wine.50

Given this aspect of his personality, it is ironic that he also claims to be devoutly religious. He constantly—and inexcusably so— wails about his misfortunes, and his view of self as a learned soul intensifies those laments: “my state is not excellent, although my poetry is.”51

Adib Sâber’s Education From his poetry, one can deduce that he had some knowledge of astronomy and was perhaps exposed to certain mystical trends. In a few of his ghazals, there is a sense of hidden mystical meanings, but it is likely that his connection with this school of thought was purely cultural and without any personal convictions. In addition, there is good evidence that he was also well versed in mathematics and philosophy.

Adib Sâber’s Patrons First and foremost among Adib Sâber’s patrons was Sanjar b. Malek­shâh (1086–1157). He also dedicated many panegyrics to 50 Foruzânfar, Sokhanvarân, p. 242. 51 Ibid., p. 243.

180

QASIDES OF THE KHWÂRAZMSHÂHID COURT

Atsez Khwârazmshâh (r. 1098–1127). He composed some panegyrics for Sanjar’s nephew, Moʿezz-al-Din Mohammad b. Malekshâh (d. 1160), who was in power for a mere six months. A very important figure in Adib Sâber’s life was Sayyed Majd-al-Din Tâj-alMaʿâli, the governor of Khorasan. He was responsible for introducing Adib Sâber to Sanjar (1118–57). Adib Sâber dedicated a number of panegyrics to him.

7. Adib Sâber’s Qasides Adib Sâber contributed greatly to the exordium of the qaside. In the twelfth century, we encounter poets whose relationship with the beloved, whether divine or earthly, is not entirely clear in the exordium of the qaside. There seems to be a certain confusion in the picture that the poet paints of that relationship in the taghazzol. Adib Sâber’s taghazzols, however, are exempt from this criticism. Some of his qasides, like those of Jamâl-al-Din Esfahâni (twelfth century), are actually long ghazals: My heart commanded me to love, and I obeyed. I stepped into disaster that knew no remedy. The tousled curls of a lover who, every single hour, With that head of tousled hair, occupies my restless thoughts. Serenity, sleep, and pleasure have walked out of my life, Because of his shining teeth and sweet sugar lips, Lips like laughing rubies; I will melt away in tears If I do not get to kiss them, no one else heeds my torment. He is as seductive as a goddess of paradise, maybe sent down here From heaven, just to make trouble for the earthlings. If the fountain of the sun stopped shining from the east, His face would shine in its place and light up the entire world. I have fought and fought for longer nights in his irresistible arms, But all that I ever got was a longer separation. His tresses became curled, and every time it stole my heart away, For in his tress, I kept seeing many of his unkept pacts. And with each broken promise those curls brought back, His power of attraction increased, and my fevered love grew stronger.

181

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA On the playing field, the curve of his stick did the very same thing with the ball That his curls often do with the cleft in his chin on a windy day. In a jealous fit, I cried hot tears; I hoped they would get acquainted with those musky tresses, But instead they flooded his doorstep. My passion for him has locked me up; my heart is in the jail of those curls, But since that heart sings the praises of our ruler, I will not be there long.52

Then he follows up with offering a method of examination, which is offered to his audience through a poetic narrative that examines the stages of his languish and hope. The above poem is more than likely a take on Khâqâni’s poem, which begins with the following lines: Marâ del pir-e taʿ lim ast o man tefl-e zabân-dânash Dam-e taslim sar-e oshr o sar-e zânu dabestânash Na har zânu dabestânast o har dam loh-e taslimash Na har daryâ sadaf-dârast o har nam qatr-e nisinash53 My most precious teacher is the old man, that is to say my heart, And I am the child, who understands his “lingo.” Not every knee of subservience is a school, And not every word uttered is imprinted upon a heart that seeks.54

In the following qaside, Adib Sâber conveys images parallel to those found in the divans of Manuchehri and Farrokhi. The natural elements in the garden are participants in a jubilant heralding of the spring. Although some of these elements are made to found figurative accomplices in the stars and constellations, the imagery is quite pleasant and simple. The following qaside was composed for Majd-al-Din Tâj-al-Maʿâli, the governor of Khorasan. The exordium at the beginning continues well into the halfway point of the qaside: 52 Adib Sâber, Divân, ed. Nâseh, pp. 477–78. 53 Compare this line with: delam âsheq shodan farmûd o man bar hasb-e far­ mânash / Dar oftâdam be-dân dardi ke peydâ nist darmânash (ibid., line 1). 54 Khâqâni, Divân, ed. Sajjâdi, p. 209.

182

QASIDES OF THE KHWÂRAZMSHÂHID COURT Heaven is once again right around the corner as April and May are coming. The pastures are green and the air beneficent. The grass smells of musk—bejeweled is its dress from heavy rubies of rain. From the dew-ridden grass, the earth is like the heavens and stars. The grass, from the branch of the Jasmine extends the jewel-ridden necklace of Pleiades to earth.

In the above taghazzol, he engages a very old theme: the coming of spring (bahâriyye). Thematically, spring , and its poetic attributes, enable the poet to widen the parameters of the sovereign’s attributes in the panegyric section (madihe). In a milieu so alive and fresh, with smell of musk upon the earth, the only human extension to this picture of divine beauty would be the sovereign. The celestial elements at play, such as Venus, allow for an interconnection with the tertiary—and the ultimate—intent of the poem: the sovereign. Thereafter, in a clever poetic conceit he says: The heavens are humbled at the sight of our garden. In the same manner, the celestial sphere is humbled by the rank of our sovereign. The blessed Tâj-al-Maʿâli, who has it all when it comes to the utmost opulence and resolve, Is the most sublime and the most highly exalted. A strengthener of religion, who in accord with God’s will, Will have his realm until the Day of Judgment. The victorious one, whose shadow of just sovereignty, Only makes the unrighteous live in misery.55

Considered the crown jewel of all his panegyrics by Owfi, the author of Lobâb al-albâb, in the following qaside, Adib Sâber creates acutely spectacular images while building up the theme to the climax of praising Atsez Khwârazmshâh. As per his custom, he begins with a taghazzol: Oh you whose face is like paradise and your lips like mellow wine My heart and soul in turmoil when I am honored by their spectacle 55 Adib Sâber, Divân, ed. Nâseh, p. 75.

183

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA My heart seeks to serve you because subservience will keep me in proximity of this beauty. When would Venus be able show its luster next to your shining visage? When would the sun be called beautiful when you are around? From the burden of your separation, my steps are heavy. From the hurt of this love, all the subservient ones cry a Nile. Maybe my scornful heart would be remedied by the beneficence of the king of our times: The sun of all kings, Malek Atsez, whose intellect is like that of Ali b. Abi Tâleb.56

In line one, he uses paronomasia con addendum (jenâs-e zâyed) by the employment of mellow wine (salsabil) and torn up (sebil). There is an interesting mixture of feigned ignorance and preferred simile, where he doubts if the sun and Venus can compare their beauty with the sovereign; hence, he exalts the beauty of the beloved above that of the sun and Venus (lines 4–5).

8. Conclusion Perhaps when considering the magnificence of some of the other qaside poets, in some of the other regions of the Persian-speaking world in the twelfth century, the poetry of Vatvât and Adib Sâber do not shine so brightly. However, as has been pointed out, they have played their own part in advancing the qaside. This is certainly true of Adib Sâber with his unique exordiums. Although Vatvât’s career as a poet was marred by his rejection of Sanâ’i and his persistence in flights of fancy in his panegyric, his over-emphasis on figurative language has, nonetheless, distinguished him among his peers. It is exactly these aspects of poetic idiosyncrasy that make this century unique, not only in terms of the development of the qaside, but in the course of Persian poetry as a whole.

56 Owfi, Lobâb, pp. 230–34.

184

CHAPTER 5 THE QASIDE IN WESTERN PERSIA— PERSIAN POETRY GOES WEST J. T. P. de Bruijn Until the mid-eleventh century, the tradition of writing poetry in Persian was almost entirely confined to the courts in the eastern provinces. In areas further west, Arabic poetry remained dominant, even under the Buyids, the Iranian dynasty originating from the land of Daylam on the western side of the Alborz range. In the late tenth century, the court at Ray of the Buyid vizier Esmâʿil b. Abbâd, known as the sâheb (master), was a flourishing center of Arabic rather than Persian literature, although a few bilingual poets did write in Persian as well as in Arabic. In the Caspian coastlands, experiments were made with the literary use of other Iranian dialects in poetry and prose, especially the Gilaki dialect of Gilân and the Tabari dialect of Tabarestân (Mazandaran) and Gorgân, but eventually they yielded as literary idioms to the rising tide of the already well-established New Persian literary language.1 During the Saljuq period, semi-independent Atâbeg dynasties flourished in the Caucasian regions of Azerbaijan and Shirvân (or Arrân). Though they were mostly of Turkish stock, other ethno-­ linguistic elements, Kurdish, Arabic, and Persian, were also to be found among the ruling elites. Because of their geopolitical position at the frontier of the Islamic Middle East, they were in constant contact with the neighboring Christian powers: the Byzantines and, in particular, the kings of Georgia who acted at times as enemies and at other times as protectors of these petty Muslim states. The main dynastic centers were Marâghe, Tabriz, and 1 Rypka, HIL, pp. 146–47.

185

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

further to the north, Ganje and Shamâkhiye, the residence of the rulers of Sharvân. There was a strong link with pre-Islamic Iranian traditions, as illustrated by the use of the title of Sharvânshâh, a survival from the Sasanian empire that continued to be assumed by the rulers of the northeastern part of the Caucasus, regardless of their ethnic origins. In the twelfth century, with the Saljuqs in decline, the courts of the Caucasian Atâbegs became flourishing centers of Persian Islamic culture.

1. Asadi of Tus Abu-Mansur Ali Asadi of Tus (fl. mid-eleventh century) was one of the first to attempt to bring eastern and western Persian poetry closer together. He left his homeland of Khorasan and settled in Azerbaijan, where he found a patron in Abu Dolaf, the local ruler of Nakhchevân. In his Loghat al-fors (The Vocabulary of the Persians), dedicated to Abu Dolaf, Asadi tried to familiarize his fellow poets in western Persia with the idiom of literary Persian as it had developed in the east, by means of an anthology of single lines of poetry. He was also a poet in his own right, as the author of the Garshâsp-nâme, an epic mathnavi in the style of Ferdowsi’s Shâhnâme, and of a series of five panegyric qasides built on the device of the monâzare (strife-poem) in their prologues. The debates are between two protagonists, who might be human or animals, plants, material objects, or abstract ideas. The pairs appearing in Asadi’s poems are: Night and Day; Spear and Bow; Heaven and Earth; Arab and Persian; and Muslim and Zoroastrian. This ancient literary device was in use in the Middle Ages in Europe under the Italian term of tenzone. It was also employed by the great Saljuq poets of Asadi’s days.2 2

See above, Chapter 2, 4. Amir Moʿezzi on Moʿezzi’s strife poem featuring iron and reed. On Asadi’s debate poems see further: F. Abdullaeva, “The Bodleian manuscript of Asadī Ṭūsī’s Munāẓara between an Arab and a Persian: Its Place in the Transition from Ancient Debate to Classic Panegyric,” Iran 47 (2009), pp. 60–95.

186

THE QASIDE IN WESTERN PERSIA

2. Qatrân of Tabriz As far as we know, the earliest Persian poet who was a native of Azerbaijan was Sharaf-al-Zamân Qatrân. He was born near Tabriz and flourished in in Nakhchevân in the middle years of the eleventh century as the encomiast of a number of local dynasties, including the Ravvâdis of Tabriz, the Shaddâdis of Ganje, and Abu Dolaf, the patron of Asadi’s dictionary. In his famous travelogue, Safar-nâme, the poet and philosopher Nâser-e Khosrow recounts visiting Qatrân in Tabriz and responding to his request to explain some difficult words in the divans of the poets Monjik and Daqiqi from eastern Iran. He commented that Qatrân wrote good poetry, but did not know Persian very well.3 In some manuscripts, his poems are falsely attributed to Rudaki.4 A notable feature of the fragments from his qasides, as cited in Owfi’s anthology, is the frequent use of wordplay (tajnis), especially in the rhymes of the opening lines. A few examples: Yâft az daryâ degar bâr abr-e gowharbâr bâr Bâgh-o bustân yâft gowharriz-o gowharbâr bâr Once again from the sea the pearl-bearing clouds received a fresh load And the garden and the orchard received showers of jewels and sprays of gems Kard az sonbol separdan pây minâ rang rang Gasht chun marjân ze gol farsang dar farsang sang From his crushing the hyacinths, the mountain goat’s (rang) feet turned azure in color (minâ rang); The rocks turned into coral thanks to the abundance of roses.

3 4

Nâser-e Khosrow, Safar-nâme, ed. N. Vazinpur (4 th print, Tehran, 1979), pp. 7–8. An early copy of Qatrân’s Divân, allegedly copied in 529 Q/1134 ce, was probably a forgery. It was used for the edition by M. Nakhjavâni (Tabriz, 1954), but has since disappeared; cf. F. de Blois, PL V, pp. 216–17; F. Richard, EIr, s. v. Forgeries iv. Of Islamic Manuscripts.

187

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Chun be-tarf-e juy benhâde gol-e khodruy ruy ­Jây-e bâ maʿshuq mey khordan be-tarf-e juy juy Since it is towards the brook that the wildflowers have turned their faces, For drinking wine with the beloved seek a spot by the brook.5

3. Khâqâni In the middle years of the twelfth century, a remarkable group of poets emerged at the court of the Sharvânshâhs. Among the first known to us was Abu’l-Alâ of Ganje (d. 1159), the poet laureate of Manuchehr III (r. about 1120–60). As the “foreman of the boon companions” (sayyed al-nodamâ), he held a position of trust at court until he fell out of favor towards the end of his life. Abu’l-Alâ is said to have been “by no means a mediocre” poet, whose poetry, of which only a few fragments have survived, was marked “by his vocabulary, his syntactical constructions and not in the last place his lucidity.”6 He is, however, best remembered as the teacher of one of the greatest poets of the Persian qaside, Afzal-al-Din Ebrâhim (or Badil) Khâqâni.7 Although much has been written on Khâqâni’s life, mainly on the basis of indications derived from his own poems, many biographical problems remain unresolved. The following personal details are more or less certain. He was born in 1121 in Ganje. His mother was a Nestorian Christian slave who converted to Islam. After the death of his father, a carpenter, his uncle Kâfi-al-Din Omar b. Othmân, a man of learning, took charge of his education. He taught him a great deal about medicine and other sciences, providing him with the scholarly lore that he subsequently displayed so lavishly in his poems, and which turned him into an outstanding poeta doctus. He began his career as a court poet in the reign of Manuchehr III, 5

Mohammad Owfi, Lobâb al-albâb, eds. E. G. Browne and M. Qazvini (2 vols., Leiden and London, 1903–6), II, pp. 214–15. 6 Rypka, HIL, p. 202. 7 De Blois, PL V, p. 383, n. 3, doubts that the word badil, occurring in one of the poet’s verses, should be understood as a personal name.

188

THE QASIDE IN WESTERN PERSIA

whose death in 1160 he mourned in an elegy. At first he made use of the penname Haqâyeqi, but then selected a new name derived from Khâqân-e kabir, “the great khâqân,” an honorific of his royal patron. His literary career reached its peak under Manuchehr’s successor Akhsetân (r. 1160–1204). In spite of their exceptionally complicated diction, his fine qasides were well received, but he was an ambitious and apparently restless man, constantly looking out for new professional venues. In 1155, he went on a pilgrimage to Mecca. On the journey, he visited the Saljuq sultan Mohammad II in his army camp, as well as several eminent clerics in Hamadan, Baghdad, and Mosul. In Kufa he paid homage to the tomb of Ali b. Abi-Tâleb. The figures mentioned above were eulogized by him in a mathnavi poem, the Tohfat al-Erâqeyn (“The Souvenir from the Two Iraqs”), which in the guise of a poetic travelogue displays a variety of motifs that also recur in his qasides.8 On his return to Sharvân, he was thrown into jail by Akhsetân. At this and other difficult moments in his career, he resorted to the genre of the “prison poems” (habsiyyât) to air his complaints. Sometimes, he depicted the land of Sharvân itself as a prison from which he longed to be freed. In an attempt to achieve his “release” he approached the Khwârazmshâh Atsïz in Khorasan, and sought the support of his poet laureate Rashid-al-Din Vatvât, but this merely resulted in an exchange of biting satire between the two poets. Another famous incident occurred during a visit to Isfahan, in which Khâqâni was accused of lampooning its citizens, although the poem in question was in fact the work of his pupil Mojir-al-Din Beylaqâni. A feature that has been of particular interest to Western scholars is the reflection of Christianity in Khâqâni’s works. This far exceeds what is usually found in the works of other Persian poets, whose incidental references to Christian lore belong to a limited repertoire of stereotyped images, bearing no evidence of direct knowledge of the religion itself. Khâqâni’s case is different. His geographical milieu brought him into personal contact with the Christian Georgians as well as the Byzantines. The influence of the Georgian king on Muslim Sharvân was so strong that Khâqâni 8

See A. L. F. A. Beelaert, A Cure for the Grieving (Leiden, 2000).

189

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

could seek help when he sought permission to leave on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In 1168, he wrote a qaside for a Byzantine prince that demonstrates his familiarity with Christian theology and its controversies. The addressee, whose intervention he requested when he was imprisoned was, according to some scholars, the future Byzantine emperor Andronicus Comnenus I (r. 1182–85).9 His last years were spent at Tabriz, away from the court of Sharvân. Although living in seclusion, he continued to write poems. The earliest date for his death is 1186, mentioned by the fourteenth-century historian Hamd-Allâh Mostowfi; however, according to Russian archeologists who have examined his tomb, he could have lived on till 1198. He was buried in “the cemetery of the poets” at Sorkhâb, a place near Tabriz.10 Khâqâni’s voluminous divan has been preserved in a remarkably good condition.11 The qasides constitute the main part of his lyrical poetry. The contents are diverse and show that he followed mainly two lines of tradition. On the one hand, he was a professional panegyrist consciously following in the footsteps of the great Ghaznavid and Saljuq court poets and, in particular, Onsori. On the other hand, he produced many poems that belong to the genre of religious and ethical “homiletic” poetry, and he claimed to be another Sanâ’i or, in a wider Islamic perspective, a “Persian Hassân” (Hassân al-Ajam), implying that he was the equal of the Arab poet Hassân b. Thâbet, the seventh-century eulogist of the   9 Cf. the detailed analysis by V. Minorsky, “Khāqānī and Andronicus Comnenus,” BSOAS 11 (1945), pp. 550–78 = idem, Iranica. Twenty Articles (Tehran, 1964), pp. 120–50; Persian translation by A. Zarrinkub with important addenda in Farhang-e Irânzamin 1 (1953), pp. 111–72. For the results of more recent investigations by Western scholars, see Rypka, HIL, pp. 202–8; idem, CHIr V (1968), pp. 569–75; de Blois, PL V, pp. 382–99; B. Reinert, EI2 , s. v. Khākānī; and A. L. Beelaert, EIr, s. v. Kāqāni. 10 The first modern biography by N. de Khânikof, “Mémoire sur Khâqâni, poëte persan du XIIe siècle,” JA 6/4 (1864), pp. 167–200, at pp. 137–20; JA 6/5 (1865), pp. 296–367 is reproduced in a condensed form by E. G. Browne, LHP II, pp. 391–400. 11 The best edition is the one published by Ziyâ-al-Din Sajjâdi (2 nd print, Tehran, 1978) on the basis of an early manuscript in the British Library, London (Or. 7942), copied at Khojand, 664 Q/1266 ce.

190

THE QASIDE IN WESTERN PERSIA

Prophet Mohammad. As well as poems addressed to prospective patrons, he wrote many poems of a more personal nature, in particular elegies on members of his family, including his mother, his uncle, a son, and a daughter. The qasides are the most characteristic part of Khâqâni’s poetry. Of particular significance are several widely acclaimed lengthy poems of the homiletic kind. They were already singled out at an early stage by having individual titles attached to them in the manuscripts, an uncommon practice in Persian qasides: e. g., Manteq al-teyr (The Speech of the Birds), glorifying the Prophet and the Kaʿba; Nozhat al-arvâh (Diversion for the Spirit[s]), on the stages of the pilgrimage to Mecca; Mer’ât al-Safâ (The Mirror of Purity), on wisdom and the perfection of the soul; and Eyvân-e Madâʾen, a memento mori reflecting on the ruins of the palace of the Sasanians in their capital Ctesiphon (or ­under its Arabic name Madâyen), on the banks of the Tigris. Khâqâni’s idiosyncratic style is marked by an almost inexhaustible inventiveness of poetic motifs and images, elaborated with the application of complicated rhetorical figures, especially through extended metaphors and hyperbolic comparisons. He enriched the Persian literary idiom with numerous new compounds. He examined types of the harmonious use of images, themes, and speech sounds, and of hyperbole.12 In spite of the obscurity often ascribed to his verse, the vocabulary he used was of great influence on later Persian lexicology.13 12 A structural analysis of Khâqâni’s application of rhetorical figures and imagery in German was made by B. Reinert, Hāqānī als Dichter. Poetische Logik und Phantasie (Berlin and New York, 1972). 13 Pre-modern commentaries of the Divân were listed by Sajjâdi in the appendix “Shoruh-e ashʿâr-e Khâqâni Shervâni” to his edition of Havâshi doctor Mohammad Moʿ in bar ashʿ âr-e Khâqâni -ye Shervân (Tehran, 1979), pp. 153–67; see further: Shams-al-Din Mohammad Lahijâni, Sharh-e qaside Masihiye-ye Khâqâni (dated 1218 Q/1803 ce), edited with a commentary by Z. Sajjâdi in Farhang-e Irânzamin, XVII (1969), pp. 244–360. Modern commentaries in Persian: Mir Jalâl-al-din Kazzâzi, Gozâresh-e doshvârihâ-ye divân-e Khâqâni (2 nd ed., Tehran, 2006); idem, Rokhsâr-e sobh (1 st ed., Tehran, 1989), including a life of the poet and an extensive commentary on the Rokhsâr-e sobh qaside; and Maʿsume Maʿdankan, Bazm-e dirine-ye ‘arus (2 nd ed., Tehran, 1999), a commentary on 15 qasides.

191

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

The grand style was applied to his secular and his homiletic qasides alike. An example of the former is a poem in honor of the Sharvânshâh Manuchehr on the occasion of the construction of a dam built on the river Kor near Beylaqân by the order of the ruler.14 The structure of this poem is marked by two features, both highly characteristic of Khâqâni’s style: first, the introduction of the word sobh, “dawn”, in each couplet as a (self-imposed) “obligation” (eltezâm); second, the division of the long prologue into four sections, all of which begin with an internally rhyming couplet as if they were the opening line of an independent poem. The four sections all end with a brief eulogy to the poet’s patron and resemble the sections of a stanzaic poem. It appears that the poet was less interested in describing the dam, which is only mentioned towards the end of the prologue, than in vaunting his powers of poetic description in front of his royal patron. The first section gives the description of dawn as an alluring figure lifting up her veil: Jabhat-e zarrin nemud torre-ye sobh az neqâb Atse-ye shab gasht sobh khande-ye sobh âftâb Ghamze-ye akhtar bebast khande-ye rokhsâr-e sobh Sorme-ye giti beshost gerye-ye chashm-e sahâb Migh chu posht-e palang kard havâ-râ be-sobh Mâh chu shâkh-e gavazn ruy nemud az hejâb Dahre bar andâkht sobh zahre bar afkand shab Peykar-e âfâq gasht gharqe-ye safrâ-ye nâb Sobh-e fanakpush-râ abr zere zad qabâ Bord kolâh-e zar-ash qondoz-e shab-râ ze-tâb Dawn revealed its golden forehead from the veil of its locks; Dawn became night’s offspring, and the sun dawn’s smile.15 Dawn’s broadening smile put a stop to the stars’ coquetry; Tears from the eyes of the clouds washed the collyrium from the world. At dawn clouds flecked the air like the back of a leopard; The moon showed itself like a deer’s antlers from behind the curtain. 14 Khâqâni, Divân, ed. Sajjâdi, pp. 45–49. See also A. F. Beelaert, EIr, s. v. Ḵāqāni. 15 Literally “the sneeze” (atse), the offspring, or spitting image of dawn, i. e., its direct, natural outcome.

192

THE QASIDE IN WESTERN PERSIA When dawn displayed its dagger, the night took fright and fled; The figure of the horizon was submerged in pure yellow bile Clouds covered dawn’s Tartary fox-fur (fanak) with a coat of mails; The sun’s golden crown deprived night’s sable of its strength and put it to flight. [lines 1–5]

This auroral sketch is the prelude to the description of a convivial party during the night that carries on to the early hours of the day. The patron is pictured as a glorious ruler symbolized by the glory of dawn. The sun is “a citrus of gold / for the hands of the king who is the owner of servitude.” His speech is like that of Moses, his faith akin to Khezr’s, and he has the majesty of an Alexander (Eskandar). In the second section, a drunken sweetheart (shâhed) awakens the poet and then goes out in search of a morning drink (sabuh). He scolds the poet for not asking for a morning draught himself. The poet replies with a morally correct argument, but at the same time gives expression to his amorous desire: Man nakonam kâr-e âb k-u bebarad âb-e kâr Sobh-e kherad chun damid âb shavad kâr-e âb Man be to ey zud-seyr teshne-ye dirine-am Dashne makash hamchu sobh teshne makosh chun sarâb Naqb zadam dar lab-at ruy-e to rosvâ-m kard K-âfat-e naqqâb hast sobhdam-o mâhtâb I do not indulge in drinking bouts, for drinking washes away my honor Once wisdom dawns the crave for liquor melts into thin air. I have thirsted for you so long; you who are satiated so quickly!16 Do not kill a thirsty man the way a mirage does. I delved into your lips [in search of a kiss], but your face puts me to shame; For dawn and moonlight are the banes of a digger’s art. [lines 21–23]

At this point the persona of the shâhed merges with the real person of the patron: 16 A wordplay on seyr and sir: “fleet-footed” (like dawn?) and “quickly satiated,” i. e., bored with company, as antinomies.

193

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Morgh-e to Khâqâni ast dâ’i-ye sobh-e vesâl Manteq-e morghân shenâs shâh-e Soleymân-rekâb Khâqâni is your bird, the harbinger of the dawn of coming together, Learning the Speech of the Birds at the stirrup of king Solomon!17 [line 24]

The patron is praised in particular for his distinction in the sciences and religious studies. In the introduction to the third section, the scene is elevated to a higher level. The poet relates how the prophet Khezr comes to visit him at dawn causing great excitement in the house. When Khezr notices that he is drunk with love, he urges him to compose a panegyric for the royal patron. After a repeated description of the rising sun, and without mentioning his patron’s name, Khâqâni turns to the eulogy proper (madihe). In this section only passing reference is made to the building of a dam by means of a powerful hyperbole: Zahre-ye aʿ dâ shekâft chun jegar-e sobhdam Tâ jegar-e âb-râ sodde bebast az torâb Gar bedarad sobh-e hashr sadd-e savâd-e falak Nâkhoni az sadd-e shâh nashkanad az hich bâb He broke his enemies’ power just as dawn drives away sorrow (jegar), When he contained the power (jegar) of the water with clay. Till the Dawn of Resurrection shall break the dam of the universe, No nail can scratch from the king’s dam even the tiniest part. [lines 50–51]

The prologue of the non-panegyric qaside Manteq al-teyr also focuses the images of Dawn and the Sun. This poem consists of two parts separated by a second opening line in the thirteenth couplet: 17 The speech of the birds (manteq al-teyr), one of Khâqâni’s favorite motifs, is derived from a reference to king Solomon (Soleymân) in the Qor’an (Sura xxvii, 16). Before Khâqâni, the philosopher Avicenna and the mystics Mohammad and Ahmad Ghazâli had treated the same motif in Arabic and Persian prose. Slightly later than Khâqâni (probably in 1210), Farid-al-Din Attâr (d. ca. 1220) elaborated it into a long mystical poem in his mathnavi entitled Manteq al-teyr. Khâqâni takes a pride in being the servant of king Solomon as a poet.

194

THE QASIDE IN WESTERN PERSIA

1. A description of Dawn and the Kaʿba in Mecca [lines 1–12] 2. A description of the spring season followed by the praise of the “Master of the Beings” (seyyed al-kâ’enât), i. e., the Prophet Mohammad: use is made of the legend of the search of the birds for their leader from which the title of the poem was taken [lines 13–66]18 Zad nafas-e serr be-mehr sobh-e molamma‛-neqâb Kheyme-ye ruhâniyyân kard mo‛ambar-tanâb Dawn, wearing a multicolored veil, lovingly [or: with the rising sun] exhaled a secret breath And perfumed the cords of the angels’ tent with amber.

The basic theme of the opening couplet is the evocation of a gentle wind blowing at dawn, which revives the world after the night. A live-giving force is ascribed to the wind, because it originates from the serr, the “secret place”, i. e., the most inner part of the soul.19 The second image, the “tent” with its “cords”, is a conventional image for the expanse of the firmament that is held in its place by the four natural elements; therefore, it is said to be the dwelling place of the “spiritual beings” (ruhâniyyân, i. e., the angels as the beings inhabiting the metaphysical universe). The picture of this scene is constructed from a set of harmonious images (the figure tanâsob). Shod gowhar andar gowhar safhe-ye tigh-e sahar shod gereh andar gereh halqe-ye derʿ-e sahâb Pearls upon pearls appeared on the blade of Dawn’s sword, Curl upon curl on the coat of mail of the Clouds.

Dewdrops, like “pearls”, become visible in the first rays (“the blade”: the Persian word tigh means both “ray of the sun” and “sword”) under a clouded sky (“the coat of mails”). The metaphor has changed completely: dawn is now a warrior ready to go into action. In its Persian form, this couplet is marked by a parallel 18 Khâqâni, Divân, ed. Sajjâdi, pp. 41–45. Each half-verse of this qaside consists of two parts of equal length, which in some lines have an internal rhyme. 19 The expression “lovingly” (be-mehr) is ambiguous, as the Persian word mehr means “sun” as well as “love.” An alternative rendering might therefore be: “Dawn had a secret conversation with the sun.”

195

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

metrical structure (movâzane). The repeated words “pearl” (gowhar) and “mail” (gereh) constitute a partial word play (tajnis-e nâqes), because the consonants are the same although in each case they are in a different order. Bâl foru kuft morgh morgh-e tarab gasht del Bâng bar âvord kus kus-e safar kuft khwâb The birds flapped their wings, the heart became an excited bird; The sound of the drums was heard, sleep beat the drum for departure.

The awakening of nature equals the awakening of the human heart. The Persian of this couplet is closely knit by means of repetitions: each half-verse is divided into two parts; the word ending the first part is repeated at the beginning the second part. The “drum” refers to the custom of beating drums to mark the rise of the sun at a place called naqqâr-khâne, “house of the drums”, at the entrance of a palace, one of the paraphernalia of royal status, but it also refers to the signal given for the departure of a caravan. Sobh bar âmad ze-kuh chun mah-e Nakhshab ze-châh Mâh bar âmad be-sobh chun dom-e mâhi ze-âb Dawn rose over the mountains as the Moon of Nakhshab from the well; The Moon came up at dawn like the tail of the Fish from the water. [lines 1–4]

The rise of dawn over the mountains is compared to a famous historical incident: in the days of the Abbasid Caliph al-Mahdi (r. 775–85), a man came forward in Khorasan, who always hid his face behind a veil and was for that reason called “the veiled one” (al-Moqannaʿ). In the Transoxianan city of Nakhshab, on the north bank of the river Oxus, he tried to prove his claim to be God by letting the moon rise from a well.20 The “Fish” (mâhi) belongs to an ancient cosmological legend, according to which the earth rests 20 The accounts of Arab historians on al-Moqanna’ were translated in full by Browne, LHP I, pp. 313–23. See also on a historical source for this story: Patricia Crone and Masoud Jafari Jazi, “The Muqannaʿ Narrative in the Tārīkhnāma,” Part I, BSOAS 73/2 (2010), pp. 157–77; Part II, BSOAS 73/3 (2010), pp. 381–413, with the Persian text.

196

THE QASIDE IN WESTERN PERSIA

on the back of a gigantic fish, a reminder of the Leviathan of the Biblical tradition.21 Through a comparison of the rays of the sun to the lances of Arab Bedouins, Khâqâni makes a transition to the real theme of his introduction: the glorification of the Kaʿba, the goal of the Islamic pilgrimage.22 Nize kashid âftâb halqe-ye mah dar robud Nize-ye in zarr-e sorkh halqe-ye ân sim-e nâb Shab Arabivâr bud baste neqâb-e banafsh Az che sabab chun Arab nize kashid âftâb Bar katef-e âftâb bâz redâ-ye zar-ast Karde chu Aʿrabiyân bar dar-e Kaʿ be ma’âb Haqq-e to Khâqâniyâ Kaʿ be tovânad shenâkht Z-âkhor-e sangin talab tushe-ye yowm al-hesâb Mard bovad Kaʿ be-juy tefl bovad ka’b-bâz Chon to shodi mard-e din, ruy ze Kaʿ be matâb Kaʿ be ke qotb-e hodâ- st moʿtakef-st az sokun Khod nabovad hich qotb monqaleb az ezterâb Hast be pirâmon-ash towf-konân âsmân Âri bar gerd-e qotb charkh zanad âsyâb Khânekhodâ-yash khodâ-st lâjaram-ash nâm hast Shâh-e morabbeʿ-neshin tâzi-ye rumi-khetâb The sun drew out its lance and snatched away the lunar ring:23 The Sun’s lance red gold; the Moon’s ring pure silver. The night appeared Arabian, with a [dark] violet veil Why would the sun draw out a lance, as if he were an Arab? 24 21 This metaphorical reading would be in line with the cosmic event described here. Perhaps it could also be read in a naturalistic manner as well, i. e., as the direct picture of a fish splashing on the surface and flashing its tail in the air. 22 On the metaphorical connection between the sun, the Kaʿba, and the personality of the Prophet Mohammad, which plays a central role in Khâqâni’s poetry, see in particular the monograph by Beelaert, A Cure for the Grieving, pp. 29–113. 23 This game of poking at and snatching a ring by using a spear also appears in Tohfat al-Erâqayn, ed. A. A. Âq Qalʿa (Tehran, 2009), third discourse, p. 81, ll. 815–16; ed. Y. Qarib (Tehran, 1954), p. 77, where it is suggested that it is a game particularly popular among the Arabs. 24 The poet seems to be wittily questioning his own choice of imagery. Since the lance is the weapon of choice for the (dark-skinned) Arabs, how could it be that the Sun is playing their game.

197

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA The golden mantle lay again on the shoulders of the Sun; Like the people of Arabia it took up its residence at the Kaʿba. O Khâqâni, only the Kaʿba can reward you according to your true worth Seek your fodder for the Day of Reckoning from this manger of stone.25 A man should turn his face towards the Kaʿba It is a child who turns to his knucklebones (kaʿ b).26 As a man of religion, do not turn your back on the Kaʿba. The Kaʿba, that Pole of Guidance, is a resting anchorite; No Pole is ever touched by restlessness. The Sky circumambulates the Kaʿba; It is true, the Heavens turn around the Pole like a mill.27 God is the Owner of the House; therefore it is called: A king sitting on his knees, an Arab addressing a Greek.28 [lines 5–12]

The pilgrimage to the holy shrine in Mecca is one the most prominent themes of Khâqâni’s poetry. Even in a qaside that is concerned with another building, the journey to the Kaʿba is present in the background. When in 1174 he came back from his second pilgrimage, he brought with him, as a “present from his journey” (tohfe) for his “brethren” (ekhvân) in Sharvân, the long qaside which became his most celebrated poem describing the ruins of the Sasanian palace at Madâyen (the Arabic name for Ctesiphon, the Mesopotamian residence of the Sasanian kings) still standing on the bank of the river Tigris. It is tempting to suppose that this is a reflection of an actual visit of the poet to this place, but there is nothing in the text to confirm this. In fact, Khâqâni wrote it to emulate a famous 25 Perhaps an allusion to the image of the manger, which also provides a formal analogy for the Kaʿba. 26 A man should leave childish things behind (alluding antithetically to the cubical form of the Kaʿba). 27 A pun involving the spiritual pole of the mystics, the pole of ancient geography and the pole at the center of a flour-mill. 28 The first epithet probably compares the Kaʿba to a king “kneeling” in reverence of his Divine Sovereign. The second epithet resorts to an ethnic imagery, which conventionally contrasts dark and light in a hierarchical opposition: the Kaʿba is like a dark “Arab” addressing the shining “Greek” who again represents the Divine; this cryptic expression lends itself to different explanations as well.

198

THE QASIDE IN WESTERN PERSIA

Arabic qaside by al-Bohtori (d. 897) on the same subject.29 Like his predecessor, he did not intend to describe this ancient monument from the pre-Islamic past out of an antiquarian interest. This qaside, lacking all panegyric elements, was written as a homily, a moral “warning” (ebrat) as it is specified in the opening line. The vanished glory and power of the still admired pre-Islamic kings is mirrored in the supreme emblem of the vanity of mundane power and greatness, the portico (eyvân) of their palace ruined by the Arab invaders in the seventh century ce.30 Beginning in a self-reflective mode, Khâqâni urges his heart to contemplate the moral truths that can be derived from this famous scene. At first, he turns his attention to the intense sorrow caused by the loss of so much glory. The river Tigris (Dejle) is represented as a hyperbolically magnified mourner shedding tears over the spectacle of decay, whose example the heart should follow: Hân ey del-e ebratbin az dide ebar kon hân Eyvân-e Madâyen-râ âyine-ye ebrat dân Yak rah ze-lab-e Dejle manzel be Madâyen kon V-az dide dovvom Dejle bar khâk-e Madâyen rân O heart that heeds warnings! Let your eyes teach you! Consider the Portico of Madâ’en as a mirror of admonishment Take a step from the banks of the Tigris and stop a while at Madâyen And let a second Tigris from your eyes water the ground at Madâyen. [lines 1–2]

The rolling waves are compared to a “chain” (selsele), a twofold image because it refers first to the chain in front of the palace gate, which in the days of king Khosrow I Anushervân enabled 29 A detailed comparison between the two poems was made by J. W. Clinton, in Edebiyât 2 (1977), pp. 191–206, containing also A. J. Arberry’s translation of Bohtori’s Arabic poem. In the first installment of his study, published in Edebiyât 1 (1976), pp. 153–70, Clinton gave his own translation and interpretation of Khâqâni’s qaside. Julie Scott Meisami translated the poem in S. Sperl and C. Shackle, eds., Qasida Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa (2 vols., Leiden, 1996), II, pp. 162–69; and added an essay on “Khāqānī and the Qasida of Admonition,” ibid., I, pp. 173–82. 30 Khâqâni, Divân, ed. Sajjâdi, pp. 358–60. There is a rhetorical analysis of this qaside by J. Rypka, Archiv orientální 27 (1959), pp. 199–205.

199

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

supplicants to alert the king to their grievances; and secondly to the chains of a madman, to which the frenzied river is also compared. This opening scene leads to the central passage of the poem. The intense complaint of the river is echoed by the pinnacle of the portico. From here, a voice is conceived to resound. Khâqâni resorts here to the device of the “speech of condition” (zabân-e hâl), the procedure by which emblematic words are put into the mouths of objects, whether animate or inanimate, which speak emblematic truths by means of a description of their own characteristics.31 This is the message spoken by the portico: Guyad ke to az khâki mâ khâk-e to-im aknun Gâmi do-se bar mâ neh v-ashki do-se ham befshân Az nowhe-ye joghd al-haqq mâ-yim be dard-e sar Az dide golâbi kon dard-e sar-e mâ benshân Âri che ajab dâri k-andar chaman-e giti Joghd-ast pey-e bolbol nowhe-st pey-e alhân Mâ bârgah-e dâdim in raft setam bar mâ Bar qasr-e setamkârân guyi che rasad khezlân Guyi ke negun karde-st eyvân-e falakvash-râ Hokm-e falak gardân yâ hokm-e falak gardân Bar dide-ye man khandi k-injâ ze che migeryad Geryand bar ân dide k-injâ nashavad geryân Ni zâl-e Madâyen kam az pirzan-e Kufe Ni hojre-ye tang-e in kamtar ze tanur-e ân Dâni che Madâyen-râ bâ Kufe barâbar neh Az sine tanuri kon v-az dide talab tufân In hast hamân eyvân k-az naqsh-e rokh-e mardom Khâk-e dar-e u budi divâr-e negârestân In hast hamân dargah k-u-râ ze-shahân budi Deylam malek-e Bâbel Hindu shah-e Torkestân In hast hamân soffe k-az heybat-e u bordi Bar shir-e falak hamle shir-e tan-e shâdorvân [It says:] You are a creature of clay, we are today the dust [under your feet]; Walk two or three steps over us, and shed a few tears. 31

For a study of the application of this device in mysticism and literature see Nasr-Allâh Purjavâdi, Zabân-e hâl dar erfân va adabiyyât-e pârsi (Tehran, 2006).

200

THE QASIDE IN WESTERN PERSIA The lament of the owl has verily given us a headache, Spread some rosewater from your eyes to give us comfort. Does it surprise you that in the meadow of this world? The owl follows upon the nightingale, a lament upon sweet melodies! We, a court of justice, how grievously we were dealt with. Imagine what misfortune will hit the palace of tyrants! It seems as if this heaven-like portico has been devastated by The edict of the revolving firmament or the edict of its Mover. You laugh at me for crying here, One should cry over eyes that do not cry at this spot! Is the grey woman of Madâyen less than the old woman of Kufa? Is the former’s little hut less than the latter’s oven?32 You should bring Madâ’en and Kufa together: Turn your breast into an oven, let a flood stream from your eyes. This is the same portico where the prints of so many faces Made the dust in front of its gate into a picture gallery. This is the same gate where kings were demoted: Babylon’s king to a Deylami guard, the Turkish shah to a Hindu slave. This is the same pavilion from where out of fearful respect The lion of the royal tent attacked the Lion of the Heavens.33 [lines 11–21]

Then he addresses the reader as if he were a traveler who happens to pass by these ruins: Pendâr hamân ahd-ast az dide-ye fekrat bin Dar selsele-ye dargah dar kowkabe-ye meydân Az asb peyâde show bar natʿ-e zamin neh rokh Zir-e pey-e pil-ash bin shahmât shode Noʿmân Ni ni ke chu Noʿmân bin pilafkan-e shâhân-râ Pilân-e shab-o ruz-ash koshte be pey-e dowrân Ey bas shah-e pilafkan k-afkande be-shah-pili Shatranji-ye taqdir-ash dar mâtgah-e hermân Mast-ast zamin zirâ khorde-st be-jây-e mey Dar kâs-e sar-e Hormoz khun-e del-e Nushervân Bas pand ke bud ângah dar tâj-e sar-ash peydâ 32 Two legendary examples: the first woman refused to leave her hut to make room for king Anushervân’s castle; the second was Noah’s wife who caused the Flood by the water gushing from her oven, according to the commentaries on the story of Noah (Qor’an, Sura xi: 40). 33 I. e., the heraldic lion against Leo, one of the signs of the zodiac.

201

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Sad pand-e now-ast aknun dar maghz-e sar-ash penhân Kesrâ-o toronj-e zar Parviz-o beh-e zarrin Bar bâd shode yeksar, bâ khâk shodeh yeksân Parviz be-har bumi zarrin tare âvardi Kardi ze besât-e zar zarrin tare-râ bostân Parviz konun gom shod z-ân gom shode kamtar guy Zarrin tare ku bar khwân row kam taraku bar khwân Gofti ke kojâ raftand ân tâjvarân inak Z-ishân shekam-e khâk-ast âbestan-e jâvidân Bas dir hami zâyad âbestan-e khâk âri Doshvâr bovad zâdan notfe setadan âsân Imagine yourself in that time, see it through the meditative eye, The chain at the gate and the cavalcade on the parade ground. Alight from your horse, lay your face on the carpet of the soil; See Noʿmân lying checkmate, under the royal elephant’s feet. No, no: look like Noʿmân at the kings who slayed elephants, How they were trampled in the roundabout of the elephants of night and day.34 O many a king who could kill an elephant with his royal elephant Was brought into checkmate by chess player Fate. The earth is drunken because, instead of wine, It has been drinking Nushervân’s blood from the scull of Hormoz.35 Many wise words were once to be read on his head’s crown; A hundred new words of wisdom are now hidden inside his brain.36 Kesrâ and his golden orange, Parviz and his golden quince, It has all been blown away by the wind, all become dust. Parviz has gone now, do not speak anymore about those who are gone; Ask: “Where are these fresh herbs?” recite: “They left how many …?”37 Where have they all gone, those crowned heads? 34 Noʿmân was also a witness to the ruin of the Sasanian kings in the course of time. 35 Two names of Sasanian kings who are conventional emblems of the vanity of mundane power. 36 The Sasanian king Khosrow Anushervân (531–79 ce) and his minister Bozorjmehr were also eponyms of collections of wise sayings. 37 Partial quotation from Qor’an, Sura xliv, 25: “They left how many gardens and fountains?” (tr. A. J. Arberry). The golden attributes refer to the legendary account of the splendor at the court the second Khosrow (in Arabic called Kesrâ), nicknamed Parviz (r. 591–628 ce).

202

THE QASIDE IN WESTERN PERSIA The earth is now forever pregnant with them. It will be a long time till the pregnant earth gives birth; Giving birth will be hard after such an easy impregnation. [lines 22–33]

Khâqâni’s homiletic intent is made quite clear in the conclusion of the poem when he again addresses himself: Khâqâni az in dargah daryuze-ye ebrat kon Tâ az dar-e tu z-ân pas daryuze konad khâqân Emruz gar az sultan rendi talabad tushe Fardâ ze-dar-e rendi tushe talabad sultan Khâqâni, beg from this gate words of wisdom; Once the Khâqân will come to your door begging for this. Today a drunkard asks for alms from a Sultan, Tomorrow the Sultan holds up his hand at the door of the drunkard. [lines 37–38]

In spite of the poet’s explicit statement, a quite different meaning has been given to this qaside in modern times. At the beginning of the twentieth century, modern notions about nationalism and the condemnation of autocratic tyranny have been projected into this qaside by several poets and writers. As Rypka and Clinton have pointed out, this is obviously an anachronism. At the time of the Persian Constitutional Revolution, the bilingual poet Hosayn Dânesh wrote in this vein a “sixfold” strophic poem (tasdis), in which five lines were added to each half verse of Khâqâni.38 Other examples are Lâhuti’s famous poem on the Kremlin (1923) as the emblem of the oppression of the people, and the libretti for Mohammad Rezâ Eshqi’s musical dramas Kafan-e siyâh (“The Black Shroud”) and Rastâkhiz-e shahrdârân-e Irân (“Resurrection of the Rulers of Iran”), both situated at the site of the ruins of Madâ’en, which express nostalgia of a glorious past as well as expectations for a national revival.39 38 In 1924 the tasdis of Dânesh was published, together with similar poems by others, at the Iranshahr press, Berlin, under the title Eyvân-e Madâ’en; cf. P. Chelkowski, EIr, s. v. Dāneš, where other works by Dânesh are mentioned. 39 A synopsis in Yahyâ Âryanpur, Az Sabâ tâ Nimâ (2 vols., Tehran, 1971), II, pp. 372–75.

203

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Khâqâni found many followers among the poets who were active in the western parts of Persia during the twelfth century. Some of them may actually have been his pupils. The most talented was Mojir-al-din (d. about 1197), who came from Beylaqân, a town in Sharvân. He had a quarrelsome character and brought his master in an awkward position through his lampoon on the citizens of Isfahan. Among Mojir’s patrons was the Saljuq sultan Arslân b. Toghrel II (r. 1161–76). He has left a sizable divan, mainly qasides and ghazals. As an inventive stylist, he reached the level of his master, but his poetry is easier to understand than the poetry of many other masters. Mohammad Falaki (1107–after 1157) spent his entire career in his native Sharvân serving the local rulers. His pen name refers to his expertise in the study of the heavenly bodies, which is reflected in his poems. Mention should also be made of Athir of Akhsikat, who originated from the Central Asian area of Fergana. After the collapse of Saljuq power in the east, he migrated to the court of the western Saljuqs at Hamadan, and eulogized the Ildegizid Atabegs in Azerbaijan. In his qasides, he proved himself to be a true poeta doctus like most of his contemporaries. Athir became known as a rival of Mojir, and was even accused of pilfering the latter’s poetry. His death occurred probably in 1181 or 1183.40

40 See further on these poets: Safâ, Târikh-e adabiyyât dar Irân (5 vols., Tehran, 1956–91), II, pp. 721–29 (Mojir); 774–76 (Falaki); 707–15 (Athir).

204

CHAPTER 6 THE QASIDE IN THE MONGOL AND TIMURID PERIODS M. Keyvani

1. Introduction This chapter will focus on the development of the qaside from the time of the Mongol invasion and conquest of Iran (1216–19) to the closing years of the fifteenth century, which witnessed the rise of the Safavid dynasty. However, since Genghis Khan’s incursions began a year before Mohammad Khwârazmshâh’s downfall, and continued through the next eleven years, during the reign of his son, Jalâl-al-Din, a brief historical account of the latter period of the Khwârazmshâh reign will be given at the outset and the qaside composers flourishing in their time will be addressed later in this chapter.

2. The Khwârazmshâhs This dynasty was founded in 1077 by Anushtegin Gharcha’i, a Turkish slave who had been appointed as the governor of Khwârazm. His descendants, taking advantage of the weakening of the Saljuq sultans, grew into a great power in Transoxiana and some adjoining territories under Atsïz (1127–56) and his successors. The power of the dynasty, which had acquired the title of Khwârazmshâh, further expanded so that that Alâ’-al-Din Mohammad (r. 1200–20) ruled a large empire, which included Transoxiana, Iran, and Afghanistan. However, having initially failed to assess the extent of the Mongol threat, he put to death the members of a trade mission 205

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

sent by Genghis Khan and had to face the full force of the Mongol invasion. Unable to resist the Mongol assault, he left his capital and fled into exile, where he died in 1221.1 His son, Jalâl-al-Din, despite some brave resistance and heroic attempts to push back the Mongols and save his kingdom, was defeated and, after his murder in 1231, the Khwârazmshâh dynasty fell.2 The Mongol dominion of Transoxiana, Iran, and much of the Middle East, following the demise of the Abbasid caliphate by Hülegu (1256), introduced a series of socioeconomic, cultural, and literary changes.3

Literary Background The period under consideration, which covers the Mongol and Timurid periods, from the thirteenth to the end of the fifteenth centuries, was naturally very much a time of continuation of the previous literary tradition rather than exhibiting any marked change. During this period, the poetical style commonly known as the “Iraqi Style” (sabk-e Erâqi) had reached its zenith. Those poets who have written qasides will be discussed later. The qaside was still the dominant form of poetry, but about to yield, sooner or later, to the ghazal. Poetry of this period, the qaside in particular, continued to cherish the long established proclivity of freely using Arabic words and expressions as well as a rhetorically ornate language, the exception being Saʿdi’s odes with their admirable fluency and unaffected idiom.

1 Nasavi, Sirat-e Jalâl-al-Din Minkoberni, pp. 68–70. (It is useful because Nasavi not only gives the date but also a moving account of Jalâl-al-Din’s tragic last days.) The full bibliography is given at the end of the volume. 2 Ibid., p. 279; Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, Târikh-e Mofassal-e Iran, pp. 138–41. 3 For further detail on the Khwârazmshâhs, see Browne, LHP II, ch. vii, and Bosworth, EIr, s. v. Chorasmia. ii. In Islamic Times.

206

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

3. The Mongol Period Sociopolitical Backdrop The Mongol dominance over Iran began with Genghis Khan’s incursion in 1216 leading to the establishment (c. 1256) in Iran of the Ilkhanid Empire, which lasted until about 1350. The Saljuq rule in Iran had already virtually come to an end, and the Khwârazmshâhs, who had been overpowering their Saljuq overlords, replaced them. The Khwârazmshâhs were in turn crushed by the new invaders from Central Asia. The Mongol conquest of Iran, a drastic turning point in this country’s long history, had far-reaching repercussions, initially producing a staggering amount of havoc and misery, but, later on, introducing some constructive and beneficial cultural and political measures, particularly under Ghâzân Khan. The lasting overall consequences of this traumatic Mongol invasion, and its “various side-effects in almost every area of the material and intellectual life of the people living in the region,” were considerable.4 An account of any length of the extent and depth of the Mongol atrocities inflicted upon Iran and a treatment of the positive and negative consequences of this enormous incident are beyond the confines of this contribution.5 However, the historiography of the last two or three decades emphasizes that the impact on world history of the Mongol incursions had not only been death and destruction on a vast scale; it had also been “strikingly constructive and fertile” in certain areas. The impression conveyed by this shift of opinion is on the whole a positive one, revising the previous thoroughly unfavorable historical judgment brought against the 4 5

Glunz, “Poetic Tradition and Social Change,” p. 191. For a sampling of the stunning descriptions of what the Mongols did, especially to Iran, one may refer to some of the contemporary historians of the time, such as Ebn-al-Athir, Al-Kâmel, XII, pp. 358–60, under the events of 616 AH; see also; Juvayni, Târikh-e Jahân goshâ, I, 138–40; Menhâj-e Serâj, Tabaqât-e Nâseri, II, 104–8, 112–15, 120–21; Rashid-al-Din Fazl-Allâh, Jâmeʿ-al-tavârikh, II, pp. 1103–9; Khwândmir, Târikh-e Habib-al-Siyar, III, pp. 28–30; Browne, LHP II, pp. 427–33.

207

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Mongols.6 Modern scholars seek to make the Mongol havoc and disorder appear less severe by emphasizing the cultural revival and material progress achieved under the Ilkhanids following the initial Mongol devastations and, years later, the advances under Tamerlane’s successors. The bitter fact that hardly anyone denies is that the onslaught of the Mongols initially devastated vast stretches of the lands of Islam, including Iran. It is equally true that when the situation settled under the Ilkhanids, cultural and social restorations were made and ruined cities were rebuilt; as Fragner has it, the severe Ilkhanid “deconstruction” of the first half of the thirteenth century was followed, in the latter half of the same century, by their “creative reconstruction of what then remained as ‘Iran.’”7 In any case, one may wonder how these new gains compare with the loss of thousands and thousands of human lives. So much potential had not materialized, and so many hopes had not been realized. At what cost were all these artistic, architectural, and literary achievements acquired? Ironically, even these achievements were mostly the contributions of the devastated conquered people offered to the conquering Mongols, under Ilkhanid rule, who before long realized that “to maintain their freshly acquired power, they had to fit themselves within the structures of the subjugated.”8

Literary Milieu At the time of the Mongol incursion, Iran was enjoying its literary zenith. Over a span of more than 350 years of intellectual activity (philosophical, mystical, literary, and so on), Iran had accumulated enormous literary wealth. Great poets had flourished during this era, leaving behind a legacy of unprecedented depth and richness. The period between 860 and 1218 had witnessed the appearance

6 7 8

Morgan, “The Mongol Empire in World History,” pp. 426, 431. Fragner, “Ilkhanid Rule,” p. 80. Fragner, “Ilkhanid Rule,” p. 69.

208

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

of superb poets, who had produced some of the choicest pieces of poetry, setting high standards for successive generations of poets. In spite of the unfortunate aftermath of the Mongol catastrophe, science, art, and literature seem to have flourished in many ways. Jalâl-al-Din Homâ’i observes that although the thirteenth century was the most difficult and dreadful of all times that Islamic lands, Iran in particular, had ever faced, it is regarded as one of the most significant literary periods.9 Such a paradoxical circumstance seems to Edward Browne a rare but undeniable phenomenon. However, he rightly shares with Dhabih-Allâh Safâ the view that the numerous local courts must have had a decisive part in preventing the literary talents from withering.10 In addition, one should not overlook the effective role played by many statesmen and scholars, including members of the Jovayni family, Rashid-alDin Fazl-Allâh, his son, Qiyâth-al-Din Mohammad, and Nasir-alDin Tusi in preserving and continuing the Persian scientific and literary tradition. It was these men of great genius who, in those dark years, helped keep the light of science and learning shining against the devastation.11 One should also note the significant contribution of Sufis in upholding the literary tradition. The spread of what is referred to as “khâneqâhi Sufism,” especially later in the Timurid period, created a magnet that attracted a huge number of poets with Sufi leanings, causing the poetry and literature of the time to be heavily imbued with Sufi thought and teachings.12 In fact, the preexisting loose groups of Sufis organized themselves into powerful associations, assuming an effective sociopolitical role in the affairs of their community. Importantly, because they could afford the financial means to patronize scholars and poets,13 they became instrumental in infusing Persian literature in general, and poetry in particular, with Sufism.   9 Homâ’i, Introduction to Selections from Nâseri Ethics, p. alef. 10 Browne, LHP III/1, pp. 98–99, 103; more on these local courts, further below. 11 Homâ’i, ibid. 12 Yarshater, Sheʿr-e Fârsi dar ʿasr-e Shâhrokh, pp. 18–21, 24. 13 Glunz, “Poetic Tradition and Social Change,” pp. 191–92.

209

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

After the installation of the Ilkhanids in about 1256, not only did the Mongol destruction drastically de-escalate, but also, with the passage of time, affairs took a normal constructive course. Having been influenced by the cultural institutions of the conquered nations, and having learned more about their political, financial, and social ways of urban life—as opposed to their own tribal nomadic ones—the Ilkhanid leaders generally grew more refined and cultured in their behavior and attitude. As A.-H. Zarrinkub has it, from the third generation on the Ilkhanids’ rule became radically different. They embraced Islam and were completely assimilated into the Islamic culture of Iran such that some of these very Mongol-descended rulers began to compose poetry in Persian (p. 285). Hülegu, grandson of Genghis Khan and the first Ilkhanid ruler in Iran, as well as most of his successors—such as Abâqâ (1265–81), Ghâzân Khan (1295–1303), and Abu Saʿid Bahâdor Khan (1316– 36)—rectified a lot of the damage done to Iran by their forefathers, built a number of religious and academic establishments, and became ardent promoters of the sciences, art, and literature.14 But as effective as these accomplishments were in continuing and enhancing Persian scientific and literary creativity, the robust and deeply rooted intellectual tradition inherited from the pre-Mongol era should not be overlooked either. A tradition of prosperity over at least three centuries could not possibly be annihilated so easily or quickly, even by the most devastating disasters. The undesirable time of the Mongol domination was more or less still nourished from the pre-Mongol fountainhead of literary-scientific tradition. That is why for years after the establishment of Mongol rule in Iran, signs of intellectual decline were not yet noticeable.

4. Minor Courts The period between the closing years of the Khwârazmshâhs and the end of the Ilkhanid rule in Iran is difficult to summarize in view of the multiplicity of centers of power and local royal courts 14

Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, Târikh-e Mofassal-e Iran, pp. 191, 202, 281–85, 342, 351.

210

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

that held sway in different parts of the country. On a small and local scale, these petty states had some impact on the current political affairs of the time, and played a role in the enhancement of intellectual and artistic activities.15 Therefore, they merit a brief mention here. They fall into two groups, (1) those that had already established themselves as centers of power before the Mongol advance; and (2) those that divided the Ilkhanid territories among themselves upon the death in 1316 of the last Ilkhanid sovereign, Abu Saʿid Bahâdor, a great lover and advocate of literature, art, and philosophy.

The Older Courts The first group enjoyed some limited independence in such places as Herat, Fars, Kerman, Yazd, and Lorestan in return for not resisting; rather, they accepted the Ilkhanid suzerainty. Some of them disappeared during the Ilkhanid rule, while others managed to survive until Abu Saʿid’s death and the fragmentation of his domain. The more significant of these courts include the following: Atâbaks of Fars. Also called Salghurids (1148–1265), of Turkish descent, there were thirteen rulers in all who governed the province of Fars, in southern Iran, in relative tranquility. Their rule in Fars had begun long before the Mongol invasion under the suzerainty of the Saljuqs and then of the Khwârazmshâhs. Under the Ilkhanids, they conceded their hegemony in order to be immune from the ravages of Mongol invasion. They owe most of their historical fame to none other than the poet and scholar, Saʿdi, who apparently took his nom de plume from the name of the local prince, Saʿd b. Zangi. Most of the members of this ruling house, such as Abu Bakr b. Saʿd-e Zangi (1231–60), encouraged science and literature. However, the irruption of insurgent strife in Fars made the Ilkhanids take the affairs of this dominion in their own hands, appointing in 1268 the wise and just Ankiyânu as governor of the 15

Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, Târikh-e Mofassal-e Iran, p. 497.

211

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

province. One of Saʿdi’s mamduhs (praised patrons), he was a fine supporter of men of letters and scholars.16 Another great scholar belonging to the Salghurid dynasty was Shams-e Qeys of Ray, author of Al-Moʿ jam fî maʿ âyir ashʿ âr al-Ajam, an authoritative compendium on poetics and prosody. Âl-e Kart. This Iranian dynasty (1245–1381 or 1389) was founded by Rokn-al-Din Abu Bakr who was related to the Ghurids by marriage. Their realm comprised Sabzavar, Sistan, Balkh, and Kabul with their seat at Herat. Rokn-al-Din and his successors followed a policy of collaboration with the Mongols. However, Rokn-al-Din’s son, Shams-al-Din I, was imprisoned and poisoned on Hülegu’s order, and his son, Shams-al-Din II, was installed in his place. The latter’s son, Malek Fakhr-al-Din, was an educated ruler and a lover of poetry. One of the most famous of them all, Moʿezz-al-Din b. Ghiyâth-al-Din, a fine patron of scholars, enjoyed a long reign that featured charitable work and patronizing poets. Âl-e Kart, whose court is said to have attracted as many as forty poets, is a distinguished dynasty in Iran’s history. The most renowned of these poets was Sadr-al-Din Khatib of Pushang, who adopted the pen name Rabiʿi, the composer of the Kart-nâme, a versified account of the Ghurids.17 Qarâkhatâ’is of Kerman or Qotloqkhâniyye (1222–1304). Founded by Amir Barâq or Borâq, entitled Qotloq Sultan, this minor royal house, numbering nine sovereigns in all, ruled in the Kerman area for over eighty years. Qotloq’s wife, who acted as regent for fifteen years on behalf of her underage son, Hajjâj, was a great patron of men of learning and strove to improve the welfare of the people.18 Emirs of Lorestan. Divided into two sub-groups known as Atâbaks of the Great Lur (Lor-e bozorg) and Emirs of the Small Lur (Lor-e 16 17

Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, Târikh-e Mofassal-e Iran, p. 392. More on the Karts or Korts, in Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, Târikh-e Mofassal-e Iran, pp. 366–79; Spuler, “Âl-e Kart,” pp. 758–66; Potter, “Herat under the Karts,” pp. 184–207. 18 Vaziri, Târikh-e Kermān, I, pp. 423, 445, 477; Bosworth, The New Islamic Dynasties, p. 210.

212

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

kuchak), this court had ruled over Lorestan, western Iran, long before the Mongol outbreak, and maintained their domination well beyond the downfall of the Ilkhanids with greater or lesser independence. The Great Lur were as many as seventeen sovereigns, of whom the most important was Nosrat b. Ahmad (1296–1330). He had a compassionate attitude toward his subjects, and enjoyed the company of religious scholars and men of letters. The works Moʿjam fi âthâr-e moluk-al-Ajam by Sharaf-al-Din Fazl-Allâh Hoseyni; Meʿyâr-e Nosrati by Shams-e Fakhri; and Tajâreb-alsalaf by Hendushâh of Nakhjavân were all dedicated to this ruler.19

The Five Smaller Dynasties The unsettled situation after the demise of the Ilkhanid Abu Saʿid in 1335, and the incompetence of his successors, who somehow continued their shaky rule until 1355, presented ideal conditions for the five smaller dynasties mentioned below, each seizing a portion of the Ilkhanid territories. Two of them were short-lived, but the others even survived Tamerlane’s initial attacks on Iran in 1380. Chupânid emirs (1338–58). Also known as Chobânids, they were no more than two in number: Amir Sheikh Hasan-e Chupâni, also called Amir Hasan-e Kuchak (d. 1343), and his brother, Amir Malek Ashraf (d. 1357), who, following the death of the Mongol Abu Saʿid (30 November 1335), ruled over Azerbaijan, Arrân, and parts of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia. The former ruled for some six years, while the latter wielded his authority for fourteen years. With Malek Ashraf’s murder in 1358, the Chupânid dynasty came to an end.20 The two emirs seem to have been men of the sword rather than of the pen; accordingly, little has been reported about their patronage of artistic refinements. 19 20

Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, Târikh-e Mofassal-e Iran, pp. 447, 521, 522, 526. Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, Târikh-e Mofassal-e Iran, pp. 452–54; Melville and Zaryâb, “Chubânids,” EIr, V, pp. 496–97. Also see Melville, The Fall of Amir Chupan and the Decline of the Ilkhanate.

213

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

The Inju family (c. 1341–57). This dynasty consisted of the sons of Amir Sharaf-al-Din Mahmud Shah, who had begun to rule in the province of Fars and its surrounding areas some time before Abu Saʿid’s death, but their true independence came with Sheikh Abu Eshâq (1341–53), who drove the Chupânid Malek Ashraf out of Shiraz. With Abu Eshâq’s murder, his dynasty ceased to exist.21 He was a cultured king, a great lover of poetry, and a generous patron of arts, who tried to emulate the Ilkhanid rulers in terms of patronage.22 Hâfez wrote a moving ghazal on the occasion of his tragic death.23 The greater portion of Obayd-e Zâkâni’s panegyrics praises this ill-fated ruler, and the distinguished poet, Khwâju of Kerman, spent his final years at his court.24 Âl-e Jalâyer/Ilkânid emirs (1339–1432). Founded by Sheihk Hasan the Great (Sheikh Hasan-e Bozorg), this dynasty consisted of eight rulers, who dominated Baghdad, in what was then known as Arab Iraq (Erâq-e Arab). Having “gained a reputation as patrons of literature” and such arts as calligraphy and manuscript illustrations, the Jalayerids turned Baghdad and Tabriz into centers of literary and artistic activities. Soltân Ahmad, the fourth Jalayerid sovereign, though rather merciless and bloodthirsty, was himself a poet and an advocate of poetry and music. He was eulogized in two ghazals of Hâfez, whom Soltân Ahmad unsuccessfully tried to bring to his court from Shiraz.25 Âl-e Mozaffar/Mozaffarid dynasty (c. 1313–93). Considered by some as the founder of this dynasty, although others argue that his son was the real founder in c. 1340, Amir Sharaf-al-Din Mozaffar I was governor of Yazd, Meybod, and Kerman under the 21 Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, Târikh-e Mofassal-e Iran, p. 365; Bosworth, The New Islamic Dynasties, p. 266. 22 Wright, “Patronage of the Arts of the Book under the Injuids of Shiraz,” pp. 248, 266–67. 23 Hâfez, ed. Khânlari, Ghazal No. 203; ed. Ghani, No. 207. 24 Rypka, CHIr V, p. 610. 25 Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, Târikh-e Mofassal-e Iran, pp. 455–65; Jackson, EIr, s. v. “Jalyerids”; Bosworth, The New Islamic Dynasties, pp. 267–68.

214

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

Qarakhanids and Ilkhanids. His son, Mobârez-al-Din Mohammad (1314–58), annexed the province of Fars to his father’s dominion, and arranged the murder of Abu Eshâq Inju. Among the eight leaders of this dynasty, Shâh Shojâʿ (d. 1384) seems to have been the most prominent; as a poet and a patron of poetry and literature, he lamented the internecine struggles of the Mozaffarid house that undermined their political integrity, thus rendering them more vulnerable to Tamerlane, who wiped them out completely.26 This dynasty, and Shâh Shojâʿ in particular, were fortunate enough to have Hâfez of Shiraz in their courts or in their frequent company, occasionally singing their praises or gently admonishing their way of government in some of his charming ghazals and qasides. Obayd-e Zâkâni, too, eulogized Shâh Shojâʿ. Sarbedârs (1337–81). This was a popular semi-revolutionary dynasty of eleven rulers who ruled independently at Bayhaq (modern Sabzavâr), in northeastern Iran, for half a century between Abu Saʿid’s death and the conquest of Iran by Tamerlane. Their uprising started in Bâshtin, part of Sabzavâr, in 1337, under the leadership of Vajih-al-Din Masʿud, who, in order to strengthen his rather flimsy position, attracted the support of a local influential man, known as Sheikh Hasan-e Juri. The Sarbedârs are known as promoters of Shiʿite Islam, attempting, though in vain, to counter the negative effects of Mongol rule in Khorasan. As devoted Shiʿites, they supported religious scholars and poets who praised the Prophet Mohammad and his house (ahl-e beyt).27 Ebn-e Yamin, the wellknown composer of occasional verses (qatʿes), spent part of his poetical career at the Sarbedârs’ court, praising them and their building works. Some of the important issues of the time in Khorasan are related in the poetry of Ebn-e Yamin.28 26 Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, Târikh-e Mofassal-e Iran, pp. 412–42; Jackson, “Muzaffarids,” pp. 820–22; for a full account of this dynasty, see Mahmud Kotobi, Târikh-e Âl-e Mozaffar. 27 Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, Târikh-e Mofassal-e Iran, pp. 465–77. 28 Melville, “Sarbadarids,” pp. 47–49; also see Smith, The History of the Sarbadâr Dynasty.

215

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

5. Beyond the Iranian Territories Mention should also be made here of the Persian-speaking court of the Saljuqs of Rum, an offshoot of Iran’s Great Saljuq dynasty established in Asia Minor in the second half of eleventh century. This neighboring country presented a safe haven at the dangerous time of the Mongol advance, and later, a refuge for scores of fleeing or discontented scholars and poets, such as Bahâ-al-Din Valad and his son Jalâl-al-Din Mohammad (the famous poet Rumi), Sayf of Farghâne, Najm-al-Din Râzi, author of the well-known Sufi compendium, Mersâd-al-ebâd, Shams-al-Din Mohammad of Tabriz, Qâzi Serâj-al-Din Ormavi, Borhân-al-Din Mohaqqeq of Termez, and many others. Later, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Ottoman court (Bâb-e âli) warmly welcomed scholars and poets such as Qabuli, a great fifteenth-century panegyrist who sought more comfort and wealth; and Hâmedi of Isfahan, who was Sultan Mohammad the Conqueror’s encomiast and boon companion for twenty years. These two important courts at Asia Minor played a significant part in maintaining some of the Persian cultural heritage and in spreading the traditions of Persian literature and art.29 Moreover, in the years before and after the Mongol invasion, a number of dynasties of Muslim Indian rulers were established in northern, central, and northwestern India, and their courts became a magnet for scholars and poets. These émigrés had fled from the Mongols, and in the sixteenth century many Sunnis left Safavid Iran for fear of persecution by its Shiʿite rulers. The dynasty known as the “Delhi Sultans” was founded by Qotb-al-Din Aybak (d. 1210) at Delhi. The most distinguished member of this dynasty was Shams-al-Din Eltotmesh (d. 1236). They were highly effective in preserving and maintaining the Persian language and traditions in Northern India. Nevertheless, the Delhi Sultans were overpowered by the Khalaji Turks, who ruled their realm by 1321. The founder of this dynasty, Alâ’-al-Din Mohammad (1296–1316), designated “the Second Alexander” (Eskandar-e thâni), was a true 29 For a comprehensive study of the state of Persian language and literature in Asia Minor, see Riâhi, Zabân o adab-e pârsi dar qalamrov-e ʿOthmâni.

216

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

patron of Sufi sheikhs and poets, including Amir Khosrow of Dehli, Amir Hasan, Fakhr-al-Din Ghavvâs, and others.30

6. Timurid Period Sociopolitical Background A devastated Iran had hardly recovered from the Mongol cataclysm when Tamerlane (in Persian, Teymur), who claimed descent from Genghis Khan, attacked Iran ruthlessly in 1380, overrunning the whole country in just a few years. Soon, Tamerlane crushed some of the local petty states, such as the Jalayerids, Âl-e Mozaffar, Âl-e Kart, and the Sarbedârs, thereby creating a centralized empire.31 Although the enormous damage done to Persia by Timur was no less than what Genghis had done, many of his successors, like those of Genghis, were soon deeply affected by Persian culture and refinement of thought. Accordingly, they endeavored to restore the devastated country to an acceptable state, creating suitable conditions for intellectual and cultural activity; however, the political fragmentation and infighting among the Timur descendants led, upon Timur’s death in 1405, to the empire’s disintegration until the rise of the Safavids.32 Timur had assigned each portion of his vast empire to one of his sons or grandsons. These descendants, after Timur’s death, sought independence from the central government; 30 On the roles of these and similar courts beyond the river Sind in parts of India (the Ghûrids, for example), more is said in this respect under Timurid Period later on; see Safâ III/2, pp. 23–25, 100–3; idem, IV, pp. 143–45, 342; Nafisi, Târikh-e nazm o nathr dar Iran va dar zabân-e Fârsi, I, p. 161. See also Nizami, Royalty in Medieval India; Jackson, The Delhi Sultanate; Welch, “Architectural Patronage and the Past,” pp. 311–22; Sadarangani, Persian Poets of Sind; idem, Pârsiguyân-e hend va Send. For a detailed study of Persian language and literature in Mongol India, see ʿAbd-al-Ghani, Persian Language and Literature at the Mughal Court. 31 Browne, LHP III, pp. 185–87; Zarrinkub, Âshnâ’i bâ târikh-e Irân, p. 277. On Timur, see Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane. 32 Jalâli-ye Nâʿini, “Teymuriyân-e Iran va Hend,” pp. 49, 51.

217

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

in this way, the empire broke into several branches in Khorasan, Transoxiana, Azerbaijan, Sistan, Isfahan and Rey, India, and elsewhere. The outstanding rulers of the Khorasan branch were Shâhrokh Mirzâ b. Timur (1404–46), the Shâhrokh descendants Ologh Beyg (1446–49), Bâysonghor Mirzâ, Soltân Abu Saʿid Mirzâ (1451–69), and Hoseyn Bâyqarâ, all renowned as generous patrons of science, art, and literature (more on this later). The expansion of Timurid military infiltration in the Indian subcontinent led to the founding, in 1526 of one of the longest and most powerful dynasties ever established there.33 The founder of this dynasty, which came to be known as the Mughals or Gurkanids of India, was Zahir-al-Din Mohammad Babor, son of Omar Sheikh and a grandson of Shâhrokh, whose successors ruled a vast portion of the subcontinent until 1857. In their scholarly article, Muzaffar Alam et al. explain the historical and political factors that, in addition to Mongol court patronage, promoted the immense diffusion of Persian culture and literature in India.34 Two other dynasties of political and cultural significance that ruled over parts of Iran almost concurrently with the Timurids merit brief mention here: The Qara Quyunlu, or the Black Sheep Turkomans (1375–1468), was a tribal federation that wielded dominance over a wide area, including the eastern part of Asia Minor, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Before their takeover of this territory, they were vassals of the Jalayerid dynasty, but later rebelled against them, securing their independence from that dynasty with their leader Qara Yusof (d. 1420) conquering Tabriz. Despite frequent infighting among Qara Yusof’s descendants, on the one hand, and the increasing threats of the Timurids, on the other, the Qara Quyunlu Turkomans maintained their territorial possessions firmly. After Mirzâ Shâhrokh’s death in 1467, the Qara Quyunlu Jahânshâh annexed portions of Iraq and western Iran to his realm. However, after his demise, the control of the Black Sheep Turkomans in the Middle East collapsed, and by 1468 they were virtually swept 33 For more in this respect, see Safâ, Ganj-e Sokhan, pp. 43–44. 34 Alam et al., “Persian Language in Mughal Politics,” pp. 317–49, passim; see also Alam, The Making of Indo-Persian Culture.

218

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

away by the rival White Sheep Turkomans.35 The Âq Quyunlu, the White Sheep (1378–1508), was a Turkoman tribal federation that replaced the Qara Quyunlu in the latter’s previous territory. The founder of the dynasty was Othmân b. Fakhr-al-Din (1378–1435). For a long time, the Âq Quyunlu were unable to expand their territory from Diyarbakr in northern Iraq, which had been granted in 1402 by Tamerlane. However, things changed in their favor with the rule of Uzun Hasan b. Ali, who defeated Qara Qoyunlu Jahânshâh in 1468. Later, Uzun Hasan not only took Baghdad with territories around the Persian Gulf, but also expanded into Iran as far as Khorasan. After the rule of Sultan Yaʿqub (1478–90), thanks to their internecine struggles, the White Sheep Turkomans began to weaken from within, incurring a final crushing blow from the nascent Safavid dynasty in a battle at Nakhjavân in 1501. The last of the fifteen Âq Quyunlu rulers, Morâd b. Yusof, was defeated and killed at the hands of the Safavid Esmâʿil I in 1508.36

Literary Milieu “Paradoxically,” observes Maria Subtelny, “the cultural flowering of the Timurid period took place in circumstances of extreme political fragmentation.”37 She characterizes the entire fifteenth century following Timur’s death as “fraught with continual internecine and dynastic struggles,” which continued, for another fifty years, with severe fratricide, power lust, and intrigue.38 Although Subtelny admits that the existence of several competing courts around the Timurid territories and beyond promoted the flourishing of cultural activity, she nonetheless attributes the “cultural florescence” of the Timurid period mainly to “a broadening of the 35 Bosworth, The New Islamic Dynasties, pp. 273–74. 36 Bosworth, The New Islamic Dynasties, pp. 275–76. For a more detailed study of the origin, tribal structure and rise from a principality to imperial power, see Woods, The Aqquyunlu. Clan, Confederation, Empire. 37 Subtelny, “Socioeconomic Bases of Cultural Patronage under the Late Timurids,” p. 479. 38 Ibid., p. 479.

219

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

bases of patronage as a consequence of the development of certain socioeconomic institutions.” Of these institutions, she focuses on the “soyurghâl system,” by which huge pieces of land were granted mostly to members of the royal family.39 This provided them with immensely lucrative sources of revenues “tax-free.” Some holders of soyurghâl spent some of these revenues on cultural activities, including “the sponsorship of scholars, poets, artists, and musicians.”40 However, the importance of this financial factor should not overshadow the personal motivations for patronage of at least some of the Timurid princes. As men of letters and as scholars (e. g., Ologh Beyg, a mathematician, and Bâysonghor, a fine painter and calligrapher), they demonstrated great sensitivity toward such arts and sciences.41 At Herat, the little court of Hoseyn Bâyqerâ (1469–1506), the last Timurid ruler, was the meeting place of calligraphers, painters, poets, and musicians. For example, the celebrated poet Abd-al-Rahmân Jâmi and the painter Behzâd belonged to this court.42 Besides, as Subtelny points out, the competition among various centers of patronage provided more than one option for poets and scholars.43 The Âq Quyunlu court is famous in the literary history of Iran for its patronage of poets. It was a great rival of the Timurid court. In fact, the rivalry among the local courts, in times of comparative peace, was a source of encouragement for poets to seek better opportunities to display their artistry. A good example was the competition between the Timurid court at Herat and the Âq Quyunlu court in Azerbaijan. A number of poets like Bâbâ Faghâni and Banâ’i, who were not happy at Herat, left for Azerbaijan, where Sultan Yaʿqub Âq Quyunlu, a lover of fine literature, received them warmly.44 Before embarking on an analysis 39 Ibid., p. 480. 40 Ibid., p. 489. 41 On the state of Persian literature in part of the Timurids’ reign in the subcontinent, see Rahman, Persian Literature in India during the time of Jahangir and Shah Jahan. 42 Zarrinkub, Âshnâ’i bâ târikh-e Irân, pp. 288–92. 43 Subtelny, “Socioeconomic Bases of Cultural Patronage under the Late Timurids,” p. 479. 44 Rypka, HIL, pp. 18–21, and p. 498. Also see Losensky, Welcoming Fighānī.

220

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

of the qaside, a brief introduction of the more outstanding qaside composers of the period would be in order. Jamâl-al-Din Mohammad and Kamâl-al-Din Esmâʿ il. Jamâl-alDin Mohammad son of ʿAbd-al-Razzâq and his son Kamâl-alDin Esmâʿil were well known poets of the period. Jamâl-al-Din Mohammad was a poet as well as a painter. He belonged to the Hanafite school of Sunnite Islam, and eulogized the Hanafi Judge Rokn-al-Din Sâʿed b. Masʿud as well as the Saljuqid Sultan Toghrel b. Arsalân (d. 1194). His son Kamâl-al-Din was even better known; like his father, he also wrote panegyrics. After the death of the Hanafi Judge Rokn-al-Din Sâʿed, Kamâl continued to praise his son, Judge Rokn-al-Din Masʿud. In fact, the greater part of his divan is devoted to the praise of these two religious leaders of the influential house of Âl-e Sâʿed of Isfahan. In addition, he praised a large number of other dignitaries of the time, including the Khwârazmshâh Sultans: Takesh, Qotb-al-Din Mohammad, and Jalâl-al-Din; Hosâm-al-Dowle Ardashir, ruler of Mâzandarân; the Atâbaks of Fars, Saʿd b. Zangi, and his son and successor Abu Bakr b. Saʿd. Though he did not visit the Khwârazmshâh Sultan Jalâl-alDin in person, he often sent exquisite qasides in his honor to him, and received all kinds of rewards.45 He was a staunch advocate of Âl-e Sâʿed, and even though he received cold treatment from them on several occasions, Kamâl continued to panegyrize them. Nonetheless, this did not prevent him from writing a number of eulogies for the leaders of the rival Shâfeʿi faction, who engaged in constant disputes and occasional bloody clashes with each other, some of which are reflected in his divan. Kamâl was hardly a frequent traveler, preferring to remain in his native city, Isfahan. Rather, he sent panegyrics to various rulers and dignitaries. Nonetheless, he spent three years traveling to such places as Khwârazm, Rey, Nishâpur, and Tabarestân. He appears to have lived no easy life. To begin with, he did not have the best patrons, so much so that they sometimes rejected him. In addition, the death of his beloved son, the loss of his brother, several physical sufferings (see below), frequent 45 Shabânkâra’i, ed. Mohaddeth, p. 163.

221

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

financial problems, and sociopolitical hardships made life miserable for him, as echoed in his divan. Kamâl-al-Din Esmâʿil is beyond any doubt one of Iran’s greatest qaside-writers and an able composer of fine and elegant ghazals, whose divan contains an immense wealth of original ideas, new poetical topos, and some valuable references to the sociopolitical conditions of his time. He appears to have become inclined toward mysticism in the closing years of his life, writing mystical odes in honor of Shaikh Shehâb-al-Din Omar Sohrevardi (d. 1234), the author of the celebrated Sufi manual Avâref-al-maʿ âref.46 In fact, he retired to a hermitage outside Isfahan; it could have been in or around the borough known today as Ju[y] bâre, where he was apparently murdered by the invading Mongols. His burial place is commonly known to be in a well that is now filled with earth. It used to belong to an old, crumbling little house. In about 1960, Isfahan’s municipality decided to exhume Kamâl’s remains and bury them in a more appropriate place, but presumably it gave up the idea and instead christened a newly constructed, beautiful street by the Zâyande-rud River after Kamâl’s name. Saʿdi of Shiraz. This poet, whose dates of birth and death range from 1204–91 to 1213–95, is universally recognized as one of the five finest poets in the entire literary history of Iran. Upon the completion of his initial education, about four years after the Mongol invasion of Iran, he left Shiraz for Baghdad, where he continued his studies at Madrase-ye Nezâmiyye (Baghdad’s Nezâmiyya College). Then, after many years of traveling around in various countries, he returned home in 1258, where he wrote his very well known belletristic and moralistic Saʿdi-nâme (commonly called Bustân) in verse, and Golestân, in prose. Saʿdi was a prolific writer of poetry and prose, well versed both in Persian and Arabic, nearly unequalled in lyrics, and master composer of both panegyrics and moralistic qasides. Apart from a number of Turkish and Mongol rulers, Saʿdi panegyrized two eminent Iranian scholar-statesmen, 46 Browne, LHP II, p. 540; Davood, “Âl-e Sâʿed,” GIE, II, pp. 44–45; de Blois, PL V, pp. 350–55; Zarrinkub, “Kamāl al-Dīn Ismāʿīl,” pp. 515–16.

222

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

Shams-al-Din Mohammad and his brother Atâ-Malek of Jovayn. Their eulogies are among the poet’s best poetry, unmatched in many ways.47 Majd-al-Din b. Ahmad-e Hamgar. This poet (1210–87), commonly referred to as Majd-e Hamgar, a renowned composer of all forms of poetry, including the qaside, was born in Yazd, lived for a long time in Shiraz, and died in Isfahan. His nom de plume was first Rahi and, for some time, Majd; then, he changed it to Hamgar.48 From his own poetry, it is understood that Hamgar was a learned poet who enjoyed the respect and rewards of the rulers of his time. Hamgar frequently boasts about his Sasanid origin, hence his biographers claim his descent from Khosrow Anushervân b. Qobâd. While eulogizing his royal patron in a panegyric, he alludes to his own royal origin thus: That sovereign’s forefathers were king after king up to [the time of] Adam, I belong to the Kiyanid house, from Sâsân to Kesrâ (Khosrow). Elsewhere in his divan, he proudly declares: I am from Sasanid origin, not from [the Turkish] Takin I am descended from Kesrâ, not from Yanâl [Turkish vicegerent].

The poet’s nostalgic sentiment for his genealogical line, whether genuine or poetical, may indicate possible resentments toward Turkish rule in Iran and to the suppression of generations of noble Iranians. Having studied calligraphy and become intimately familiar with literature, Hamgar began composing poetry; at this point, he moved to Shiraz, where he became attached to the court of the Salghurid Atâbaks, praising Abu Bakr b. Saʿd b. Zangi and his son, who were also the principal patrons of Saʿdi. It was at this court that the poet received the honorary title of malek al-shoʿarâ (poet-laureate). After the collapse of the Salghurids, Hamgar composed praise poetry for the Qarakhatâ’is of Kerman and then for 47 Browne, LHP II, pp. 524–35; Rypka, HIL, pp. 250–55. On the genres of Saʿdi’s qasides see further below. 48 Modarres, Reyhânat-al-Adab, VI, p. 380.

223

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

the two great Jovayni brothers, Shams-al-Din and Atâ-Malek. In particular, he enjoyed Shams-al-Din Jovayni’s generous patronage, the ruler who appointed the poet as the governor of Mosul for a period of time. Then, at Isfahan, he eulogized Bahâ’-al-Din Jovayni, after whose death the poet, depressed and reluctant to compose poetry, incurred poverty and hardship until he died in seclusion. Hamgar has universally been acknowledged as an outstanding and learned poet, who is, nonetheless, overshadowed by no less towering a poet than Saʿdi. A story related by Hamd-Allâh Mostowfi, and quoted in Habib-al-siyar, informs us that once a number of Kashani scholars were arguing the poetical status of two eminent poets, Anvari and Zahir of Fâryâb; the scholars asked Hamgar to act as an arbiter to decide which of the two was superior, and he did it ingeniously.49 This can be taken as evidence of Hamgar’s mastery in poetical criticism and scholarly distinction. While delicate in thought, his poetry is free from intricacy and affectation. He was also a competent calligrapher, writing copies for and being paid by important people. According to biographical sources, Hamgar was a competent prose writer, hence he was qualified both as monshi and as monshi-al-kalâm, literally, a (letter) writer and a writer of speech.50 Kamâl-al-Din Abu-al-Atâ’ Mahmud Khwâju of Kerman. This literary figure (1290–1352), an outstanding and prolific poet with a mystical bent, is the composer of an enormous collection of many kinds of poetry. However, he is perhaps more known for his qasides and mathnavis. He spent most of his life away from his birthplace, Kerman. He spent many years at Shiraz, where he enjoyed the patronage of the Inju ruler, Sheikh Abu Eshâq, and became well acquainted with his younger contemporary, Hâfez. Khwâju also composed panegyrics in praise of the Ilkhan Abu Saʿid Bahâdor (1316–35), the Mozaffarid Mobârez-al-Din Mohammad, and their viziers. In addition, he wrote religious odes to the glory of God, the Prophet, and his successors. His poetry is filled with novel 49 Khwândmir, ed. Dabir-Siyâqi, III, p. 118. 50 Safâ III/1, pp. 523–45; idem, EIr, s. v. “Hamgar, Majd-al-Din.”

224

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

imagery and elegant ideas, hence he is referred to as nakhlband-e shoʿarâ (meaning figuratively “the decorator among poets.”)51 In spiritual discipline, he was a disciple of Alâ’-al-Dawla Semnâni (d. 1343) and belonged to the Kâzeruni order of Sufis. In the prologue of one of his mathnavi poems, called Kamâl-nâme, the poet praises Sheikh Abu Eshâq of Kâzerun (d. 1034), and in the epilogue he sings praises of one of his first patrons, the Inju Sheikh Abu Eshâq, ruler of Shiraz.52 Jamâl-al-Din Salmân of Sâve. This poet (c. 1300–76), an adroit composer of qasides and, to a lesser degree, of ghazals, was a follower of Kamâl Esmâʿil and Zahir of Fâryâb; moreover, he is an indisputable expert in prosody and rhetorical figures. He is the composer of some of the most hyper-artificial qasides (qasâyed-e masnuʿ) and he is particularly dexterous in his handling of the rhetorical figure ihâm (amphibology). Salmân-e Sâvaji was very generously and respectfully treated by the Jalayerid rulers, especially by Amir Sheikh Hasan’s beautiful and influential wife, Delshâd Khâtun, and their very handsome son Moʿezz-al-Din Oveys. He tutored Sultan Oveys in the art of poetry, accompanying him both at court and away from it when the king was engaged in military campaigns. Under Salmân’s guidance, Oveys himself became a knowledgeable and competent poet.53 He was first a panegyrist of the vizier Khwâja Ghiyâth-al-Din b. Rashid-al-Din Fazl-Allâh. Later he joined the Jalayerids, praising Amir Sheikh Hasan-e Bozorg. A number of his qasides are devoted to the glory of God, the praises of the Prophet, and the Shiʿite Imams, especially Ali b. Abi-Tâleb. Further, he wrote two mathnavi poems, Jamshid o Khorshid and Ferâq-nâme.54 51

For the English translation of samples of Khwâju’s poetry, see Browne, LHP III, pp. 228–29. 52 Rāzi, ed. J. Fâzel, I, p. 273; Browne, LHP III, pp. 222–27; Safâ III/2, pp. 886–915; Dehghan, “Khwādjū,” IV, pp. 909–10. 53 See the Introduction to Salmân’s Divân, ed. Moshfeq, pp. 5–7; Dowlatshâh, Tadhkerat al-shoʿarâ, ed. Abbâsi, pp. 287–88. 54 Dehqân, IV, pp. 909–10; Rypka, HIL, p. 261–62.

225

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Nezâm-al-Din Obayd-Allâh. This literary figure, commonly known as Obayd-e Zâkâni (d. between 1369–71), was a talented writer and an eloquent and powerful composer of humorous poetry, and satirical Persian and Arabic prose, some of them obscene. His ghazals and qasides are characterized by relative simplicity and attractive clarity in their poetic diction, and his prose by its lack of verbosity. Apparently, during the reign of the Inju Shah (Sheikh) Abu Eshâq, Obayd moved from Qazvin to Shiraz, where he praised this literature-loving ruler and his vizier. Years after Abu Eshâq’s death, long after Obayd had been driven out of Shiraz, he returned to this city, addressing his panegyrics to the Mozaffarid Shah Shojâʿ (1364–84). At the same time, he sent eulogies to the Jalayerid Sultan Ovays I (1356–74), who ruled in Baghdad and Tabriz. However, Obayd owes his universal fame mainly to his satirical works, including a magnificent poem in qaside form entitled Mush o gorbe (“The Story of the Mice and the Cat”), though some scholars including Mojtabâ Minovi and Abbâs Eqbâl have thrown doubt on the attribution of this poem to Obayd.55 He also composed a work titled Akhlâq-al-ashrâf (The Ethics of the Notables) in prose, a sarcastic critique of the replacement, in the poet’s time, of sound traditional virtues by new-fangled degenerate ones. Scholars have noted striking resemblances between his Akhlâq-alashrâf and Aristophanes’ comedy The Clouds. His other non-serious works comprise Ketâb-e dah fasl (The Book of Ten Chapters) or Resâla-ye taʿrifât, Resâle-ye delgoshâ (The Heart-cheering Treatise), and Rish-nâme (The Book of the Beard).56

55 Mahjub, Introduction to Kolliyyât-e Obayd-e Zâkâni, ed. Mahjub, pp. xxxi–xxxii. 56 For more on Obayd and his works, see Introduction to Kolliyyât-e Obayd-e Zâkâni, ed. Mahjub; de Bruijn, “ʿUbayd-i Zākānī,” X, p. 764; Dâ’erat-almaʿ âref-e Fârsi, I, p. 1678; Sprachmann, “Obayd-e zâkâni va Aristophanes,” pp. 716–23.

226

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

7. Qaside: its Literary Status and Principal Features in the Thirteenth–Fifteenth Centuries In the initial decades of the period under consideration, of the several verse forms, the qaside (ode) was still the most important and prestigious one, dominating the other forms and filling the greatest part of the collections (divans) of most poets. Novice poets had before them a host of outstanding examples to follow as their models. Tacitly at least, the panegyric ode was the only recognized form of verse to be presented at royal courts, and was rewarded by kings, viziers, and other dignitaries. Rarely did any poet approach a ruler’s court with any other kind of poetic composition than the qaside, a form that readily lent itself to praise and flowery language of eulogy. In fact, it was the royal support that was mainly instrumental in giving the qaside such prominence, because, as J. C. Bürgel maintains, “the main intent and function of the qaside has been speaking of power.”57 Further, the qaside is not only concerned with power in its worldly material sense attributed to the living; it may also praise the power of deceased representatives of God (the ultimate source of power), such as the Prophet, his successors, saints, and rulers. It may also celebrate the power of good over evil, or “power of wisdom and rectitude over ignorance and moral corruption.”58 Naturally, in a self-praise qaside, the poet specifies his own strong points, physical—as with many Arab poets of classical times— or intellectual and spiritual, as with most Persian poets (further elaborations on these points will be given below.)59 Praising powerful figures seems to be an important element drafted into Persian poetry from the classical Arabic panegyric qaside, which was filled with poets’ boasting (rajaz) about important individuals or about themselves. Of course, this kind of poetry well suited Iranian rulers’ strong desire for the exaltation of their power. At the same time, they sought the “eternalizing of their memory,” because as Bürgel remarks: “Poetry outlasts the power of its mamduh,” or even, to some extent, “the power 57 Bürgel, “Qasida as Discourse on Power and its Islamization,” I, p. 451. 58 Glunz, “Poetic Tradition and Social Change,” p. 104. 59 Bürgel, “Qasida as Discourse on Power and its Islamization,” I, p. 452.

227

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

of time.”60 The fact that the qaside was later put to uses other than merely encomium is a different matter of secondary concern, which will be taken up later. The panegyrist of the Mongol-Timurid period praised his royal patron more or less with the same attributes as those used by the panegyrists of the Samanid-Ghaznavid age.61

Patronage With the fall of the Persian dynasties and their replacement by Turkic rulers who expressed, at least in the beginning, little taste for sophisticated Persian poetry, poets virtually lost the royal support they had enjoyed for centuries.62 Indeed, the declining fortunes of the poets can be traced back to the time of the Khwârazmshâh Alâʿ-al-Din Mohammad (1200–20) and his son, who were already preparing for war, or were practically at war, with the Mongol invaders. Therefore, they had little time for such refinement as poetry. This led to the relative decline of the qaside as the most important genre of Persian poetry, losing the prestigious position it had enjoyed in the tenth to the twelfth centuries, especially in the poetry of such celebrated figures as Khâqâni and Anvari, who had promoted this genre to its apex.63 However, even if the ghazal gradually came to dominate the literary scene, composing qasides maintained a substantial currency insofar as it provided a wider scope for those poets who were anxious to demonstrate their mastery of prosody.64 All the same, the qaside never regained its former prestige. In any case, it must be admitted that the Khaneqâhs, certain religious elites and Sufi scholars, the learned layers of the community, and a number of wealthy influential families did somewhat compensate for the vacuum created by the disintegration of the royal houses; these elements in society provided some level of support for aspiring poets.65 60 Ibid., p. 473. 61 For a detailed description of such attributes, see Meisami, “Poetic Microcosms,” p. 144 and passim. 62 See Rypka, HIL, p. 248. 63 Rypka, CHIr V, p. 550. 64 Yarshater, Sheʿr-e Fârsi dar ʿasr-e Shâhrokh, p. 197.

228

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

Socioeconomic Position of Panegyrists65 Naturally, in the hurly-burly that set in toward the latter part of the period of Khwârazmshâh rule followed by the turmoil of the Mongol invasion, panegyrists lost their position socially and financially. Besides living in constant horror in the unsettled political state of affairs, most of them struggled to earn a living by finding anybody worthy of praise. Rulers hardly treated them in a kind and respectful way. Eulogies sometimes turned into sheer begging.66 The following quotations, taken from numerous examples, give an idea of how miserable and needy some poets must have been; for example, consider these lines from the poet Kamâl Esmâʿil: I swear by your honor, that I have no interest in life, Because of the repeated slaps I receive from the unkind Time. At any gathering where there is talk of my unhappy story, Of shame do I melt away, down I go to the ground. I’ve lost face, yet am unable To acquire half a loaf despite all this torment. For these two pieces of bread, instead of which I’d rather eat an arrow, How many smacks should l suffer? It is not known. [ll. 4538–40] Elsewhere, Kamâl complains thus: Begging is so part and parcel of poetry that Whomever you call a poet, you could also call a beggar! [verse 4778]

And these are the painful complaints of a poet who is hardly an inferior in poetic genius to as great a poet as Khâqâni. He laments the lack of generosity and the disappearance of great patrons of literature: How could the nightingale of my poetic talent possibly sing, whose benefit from the garden of generosity is only darting thorns? The bride of poetry deserves to have put on black clothes, since she is mourning over the death of bounteousness. [ll. 3708–9]

It is true that begging had become a habit with those so-called mercenary poets who, after all, had to make a living through panegyric poetry; nevertheless, a distinction has to be drawn between a poet 65 Safâ III/1, p. 317. 66 Rypka, CHIr V, p. 551.

229

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

like Anvari who begged (and very often used a sarcastic and indelicate language) to extract money for his “daily wine” and a poet such as Kamâl Esmâʿil who was sometimes in desperate need for his large family’s “daily bread.” The latter’s complaint of poverty is, in addition, a sad indication of a deplorable socioeconomic situation in Iran at the time. Even if we make allowances for possible poetical exaggerations and inherited clichés, the historical facts regarding the tumultuous and devastating conditions in Iran during Kamâl’s lifetime account for his complaints of his distressed circumstances. However, not all the panegyrists seem to have lived a hard life. There were exceptions. For instance, Homâm of Tabriz (d. 1314), a great Sufi poet-scholar, was a close companion of a number of his contemporary scholars and statesmen, such as Rashidal-Din Fazl-Allâh and Shams-al-Din Mohammad Jovayni, and enjoyed their support and high respect.67 He was even a vizier in Azerbaijan for a while, and thus a politically powerful man. Salmân of Sâve is another example (see above, under Jamâl-al-Din Salmân of Sâve). Esmat of Bukhara (d. 1426 or 1436) tutored Nasir-al-Din Khalil Mirzâ, a grandson of Tamerlane, in literary techniques. He was also acknowledged as a scholar in other fields including mathematics, and was famed for his mastery of enshâ’ (letter writing). When this Timurid prince rose to the throne, he remained the poet’s principal patron. Later, in the Timurid Ologh Beyg’s reign, Esmat enjoyed a great reputation. Sultan Khalil respected him greatly and bestowed upon him the poetic pen name, Nasiri.68 Other poets of this period flourished like Esmat. As a reward for a panegyric, with “rose” (gol) as its radif in praise of Sheikh Ebrâhim, son of the Timurid Shâhrokh, Kâtebi of Neyshâbur (d. 1435) received 10,000 dinars, which he squandered within a few days.69 Âdhari of Esfarâyen (d. 1462), a respected Sufi poet in Shâhrokh’s entourage, was in high favor with this and with other Timurid princes. When he went to India, he was honored with a position in the company Sultan Ahmad, the Bahmanid king of Deccan. He was dubbed 67 Safâ III/1, pp. 714–17. 68 Dowlatshâh, Tadhkerat al-shoʿarâ, ed. Abbâsi, pp. 398–99; Safâ IV, p. 287. 69 Dowlatshâh, Tadhkerat al-shoʿarâ, ed. Abbâsi, p. 431.

230

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

“King of Poets” or poet-laureate, and received handsome rewards.70 Amir Homâyun of Esfarâyen (d. 1497), a skilled poet and writer of fine qasides in fairly simple language at the court of Sultan Yaʿqub Âq Quyunlu, was highly admired by his contemporary scholars and poets.71 Abd-al-Rahmân Jâmi and, later on, Orfi of Shiraz are two other examples of poets in this period who enjoyed royal support. Needless to say, Saʿdi enjoyed an exceptionally remarkable position in this regard, and Hâfez, though not a panegyrist in the conventional sense, no doubt benefited from a number of local rulers in Fars and elsewhere.72 In fact, there is sufficient evidence that he was connected to some royal courts, and was in all likelihood dependent on the financial support of the rich and powerful.73 However, there were also poets who retained their dignity, preferring not to write panegyrics for material rewards. For instance, Nâser of Bukhara (d. 1371), whose qasides are mainly either doxologies, praises of the Prophet, praises of Ali b. Abi Tâleb, or homilies, often refers to his poverty rather boastfully, although he was not too happy with his lot.74 Generally speaking, the extent and amount of encouragement and financial assistance received by the poets from the royal courts in this period did not always equal that of the pre-Mongol era, except for certain poets here and there, especially in the Timurid period.

Style of Qaside As far as the poetical style is concerned, the qaside followed the route already opened up by the twelfth-century poets of the west and northwest of Iran. This new mode of poetic composition came to be broadly known as “the Iraqi Style,” and its outstanding features include a more difficult, sophisticated, and ornate language; 70 Nafisi, Târikh-e nazm o nathr dar Iran va dar zabân-e Fârsi, I, pp. 293–94; Rypka, HIL, p. 720. 71 Safâ IV, pp. 373–75. 72 For his brand of panegyrics, see Borhâni, “Nazari enteqâdi bar madihe-­ sarâ’i dar Divân-e Hâfez,” III, pp. 42–43, 61. 73 de Bruijn, “Court and Courtiers X. Court Poetry,” pp. 384–88. 74 Safâ III/2, p. 998.

231

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

the employment of less common rhymes; more Arabic words and expressions; Qoranic verses and philosophical topics; a display in the qaside of the poet’s familiarity with various branches of knowledge; and a more lavish use of rhetoric and imagery, greater figurative idiom, and poetic niceties. However, there were also several poets like Ebn-e Yamin—for some time a panegyrist of the enthusiastic exponent of literature and poetry, the Ilkhanid grand vizier, Ghiyâth-al-Din—who wrote fluent, well-constructed qasides free from artificiality and pretention.75 Besides, contrary to the ghazal that made enormous strides in creative composition, inventing subtle meanings, and devising melodious meters, the qaside, in comparison with the qaside of the previous centuries, did not change much. In the first decades of the thirteenth century, there were still qaside composers here and there, such as Kamâl Esmâʿil and Saʿdi, whose panegyrics and non-panegyrics matched in many ways those of the best pre-Mongol qaside poets. Yet, as time went by, qasides became weaker and weaker in poetical originality and overall linguistic character, so much so that in the Timurid era, qasides were far inferior in thought to those of the Saljuq period; however, they were little changed in respect of expression. In general, the poets imitated the diction and style of the qaside composers of the past. Therefore, well-styled, elegant, and finely worded qasides in this period are by no means rare.76 It must be conceded that a handful of qaside composers of the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, such as Farid-e Ahval, Kâtebi of Neyshâbur, and Rostam of Khuriyân, were successful in closely following their predecessors. Following or imitating is, nonetheless, not on a par with originality, however ingeniously this imitation may be executed.77 However, it needs to be admitted that, in the history of Persian poetry and literature, certain religious and ethical mores as well as sociopolitical (and even literary) conventions have generally restricted poets’ imagination to create new ideas. Confined to certain permitted domains, poets are often compelled to repeat or rephrase what has already been said. 75 Safâ III/2, pp. 903, 906. 76 Yarshater, Sheʿr-e Fârsi dar ‘asr-e Shâhrokh, p. 196; cf. Safâ III/1, p. 319. 77 See Safâ III/1, pp. 319, 412; Safâ IV, pp. 221, 239.

232

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

Toward complexity. The general trend of the qaside toward greater sophistication in ornamentation and elaboration, which had already started in the early twelfth century, continued into the thirteenth century with greater intensity. Poets of simpler language and fluency of expression, such as Saʿdi, Serâji, Jalâl-e Azod, and Obayd Zâkâni, were not in the majority compared with those more inclined toward complexity of rhetoric and expression. A number of poets such as Lotf-Allâh of Neyshâbur were at least partly influenced by the Khorasani style, and tried in their poetic production to uphold simplicity and to avoid artificiality.78 Therefore, it cannot be unconditionally stated that all the poets in the Mongol-Timurid time employ a difficult and involved style. In general, nevertheless, the relative simplicity and accessibility of such poets as Farrokhi, Onsori, and Amir Moʿezzi gave way to more and more sophisticated, subjective, artificial, and even obscure modes of expression. Persian poetry, from its inception to the end of the eleventh century, according to Shafiʿi Kadkani, “must be called poetry of nature,” because, in this period, it focuses on nature more than ever before. “It is more objective (âfâqi) and extroverted as the poet moves more on the surface of things rather than beyond the material elements of nature.”79 However, as time goes by, poets tend to become more subjective and introverted. As implied above, the trend toward sophistication was by no means something that directly resulted from the Mongol invasion. Poetry had for many years developed greater sophistication at the hands of a number of twelfth-century poets from Khorasan and Azerbaijan. Had the Mongol incursion not taken place, it would be simply naive to assume that such a trend would not have appeared at all. In fact, as we move into the latter decades of the Timurid dynasty, a good number of poets turn more and more toward simplicity of expression, although there is little development of imagery and ideas. Safâ regards the fifteenth century as the age of poetic simplicity and fluency (more on this later in the chapter).80 78 For more on this, see Safâ IV, pp. 212–14. 79 Shafiʿi Kadkani, Sovar-e khiâl dar sheʿr-e Fârsi, p. 317. 80 Safâ IV, p. 163.

233

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

8. Componential Features General Remarks. The overall structural and thematic features of the qaside in this period are more or less a continuation of the twelfth-century poetic tradition with differences of poetic structure: the same meters, the same inclination to write qasides of longer length, greater enthusiasm for tajdid-e matlaʿ (the renewal of the opening verse in the body of a single qaside), more difficult and infrequent rhyming words and refrains (radif) of the verses, and so on. Since they are rather common and not specific to any particular kind of qaside, the last two features will be treated separately here. Rhyme (qâfiye). The already existing tendency among most poets, and qaside writers in particular, to employ unusual—and often odd words and phrases—as the rhyming components of the qaside kept increasing. Using uncommon or rare rhymes emerges as an indication of poets’ mastery, because after all, difficult rhymes (words—verbs or nouns—with specific meanings allowing little room for semantic maneuvers) usually entail a powerful imagination, a command of novel ideas, and a great deal of imagery, so that the poet creates a different new idea in each verse throughout a qaside.81 Radif. The radif is a word or a phrase, repeated after the rhyme in every line or distich. Obviously, the repetition of the same word or the phrase after each line or distich makes the task of the poet more difficult than if he or she uses rhyme without the repetition. Kamâl Esmâʿil of Isfahan has quite a number of such qasides, with radifs like shokr (thanks, repeated forty-four times); narges (narcissus, repeated eighty-three times); and chashm (eye, repeated fifty-one times). His qaside of 115 distiches with dast (hand) as its closing element, another with rowshan (bright, lighted) repeated sixty-seven times, and yet another with pardeh (curtain) repeated sixty-four 81 Examples of exceptionally difficult rhymes can be found in Rafiʿ-al-Din Lonbâni, ed. Binesh, pp. 58–61, 166–69; Serâji Khorâsâni, ed. Ahmad, pp. 205–17; Mohammad Ahli Shirâz, ed. Rabbâni, pp. 47, 51, 52.

234

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

times can be counted among the most demanding odes to compose in Persian literature, insofar as such unusual radifs severely restrict the freedom of the poet in selecting ideas and imagery that cohere with those radifs.82 More examples are easily found in the divan of Kamâl Esmâʿil, as well as in Qomri’s divan, where he has a fairly long qaside with pustin (a sheepskin cloak) as the radif. Farid-e Ahval, a thirteenth-century poet, has a similar predilection for difficult rhymes and radifs.83 Sayf of Farghâne was very fond of rather peculiar radifs, such as forukhte (sold); horuf (letters); âyene (mirror); shekufe (blossom); and many more.84 One object of qaside writers was to employ the same set of difficult radifs, presumably to demonstrate their superiority over their fellow poets; hence, in a good number of divans, one may come across many qasides with chashm (eye) or narges (narcissus) or âyene (mirror) as their radifs (also see below under Rhetorical Features).

9. Thematic Division of the Qaside As far as the subject matter of the qaside in this period is concerned, it can, as before, be roughly divided into two broad categories: panegyric and non-panegyric. The panegyrical qaside is, as a rule, heavily loaded with praise and glorification. The object of this glorification varies, but panegyrical qasides have traditionally been devoted to patrons of exalted political status or of high social rank; to a lesser extent, these poems are dedicated to religious figures (for more on this, see below). A non-panegyrical qaside normally begins with a certain topic of some interest to the poet and develops this theme to the end of the qaside, sometimes with a little thematic variation. Non-panegyrical qasides that employ a thematic shift somewhere in 82 See for example Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, pp. 86–88, 100–105, 105–8, 112–15, 115–18. See also Serâji Khorâsâni, ed. Ahmad, pp. 252–55, where the poet repeats âyad borun (will come out) as the radif of his qaside. 83 Safâ III/1, p. 412. 84 Seyf-e Farghâni, ed. Safâ, forukhte, pp. 13–16; horuf, pp. 20–22; âyene, pp. 44–48; shekufe, pp. 91–96.

235

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

the course of the poem, like one of Saʿdi’s qasides on “counsel and admonishment,” seem to be rather rare. In the last four lines of this fifty-six distich homiletic ode, the poet first praises his own poetic ability in two exceptionally exquisite distiches, but shortly after he turns to a demonstration of humility before men of virtue, comparing himself as a glass-seller to the town’s jewelers. Throughout this particular qaside, Saʿdi preaches in the following mode: Ey nafs agar be dide-ye tahqiq bengari Darvishi ekhtiyâr koni bar tavângari. Ey pâdeshâh-e shahr cho vaqt-at farâ rasad, To niz bâ gedâ-ye mahallat barâbari. Donyâ zani-st eshve-deh o delsetân valik, Bâ kas be sar hami nabarad ahd-e showhari. Âbestani ke in hame farzand zâd o kosht Digar ke chashm dârad az u mehr-e mâdari? O soul, if you see with the searching eye, You will choose [spiritual] poverty over affluence. O ruler of the kingdom, when your time [of departure] has come, You will be equal with the beggar of your borough The world is a woman, coquettish and seductive, but With no husband would she remain loyal. From a pregnant woman, who has borne so many children and killed them, Who would expect any motherly love?85

Ceasing to preach any more, Saʿdi concludes his long but most pleasant oration with the following: Walk into the royal court of Saʿdi’s mind, if You want the king of speech to do justice to [the art of] poetry. Off and on, it occurs to my mind that it is me Who have conquered the domain of Erâq-e Ajam with the oration’s sword. But I take my breath away from fear of the literati, How could Sâmeri’s magic withstand Mosaic [light emitting-hand] miracle? I am ashamed of my worthless wherewithal; however, There is both the glass-seller and the jeweler in the town. 85 Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, p. 753.

236

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

In two of the concluding verses of another homiletic qaside, Saʿdi first praises his superb eloquence, but immediately reminds himself that such eloquence is nothing but divine favor: Zamin be tigh-e belâghat gerefte’i Saʿ di Sepâs dâr ke joz feyz-e âsmâni nist. Bedin sefat ke dar âfâq sit-e šeʿr-e to raft Naraft dajle ke âbash bedin ravâni nist. O Saʿdi! You have conquered the earth with the sword of eloquence, Be grateful [to God] because it is but a divine favor. The way that the reputation of your poetry has spread to all corners of the world, The Tigris did not, because its water is not so fluid [as your poetry is].86

The principal topics usually dealt with in this kind of qaside are ethical, philosophical, religious, and elegiac as well as personal (see below). Examples of non-panegyric qasides can abundantly be found in the poetry of Saʿdi, Khwâju of Kerman, Nâser of Bukhara, Nezâri of Qohestân, and Ebn-e Yamin, just to mention a few out of many. A panegyric qaside may also begin with the eulogy of the patron right from the beginning. However, such wholesale and unadulterated eulogies are relatively few. Although there are panegyrics in Persian that are composed of only two sections (exordium and encomium), most of them consist of at least three sections. Less frequent are qasides of a sequence of four parts: exordium, praise, boasting, and prayer (nasib, madih, fakhr, and doʿ â respectively). Contrary to the classical Arabic qaside that seems to present the boasting section almost as a fixture, relatively few examples of Persian qaside contain this component. Therefore, one is hesitant to agree with Michael Glunz’s four-section scheme, of which fakhr forms the third section as a fixed component.87 A two-section panegyric praises the mamduh in the first stage and prays for him in the second, the latter section being normally much shorter than the first. Obayd Zâkâni has many panegyrics of this kind. One of 86 Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, p. 709. 87 Glunz, “Poetic Tradition and Social Change,” p. 185.

237

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

them, glorifying his good-natured generous patron, Sheikh Abu Eshâq, begins as follows: Thanks to the justice of the king who treats his servants kindly (bande-navâz) The domain of Shiraz is paradise on the face of the Earth. And ends with the following prayer: May your court be the qible for the whole world thereto they address their needs. Just as Mecca is the qible to which Muslims turn when praying.88

However, a typical panegyric, in the period under discussion, is composed of an exordium, eulogy (madih), and prayer (doʿ â). Nonetheless, in any comprehensive description of the qaside, two other components should also be taken into account: “transitional line(s),” takhallos, and “renewal of the opening distich,” tajdid-e matlaʿ. The former is an integral part of any panegyric with an exordium, while the latter is optional, occasional, and of lesser import.

Exordium The commonest introductory topic of a panegyric is what is referred to in Persian rhetoric as nasib or tashbib, denoting an amatory prologue, in which the poet describes the striking beauty of his beloved. He may also complain of the unkind behavior of the beloved and his or her heart-breaking indifference toward the loving and impatient poet.89 The encomiast may begin with a pleasant description of natural phenomena, such as mountains, rivers, green fields, seasons, flood storms, etc.90 In this part, the poet does his best to make as fascinating and attractive a start as he possibly can, because this would arouse the patron’s interest in the poem, 88 Obayd Zâkâni, ed. Mahjub, pp. 70–71. See more below in the section titled “Prayer.” 89 Cf. Homâ’i, Fonun-e balâghat va Senâ’ ât-e adabi, p. 162; more on the contents of the exordium below. 90 Mahjub, “Qaside, the Oldest Persian Poetical Form,” p. 36; Homâ’i, ibid.

238

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

making him more receptive to listen to or read it to the end. Many of Obayd’s eulogies possess charming and joyful prefatory lines, some of which describe the blissful morning of the first day of the New Year (Nowruz), in the company of his beloved, while listening to sweet tune of the harp, and drinking wine in a love-filled ambiance by the Zâyande-rud, a river in Isfahan.91 Saʿdi’s panegyric for the great scholar and statesman, Atâ-Malek Jovayni, begins with a delightful and picturesque description of springtime, before he embarks on the eulogy of his patron. He includes a doxology in his prologue to draw the reader’s attention to the Creator of all those natural wonders.92 This panegyric, apart from its takhallos, is a typical example of a three-section qaside consisting of a nasib (with a touch of doxology), madih, and doʿ â. A few lines from each section can provide examples of the text of this qaside. Nasib: If someone wants to directly see paradise, Tell him to make a survey of the earth in spring. No wonder if He—who turns the essence of clay into human form — Creates roses and jonquils from clay. He is the Wise Great God who forms the smiling rose In its bud, just as He does the fetus in the womb. Here is the Aden of Shiraz and paradisiacal idols. Did the blossom smiled or did the fragrance of perfume spread about That the sorrowful nightingales have begun singing melancholic songs? Madih: The vizier of the east and the west, the trustee of Mecca and Yasreb [Medina], Like whom the [Persian] domain has no custodian and no trusty administer; The world of virtues and generosity, the beauty of the power of vizirate, Who sits the eminent intimate associates lower under him. My thought’s descriptions aimed at stating his [the mamduh] qualities Are all affectation, because certainty needs no explanation? 91 Obayd Zâkâni, ed. Mahjub, p. 38; also see other panegyrics, pp. 39, 41, 42, 48, 51, 54, 57, 61, 65. 92 Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, p. 704; also see pp. 717 and 719.

239

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Doʿ â: May God be your guardian and protector, as you never Regard any guardian and protector but God. May the graves of your forefathers be submerged by [God’s] clemency, Who brought up so wise and intelligent a son as you? Both consume and vouchsafe, because the world is worth nothing, Unless you send something, in advance, to the Hereafter!

Transitional Line(s) The transition from the prologue into the subsequent part of the panegyric (and occasionally elegy) is a very critical one. It is technically called the takhallos, an Arabic term that means, literally, “freeing” or “escaping oneself,” or, in Persian, goriz, and normally consists of one or two verses (beyt). The mastery of the panegyrist lay, to a considerable extent, in how naturally and ingeniously he could enter the patron’s eulogy (the third stage), making a pleasant and smooth exit (khoruj) from the introductory stage into the main body of the panegyric.93 In Saʿdi’s eulogy of Alâ’-al-Din Juvayni, the Sâheb-e Divân (Head of Chancery), parts of which were translated above, the poet, following a short description of spring and the charms of his beloveds, masterfully plunges into the madih section by way of this elegant takhallos verse: hazâr-dastân bar gol sokhan-sarây cho Saʿ di doʿ â-ye sâheb-e âdel alâ’-e dowlat o din râ The nightingale in the rose-bush is singing, like Saʿdi, songs of prayer for the just Sâheb, glory of the state and of religion.

The verse contains an ingenious wordplay with the name of the Vizier Alâ’-al-Din, whose literal meaning is “the grandeur or eminence of the [Salghurid] state and [the Islamic] Religion.” Serâj-al-Din Âmoli, nicknamed Qomri (d. ca. 1228), is a fairly successful panegyrist in creating fine takhallos. In an ode exalting a certain Ashraf-al-Din, Qomri first paints a nice picture of the spring, then follows it with a request for morning wine. In what follows, he 93 See Homâ’i, Fonun-e balâghat va Senâ’ ât-e adabi, pp. 99–100.

240

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

moves smoothly into the verse of takhallos in which he demands his interlocutor to ask for the sort of dregs-free wine that is as pure as “my belief in the sincere love we have for our benefactor.”94 At the end of the introductory part of his qaside in praise of Ali Dehestâni, apparently a vizier, Serâj-e Qomri, addressing his beloved, sings: I am a slain body because of your love, and you are Like a soul in my body. A slain body departs not from the soul but of necessity. I would too never raise my head off your doorstep If things were once in accord with my will. But the moral commitment to serve the vizier Is an obligatory duty, and I am a grateful servant.95

In an elegy lamenting the death of Jamâl-al-Din Ahmad, the first Grand Vizier to Amir Fakhr-al-Dowle at Tabarestân, Qomri, without mentioning any name, depicts the sorrowful world and people around him, wondering about such dire and depressing circumstances: “Whom am I to see?” By repeating this question after each statement, the poet makes the reader wonder what the bad news could be, until he reaches the takhallos verses in which Qomri mournfully states: Enough have I seen of Tabarestân, whose sight Has become uglier than that of a wound caused by an axe.96 The beauty [ Jamâl] of Ahmad has left here, to whom should I go? No trace has remained of the pride of the state [Fakhr-e Dawlat], “Who am I to see?” Of all altruism and altruists I have seen only two. Since neither of the two exists any longer, “Who am I to see?”97

Considerably more fine takhallos may be found in the divans of other panegyrists; a good number of them are very ingenious and, to a great measure, demonstrate the degree of the poet’s poetic power.98 94 95 96 97 98

Qomri, ed. Shokri, p. 69. Qomri, ed. Shokri, pp. 172–73. Note the wordplay with tabar, “axe,” and Tabarestân, the name of a region. Qomri, ed. Shokri, pp. 224–25. For more examples, see Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, pp. 704, 716, 723, 729; Jalâl-e Azod, ed. Karami, pp. 207, 212, 226.

241

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Encomium Although from a poetical and artistic viewpoint, the exordium was the most significant, and very often the longest part of a panegyric, praising the mamduh constituted the most sensitive and effective means of connecting the “admirer” to the “admired,” furnishing the former with an entry permit to the latter’s presence. A poet who expected a handsome reward from the mamduh had to be very careful, very smart, shrewdly observant, and sharp-witted in crafting his song of praises. His style and wording had to be very calculated and well considered. The mamduhs, especially the rulers, viziers, and military commanders, were generally very sensitive, touchy, and irritable; they could be offended easily, leading, sometimes, to some adverse and even dangerous consequences for the poet. True as it is that mamduhs generally enjoyed being flattered, their administrative and military power highly glorified, their magnanimity and ruthlessness magnified, and their religious devotion extolled, they could nevertheless be offended if the praises had no relevance whatsoever to their position and personality. For instance, in the epilogue of his eulogy for his charming patron, the Jalayerid Delshâd Khâtun, Salmân is very cautious to employ such similes and other figures of speech as might be suitable to this female mamduh.99 As just implied, the encomium of qasides could comprise a variety of topics, which will be dealt with later in the course of our discussion. There was no specified limit to the length of the praise part of the qaside. Some poets placed more emphasis on this part, while others took advantage of panegyrical odes to exhibit their artistic abilities.

Prayer Mention was earlier made of the structural position of doʿ â in a panegyric and the space devoted to it. In the doʿ â section, the poet usually prayed for prolonged life “to all eternity,” continuity of unlimited might and power, ever-expanding domain, increasing treasures, 99 Salmân, ed. Moshfeq, pp. 231–32.

242

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

and so on for his mamduh and, of course, for the continuation of his largesse and open-handedness, which was of prime importance to the poet. The normal length of the doʿ â section extended from one to as many as five verses. Usually the final part of a panegyric was devoted to prayer for the patron, in which the mamduh was prayed for in a variety of ways. In his praise qaside for Sheikh Abu Eshâq, Jalâl-e Azod prays for him in the following manner: As long as nobody sees the sun rise from the west, As long as nobody says that there has occurred disruption in the charkh (wheel = sky) May your shadow be, like the charkh, showering light over the world! Because the sun of the enemy’s life is on the wane.100

At the end of one of his eulogies, Esmat of Bukhara (with the second pen name Nasiri), who reminds himself of saying prayer as his sole responsibility, sings as follows: O Nasiri, conclude your story with prayer, because for you There is no other work except praying and praising. Then addressing his patron, he goes on to say: As long as—up in the pleasure-house of the sky—Venus, Like musicians, does minstrelsy in a joyous tune, May your special gathering (majles) be always full of jubilations, So that you enjoy your life and youth at the zenith of fortune!101

At the end of an admonition qaside, which is indirectly addressed to his mamduh, Saʿdi prays for him in these two verses: Khodây dar do jahânat jazâ-ye kheyr dehâd ke har che dâd be azʿ âf-e ân sazâvâri. to râ ke hemmat o eqbâl o farr o bakht in-ast, be har che saʿy koni dowlatat dahad yâri. May God reward you bountifully in both worlds! Whatever He has granted you, you deserve many times as that. This be your aspiration, fortune, glory and serendipity, For whatever you seek, fortune will assist you.102 100 Jalâl-e Azod, ed. Karami, p. 214. 101 Esmat of Bukhara, ed. Karami, p. 229. 102 Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, p. 753.

243

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Examples of short prayer at the end of qasides can also be found in Rafiʿ-al-Din of Lonbân and Ahli of Shiraz.103 Qasides almost wholly devoted to prayer for the poet’s patron, intertwined with the praises of the patron, are far from unusual; again, an example can be cited from Obayd that begins as follows: As long as the shield-like sun is raining rays of gold, May it be servant to the canopy of our lord! and terminates thus: May your life last forever, as nothing is sweeter than Everlasting life and permanent fortune.104

Jalâl-al-Din Azod of Yazd (d. between 1353 and 1357) composed a qaside of twenty-four couplets consisting solely of prayers for his patron from beginning to end. Some of its lines are as follows: O King! May the Id be blessed on you! And your year and month be fortuitous! Your morning and evening are happy, May your year and month be happy too! The garden of your life is always green and thriving, May the face of your luck be always rosy too! Every prayer that Jalâl says [for you], May all be answered!105

Here is a sampling of Hamgar’s panegyric, with the radif (ending word) of bâd, which means “may it be!,” which turns the whole qaside into a doʿ â panegyric for an unnamed ruler: May the world be under your royal command! May you live a thousand years in your kingdom! As you have power over the heavenly bodies, like the firmament, May you be successful in life, as the stars are! God’s favor has come as assistant to your justice, May the heavenly support be guide to your judgment! On the day of distributing largesse, your hand is the spring of generosity, 103 Rafiʿ-al-Din, pp. 95, 112, 132, 135, 140, 148, 166; Mohammad Ahli Shirâz, ed. Rabbâni, pp. 52, 59, 61, 63; Sa’di, ed. Foroughi, p. 705. 104 Obayd Zâkâni, ed. Mahjub, pp. 58–59. 105 Jalâl-e Azod, ed. Karami, pp. 215–17.

244

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods May that be like the autumn gale in gold showering [on people]! Whatever your foe sets his face toward, May the result of his action be frustration and helplessness! According to the usage and belief of the wise, it is not considered polite, If I say: “may you live to all eternity!” May your fortune (dawlat) remain young for a thousand years! When aged, may it become young once again!106

Hamgar composed another short panegyric with a closing verse that congratulates the mamduh on the occasion of the Nowruz in the doʿ â mode: “The world’s Nowruz Id [New Year’s celebration] is your blessed face / may many praises be on you and every Nowruz of yours!107

Renewal of the Opening Distich Conventionally called tajdid-e matlaʿ, this formal feature of the qaside, which had been exercised from the early eleventh century by such eminent poets as Onsori and Khâqâni, continued into the post-Mongol period. In such a poem, the poet divides his qaside into two or more sections, all in the same meter, and with the same rhyme and radif (if it has one), such that the two hemistiches of the first verse of each section are rhymed. Mahjub’s opinion that in the thirteenth century the number of renewals of the opening verse (matlaʿ) of individual qasides decreased needs to be substantiated statistically, since the number of later qasides with such characteristic renewals are far from inconsiderable.108 What is certain is that qasides with any number of tajdid-e matlaʿ in the thirteenth century are by no means fewer—if not more—than those of the twelfth century. Sayf of Farghâne (d. after 1305) wrote a qaside of eighty-six distiches with its opening verse renewed once, thus giving the qaside two opening verses. Ebn-e Hosâm (d. 1470) composed at least two qasides, each with two opening verses (matlaʿ); 106 Hamgar, ed. Karami, pp. 562–63. 107 Hamgar, ed. Karami, p. 563. 108 Mahjub, “Qaside, the Oldest Persian Poetical Form,” p. 39.

245

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

the first one has shekast (broke), and the second belarzad ([he/she/it would] shake) as their radifs. Kamâl Esmâʿil composed a three-section panegyric with this feature, and there are two qasides that renew the opening verse in Saʿdi’s collection of poetry, one in praise of Shams-al-Din Mohammad Jovayni, and the other glorifying his learned brother, Atâ-Malek.109 In each, Saʿdi renews the opening verse only once. The panegyric for Atâ-Malek starts as follows: As a token of gratitude, I will put sugar in the mouth of those who, bringing glad tidings, Report that you ever let your mouth say a word about me.110

In verse 53, the poet makes a delightful and masterly transition, then embarks on the second section of the qaside with a new opening verse that reads thus:111 To râ ke goft ke borqaʿ bar-afkan ey fattân Ke mâh-e ruy-e to mâ râ besukht chun kattân O enchanter! Who told you to raise your burqaʿ? As your moonlike face burnt us like flax (kattân).

The first qaside in Qomri’s divan has two opening verses, and Emâmi Heravi (d. 1287) wrote a qaside with its matlaʿ renewed three times, praising Jamâl-al-Din Mohammad Yahyâ.112 Qomri wrote another panegyric with two opening verses, and yet another one that includes a matlaʿ that is renewed twice.113 Orfi of Shiraz (d. 1591) seems to have been particularly interested in the technique of tajdid-e matlaʿ, although the first section of such qasides of his is usually much shorter than the second.114 So is Serâji of Khorasan (d. 1254?), who composed no fewer than six qasides with two matlaʿs.115 Also, he wrote one with three.

109 110 111 112 113 114 115

Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, pp. 191–94. Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, p. 738. Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, p. 740. Qomri, ed. Shokri, pp. 59–62; Emâmi Heravi, ed. Shahidi, pp. 102–10. Qomri, ed. Shokri, pp. 139–43, 161–65. Orfi, ed. Javâheri, pp. 47–52, 90–94, 98–100, 101–3, 139–44, 149–55. Serâji, ed. Ahmad, pp. 59–61, 81–86, 105–9, 110–11.

246

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

Tajdid-e matlaʿ was fairly popular, especially in the twelfth century, when panegyric poetry had reached its heights of perfection, sophistication, and florid style. Then, in order to demonstrate their artistic mastery, great poets often chose to write unusually long qasides, or employ difficult and infrequent rhymes; since such a decision tended to limit their freedom, they were sometimes compelled to repeat some of their rhymes. However, such a repetition was considered a poetic flaw, technically called itâ’ or shâyegân. The poet could avoid such imperfection by dividing his qaside into two or more sections; this allowed him to repeat a few of those rhymes used in the preceding section.116 This pattern was more or less followed in the post-Saljuq period too. Nonetheless, tajdid-e matlaʿ was more a poetic option than a fixed component of the qaside, and it was not practiced by all poets.

10. Linguistic Considerations By the time of the Mongol incursion, Persian had developed into a well-established, sophisticated, and poetically rich language. So strong had it become that the effects of the grave damage to Persian by the invaders did not show until years later.117 Therefore, during the Khwârazmshâh and part of the Ilkhanid periods, there were still well-structured, polished and eloquent qasides. Nevertheless, as time went by, the language of the poems began to lose some of its strength, clarity and refinement. To begin with, the trend of using more and more Arabic expressions, especially among prose-writers and less with poets, that had been on the rise in the twelfth century, continued into the time of the Mongol Ilkhanids. Naturally, poetry was, to a greater or lesser degree, affected in the process of language change; this was especially true of the qaside, which readily lends itself to a much more lavish use of comparatively less familiar, less polished, and less typically poetic lexical items. Kamâl Esmâʿil’s 116 Mahjub, “Qaside, the Oldest Persian Poetical Form,” p. 39. 117 Safâ III/1, pp. 304–6; Moʿin, Hâfez-e Shirin Sokhan, I, p. 62.

247

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

divan contains an enormous number of rather rare and unfamiliar Arabic words, phrases, and collocations.118 Furthermore, as before, poets of the Mongol era often quoted certain Arabic sayings and proverbs, Qoranic verses, and Hadith in full or in part.119 Some of the Qoranic and Hadith quotations are so abbreviated that one needs to have some prior knowledge of these texts in order to grasp the intended meaning.

Macaronic Poems A number of poets in this period show some propensity for what is traditionally described as molammaʿ, a mixture of Persian and non-Persian (usually, Arabic) verses in the same poem, in which they compose Persian qasides variously containing two, three, or more Arabic hemistiches or whole couplets.120 A poet particularly interested in composing macaronic poetry was Nezâm-al-Din Mahmud Qamar of Isfahan, mainly a panegyrist of Âl-e Khojand at Isfahan.121 One may also come across Arabic aphoristic sayings or proverbs set among Persian lines.122 It must be added that some poets, like Saʿdi and Rokn-al-Din Daʿvidâr of Qom, a contemporary of Kamâl Esmâʿil, composed qasides entirely in Arabic; from the latter, as many as seventeen Arabic qasides have reached us.123

118 See for example, Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, verses 18, 29, 187, 253, 840, 6969, 8792, 8820, 8964, 8967, 9016, 9023, 10700–10705 and passim; for a fuller list of similar items, see the glossaries by Bahr-al-Olumi to Kamâl Esmâʿil’s divan, pp. 895–1044. 119 For example, see Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, pp. 729–30. 120 For instance, see Kamâl Esmâʿil’s divan, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, verses 8757, 8827, 8798, 8799; Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, pp. 729–30, 732; Esmat of Bukhara, ed. Karami, pp. 17, 21, 23, 32, 88. 121 Nafisi, Târikh-e nazm o nathr dar Iran va dar zabân-e Fârsi, I, p. 172. 122 See, e. g., Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, verses, 8754, 6600. 123 Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, pp. 766–71; Rokn-al-Din, ed. Mohaddeth, pp. 43–91.

248

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

The Entry of Mongol Words The importation into the Persian language of Turkic lexical elements had already started with the Ghaznavid dominance over Iran. Following the occupation in 1219 by the Mongols, large numbers of Mongolian words and expressions found their way into both literary and non-literary Persian, especially prose. Nurâ, a panegyrist of Ilkhan Arghun and the Jovayni family, and the historian Vassâfal-Hazra were pioneers in intentionally including scores of Mongolian lexical elements in their panegyrics. In his eulogy for Sultan Mohammad Khodâbande (1305–16) and his viziers, Vassâf wrote a qaside every line of which contains several Mongolian words.124 In Nurâ’s ode in praise of Shams-al-Din Jovayni, the opening verse contains as many as four Mongolian words, in bold below: Âmad be hokm-e yerliq-e Qâʿ ân-e ruzgâr bulbul be bâsqâqi-ye tumân-e now- bahâr. There came—by the order of the Supreme Ruler of time — The nightingale, to protect the domain of the spring.125

Apparently the poet who considered himself an innovator in this respect was Pur Bahâ of Jâm, a fourteenth-century poet of second rank, a contemporary of the Ilkhanid Abâqâ (1265–82), and a close associate of the Juvayni family.126 He wrote several qasides loaded with Mongolian words, including a very long ode in praise of Khwâje Vajih-al-Din Zangi, which begins thus (Mongolian words are in bold): ey karde ruh bâ lab-e laʿ l-e to nowkari maʿshuq-e erteqi o negâr-e hajâvari.127 O! You, whose ruddy lip is attended by the soul as a companion, You’re a beloved from Erteq [or Uzbak] and a darling from Hajâvar.128

124 Bahâr, Sabk-shenâsi, III, p. 104. 125 Ibid., III, p. 105. 126 Nafisi, Târikh-e nazm o nathr dar Iran va dar zabân-e Fârsi, I, p. 161. 127 This line is variously quoted. 128 Dowlatshâh, Tadhkerat al-shoʿarâ, pp. 202–5; also see, Safâ III/1, pp. 666–67.

249

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

According to Vladimir Minorsky, who has made an admirably thorough study and an English translation of this intricate qaside, “behind the prickly hedge of Mongol and Turkish words … one feels the inventive originality of a poet who mirrors the life of his epoch,” presenting some detail of “Persian life under Mongol domination.”129 A quick glance through his translation, in which Minorsky has retained all the original Mongol and Turkish words, the reader will get a clear idea of the extent of non-Persian vocabulary in a single panegyric qaside.130 Fortunately, such alien words did not appeal much to the taste of Persian poets, who normally sought euphonic and easy-to-pronounce words. Thus, the domain of poetry remained almost untouched. It was Persian prose that was more heavily affected. One may find only a dozen Mongol words in the poetry of this time, including the following: yarghu (dispute), yerliq (ruler’s order), yatâq (guard, protect), yazak (the front of an army), voshâq (young, beautiful boy), ulâgh (donkey), tarkhân (Mongolian or Turkish prince), targhu (gift, provisions), and a few others.131

11. Themes of the Qaside As far as the thematic contents of the qaside are concerned, the period under consideration may basically be deemed a continuation of the twelfth century, with few signs of innovation. Saʿdi and Kamâl Esmâʿil aside, there were no outstanding qaside composers in this period who could compare with poets like Nâser-e Khosrow, Khâqâni, and Moʿezzi, just to name a few examples. The following are the main topics dealt with in the qasides of this period. Needless to say, they were not of equal popularity and importance. 129 Minorsky, “Pûr-i bahâ’s Mongol Ode,” p. 261. 130 Minorsky, “Pûr-i bahâ’s Mongol Ode,” pp. 264–66. 131 Bahâr, Sabk-shenâsi, III, pp. 97–99, 105; for examples of Turkish-Mongolian words and expressions in the poetry of such poets as Sayf of Farghâne, Saʿdi, Hasan-e Motakallem, Nezâri of Qohestân, Khwâju of Kerman, and Owhadi, see Safâ III/1, pp. 310–14.

250

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

Praising Secular Powers Despite the fact that sociopolitical disruptions caused a drastic decrease in the number of great patrons, thus relegating the qaside to a lower status than it used to enjoy, the glorification of ruling sovereigns, princes, and other figures of political, social, and religious import remained the principal theme for qasides. After all, it was praising of the mighty and the generous that made it possible for poetry to reach the high position it had enjoyed for centuries.132 Indeed, a good number of poets in the time of the Mongol-Timurid rule were still panegyrists, including Salmân of Sâve, Athir-al-Din Owmân, Badr of Jâjarm, Majd-e Hamgar, Rokn-e Sâyen, Ebn-e Yamin, and the like, although they tried other poetical forms as well. They composed panegyrical odes, because this was, at least for some of them, a lucrative way of making a living. Perhaps one of the reasons why other kinds of qaside (religious, etc.) as well as narrative poetry and the ghazal flourished to some extent at the expense of the courtly panegyric qasides was that many of the Timurid princes were themselves connoisseurs of poetry, dabbled in the art themselves, and would have equally appreciated offerings of ghazals or mathnavis dedicated to them; they did not limit their patronage to qasides addressed specifically to themselves. For them, a good poem, in whatever genre, was an objet d’art similar in its celebratory function to a fine candlestick or pen box.133 Therefore, a good ghazal or mathnavi could be as financially rewarding as a panegyric. All the same, there were also poets, like Sayf of Farghâne, who, despite their indisputable mastery in the composing of qasides, shunned writing panegyrics for worldly benefits.134 It must be emphasized again that, except for a couple of outstanding poets in the time of the Ilkhanids, as we move toward the Timurid period, we see fewer and fewer notable qaside writers. In fact, this latter period produced no outstanding qaside composers at all, for the ghazal had 132 Borhâni, “Nazari enteqâdi bar madihe-sarâ’i dar Divân-e Hâfez,” III, p. 42. 133 Yarshater, Sheʿr-e Fârsi dar ʿasr-e Shâhrokh, pp. 197–98. 134 Safâ III/1, p. 318.

251

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

already begun to dominate the poetical scene. There were a number of poets who are commonly and rightly known as ghazal writers, but each also wrote a few panegyrical as well as non-panegyrical qasides. There are only two qasides in Shams-al-Din Mashreqi’s divan, not in praise of any king or vizier, but glorifying God and His messenger Mohammad.135 Hâfez is an outstanding example of this trend, and so are Kamâl of Khojand and Khiyâli of Bukhara, the latter having written as few as three qasides.136 According to Mohammad-Taqi Bahâr, “under the Timurids, Persian poetry rose to the heavens with Khwâja Hâfez never to return, … The complicated, stale and listless style … drove both qaside and ghazal into a state of banality and vapidity laying the foundations of the Indian style …,” a statement that may not attract the agreement of the defenders of the Indian style of poetry.137 In general, the panegyrist’s central concern was the praise of the greatest of the persons to whom he was attached and on whom he depended financially. In praising such persons, the poet employed flowery, flattering, and highly ornate language to extol the patron (mamduh) to the skies. Exaggeration was perhaps the most conspicuous feature of all the Persian panegyrics. Naturally, too much exaggeration was bound to veer in the direction of lying. However, this “poetic lying” was tacitly accepted, and not many people frowned at it (for more on poetical exaggeration see below under Hyperbole). There were very few like Saʿdi who struck a balance between praise and advice. In fact, for him a panegyric mainly served as a means to admonish and educate the men in power and to show them how to rule their domain and how to treat their subjects. He rarely wrote a panegyric void of some counsel phrased in the most eloquent pleasant language, a mode of expression that seems to have begun and ended with Saʿdi. Such qasides are not hard to find in his collection of verses (for more on Saʿdi’s admonition qasides, see below under Homily). His ode eulogizing the ruler Ankiyanu begins with this warning: 135 Shams-al-Din, ed. Mir-Âbedini, pp. 45–48. 136 Khiyâli of Bukhara, pp. 3–14. 137 Safâ III, pp. 184–85.

252

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods So much have times (ruzgâr) turned round and will turn round. The wise will therefore not set heart on it. O you, who could afford, do something now, Before you can do nothing any more. Do not smear others’ good name, So that your good name would remain untarnished.

The qaside continues with warning after warning; toward the end, the poet expresses a couple of praising statements, and closes the poem with a little prayer for the patron.138 Sometimes, a special event somehow connected to the mamduh, such as wedding or birthday festivities, provided a good excuse to exalt his patron (see further under Themes of the Qaside). Panegyrists hardly failed to seize on any occasion to compose fresh poetry; for example, when the patron completed a new palace or some other building, when he was engaged in a war, achieved a military victory, made a homecoming, recovered from illness, and a host of other reasons.139 Jâmi penned a qaside in praise of his principal patron, the Timurid Sultan Hosayn, reminding him that whatever is built in this transient world is bound to be transient. Both reason and religion recommend that the king build a “palace of justice” in the country.140

Glorification of the Sacred No matter who his patron was, the poet, motivated by his faith in God and respect for the Prophet Mohammad, his caliphs, and his house, naturally and sincerely praised them. Also, he was always ready to lament the death of those holy persons in elegiac qasides. The only exception seems to be Sayf-al-Din Esfarangi (d. 1268), who 138 Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, pp. 724–25; see also his ode in praise of Shams-al-Din Mohammad Jovayni, pp. 720–23, and the panegyrics for the ruler Sayf-alDin Mohammad and the Grand Minister, Alâ’-al-Din Jovayni, pp. 727–29. For more on Saʿdi’s praise-advice qasides, see below under “Homily.” 139 See, e. g., Obayd, ed. Mahjub, pp. 38–39, 67–71, 81–82; Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, pp. 224–27, 233–38, 263–65; Badr of Châch, Qasâyed, pp. 28–29. 140 Jâmi, ed. Barilâvi, pp. 8–9.

253

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

exalted some thirty patrons, but no qaside in praise of God or in praise of Mohammad and his family and his successors can be found in his rather large divan. Glorification of the sacred was not of course unprecedented, but in the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries there arose more and more interest in the genre. Most of the Mongol rulers were exceptionally liberal and even indifferent toward the religious orientation of the peoples in their empire. Accordingly, the public found it easier and safer to reveal their religious preferences. As a result, Shiʿite poets, who might have been somewhat inhibited about composing poetry in honor of Shiʿite Imams, began to do so. Shiʿism, which had already begun to rise in power and infiltrate the Khwârazmshâh political system, grew even more influential. With the overthrow of the Abbasid Caliphate at Baghdad, even Sunni scholars and poets dared to demonstrate their deep respect for the Prophet’s family, composing eulogies as well as elegies for them.141 Almost every qaside composer has at least one or two qasides in praise of God that usually emphasize His unity (tawhid), His omnipotence, and His omniscience. The poet depicts the innumerable manifestations of the single Creator in the infinite creation, always drawing the reader’s attention to God’s transcendence, supreme powers, eternity, and absolute sovereignty on the one hand, and his own weaknesses and mortal nature on the other. Saʿdi is particularly unique in this respect. A greater portion of his opening qaside and the initial or final parts of most of his qasides are devoted to descriptions of the signs of God’s greatness and might. The following lines are a rather literal rendering of the first three couplets of Saʿdi’s opening qaside: To God belong thanks, gratitude, bounty, and majesty, Lord of Creation and God of Splendor. God of the Unseen Realm and the Sustainer of the heavens. The Beneficent Provider of people’s livelihood and the Guiding Creator. Both Worlds acknowledge that He is the only God. Unique, and the whole universe bowing before Him.142 141 Shahidi, Introduction to Emâmi of Herat, Divân, ed. Shahidi, p. 53; Safâ II, pp. 191–92; also see below, under Elegy. 142 Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, p. 701.

254

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

There is another eloquent qaside among Saʿdi’s odes devoted almost wholly to doxology, which begins as follows: Fazl-e khodây râ ke tavânad shomâr kard? Yâ kist ân ke shokr-e yeki az hezâr kard? Who could count God’s bounteous blessings? Or who is the one who may thank Him for one [blessing] out of a thousand?143

Ebn-e Hosâm, a fine fifteenth-century poet, seems to have written the greatest number of doxological qasides.144 Other poets blended praise of benefactors and praise of God and religious luminaries. The opening qaside in Badr of Châch’s divan consists of three parts praising God, the Prophet Mohammad, and his royal patron respectively.145 Customary among most poets is to allot some of their qasides to the exaltation of the Prophet Mohammad and his immediate successors. Shiʿite poets sometimes include the Twelve Imams in their list. The number of qasides composed in the Mongol-Timurid period praising the Prophet Mohammad runs into the hundreds. Apart from Ebn-e Hosâm, who devoted nearly all his qasides to eulogizing the Prophet and his family, Ali b. Abi Tâleb in particular, a good number of other poets sang their praises.146 Ruh-e Attâr, a Shiʿite poet and well-versed in the art of versification, is one of many poets in this period who devoted some of their qasides to the glorification of Mohammad and his family.147 Esmat of Bukhara wrote a long, exquisite qaside in praise of Imam Ali, which begins as follows:148 143 Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, pp. 711–13. 144 See his divan, first few qasides; also see Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, pp. 1–2; Khwâju’s opening qaside (fi’l-tawhid), ed. Khwânsâri, also pp. 567, 569; Qomri, ed. Shokri, Qaside 97; the 108-distich doxology by Esmat of Bukhara, ed. Karami, pp. 12–20, 195–97; Shâh Neʿmat-Allâh Vali, pp. 886– 88; and Orfi’s rather obfuscated qaside, ed. Javâheri, pp. 135–36. 145 Badr of Châch, Qasâyed, pp. 1–4. 146 E. g., see Khwâju, ed. Khwânsâri, pp. 1–2, 101–5, 569–72, 584–85; Orfi, ed. Javâheri, pp. 47–52, 122–25. 147 Safâ III/2, p. 1107. 148 Esmat of Bukhara, ed. Karami, pp. 20–25.

255

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA O you, whose favorable breaths have made the garden of religion fragrant, The Universal Intelligence is a singing nightingale in the garden of your existence.

He presents another qaside in praise of Imam Ali, in which he exalts his two sons, Hasan and Hosayn, urging his addressee to appeal to them as ideal examples.149 Orfi’s lengthiest qaside, and perhaps the most masterly of them all, entitled Tarjamat-al-shawq (“A Description of Yearning”), is essentially a eulogy for Imam Ali.150 One of Mashreqi’s two qasides sings the praises of God. The second one, extolling the Messenger of God, is, interestingly enough, sung as if Mohammad were praising himself this way: The world is all full of my light The whole world is me, when I see it in actuality. All acquire light from my sun, Just as I acquire light from the presence of the Absolute One. When—from the east of creation—the sun of my essence Rose, the entire horizon became my manifestation. The souls of the prophets that attend God’s presence Are all but one single ray from my immaculate soul.151

It is worth mentioning that the Sunni poets made no distinction between the first three caliphs and the fourth, praising them all equally. This indicates that the differences between the two denominations had not become so markedly acute, an unfortunate situation that was created decades later by Safavid fanaticism. Khwâju wrote at least one qaside completely in praise of Imam Ali, in which he makes a respectful reference to his wife, Fâtema Zahrâ, and laments the martyrdom of his two sons, Hasan and Hosayn.152 Elsewhere, he glorified the Four Guided Caliphs.153 Esmat of Bukhara, who appears to have been quite inclined to Shiʿism, and​ ­—as said above—composed a panegyric for Ali, mentions Âyeshe 149 Esmat of Bukhara, ed. Karami, pp. 204–6. 150 Orfi, ed. Javâheri, pp. 37–46; see also pp. 119–21. 151 Mashreqi, ed. Mir-Âbedini, p. 47. 152 Khwâju, ed. Khwânsâri, pp. 101–5. 153 Khwâju, ed. Khwânsâri, pp. 128–32, 582–84.

256

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

twice in his poetry. Among his many exhortations, in one instance, he skillfully juxtaposes “Zahrâ” (Mohammad’s dearest daughter) and “Âyeshe” (Mohammad’s youngest wife, whose name literally means, “of fine state”) thus: O God! I swear you by the [spiritual] veil and chastity of Zahrâ-ye Âyeshe.154

Although Jâmi was a Hanafi Sunni, he wrote a short qaside exalting the third Imam of the Shiʿites.155 Esfarangi, undoubtedly a Hanafi Sunni, respected and loved Ali and his family, but it does not mean that he was a Shiʿite.156 Bâbâ Faghâni (d. 1516) and Ahli (d. 1535), both of Shiraz, are among those Shiʿite poets who glorified their Imams most, especially Imam Ali and Imam Rezâ. In fact, the largest number of Faghâni’s qasides are dedicated first to Rezâ, the eighth Shiʿite Imam, and then to Ali. Owhadi’s fine qaside in praise of Imam Ali is also worth mentioning.157 In this type of qaside, the poet indulges in even more freedom than he would possibly exercise in regular panegyrics, because he is generally convinced that whatever he attributes to these holy individuals is no exaggeration. They are capable of doing anything they decide to perform. By the Will of God, they are clearly aware of everything in the past, present, and future. Therefore, the poet gives his imagination free rein in describing them. No wonder, then, if the most conspicuous figure of speech in qasides praising these religious figures is hyperbole. As implied above, the object of eulogy for a number of poets, mostly with mystical bent or Sufi affiliation, was not the reigning ruler but rather certain religious or Sufi sheikhs. In the eyes of their followers, the Sufi sheikhs possessed immense spiritual power, endowed with unique knowledge both of the visible and invisible, such that they even came close to the earthly power of rulers.158 For 154 155 156 157 158

Esmat of Bukhara, ed. Karami, p. 231. Jâmi, ed. Barilâvi, p. 78. Sadiqi, Introduction to Esfarangi, Divân, ed. Sadiqi, p. 27. Owhadi, ed. Nafisi, pp. 36–38. For a detailed discussion of the exceptional powers of the Sufi sheikh, see de Weese, “Stuck in the Throat of Chingiz Khan,” pp. 23–56.

257

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

instance, Kamâl Esmâʿil, who had strong mystical leanings, devoted a good portion of one of his long qasides to the praise of the celebrated Sufi master, Sheikh Shehâb-al-Din Omar Sohrevardi.159 Sayf-al-Din Bâkharzi (d. 1261), a Kobravi Sufi sheikh and author of several Sufi treatises, enjoyed the dedications of a number of eulogies by such great qaside composers as Khwâju of Kerman, Serâjal-Din Qomri, and Sayf-al-Din of Esfarang.160 At the end of his second qaside, Khiyâli of Bukhara (d. 1465) praises his respectful master, Esmat-Allâh of Bukhara, a highly esteemed Sufi poet in the latter part of the fourteenth century. Esmat, in turn, composed two qasides in praise of the eminent Sufi master, Khwâja Shams-alDin Pârsâ (d. 1461), which are dominated by superlatives.161

Invocation to God (monâjât) A comparatively small portion of religious poetry, including the qaside (those that may be counted among religious panegyrics), is versified prayer to God for His grace, blessings, mercy, and help. In this kind of poetry, the poet may make a confession of his sins and wrongdoing, repent, and then request His clemency and compassion. The confession may be preceded by the glorification of God. Most often, the poet invokes the intercession of the Prophet, the Imams, and other revered spiritual leaders of the Muslim faith.162 Less frequently, he may swear before God by a host of different persons and a variety of things for His forgiveness and grace (see below). Normally, the monâjât occurs close to the end of certain qasides, as in Saʿdi’s opening doxological qaside, or even at the conclusion of some of Saʿdi’s homiletic qasides.163 Rarely may a qaside consist wholly of monâjât, like the one by Ebn-e Hosâm, which begins as follows: 159 Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, pp. 31–33. 160 Khwâju, ed. Khwânsâri, pp. 598–600; Qomri, ed. Shokri, pp. 64–67; and Sayf-al-Din, ed. Sadiqi, pp. 74–76. 161 Esmat of Bukhara, ed. Karami, pp. 240–48. 162 Yarshater, Sheʿr-e Fârsi dar ʿasr-e Shâhrokh, p. 225. 163 Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, e. g., pp. 702–3; Saʿdi, e. g., pp. 708, 720.

258

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods From the beginning to the end of the world, No opening of speech was and is better than prayer (doʿ â). Obedience is like a head in which doʿ â acts as the brains; Obviously, the brainless head is worth nothing.164

Ebn-e Hosâm then proceeds to supplicate God, invoking various sacred creatures for purposes of intercession. This supplicatory poem, consisting of seventy-two couplets, begins with the expression “O God” (yâ Rabb).165 One of Owhadi’s qasides is written in a fairly similar manner, in which every distich ends in the expression: “O Lord! Have mercy on me.”166 In invoking God for His grace, Ahli of Shiraz swears by Mohammad, Ali, and Ali’s sons.167

Felicitations Many a qaside, especially those of a panegyrical character, have as their motif the congratulations to the addressee, a legacy from the pre-Mongol time when this type of qaside was more prevalent. Poets attached to royal courts were generally expected to write congratulatory odes—besides their regular panegyrics—on the occasion of religious and national festivities, as well as royal victories, royal births, weddings, circumcisions, and so on. For example, Salmân of Sâve presents at least four qasides with this motif: one on Id-e Azhâ (The Feast of Sacrifice, celebrating the conclusion of the pilgrimage to Mecca);168 also, he presents two others on the occasion of the birth of prince Oveys himself, later the famous Jalayerid Sultan Oveys, or on the occasion of the birth of his son, in which the poet congratulates his royal patron on the lucky arrival.169 The fourth is again a qaside celebrating the prince Sheikh Oveys, and 164 Ebn-e Hosâm, pp. 11–14. 165 Also see Yarshater, Sheʿr-e Fârsi dar ‘asr-e Shâhrokh, p. 226; Esmat of Bukhara, ed. Karami, pp. 182–83, 231. 166 Owhadi, ed. Nafisi, pp. 27–28. 167 Ahli, ed. Rabbâni, p. 500. 168 Salmân, ed. Moshfeq, pp. 447–50. 169 Salmân, ed. Moshfeq, pp. 383–85, 526–27.

259

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

finally there is a qaside of fifty-four distiches composed in celebration of the prince having his hair shaved.170 All these occasions provided the poet with an opportunity to eulogize the reigning sovereign, Sultan Hasan and his queen, Delshâd Khâtun. Khwâju of Kerman composed an exquisite and well-crafted ode celebrating the wedding of one of his esteemed patrons, Tâj-al-Din Erâqi. In this elegant ode of eighty distiches, the poet demonstrates his genius in using his enormous repertoire of rhetorical devices.171 Khwaju composed another qaside congratulating the same patron on the birth of his son. It goes like this: The informer of my soul brought me the news from the spiritual world That: “O whose speech is as fine as the soul and legendary in the spiritual world! How longer would you be sad because of resentment?” Time has come now when joy is out from behind the clouds of sorrow. The garden of religion has blossomed; the springs of fortune have burst open. A lucky star has risen from the zenith of dignity. There grew a new branch from the tree in the garden of the State and the Nation.172

Another well-composed congratulatory ode can be found among Kamâl-al-Din Esmâʿil’s odes that celebrates his patron’s wedding, and yet another on the birth of the same person’s son.173 In a qaside composed on the occasion of Pir Hasan’s wedding, Jalâl-e Azod praises his patron and the occasion in this way: bakht har sâʿati az bahr-e zafâf-e meymun, bar zabân tahniyat-e shâh-e mozffar girad. Dâvar-e dowr-e zamân Pir Hasan, ân ke be bazm, Âftâbi-st darakhshande cho sâqar girad. Every minute, on the occasion of this blessed wedding, Fortune Keeps singing the praises of the victorious king. 170 Salmân, ed. Moshfeq, pp. 549–52, 444–47. 171 Khwâju, ed. Khwânsâri, pp. 54–57. 172 Khwâju, ed. Khwânsâri, pp. 58–59. 173 Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, pp. 191–94, 193–96.

260

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods Judge of the wheel of Time, Pir Hasan who, at the gala, is a radiant sun when he takes the wine-cup.174

Orfi of Shiraz wrote a fairly long qaside in a similar mode on the birth of the son of his beloved patron, Khân-e Khânân.175 Badr of Châch composed several congratulatory qasides, including one celebrating a magnificent feast thrown by Mohammad Shah b. Toghloq at Delhi, and one praising his patron for his conquering the Castle of Negar Kut.176 He composed still another, which gives an admirable description of a festive occasion, beginning as follows: It is not unlikely that this is a festivity at paradise; Rows of the angels are now standing right and left.177

The relatively long exordium of one of the qasides written by Badr of Châch provides a fine description of the crescent of the new moon marking the end of Ramadan, called Id-e Fetr. By this, the poet congratulates his Indian patron, Mohammad Shah.178

Elegy A relatively common theme of qasides in the period under discussion is lamentation over the demise of the Prophet and members of his house, the poet’s patron, his close relatives, and his own loved ones. Among Saʿdi’s elegies, the one on the slaying of the Caliph Mostaʿsam is well known:179 It would certainly be appropriate for the heavens to shed blood onto the earth, Upon the fall of the dominions of Mostaʿsam, King of the Faithful. O Mohammad, if you are to rise from the earth on the Resurrection Day, Now rise and watch the Resurrection among the masses. 174 175 176 177 178 179

Jalâl-e Azod, ed. Karami, p. 218. Orfi, ed. Javâheri, pp. 156–60. Badr of Châch, Qasâyed, pp. 28–29, 52–53. Badr of Châch, Qasâyed, p. 20. Badr of Châch, Qasâyed, pp. 87–88. Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, pp. 764–65.

261

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Serâj-al-Din Qomri composed an elegy on the death of a certain Sayyed Awhad-al-Din, who had apparently died fairly young (Qaside 40, also see Qaside 78). Apart from one elegiac poem in the qaside form and other forms of poetry, Kamâl Esmâʿil wrote two moving elegies on the unfortunate death of his son.180 One of Ebn-Hosâm’s odes lamenting the martyrdom of Imam Hoseyn begins like this: My heart, broken, wounded, and in love of Hosayn, one evening, went circumambulating his grave at Karbalâ.181

Another example of an elegiac ode is Hamgar’s sorrowful qaside for the death of an unidentified young man while the young man’s father was still alive. The poet mourns over the dead son and expresses his sympathy for the father, wishing him tranquility and serenity. The closing line, in which the poet prays to God for His forgiveness, is as follows: Now that you have made him taste the bitterness of death, Let him taste the sweetness of your clemency.182

Serâji wrote a fairly long elegy lamenting a certain Amir Hosâmal-Din, which includes the lines: Do not seek joy, which cannot be sought from Time. No happy heart can be sought from Time. In this age, expect little friendliness, as with nobody’s heart you can find Time in accord. The poisonous winds of terrible events have struck the garden of life. How on earth do you ask for the flower of hope when not even a thorn can be found? Just consider the martyr [victim] of death, Hosâm-al-Din — The like of whom you cannot find—so distinguished a man! How things turned against him, although in the whole world Like him, you can find none!183 180 Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, elegaic poem, pp. 515–17; other poetry, pp. 417–28; two elegies on his son, pp. 429–33. Also see Qomri, ed. Shokri, Qasides 35, 78, 92; and Emâmi Heravi’s elegy for Fakhr-al-Molk, ed. Shahidi, pp. 84–85. 181 Ebn-Hosâm, pp. 149–50. 182 Hamgar, ed. Karami, pp. 325–26. 183 Serâji, ed. Ahmad, pp. 69–71.

262

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

Most of the Persian Shiʿite elegies concern, in the first place, Hosayn, the third Imam, then his father Imam Ali, and then the eight Imam Rezâ, buried in Mashhad, in Khorasan. On the whole, with the increasing spread of Shiʿism and its influence in Iran, religious panegyrics and elegies grew both in number and in variation. In fact, in the dire times in which they lived, the poets found elegy a suitable means to give vent to their sufferings and stresses. Quite a few religious elegies may be found in the poetic collections of Ebn-e Hosâm and Lotf-Allâh of Neyshâbur.184 Salmân of Sâve wrote a qaside both glorifying Imam Hosayn and lamenting his tragic death.185 Sayf of Farghâne, although a Hanafi Sunni, composed a moving qaside on the event at Karbalâ where Hosayn b. Ali and a number of his household were martyred. The poet urges people to mourn and weep over this sad happening. Here are a few lines of the elegy: O people, weep over this mournful event! Weep over the man slain at Karbalâ! With this dead heart, how much more laughter? Today, weep over this mournful event! The Prophet’s son was killed Weep for God’s sake! Shed tears of blood from your heart Weep for the sake of Mostafâ [Mohammad] … It is not proper to talk when weeping; I will recite [an elegy] and you weep! Do not be silent in his mourning, Either lament or weep!186

Other poets in the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries who sang praises or wrote elegies for the Prophet and the Imams were Emâmi of Herat, Ebn-e Nasuh, Hasan-e Motakallem, Hasan of Kashan, Moʿin of Jovayn, Kâtebi of Neyshâbur, and others.187 Ahli of Shiraz has at least five qasides lamenting the horrendous death 184 Yarshater, Sheʿr-e Fârsi dar ‘asr-e Shâhrokh, pp. 227, 229. 185 Salmân, ed. Moshfeq, pp. 224–26. 186 Sayf-al-Din, ed. Sadiqi, pp. 176–77. 187 Safâ III/1, p. 336; IV, p. 239.

263

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

of Hosayn b. Ali, and a few more over the demise of several other figures in addition to the Imams.188

Complaints A number of qasides are entirely or mainly intended to air the poet’s feelings of nostalgia, indignity, bitterness, and resentment toward whatever or whomever he holds responsible for his unhappiness, poverty, and unsuccessful life. This motif, not unprecedented in previous centuries, has conventionally been called “recounting of sorrows” or simply “complaints” (shakvâ’iyyât). The poet may complain either about the cruelties of invincible Fate, the heavens, and the stars supposedly affecting his life, or he may lament his own unkind relatives, disloyal associates, friends, and the hypocritical “people of the world” (khalq-e ruzgâr, literally: “people of the time”).189 Sometimes, the poet’s complaints indirectly aim at the unsatisfactory sociopolitical situation of his community, corruption, bad habits, and moral decline of the people resulting from bad government (for some interesting examples, see Sayf of Farghâne, Qasides 54, 55, 65, 86). This type of poetry sometimes derives from the poet’s real mental distress or physical ailments and infirmities, such as eye disease, ache in the feet, and old age, but very often the cause of complaint is not as serious as it may appear, and sometimes, it is not even genuine.190 That is, the poet may be grumbling simply for the sake of grumbling without having been affected by any misfortune or serious discomfort; he might seize on a slight mishap to write a long 188 Ahli, ed. Rabbâni, pp. 422–24, 428–31, 442–44; elegaic qasides of Ahli on other figures, pp. 470–72. 189 Also in the sense of the universe, the world, the flow of the events, and the totality of what passes in time. See, for example, Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahral-Olumi, pp. 22–23; Khwâju, ed. Khwânsâri, pp. 22–23, 586–88; Owhadi, ed. Nafisi, p. 33. 190 For example, see Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, pp. 297, 402–7, 409; Salmân, ed. Moshfeq, p. 552; also see Yarshater, Sheʿr-e Fârsi dar ‘asr-e Shâhrokh, pp. 198–99.

264

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

poem pretending to be suffering from a whole series of miseries, attacking everything and everybody. This is because expression of complaint in poems had become a genre in itself, which gave the poet an opportunity to demonstrate some of his poetical mastery. Occasionally, the poet seems to reflect the grievances of the community in which he lives. Overstatement and exaggeration usually constitute an important component of such poetry.191 However, as said earlier, the poet may complain about actual unpleasant experiences. In a panegyric, Salmân, as an excuse for not attending his patron’s court, complains: There is nothing in my heart excepting the desire to kiss your hand, But aching feet and old age prevent this servant. The intensity of the world’s cruelty, senility and frail body Are the three states that make a man totally helpless.192

Abd-al-Rahmân Jâmi’s qaside that presents a poetic description of the frailty of old age is remarkable. A rather literal translation of its first few lines proceeds as follows: My head grew white as a tree in blossom. And my only gain from this tree is this fruit of sorrow! Who has ever seen blossom and fruit together? And this is strange that I see the blossom on the tree and eat the fruit! Blossom does not last long, and I am surprised because Every moment, there grows more and more blossom on me! So much has the mirror held my old-age imperfections, one by one, Before me, that I no longer desire to look at its face! How could I see it, as while I face the mirror, the pupil of my eye turns white? The reading of the Qor’an that I managed at night under the moonlight, I cannot afford now in broad day under the sun! By wearing Farangi glasses [that is, French or European spectacles], I have made my two eyes four [in strength]; Yet it is not enough when reciting the [Qoranic] verses!193 191 Also see Moʿtaman, Sheʿr o adab-e Fârsi, pp. 184–85; Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, pp. 139–40, 123–24. 192 Salmân, ed. Moshfeq, pp. 496–97; also see p. 552. 193 Jâmi, ed. Barilâvi, pp. 70–71.

265

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

The closing years of the Khwârazmshâhs are marked by the outstanding poet Kamâl Esmâʿil, who wrote a few qasides complaining of physical ailments, trachoma, and scabies, or lamenting the death of his beloved son who had apparently drowned.194 He also wrote lines expressing deep sorrow over the condition of his family, distressed, poor, and in great hardship. Very often, poets attribute their unhappiness to Time and certain celestial bodies. The following are some of the lines from a poem by Lotf-Allâh of Neyshâbur criticizing Time for his many troubles. Though the poem is not a qaside but a qatʿe, it depicts the kind of complaint found in some of his qasides: I have such luck that if I go to river for water It will change its course! And if I go to Hell for fire, Fire will become more congealed than ice. If I seek a stone from the mountains, They will become as scarce as jewels! If I say hello to somebody, He goes deaf as if by necessity! If I mount a swift prancing horse, It will become like a donkey under me! Such unfortunate things will happen To anybody whom Time turns against! Despite all this, one must be thankful Lest things would go from bad to worse.195

Many a time, the subject of complaint is the disregard of ability, knowledge, and poetic verve by the society in general, and by certain patrons in particular. Naturally, for those poets whose livelihood totally depended on poetry, it was vitally important that their patrons appreciated their artistic production and rewarded them accordingly. Kamâl Esmâʿil exemplifies such discontented poets.196 194 Kamâl Esmâʿil, on physical ailments, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, pp. 402–7; on the death of his son, pp. 429–33. 195 Quoted in Safâ IV, p. 210; for a similar theme, see Hamgar, ed. Karami, pp. 284–89; Khwâju, ed. Khwânsâri, pp. 586–88. 196 See his divan, Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, verses 3711, 3712, 4624, 6709.

266

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

He composed a qaside, entitled by himself or by someone else, “On the Reprimand of Poets,” in which Kamâl proclaims that he has found “nothing worse than poetry in the whole world.”197 Jâmi has a similar criticism of poetry, in which he complains, “the idea of poetry has brought me no peace of mind.”198 Finally, Orfi of Shiraz voices some complaints about the world’s adverse conditions in a qaside that begins with the lines: In our age, there is no mind set at ease. Whoever has water has no bread. The herald announces on all six directions That there is no remedy for destitution.199

A group of qasides which merit brief description here are those in which the poet presents a kind of “autobiography in verse,” reviewing all or portions of his life; a typical example is Jâmi’s qaside on his life story, from his birth to old age.200 Naturally, there may be certain unhappy episodes in his life that provide good reasons for the poet to complain. A number of complaint qasides, like the one by Ahli, may be a sad depiction of certain natural disasters, such as famine, earthquakes, epidemics, and so on.201

Self-reproach A fairly popular poetic motif in this period is the blaming by the poet of his very “self” for not allowing him to live a decent life. The poet sometimes addresses his soul (nafs), admonishing and even condemning it for being wildly greedy, inclined to sin, always craving for worldly considerations, and, worst of all, for being forgetful of God and the Day of Judgment. It is the Satanic self that holds one back from making the best spiritual use of one’s short life in this temporal world and from preparing for the Hereafter. 197 198 199 200 201

Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, pp. 392–93. Jâmi, ed. Barilâvi, p. 61. Orfi, ed. Javâheri, p. 133. Jâmi, ed. Barilâvi, pp. 59–63. Ahli, ed. Rabbâni, pp. 433–34.

267

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

In many of these odes, the message is the danger of being over­ powered by Satan, and being too preoccupied with “self” at the cost of forgetting God. It is worth noting that the dire conditions in the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, during the Mongol invasion and Tamerlane’s onslaught, were a source of encouragement for such a line of thought. Examples of this genre are numerous in the divans of many poets of this period, including Serâj-al-Din Qomri, who writes as follows in one of his qasides: Whoever could afford to be absent from his self, Will have the angel’s station as his abode. As long as you are you, you would not benefit by yourself, Because as long as water remains water, how could it become a pearl? Your limpid soul has turned dark due to the impurities of your body. Whatever is transparent will become opaque because of soil. Whatever you own, just let it go with the wind, as Solomon did, So all the fairies and demons would be under your control.202

Homily Another area, very often combined with “self-reproach,” is what falls under a variety of headings: admonition or warning (tanbih), sermon (waʿz or mowʿeze), advice (nasihat), asceticism and renunciation of the world (zohd), and so on, in which the poet praises good conduct, adherence to Islamic Law (shariʿa), refraining from the material world, avoiding self-conceit, and trying to discover one’s true self, so that one would turn from a worldly, Satanic state into a spiritual, holy one. The addressee may be the poet’s self, or his heart (del, often personified in Persian poetry and addressed by the poet), or some unspecified person, who qualifies as the target for such sermons somehow. In fact, such versified homilies can be regarded as a kind of didactic poem, but with greater emphasis on moral and religious teachings. Saʿdi seems to have written some of 202 Qaside 27, also see Qasides 1, 65, 66, 89, 239, 243; Salmân, ed. Moshfeq, pp. 558–60, 580–81; Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, p. 753; Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahral-Olumi, pp. 15–17.

268

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

the most exquisite examples of this poetry.203 Fazl-Allâh b. Nasuh (d. 1391), a very able Shiʿite panegyrist at the Jalayerid court, in a qaside replete with admonition and ethical advice, addresses his heart in this manner: O my heart! Do not settle in this earthly little house. Out you walk of your confined body into the open space of the soul. Trust not the transient life and fortune, because Just as the duration of life, the ten-day long-fortune does not last long.204

He pursues his moralizing to the end of the poem, giving warning after warning.205 Owhadi allotted nearly all his qasides to versified homilies preaching the necessity of humility, silence, repentance, abstinence, righteousness, avoiding sins, and a host of other ethical and religious counsels and directions.206 Homâm of Tabriz (d. 1314), a renowned and well-respected mystic poet, includes in his poetry a large amount of moral recommendations and Sufi ethics. As in other areas, Saʿdi is phenomenal in writing well-worded, eloquent, and witty homilies. Some of his homiletic verses are so eloquently expressive and thematically universal that they are often quoted by Persian speakers as pithy, epigrammatic sayings and cherished proverbs. In general, his qasides fall roughly into four categories: panegyrics with no nasib (often containing some doʿ â verses); qasides with nasib (taghazzol) plus eulogy (in praise of either God or a different mamduh); homily and praise; and homilies only. The latter two seem to comprise most of Saʿdi’s odes. There are no fewer than nine homiletic qasides in his collection of poetry. Although there is quite a lot of semi-philosophical and mystic thought in such qasides, the principal topic is preaching morality. The themes 203 Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, e. g., pp. 708–10, 729–32, 753–74. However, many other poets have very interesting homilies, e. g., Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-alOlumi, pp. 8–21; Salmân, ed. Moshfeq, pp. 603–4; Sayf-al-Din, ed. Sadiqi, Qasides 87, 92, 114; Khwâju, ed. Khwânsâri, pp. 576–77, 589–90; Jâmi, ed. Barilâvi, pp. 64–66; Ahli, ed. Rabbâni, pp. 411–14. 204 Two, five, and ten days are proverbially referring to the short span of life, which is the human lot. 205 Quoted in Safâ III/2, pp. 1116–18. 206 Owhadi, ed. Nafisi, pp. 2–46.

269

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

he repeatedly emphasizes are: constant observance of the Islamic law and its injunctions; the ephemeral and transient nature of this world; the eternity of the world after death; the dangers of being subjugated to the nafs (one’s devilish soul); the obligation to be at the service of one’s fellow humans; and abstinence from greed, cruelty, luxury, and the preoccupation with earthly possessions. Not only does he address his advice to himself or to unidentified people, but also he directly or indirectly advises the reigning sovereigns, viziers, and other influential people of his time, which demonstrates, among other things, his courage and highly esteemed status. For instance, he composed three qasides both praising and admonishing a ruler named Ankiyânu, in which the poet draws the ruler’s attention to the temporality of his position and to his critical responsibilities as an administrator.207 In another qaside addressed to Shams-al-Din Mohammad, grand vizier to several Ilkhans, Saʿdi begins with fatherly advice, devoting most of the poem to practical counsel in frank but charming language. The following are just a few lines of this exceptional qaside: Be not attached to any friend or any place, As both land and the sea are wide, and people numerous. The city dog always suffers and is hit with stone Because it does not go hunting as the hunting dog does. How much hardship do you incur at the house like a rooster? Why don’t you travel like the flying pigeon? Move on from this tree to that like the nightingale, Why are you stuck in your heart’s trap like butimâr (a mythical sorrowful bird)? The earth is trampled by cattle and donkeys because It is stationary, not like the sky continuously turning round and round. If there come before you a thousand beautiful-faced darlings, Just take a look at them, walk away and set heart on none of them.208 Mingle with all so that you my laugh happily; Don’t be committed to a single person so that you will shed tears, mourning his/her absence. 207 Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, pp. 724–25, 732–33, 755–57. 208 Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, p. 720.

270

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods Should a piece of satin ever catch your eye, Stick to moderation, as there is no scarcity of satin in the bazaar. The itinerant people are like the ‘mail-horse’ (asb-e olâgh), Not like the “oil-pressing” bull, blindfold and circling aimlessly. Does anybody tie down their own free bodies? Does anybody bother their own comfortable hearts with disturbing thought? When you show obedience and give service, but it is not acknowledged, Why then do you lower the worth of your self? Happy he who embraces his beloved at night — As is expected of reunion of lovers—and departs in the morning! And if you are in agonizing love with somebody, It is your own fault because you have made things difficult for yourself. When there is a chance of acquiring sweet fruit, Why should I plant a tree whose yield is bitter? How come that one should be happy, but I be sad, Why should one be in sound sleep and I awake with her thought? I need a friend, who would relieve me of my burden, But not a companion whose burden I should endure. If she lives up to her loyalty in a friendly manner, Then, love her, otherwise do not love, and break with, her. When someone thinks of me and my troubles very little, Why should l become sick caring for her and being concerned about her troubles? When my friend mistreats me and speaks unkindly, Then, what is the difference between a friend and a cruel foe? Do not invite enduring trouble for only one moment of comfort, An evening of wine-drinking is not worth the hangover next morning.209

He has another qaside that, although addressed to an unidentified ruler, clearly purports to reprimand one of the reigning kings of his time, insofar as it begins with these courageous remarks: Each king has one turn in this transient world. O king! Now that it is your turn, go for justice! What a great number of sovereigns ruled this domain! 209 Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, pp. 720–21.

271

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA But once their time came to an end, they surrounded and gave up life. Be a man and take with you whatever you can Those who didn’t ended in deep remorse. There are two qualities that protect your domain and your faith, I believe that God mentioned these in the ears of your soul One is: “Cut the head of the oppressors.” The other is: “Treat the helpless with kindness.”210

The following sampling further shows the range of homiletic motifs in Saʿdi’s qasides: O crowds! The world is no place for leisure and pleasure. The wise man is not to indulge love of the world. Neither sleeping men are aware of the night-bird’s singing, Nor animals have any knowledge of the human world. Get the medicine of education from spiritual guide (pir-e tariqat), As there is nothing worse than ignorance. However, enchanting and pretty the face may be, It cannot be seen in a mirror that is not clear. Break the Devil’s fist with the practice of abstinence (riyâzat), As that cannot be achieved by bodily exertion Obedience to God is not in performing prostration, Bring forth truthfulness, because sincerity has little to do with prostration. You rob the Muslims, and when you are robbed, You vocifirate and protest that there is no Islam.211

Further, Saʿdi reminds his audience that human life is ephemeral, in these lines: How good life is! Alas that it is not eternal, So, no trust may be put in the short duration of our life.212 In the following, Saʿdi preaches very similar lessons: O you—whose age has passed fifty — May perhaps salvage the remaining five days.213 Your hair has turned grey, but you are still a child. With no trickery nor with power 210 211 212 213

Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, pp. 745–46. Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, p. 708. Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, p. 709. Proverbially, the five days refers to a short duration.

272

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods Can you overcome the Angel of Death! Imperfection comes when perfection peaks; Flowers start shedding their petals when they are at their height of their growth. Your value and good name depend on your faith, And not on your worldly possessions and properties.214 Bragging and Self-praise

It was not an uncommon practice among poets to take pride both in their personal moral qualifications, on the one hand, and in their poetry, on the other. Not only would they include in some of their poems a few verses of self-praise, but also they could possibly allocate a whole qaside to this end. Examples of the first kind are far greater in number than those of the second kind. In one of his qasides, Salmân of Sâve claims that: Should the narrator recite this poem [of mine] at Isfahan, Kamâl’s soul would say: “Bravo, well said!”215

In one of his extremely few qasides, in which he considers his own “breaths” as exalted as those of Jesus, Kamâl of Khojand (d. 1400), addresses himself thus: If someone reads your divan, Before the poets of the world Zahir will be disconcerted. Forget Zahir! Even Anvari would be the same.216

Kamâl Esmâʿil; Jalâl-e Azod; and Ahli are just a few of those who praised their own poetry, mostly at the end of some of their qasides.217 One of the poets of the Timurid period who did a lot of boasting about his poetical, scientific, and spiritual excellences is Barandaq of Khojand (d. ca. 1432) with the pen name “Ebn-e Nosrat.” As a fairly successful imitator of Khâqâni, he often compares himself with him, while enumerating his own merits. However, 214 215 216 217

Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, pp. 749–50. Salmân, ed. Moshfeq, p. 554. Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, p. 377. Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, p. 649; Jalâl Azod, ed. Karami, pp. 213, 220, 233, 235; Ahli, ed. Rabbâni, pp. 478–79.

273

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

he describes himself as a “humble student and him [Khâqâni] as master.”218 Serâji of Khorasan, a poet of the twelfth to the thirteenth centuries who extolled a large number of rather unknown rulers in Mokrân and India, reminds his patron that “in poetry and prose, I am unique.”219 Elsewhere he boasts, “O King! In the presence of my poetry and your generosity / Khâqâni’s name and the reputation of Khâqâni’s patron will vanish.”220 He indulges his tendency for self-aggrandizement further when he wonders: “Is it I whose status has reached the planet Saturn?”221 In the following lines, he accuses some of his fellow poets of plagiarism while dissociating himself from them: I am not one of those who, from the divans of this or that poet, Pick meanings at midnight. I am the one that if I sing your praise to the heavens — drawing on my pearl shedding poetic talent — The sky, in return for my serving you, will reward me With green silk and gilt satin at midnight.222

In a panegyric for Shah Abu Eshâq, Jalâl-e Azod brags about his word and meaning in this way: O King! Thanks to your praises, I have such an aptitude That brings forth a hundred treasures every moment. When “reason” saw my pure meaning and pleasant word, it said: “Anvari rose from the dead and another Kamâl came into being.” An angel took one of my ghazals up to the sky, And there arose a great deal of excitement among the holy congregation. If I do not bother your court by sending you praises, Assume not that my poetical aptitude has turned weary. But, because of the poor poetry among the multitude of poets; I have truly grown tired of poetry.223

218 219 220 221 222 223

Quoted in Safâ IV, p. 278; also see pp. 279–80. Serâji, ed. Ahmad, p. 331. Serâji, ed. Ahmad, p. 27. Serâji, ed. Ahmad, p. 91; also see pp. 54, 88–89. Serâji, ed. Ahmad, p. 20. Jalâl Azod, ed. Karami, pp. 213–14.

274

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

Accordingly, Jalâl considers himself the creator of a new style of poetry: One can make one’s name in praising you, who, like me, Can create a style anew and stop repetition.

In the same vein, Esmat of Bukhara, who employed the pen name Nasiri, calls himself the best among his patron’s many panegyrists: O Nasiri, there are so many panegyrists at the Shah’s court Praise be upon you who are the best of them all.224

A number of poets devoted the whole or most of one or more qasides to self-praise, making pretentious claims about their accomplishments, especially with respect to poetic talent. In this way, the poet usually tries either to impress his patron or to make his rivals look inferior. There is always a great deal of exaggeration in a poet’s claims. However, this kind of poetry very often makes fascinating reading. As examples of poets who composed whole qasides of self-praise, one may mention the fourteenth-century poet Nâser of Bukhara; Hasan of Kashan; and Orfi of Shiraz.225 Orfi is the prime example of a poet who takes pride in his poetic abilities, considering himself superior to such great poets as Abu’l-Faraj Runi, Anvari, Khâqâni, and even Saʿdi.226 He wrote two qasides entirely in praise of himself, not only with respect to his (supposed) exceptional poetic superiority, but also regarding his spiritual and intellectual achievements. In these qasides, he boastfully challenges Zahir of Fâryâb and Sayf (of Esfarangi or of Farghâne) for their arrogant pretensions.227 Likewise, Ebn-e Hosâm’s long qaside presents a series of pompous, high-sounding claims about himself, in which he boasts, among other things, “when my sugar-chewing speech faculty begins to speak / the beaks of the parrots in paradise will be filled with sugar.”228 However, one may well concede that at 224 Esmat of Bukhara, ed. Karami, p. 156. See also Barandaq’s two qasides quoted in Safâ I, pp. 277–78, 284. 225 Nâser of Bukhara, quoted in Safâ III/2, p. 1000, Khwâju, ed. Khwânsâri, pp. 71–72; Hasan of Kashan, quoted in Safâ III/2, pp. 748–51. 226 Orfi, ed. Javâheri, pp. 6–7, 45–46, 72–73, 125. 227 Orfi, ed. Javâheri, pp. 110–11; see also pp. 112–13. 228 Ebn-e Hosâm, long qaside, pp. 70–73; quoted lines, p. 71, verse 3.

275

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

least part of what he boastfully says about himself is no exaggeration.229 Badr of Châch also said a great deal in praise of his own virtues and spiritual strength.230 Concerning self-praise, Jâmi’s case is very interesting. He expresses dissatisfaction with the very poetry that has brought him universal fame. He explains that although he had repented of the occupation of writing poetry, he just could not help it, because Fate had dictated his destiny as a poet. Jâmi then exalts his poetry, saying that if his poetry travels to the province of Fars, the souls of Hâfez and Saʿdi will greet it; if it goes to India, Amir Khosrow and Hasan of Delhi will say: “Welcome! Come on! Come on!”231 However, the rather peculiar part of the poem is the concluding lines, where Jâmi confesses that: The merits I enumerated for myself in this qaside Were all false boloney and impossible sham!232

Satire Though not a typical theme of the qaside, satire of varying kinds (humorous reproof, parody, sarcasm, lampoon, facetiae, etc.) is found in a number of qasides in the Mongol-Timurid period. Edward Browne calls Obayd “the most remarkable parodist and satirical writer produced by Persia.”233 His satirical qaside, “The Cat and the Mice,” if it is indeed Obayd’s, seems to be very rare indeed.234 Obayd’s unique and fascinating qaside of ninety-four lines, in the form of an animal fable, surely has an overtone of political criticism.235 Boshâq-e Atʿeme of Shiraz (d. 1416), whose poetry is wholly devoted to witty descriptions of numerous foods, wrote several qasides with this rather exceptional theme, including “The Treasury 229 Ebn-e Hosâm, e. g., p. 133, verses 2188–99. 230 Badr of Châch, Qasâyed, pp. 7–8. 231 Jâmi, ed. Barilâvi, p. 61. 232 Ibid. 233 Browne, LHP III, p. 230. 234 Mush o Gorbe, or as Masʿud Farzâd has styled it, “Rats against Cats.” 235 For more on Obayd and a prose translation of his Mush o Gorbe, see Browne, LHP III, pp. 241–44; also Arberry, CPL, pp. 289–96.

276

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

of Appetite” (Kanz-al-eshtehâ), a parody of Saʿdi’s well-known qaside on the season of spring. He divided the qaside into ten sections, each describing a kind of food in an “appetizing language.”236 Beyond its humorous appearance, this qaside certainly makes indirect reference to the hidden aspirations of the deprived classes of (then) Iranian society, and perhaps of the poet’s own unrealized desires. In the guise of food descriptions, Boshâq may have intended to criticize some of his contemporaries.237 The satirical qasides here and there with heavily offensive language that remain from this period would imply that obnoxious and sometimes obscene topics were occasionally used in qasides, especially when poets wanted to castigate an opponent or a mean and ungrateful patron. In fact, Kamâl Esmâʿil states: A poet who is not a satirist Is like a lion with no teeth. The stingy man suffers from a disease, For which there is no remedy but satire.238

A very well-composed example of satire, although only a mild invective in tone, is the devastating satire by the same poet at the expense of a certain Ziyâ’-al-Din Mazdaqâni.239 Qomri of Âmol composed three rather obscene qasides full of offensive remarks. One of these seems to be attacking a very mean person who was at odds with the poet (Qasides 62, 84, 85). Reference should also be made to Barandaq of Khojand as a fierce satirist, who boastfully warns in these lines: I am the one whose tongue is like a sword in the battle of speech that— when satirizing—would allow the Angel of Death [to take people’s lives] In the East and West, I am a champion in the battle of words; And these people are continually suffering from the sword of my tongue.240 236 237 238 239 240

Boshâq, pp. 6–15. Safâ IV, p. 247. Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, p. 675, verses 11294–95. Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, pp. 334–38. Quoted in Safâ IV, p. 275.

277

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

A poet who has been described as a skillful humorist and panegyrist is Hasan Shâh of Herat (d. 1500), whose sarcastic remarks have been recorded by some tazkares (biographical works).241 Also, Kamâl-al-Din Shir-Ali, whose pen name was Banâ’i and hailed from Herat, has been described as an accomplished humorist with a great poetical talent. He sang the praises of the Sultan Yaʿqub Âq Quyunlu as well as a number of the Timurid kings and princes.242 Despite all this, it seems that satirical motifs in Persian poetry were traditionally developed in other poetic forms—especially the qatʿe (occasional poems) and mathnavi—than in the qaside form.

Celebration of Wine Drinking Sometimes combined with congratulatory topics, a number of qasides are devoted to celebrating wine, technically called khamriyye (pl. khamriyyât). Usually, the introductory section (tashbib or nasib of the qaside) presents a lively description of wine, wine-server (sâqi), the circle of wine-drinkers, and the wine-drinking cups and flasks, etc. Then, the poet, by an ingenious transition, moves on to the eulogy of his patron. This kind of poetry seems to have been more widespread in the pre-Mongol era, when there were greater, wealthier, and more splendid royal courts. On the whole, bacchanalian odes in the post-Khwârazmshâh period occupied a relatively minor domain of Persian poetry. One of the poets of this period particularly interested in khamriyyât is Serâj-al-Din Qomri, who requested wine from his patron in some of his qasides.243 The exordiums of some of Qomri’s qasides are dedicated to the celebration of wine (see his Qasides 7, 8, 15, 33, 81). In fact, the first part of one of Obayd’s panegyrics is devoted to a fine description of wine and its benefits, while the second part is committed to the praise of the Jalayerid Shah Oveys. The following lines show how the poet makes a lovely and smooth transition from the first into the second part through an interesting takhallos: 241 See Safâ IV, pp. 380–81. 242 Safâ IV, pp. 393–98, 401. 243 Safâ III/1, p. 693.

278

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods A wine-drinking party is always delightful, especially at flower season. It is lovely to enjoy life in youth, especially at present, When, thanks to the Sultan’s justice, once again there has appeared Order in the state of time and peace in the world. The fortunate sovereign, Shah Oveys who is, The embodiment of God’s grace and the shadow of the Creator.244

Badr of Châch composed a qaside lauding his royal patron’s wine and goblet in ornate figurative language loaded with metaphors.245 Also, Barandaq of Khojand devotes the prologue of one of his finest qasides to the topic of wine, urging his interlocutor to keep drinking before daybreak and using an enormous number of metaphors to describe the beauty and the useful qualities of wine.246

Description of Natural Phenomena A relatively short account of some aspects of nature in the prologue or tashbib section of certain qasides was a fairly common practice (see above, under Exordium), but sometimes the poet devoted a whole qaside or most of it to such themes as the morning and the sunrise, the starry night, the dark gloomy sky, a hot summer, a snowy winter, and so on. Such detailed descriptions would therefore overshadow the rest of what the poet had to say in the same qaside. Khwâju of Kerman has a qaside of twenty-five distiches entirely devoted to a description of the stars, in which he wonders what these mysterious “world-lighting” flames are up there and what they are doing.247 Kamâl Esmâʿil presents a long qaside that, although it ends in praise of his patron, is primarily an impressive poetic description of a cold, snowy scene. Even the praise section is full of ideas and images masterfully connected to snow. Below are some of the lines of this remarkable qaside: 244 Obayd, ed. Mahjub, pp. 61–62. 245 Badr of Châch, Qasâyed, pp. 33–34. For his techniques in creating abstruse ideas and involved conceits, see: Gitiforuz, “Barrasi-ye shivehâ va shegerdhâ-ye Badr-e Chachi,” pp. 247–68. 246 Quoted in Safâ IV, p. 281. 247 Khwâju, ed. Khwânsâri, pp. 21–22.

279

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Never has anybody shown a sign of such snow. It is as if the earth were a morsel in the snow’s mouth. Just like the cottonseeds, which lie in cotton, The body of mountains is hidden in the snow. The whole world suddenly started trembling. Why? From fear of the sudden attack of the snow! All the animals came to give up hope of their souls, When the soul of the mountains joined that of the snow. The wells in houses are all like the well of Al-Moqannaʿ Filled with mercury-like snow. The sun, so embraced by the heavens, Hardly ever moves its feet past the door-way of the snow … The flood of its oppression tore off every door and wall. Is there no justice in the world of snow? People would no longer be in need of bread and clothes, If the frail body of the snow were made of flour or cotton. So frequently does snow visit everybody’s house that, As a guest, it has become too cold, too dull and unbearable! Although it has whitened all our homes, May the snow’s home be all blackened! At such a time, one could be assured of joy, Providing that one possesses the means of joy. And such a one is he who has both bread and meat, both firewood and wine, As well as a musician who sings for him the story of snow … My house is empty of things, but full of hungry souls, Having their first meal from the downspout of snow. Miserable and penniless, like ducks by the sea, We are sitting all along the snow-side. If I had the strength, I would climb onto the roof of the heavens, In pursuit of the sun, by the ladder of snow! I would work miracles in speech, as wonderful as this snow, Were I not afraid that my description of snow would become dull!248

Ebn-e Nasuh’s panegyric, in more than forty distiches, whose rather long exordium is a lovely description of Baghdad, the Tigris, the Euphrates, orchids, date palms, and scenery, is an instance of poet describing personal experiences, rather than an imaginary 248 Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, pp. 407–10.

280

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

scene.249 Owhadi of Isfahan authored a fine qaside not in praise of the physical features of dawn, but of its spiritually invigorating state. He emphasizes how appropriate and holy the early morning is for prayer to God and for asking His forgiveness, hence the necessity to be awake at these crucial moments.250

Miscellaneous There were many other motifs that could at one time or other constitute the themes of certain qasides. However, at no time do they seem to have been regularly and commonly adopted. Some of these odd themes are briefly presented in what follows: Exchange of poetry (moshâʿere). Occasionally, one finds qasides that might be called “poetic correspondence,” in which a poet sends a versified letter to a fellow poet who would respond accordingly. Such personal letters could be either friendly or derogatory. Serâj-al-Din Qomri wrote a long qaside in response to Kamâl Esmâʿil’s versified letter, in which he offers the latter a number of glowing and flattering compliments.251 Rokn-al-Din Daʿvidâr, a poet from Qom, who flourished in the twelfth to the thirteenth centuries, sent a complimentary qaside of thirty-six verses to Kamâl Esmâʿil, to which the latter responded with a qaside, with the same meter and the same rhyme.252 A similar exchange of letters between Kamâl and Athir-al-Din Owmâni can be found in the former’s divan.253 249 250 251 252

See Safâ III/2, pp. 1119–21. Owhadi, ed. Nafisi, pp. 30–31. Qomri, ed. Shokri, pp. 214–16, Qaside 55. See Introduction to Kamâl’s Divân, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, pp. 58–61. Also, see the text of the Divân, pp. 388–90; cf. Rokn-al-Din, ed. Mohaddeth, pp. 14–16. 253 Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, pp. 390–91. Also see the Introduction to Kamâl’s Divân, pp. 56–58, although the latter exchange is, technically speaking, in the qatʿe form, the poems are too long to be called qatʿe in the conventional usage of the term.

281

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Riddles. A theme rarely used by qaside composers is the riddle.254 This kind of qaside is usually viewed as fun, intended to make a panegyric more appealing. In most of these odes, the poet begins with a puzzling and indirect description of a person or a certain thing, and then moves, somewhere in the middle of the qaside, to the principal part, namely the eulogy of the patron. Examples of this genre include Kamâl Esmâʿil’s qasides on the riddles of “boat” (kashti), and the “sun” (âftâb);255 in addition, there is Hamgar’s panegyrical ode, which provides a twenty-four distich description of “tear” (ashk).256 Khwâja Esmat of Bukhara (d. 1465), a well-respected ghazal composer and panegyrist at the Timurid Sultan Khalil’s court, wrote a riddle panegyric, which devotes over half of its lines to a description of his patron’s divan, yet without naming the object of the description.257 A somewhat related artifice, but too intricate to be of any literary value, was the moʿammâ, which prevailed in the Timurid period, although it was rarely employed in the qaside. The moʿammâ was normally a poem of one or two distiches (beyts), “the object of which was to recognize hidden allusions contained in it to various letters” of the Arabic/Persian alphabet. These letters, once put together, spelled the word (usually a proper name) intended by the maker of such a versified enigma.258 Although this artifice has little to do with the qaside, the extreme enthusiasm for moʿammâ represents “the logical consequence of the general preoccupation with technical form to the detriment of content” in the latter part of the Timurid period.259 Chronograms. Although the chronogram was not an integral component of the qaside, for it was usually in the qatʿe, it was nonetheless 254 The terms used for poetic riddles include moʿammâ, loghaz, or chistân: literally, “what is that?” 255 Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, “boat,” pp. 49–50; “sun,” pp. 316–19. 256 Hamgar, ed. Karami, pp. 336–38. 257 For a fairly comprehensive analysis of this qaside, see Glunz, “Poetic Tradition and Social Change,” pp. 196–99; see also Scott, Persian and Arabic Riddles. 258 For more on moʿammâ, see Subtelny, “The Persian Poetry of the Late Timurid Period,” pp. 75–78; see also Windfuhr, “Riddles,” pp. 312–32. 259 Subtelny, “The Persian Poetry of the Late Timurid Period,” p. 75.

282

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

used by a number of poets when producing a versified description of an important event or the construction of a building, such as a royal palace, mosque, and so on. Among the post-Mongol poets, especially in the Timurid era, the propensity for this technique of recording dates increased noticeably. Not only did they make numerous chronograms in the shorter poetic form of the qatʿe, but also they versified the intended date, usually in the closing lines of their qasides. However, some poets were not content with using only the closing lines for this purpose, so they also took a step further in expressing the same date differently in several lines of the same qaside. The increasing interest in chronograms in the Timurid period led to the situation half a century later, when a poet like Mirzâ Badiʿ would write a qaside of one hundred distiches, in which every first hemistich of the qaside chronogrammatically expresses the beginning date and every second hemistich records the finishing date of the restoration of the royal palace Che(he)l Sotun in Isfahan.260 A similar qaside was written by Sâheb of Astarâbâd (d. 1512) as an elegy for Amir Alishir Navâ’i, the poet’s distinguished patron. In this elegy of forty lines, the first hemistich of every line is a chronogram of Navâ’i’s birth, while the second hemistich of the same line contains his death date.261 Sometimes the poets employed the numbers used in the regular Hegira calendar, but most often it was the abjad technique that was adopted, in which each letter has a numerical value. By adding together the numerical values of all the letters of the word or the appropriate phrase, one could discover the intended date (târikh). Swearing. It was not uncommon for poets to swear, in their qasides, by what is sacred or of great import as proof of their honesty, especially when they were suspected or accused by their patron of some misconduct or possible treachery. Serâj-al-Din Qomri, who had apparently been accused of saying something nasty behind his patron’s back, Sadr Tâj-al-Din, swore that he had never said anything of the kind.262 Here are a few distiches of the “oath qaside”: 260 Âzâd-e Belgrâmi, Khazâne-ye ʿ âmere, p. 151. 261 For more examples and ramifications of the same technique, see Subtelny, “The Persian Poetry of the Late Timurid Period,” p. 74. 262 Qomri, ed. Shokri, pp. 190–91.

283

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA I am reported to have said evil things about you, And you have believed it. I swear by the Creator who brought Out of clay, a body living like the soul. I swear by the Giver who bestowed The pure soul on the darkest substance! I swear by your own soul, which in religion, There is no stronger oath than that! [That] never has occurred to me Anything of such nature, either good or bad. Should the truth not be in accord with what I have just said, I shall have become an infidel, infidel by nature!263

In a superb qaside of 246 distiches, entitled “sowgand nâme,” literally, a book of oaths, Kamâl Esmâʿil, addressing his unidentified patron, swears by dozens of sacred and, jokingly, profane things, that he deserves every generous treatment on the part of the patron.264 He implores the patron “not to put him in a position that would make his enemies happy.”265 Hamgar’s romantic “book of oaths” is quite different in content, insofar as it addresses his most glamorous beloved, swearing by a series of fine and precious things in the world, “[O darling!] For so many centuries in the world, no servant has been found for you more obedient than the humble son of Hamgar.”266 Sometimes an oath poem comes very close to invocation to God, in which the poet swears Him to fulfill his various wishes. Perhaps the most common occasion for this kind of swearing is when the panegyrist, toward the end of his qaside, prays for his patron, or for His forgiveness, usually beginning every hemistich with the expression “O Lord” (yâ rabb). Examples of this can be found in Saʿdi.267 Other kinds of odd and infrequent motifs can be found in the poetry of the Mongol-Timurid period, which would not readily fit any of the categories enumerated above, like two qasides, one by 263 264 265 266 267

Qomri, ed. Shokri, ibid. Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, pp. 123–34. Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, p. 131, verse 2156. Hamgar, ed. Karami, pp. 191–93. Saʿdi, ed. Foroughi, pp. 702–3, 708; Esmat of Bukhara, ed. Karami, p. 231.

284

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

Jâmi and the other by Helâli.268 Both of these qasides are committed to use the words “camel” (shotor) and “room” (hojre) in each and every hemistich; the result of this repetition is some rather insipid versified pieces (for more on this, see further under Overuse of Metaphor).

12. Rhetorical Features General Considerations As far as the employment of rhetorical devices and poetical imagery are concerned, no drastic and unprecedented difference can be observed between the pre-Mongol and post-Mongol periods. The main poetic tradition continued in its general features from the twelfth to the thirteenth century. However, with the advent of the Mongol onslaught, poetic originality and innovation began to wither, except in the ghazal, which is beyond the scope of this chapter. Perhaps the only exceptions to this statement are Kamâl Esmâʿil and Saʿdi, for it is arguable that there were few qaside writers with highly creative minds in that period. In general, as said earlier, poets made every attempt to follow their predecessors in every respect: meter, rhyme, radif, and other formal features, even in certain figures of speech and rhetoric. Indeed, a good number of the post-Mongol qasides were responses of the poets of the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries to famous pre-Mongol writers such as Sanâ’i, Zahir of Fâryâb, Anvari, and Khâqâni. Mention here can be made of Badr of Châch;269 Rokn-e Sâyen;270 Khwâju;271 Salmân;272 Obayd-e Zâkâni;273 and Orfi of Shiraz, who made at least one qaside emulating Zahir’s well-known qaside, and two 268 269 270 271 272 273

Jâmi, ed. Barilâvi, pp. 74–76; Helâli, ed. Nafisi, p. 208. Safâ III/1, p. 856. Ibid., p. 944. Ibid., p. 897. Ibid., p. 1011. Ibid., p. 974.

285

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

more in competition with Khâqâni.274 Other examples are Nâser of Bukhara and Salmân, who challenged Anvari and Zahir respectively.275 Nevertheless, the qaside continued to develop in greater abstraction, departing from themes of the natural world. Yet the picture is not as simple as it may appear. As in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, there were in the Mongol-Timurid period qaside writers who preferred simplicity and less affected rhetoric, and there were those who showed great propensity for poetic complexity, infusing their odes with scores of tropes. So, despite the fact that the period under examination is often known as a time of increasing obscurity, difficulty of composition, and complexity, there are certainly some simpler, less ornate styles of poetry in this era. Hamgar, Obayd, Sayf of Farghâne, and Saʿdi are but a few examples of fairly accessible qaside composers, in contrast to such poets as Khwâju and Sayyed Qavâm-al-Din Dhu’l-feqâr (d. after 1291). Other poets of greater obscurity include Orfi, and to some extent Salmân and Emâmi, who are among those whose figurative language is quite high-flown and sometimes fraught with ornate additions. That a good number of poets in this period were so inclined to ornate poetry and extensive figures of speech was partly due to the lack of original ideas. Gradually, this trend became a strong preference to be more concerned about form than about content. The more figures of speech the poet used, the fewer solid, original ideas he could normally offer. Generally speaking, repetition, imitation, and lack of poetical originality led to the increasing deterioration in both expression and meaning of the qaside.276 Some of the rhetorical characteristics of the qaside in the Mongol-Timurid period include the following:

Overuse of Metaphor Among all the figures of speech that were abundantly used, the metaphor seems to have enjoyed an extensive currency, because 274 Orfi, ed. Javâheri, pp. 23–26; in competition with Khâqâni, pp. 65–74, 122–25. 275 See Safâ III/2, pp. 997, 1011. 276 Safâ III/1, pp. 319–20.

286

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

this figure ideally suited many a poet’s desire to enhance the formal aspect of his poetry. So excessively was this device used that the poet’s point was very often blurred and even incomprehensible. Among the poets in this period who were particularly interested in metaphor was Badr of Châch, a great imitator of his predecessors.277 For instance, when describing a night, a morning, the sunrise, or spring, he employs metaphoric expression (vehicle) after metaphoric expression, while making no direct reference to the ideas of the poem.278 The presence in his qasides of so many metaphors, metonymies, and allusions have made his poetry so ambiguous that several commentaries and glossaries had to be written on to elucidate the poems.279 This does not imply that the poets were incapable of writing more coherently and offering more accessible poetry, but that, as implied earlier, writing ornate poems was highly valued as a criterion of artistic mastery. Hyperbole. One of the most essential features of qasides, especially panegyrics, has always been exaggeration and poetical embroidery, in which often the poets emulate a favorite poet of theirs. The panegyrists, who generally begin with an introductory nasib or tashbib once they are through with the transition from the introduction, make use of hyperbole in praising the qualities and achievements, whether real or not, of their patron or whoever happens to be the subject of their praise. The extent of the use of this rhetorical figure, according to Shafiʿi Kadkani, depends on the degree of the mamduh’s vanity and appetite for flattery, on the one hand, and on the poet’s meekness and ignominy, on the other.280 However, viewed from a different angle, the device of hyperbole is, if not the only means, at least the most effective means to satisfy the panegyrist’s need to praise his patron in as a sycophantic manner as possible, and thereby to satisfy his patron’s craving to have his power lionized and aggrandized, no matter how much this aggrandizement 277 Safâ III/1, p. 856. 278 E. g., see Badr of Châch, Qasâyed, pp. 13, 19, 21, 26, 36, 39. 279 Nafisi, Târikh-e nazm o nathr dar Iran va dar zabân-e Fârsi, I, p. 204. 280 Shafiʿi-Kadkani, Sovar-e khiâl dar sheʿr-e Fârsi, pp. 389–90.

287

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

exceeds “normal laws of reality and physicality.”281 This tendency hardly ceased to intensify from the latter part of the Khwarazmshahids’ rule onward. In fact, as Bürgel rightly states: “The gap between the real importance of the mamduh and the praise heaped upon him becomes wider and wider.”282 Excessive ornateness. Perhaps the only difference noticeable in this period compared with the previous time is the extreme tendency of the qaside, especially the panegyrical ones, to excessive formal ornateness. A few of the poets had already begun to write ornate qasides in the twelfth century, but this practice markedly increased both in density and in extent.283 Some of the qasides from this period are so full of elements of no poetic value that they appear to come closer to an “algebraic formula” than to poetry in its strict sense. The unusually ornate qaside (motokallef) by Sayyed Dhu’lfeqâr of Shirvân is a typical example. His qaside, entitled “Keys to Speech in Praise of the Noble” (Mafâtih-al-kalâm fi madâyehal-kerâm), has been composed in such a way that the names and various honorary titles of the poet’s patron can be drawn from it by putting together the initial letters or words of every two or more distiches of the qaside.284 (This rhetorical device is called toshih). In fact, Sayyed Dhu’l-feqâr’s qaside contains not just this one figure of speech but also several others; this clearly indicates how complicated and insipid the poem might be. The poet has expended much time and effort, but the outcome is more a useless, ambiguous riddle than a brilliant qaside. Salmân of Sâveh goes further by writing a qaside entitled “Novelties of Dawns” (badâyeʿ-al-ashâr) in 120 distiches that contains even more new figures of speech than that of Dhu’l-feqâr. Although it is a panegyric in praise of the grand vizier, Ghiyâth-al-Din Mohammad, Salmân’s poem is more a kind of didactic poem on rhetoric and prosody, enumerating scores of figures of speech and the various common and rare metrical ramifications 281 282 283 284

Bürgel, “Qasida as Discourse on Power and its Islamization,” pp. 468–69. Ibid., p. 470. Safâ III/1, pp. 338–39. Âzâd-e Belgrâmi, Khazâne-ye ʿ âmere, pp. 234–35.

288

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

in Persian poetry.285 Similar examples of didactic poetry are found in the three peculiar qasides by Ahli of Shiraz (d. 1535), who spent the latter part of his life in the Safavid Shah Esmâʿil’s reign (1500– 24). In fact, these three poems are distinctly different from conventional ones: the distiches of each qaside share the same rhyme only, and every two or three distiches have a different meter. Though the whole qaside is a panegyric, each part of it is also intended to instruct the reader in one of the numerous prosodic meters. The poem is so tediously affected and boringly complicated that Ahli had to add to it some glossaries in prose, explaining the meters, rhymes, radifs, and kinds of figures of speech used. Such artificiality in masnuʿ qasides (belabored qasides) does not technically fall under moʿamma or riddles, “enigmatic poems,” but in terms of intricacy and verbal acrobatics, they do not differ from such qasides very much (see above, under Riddles). Repetition. Another infrequent figure of speech in this period, traceable to the eleventh century in Asjadi’s qasides, is what some have called repetition (takrâr), that is, the poet repeats a different key word twice in each part (mesraʿ) of a distich and then repeats the key words three times immediately in the following distich. This goes right to the end of the qaside. Serâji’s qaside well exemplifies this rather strange poetical fad: mâhi-st shohre shohre, ze khorshid shohre-tar, rokhsâr-e torfe torfe-ye ân sarv-e sim bar. zân shohre shohre shohre-ye Bolghâr bisharaf zin torfe torfe torfe-ye Noushâd bi khatar.286

A literal translation of the above might read as follows: Like the moon—attractive, attractive; more attractive than the sun — Is the lovely lovely face of that silver-bodied cypress. 285 For more on the technique of toshih and a typical qaside based on this technique, see Shams-e Qeys, Al-Moʿ jam, ed. Modarres Razavi, pp. 383–93; see also Safâ III/1, pp. 338–39, 520–21, where Sayyed Dhu’l-feqâr is cited as the composer of a toshih qaside. 286 Serâji, ed. Ahmad, pp. 173–76.

289

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Because of that attractive, attractive [darling], the attractive Bulgarian became ignoble; Because of this lovely, lovely [soul], the lovely darling from Noushâd lost repute.287

Division. A third figure of speech, which continued into the Mongol-Timurid period, even with greater interest, was “division” (taqsim or siyâqat-al-aʿdâd) as exemplified in the following lines by Serâj of Khorasan (pp. 169–73), where the poet makes a three-part statement about his beloved/patron in the first hemistich, and then, in the second hemistich, he briefly elaborates on what he means by each part: abir o shekkar o gol ruz o shab hami rizad yeki ze zolf o dovom az lab o sevom ze edhâr. be mâh o sarv o be kabk-e darish mimânad, yeki jamâl o dovom qâmat o sevom raftâr.

Translated into English, these verses would read thus: There are perfume, sugar, and flower shedding, day and night: The first from her hair, the second from her lips, the third from her face. There are the moon, the cypress, and the mountain partridge: Her face resembles the first, her stature the second, and her behavior the third.288

Eltezâm (literally:commitment, pledge). This is another figure of speech that attracted the attention of more poets in this period than it had done in the previous time. By using this rhetorical technique, the poet commits himself, as it were, to use one or more words in every single distich or even in every hemistich throughout the whole qaside. Naturally, such a limiting device is bound to make the qaside greatly artificial and detract from its poetic qualities. Kamâl Esmâʿil committed himself to use the word mu (hair) in every distich of an eighty-three distich qaside.289 Serâji has five 287 Ibid. 288 Serâji, ed. Ahmad, pp. 169–73. 289 Kamâl Esmâʿil, ed. Bahr-al-Olumi, pp. 280–84.

290

The Qaside in the Mongol and Timurid Periods

qasides in the same vein, employing such disparate words as: mu/ mur (hair/ant) in one; laʿ l/dorr/zarr/sim (pearl/ruby/gold/silver) in another; chashm/ru (eye/face) in another; âtash/âb/bâd/khâk (fire/ water/wind/earth, i. e., the four elements) in yet another.290 The employment of the four elements is also seen in some of the qasides of Lotf-Allâh of Neyshâbur (d. 1409). The radif in one of Khwâju’s qasides is khers o khorus (bear and rooster), which is repeated twenty-nine times.291 It is obvious that this qaside, despite the poet’s great mastery, can hardly be a very pleasant and poetically delightful poem. Ahli presents a similarly contrived qaside in which he commits himself to use the words “camel and room or cell” (shotor o hojre) in every hemistich.292

13. Conclusion Although there was a general indifference to poetry in the latter part of the Khwârazmshâhids’ rule, and the Mongol irruption into Iran caused some temporary interruptions in the flow of literary activity, the rich and deeply rooted poetical tradition managed to survive. As Jan Rypka rightly maintains, “the influence of the Iranian element was far too strong for the Mongol invaders to withstand.”293 Therefore, the enormous repertoire of themes, motifs, rhetorical devices, and prosodical forms developed in the course of over three centuries prior to the Mongol onslaught continued into the following centuries. In consequence, practically all the inherited rhetorical figures and poetical imagery were used in the poetry of this period. Nonetheless, as far as the qaside is concerned, there are two important points, and perhaps these two make all the difference in the poetry before and after the Mongol invasion: 290 Serâji, ed. Ahmad: mu/mur, pp. 157–60; laʿ l/dorr/zarr/sim, pp. 160–64, from distich 22 on; chashm/ru, pp. 228–29; âtash/âb/bâd/khâk, pp. 164–66. 291 Khwâju, ed. Khwânsâri, pp. 593–94. 292 Ahli, ed. Rabbâni, p. 208. 293 Rypka, HIL, p. 254.

291

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

1. As we progress from the first decades of the Mongol havoc, poetical innovation tends to weaken. Kamâl Esmâʿil, Saʿdi, and Khwâju aside, no great original qaside writer in the period draws our attention. There is more repetition and imitation of the poets of the eleventh and twelfth centuries than innovation. Otherwise, qasides are on the whole well structured and grammatically sound; one main drawback is perhaps a rather heavier input of unfamiliar, non-Persian words. However, if certain syntactic defects and imprecision are observed, particularly in the poetry of the late Timurid period, they have more to do with other types of poetry than with the qaside. After all, this kind of poetry was already on the ebb, and remained so for two more centuries. 2. Although imitation and repetition was the general trend in the period under discussion, there were sporadic efforts for new additions to the old poetical tradition.294 However, this new trend was more observable in the direction of abstruseness, pure abstraction, and far-fetched poetic imagery, producing what became known as the Indian Style, a mode of somewhat contrived poetry that reached its heights in the ghazal. In fact, the emergence of this style coincided with the decline of the qaside, giving way to the ghazal as the most important form of poetry.

294 Cf. Glunz, “Poetic Tradition and Social Change,” p. 194.

292

CHAPTER 7 STANZAIC POEMS G. van den Berg

1. The Tarjiʿ-band and Tarkib-band Prosody In Persian classical poetry, three different types of stanzaic poems can be discerned: the tarjiʿ-band (or tarjiʿ), the tarkib-band (or tarkib), and the mosammat. The first two types are very much alike: both tarjiʿ-band and tarkib-band consist of a varying number of stanzas, formed by a number of rhyming couplets (beyts). Each stanza has a different rhyme, though the same rhyme may occur in more than one stanza. The individual stanzas are followed and interlinked by a separate beyt with an independent rhyme, the so-called vâsete (linker, or the go-between) or band-e sheʿr.1 The two hemistichs (mesrâʿs) making up the vâsete-beyt usually rhyme, but this rhyme stands apart from the rhyme in the stanzas. The Persian term for the stanza without the vâsete is khâne, the term for the stanza including the vâsete is band, though band, confusingly, is sometimes also used to denote the vâsete.2 The vâsete and the rhyme which varies per stanza form the main characteristics of the tarjiʿ-band and the tarkib-band. The vâsete is usually clearly marked in printed editions of divans as a separate unit, with the hemistichs forming the vâsete-beyt presented one above the other, rather than next to each other. 1 2

L. P. Elwell-Sutton, The Persian Metres (Cambridge, 1976), p. 256. G. Schoeler, “Neo-Persian Stanzaic Poetry and its Relationship to the Arabic Musammaṭ,” in E. Emery, ed., Muwashshah (London, 2006), p. 261.

293

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

If the vâsete that follows each stanza remains the same throughout the poem, the stanzaic poem is named a tarjiʿ-band or, in the terminology of E. G. Browne, a “return-tie.”3 The recurrent vâsete of a tarjiʿ-band can be likened to a refrain. If, however, the vâsete is a different verse for each stanza, one speaks of a tarkib-band or a “composite-tie,” according to Browne.4 In the case of a tarjiʿ-band, the vâsete may have the same rhyme as the first stanza, but this is not necessarily the case. In case of a tarkib-band, one cannot speak of a refrain, since each vâsete is a new beyt, consisting of two rhyming mesrâʿs. In some tarkib-bands, the second hemistich of each vâsete rhymes with the following vâsete, so that the vâsetebeyts form a formal unity in themselves and in this manner can be seen as a kind of refrain. Both in tarjiʿ-bands and tarkib-bands the meter remains the same throughout the poem, and this kind of stanzaic poetry occurs in a wide variety of meters. The stanzas of a tarjiʿ-band or tarkib-band may have the appearance of a short qaside or ghazal, when the couplets rhyme. An alternative pattern is formed when all the mesrâʿs of the stanza rhyme. Thus two different types of tarjiʿ-band can be discerned: (1) aa ba ca da (…) XX; ff gf hf kf (…) XX, etc. [type 1] (2) aa aa aa aa (…) XX; bb bb bb bb (…) XX, etc. [type 2]

And similarly, two types of tarkib-band: (1) aa ba ca da (…) FF; gg hg kg lg (…) MM, etc. [type 1] (2) aa aa aa aa (…) BB; cc dc fc gc (…) HH, etc. [type 2]

A third type of tarkib-band has the following scheme: (3) aa ba ca da (…) FF; gg hg kg lg (…) MF, etc. [type 3]

This type can be found, for example, in Khâqâni and in Mokhtâri.5 In this type, the vâsete-beyts taken together without the surrounding stanzas have a form identical to the qaside. 3 Browne, LHP II, p. 39. 4 Browne, LHP II, p. 40. 5 Seven of the sixteen tarkib-bands in Khâqâni of Shervân (1127–1186/1199) have this form, No. 3 (pp. 457–65), 4 (pp. 465–72), 5 (pp. 472–81), 7

294

Stanzaic Poems

As a fourth type of tarkib-band, we may distinguish the form found for example in the divan of Masʿud-e Saʿd-e Salmân, in which monorhymed stanzas sharing the same meter and number of verses are grouped without a vâsete and thus without an obvious linker.6 (4) aa ba ca da (…); gg hg kg lg (…), etc. [type 4]

The length of the stanzas in a tarjiʿ-band or tarkib-band varies, and may be any number of beyts between five and twenty-five beyts. Within a given stanzaic poem, the length of individual stanzas may also vary, usually by no more than two beyts, but sometimes by as many as eight beyts.7 In a divan, the tarjiʿ-bands and tarkib-bands usually come after the qasides, sometimes after the ghazals. Often the stanzaic poems section is entitled tarjiʿ ât or tarkibât, whereby both terms may refer to both tarjiʿ-bands and tarkib-bands. Unlike the stanzaic form mosammat, the tarjiʿ-band and tarkib-band have no Arabic origin or equivalent and appear to be Persian creations on the basis of the mosammat.8

Prosodical Theory The first prosodist to write on the tarjiʿ-band and tarkib-band seems to have been Shams-e Qeys, in the sixth chapter of his Al-Moʿ jam fi maʿ âyir ashʿ âr al-ajam (composed after 1217–18),

6 7 8

(pp. 490–97), 8 (pp. 497–505), 9 (pp. 505–14), and 12 (pp. 523–27), in Divân-e Khâqâni Shervâni, ed. Sajjâdi. Three of the four tarkib-bands in Mokhtâri (ca. 1075–between 1118–21) have this form, No. 1 (pp. 531–36), 2 (pp. 536–41), and 4 (pp. 557–66), in Divân-e Othmân-e Mokhtâri, ed. Homâ’i. Masʿud-e Saʿd-e Salmân (1046–1122), in Divân-e Masʿud-e Saʿ d-e Salmân, ed. Nouriyân, pp. 741–44 (No. 1) and pp. 751–56 (No. 4). Compare Hâtef of Isfahan (d. 1783), in Divân-e Hâtef-e Esfahâni, eds. Shahrokhi and Alidust, pp. 27–32, a tarjiʿ-band with religious contents of type 1, respectively 22/14/18/15/18 beyts in the five bands. Schoeler, “Neo-Persian Stanzaic Poetry,” p. 263 and F. Thiesen, “Tardjīʿ-­ band and Tarkīb-band,” EI2 , X, pp. 235–46, at p. 235.

295

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

under the heading tarjiʿ.9 This section follows the sections on tasmit (see below) and towshih.10 Shams-e Qeys describes tarjiʿ from the viewpoint of the qaside: Tarjiʿ is the division of the qaside in a number of pieces (qetʿe), which all have the same meter, but a different rhyme. The poets call each piece a khâne (stanza) and in between they insert a separate beyt, and this beyt is named tarjiʿ-band. If they want, they make this very same beyt the tarjiʿ-band of all the khânes; they may also decide to compose a separate tarjiʿ-band for each stanza.11 This constitutes the definition of Shams-e Qeys, who does not use the term tarkib-band to distinguish between the use of the same beyt after each stanza and the use of a different beyt after each stanza. Moreover, he uses the term tarjiʿ-band for the separate beyt (either repeated after each stanza or not) rather than for this type of poem as a whole. The example given by Shams-e Qeys is introduced as a qaside-ye tarjiʿ—as in case of the mosammat (see below), we see that the tarjiʿ-band or tarkib-band is not really seen as a separate genre but rather as a poetical device to be applied to qasides. The example by Jamâl-al-Din Abd al-Razzâq is a tarkibband consisting of eleven stanzas in monorhyme, each containing eight beyts, in praise of the Prophet.12 It seems to be the complete poem. The section on tarjiʿ ends without further comment and is followed by a section on hosn-e matlaʿ and maqtaʿ. The tarjiʿ-band and the tarkib-band are believed to be Persian inventions on the basis of the mosammat, a different type of stanzaic poetry that originates in Arabic poetry; Schoeler sees a parallel situation in the West Arabian realm, where the mowashshah was introduced on   9 Shams-e Qeys Râzi, Al-moʿ jam fi maʿ âyir ashʿ âr al-ajam, eds. Qazvini and Razavi, pp. 393–400. 10 Towshih falls outside the scope of this chapter as non-stanzaic poetry: however we find in the Divan-e hakim Sanâ’i Ghaznavi, eds. Bâbâ’i and Foruzânfar, of Sanâ’i (d. 1131) a so-called tarkib-band-e movashshah (pp. 567–72): an artful stanzaic poem in which the last letters of each first mesrâʿ generate a quatrain, while the first letters of each last mesrâʿ form a do-beyt in Arabic. See for mowashshah in Persian: A. Piemontese, “The Girdle Figured in the Persian Intextus Poem,” in Muwashshah, pp. 173–95. 11 Shams-e Qeys Râzi, Al-moʿ jam fi maʿ âyir ashʿ âr al-ajam, pp. 393–94. 12 Shams-e Qeys Râzi, Al-moʿ jam fi maʿ âyir ashʿ âr al-ajam, pp. 394–400.

296

Stanzaic Poems

the basis of the mosammat.13 According to Thiesen, these new stanzaic forms offered poets a chance to make longer poems than the qaside, the length of which is limited because of the monorhyme which is at a certain point exhausted; in the stanzaic poems, with each stanza the poet could take up a new rhyme and thus lengthen the praise considerably, without having to resort to the mathnavi form.14

History Farrokhi.15 The first extant examples of tarjiʿ-bands can be found in the divan of Farrokhi of Sistan (d. after 1031), while the first extant tarkib-bands are present in the divan of Qatrân of Tabriz (d. after 1070).16 Farrokhi has three tarjiʿ-bands, the first one consisting of twenty-four stanzas, each containing five beyts and a recurrent beyt (vâsete)—in total six beyts per stanza. The beyts in the stanza are formed by rhyming mesrâʿs, as marked in bold in the following example, the fourth band or stanza of this tarjiʿ-band, composed in the meter hazaj-e mothamman-e sâlem:17 (1) delâ bâz ây tâ bâ to gham-e dirine begsâram hadithi az to benyusham nasibi az to bar dâram (2) delâ gar man be âsâni torâ ruzi be chang âram cho jân dâram torâ zirâ ke bi to khwâram-o zâram 13 Schoeler, “Neo-Persian Stanzaic Poetry,” pp. 257, 263. 14 Thiesen, “Tardjīʿ-band and Tarkīb-band,” p. 235. 15 The following is based on the work of Farrokhi as recorded in Dabir-­ Siyâqi’s modern edition of his divan. It is of the utmost importance to keep in mind that the manuscripts on which this edition is based are of a late date. For the large majority of early Persian poets, no early manuscripts exist. This problem has been described by F. de Blois, PL V, “Textual Problems of Early Persian Dīwāns,” pp. 498–502. I would like to thank Anna Livia Beelaert for drawing my attention to this problem. 16 Schoeler, “Neo-Persian Stanzaic Poetry,” pp. 260–61. 17 The tarjiʿ-bands of Farrokhi of Sistan can be found in the Divân-e Farrokhi- ­ye Sistâni, ed. Dabir-Siyâqi, pp. 403–32, Nos. 215–17. The fourth stanza of the first tarjiʿ-band is on p. 404. For a transliteration and a translation of the first stanza of this tarjiʿ-band see Schoeler, “Neo-Persian Stanzaic Poetry,” pp. 261–62.

297

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA (3) delâ tâ to ze man duri na dar khwâbam na bidâram neshân-e bideli peydâ-st az goftâr-o kerdâram (4) delâ tâ to ze man duri nadânam bar che kerdâram marâ bini chenân bini ke man yeksâle bimâram (5) delâ bâ to vafâ kardam k-azin bishat nayâzâram biyâ tâ in bahârân râ be shâdi bâ to bigzâram vâsete: bedin shâyestegi jashni bedin bâyestegi ruzi malek râ dar jahân har ruz jashni bâd-o nowruzi (1) Oh heart, come so that I can ease my long suffering together with you I will listen to one of your stories, I will take your fate upon myself (2) Oh heart, if one day I can get you into my hands with ease I will hold you like you were my soul, for without you I am cast down and sad (3) Oh heart, as long as you are far away from me, I do not sleep and I am not awake The signs of a lost heart are visible from what I say and what I do (4) Oh heart, as long as you are far away from me, I do not know what I am doing You see me as you would see me if I were ill for a year (5) Oh heart, I have been faithful to you and from now on I will not trouble you Come so that I can spend this time of spring happily with you vâsete: Such a worthy feast, such a welcome day, May every day be a feast and a New Year’s day to the king in the world!

The first ten mesrâʿs in the stanza have identical rhyme (-âram), and are followed by a beyt (the refrain) with two rhyming mesrâʿs in a different rhyme (-ruzi) (described above as type 2). This stanza is the first one dealing with unrequited love—the previous three stanzas of this tarjiʿ-band were descriptions of the lush nature in spring, suitable for a poem apparently composed on the occasion of Nowruz. The following tarjiʿ-band in the divan of Farrokhi has twenty-five stanzas, but otherwise follows the same pattern as the previous tarjiʿ-band. The last tarjiʿ-band in the divan of Farrokhi however follows a different pattern. Instead of the double rhyme, i. e., rhyming mesrâʿs in each stanza, the stanzas in this tarjiʿ-band are formed by beyts in monorhyme, apart from the first beyt of each 298

Stanzaic Poems

stanza which is in double rhyme—following the pattern of a qaside or ghazal (described above as type 1). This tarjiʿ-band has seven stanzas, each containing nine beyts—eight beyts in monorhyme and one recurrent beyt in double rhyme. The first two beyts and the recurrent beyt of the third stanza are given below as an example: (1) dasht gu’i gostaride holle-ye dibâsti kuh gu’i tude-ye bijâde-o minâsti (2) keshtzâr az sabze gu’i âsmânasti durust v-âsmân-e sâde râ gu’i konun sahrâsti vâsete: jâvdâne khwâje-ye har khwâje’i hojjâj bâd bartarin mehtar be kehtar-e kehtaresh mohtâj bâd18 (1) You would say the field is silken brocade spread out The mountain you’d say is a heap of ruby and bluestone (2) The sown field is green—it is just like heaven And you’d say the real heaven is now a field vâsete: May Hojjâj be forever the lord of every lord May the highest superior be in need of the most inferior of his inferiors

The first three stanzas of this tarjiʿ-band contain descriptions of nature and spring. At the end of each stanza, before the refrain, the patron (mamduh) is brought up. From the fourth stanza onwards, the contents of each stanza are devoted to the qualities of the mamduh. All three tarjiʿ-bands of Farrokhi have been composed as Nowruz poems, judging from the references to Nowruz in the refrains as well as in the stanzas. Qatrân.19 In contrast to Farrokhi, in whose divan we only find tarjiʿ-bands, Qatrân of Tabriz has both tarjiʿ-bands (five), tarkibbands (five) and mosammats (two) ascribed to him, a total of twelve stanzaic poems in the edition of his divan by Nakhjavâni.20 He 18 Farrokhi, ed. Dabir-Siyâqi, pp. 428–29: the meter of this tarjiʿ-band is ramal-e mothamman-e mahzuf. 19 The remark made under n. 15 applies even more to Qatrân’s work. Compare the remark made by de Blois, “Textual Problems of Early Persian Dīwāns,” p. 188, on the large number of spurious poems in the manuscripts of Qatrân’s divan. 20 Qatrân of Tabriz, Divân-e hakim Qatrân-e Tabrizi, ed. Nakhjavâni, pp. 410–53.

299

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

is the earliest poet of whom tarkib-bands have been preserved.21 However, the presence of three different kinds of stanzaic poems in his divan proves that stanzaic poetry had become a fully developed genre in the course of the eleventh century. Just as Farrokhi has two different kinds of tarjiʿ-bands, Qatrân also has two different kinds of tarkib-bands and tarjiʿ-bands: four tarjiʿ-bands and one tarkib-band with stanzas consisting of rhyming mesra’s, i. e., double rhyme (type 2) and one tarjiʿ-band and four tarkib-bands consisting of rhyming beyts rather than mesra’s, i. e., monorhyme (type 1). A number of his tarjiʿ-bands and tarkib-bands have stanzas of different lengths, his tarkib-bands more so than the tarjiʿ-­ bands. Qatrân’s first tarkib-band has ten stanzas, eight stanzas of nine beyts, one stanza of eight beyts and one stanza of thirteen beyts. His second tarkib-band—the only one of type 1—has ten stanzas, each with five beyts, and the remaining three tarkib-bands have again varying number of beyts in each stanza, though the variety in length as a rule seems limited. Asymmetric stanzas appear to be very common in the stanzaic poetry composed in subsequent centuries. The following example is stanza 8 of the second tarkib-band in Qatrân’s divan, composed on the occasion of Nowruz for his patron the Shaddâdid Amir of Ganje, Abu’l-Hasan Ali Lashgari (r. 1034–49).22 (1) khosrow-e turân-o sâlâr-e hame irân to’i khosrow-e barnâ ke dârad dânesh-e pirân to’i (2) zinat-e shâhân to’i pirâye-ye mirân to’i fakhr-e in dowrân to’i târikh-e in mirân to’i (3) gâh-e shamshir ezhdehâ’i pir-e shamshirân to’i gâh-e tadbir âftâbi pir-e tadbirân to’i (4) ânke bestânad bemardi melkat-e irân to’i v-ân kazu âbâd gardad âlam-e virân to’i (5) bâ tan-e pilân to’i bâ zahre-ye shirân to’i az jahândârân sari shâh-e jahân girân to’i vâsete: tâ ke begrefti jahâni râ be yek peykâr-e to tâ jahân bâshad beguyand ânche kardi kâr-e to 21 Schoeler, “Neo-Persian Stanzaic Poetry,” p. 261. 22 Qatrân of Tabriz, ed. Nakhjavâni, pp. 413–17.

300

Stanzaic Poems (1) You are the king of Turân and the commander of entire Iran You are the youthful king who has the wisdom of Pirân (2) You are the ornament of kings, you are the jewel of emirs You are the pride of this age, you are the history of these emirs (3) When it is time for the sword you are a dragon—you are the leader of swords When it is time for planning you are a sun—you are the leader of planning (4) You are the one who courageously conquers Iran And you are the one by whom the ruined world prospers (5) You have the strength of elephants, you have the courage of lions You lead those who rule the world, you are the king of those who conquer the world

Other poets. The subjects treated in the stanzaic forms tarkib-band and tarjiʿ-band in general do not differ much from the subjects found in a poet’s qasides or ghazals. In Ghaznavid and Saljuq court poetry, we thus find many tarjiʿ-bands and tarkib-bands in praise of a patron, often with a few stanzas that seem to function as a prelude, similar to the nasib of a qaside. Nowruz seems to have been a favorite occasion for the composition of a stanzaic poem. The mystical poet Attâr (ca. 1145/46–1221) has one tarjiʿ-band and two tarkib-bands with mystical contents, like other mystical poets who followed him.23 However, a distinctive trend insofar as the contents of stanzaic poetry are concerned can be perceived from the later Ghaznavid period onwards. In the divans, the tarkibband and the tarjiʿ-band appear increasingly as popular forms for the elegy or marthiye, composed both for the poet’s patrons and for the Prophet of Islam and his circle. In the divan of Masʿud-e Saʿd-e Salmân (1046–1122), we find an elegy in the form of a tarkib-band for one of Masʿud-e Saʿd’s patrons, Sultan Ebrâhim’s minister Abu’l-Roshd Rashid b. Mohtâj.24 The twelfth-century poet Khâqâni of Shervân includes a total of sixteen tarkib-bands, 23 Attâr, Divân-e Farid al-Din Attâr, ed. Nafisi, pp. 83–91; compare also the majority of tarkib-bands and tarjiʿ-bands of Fakhr-al-Din Erâqi (ca. 1213/14–89), Kolliyât-e Erâqi, ed. Nafisi, pp. 109–40. 24 Salmân, Divân-e Masʿud-e Saʿd-e Salmân, ed. Nouriyân, pp. 751–56. See also S. Sharma, Persian Poetry at the Indian Frontier. Masʿ ûd Saʿ d Salmân of Lahore (Delhi, 2000), pp. 80–81.

301

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

twelve praise poems, and four elegies, one of which for his son Rashid al-Din.25 Jâmi (1414–92) provides four tarjiʿ-bands and six tarkib-bands: four of the six tarkib-bands are elegies.26 In the divans, the elegies in tarkib-band or tarjiʿ-band are often arranged separately in a subcategory marâthi (elegies; sing. marthiye). Closely connected to the genre of marthiye is manqabat, a kind of poetry in which the heroic deeds of the Prophet Mohammad, and the Imams Ali or Hoseyn, are described and for which the tarkib-band or tarjiʿ-band appear to have been suitable forms.27 The tarkib-band on the martyrdom of Imam Hoseyn in Karbalâ by Mohtasham-e Kâshâni (1528/29–88) forms the culmination of this development.28 This elegy is often described and introduced as a davâzdah-band, as it contains twelve bands or stanzas. The first stanza opens with the verse: bâz in che shureshi-st ke dar khalq-e âlam ast / bâz in che nowhe-o che azâ-o che mâtam ast (What is this tumult now among the world’s creatures? / What now is this wailing, this mourning, this lamentation?)29 Each of these stanzas has seven beyts in monorhyme and one non-repetitive beyt with double rhyme forming the vâsete. On the basis of the popularity of this specific tarkib-band, the term haft-band came into use to 25 Khâqâni, Divân-e Khâqâni-ye Shervâni, ed. Sajjâdi, stanzaic poems on pp. 445–546; the elegy for his son on pp. 541–46. According to Anna Livia Beelaert, Khâqâni has a total of more than twenty elegies (in different forms) in his divan. A. L. Beelaert, EIr, s. v. Kāqāni Šervāni. 26 Jâmi, Divân-e kâmel-e Jâmi, ed. Râzi, pp.  113–24, the first four tarkib-bands. 27 See for example Khwâju of Kerman (1290–ca. 1349), Divân-e ashʿ âr-e Khwâju-ye Kermâni, ed. Soheyli Khwânsâri, pp. 128–32 on the four rightly-guided caliphs and pp. 133–35 on Ali; Salmân Sâvaji (1309?–76), Divân-e Salmân-e Sâvaji, ed. Tafazzoli, pp. 317–22, tarkib-band in praise of Mohammad and the following tarkib-band on pp. 322–27 in praise of Ali, both of type 1; Ahli of Shirâz (1454?–1535), Kolliyât-e ashʿ âr-e Ahli-ye Shirâzi, ed. Rabbâni, pp. 519–23, tarkib-band in praise of the twelve imams; Hâtef of Isfahan, eds. Shahrokhi and Alidust, pp. 27–32, a tarjiʿ-band on divine unity, extensively described by D. Safâ, EIr, s. v. Hâtef, Sayyed Ahmad Esfahâni. 28 See for Mohtasham-e Kâshâni and the reception of his davâzdah-band: P. Losensky, EIr, s. v. Moḥtašam Kašāni. 29 Translation of the verse by Losensky, EIr, s. v. Moḥtašam Kāšāni.

302

Stanzaic Poems

denote this type of tarkib-band.30 This is again slightly confusing, insofar as we saw before that the term “band” denotes the whole stanza, including the vâsete. A later famous stanzaic poem is a tarjiʿ-band on divine unity by the eighteenth-century poet Hâtef of Isfahan (d. 1783), translated at an early stage in French and German.31 E. G. Browne has provided a full translation of this tarjiʿ-band in his A Literary History of Persia.32

2. Mosammat Prosody The mosammat is the third main type of stanzaic poetry in Persian. The first poet with a sizeable quantity of mosammats is Manuchehri (d. after 1040), but remnants of mosammats are also ascribed to Rudaki and Kesâ’i, who lived a century before Manuchehri.33 A mosammat is built up in a number of stanzas consisting of three to ten rhyming mesrâʿs and one mesrâʿ in a different rhyme; the rhyme of the last mesrâʿ of the first stanza is repeated in the last mesrâʿ of each stanza, so that the stanzas are formally unified through this 30 Thiesen, “Tardjīʿ-band and Tarkīb-band,” p. 235; for this tarkib-band see Mohtasham, Divân-e Mowlânâ Mohtasham-e Kâshâni, ed. Gorgâni, pp. 280–85. E. G. Browne translated the 4 th, 5 th, and 6 th band of this poem in LHP IV, pp. 173–77. In Gorgâni’s edition of the Divân of Mohtasham of Kâshân, the tarkib-band following the famous davâzdah-band is an elegy for Shah Tahmâsp. It is referred to as davâzdah-band, while it has no more than ten bands—this may indicate that in the ensuing tradition the term davâz-dah band also became a term for a given example of stanzaic poetry, and that the preceding davâzdah-band set the example. 31 Hâtef of Isfahan, eds. Shahrokhi and Alidust, pp. 27–32. See also Safâ, EIr, s. v. Hâtef, Sayyed Ahmad Esfahâni. 32 Text and translation in Browne, LHP IV, pp. 284–97; a different translation of two stanzas of this poem can be found in Browne, LHP II, p. 40, under Browne’s description of tarkib-band and tarjiʿ-band. 33 Elwell-Sutton, The Persian Metres, p. 258. Schoeler, “Neo-Persian Stanzaic Poetry,” p. 258.

303

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

recurrent rhyme. As in the tarjiʿ-band and tarkib-band, the meter is the same in all the stanzas. The term mosammat is usually explained as “the stringing of pearls on a necklace;” or, alternatively, as “the tying to the saddle-straps.”34 The length of the stanzas in a mosammat may differ; the mosammat is classified according to its length as morabbaʿ (composed of four [mesrâʿs]), mokhammas (composed of five), mosaddas (composed of six), mosabbaʿ (composed of seven), mothamman (composed of eight), motassaʿ (composed of nine), or moʿashshar (composed of ten).35 In contrast to the tarkib-band and tarjiʿ-band, there are no variations in the length of the stanza within a mosammat: every stanza has the same length throughout. In a schematic representation, the mosammat may thus have the following forms: (1) a a a – b, c c c – b, d d d – b, etc. (morabbaʿ) (2) a a a a – b, c c c c – b, d d d d – b, etc. (mokhammas) (3) a a a a a – b, c c c c c- b, d d d d d – b, etc. (mosaddas) (4) a a a a a a – b, c c c c c c – b, d d d d d d – b, etc. (mosabbaʿ) (5) a a a a a a a – b, c c c c c c c – b, d d d d d d d – b, etc. (mothamman) (6) a a a a a a a a – b, c c c c c c c c – b, d d d d d d d d – b, etc. (motassaʿ) (7) a a a a a a a a a – b, c c c c c c c c c – b, d d d d d d d d d – b, etc. (moʿashshar)

Of these forms, the mokhammas and mosaddas, and to a lesser extent the morabbaʿ, are most common. The rhyme scheme of the mokhammas and the mosaddas may also be respectively a a a b b and a a a a b b. Other rhyme schemes have been mentioned by Elwell-Sutton but are rare.36 Elwell-Sutton introduces the mosammat by stating that “the couplet basis is abandoned.”37 However, this is only true to some extent, insofar as in the morabbaʿ, mosaddas, mothamman, and moʿashshar forms of the mosammat, the stanzas consist of respectively two beyts, three beyts, four beyts, and five beyts, with the rhyme changing in the last or penultimate mesrâʿ of each stanza; for the mokhammas, mosabbaʿ, and motassaʿ, one 34 A. A. Dehkhodâ, Loghat-nâme (Tehran, 1946–81), p. 435. 35 Elwell-Sutton, The Persian Metres, pp. 257–58. 36 Ibid. 37 Elwell-Sutton, The Persian Metres, p. 257.

304

Stanzaic Poems

might say that each stanza consists of (respectively) two, three, and four beyts and one mesrâʿ. This is also how mosammats are presented in divans—the beyt is taken as the unit. If a poet has both mosammats, tarjiʿ-bands, and tarkib-bands in his divan, the mosammats usually come last and the tarjiʿ-bands first.38

Prosodical Theory We find an example of one of the mosammats of Manuchehri in the earliest extant Persian book on rhetoric, Râduyâni’s Tarjomân albalâghe (composed between 1088–1114).39 However, the mosammat as described in Râduyâni and in other early works on prosody focus on a slightly different though very much related poetic device for which the same name is used. These descriptions throw some light upon the perception and the development of the mosammat in Persian poetry. Râduyâni starts his description of the mosammat by presenting a beyt of Kesâ’i. This beyt, according to Râduyâni, is an example of a qaside in which the poet has divided every beyt into four parts. The first three parts of the beyt have the same rhyme—in the words of Râduyâni, are in sajʿ, while the fourth part of each beyt shares its rhyme with the fourth part of each following beyt (in the words of Râduyâni, the qâfiye). The beyt of Kesâ’i can be understood as a beyt of a qaside, but also as a stanza of a mosammat-e morabbaʿ, hence the appearance of this beyt under the heading of mosammat, which according to Râduyâni is a “grouping” (goruh kardan), that is, the composition of a qaside with beyts built up of three parts with internal rhyme and one part with end rhyme. The text of Kesâ’i given by Râduyâni is the following: bizâram az piyâle v-az arghavân-o lâle mâ-o khorush-o nâle konji gerefte tanhâ40 38 Though this is not always the case: compare Bâbâ’i and Foruzânfar’s edition of Sanâ’i’s Divân, pp. 567–99, where the mosammats, tarkib-bands, and tarjiʿ-bands seem to appear in a random order. 39 Mohammad Omar al-Râduyâni, Tarjomân al-balâghe, ed. Ateş, pp. 104–5. 40 The meter of this verse is mozâreʿ-e mothamman-e akhrab (- - 0 / - 0 - - / - 0 / - 0 - -).

305

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA I have had enough of the cup, the Judas tree and the tulip I am alone, wailing and crying, sitting in a corner

This beyt can be understood as a stanza: bizâram az piyâle v-az arghavân-o lâle mâ-o khorush-o nâle konji gerefte tanhâ41

According to Râduyâni, this is mosammat. He adds to this the following: And it may occur that the parts of the beyt in scanning are larger than what I just mentioned (va buvad ki aqsâm-i beyt ba taqtiʿ ziyâdat az in buvad ki yâd kardam), as we can see in Manuchehri:42 khizid-o khaz ârid ke hangâm-e khazân ast bâd-e khonak az jâneb-e khwârazm bazân ast ân barg-e razân bin ke por az shâkh-e razân ast gu’i ke yeki kârgah-i rangrazân ast dehqân ba taʿajjob sar-e angosht gazân ast k-andar chaman-e bâgh na gul mând-o gulzâr Rise and bring fur because it is autumn A cold wind is blowing from Khwârazm Look at those vine leaves with the vines on top You would say it is a workshop of dyers The landowner bites the tip of his finger in amazement For in the meadow neither rose nor rose-bed remained And it is possible to expand this as much as you like.43

The prosodist Rashid-al-Din Vatvât (d. 1182), like Râduyâni, describes the mosammat as an art or device (sanʿat) whereby the poet 41

Compare also Schoeler’s treatment of a short piece of Rudaki, in “Neo-Persian Stanzaic Poetry,” p. 258. 42 This is the version as presented by Râduyâni, which slightly differs from the text of the first stanza in the edition of the Divân of Manuchehri, ed. Dabir-Siyâqi, mosammat-e nokhostin, “dar vasf-e khazân-o madh-e Masʿud-e Ghaznavi,” pp. 147–56, this stanza on p. 147. The meter is hazaj-e mothamman-e akhrab-e makfuf-e mahdhuf ( - - 0 / 0 - - 0 / 0 - - 0 / 0 - -). 43 al-Râduyâni, Tarjomân al-balâghe, pp. 104–5.

306

Stanzaic Poems

divides the beyt in four parts; at the end of the first three parts he observes internal rhyme (sajʿ), and in the fourth part he introduces end-rhyme (qâfiyat). According to Vatvât, this is also called sheʿr-e mosajjaʿ (rhymed poetry).44 He mentions two examples of this device, one of which is the well-known qaside by Moʿezzi (1048/49– 1125/27), ey sârbân manzel makun joz dar diyâr-e yâr-e man. The beyts of this qaside follow the same pattern as the single beyt of Kesâ’i cited by Râduyâni. We see that in the first beyt, the pattern of internal rhymes followed by an end-rhyme is not yet present, since the first two hemistichs need to rhyme. From the second beyt onwards, however, Moʿezzi applies mosammat in the remaining fifty-four beyts of this qaside. (1) ey sârbân manzel makun joz dar diyâr-e yâr-e man tâ yek zamân zâri konam bar rabʿ-o atlâl-o daman (2) rabʿ az delam por khun konam khâk-e daman golgun konam atlâl râ jeyhun konam az âb-e cheshm-e khwishtan (3) k-az ruy-e yâr-e khergahi ivân hami binam tahi v-az qad-e ân sarv-e sahi khâli hami binam chaman (4) jâ’i ke bud ân delsetân bâ dustân dar bustân shod gorg-o rubâh râ makân shod bum-o kârgas râ vatan (5) bar jây-e ratl-o jâm-e mey gurân nihâdastand pey bar jây-e chang-o nây-o ney âvâz-e zâghast-o zaghan45 (1) Oh camel-driver, do not halt but in the realm of my beloved That I may lament a while over the abode, the ruins and the traces left (2) With my heart I will make the abode full of blood, I will turn the ruins into the river Jeyhun (by weeping) I will make the traces left behind rose-red with my tears 44 Rashid-al-Din Vatvât, Hadâ’eq al-sehr fi daqâ’eq al-sheʿr, ed. Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, pp. 61–62. 45 Moʿezzi, Divân-e Amir Moʿezzi, ed. Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, pp. 597–99. This example is in rajaz-e mothamman-e sâlem. Moʿezzi might have set an example by this qaside: Saʿdi’s poem ey sârbân âheste row k-ârâm-e jânam miravad has the same internal rhyme, meter, and motif. Saʿdi, Kolliyât-e Saʿ di, ed. Motlaq, p. 456, No. T2–268. Three beyts of this ghazal of Saʿdi are cited by the fourteenth-century prosodist Sharaf-al-Din Râmi Tabrizi, Haqâ’eq al-hadâ’eq, ed. Emâm, p. 87, in the chapter on mosammat: Bâb-e si-o yekom dar mosammat, pp. 87–88.

307

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA (3) For I see the portico left without the stature of that tall cypress The place where that sweetheart was with friends in the orchard (4) Has become an abode for wolf and fox, has become the homeland of owl and vulture (5) Wild asses have put their feet where once were cup and glass of wine Instead of harp and reed and flute there is the screeching of the crow and kite

Vatvât adds that the Persians also compose the mosammat in a different manner: they compose five hemistichs in one rhyme (qâfiyat), while at the end of the sixth hemistich they bring in the basic rhyme (qâfiyat-e asli), on which the poem is based.46 As an example, Vatvât presents the first stanza of Manuchehri’s mosammat âmad bâng-e khorus mo’ezzen-e meykhwâregân (see below).47 The original mosammat was thus understood as a mosammat-e morabbaʿ, and described as a device applied in the beyts of a qaside.48 As attested by Râduyâni, this seems to have developed into something larger, which in the time of Râduyâni was apparently seen as an extension of a poetical device in which three of the four parts of the beyt (aqsâm-e beyt) maintain the internal rhyme (sajʿ), and the fourth one the recurrent rhyme (qâfiye). Râduyâni does not yet acknowledge this as a different form. Vatvât, on the other hand, seems to have perceived this “extended form of mosammat” as a different kind of mosammat, and refers to its parts as hemistichs with rhyme (mesrâʿs with qâfiye) and no longer as parts of the couplet with internal rhyme (aqsâm-e beyt with sajʿ). Vatvât distinguishes rhyme and basic rhyme (qâfiyat and qâfiyat-e asli) to denote the difference between the rhyme used in the mesrâʿs of the separate stanza and the recurrent rhyme in the last mesrâʿ of 46 Vatvât, Hadâ’eq al-sehr fi daqâ’eq al-sheʿr, p. 63. 47 Ibid. 48 Schoeler speaks of “double nature,” see “Neo-Persian Stanzaic Poetry,” p. 260. The term morabbaʿ is not used in early works of prosody to define the nature of a mosammat; in Vatvât, the section on mosammat is preceded by a section on morabbaʿ, which is defined as a poem of four beyts or four mesrâʿs, of which the words can be read both horizontally and vertically (ham az derâznâ ânrâ betavân khwând va ham az pahnâ). Vatvât, Hadâ’eq al-sehr fi daqâ’eq al-sheʿr, p. 61.

308

Stanzaic Poems

each separate stanza. For this kind of mosammat, according to him composed by Persians, Vatvât no longer uses the term sajʿ. This shift in approach, illustrated by the descriptions of Râduyâni and Vatvât, shows how the mosammat gradually came to be seen as a separate genre, a stanzaic poem, rather than a poetical device used in couplets of monorhymed qasides. The fact that the mosammat was initially seen as a poetical device is probably the reason for its inclusion in early works on prosody, which do not usually describe genres of poetry. This development of the mosammat as a separate genre in poetry can be illustrated furthermore by the description of Shams-e Qeys in Al-moʿ jam, composed more than a century later than Râduyâni and probably more than forty years after Vatvât.49 Noticeably, Shams-e Qeys begins his description of the mosammat with the stanzaic “Persian” form, rather than the internal rhyme form; however, he does group them under the heading of tasmit.50 By the time of Shams-e Qeys, the mosammat-e mosaddas, the form used by Manuchehri, seems to be perceived as the standard form of a mosammat, which might well be due to the presence of this particular form in Manuchehri’s divan and its apparent popularity.

History Schoeler has demonstrated that a fragment of Rudaki (d. 940) may be interpreted as a mosammat-e morabbaʿ composed as a pendant to a mosammat by Abu Nuwâs (d. ca. 815).51 The first complete mosammats, however, can be found in the divan of Manuchehri (d. after 1040–41). The mosammat is not as widespread in the divans of Persian poets as the tarjiʿ-band and tarkib-band are. We find, for example, two mothamman mosammats in Qatrân of Tabriz.52 49 Shams-e Qeys Râzi, Al-moʿ jam fi maʿ âyir ashʿ âr al-ajam, pp. 382–83. 50 Note that tarjiʿ is not described in Vatvât or Râduyâni, but is included in Shams-e Qeys Râzi, Al-moʿ jam fi maʿ âyir ashʿ âr al-ajam, p. 393, following tasmit (pp. 382–83) and towshih (pp. 383–93). 51 Schoeler, “Neo-Persian Stanzaic Poetry,” pp. 258–60. 52 Qatrân of Tabriz, ed. Nakhjavâni, pp. 442–49.

309

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Also, there are four mothamman mosammats in Masʿud-e Saʿd.53 In the last stanza of his first mosammat, Masʿud-e Saʿd cites the opening mesrâʿ of Manuchehri’s famous mosammat khizid-o khaz arid (see above).54 Sanâ’i has four morabbaʿ mosammats, Moʿezzi has one mothamman mosammat, and Khwâju of Kerman has one mothamman mosammat and one mokhammas mosammat.55 The mokhammas mosammat of Khwâju of Kerman is a tazmin (“expansion”; literally, “citation”) on a qaside of Sanâ’i.56 The mokhammas mosammat seems to have been developed in later years as an appropriate form for expanding an existing poem, when more or fewer mesrâʿs may be added to an existing ghazal or qaside in order to construct a mosammat.57 Manuchehri. Manuchehri’s divan contains eleven mosammats, in subject matter similar to his qasides. His mosammats are all mosaddas and follow the rhyme scheme sketched above, that is, five rhyming mesrâʿs and a sixth mesrâʿ with a rhyme that comes back in the sixth mesrâʿ of each stanza. Mosammat 10 in Manuchehri’s divan, however, has another scheme, and consists of thirty-seven stanzas with six rhyming mesrâʿs.58 The last mesrâʿ of each stanza in this case does not stand out at all, and the stanzas are not formally unified by a recurrent rhyme. The other ten mosammats of Manuchehri have between ten and thirty-five stanzas. In the following example, the first two stanzas of the sixth mosammat in praise of the morning cup are presented as follows: 53 Masʿud-e Saʿd-e Salmân, ed. Nouriyan, pp. 766–79. 54 Masʿud-e Saʿd-e Salmân, ed. Nouriyan, p. 771. 55 Sanâ’i, eds. Bâbâ’i and Foruzânfar, pp. 572–73, 577–78, 587–88, 591–92; Moʿezzi, ed. Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, pp. 768–71; Khwâju, ed. Soheyli Khwânsâri, pp. 126–28, 137–39. 56 On this mokhammas of Khwâju, ed. Soheyli Khwânsâri, pp. 137–39, see Elwell-Sutton, The Persian Metres, p. 259. 57 A tazmin in mokhammas is often termed takhmis. Compare Schoeler and Rahman, “Musammaṭ,” p. 661 and see the description of different kinds of tazmin in Elwell-Sutton, The Persian Metres, p. 259. 58 But according to the notes in Dabir-Siyâqi’s edition of Manuchehri, this mosammat (pp. 197–206) is not present in all manuscripts, p. 197, n. 1.

310

Stanzaic Poems âmad bâng-e khorus mo’ezzen-e meykhwâregân sobh-e noxostin namud ruy be nazzâregân koh be katef bar fekand châdor-e bâzâregân ruy be mashregh nehâd khosrow-e sayyâregân bâde farâz âvarid châre-ye bichâregân qawm-o ashrab al-sabuh yâ ayyohâ al-nâ’emin mey zadegânim mâ dar-e del-e mâ gham bovad châre-ye mâ bâmdâd retl-e damâdam bovad râhat-e kazhdomzade koshte-ye kazhdom bovad meyzade râ ham be mey dâru o marham bovad harke sabuhi zanad bâ del khorr am bovad bâ do lab-e moshkbuy bâ do rokh-e hur in59 The crowing of the cock sounds, the muezzin of those who drink wine The first morning light showed its face to those who watched The mountain has thrown the tent of the traders over its shoulders The emperor of the planets has directed his face to the east Bring wine, the remedy of the wretched “Oh you who are asleep, rise and drink the morning cup” We are afflicted by wine, our heart is filled with grief A cup of wine at dawn is frequently our remedy The comfort of the one bitten by the scorpion is the scorpion’s corpse For the one afflicted by wine the wine is likewise medicine and balm Whoever drains the morning cup is glad in his heart With two musk-scented lips, with two cheeks of black-eyed paradise virgins

Ahli of Shiraz. Ahli of Shiraz (1454?–1535) has three mokhammas mosammats, all based on existing ghazals.60 In the first mosammat of Ahli of Shiraz, nine stanzas are based on nine beyts of a ghazal of Hâfez (ca. 1315–90).61 Each stanza consists of three mesrâʿs by 59 Manuchehri, ed. Dabir-Siyâqi, p. 177, mosammat-e shashom, No. 63, “dar vasf-e sabuhi.” The meter is monsareh-e mothamman-e matvi-ye maksuf (- 0 0 - / - 0 - 0 / - 0 0 - / - 0 -), see Elwell-Sutton, The Persian Metres, p. 104, 4.4.15. 60 Ahli, ed. Rabbâni, pp. 536–39. 61 Ahli, ed. Rabbâni, pp. 536–37. The ghazal on which this mokhammas is based can be found in Hâfez, Divân-e Hâfez, ed. Khânlari, p. 320, No. 152.

311

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Ahli and two mesrâʿs of the ghazal of Hâfez. The last two mesrâʿs of each stanza of the mokhammas are formed by a beyt of the ghazal of Hâfez:62 Ahli stanza 1 a a a

Hâfez a – a = 1 st beyt

stanza 2 b b b b – a = 3 rd beyt stanza 3 c c c

c – a = 5 th beyt

stanza 4 d d d d – a = 4 th beyt stanza 5 e e e

e – a = 2 nd beyt

stanza 6 f f f

f – a = 6 th beyt

stanza 7 g g g

g – a = 7 th beyt

stanza 8 h h h h – a = 8 th beyt stanza 9 i i i

i – a = 9 th beyt62

The last stanza includes in the third mesrâʿ the pen name Ahli, and in the fourth mesrâʿ the pen name Hâfez. The first stanza of Ahli’s mokhammas has five rhyming mesrâʿs, following the first two rhyming hemistichs of Hâfez’s ghazal: (1) pari be hosn-e rokh-e golʿezâr-e mâ naresad (2) malak bekholq-e khwosh-e ghamgosâr-e mâ naresad (3) vafâ-ye kas bevafâ-ye negâr-e mâ naresad (4) behosn-e kholq-o vafâ kas be yâr-e mâ naresad (5) torâ dar in sokhan enkâr-e kâr-e mâ naresad (1) A peri cannot outreach the beauty of the face of our rosecheeked beloved (2) An angel cannot outreach the pleasant disposition of our dear friend (3) No one’s loyalty outreaches the loyalty of the beloved idol (4) No one outreaches our friend in beauty of disposition and fidelity (5) Contradicting us in this matter is not for you. Meter mojtathth-e mothamman-e makhbun-e mahdhuf, 0 - 0 - / 0 0 - - / 0 - 0 - / 0 0 -. 62 The numbering of beyts is taken from Khânlari’s edition of the Divân of Hâfez, p. 320.

312

Stanzaic Poems

The second stanza rhymes with the last syllable of the first hemistich of the third verse of Hâfez: (1) marâ ke nist be kas gheyr-e yâr-e khwish niyâz (2) hoquq-e sohbat-e khwod ham be yâr guyam bâz (3) che hâjat ast ze nâmahramân keshidan-e nâz (4) be haqq-e sohbat-e dirin ke hich mahram-e râz (5) be yâr-e yekjehat-e haqgozâr-e mâ naresad (1) I who have no need for anyone except my own friend (2) I will repeat the just claims of my association to my friend as well (3) What need is there to glorify those who are no intimates (4) By right of old association I swear no secret-sharer (5) Comes up to our unwavering, favour-requiting friend.63

3. Conclusion In conclusion, it can be said that the stanzaic forms of classical Persian poetry, tarkib-bands, tarjiʿ-bands and mosammats can be seen as expansions of the qaside, which seems to stand at the basis of these forms, especially if we take the descriptions of the prosodists into consideration. The tarkib-band and tarjiʿ-band are Persian inventions on the basis of the qaside, while the mosammat has been taken over from the Arabic poetic tradition. It is possible that the tarkib-band and tarjiʿ-band are inspired by the Arabic mosammat as well. The tarkib-bands and tarjiʿ-bands have the appearance of a qaside divided in smaller parts, each consisting of a certain number of couplets and often interlinked by a loose couplet. The unit of the mosammat is rather the hemistich than the couplet, and the building blocks of a mosammat can be seen as an extension of a couplet by adding a given, but fixed number of hemistichs to form a stanza. On the other hand, a mosammat morabbaʿ seems to be first and foremost a device to be applied to the different parts 63 Translation of the beyts of Hâfez by P. Avery, The Collected Lyrics of Háfiz of Shíráz (Cambridge, 2007), p. 207, poem CLII, verses 1 and 3.

313

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

of couplets of a qaside and resulting in couplets with an internal rhyme: the different parts can be regarded as separate units and can be arranged and presented as a stanza. Extending this device beyond the couplet results in other forms of the mosammat, according to the early prosodists. Stanzaic poems have never been more than a small part of the poetry collected in divans, and not every poet has examples of stanzaic poetry. Some specimens of stanzaic poetry, however, notably the mosammats by Manuchehri of Dâmghân, the tarkib-band by Mohtasham of Kâshân, and the tarjiʿ-band by Hâtef of Isfahan, have found a great measure of renown. These examples may have secured the continued fame of the stanzaic genres, even when the qaside became less prominent than the ghazal from the thirteenth century onwards.

314

CHAPTER 8 THE GHAZAL IN MEDIEVAL PERSIAN POETRY J. T. P. de Bruijn

1. A Brief Survey of the Subject The ghazal is the most characteristic lyrical poem in the Persian tradition. It is above all a poem of love, although there have been different applications, and lyrical themes were also treated in other poetical forms. Since the early twelfth century, sizable collections of ghazaliyyât appear in the divans of almost all Persian poets. Although Persian ghazals were certainly composed in earlier times, the evidence for this is scarce and indirect.1 It seems that in this “pre-classical” period the ghazal was still mainly a form of oral poetry recited by minstrels. Around 1100 ce ghazals began to be considered significant enough to be recorded in writing.2 Quite soon, a standard form of the ghazal became established. For centuries, this classical form was followed strictly by all poets, at least as far as the prosodical form is concerned. From the thirteenth century onwards, this shorter type of poem gradually took the place of the qaside as the dominant form of Persian lyrical poetry. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it was perfected in the hands of Saʿdi and Hâfez as a subtle polythematic poem of love, using rich imagery. From the beginning of the twelfth century, it 1 2

On Rudaki as an early writer of ghazals, see below under Rudaki. See Jalâl-al-Din Homâ’i in Divân-e Othmân-e Mokhtâri, ed. J. Homâ’i (Tehran, 1962), pp. 569–76; cf. also J. T. P. de Bruijn, “The Transmission of Early Persian Ghazals (with Special Reference to the Dīvān of Sanaīʿī),” Manuscripts of the Middle East 3 (1988), pp. 27–31.

315

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

had been used by some poets to express their love for the Divine Beloved, though couched in terms of secular eroticism. The first poet of the mystical ghazal was Sanâ’i of Ghazna (d. 1131), who was followed by Farid-al-Din Attâr, Jalâl-al-Din Rumi, and many others. However, the semantic possibilities of this sublimation of secular love poetry were so attractive that an ambiguity concerning the nature of the beloved addressed in a ghazal became a characteristic of the genre. Mainly under the influence of Hâfez’s style, the ghazal later developed into an intricate poem, in which the individual lines were treated more or less as independent poetic units at the expense of the coherence of the poem as a whole. During the period of the Indian style (seventeenth to eighteenth centuries), and in the ghazals written in Urdu, this trend continued, often in an extreme manner. In Safavid Persia, the greatest poet of the “post-classical” ghazal was Sâ’eb of Tabriz (1601–77) and, on the Indian subcontinent, Bêdel (d. 1720). Even in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, successful ghazals were written by prominent modern poets, such as Mohammad-Hosayn Shahriyâr, Simin Behbahâni, Hushang Ebtehâj (Sâye), and Esmâʿil Kho’i, proving that the ghazal is still a living form of Persian poetry. The impact of the ghazal was not confined to within the borders of present-day Iran. It was composed wherever literary Persian was cultivated, in particular in the Indian subcontinent and in the Ottoman Empire. The term is also applied to poems in Turkish, Urdu, and other Indian languages that follow the rules and conventions of the Persian model. In the West too, the ghazal has found its practitioners. As early as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European readers became acquainted with the Persian ghazal, first in Latin, and subsequently through the French and English translations of Sir William Jones (1746–94).3 The translation of Hâfez’s divan into German by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (1812–13) not only inspired Goethe’s poetry in his famous West-östlicher Divan, but also incited Friedrich 3

Parvin Loloi, Hâfiz. Master of Persian Poetry. A Critical Bibliography. English Translations Since the Eighteenth Century (London, 2004), devotes special attention to Sir William Jones as an early translator of Persian poetry.

316

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

Rückert (1788–1866) and Graf August von Platen (1796–1835) to compose ghazals in German.4 A sign of its abiding vitality is the recent vogue for writing ghazals among American and Canadian poets, drawn to the form mainly by the relative independence of the couplet within the poetic structure of the ghazal.5 Given the chronological boundaries of the present volume, only one period in the long history of the Persian ghazal, the medieval era, will be surveyed here. This was undoubtedly the ghazal’s finest hour, when it acquired its classical form; it was a time when the masters of the genre laid the foundations for its enduring popularity. In the first part of this historical survey, the general features of the ghazal, its form and its content, will be examined.

2. The Prosody of the Ghazal— The Classical Form of the Ghazal A number of features characterize the classical Persian ghazal as a distinctive kind of poetry. These features could be divided into a few prosodical rules to be followed very strictly, and a number of looser conventions pertaining to themes, motifs, imagery, and style. The prosody of the ghazal is almost identical to that of the qaside, the dominant form of poetry in Arabic and early Persian. From the qaside, the ghazal took over its rhyme scheme (aa ba ca da, etc.) as well as the basic metrical rules. The ghazal, however, differs markedly from the qaside, insofar as it is usually considerably shorter in length. It commonly contains between five to fifteen lines, although the majority of ghazals fall within the range of seven to ten lines. Toward the end of the period surveyed here, ghazals in seven lines became the conventional norm. The internal rhyme of 4

5

See F. Veit, Platens Nachbildungen aus dem Diwan des Hafis (Berlin, 1908); A. Schimmel, “Orientalische Einflüsse auf die deutsche Literatur,” in W. Heinrichs, ed., Neues Handbuch der Literaturwissenschaft. Band 5. Orientalisches Mittelalter (Wiesbaden, 1990), pp. 546–62. Agha Shahid Ali, ed., Ravishing Disunities. Real Ghazals in English (Hanover, New Hamp., 2000).

317

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

the first line (called matlaʿ-e morassaʿ, literally “an inlaid opening line”) distinguishes it from the occasional poem (qatʿe or moqattaʿe, literally an “isolated piece” or vers d’occasion). There are no meters specific to the ghazal, although a certain preference for one pattern or another may be the hallmark of individual poets. Rhyme and radif. Whereas the rules for rhyming in ghazals are the same as those governing the qaside and most other lyrical forms, the frequent use of an extension to the rhymes, known as the radif, is a conspicuous yet not always present feature.6 The radif consists of the repetition of a single meaningful element, such as a personal suffix, the enclitic râ, a separate word (which may be verbal or nominal), or even a short phrase added to each rhyming half-verse. One of the oldest examples of the radif in Persian poetry occurs in a famous poem by Rudaki (fl. tenth century): Buy-e juy-e muliyân âyad hami Buy-e yâr-e mehrebân âyad hami The scent of the river Muliyân comes drifting our way, The scent of that tender friend comes drifting our way.7

The actual rhyme in this example is the syllable -ân in the words muliyân and mehrebân; after this a compound verbal form (âyad hami, “comes drifting our way”) is added in both hemistichs of the opening line and at the end of each following distich. The radif is not a refrain separable from the poem itself, but it fits into the syntactic and metrical structure of each line of verse. Semantically, it may be a very effective device. For instance when Hâfez uses the noun “candle” (shamʿ) as a radif in a ghazal, it also offers him the scope to treat various aspects of this important motif in love poetry.8 Poems written in emulation of another poem often include the same radif in addition to other features of the model. The device also brings a degree of unity to a ghazal whose lines may otherwise seem to bear little relation to each other. 6 7

See further B. Utas, “Prosody: Metre and Rhyme,” in HPL I (2009), pp. 114–15. The poem is cited as part of an anecdote by Nezâmi Aruzi, Chahâr maqâle, eds. M. Qazvini and M. Moʿin (Tehran, 1957), p. 52 of the text. 8 Hâfez, Divân, ed. P. N. Khânlari (reprint, Tehran, 1983), No. 289.

318

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

According to rhetorical theory, the radif belongs to the “voluntary obligations” (eltezâms) of poetry, which means that the poet could freely choose and apply this device as an extra dimension to his poem in whatever prosodical form it might have been composed in. Instances of radif in qasides and quatrains are known from the earliest times onwards.9 Signatures. The feature marking the classical Persian ghazal most clearly from other types of poems is the appendage of a signature to the poem, a convention that resembles the envoi in medieval French poetry. Already around 1100 ce, the poet’s name appears in the concluding sections of ghazals, most often in the final line, although this had not yet become a fixed convention. Nearly always this name is a nom de plume, adopted for literary purposes, as a consistent substitute for the poet’s real name. In modern Persian, the pen name is called the takhallos, but in medieval rhetoric this term had a different usage. Meaning literally “disentangling oneself,” it referred originally to the transition made in a qaside from the prologue to the praise section (madihe). As a synonym the word makhlas was used, denoting “the place” of such a transition—the gorizgâh (literally: “a bolt-hole, the place where [the poet] escapes to another subject”) according to modern usage. It may be that the idea of the ghazal as originally a “detached” prologue of a qaside has played a decisive role in this borrowing.10 In the implementation of the device of “signing the poem off” certain conventions can be recognized. The final passage of the poem (called maqtaʿ) functions as a conclusion. Whereas in the poem itself the poet speaks in the first person, the concluding lines are often taken over by another voice addressing the poet: Ghazal gofti-o dor softi biyâ-o khosh bekhwân Hâfez You made a perfect ghazal; come, sing it melodiously, Hâfez.11   9

L. P. Elwell-Sutton, The Persian Metres (Cambridge, 1976), pp. 225–26; W. P. Heinrichs, EI2 , s. v. Radīf. 10 See further C. E. Bosworth, EI2 , s. v. Laḳab; J. T. P. de Bruijn, EI2 , s. v. Takhalluṣ. 11 Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), No. 3,9.

319

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

In other instances this voice refers to the poet as a third person: Goft Hâfez gele-i az del-e sheydâ mi-kard He said: “Hâfez complained about his crazed heart.”12

The poet’s pen name was often exploited for puns. The name of Sanâ’i, who was one of the first to use his pen name in his ghazals, allowed him to make all kinds of wordplay, including the noun senân (lance) and verbal anagrams like nayâsâyad (he will not rest).13 Formally many pen names are a special case of the nesbat, an attribute ending in the suffix -i that could denote various kinds of relationship in Arabic nomenclature. The poetical names of Erâqi and Jâmi, for instance, referred to their places of origin; on the other hand, Mowlânâ Jalâl-al-Din was usually called Rumi (rather than Balkhi), because of his association with Rum (Anatolia), where he resided, although he was born in Balkh. Saʿdi, on the other hand, derived his takhallos from the name of his patron Saʿd b. Zangi, the Salghurid atâbak of Shiraz; this name also refers to the common noun saʿd (good fortune), reflecting the bearer’s success as a poet. Sometimes the pen name was derived from a profession or a special skill, such as Attâr (a dealer in perfumes and drugs) or Hâfez (the one who knows the Qor’an by heart). As the poet speaks to or about himself in these passages, it is understandable that he often speaks about his own art. Boasting (fakhr) of professional skills, expressed in striking hyperboles, is a frequent feature of traditional Persian poetry. This artistic license finds its justification in the position of the courtly encomiast who needs such self-advertisement in order to draw the attention of prospective patrons. The poet may also adopt the opposite position by humbling or admonishing himself. Sometimes there is probably nothing more to it than the poet’s wish to conclude his poem with an elegant phrase. The use of pen names in poetry, like all other features of the classical ghazal, is not unique to this type of poems. From the very beginning of Persian poetry it has served as a rhetorical device 12 13

Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), No. 136,8. See further. J. T. P. de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry (Leiden, 1983), p. 255, n. 13.

320

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

applicable to different kinds of poems.14 The formula for a correct ghazal does not include any rule which, taken on its own, could be said to be exclusive to the ghazal. To arrive at a comprehensive definition of the ghazal, one must adopt a wider perspective and consider other conventions that pertain to its contents.

3. The Contents of the Ghazal The Genre of the Taghazzol Terms like the qaside and the ghazal cannot properly be used as labels for genres in Persian poetry, for they indicate no more than poetical forms, i. e., particular sets of prosodic rules. Even the qaside, which by its origin and its use is almost synonymous with panegyrical poetry, is employed in different applications, for instance that of didactic poetry, preaching asceticism (zohd). Similarly, other poetic forms have sometimes been used as a vehicle for praise and eulogy.15 As far as the ghazal is concerned, there is an analogous problem. To avoid ambiguity, it might be preferable to distinguish consistently between the ghazal, the prosodical form, and the taghazzol, the subject-matter of a love poem, but for practical reasons we will continue to use here the former as a generic term implying both form and content, though it should be pointed out that a comprehensive survey of Persian love poetry as a genre should not ignore other kinds of literature. As will be discussed in due course, the nasib, the amatory prologue of a qaside—often considered as the 14 On Persian pen names cf. P. E. Losensky, “Linguistic and Rhetorical Aspects of the Signature Verse (Takhalluṣ) in the Persian Ghazal,” Edebiyât 8 (1998), pp. 239–71; J. T. P. de Bruijn, “The Name of the Poet,” in C. Melville, ed., Proceedings of the Third European Conference of Iranian Studies. Part 2 (Wiesbaden, 1999), pp. 45–56. 15 The terminology of genre and the problems concerning its classification have recently been studied in detail by B. Utas, “‘Genres’ in Persian Literature 900–1900,” in idem, Manuscript, Text and Literature (Wiesbaden, 2008), pp. 219–61.

321

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

origin of the later independent ghazals—frequently treated the same themes and employed similar imagery as the ghazals. Quatrains (robâʿ iyyât) also drew from the ghazals: medieval anthologies of Persian quatrains, such as Farid-al-Din Attâr’s Mokhtârnâme (The Book of the Selection) and Shirvâni’s Nozhat al-majâles (The Delight of Gatherings), used the stock of imagery and themes of amatory poetry to describe their contents.16 Mathnavis containing romantic stories or didactic sections on the theme of love also follow this pattern. Moreover, love frequently appears as the subject of theoretical writings in prose, with a direct bearing on love poetry.17 Nevertheless, it is undeniable that none of the other verse forms has been associated to such an extent with love poetry as the ghazal. In this case there exists an almost complete relationship between verse form and genre. In the present chapter we will focus on the theme of love in this particular verse form as it developed in the works of the main poets of the period. In spite of the many changes that occurred in the course of time, there has been a more or less stable stock of motifs and images that characterize all ghazals. In the following general remarks an outline of such common traits will be sketched, and a more extensive description will be offered in the subsequent sections, where we will examine the poets and their works individually in chronological order. A great variety of motifs and images can be used within the framework of a single poem. This results often in a loose semantic structure, or even a lack of thematic coherence. This flexibility of meaning and theme is sometimes regarded as a basic principle of the ghazal. In fact, there has been a tendency in the classical Persian tradition as a whole to regard the individual line rather than the entire poem as the basic unit of poetry. The use of the metaphor nazm (literally, “joining [pearls] into a row”) for the composition of poetry expresses the same idea. Perhaps this is due to the influence of 16

Cf. the chapter on the quatrains by A. Seyed-Gohrab in the present volume of HPL. 17 A comprehensive treatment of the erotic genre in all its manifestations is most certainly a desideratum of the study of Persian literature, but it would by far exceed the limits of the present chapter.

322

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

Arabic poetry. The theoretical writings on Arabic literature, which are relevant to the ideas governing the writing of Persian poetry, show a distinct reluctance to think in terms of larger structures.18 As will become clear from our survey of the history of the ghazal, much could be said to qualify this generalization. Persian poets have used several different devices, including even narrative, to bring structural unity into their ghazals. It is certainly true, however, that the application of a great variety of themes, motifs, and imagery is a fundamental trait of the genre of the ghazal and constitutes one of its most attractive aspects.

Lover and Beloved As a rule, ghazals describe what takes place between a lover (âsheq) and a beloved (maʿshuq), expressing the sentiments and the psychic conditions of a love affair. The perspective is always that of the lover, whose feelings are hardly ever reciprocated. Fundamental to the ghazal is the contrast between the lamented “separation” (ferâq) and the longed for “reunion” (vesâl), the former being a far more frequent theme than the latter. Usually, the lover is separated from his beloved, emotionally or physically. The beloved remains at a distance, either as the inert object of the lover’s desire, or as the one who is responsible for the lover’s sufferings and frustrations. It sometimes happens that the beloved is away on a journey; the poem then takes the form of a love letter. The wind carries the letter as a messenger, and is asked to bring back a token of the beloved, as Hâfez writes: Sabâ agar godhari oftadat be-keshvar-e dust Beyâr nafhe’i az gisuy-e moʿambar-e dust. Zephyr, if you happen to pass through the land of the beloved, Bring back a waft from the beloved’s amber-tinged locks.19 18

Cf. G. J. van Gelder, Beyond the Line (Leiden, 1982) and his contribution to Vol. I of HPL (2009). 19 Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), No. 61,1.

323

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

However, the lover may also have been forsaken because the beloved prefers the company of others. The lover often dreams about a meeting with the “phantasy” (khiyâl) of his beloved, a motif that can already be found in the ancient bedouin poetry of the Arabian desert.20 Ghazal poetry is filled with complaints about the pain caused by love and the regrets of a loss. Rarely does one hear the lover celebrating a happy ending. The beloved is reproached for being insensitive and cruel. However, all this does not alter the lover’s attitude of total submission to the whims of his beloved. Fate and time. When the ghazal is written in a plaintive mode, the poet often strikes a fatalistic note. Not the beloved—the person who caused the lover’s troubles in the first place—but an impersonal force that is designated in English as Fate, Fortune, or Destiny is held responsible. This abstract idea, associated with notions concerning the impact of astral forces, was an essential part of the medieval world view, both in East and West. The powers of the Heavens are the planets revolving in the seven Spheres (aflâk) according to Ptolemaic cosmology. Whenever Saturn (Keyvân), Mars (Merrikh or Bahrâm), Jupiter (Moshtari), Mercury (Otâred or Tir), or Venus (Zohre) are mentioned, they refer first of all to astrological entities, although there are also traces of their origin in Greek mythology, e. g., when Venus is associated with music and dance. The endless movement of the heavenly bodies is the deciding factor over all things that happen in the world, including the fate of lovers. Both love and the pain that it causes are predetermined by a blind will from which there is no escape. Another aspect of fatalism is the inexorable flow of Time, for which general terms such as dahr, ruzgâr, and zamâne are used, or more specifically ayyâm (the days) and dowr (circling), connecting the passage of Time with the rotation of the heavenly bodies. Life in this transient world is a brief spell of no more than a few days (sepanj, literally “three to five [days]”). So there is only little time to enjoy love, and it is important to seize the fleeting moment before 20 See E. Wagner, Grundzüge der klassischen arabischen Dichtung (Wiesbaden, 1988), especially pp. 93–94.

324

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

it has past. This is the carpe diem philosophy well-known from the quatrains of Omar Khayyâm that made such a deep impression on Western readers when it was introduced through Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát in the nineteenth century. The famous retreat of Omar Khayyâm to the wilderness (“A book of verse underneath the bough …”) has a close parallel in a ghazal by Hâfez: Konun ke bar kaf-e gol jâm-e bâde-ye sâf-ast Be sad hazâr zabân bolbol-ash dar owsâf-ast Bekhwâh daftar-e ashʿ âr-o râh-e sahrâ gir… Now that the cup of pure wine is in the palm of the rose, And the nightingale with a thousand tongues sings her praise, Ask for a book of verse and head toward the fields …21

The ideal season for love is therefore springtime, when nature comes to life again for a brief spell and is in full harmony with sensuous sentiments. The place where the pleasures of vernal flower are enjoyed is usually not the open country, but rather the cultivated garden where the poet and his friends sit together. At such an alfresco gathering (majles), ghazals are sung and wine is handed round. Symbolically it is the site for the fulfillment of love. The Rose (gol) and the Nightingale (bolbol) have become, as a pair, proverbial for the relationship between the beloved and the lover. The sensory palette of the poets is redolent of musk, aloe, and amber. The flowers and trees that adorn these gardens are the same as those that are named in other forms of Persian nature poetry, especially in the prologues of panegyrical qasides and in passages in mathnavis, where descriptions of nature occur as a symbolic background to romantic tales.22 They have the additional significance of belonging to the standard comparisons used 21 Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), No. 45,1–2 a. 22 See C.-H. de Fouchécour, La description de la nature dans la poésie lyrique persane du XIe siècle (Paris, 1969). On the function of nature in ghazals and mathnavis, see J. S. Meisami, “The World’s Pleasance: Ḥāfiẓ’s Allegorical Gardens,” Comparative Criticism 5 (1983), pp. 153–85; idem, “Allegorical Gardens in the Persian Poetic Tradition: Nezami, Rumi, Hafez,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 17 (1985), pp. 229–60; D. P. Brookshaw, “Palaces, Pavilions and Pleasure-gardens: the Context and Setting of the Medieval Majlis,” Middle Eastern Literatures 6/2 (2003), pp. 199–223.

325

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

to describe the features of the beloved’s face and body. Frequently the description of a garden carries with it echoes of the Garden of Paradise, which is tended by the mythical guardian Rezvân. This suggests a layer of transcendental meaning, which may or may not have to be taken to the letter. There is also an obvious association with the spring festival of Nowruz, often named as the occasion for the composition of the ghazal, which usually included the call for a cup of wine. The speaking voice is nearly always that of the lover, although the beloved may be introduced as a speaker in a reported dialogue. The normal grammatical form is the first person singular (man), but not infrequently this is replaced by the first person plural (mâ). In Persian idiom the plural pronoun can be used instead of the singular to express humility and respect towards a social superior, or, as in the present case, the overpowering object of one’s love who rules over him like a tyrannical sultan. Besides his complaining of the beloved’s capriciousness, the poet-lover describes the beauty and the magical attraction of the beloved, usually in hyperbolical terms similar to those used in a panegyric. The lover’s speech may be addressed directly to the beloved—the “you” (to) of the poem— or refer to the same by the third person singular pronoun (u), of unspecified gender. Sometimes the discourse has the form of an internal monologue, in the form of a dialogue with the personification of the poet-lover’s own “heart” (del). In medieval Islamic psychology the heart commonly symbolizes the deepest core of the human personality, which is the seat of the rational faculty rather than the emotions. In a ghazal the heart can be heard to rebuke the lover for having lost his senses, but at the same time the heart is held responsible for the lover’s plight, because it allows itself to be carried away by feelings. As synonyms of “beloved” (maʿshuq, or maʿshuqe as a female, and mahbub), several other words are used, such as yâr and dust, “friend, companion”; delbar, “ravisher of hearts”; negâr, “image”; bot and sanam, both meaning “idol”; and jân and jânân, “soul.” The beloved is pictured as an ideal figure without any individual traits. In contrast to other kinds of poetry—in particular romantic mathnavis, in which the beloved may be described “from top 326

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

to toe” (az sar tâ pâ)—the ghazal concentrates on the head.23 The main areas of interest are the hair, the face, the eyes, and the mouth. Features mentioned in detail are: the fragrant dark hair compared to black musk; the locks on the forehead and the temples curling like hyacinths or violets; the face compared to the full moon or the sun; the cheeks red as roses; the black mole on the face; the chin with its dimple as a pitfall for lovers; the mouth with its ruby lips and teeth as white as pearls; and the soft skin beneath the ear (bonâgush). The straight slim stature resembles the stem of a cypress tree; the beloved’s stature is said to be an “ambulant cypress” (sarv-e ravân), which means that, when the beloved is walking with an elegant gait, it is just as if a cypress sways to and fro in the wind. The waist is thin like a hair. The objects to which these features are compared belong to the world of flowers, trees, and luxurious goods such as precious minerals, rich textiles, and perfumes. Some standard comparisons developed into metonyms and became a part of the common vocabulary of the Persian language: the full moon denotes a person with a shining face; the narcissus, the eyes; rubies, the lips. The aggressive nature of the cruel beloved is depicted through comparisons with weaponry, such as swords, daggers, lances, and arrows. The eyes with their lashes are like arrows and the brows like bows. Psychological connotations provide depth to these outward traits: the contrast between the dark hair and the light face symbolizes the opposite attitudes of the beloved, between concealing and revealing; the curls are the obstacles standing in the way of the lover’s approach to the beautiful beloved, or they are lassos by which the lover is caught, or chains that hold him captive; the glances of the enchanting eyes use the lashes and the brows as weapons wounding the loving heart. The lover is treated cruelly by his partner, who shows a haughty indifference to his sufferings. The beloved’s attraction is overpowering and forces the lover to a total surrender. Although the 23 Famous examples are the descriptions of Rudâbe, Vis, and Shirin, respectively by Ferdowsi, Gorgâni, and Nezâmi; for further references see J. T. P. de Bruijn, EIr, s. v. Beloved.

327

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

beloved is never identified as a person, there are certain characteristics that add color to this persona. The cup-bearer (sâqi) serving at a convivial gathering is frequently mentioned as the object of the lover’s infatuation; sometimes also the object of love is a singer or a musician. Occasionally an ethnic specification is added, such as Turk or Hindu, as in the opening line of one of Hâfez’s most famous ghazals: Agar ân Tork-e Shirâzi be-dast ârad del-e ma-râ Be khâl-e hendu-yash bakhsham Samarqand-o Bokhârâ-râ If that Shirazi Turk would ever be kind to my heart, I would give Samarqand and Bukhara for his black Indian mole.24

Originally, such ethnic types referred to soldiers and slaves, as the poets knew them in their own society, but eventually they became detached from such social categories.25 Sex and gender. Although no clues are given in ghazals that point to the gender of the speaking voice, the context makes it plausible to assume that the lover in a Persian ghazal is male. In the classical period the poets writing texts in the public domain were as a rule men, and there are no reasons to assume that they represented anything other than a male point of view. The name of the courtesan Mahsati, who is supposed to have lived in the twelfth century and is the eponymous author of a fairly great number of amatory quatrains, can hardly be adduced as an exception. The voice in the quatrains ascribed to her name is not particularly “female.”26 As for the beloved, the question of gender has haunted both translators and interpreters of Persian ghazals. The problem is 24 Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), No. 3,1. A very free rendering of this famous ghazal, fashioned as an eighteenth-century European love poem, is William Jones’ “Sweet maid, if thou would’st charm my sight, …”; cf. A. J. Arberry, Fifty Poems of Ḥāfiẓ (Cambridge, 1953), p. 85. 25 See A. Schimmel, “Turk and Hindu: A Literary Symbol,” Acta Iranica 3 (1974), pp. 243–48; idem, EIr, s. v. Hindu. 26 After a full discussion of the evidence Fritz Meier concluded that she is probably historical and lived in the Caucasian town of Ganja; cf. Die schöne Mahsatī I (Wiesbaden, 1963), I, pp. 57–69.

328

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

aggravated by the absence of a distinction in Persian grammar that distinguishes gender in pronouns and in verbal forms. There are also other ambiguities. The beloved always remains anonymous in Persian lyrics, unlike Arabic love poems in which female names are frequently mentioned. In Persian narrative poetry, on the other hand, the beloved is almost without exception a woman, and she is, moreover, highlighted as an individual by the mention of her name. Indications of the sex of the beloved are very rare, but, if they are present, they nearly always refer to specifically male features, such as the budding moustache and beard. This provided the opportunity to make allusions of all kinds to the early growth of a beard that marks the approaching end of tender boyhood. In such poems the image is of a boy at the onset of puberty, about the age of fourteen, or as it is sometimes said, “a [full] moon of fourteen days.” Similar indications point to the male gender, such as addressing the beloved as a “boy” (pesar), or depicting him in a social role usually fulfilled by young men, such as that of a cup-bearer or a Turkish soldier. In contrast, the female sex is seldom specified. A rare example is a long ghazal by Sanâ’i with the opening line, “no beloved [woman] is more elegant than this one” (maʿshuqe az ân zariftar nist); however, in spite of the Arabic feminine form, the description of the beloved in this poem could equally be applied to a male person.27 The most plausible explanation for this homoerotic orientation of Persian lyrical poetry is that the atmosphere characteristic of the ghazals reflects a kind of convivial life that was the exclusive domain of men. To speak openly about the love for women in lyrical poems would probably have been considered improper. The contrast with the heterosexuality which dominates early Arabic love poetry is striking, although the contrast is far less if the later development of eroticism in Arabic ghazals is taken into account. Poems celebrating the love for boys, the so-called modhakkarât, were first elevated to the level of polite literature in the Arabic poetry of

27 Sanâ’i, Divân, ed. M. T. Modarres-e Razavi (Tehran, 1962), Ghazal No. 62, a poem of 21 beyts; in V. Zanolla’s selection No. 71.

329

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Abu-Novâs (d. about 815), and henceforth became a very popular genre.28 Whereas among the Arabs a special genre of obscene poetry developed, the mojun, Persian classical ghazals never became licentious. On the contrary, the Persian taghazzol remained remarkably restrained, especially in the depiction of the beloved’s person, and tended toward abstraction and away from any graphic physical particularities. Even when physical contact between the lovers was suggested, this did not stretch further than begging for a kiss, usually rejected, as Anvari complained with a fatalistic turn: Cho guyam buse’i gu’i ke fardâ Ke-râ fardâ-ye giti dar shomâr-ast When I ask for a kiss, you say “Tomorrow!” Who can count on the “tomorrows” of this world?29

Since a realistic and detailed description of physical features was not required in this poetic concept of the beloved, this lyrical persona was more and more described as a being of supernatural beauty. The appellation “witness” (shâhed) expresses this idea; the beloved is so beautiful that he or she can be said to incorporate the reflection of transcendental Beauty in the material world.30 The step to a mystical view of the object of love was not a very great one, but the supernatural was not invariably implied when this term was used. Expressions such as shâhed-bâzi and shâhed-parasti, “falling 28 Cf. E. Wagner, Grundzüge der klassischen arabischen Dichtung (Wiesbaden, 1988), II, pp. 84–85; T. Bauer, Liebe und Liebesdichtung in der arabischen Welt des 9. und 10. Jahrhunderts. Eine literatur- und mentalitätsgeschichtliche Studie des arabischen Ġazal (Wiesbaden, 1998), pp. 150–74. In (Multiple Authors) EIr, s. v. Homosexuality iii, many instances of homoeroticism in Persian poetry are discussed and further bibliographical references are provided. See also K. El-Rouyaheb, Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500–1800 (Chicago, 2005), on the kind of anachronistic approach which has bedeviled this subject. 29 Anvari, Divân, ed. M. T. Modarres-e Razavi (Tehran, 1983), II, p. 778, No. 25,5. 30 For a definition of this crucial concept, see H. Ritter, Das Meer der Seele (Leiden, 1955), pp. 470–77; translated by J. O’Kane as The Ocean of the Soul (Leiden, 2003), pp. 484–91.

330

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

in love with a shâhed,” who could be female but more usually male, even acquired the pejorative connotation of “pederasty.” Conviviality and wine. As a secular poem of love the ghazal should be placed first of all in the context of conviviality. The imagery of nature and precious stones of the ghazal tradition is in harmony with the settings of pleasure grounds and aristocratic banquet halls, where the ghazal took its origins. Even when this is not specified, the atmosphere is that of a male company, the majlesiyyân, who “sit together” in a majles, amusing themselves with drinking, listening to music, looking at dancers, and flirting with beautiful youths. The poet-lover confides in these friends the agony of his unrequited love; for example, Hâfez in one of his concluding lines urges them to look at the candle if they want to know the extent of his suffering: Ey majlesiyyân suz-e del-e Hâfez-e meskin Az shamʿ beporsid ke dar suz-o godâz ast O companions, the tale of the torrid pain in the heart of poor Hâfez Is best retold by the candle as it burns and melts down.31

This is the archetypical setting for the ghazal. The occasion could be a private party, or some informal entertainment at a court, during which a ruler and his courtiers could relax from their duties. The candle is a characteristic attribute of such a majles, and lends itself for symbolization in different and sometimes contrasting ways. On the one hand, the burning candle could symbolize the lover who consumes himself in the fire of love; on the other, it could represent the beloved’s fatal attraction by which the lover is drawn to his extinction like a moth by the flame of a candle. This wellknown motif can be found in all forms of Persian love poetry. Its most celebrated example is the climax of Saʿdi’s chapter on love in his Bustân, a didactic poem studded with anecdotes and parables.32 Some ghazals are little more than wine songs. Drinking is an important motif of love poetry, and the cup-bearer (sâqi) is one 31 32

Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), No. 41,9. This passage is discussed in the chapter on the didactic mathnavi in HPL III.

331

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

of its central characters. Many ghazals open with the call to the cup-bearer to comfort the distressed lover in the predicament of his love affair, or to help him forget the inexorable passing of time by pouring out a cup of wine. Particularly famous is the opening line of the divan of Hâfez, which is half in Arabic, half in Persian: Alâ yâ ayyuhâ’l-sâqi adir ka’san wa nâvilhâ Ke eshq âsân namud avval vali oftâd moshkelhâ Come, oh come, cup-bearer, pass round the bowl; At first love looked an easy thing, but problems have loomed.33

From this, drunkenness became an emblem for the loss of rational control and the state of ecstasy to which the totally devoted lover aspires. In fact, the beloved is often “stone drunk” (sarmast). Hâfez pictures him in a scene that might very well be realistic. When the beloved approaches the lover who lies asleep, this is how he looks: Zolf âshofte-o khoy karde-o khandân-lab-o mast Pirâhan châk-o ghazalkhwân-o sorâhi dar dast Narges-ash arbadejuy-o lab-ash afsuskonân Nimshab dush be bâlin-e man âmad beneshast The locks in disarray, sweating, laughing and drunk; The shirt torn, singing a ghazal with a flask in hand, Quarrelsome, languorous eyes, derisive lips: Thus last night, at midnight, he came to my pillow and sat down.34

The indication of time is another characteristic of ghazal poetry. The poem is presented as the description of an erotic event that had taken place “last night” (dush). The parties where this took place were drinking bouts that lasted through the night and were concluded by a final drink at dawn (sabuh). The beloved as a disturbing character. A device often used in love poetry is the portrayal of the beloved as a young artisan. Such poems were called shahrâshub or shahrangiz, both implying “rousing the populace,” throwing the citizens of a town into an emotional turmoil, an essential motif suggesting that the dashing beauty of 33 34

Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), No. 1,1. Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), No. 22,1–2. In the original “languorous eyes” are eyes that resemble the flower of the narcissus.

332

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

these youths creates an upheaval among the residents of a particular town.35 In the poetic description playful allusions and puns are made to the particular craft or work of the young man concerned. About 1100 ce, shahrâshub poems appear in Persian love poetry among the poets of Ghazna. Masʿud-e Saʿd wrote a series of occasional poems (moqqataʿ ât) in this genre. He extended the repertoire to include the religious identity and certain physical characteristics of the beloved person, e. g., a Sufi or a blind beloved.36 Among Sanâ’i’s ghazals are poems on a camel-driver (sârbân), a butcher (qassâb), and a hatter (kolahduz). By the end of the medieval period, shahrâshub had evolved into a special genre, exemplified most often in quatrains.37 Hâfez made use of the same term to characterize his Turkish sweetheart: Faghân k-in luliyyân-e shukh-e shirinkâr-e shahrâshub Chenân bordand sabr az del ke Torkân khwân-e yaghmâ-râ Beware of these mischievous gypsies whose sweet doings upset the town, They stole the patience from my heart like marauding Turks.38

The tumultuous and even aggressive nature of the beloved is frequently stressed, for instance when he is described as a “freebooter” (ayyâr). The historical ayyârs were irregular fighters who were admired for their self-styled chivalry (javânmardi) and their zeal for good causes such as the defence of Islam. However, they were also associated with trickery and mischievous behavior, especially in folk literature. In the final chapter of his Qâbus-nâme, Key-Qâvus 35

Collections of shahrâshub poems, as they were made in later centuries, were often associated with particular cities. 36 See Masʿud-e Saʿd, Divân, ed. M. Nuriyân (Isfahan, 1986), II, pp. 915–35. Shahrâshub poetry will be dealt with more fully in a separate chapter of the present volume. 37 See A. Golchin-Maʿâni, Shahrâshub dar sheʿr-e fârsi (Tehran, 1967); idem, EI2 , s. v. Shahrangīz. 38 Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), No. 3,3. Yaghmâ denotes “pillage” by Turkish nomads. The traditional dictionaries also mention it as the name of a town in Central Asia where beautiful people live (cf. M. Moʿin in M. T. Borhân, Borhân-e qâteʿ (4 vols., Tehran, 1951), IV, p. 2337). In poetry it suggests the aggressiveness of the beloved.

333

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

describes a group of ayyâr who put into practice the code of chivalry that he had expounded in this mirror-for-princes.39 In all these specifications of the beloved, the homoerotic connotation is unmistakable. Debauchery. Already at an early stage, the figure of the debauchee made his appearance in Persian love poetry, where he lingered for centuries as a conspicuous persona associated with a number of antinomian motifs that are highly characteristic of the ghazal. He is called by various names: qalandar, qallâsh, or rend, terms whose origins are still obscure. Apparently none was derived from Arabic, which may point to an origin to the east of the Arab countries. It is often hard to define their precise connotation in each particular context, but they appear very frequently in the repertoire of ghazal poets. Basically, all three refer to the same type: a begging tramp who leads a scandalous life, confronting the established morality of pious Muslims. The ancestor of the poetic debauchee might have been a figure in the lowest classes of medieval Persian society.40 Qalandar and some related terms are attested in Persian texts since the eleventh century, but the social type to which these designations refer seems to be attested from a much earlier date. The word qalandar has been used in different contexts. Next to its literary usages, which are our concern here, it has an important link to Islamic mysticism. It denotes both a set of radical convictions concerning asceticis and the practices of various types of dervishes. Shehâbal-Din Omar Sohravardi (1144–1234), the author of an authoritative Sufi handbook, defined the qalandariyya as an extreme branch of the malâmatiyya, the “doctrine of blame,” a school of mystical thought that criticized ostentatious piety, considered a dangerous pitfall on the Sufi Path. The qalandariyya drew excessively radical 39

Onsor al-Maʿâli Key-Qâvus, Qâbus-nâme, ed. G.-H. Yusofi (Tehran, 1967), pp. 247–51. 40 Various literary representations of the qalandar as a social type were assembled by Fritz Meier in the appendix (Qalandariyya) to his monograph Abū Saʿīd-i Abū’l-Hayr (Leiden, 1976), pp. 494–516. See now also M. R. Shafiʿi-­ Kadkani, Qalandariyye dar târikh (Tehran, 2007).

334

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

conclusions from the doctrine of blame. The true qalandar not only concealed his piety, but also totally rejected the accepted standards of religious behavior as hypocritical and harmful to his unconditional devotion to God. What mattered to him was “purity of the heart” (tibat al-qalb), the sincere intention of the mystic.41 At the beginning of the thirteenth century, groups of dervishes are mentioned in historical sources, which show that they actually lived a defiantly antinomian life, flouting the piety commonly accepted in Muslim society. They frequently called themselves qalandars, but other appellations were also in use. They were included in the broad category of the “voluntary beggars,” the dervishes. The precise historical relationship between the mystical and the literary qalandar motifs is uncertain, insofar as the first mention in literary sources predates the oldest evidence for the occurrence of the qalandars as a social phenomenon. The earliest instances in Persian literature of the use of terms related to this type date from the eleventh and early twelfth century. For example, these terms appear occasionally in quatrains and in poetic inserts in Savâneh, a treatise on love by Ahmad Ghazzâli (d. 1126). It is not clear, however, whether these writers referred to the kind of “unruly” mystical practices that are historically not attested earlier than the thirteenth century, or these uses relate to a dissolute type in secular society as a poetic example. Among the prose texts appearing under the name of the mystic Abd-Allâh Ansâri of Herat (d. 1088) is a Qalandar-nâme, which narrates the sudden appearance of a wandering qalandar at a school, where he entices the students to put their books aside and follow him on the path of his antinomian way of life.42 41 The relevant passage in Chapter 9 of Sohravardi’s Avâref al-maʿ âref has been translated and discussed by H. Ritter, The Ocean of the Soul, tr. J. O’Kane (Leiden and Boston, 2003), pp. 502–3; cf. also A. T. Karamustafa, God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later Middle Period 1200–1550 (Salt Lake City, Utah, 1994), p. 35. 42 The text was published in a volume of treatises ascribed to Ansâri: Sokhanân-e Pir-e Harât, pp. 34–42. On the probability of the attribution to Ansâri, cf. G. Lazard, La langue des plus anciens monuments de la prose persane (Paris, 1963), p. 112, n. 23.

335

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

In the works of Sanâ’i of Ghazna, the motif of the debauchee is already a prominent element. In some of the oldest manuscripts of his divan, a set of poems of various lengths—but formally akin to the ghazal—is assembled under the heading qalandariyyât; instances of this imagery can also be found in Sanâ’i’s collection of ghazaliyyât. Quite remarkable are two different types of poems in Sanâ’i’s divan that feature this theme. One is a piece of about ten distichs, marked by a conspicuous prosodic feature: the addition to each rhyming line of a kind of “semi-radif,” i. e., a series of words all ending in the Arabic plural suffix of the feminine (– ât). Among them are the terms kharâbât (literally “the ruins,” but used to refer to a disreputable place which may be a dive, a gambling-house, or a brothel); monâjât (extempore prayers); tâmât (inspired words, typically of a Sufi); lebâsât (concealments, hypocrisy); and mokâfât (rewards, especially for religious merits). These are all terms recurring either in a positive or in a negative sense in the vocabulary characteristic of the debauchee theme. Another common motif is the example of the prophet Musâ’s approach to meet with God at “the appointed time” (miqât), with references to the Towrât (the Jewish Torah) and to Ferʿown, the Egyptian Pharaoh (an emblem of misplaced pride and self-aggrandizement). Of course, there is frequently expressed scorn for the pious hypocrites who criticize the debauchee’s life of drunkenness and gambling.43 In the second type of qalandari poems, a scene is sketched situated inside a dive, where the narrator meets with a “spiritual leader” designated as the pir-e qalandar, a character who in the ghazals of Hâfez appears as the pir-e moghân (the Elder of the Magians, the Guide). The behavior of these poetic debauchees is often referred to as a codified ritual (â’in-e qalandari or â’in-e qallâshân), an antinomian “looking-glass” religion exhibiting non-Islamic features, in particular Christian and Zoroastrian elements.44 43 For a series of these kharâbât poems, see Sanâ’i (ed. Modarres-e Razavi), pp. 73–75. They were often imitated by later poets, including Attâr, Rumi, Erâqi, and Hâfez. 44 See further J. T. P. de Bruijn, “The Qalandariyyāt in Persian Mystical Poetry,” in L. Lewisohn, ed., The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufism (London and New York, 1992), pp. 75–86; idem, Persian Sufi Poetry (Richmond, 1997), pp. 71–76.

336

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

The antinomian motifs were soon integrated into the repertoire of the ghazal. Most poets of the ghazal resorted to them occasionally. They appear frequently in the works of outspoken mystical poets, but also in lines by poets who belonged to the tradition of court poetry, like Anvari. The myth of antinomian behavior has played a remarkable role in the imagery of the Persian ghazal. Exempla. Romantic stories, religious tales, and legendary lore make their contributions to the repertoire of the ghazal poets by providing exempla in which a love affair is mirrored. Brief allusions refer to famous narratives already well-known to the poet’s contemporary audience: the Bedouin lovers Leyli and Majnun; the Hellenistic pair Vâmeq and Adhrâ; the Armenian princess Shirin and her lover, the mason Farhâd; and Mahmud and Ayâz, a remarkable case of a homoerotic infatuation between sultan and slave. Other literary sources on which ghazal poets drew include, in the first place, the Qor’an with its prophetic tales, such as the story of Yusof and Zoleykhâ (Q. Sura 12), the wife of an Egyptian notable (aziz-e Mesr).45 The Qor’an provided various other literary models. The example of Soleymân (the biblical king Solomon, a prophet according to Islam) was a particularly rich source: Soleymân knew the language of the birds; he exchanged love letters with Belqis (the biblical Queen of Sheba) through the intermediary of the hoopoe (hodhod); he could understand what the ants said to each other when they feared to be trampled upon by his troops (Q. 27, 18–19); he was assisted by his prudent minister Âsaf; and he possessed a magic ring that was stolen from him by a demon. Other Qoranic features include the following: the lost garden of Eram in the Arabian desert; and the covenant between the Creator and the human race on the primordial day known as Ruz-e alast, the day when the question, “Am I not your Lord?” was asked (Q. 7, 172). From the sagas of the ancient Persian kings, the Jâm-e Jam, the cup associated with King Jamshid, was frequently mentioned on 45

In the biblical story (Genesis 39) the husband is called Potiphar whereas his wife remains nameless, as they appear in the Qor’an. The name “Zoleykhâ” first appears in post-Qoranic sources.

337

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

account of its association with the wine cup, but it was also mentioned because Jamshid was one of the primeval kings who symbolized the passing of former power and greatness. To the legends about Alexander the Great (Eskandar) belong his magic mirror— the equivalent of the Cup of Jamshid—and the search for the Fountain of Life that he undertook in the company of Khezr, a mythical figure also counted among the prophets of Islam.

Modes of Speech and Style The ghazal is characterized not only by its prosody and its contents, but also by modes of speech and style that distinguish it from other genres such as the panegyric and the heroic epic. Although these are not difficult to notice for anyone who is familiar with the idioms of classical Persian literature, no effort has so far been made to analyze these features systematically. Moreover, the early Persian critics did little more than make general observations on the subject. In its description of the poet’s craft, the Qâbus-nâme (eleventh century) prescribes a clear contrast with the much more forceful style required in writing a qaside: If you are writing a love poem (ghazal) or a song (tarâne), make it simple, graceful and fresh, and employ well-known rhymes, shunning cold and unfamiliar Arabisms. To become famous your poetry must tell about the feelings of love in graceful words and with attractive similes so that it will be liked by the elite as well as by ordinary people. Do not use the heavy metres, for only someone bereft of a discriminating mind, and incapable of finding choice expressions and subtle meanings, will resort to heavy metrical patterns. … Make your love poems and songs fresh and pithy … , and your panegyrics vigorous and stimulating.46

According to Shams-e Qeys, who concludes his treatment of the ghazal with a few words of stylistic advice, the proper purpose of the ghazal, to induce the addressee to a state of relaxation, should always be kept in mind: 46 Key-Qâvus, Qâbus-nâme (ed. Yusofi), p. 190.

338

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry As it is the purpose of the ghazal to set the mind at rest and to be agreeable to the soul, it should be written in a pleasant metre, with fluent, gentle words and pure, clear ideas. The poet should avoid offensive expressions and coarse words.47

The Purpose of Writing Ghazals Why did the classical poets write these love poems? The naïve answer would be that they did so because they were in love and felt the need to communicate their experiences and express their feelings. But even Ali Dashti, a prolific writer on classical Persian poetry of the last century, who advocated this romantic view, had to admit that it is unlikely that a poet like Saʿdi was always in love when he wrote his more than seven hundred ghazals, although he equally rejected the view that they were simply made-to-order compositions.48 It goes without saying that the taghazzol of this poetry created an amorous atmosphere that appealed strongly to the emotions. However, these were not necessarily the poet’s personal feelings, but rather those of his audience. It is imperative to avoid an anachronistic concept of the literary context of medieval poetry. In pre-modern times, poets were first of all professional artists who had to market their skills. Their ghazals were objets d’art, appreciated not for the truthfulness of their contents, but rather for the manner in which the elements of the genre’s conventional material had been realized. As we have seen already, the convivial majles constituted the most authentic setting. The performance of the ghazals was, at least in the early medieval period, entrusted to the minstrels. As Key-Qâvus prescribed, they were simply performers who presented the texts delivered by the poets, and nothing else.49 It cannot be doubted that the ghazal had its origin in texts that were sung by minstrels with musical accompaniment.50 In the eleventh 47 Shams-e Qeys Râzi, Al-moʿ jam fi maʿ âyir ashʿ âr al-ajam, eds. M. Qazvini and M. Razavi (Tehran, 1956), p. 416. 48 A. Dashti, Qalamrow-e Saʿ di (Tehran, 1960), p. 354. 49 Key-Qâvus, Qâbus-nâme (ed. Yusofi), Chapter 36, pp. 193–97. 50 Cf. Jalâl-e Homâ’i, in Divân-e Othmân-e Mokhtâri (ed. Homâ’i), p. 569.

339

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

century, the Ismaili poet Nâser-e Khosrow mentioned the ghazal among the pursuits that he had renounced in favor of singing the praise of the Imams and mourning their martyrdom. Resorting to the topos that one should seek repentance when the signs of old age appear, he urged his audience to do the same: Cho ruzgâr badal kard tir-e to be-kamân51 Cherâ konun nakoni to ghazal be-zohd badal Hazâr shokr khodâvand-râ ke khorsand-ast Del-am ze-madh-o ghazal bar manâqeb-o maqtal Now that time had replaced your arrow by a bow, Why don’t you replace the theme of love by that of abstention? Thanks to God, a thousand times! My heart is filled With hymns (manâqeb) and dirges (maqtal).

In a pun, he associated these love songs with the hunt, another favorite pastime in an aristocratic, worldly lifestyle, alluding at the same time to the amorous chase of a beloved who is “as gracious as a gazelle”: Ghazzâl-o ghazal har dovân mar-to-râ Najuyam ghazzâl-o naguyam ghazal I leave both the gazelles (ghazzâl) and the ghazals to you, I neither chase the former nor hunt for the latter.52

Although the ghazal was initially used for recreational purposes, it did not remain so for long. Love has always been a powerful concept in Persian culture that could have many different applications. The thematic complex of the ghazal was a very pliable vehicle to apply the concept of love to various situations. The actual purpose of the sentiments expressed in a ghazal depended on the audience for whom the poem was composed. A serious obstacle for scholarly interpretation is that usually there is very little evidence available concerning this initial context of composition. As a rule ghazals were transmitted in divans, in which the poetic production of each poet was assembled in collections of ghazaliyyât, classified 51 I. e., your back has been curved by old age. 52 Nâser-e Khosrow, Divân-e ashʿ âr, ed. N.-A. Taqavi (Tehran, 1969), pp. 248, 250.

340

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

by strictly formal criteria, most often the alphabetical order of the rhymes or radifs. In this process, all information about their original context was lost. This makes it impossible to envisage the initial audience for the poem. Often this is not a great handicap for their interpretation. There can be no question that the ghazals composed by poets of the court should be read with that particular context in mind. Poets known to be self-avowed Sufis would undoubtedly address the communities of devotees among whom they lived. The ghazals of Jalâl-al-Din Rumi, for instance, evidently played an important role in his day-to-day contacts with his pupils, and can only be read as mystical poems. Other cases, however, are less clear. As their biographies show, poets like Sanâ’i and Hâfez, who frequently use motifs with a clearly religious connotation, lived both in secular and in religiously minded environments; the former entertained relations with the Ghaznavid rulers and their courtiers as well as with Islamic preachers and mystics, while the latter is known to have been attached to a theological college, although he also frequented various other milieus in Shiraz, including the court of the local dynasties. The mechanical way in which these ghazals have been transmitted has nearly always obliterated the information concerning their origins, and this makes it almost impossible to establish their chronological place within the poet’s work. This lack of precise contextual data makes it difficult to answer the question of the ultimate significance of this love poetry, which can be understood so easily in a symbolic rather than a literal manner. The rise of the ghazal in Persian poetry was at the cost of the qaside, the poetic form initially mainly used by the poets to address their patrons. Long and outspoken eulogies were replaced by an abbreviated and much more subtle kind of praise, which spoke the language of love. The amatory motifs, first of all, the beloved and the lover’s total devotion to this persona, could easily be understood as the expression of fealty to a patron. In this sense the ghazal could be said to express, as Julie Meisami has suggested, a code of courtly attitudes.53 This aspect should not, however, be 53

See J. S. Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry (Princeton, 1987): “Ghazal. The Ideals of Love,” pp. 237–98.

341

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

overstressed. The romantic and the didactic mathnavis, which became very successful genres at the same time as the ghazal, fulfilled the function of transmitting moral and social values far more effectively. It is also doubtful that the utterances about love in Persian lyricism could be read as documents of the development of a particular psychology of love, in the same way as this has been claimed for Arabic love poetry in recent studies by German scholars.54 Love in classical Persian poetry appears to be a remarkably static concept expressed by means of a conventional stock of images, motifs, and ideas. Its basic features did not change essentially throughout the centuries. If there is a development to be noticed, it points rather to an ever-increasing refinement in the application of these tools and a further exploration of the metaphorical possibilities of love.

Love in the Abstract Love could also be treated as a subject in its own right in a ghazal that is in fact a short didactic poem consisting of a series of apophthegms on certain aspects of love, unconnected to any specific relationship between a lover and a beloved. Such poems can be compared to the Persian treatises on the theory of love, such as the previously mentioned Savâneh of Ahmad Ghazâli, who stresses the necessity to purge love from the duality of lover and beloved, in order to reach the stage of an undivided commitment to love itself as a transcendental goal. The attention to the topic of love, not only lyrically but also theoretically, became an essential feature of the ghazal as a genre. This also explains how this kind of poetry could so easily fulfill different and often contrasting functions. If love is conceived as an aspect of total devotion, it could be taken as an emblem for any relationship that was marked by a similar attitude. Apart from describing the attachment of a lover to his beloved, it could symbolize, for example, the bond between a professional 54 In particular by Renate Jacobi, Ewald Wagner, and Thomas Bauer; cf. Bauer, Liebe und Liebesdichtung, with further references.

342

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

poet and his patron, or the devotion of a mystic to his Divine goal; however, it should be noted that the language proper to the ghazal always remains the language of love, whatever the ultimate reference of the poem might be. Both the patron in a panegyric, and the Divine Beloved in a mystical poem, are addressed using the vocabulary of a profane love lyric. Unless explicit clues are present, it is often extremely difficult to decipher the ultimate intention of the poet. This sort of ambiguity is a characteristic of the Persian ghazal throughout its history. Maintaining a balance between different hermeneutical possibilities became an important aesthetic dimension of the genre.

Mysticism in the Ghazal Probably the most significant event in the entire history of the ghazal was its adoption by the mystics as one of their most important means of poetical expression. It is not too much to say that from an early date onwards the use of the ghazal as a vehicle of mystical ideas has placed an indelible mark on this genre. The effects can be noticed even in the works of poets who, as far as we know, were men of the world. The qualification “mystical” should therefore not be taken in too restricted a sense. In the cultural atmosphere of the medieval period, religion was the dominant factor in the worldview of virtually all members of the Islamic commonwealth, including the ideas that in a loose sense can be subsumed under the label of Sufism. It was not just the particularly pious believer, let alone an initiated Sufi, who was concerned with the life hereafter. These were eschatological matters to reflect upon from time to time, for members of every layer of society. It could be argued, therefore, that when the classical ghazal developed from its initial stages, as simple poems designed to entertain a convivial audience and celebrate earthly love into a more sophisticated form of literary art carrying several layers of meaning, the sharp distinction between secular and religious was blurred. If mystical motifs had been woven into the complicated fabric of the ghazal, this could equally interest the worldly elites and the adepts of a Sufi master. On both 343

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

sides the ambiguous language spoken by the ghazal poet could be a source of deep enjoyment as well as of spiritual inspiration. In view of this wider perspective of mysticism in the ghazal, the discussion about what constitutes the true meaning and the real essence of the ghazals of Hâfez—a hotly debated hermeneutical issue almost from his own time to the present—loses much of its sharpness. The contents of such poems could be appreciated on multiple levels by any member of the audience if the right mood was present. The problem in this chapter is that quite often, it is impossible to distinguish properly between the profane and the transcendental in the ghazal. The problem is perhaps not so much the impossibility of distinguishing between the sacred and the profane in an era when the two were more often than not inextricable, as the desirability of such an attempt to distinguish these two in the first place. Although in a following volume of this series the ghazal will be examined especially from the perspective of mystical literature, our present survey would be incomplete if we did not discuss here several of the poets who are known to have been mystics. It should, however, be understood that our focus is always the development of the ghazal as a literary form. We will follow this development chronologically through a series of sections. Special attention will be devoted to a few key figures, but they will be placed within the context of the ghazal poetry of their time as represented in the works of minor poets. The first section deals with the pre-classical phase: the period before the twelfth century, when there is no clear evidence yet for the existence of the Persian ghazal in its classical form. In the following sections of this chapter, the classification corresponds approximately to the four centuries between 1100 and 1500 ce. In each, one central figure has been selected to mark the development of the ghazal.

344

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

4. The Pre-classical Ghazal (Tenth–Eleventh Centuries) The Ghazal in Arabic Poetry According to the Arabic lexicographers, the term “ghazal” is basically a verbal noun from a verbal root, which could mean either “to spin” or, in a figurative sense, “to have an amorous conversation,” or “to flirt with women.” The association with poetry of love must have arisen at a very early date, when Arabic poetry was still an oral tradition. The kind of poems written later by the Persian poets remained unknown to the Arabs. It is even not always clear in Arabic texts whether the word “ghazal” refers to an individual poem or, more widely, to the genre of love poetry. This uncertainty is reflected in theoretical writings, and through the inertia of scholarship has persisted for a very long time. On the whole, medieval literary theory was mainly concerned with one particular application of the theme of love, i. e., its use in the prologues, or the nasibs of qasides, the standard form of Arabic poetry from pre-Islamic times onwards. For a long time “ghazal” was known in particular as a generic term for “love poetry,” for instance in a classification of the poetic genres drawn up by al-Jomahi (d. 845), where it is mentioned next to the expression of pride (fakhr), praise (madh), and satire (hejâ’).55 According to Qodâma b. Jaʿfar (fl. early tenth century), an authoritative writer on poetical theory, the term “ghazal” refers to the subject-matter of love, whereas nasib is a term denoting the specific poetic form treating the theme of love.56 Arab theory has had a profound influence on Persian ideas about literature. As late as the thirteenth century, the author of the most complete Persian manual of poetics and prosody, Shams-al-Din Qeys of Ray, better known as Shams-e Qeys, wrote, when discussing the Persian ghazal, as if he were still thinking in terms of the Arabic tradition. With a complete disregard for the practice of the Persian poets of his own time, he writes about the ghazal solely 55 R. Jacobi, EI2 , s. v. Nasīb. 56 Qodâma b. Jaʿfar, Naqd al-šiʿr, ed. S. A. Bonebakker (Leiden, 1956), p. 65.

345

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

in a general way that ignores the unique aspects of Persian poetics. Under this heading he distinguishes two concrete applications of the theme of love. The first is its use in the traditional prologue to a poem of praise in the form of a qaside, which, on the basis of a common etymology, he defines as a poem focused on a certain goal, in particular that of securing the favor of a patron: Some experts have defined the nasib as a ghazal by which the poet conventionally (alâ’l-rasm) introduces his purpose (maqsud) in view of the inclination which most souls have to listening to tales about a lover and his beloved, their experiences and their lovemaking. The nature of the person being praised will be pleased thereby and he will turn away his senses from other concerns. As a result of this, he will be able to listen with greater concentration and peace of mind to the purpose of the qaside …57

The second type of love poem distinguished by Shams-e Qeys is an independent poem: The tashbib is a kind of ghazal in which the poet relates what really happened to him as in the poems of the Arab poets Kothayyer,58 Qeys Dharih,59 and Majnun Bani Âmer60 and others, all of whom had given their hearts to a woman. What they told reflected what had really happened to them.

He adds, however that the great poets did not always heed this distinction, naming both nasib and tashbib any ghazal which precedes the purpose of the poem in a qaside expounding the afflictions of time, complaining about being separated, describing a deserted campsite, praising the breeze, the flowers, and similar things.61 57 Shams-e Qeys, Al-moʿ jam fi maʿ âyir ashʿ âr al-ajam, p. 413. 58 Kothayyer (d. 723), a poet of the Odhrite school from the Hejaz, whose love for the married woman Azza became a favorite topic for storytellers. 59 Qeys b. Dharih (d. ca. 690), a poet of the Umayyad period, who also became the hero of a romance. 60 Better known in the history of Arabic literature as Majnun Layli, by far the most famous Odhrite poet, of whom stories have been told ever since the late seventh century. 61 Shams-e Qeys, Al-moʿ jam fi maʿ âyir ashʿ âr al-ajam, pp. 413–14.

346

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

Insofar as the terminological confusion of nasib and tashbib has remained the rule rather than the exception, the differentiation which Shams-e Qeys makes between these two terms seems to be an artificial one, which does not reflect widely followed practice. Nevertheless his distinction between “bound” and independent love poetry is significant. To the former kind of poetry he assigns a strictly conventional role. Within the structure of his qaside, the poet has no other motivation than to induce the person whom he is going to praise into the proper mood for his “purpose” by means of an attractive introductory theme. The latter kind of poetry is associated with three Arab poets who all belong to the school of the Odhrite poets, who flourished in the Umayyad period (661– 750 ce) and were famous for their sentimental love poetry. Each of them moreover became the hero of a cycle of popular anecdotes, in which their poems are presented as the expression of actual love affairs. Although the narrative embedding of this poetry is no doubt fictitious, the essential point of Shams-e Qeys’ distinction is a valid one; in the separate poems which the Odhrite poets wrote, the subject of love is not a subsidiary matter as in the nasibs, but is dealt with for its own sake. This means that recognition is given to the existence of a genre of poems on love independent from the “purpose” of the qaside. This is as far as a scholastic writer like Shams-e Qeys could go in taking notice of the literary reality of his own day. Another free use of the term “ghazal” can be found in actual poetry. The stories about Odhrite lover-poets were introduced into Persian literature as subjects of romances in the mathnavi form, such as Ayyuqi’s Varqe o Golshâh, probably written in the early eleventh century, and Leyli o Majnun by Nezâmi of Ganje (d. 1209).62 In both works short pieces of lyrical poetry have been woven into the narrative.63 Nezâmi’s case is of special interest because he told a love story about one of the poets named by Shams-e Qeys: Majnun is portrayed as a prolific singer of love poems, which are often quoted verbatim and designated as ghazals. Although Nezâmi 62 See the chapter on the romantic mathnavis in HPL III. 63 R. Dankoff, “The Lyric in the Romance: The Use of Ghazals in Persian and Turkish Masnavīs,” JNES 43 (1984), pp. 9–25.

347

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

himself wrote ghazals in the classical form, he does not seem to use the term in a prosodically restricted sense. A similar usage of the ghazal as a generic term is found in the rubrics of early manuscripts of divans. For instance, in two manuscripts of Sanâ’i’s poetry, probably copied in the thirteenth or early fourteenth century, the heading ghazaliyyât occurs next to such headings as madhiyyât (poems of praise), zohdiyyât (poems of abstinence), and qalandariyyât (poems on the theme of wine drinking and revelry), which all refer to genre, not to a particular prosodic form. This evidence suggests that a more restrictive and specific use of the term became established only gradually in traditional terminology. Modern scholars have held various opinions about the origins of the Persian ghazal in its classical form. Given the unquestionably Arabic etymology of the term “ghazal,” the assumption that the Persians also borrowed the form of the ghazal sounds reasonable. It cannot be denied that several of its features, even the homoerotic tendency, show strong links with the successive stages of Arabic love poetry as far as the characteristic imagery and much of the thematic material are concerned.64 The two literary traditions were, at least in medieval times, closely connected, so that one should be aware of the perennial presence of the older one, exerting a continuous influence on the younger one. It should not be forgotten, however, that pre-Islamic Iran had a tradition of minstrelsy of its own. Although next to nothing of this oral poetry has survived, it is beyond doubt that love poetry played an important part in it. The court of the Sasanid kings was the main center of cultural activity. Islamic writers have handed down numerous details about the literary life at the courts of the pre-Islamic kings of Iran. Poets like Gorgâni and Nezâmi of Ganje even cite what they presumably regarded as specimens of pre-Islamic minstrel songs in romances situated in pre-Islamic times. It should be borne in mind that these specimens are no more than pastiches showing what these poets thought the ancient minstrel songs to be like. They are probably a more accurate 64 For a detailed survey of the individual themes and motifs in Arabic ghazals, see Bauer, Liebe und Liebesdichtung, pp. 198 ff.

348

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

reflection of the practice of the minstrels of their own day than that of the pre-Islamic minstrels. However, the central court was not the only place where love poetry was cultivated. Traditions of minstrelsy and popular poetry must have been more widely spread in Sasanian society. Undoubtedly, they left their traces in the poetry of the Islamic period and should be considered to form the basis from which the classical Persian ghazal emerged; however, unfortunately, as is the fate of all oral literature, they have almost completely disappeared, and attempts to trace them in later poetry is at best speculative.65 A theory proposed by many modern writers on the origin of the ghazal, including prominent scholars like Shebli Noʿmâni and E. E. Bertels, is in conformity with the point of view expressed by Shams-e Qeys: the Persian ghazal developed from the nasib of the panegyrical qaside. Since the nasib was very often devoted to amorous themes, and its length was more or less the same, it required little more than the addition of a conclusion containing the poet’s name to create the independent form of the classical ghazal.66

Textual History The history of a literature in its early formative stages cannot be written without taking some unavoidable philological facts into account. In the present case, the scarcity of our documentation imposes narrow limits on any conclusions with regard to the presence or absence of certain phenomena in the early Persian poetry of the tenth and eleventh centuries; the question of whether or not the classical ghazal was already in existence is a case in point. The poetry written during the tenth century—roughly the period of Samanid rule—has been almost entirely lost, with the exception 65 On minstrelsy in pre-Islamic Persia, cf. M. Boyce, “The Parthian Gōsān and Iranian Minstrel Tradition,” JRAS 1/2 (1957), pp. 10–45. See also HPL XVIII (2010), in particular the contribution by K. Yamamato, pp. 240–77. 66 A review of these theories is given by Rypka, HIL, p. 95 and the notes on pp. 122–23.

349

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

of a handful of more or less complete poems and a considerably larger number of fragments culled from dictionaries, anthologies, and similar sources. The situation appears to improve substantially from the beginning of the eleventh century onwards, as we begin to have divans with the assembled works left from prominent poets at the Ghaznavid court in manuscript form, which are now readily available in printed editions. However, this source material is less reliable than it looks at first sight. The collections of the shorter poems by Onsori, Farrokhi, and Manuchehri as we have them now are based on manuscripts not earlier than the late sixteenth century. We know next to nothing about the transmission of their poetry in the long hiatus between the time when they were composed and the earliest dates of their extant manuscripts; we face the inescapable conclusion that these post-medieval manuscripts probably only represent selections of the poetic collections, and that an unknown quantity of poems has not been handed down to us.67 This state of affairs makes it impossible to base any conclusion on an argument de absentio. There are other circumstances forcing us to tread cautiously in this area of our inquiry. Apart from the likelihood of losses, the reliability of the transmitted texts themselves is also a matter of concern. Variations in the attribution of authorship, sometimes amounting to deliberate pseudepigraphy, are not unknown in the textual history of most literatures, and Persian literature is no exception. Apart from this, it is by no means certain that before the twelfth century the status of the ghazal as a form of polite literature was already sufficiently established to assure it a place in the divans of the poets. These, after all, were in the first place “registers” of that part of the output of a given poet deemed to be worthy of preservation for a wider audience and for posterity. As it stands, the extant collections of early Ghaznavid poetry consist almost exclusively of panegyrics, either in the form of qasides or in the form of stanzaic poems. It may well be that initially ghazals were

67 See F. de Blois, “Textual Problems of Early Persian Dīwāns,” HPL V (1999), pp. 603–9.

350

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

excluded from these collections on the grounds that they were of less significance for the reputation of the poet’s patrons.68 Concerns about the reliability of the texts as they were handed down are not only relevant to this early stage of the ghazal’s history. Throughout the period surveyed in this volume, textual problems such as gaps in the textual transmission, uncertainties about attributions, and even downright forgeries occur very often. Therefore, collections of ghazaliyyât transmitted in manuscripts of the divans of later periods must be examined critically before they can be used with reasonable confidence.

Rudaki The poetry of Rudaki (d. after 339), the first great master in the history of Persian poetry, did not escape the fate of his lesser contemporaries of the Samanid period. Only a small remnant of his reportedly vast output has been preserved. The most comprehensive corpus of fragments was assembled by Saʿid Nafisi.69 It contains no more than about 1,000 distichs in various verse forms; some of these occur only in late sources, and may not be authentic. On the other hand, we do have the statement by the Ghaznavid poet laureate Onsori of his indebtedness to the old master: Ghazal Rudakivâr niku bovad Ghazalhâ-ye man Rudakivâr nist Agarche bekusham be-bârik vahm Bedin parde andar ma-râ bâr nist Ghazals should be in Rudaki’s style. My own ghazals are not like Rudaki’s. However much I strive for subtle conceits, I am not granted access behind that veil.70 68 Cf. de Bruijn, “The Transmission of Early Persian Ghazals,” pp. 27–31. 69 Saʿid Nafisi, Mohit-e zendagi wa-ahwāl-e Rudaki (Tehran, 1963), pp. 491– 548. See also de Blois, HPL V (1999), pp. 221–26 and idem, EI2 , s. v. Rūdakī. 70 Quoted by Owfi, Lobâb al-albâb, ed. E. G. Browne (Leiden and London, 1903–6), II, p. 6; Onsori, Divân, ed. M. Dabir-Siyâqi (2 nd ed., Tehran, 1970), p. 327.

351

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Onsori’s statement proves that Rudaki was indeed regarded as a poet of ghazals less than a century after his death, but very little has been left to tell us what kind of poems they actually were. The only classical ghazal attributed to Rudaki—carrying moreover his name—is weakly supported by the sources and is in all likelihood spurious.71 Nezâmi Aruzi, writing about a century later than Onsori, offers us a glimpse of Rudaki’s lost ghazals: It is a short poem embedded in a story that provides a very clear and detailed context for the poem. In the spring of a certain year Rudaki’s patron, the Samanid emir Nasr b. Ahmad, left his residence Bukhara for the mountainous region of Bâdghis. The climate was pleasant, the gardens delightful, and there was an abundance of food and excellent wines. To the emir this seemed to be Paradise, and he postponed the return to Bukhara, even lingering on in Bâdghis during winter. His entourage, anxious to return to their homes, promised master Rudaki five thousand dinars if he could persuade the emir to put an end to this prolonged stay and hasten home. The poet accepted the challenge, because “he had taken the pulse of the emir and knew his temperament (mezâj).” He realized that prosaic words would be ineffective; only a poem could bring about a change of heart. As Nezâmi relates: One day, after taking his morning draught, the emir entered to take his seat. When the musicians had stopped playing, Rudaki took up his harp and started to sing this qaside in the musical mode Oshshâq (The Lovers): Buy-e juy-e Muliyân âyad hami Buy-e yâr-e mehrabân âyad hami The scent of the river Muliyân comes drifting our way, The perfume of the tender friend comes drifting our way.

71 Nafisi, Mohit-e zendagi va ahwāl-e Rudaki, distichs 26–32. See especially A. Mirzoev, Rudaki i rozvitiye gazeli v X–XI vv (Stalinabad, 1958) p. 5. This does not mean that Rudaki was unfamiliar with the device of using his pen name in poetry, as appears from his famous qaside on viniculture, mâdar-e mey.

352

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

Then he continued: Rig-e Âmuy-o doroshti râh-e u Zir-e pây-am parniyân âyad hami Âb-e Jeyhun az neshât-e ruy-e dust Kheng-e mâ-râ tâ miyân âyad hami Ey Bokhârâ shâd bâsh-o dir zi Mir zi to shâdmân âyad hami Mir mâh-ast-o Bokhârâ âsmân Mâh suy-e âsmân âyad hami Mir sarv-ast-o Bokhârâ bustân Sarv suy-e bustân âyad hami The sands of the Oxus, the rough road, All feel like the softest silk under my feet. So elated is the river at the sight of the beloved, That its waters have risen to our horses’s girth Oh Bukhara, be happy, may you live long! The emir returns to you full of happiness. The emir is the moon, Bukhara the sky: It is the moon returning to the sky. The emir is the cypress, Bukhara the garden: It is the cypress returning to the garden.

The last line sung by the poet had an instant impact. The emir, touched by these words, departed so hastily that his breeches and boots had to be carried after him for two farsangs (about eight miles) before he took time to put them on.72 Even if we cannot be absolutely certain that the poem as Nezâmi recorded it is complete, it is evidently a genuine specimen of Rudaki’s ghazal poetry.73 The use of the term qaside by Nezâmi should not deceive us. This is only one more example of the terminological laxity that existed for a long time in the Persian tradition, before the precise distinctions to which we are accustomed were fully established. A further indication that the poem was indeed regarded 72 Nezâmi-ye Aruzi, Chahâr maqâle, pp. 49–54; idem, The Chahâr Maqâle, tr. E. G. Browne (Hertford, 1899), pp. 51–56. 73 Cf. Jalâl Homâ’i in his notes on the ghazal in Divân-e Othmân-e Mokhtâri, p. 569.

353

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

as a specimen of Rudaki’s ghazal artistry even centuries later is that Hâfez responds to it in one of his own ghazals: Khiz tâ khâter bedân Tork-e Samarqandi dehim K-az nasim-ash buy-e juy-e Muliyân âyad hami Come, let’s give our thoughts to that charming Turk from Samarqand, Whose breeze carries the scent of the river Muliyân.74

Rudaki performs this poetic sorcery by means of a very ingenious play with sensuous motifs. The “beloved”—referred to by the usual terms yâr and dust—is initially a personification of the city of Bukhara. She “seduces” the lover to brave all the difficulties of the journey of return to her. The breeze is the messenger who conveys her charm, as is often the case in later ghazals, bringing the scent of the city’s stream that is part of her beauty. In the second half of the poem, however, the role of the beloved is transferred to the emir, whose return is announced to the city. Among the fragments of Rudaki’s poems for which there are reasonable grounds for authenticity are other pieces of love poetry, but it is impossible to say to which kind of poem they belong. Two examples, cited in one of the oldest sources for his poetry—Owfi’s anthology compiled in the early thirteenth century—artfully picture a beloved’s face using images from Arabic script as well as from nature: Zolf-e to-râ jim ke kard ân-ke Khâl-e to-râ noqte-ye ân jim kard V-ân dahan-e tang-e to gu’i kasi Dânekaki nâr be-do nim kard Who made your lock into (the letter) jim? He who placed the mole as a dot inside its curve; And that mouth so tiny that one could say: It’s a tiny grain of the pomegranate split into half.75

74 Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), No. 461,3. 75 Owfi, Lobâb al-albâb, II, p. 8; the jim is a letter of the Arabic alphabet marked by a sublinear dot.

354

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry Be-hejâb andarun shavad khorshid Gar to bar dâri az do lâle hajib V-ân zanakhdân be-sib mânad râst Agar az moshk khâl dârad sib The sun hides itself behind a veil When you lift the veil from a pair of tulips; And the chin would resemble an apple best If the apple happens to have a musky mole.76

Onsori and Farrokhi The poets of the early Ghaznavid period (first half of the eleventh century) must have known the ghazal as a genre exemplified both as prologues of qasides and as independent poems. Onsori clearly alludes to the former when in one of his odes he says that he will make “the transition from singing your—the poet’s imaginary beloved’s—love to the praise of the king of the age” (… konam / takhallos az ghazal-e to be madh-e shâh-e zamân). However, one cannot be so sure when he contrasts “songs of love and praise for the beautiful” (ghazal-o naʿt-e nikuyân) to the panegyric for his patron.77 In this instance, it is possible that he refers to two different kinds of poems, one of which was an independent poem of love, such as those performed by singer-musicians. Such texts were composed by poets to be used in the repertoire of minstrels. In the tenth and early eleventh centuries the two professions had not yet become strictly demarcated from each other and could still be practiced by the same person, as the example of Rudaki’s performance as a singing poet-minstrel cited above demonstrates. A further illustration of this practice occurs in a poem by another Ghaznavid court poet, Farrokhi, about whom it is said that he “played the harp deftly” (chang tar zadi); he appears to have also been a performing artist.78 In a qaside celebrating the feast at the end of Ramadan (id al-fetr), he calls for a merry gathering (majles). 76 Owfi, ibid.; “musk” as a poetic image evokes both its scent and the blackness. 77 Onsori (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), p. 232, b. 2247; p. 78, b. 950. 78 Nezâmi Aruzi, Chahâr maqâle, p. 58. On these two professions, see also the chapter, de Bruijn, “Persian Literature as a Tradition,” HPL I (2009), pp. 18–22.

355

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

He exhorts the minstrel (motreb) for a song about love praising his patron, the prince Mohammad, son of Sultan Mahmud: Motrebâ ân ghazal-e naghz-e delâviz beyâr Var nadâni beshnow tâ ghazali guyam tar O minstrel! Come with just such a beautiful, charming ghazal! And if you do not know any, listen to my fluent ghazal.

In the next line, Farrokhi starts to give his own poem, which is embodied in the structure of the qaside. The line has the double rhyme of an opening verse (matlaʿ), as if a new poem begins. This pastiche of a ghazal serves as a device to make the transition to the eulogy of his patron. The poet uses the conceit of performing a separate ghazal as it would normally be sung by minstrels: Ey darighâ del-e man k-ân sanam-e siminbar Del-e man bord-o ma-râ az del-e u nist khabar U deli dâsht gerâmi-o deli digar yâft Kâshki man delaki yâftami niz degar Delforushân-e Khorâsân-râ bâzâr kojâ-st Tâ deli yâbam az-ishân cho del-e khwish magar Andar-in shahr kasi-râ del-e afzuni nist Var bovad niz hamânâ naforushand be zar Har ke u gerd-e botân gasht cho man bidel shod Hâl az ingune-st injâ hadhar ey qowm hadhar.79 Oh woe, my heart! This silver breasted idol Has stolen my heart, but I know nothing about his heart. He had a precious heart and still found another one. Oh if only I too could find another heart! Where do those Khorasani dealers in hearts hold their market? So that perchance I might find there a heart, similar to mine. No one in this town has a heart to spare And if they had, they would not sell it for gold. Whoever went around these idols, lost his heart, just as I did That is how it is here. Beware, folks, beware! 79 Farrokhi (ed. Dabir-Siyâqi), pp. 105–6. In Dabir-Siyâqi’s edition the text is presented as two separate poems (Nos. 47–48); actually, they form a single poem, in which the artifice known as “renewal of the opening line” (tajdid-e matlaʿ) has been used very ingeniously.

356

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

During most of the eleventh century the division of labor between the craft of the poet (shâʿer) and that of the minstrel (khonyâgar, motreb) continued to run parallel to that between the formal ode and the “lesser” forms of lyrical poetry such as the ghazal, as confirmed by the description in the Qâbus-nâme in the two chapters on these professions.80 Although Farrokhi’s divan as we know it now does not contain any independent ghazals, the nasibs of his panegyrics are a rich source for a more comprehensive study of Persian love poetry. “Love is the most common theme of the nasībs in Farrukhī’s qasīdas” and it “is quite possible that the taghazzol which occurs so frequently as a nasīb is an exact copy of the ghazal of his era.”81 The thematical material of a minstrel’s repertoire is catalogued by Key-Qâvus when he describes the minstrel’s craft in the Qâbus-nâme, listing a variety of potential themes. The minstrel should memorize “many poems and ghazals” on the following subjects: ­… [songs on] separation and unification (ferâqi va vesâli), on rebuke (towbikh), blame (malâmat) and chiding (etâb), on rejection (radd) and refusal (manʿ), on acceptance (qobul), cruelty (jafâ), faithfulness (vafâ), on bestowing gifts (‛atâ) and liberality (ehsân), on being satisfied (khoshnudi) and on complaining (gele); they should be appropriate to the time and the season: you should know songs on springtime, autumn, winter and summer … .82

By this list, Key-Qâvus gives a summary of the typical themes in a ghazal current towards the end of the eleventh century, a time when the ghazal emerged as an established form of classical poetry.

80 Key-Qâvus, Qâbus-nâme (ed. Yusofi), Chapters 35 and 36. 81 Several examples are analysed by G. van den Berg, “The Nasībs in the Dīvān of Farrukhī Sīstānī: Poetical Speech versus the Reflection of Reality,” Edebiyât 9 (1998), pp. 17–34. 82 Key-Qâvus, Qâbus-nâme (ed. Yusofi), p. 195.

357

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

5. The Age of Sanâ’i (Late Eleventh– Twelfth Centuries) At this point in our historical survey two major questions arise: First, when and where did this change in the tradition take place? And second, which causes led to a different evaluation of independent love poetry and its full acceptance as a part of polite literature? The former question is probably easy to answer. As far as our documentation can be trusted—in spite of its obvious deficiencies—the time can be fixed fairly accurately at the turn of the fifth to the sixth century of the Islamic era (i. e., ca. 1100 ce). There can be no doubt that the ghazal first was taken seriously in Eastern Iran, where at that time the patronage of Persian letters was still mainly concentrated. The preceding century had brought significant political changes in the eastern provinces of the Abbasid Caliphate. After their defeat in the battle of Dandanqân (1040), the Ghaznavids had to concede the western part of their empire to the invading Turkish Saljuqs. In particular, the loss of the rich and culturally important region of Khorasan dealt a heavy blow to the position of Ghazne as the leading centre of Persian culture, which it had occupied during the first half of the eleventh century. In 1059, the historian Beyhaqi observed that “the market of scholarship and science” in the capital was no longer as lively as it had been in the past. This statement is confirmed by the fact that no major scholars, writers, or poets are known to have lived and worked at Ghazna about the middle of the eleventh century.83 However, just as the empire managed to survive politically, so also poetry did not die out at the Ghaznavid court. During the final decades of the same century, a new generation of poets emerged under the aegis of the Ghaznavid dynasty. It seems that the first impulse for a literary revival came from the court at Lahore, where since 1069 the young prince Seyf-al-Dowla Mahmud favored poets such as Abu’l-Faraj Runi and Masʿud-e Saʿd, who have both left their mark on the history of Persian literature. Eventually―especially under sultan Masʿud III 83 See on this period C. E. Bosworth, The Later Ghaznavids (Edinburgh, 1977).

358

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

(1099–1115)—poetry came to life again at the central court as well. This second flowering of Ghaznavid poetry continued until the end of the reign of Masʿud’s son, Bahrâmshâh (1118–52). In 1150, a new catastrophe befell the dynasty when a mountainous tribe from Ghur (present-day northwestern Afghanistan) invaded the kingdom, conquering and sacking its capital Ghazne. The Ghurids granted the once glorious dynasty only a short respite in its Indian province until 1186, when they also took possession of Lahore. Among the major poets who under the patronage of the Ghaznavids in their later days wrote ghazals were Masʿud-e Saʿd, Othmân Mokhtâri, Sanâ’i, and Seyyed Hasan of Ghazne, also known as Ashraf. The anthologist Owfi, writing in the early thirteenth century, recorded the names and a few samples from other poets of the ghazal at the court of Bahrâmshâh.84 Already in the twelfth century, the Saljuq court and their officials, residing in Nishapur, Herat, Marv, and other cities of Khurasan, had established an alternative centre of literary patronage. In Central Asia, Persian poetry was cultivated at the court of the Qarakhanids of Samarkand, another Turkish dynasty. However, there is little evidence of the presence of ghazals at the level of literary art under the Qarakhanids. The court poets of the Saljuqs in the twelfth century, especially the great master of the panegyrical qaside Anvari, also contributed to the rise of the classical ghazal. The answers that might be given to the second question raised above are more speculative and are moreover often influenced by preconceived ideas about the forces that determine the course of cultural history. According to an interpretation that puts much weight on social and economic factors, the rise of the ghazal and its gradual assumption of the role of the courtly qaside were caused by a shift in Persian society from the feudal courts to the environment of the cities. Whereas the panegyrical qaside had catered to the demands of the rulers, their courtiers, and state officials for texts that enhanced their status, to please a non-aristocratic readership other forms were needed “that could give expression to urban interests,” such as the lyrical ghazal and the mathnavi with its romantic and 84 Owfi, Lobâb al-albâb, II, pp. 287–91, 295–97.

359

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

didactic contents.85 This theory is hard to reconcile with the literary and historical facts as they are known about this period. Both in ghazals and in mathnavis composed in the eleventh century and afterwards, several elements occur that point to the survival of “feudal” functions of these poetic forms, in particular the presence of dedications and eulogies addressed to the ruling classes. Also, from the point of view of social history a strict distinction between court and city is questionable. Much more convincing is the view that the ghazal gained prestige simultaneously with the growing influence of Sufism on Persian Islam from the eleventh century onwards. It is beyond doubt that the ghazal was destined to play a major role in mystical Persian poetry. The name of Sanâ’i of Ghazne is met among the very first poets in whose works mystical ghazals are to be found. However, it should not be forgotten that the use of ghazals by the Sufi poets amounted to the exploitation of a secular love poem for the expression of transcendental ideas, not the other way around. The mystical ghazal was not the cause but the effect of the remarkable success of this poetic form. The remarks on the textual basis of this survey above are particularly valid for this early period. Nevertheless, the sources show a marked increase in the production of ghazals; for the first time ghazals do appear in the collected works of the poets. There are even early manuscripts still extant that provide the researcher with a reasonable degree of certainty about the reliability of the material.

Masʿud-e Saʿd Sometimes the reputation gained by a poet in one particular genre overshadows other aspects of his work. This could be said of one of the founders of the second school of Ghaznavid poetry, Masʿud-e Saʿd-e Salmân (ca. 1046–ca. 1121). He came from a family of state 85 Such views, expounded in particular by scholars in the former Soviet Union of the mid-twentieth century, influenced Rypka’s exposition in HIL, see especially pp. 248, 252, and 282.

360

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

officials in the service of the Ghaznavids and was probably born in Lahore. No survey of Persian poetry would be complete without a mention of his habsiyyât, the “prison poems,” mostly in the form of qasides, which he wrote during two successive periods of exile from the Ghaznavid court in remote mountainous areas. This fame appears to have been established very early, according to Nezâmi Aruzi’s report written within decades after Masʿud’s death.86 However, his extensive divan shows him to have been a most inventive poet, who made several innovations in the poetic tradition. Unfortunately, they have received little attention. Among these are a group of shahrâshub poems, three sequences of poems based on the names of months, weeks, and days in the Persian calendar, and a short occasional mathnavi (untitled) describing nostalgically the entertainments at the court of the Ghaznavid viceroy in Lahore, where the beginning of the rainy season is celebrated.87 The shahrâshub poems are relevant to our discussion, since they are amatory poems focusing on a young man who “causes havoc in a city.” Masʿud wrote them as occasional pieces (moqattaʿ ât), but the same literary motifs have been dealt with for centuries in other forms, in particular in ghazals and in quatrains. The cycle of “calendar” poems consists of short poems of five or six distichs, with internal rhyme in the opening lines. From a formal point of view, therefore, they are not dissimilar to short ghazals. However, although they do reflect the atmosphere of courtly life, they are not actually love poems. Very prominent in each of them are panegyrical references to Malek Arslân, one of Masʿud’s royal patrons, who reigned only for a few years in Ghazne (1115–18). In addition to these special genres, there is a series of twenty-two poems in Masʿud’s divan, which, in the modern editions, are collected under the heading ghazaliyyât.88 Internal evidence confirms 86 Nezâmi Aruzi, Chahâr maqâle, pp. 71–73. 87 Cf. Masʿud-e Saʿd (ed. Nuriyân), II, pp. 787–817 (mathnavi), 915–35 (shahrâshub), 939–55 (mâhhâ-ye fârsi, ruzhâ-ye mâh, ruzhâ-ye hafte); in the earlier edition of Rashid Yâsemi, resp., pp. 562–79, 736–53, 654–69. Masʿud’s life and works have been studied recently by S. Sharma, Persian Poetry at the Indian Frontier. Masʿud Saʿd Salmân of Lahore (New Delhi, 2000). 88 Masʿud-e Saʿd (ed. Nuriyân), II, pp. 959–73; ed. Yâsemi, pp. 670–79.

361

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

their attribution to this poet. Almost half of this small set contains panegyrical references that fit in well with the environment where Masʿud lived. Three poems only mention the titles of “shah” (Nos. 14 and 19) or “shahriyâr” (No. 2), but the others are specifically addressed to Ghaznavid princes who are known to have been his patrons. In all but one instance the patron is Masʿud III, the son of sultan Ebrâhim, who reigned in Ghazna from 1099–1115 after residing at Lahore as a Ghaznavid governor of the Hindustan province. The addition of the title “shah” in two poems (Nos. 3 and 17) suggests that they were written during his governorship at Lahore, but in two other cases he is called a “sultan” (Nos. 8 and 10). The only exception is ghazal No.16, a remarkable poem in which Malek Arslân—the sultan for whom Masʿud wrote his calendaric cycle— is introduced as one of the speaking voices in a dialogue with an imaginary beloved. The sultan even starts to eulogize himself after he has concluded the conversation of the prologue, remarking: Mâ har do pâdeshâh-im ar nik bengarim Man pâdeshâh-e giti to pâdeshâh-e man If we look into it properly, we both are rulers: I rule the world and you rule me.

This is perhaps a unique example of the daring artifice of turning a royal patron into a character in a lyrical phantasy, and may be indicative of the lighthearted atmosphere prevailing at this court. In the ghazals of Masʿud, the sphere of a princely banquet is pervasive. It appears in drinking songs, celebrating the palm wine (nabid) with the color of a “cock’s eye”—without which the poet’s day would be black “like a crow’s breast” (No. 1/9)—or in describing the effects of “ruby wine,” which bring the crystal cup to life, comforts the soul, and dresses the wounds that Time has slain (No.13/1–3). Pleasure (lahv) and Joy (neshât), present as persons at the party, “utter a cry from their hearts” when they watch the king raise his cup (No. 22/2). In another poem describing a party, similar personifications appear when it is said that whenever Joy enters through the door, Pain (dard) and Sorrow (gham) leave through the window (No. 15/3). 362

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

The amatory play between the poet-lover and his beloved, which in the panegyrical poems provides the theme of a short introduction, includes all the conventional motifs of taghazzol, such as the complaints about the cruelty of the beloved, the separation, and the lover’s impatience. In a dialogue with the lover, the beloved excuses his behavior (No. 15/8): Be-man goft in-am ke bini hami Na afzun shavam z-in ke hastam na kam Gozidetarin âdat-e man jafâ-st Setudetarin kheslat-e man setam He said: “I am as you see me: I cannot grow more or less than I am; My favorite habit is tormenting, My most laudable trait, tyranny.”

There are descriptions of the beloved’s beauty, specifying cheeks “white as milk,” locks “black as pitch,” the arrows of glances shot from the bows of the brows, and a stature and a face of which the cypress and the moon are slaves (No. 6). Although such beauty excels that of vernal nature—“in the month of December (Dey) your face is more dear to me than springtime”—it is yet surpassed by the splendor of the banquet of the “successful sultan Masʿud” (No. 8/5–6). In this manner the amorous phantasies of the poet are brought back to reality using the rhetorical device of a “transition” (takhallos) borrowed from the panegyrical qaside. There are links to the environment in which this poetry was written: the beloved has provoked the displeasure of the ruler and is admonished (No. 2); the lover threatens to appeal to the justice of the patron on the day when he sits in court to hear complaints (ruz-e mazâlem; No. 10); or the lover’s commitment to his beloved is said to reflect his allegiance to the “exalted Sovereign” (No. 3). As this small collection shows, there still exists no standard type of the ghazal. Even the poems with panegyrical lines do not have a uniform structure. Some poems have the pattern of a shortened qaside, e. g., No. 3; the prologue equals in length the eulogy (four and five lines respectively); and the latter part of the poem is concluded by a conventional prayer (doʿ â) for the patron. In most cases, 363

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

however, there is only a brief panegyrical turn at the end of the poem. Only one non-panegyrical poem (No. 13) carries the signature of the poet, consisting of his first name (esm) and the two patronymics—that of his father Salmân and that of his grandfather Saʿd—which he always uses in his poetry instead of the pen names normally adopted by poets. In one ghazal (No. 2) the two partners engage in a dialogue marked by the choice of the radif rhyme “he said” (goft), which is correlated to the “I said” (goftam) of the speaking voice. It is a device known already from qasides by earlier Ghaznavid poets like Onsori and Farrokhi. These ghazals are all entirely secular. Even the rare religious elements naturally fit into the worldly discourse of the poet, for instance, when he alludes to a Qoranic injunction (“Ask once for forgiveness, then your crime will be pardoned.”)89

Othmân Mokhtâri Another set of early ghazals has been handed down among the poems of Othmân Mokhtâri (died later than 1119), a contemporary of Masʿud-e Saʿd. Mokhtâri led the life of a wandering court poet who sought the patronage of several rulers over a vast area ranging from the Ghaznavid lands to Kerman, Tabas, and Transoxania. However, his main ambition seems to have been to acquire a position at the court of Ghazna, where he returned intermittently during the reigns of the sultans Masʿud III, Arslân Shâh, and Bahrâmshâh. There can be no doubt that he was personally acquainted with Masʿud-e Saʿd, and this is moreover confirmed by a qaside that Mokhtâri wrote to honor his fellow poet. No more than eight of his ghazals are extant, but they may very well be the remnant of a much larger number of poems of this kind.90 89 Cf. Qor’an 4, 110 and other places. 90 Mokhtâri (ed. Homâ’i), pp. 569–81. The authenticity of these ghazals is supported by their occurrence in an early copy of Mokhtâri’s poetry, contained in a miscellaneous volume in the British Library, dated 692 AH (1293 ce), cf. C. Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum. Supplement (London, 1895), No. 211.

364

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

Jalâl-al-Din Homâ’i, the editor of his divan, attached to these poems a long and important footnote on the development of the Persian ghazal. He characterized them as specimens of a “musical” type of love song, still very close to the type of poetry from which the classical genre originated. Among Mokhtâri’s ghazals there is one poem with an explicit eulogy.91 The beloved person with whom the poet starts a conversation is called an ideal servant; ideal servants are only found in the service of Nasr-e Khalaf, a member of the Saffârid dynasty who was no more than a governor under Ghaznavid suzerainty. One poem, addressed to someone who has left Ghazna on a journey to Baghdad, includes a place name that is repeated before each rhyme, an artifice strongly reminiscent of the rhyming conventions of a qaside.92 As to be expected from such a master of panegyrical poetry, rhetorical figures abound in these poems. The antithesis (motâbeqe) dominates a poem in which color and colorless (rang/ birang), water and fire, day and night, friend and enemy appear as contrasting pairs.93 The “eye of a needle” (chashme-ye suzan), as related to a “sea (of tears),” is a daring example of the figure of amphibology (ihâm). In spite of this rhetorical virtuosity, the poem is also attractive as a love song: Tâ rang-e mehr-e ân rokh-e rowshan gerefte am Bi rang-e u bebin ke che shivan gerefte am Daryâ-ye gham ghadhâ-ye del-e tang-e man shode ast Daryâ-keshi be-chashme-ye suzan gerefte am Âhan delâ del-am ze-ferâq-e to beshkanad Ku-râ be-dast-e sabr dar âhan gerefte am Dar âb-e chashm gharq-am-o ze-suz-e mehr-e to Guyi miyân-e âtash maskan gerefte am Yak ruz dâman-e to begiram ke chand shab Dar yube-ye to ashk be-dâman gerefte am Bâ khod ma-râ ze-mehr-e to bude-st dusti Z-ân bi to khwishtan-râ doshman gerefte am 91 Mokhtâri (ed. Homâ’i), pp. 569–77. 92 Mokhtâri (ed. Homâ’i), pp. 579–80. This artifice is called hâjeb (literally: “warden of the curtain”) in the theory of rhyme. 93 Mokhtâri (ed. Homâ’i), pp. 577–78.

365

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Shâyad ke jân-e man kam-e man girad az jehân K-az jomle-ye jehân kam-e jân man gerefte am Since I am tinged by the love of those shining cheeks, Bereft of his hues, see how I have resorted to loud laments A sea of grief feeds my anguished, shriveled heart, Like water squeezed through the eye of a needle. Oh your heart is of iron! Deserting me, you broke mine, Which I held firmly with the hand of my patience. I am drowning in tears. It is as if, burning in love I am staying now in the midst of a fire. One day I shall grasp the hem of your tunic; longing for you, So many nights I cried till my skirt was wet. It was your love which made me a friend of myself; Now you are gone, I can only hate myself. You, my soul, take what is left of me from the world, As I have taken from all the world what is left of my soul.

Hyperbole (mobâleghe) occurs in the description of a beloved person:94 Bud az qebal-e sukhtan-e kherman-e yak shahr Lotf-e do lab-ash sâkhta asbâb-e lotf-râ Az dahshat-e u dânam Rezvân ke hami bast Bar hejle-ye Hurol-eyn abvâb-e ghoraf-râ These delicate lips have prepared the equipment of delicacy In order to set to fire the harvest of a kingdom. I know that Rezvân, overwhelmed by him, Closed the doors of the heavenly maidens’ upper rooms.95

These lines are also of interest from a thematic point of view. In the first line the qualification of the beloved as someone who “upsets the city” (the word shahr originally means “realm”) alludes to the genre of shahrâshub known also from Masʿud-e Saʿd’s poems. The second line shows the use of distinctly religious imagery in a quite profane context. Mokhtâri can in no way be connected with any religious tendency in Persian poetry. Yet, in the poem just cited, the contrast 94 Mokhtâri (ed. Homâ’i), pp. 571–72. 95 Rezvân is the guardian and doorkeeper of the gardens of Paradise.

366

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

between Sufi piety and the “cult of the tavern” is to be mentioned even at this stage, when Mokhtâri depicts the frantic behavior of his beloved in terms belonging to the character known as the qalandar or rend, “debauchee,” in later ghazal poetry:96 Be-rahgodhar-e kharâbât zâhedân shode and Ze-hâyhuy-e tu geryân ba-hâhâ-ye ke che ­… Hami be-khânegâh-e sufiyân dar âyi mast Tariq-e din-o kherad mânde-yi be jây ke che The ascetics have gone to the alley of the taverns (kharâbât); They cry out loudly for you, weeping and screaming, why? ­… Drunken you go into the hospice (khânegâh) of the mystics You have abandoned the road of religion and wisdom, why?

Sanâ’i Among the poets of his time Majdud b. Âdam Sanâ’i (d. 1131) is an unusual figure. By birth and early career he could be regarded as one of the later Ghaznavid poets and a poet of the court, although not a very prominent one. In his divan there are a few poems that show him to have been personally attached to both Masʿud-e Saʿd and Mokhtâri, apparently not entirely on an equal footing. He arranged the collected poetry of the former and acted as a copyist to the latter.97 These were the services a junior poet would render to established poets who were his seniors in age as well as in social position. However, after a few years, Sanâ’i’s career took a quite different course. In his contacts with patrons who belonged to the clerical elite in Ghazna and Khorasan he developed a quite different kind of poetry, characterized by its religious and ethical contents, for which the term “homiletic” seems to be appropriate. Eventually Sanâ’i reached a much higher status in the history of Persian literature than any of his contemporaries, winning the reputation of one of the earliest and 96 Mokhtâri (ed. Homâ’i), p. 580. 97 De Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, p. 55.

367

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

foremost mystical poets. As vehicles for his special brand of poetry he used all the forms current in the secular literature of his day. As an innovator of the literary tradition, he is deserving of much credit, not the least of which is that he was the first poet to leave behind a substantial collection of ghazals, containing several hundred poems. This material, which is not less in size than the divan of Hâfez, provides the solid basis for a comprehensive survey of the ghazal at the very moment of its entrance into the canon of recorded poetry. At first a few problems constituted by the textual condition of his legacy should be mentioned. Since Sanâ’i was already famous in his lifetime, and has ever since retained the attention of a diverse readership, a considerable number of ancient manuscripts had the chance to survive. As far as his ghazals are concerned, one of the manuscripts kept in Istanbul, copied in 684 Q. (1285 ce), is of particular importance, since this volume with all the poetical works of Sanâ’i (kolliyyât) contains the oldest dated copy of his divan, including his ghazals.98 The arrangement of the poems in this copy differs substantially from the classifications found in later manuscripts and editions. The ghazals are placed not in a separate section, but in groups of short poems in between the longer qasides, suggesting that the distinction between the two forms was not yet as strict as it became later on.99 Two other early but undated manuscripts—probably not much earlier than the thirteenth century— already classify the ghazals in a special section under the heading ghazaliyyât. Poems with motifs typical of the debauchee theme are put into another section, headed qalandariyyât.100 In the printed edition of the divan by M. T. Modarrres Razavi, which is partly based on these ancient manuscripts, some ghazals have landed among the qasides, outside their proper section.101   98 Ms. Velieddin No. 2627, now kept at the Bayezit Devlet Kütüphanesi, Istanbul.   99 For a detailed inventory of this manuscript, see de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, pp. 102–3, 106–7; V. Zanolla, I gazal di Sanā’i nei manoscritti più antichi (3 vols., diss. University of Naples Federico II, 1999), I, pp. 11–14 and Appendice 1. 100 A ms. formerly kept at the Museum in the Afghan capital Kabul (facsimile ed. 1977); and a defective copy in the Malek Library at Mashhad; further details in the publications mentioned in the previous note. 101 Cf. Sanâ’i, Divân, ed. by M. T. Modarres Razavi (2 nd ed., Tehran, 1962).

368

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

Until a critical edition of the divan has been published, it is impossible to gauge the exact size of the corpus of genuine Sanâ’ighazals that have survived. At present one can only safely say that the amount of poems which in due course were attributed to him, whether rightly or not, is considerable. This points to the influential role of Sanâ’i in the development of the ghazal. Most composers of ghazals in the subsequent generations were, in one way or another, influenced by Sanâ’i. Through the procedure of “emulation” some of his ghazals have become the roots of “pedigrees” of similar poems, the growth of which can be followed through several centuries. A remarkable example has been studied by P. N. Khânlari, who traced the imitations of one poem by Sanâ’i through the works of eleven other poets, including Anvari, Attâr, Jamâl al-Din Abd al-Razzâq, Khwâju, Erâqi, and Hâfez.102 Sanâ’i’s importance as an innovator of this form is further confirmed by the citations from his ghazals in the works of other Persian poets and prose writers. The fact that among them are both mystics and secular authors shows that his poems were appreciated for their literary qualities as much as for their spiritual contents. The role of Sanâ’i as a poet of the ghazal has received too little attention in modern scholarship, insofar as studies of the ghazal focus mainly on the later poets, especially Saʿdi (thirteenth century) and Hâfez (fourteenth century). Nevertheless, already in the early twentieth century, E. G. Browne—who had very little taste for Sanâ’i’s didactical poetry—appreciated his ghazals extremely highly: “there are probably few unexplored mines of Persian poetry which would yield to the diligent seeker a richer store of gems.”103 However, not earlier than the 1980 s, a Western Persianist, Julie Scott Meisami, for the first time attempted to define the proper place of Sanâ’i in the history of the Persian ghazal, recognizing in these ghazals “a useful introduction to the genre” which shows that “the major conventions 102 Cf. A. Dashti, “Nasabnâme-ye yek ghazal-e Hâfez,” in Naqshi az Hâfez (4 th pr., Tehran, 1963), pp. 47–69, reproducing and extending an article by P. N. Khânlari originally published in the literary journal Sokhan 5 (1953– 54), pp. 736–41. 103 Browne, LHP II, pp. 310–20.

369

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

[are] already well established.”104 Since Meisami’s analysis is a part of an exposition of literature as it functioned at the Persian courts, she stressed the role of Sanâ’i’s ghazals as carrying “an ethical message to his courtly audience” without devoting more than passing attention to what she calls “his broader homiletic purpose.”105 This leaves the thorny question of the criteria by which Sanâ’i’s secular and religious poems can be distinguished unanswered. About a decade later Franklin Lewis made the attempt to find clues for a classification of the poems according to different “performance categories,” which in his view could be established by defining a number of “dominant genres of thematic motifs” in the ghazals.106 Both studies initiated a more profound study of this important collection, but they relied by and large on the second edition of the divan of Sanâ’i by Modarres Razavi (1962), in which the critical use of the old manuscript sources leaves much to be desired. Valentina Zanolla, who prepared a volume on Sanâ’i’s ghazals for the statistical project Lirica Persica, as well as a doctoral thesis on the same subject, based her research mainly on the most ancient manuscripts, in particular on the Velieddin manuscript from 1285 ce.107 Her painstaking investigation of the basic sources resulted in critically edited texts of seventy-six specimens from Sanâ’i’s ghazals and is therefore of fundamental value to further studies. Sanâ’i’s ghazals undoubtedly deserve a much more extensive treatment than it is possible to give here. Therefore, only a few major features of his love poetry can be shown under the guidance of the publications of Valentina Zanolla, which contain the most reliable texts now available. The problems concerning the function of the ghazals in their author’s practice of poetry will be dealt with only marginally. Poems dealing primarily with amatory themes can have quite different forms in Sanâ’i’s collection; they may have the poet’s 104 Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry, pp. 252–70; see especially p. 252, n. 29. 105 Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry, p. 270. 106 J. S. Meisami, Reading, Writing and Recitation: Sanā’ī and the Origins of the Persian Ghazal (diss. University of Chicago, 1995). 107 V. Zanolla, Sana’i. Concordance and Lexical Repertories of 1000 Lines (Venice, 1997). The full documentation of Zanolla’s research is presented in I ghazal di Sanā’ī nei manoscritti più antichi.

370

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

name in one of the concluding lines or they may not have it, and the number of the lines varies considerably. In most cases they describe the experiences of the lover in his dealings with the beloved. In a number of poems the emphasis is on features of love as a subject in its own right. An example of this is a very brief poem about love: Âsheq mashavid tâ tavânid Tâ dar gham-e âsheqi namânid In eshq be-ekhtiyâr-e kas nist Khwâham ke hamin qadar bedânid Maʿshuqe salâh-e kas najuyad Tâ khun ze-do didehâ narânid Bâ vey makonid âshnâyi Tâ daftar-e eshq bar nakhwânid Bichare Sanâ’i khod nagofte-st Âsheq mashavid tâ tavânid.108 Do not become a lover as long as you can, Or else you will be caught in lover’s grief. This love is not at anyone’s choice; I wished that you would understand this well. No beloved will ever seek your well-being; Take care not to drown your eyes in tears! Do not go near her, then you will never Have to read in the book of love. Did not poor Sanâ’i himself tell you this: “Do not become a lover, as long as you can.”

Unlike most ghazals, this poem is not really about a beloved person, but deals with an aspect of love itself, namely the risks it involves for the lover. Apparently the poet/lover addresses an audience of would-be lovers, whom he wants to warn against the dangers of a love relationship. However, his real intention is not entirely unequivocal, insofar as the tone is clearly ironic, especially when, in the conclusion, he poses in front of his audience as an example of a “poor,” unfortunate lover. The use of the pen name—not yet a fixed convention of the ghazal at the time—is very appropriate in this case. Although no beloved person in particular is meant, it 108 Zanolla, LP, No. 14; cf. Sanâ’i (ed. Modarres Razavi), Ghazal No. 139.

371

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

is remarkable that Sanâ’i uses here (quite exceptionally) the form maʿshuqe, which might mean that he had a female beloved in mind. There is nothing in the poem pointing to anything beyond a simple love song without any hint of a transcendental intention. The repetition of the first half-verse at the end of the poem makes it likely that it was written as a text to be sung by a minstrel. A similar advice about suffering in love, but containing much deeper thoughts, is given in this poem: Gar sâl-e omr-e man be-sar âyad ravâ bovad Andi ke sâl-e eshq hamishe be-jâ bovad Bâ yâr âsheqi na padid ast tâ abad Pas sâl-o mâh-o vaqt dar-u az kojâ bovad Ey vey hasratâ ke agar eshq yak nafas Dar sâl-e mâh-e omr ze-jân-am jodâ bovad Ey âmade bâ tamʿ-e vesâl-e negâr-e khwish Nashnide-yi ke eshq barây-e bâlâ bovad Parvane-ye zaʿ if konad jân fedâ-ye shamʿ Tâ pish-e shamʿ yak nazar-ash baqâ bovad Didâr-e u hamân bovad-o sukhtan hamân Guyi baqâ-ye u hame andar leqâ bovad Ân-râ ke zendagi-sh be eshq-ast marg nist Hargez gomân mabar ke mar-u râ fanâ bovad109 The years of my life may come to an end, The year of love will last forever. You will never see a beloved become a lover, So, what are years and months or time itself to him? Oh what misery, if love would for a moment, For a year or a month of my life, leave my soul! You who desire to be united with your pretty one, Have you not heard that to love means to suffer? The weak moth gives its life to the candle; If only he could survive one moment looking at the candle. Looking at him and getting burnt amounts to the same: As if he only survived to meet with him. He who lives through love will never die, Do not think that he ever shall perish. 109 Zanolla, LP, No. 25; Zanolla, I ghazal di Sanā’ī nei manoscritti più antichi, No. 14; cf. Sanâ’i (ed. Modarres-e Razavi), Ghazal No. 121.

372

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

This poem again is written in an admonishing mode (pand or andarz, according to the Persian terms for the didactic genre), rather than a proper love song. The text shows a development of thought through which the central themes are bound together. The lines 1–3 state that love will go on forever in spite of the finality of life, using several indications of time, so the sufferings of the lover will continue. In lines 5–6 the endless pain of love is said to be essential to love, as it is demonstrated with one of the most famous parables of Persian erotic poetry. The conclusion reached in the final line is the consolation that to live in love means living on forever, never to vanish. The basic theme is the inescapability of suffering (balâ) in love, the secondary motif, “continuous time,” is mentioned just to endorse this point. The lover’s time is limited, but the time of love and the sufferings it causes are eternal. In the final line it is concluded that it is possible to survive only through love, just as the moth has to perish in the flame of the candle before it can experience the eternal moment of unity. The frivolous note of the previous poem is entirely absent here, and there is no trace of irony. It can be argued with good reason that the poet addresses here a different audience, a group of people who are interested in love as it is directed towards a transcendental Beloved, even if the ideas expressed also have a bearing on mundane sentiments. Gnomic utterances such as these, of which Sanâ’i’s ghazals are full, were very attractive as citations to later mystics. For example, Jalâl-al-Din Rumi quoted two lines, explaining that beauty and arrogant coquetry (nâz) are inseparable, in his didactic poem Mathnavi-ye maʿnavi: Beshnow in pand az Hakim-e Ghaznavi Tâ beyâbi dar tan-e kohne navi Nâz-râ ruyi bebâyad hamchu vard Chun nadâri gerd-e badkhuyi magard Zesht bâshad ruy-e nâzibâ-o nâz Sakht bâshad chashm-e nâbinâ-o dard Hearken to the Sage of Ghazna, That thou mayst feel freshness in thy old body: “Disdain needs a face like the rose; When thou hast not (such a face), do not indulge in ill-temper.

373

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Ugly is disdain in an uncomely face, Grievous is eye-ache in an unseeing eye.”110

It is more common, however, that the persona of the beloved is brought to the foreground in a representation of what one could imagine to be the report of an actual experience by the poet/lover. Ân na zolf-ast ân ke u bar ârez-e rakhshân nehâd Surat-e jowr-ast k-u bar adl-e Nowsharvân nehâd Towbe-o sowgand-e mâ-râ tâb-ash az ham bâz kard Tâ bezad zolf-o be amdâ bar rokh-e tâbân nehâd Gar zanad bar zahr buse zahr gardad cho shakar Yâ rab ân chandân halâvat bar labi betvân nehâd Didam-ash yak ruz shâdân-o kharâmân az kashi Hamchu mâhi k-ash khodâ andar falak dowrân nehâd Goftam ey mast-e jamâl in vaʿ de-ye vasl-e to key Khosh bekhandid ân sanam-o angosht bar marjân nehâd Goft mast-am khwâni-o bar vaʿ de-ye man del nehi Sâdedel mardâ ke del bar vaʿ de-ye mastân nehâd 111 These are not locks hanging over shining cheeks: This is the image of cruelty hung over Nowsharvân’s justice. Our remorse and our oath are dissolved by that waving Since he deliberately dropped the locks on his shining face. If his kiss were poison, that poison would turn into sugar. My Lord, how much sweetness can one put into a pair of lips! One day I saw him, joyful and strolling proudly, Just like the moon that God made revolve in the Heavens. I said: “You, so drunken with your own beauty, when did you promise to meet me?” That idol laughed heartily and put a finger between the coral [teeth]. “You call me a drunkard,” he said, “but your heart puts faith in my words. What a stupid man whose heart puts faith in a drunkard’s promises!” 110 Jalâl-al-Din Rumi, Mathnavi-ye Maʿnavi (8 vols., London, 1925–40), Book 1, lines 1905–7, in the translation by R. A. Nicholson; see Zanolla, LP, No. 29; cf. Sanâ’i (ed. Modarres-e Razavi), Ghazal No. 99. In Sanâ’i’s poem the lines do not follow upon each other. 111 Zanolla, LP, No. 19; cf. Sanâ’i (ed. Modarres-e Razavi), Ghazal No. 81.

374

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

Also in this ghazal, two clearly defined parts can be distinguished: lines 1–3 describe a beautiful but mischievous beloved. Features of the face and the hair are singled out for mention. The locks (zolf), which have fallen over the face, are veiling it from the eyes of the lover; inasmuch as they keep the lover at a distance they are an image of the beloved’s cruelty. Implicitly the beloved is compared to a tyrant. The “darkness” of his locks is contrasted with the proverbial “shining” treatment with which the Sasanian king Khosrow Nushervân (fl. sixth century ce), famous for his justice, was supposed to have dealt his subjects. The lips of the beloved, on the other hand, have the power to turn poison into sugar by their sweetness. The lines 4–6 are anecdotal. The lover observes the beloved one day in a happy mood while elegantly strolling like the moon in the heavens according to God’s will. This conversation ends in a witty, ironic clue. The beloved is drunk, and when the lover complains that he has not fulfilled his promise, he retorts that only a fool would believe his words. The separation from the beloved is not always caused by the latter’s willful behavior. It may be that the beloved actually has gone away on a journey. Ghazals have always been a favorite medium to express the lover’s longing for the return of his sweetheart. Although the situation as it is understood in the following poem—the departure of a caravan, symbolic for the poet’s quest for an absent beloved—is quite clear, it is not always obvious what kind of beloved is really meant. Is he a worldly patron of the poet who has gone away temporarily; or the Eternal Beloved, whose absence is of an existential nature; or perhaps just the poet’s friend, real or imagined? It is hazardous to try to deduct the proper nature of the beloved from the wording of the text. The possibilities of figurative speech and hyperbole that the ghazal poet could allow himself should always be taken into account. Only the context in which the poem originated could help us out of this hermeneutical impasse. Since the real context is usually unknown to us, the safest assumption is that this stereotyped situation equally fits all three types of relationships. The truth was only known to the people for whom the poem was written in the first place. 375

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Har shab namâz-e shâm ma-râ shâdi tamâm K-âyad rasul-e dust halâ nazd-e man kharâm Khorshid-e har kasi ke shab âyad foru shavad Khorshid-e man bar âyad har shabi namâz-e shâm Ruz-e ferâq raft-o bar âmad shab-e vesâl Ey ruz monqate show-o ey shab alâddavâm Ey dust tâ to bâshi anduh key bovad Tâ jân-e man bovad to khodâvand-o man gholâm Har gah be khedmat âyam ey dust pish-e to Shâdi halâl gardad-o anduh-o gham harâm Man bande-ye sabâ shodam az jân-o del hami K-u âvarad be nazd-e man az nazd-e to payâm In ast hâl-e bande-ye Sanâʾ ike goftam-at Al-ḥokm la-k ḥabibati men baʿ d wa-ssalâm112 Each night at the time of the evening prayers I am completely happy As the messenger of my beloved, hurrah! comes to me. Everyone’s sun goes down when the night falls, But my sun rises each night at the time of the evening prayers. The day of separation passed on, the night of our meeting has come; Oh day, end quickly, oh night stay on forever! My friend, where is my sorrow, as long as you are here? As long as I live you will be the lord and I the slave. Every time, my friend, I offer myself to your service; Joy becomes lawful, sorrow and grief are forbidden. I am enslaved with heart and soul to the zephyr Which comes near me and brings a message from you. Such as I told you is the condition of Sanâ’i, your slave, From now on you are my mistress, love. My greetings!

The part of the beloved’s messenger (rasul-e dust), whose arrival at the fall of night is so desperately awaited, is assigned to the “zephyr” (sabâ), a motif very frequently met with, not only in Persian ghazals, but also in other forms. Sanâ’i employed it in his two short mathnavi poems, the Kârnâme-ye Balkh and the Seyr alebâd elâ ‘l-maʿ âd. The poem also has an Arabic coloring, for this is often the case in Sanâ’i’s poetry: in two places Arabic phrases have been entered; the last half-verse of the poem could very well 112 Zanolla, LP, No. 49; cf. Sanâ’i (ed. Modarres-e Razavi), Ghazal No. 208. Arabic phrases are Roman in the text and in Italics in the translation.

376

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

be a quotation (tazmin) from an existing Arabic poem. The mention of the “night of our meeting” (shab-e vesâl) is reminiscent of the motif of the meeting with a phantasy (khiyâl) of the beloved in the night. To the poetical representation of the beloved specific features are often added, which mark this person as a young craftsman who “disturbs the town” (shahrâshub), akin to the literary type, which, as we have seen, was present already in the poetry of Sanâi’s elder contemporary, Masʿud-e Saʿd. In a ghazal the use of this motif opened up interesting possibilities for extensions of the fairly restricted palette from which the poet could draw his picture of the beloved. In this poem a camel-driver (sârbân) in a caravan is addressed: Ey sangdel ey sârbân kamtar kon in bâng-o faghân Tâ khwâb yâbam yak zamân ey sangdel ey sârbân Har shab khorushân-am cho to gardân-o geryân-am cho to Bâ dâgh-e hejrân-am ze-to ey sangdel ey sârbân Âkher hamâvâz-e to-am bâ dâgh damsâz-e to-am Âkher na hamrâz-e to-am ey sangdel ey sârbân Âvâz kam kon sâʿati bar jân-e man kon rahmati Bar aql-e man neh mennati ey sangdel ey sârbân Man ruz-o shab geryântar-am v-az eshq bâ-afghântar-am Dar dard-e to heyrântar-am ey sangdel ey sârbân Ar yâr-e fard-am dar safar bâ bâd-e sard-am dar safar Bâ dâgh-o dard-am dar safar ey sangdel ey sârbân Garche ze-gham sargashte-am bi zur-o bi zar gashte am Âkher na kâfer gashte am ey sangdel ey sârbân Maʿshuq-e khod-râ bande-am dar âlam-ash juyande am Hastam bar in tâ zende am ey sangdel ey sârbân Az man setâni reshvati bâ man nabâshi sâʿati Nazdik-e howrâsurati ey sangdel ey sârbân113 Driver with your heart of stone, not so much noise and clamor! Let me sleep for a while, driver with your heart of stone! Each night I shout like you, wandering about and crying like you; You branded me indelibly by going away, driver with your heart of stone! 113 Zanolla, LP, No. 62; cf. Sanâ’i (ed. Modarres-e Razavi), Ghazal No. 276.

377

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA At last I join in with your cries, I wear your mark and go with you, At last I share your secret, driver with your heart of stone! Keep down your voice for one hour, do have mercy on me, Do my poor brain a favor, driver with your heart of stone! When my sole friend is traveling, a cold wind carries me with him, I travel on, branded by pain, driver with your heart of stone! Though sorrow made me lose my way, made me weak and penniless, At last, I did not lose my faith, driver with your heart of stone! Faithful I am to my beloved, looking for him all over the world, Thus I will be as long as I live, driver with your heart of stone! You take my bribe but linger not one hour with me; You are with heavenly maidens, driver with your heart of stone!

Very ingeniously, the image of the camel driver has been given here a double meaning. At first the shouts by which he sets his camels into motion are compared to the poet’s own laments. Presumably the caravan is departing, with his beloved leaving the lover behind in distress and robbing him of his sleep, as if he himself were traveling on the caravan and were annoyed by the noisy behavior of an unmindful driver. Ultimately, however, the driver, with his “heart of stone,” is identified with the persona of the beloved, a rhetorical turn which is enforced by the refrain rhyme (radif) of the ghazal. Another instance of the shahrâshub motif is the declaration of love to a hatter (kolâhduz). The first part of this ghazal is full of references to his trade: Mâ kolâh-e khwâjegi az sar konun benhâde-im Tâ ke dar band-e kolâhduzi asir oftâde im Sad sar erzad har kolâhi k-u hami duzad valik Mâ bahâ-ye har kolâhi-râ sari benhâde im Bande-y u az sar-o chashm-im hamcho suzan-ash Garche hamchun sarv-o susan nazd aql âzâde im U kolâh-e âsheqi az sar hami sâzad cho shamʿ Mâ az ân chun shamʿ dar pish-ash be sar estâde im Sine chashm-e suzan-o tan târ-e abrisham shode ast Lâjaram mâ az tan-o del har do-râ âmâde im Kâr-e u chun bishtar bâ suzan-o abrisham-ast Mâ gholâm-e ân beheshtiruy-e howrâzâde im …114 114 Zanolla, LP, No. 51; cf. Sanâ’i (ed. Modarres-e Razavi), Ghazal No. 258.

378

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry We now have put off the hat of being a master,115 As we have become enslaved as the prisoner of this hatter. Every hat he sews is worth a hundred heads because We have laid down our head as the price of all his hats. He makes the hat of being in love from a head like the candle; That is why like a candle we are standing in front of him. My eyes became a needle and the body a thread of silk, Though reason says that I am free like the cypress and the lily. Head and eye are his slaves just as the needle is, Since I serve this creature from paradise with his heavenly face. He works mostly with needle and silk, therefore I have put both my body and my heart at his disposal …

The beloved is a young butcher in a poem, which in the later biographical tradition has been elaborated into an anecdote in which Sanâʾi himself plays a role: Tâ khiyâl-e ân bot-e qassâb dar chashm-e man-ast Z-in sabab chashm-am hamishe hamcho ruy-ash rowshan-ast Tâ bedidam dâman-e porkhun-ash aknun man ze ashk Bar geribân dâram ân k-ân mâh-râ bar dâman-ast Jây dârad dar del-e porkhun-am ân delbar moqim Jâme porkhun bâshad ân kas-râ ke dar khun maskan-ast116 Since the specter of that idol of a butcher is in my eyes Always my eyes are shining like his face. Since I have seen his bloodstained skirt my tears Have colored my collar in the same hue as his skirt. The permanent seat of this sweetheart is my bleeding heart: If one lives in the midst of blood one’s dress is stained with blood.

In poems evoking a convivial party, the persona of the beloved is often projected into one of the youngsters who served the guests at such occasions as artists or cupbearers. Thus Sanâ’i expresses 115 The term khwâjegi, “being a khwâje,” refers to various kinds of mastership, but in this line probably the master of a slave seems to be intended. 116 Zanolla, LP, No. 111; cf. Sanâ’i (ed. Modarres Razavi), Ghazal No. 45. On the anecdote in Gâzargâhi’s Majâles al-oshshâq (The Sessions of the Lovers), a late fifteenth-century collection of stories and poems about famous lovers, see de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, pp. 6–7. A quatrain with the same motif is ascribed both to Sanâ’i and Mahsati, cf. Sanâ’i (ed. Modarres-e Razavi), Robâʿi No. 99; Meier, Die schöne Mahsatī, I, p. 177, No. 49 b.

379

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

his infatuation with a player on the harp, whose music he listens to during a party. The artist is pictured again as a mignon whose skill and charm create an uproar: Ey por dor gush-e man ze chang-at V-ey por gol chashm-e man ze-rang-at Hangâm-e samâ bar tavân chid Tang-e shakar az dahân–e tang-at Chun chang be chang bar nehâdi Âyad ze hazâr Zohre nang-at Ham shukh na-i be sân-e narges Yak bâde dehad cho bâd rang-at Dar solh che gune-i ke bâri Shahri-st por az shakar ze jang-at Az chashm-e bad ey ma-râ cho dide Yak ruz mabâd âzarang-at117 My ears are filled with pearls by your harp And your color fills my eyes with roses. When you perform one could collect A load of sugar from your small lips; When you strike the harp with your hands You put a thousand musicians like Venus to shame. You are impudent, but not in the narcissus’ fashion: One glass of wine, not the wind, gave you color. How would it be if you were peaceful: Your aggressiveness fills the whole town with sugar. You, who are the eyes to us, may the evil eye Never be harmful to you, not for one day!

A stereotyped posture is that of the poet/lover looking back on his experiences during a preceding night (dush). He does this by comparing his amorous sighs, caused by the absence of an unfaithful beloved, to the lamenting sounds produced by the musical instruments: Dush tâ ruz man az eshq-e to budam be khorush To che dâni ke che bud az gham-e to bar man dush Zadam âb-e saburi ze do dide bar del Chun del az âtesh-e eshq-e to bar âvardi jush 117 Zanolla, LP, No. 93; cf. Sanâ’i (ed. Modarres-e Razavi), Ghazal No. 41.

380

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry Gâh bâ nây-e to-am az gham-e to nâle Gâh budam cho kamânche ze-ferâq-at bâ khorush Har shabi vaʿ de dehi k-âyam-o nâyi bar-e man Chand az in eshve kharam man ze-to ey eshqforush Ham ba jân-e to ke bar yâd-e lab-e nushin-at Har che dar âlam zahr-ast tavân kardan nush118 Till dawn I shouted out my love for you, last night; Do you know how much I longed for you last night? My eyes poured the water of patience on my heart When the flames of my love overwhelmed it. I spoke of my grief in the plaintive song of the reed, I lamented your absence in the music of the fiddle. Each night you promise to come back, but you never do; How long do I buy your lures, my seller of love? Yet, by your soul: when I think of your honey lips, What bitter poison in this world does not become sweet?

In the eroticism which was associated with these convivial sessions, often a homosexual orientation is expressed. This is especially the case in a series of poems, which use the word “O, boy” (pesar) in the radif, of which the following ghazal is an example: Man to-râ am halqe dar gush ey pesar Pish-e khod midâr-o mafrush ey pesar Dar jafâkâri che kushi ey pesar Dar vafâkâri hami kush ey pesar Jâm-e mey bestân ze-sâqi ey harif Buse-i deh z-ân lab-e nush ey pesar Chang bestân-o qalandarvâr zan Tâ ba-jân bâz âvaram hush ey pesar Ân che hejrân-e to bâ man goft di Bâ khiyâl-at gofte am dush ey pesar119 In my ear I wear a ring as your slave, O boy! Keep me with you, do not sell me, O boy! Don’t exert yourself in torturing, Exert yourself to be faithful, O boy!

118 Zanolla, LP, No. 90; cf. Sanâ’i (ed. Modarres-e Razavi), Ghazal No. 191. 119 Zanolla, LP, No. 81; cf. Sanâ’i (ed. Modarres-e Razavi), Ghazal No. 164.

381

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Dear friend, take a cup of wine from the cup-bearer, Kiss me with your honey-sweet lips, O boy! Take hold of your harp, play it like a tramp, Then my soul will return to its senses, O boy! The things your absence told me yesterday, Last night I told about them to you in a dream, O boy.

In this poem also, the boy is a musician performing on a harp. The lover expresses his total submission to this beloved, complaining at the same time about the boy’s infidelity and cruelty. Remarkable is the mention of the debauchee (qalandar), who travels around begging and playing music; as we saw, he appeared already in a ghazal by Mokhtâri. In the present instance Sanâ’i probably intends the real figure of the mendicant, a common type in the society of his age, not the symbolic character who was to play such a prominent role in ghazal poetry.120 A figurative intention, however, is difficult to deny to a ghazal— that is, another specimen of the shahrâshub motif—in which Sanâ’i addresses a Christian boy. Ultimately, this motif goes back to the fashion of writing lyrical poetry about non-Muslims, usually with a homoerotic connotation, the so-called kofriyyât, “poems about unbelievers,” known already from the Arabic poetry of the Abbasid period, in particular in the poems of Abu-Novâs. Bordi-yam bâz az mosalmâni zehi kâferbache Kardi-yam bandi-o zendâni zehi kâferbache Dar sefât-e pâkbâzân dar saf-e arbâb-e eshq Har zamân-am bâz benshâni zehi kâferbache Dar mosalmâni magar az kâferi z-ân âmadi Tâ bar andâzi mosalmâni zehi kâferbache Bâ roxi chun cheshme-ye khorshid-o zolfi chun salib Tâze kardi kish-e nasrâni zehi kâferbache Dar kharâbât-e qalandar dar saf-e kamkâstân Sad lebâsât-e ajab dâni zehi kâferbache Yusof-e vaqti-yo andar zir-e har musi to-râ Hast sad Yaʿqub-e Kanʿ âni zehi kâferbache121 120 See above under Debauchery. 121 Zanolla, LP, No. 4; cf. Sanâ’i (ed. Modarres-e Razavi), Ghazal No. 351.

382

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry You took me away again from Muslimhood. Well done, my heathen child! You chained me and imprisoned me. Well done, my heathen child! Each time you bring me back among those who stake everything, Back among the masters of love. Well done, my heathen child! Perhaps you entered Muslimhood from heathendom, So that you could upset Muslimhood? Well done, my heathen child! With a face like the sun’s source, a lock of hair like the cross, You refreshed the religion of Christ. Well done, my heathen child! In the tavern of the qalandar, on the rows of those who are broke, You know a hundred amazing deceits. Well done, my heathen child! You are the Joseph of this age and under each of your scalpels There are a hundred Jacobs of Canaan. Well done, my heathen child!

The “heathen child” (kâferbache) again gets special emphasis by being used in the radif of the poem. The beloved is presented in the role of a seductive Christian boy who threatens to destroy the lover’s attitude as a pious believer. The exclamation “well done!” (zehi) added to the radif implies the ironic consent to all that the beloved inflicts upon him. In contrast to the previous ghazal the audacious play with qalandari and religious terms invites an ulterior meaning: the preaching of a higher ideal of love demanding a total surrender and a sacrifice of the things sacred to ordinary piety, if this is required to reach a higher state of transcendental love. Such a homiletic reading of the poem is consistent with the use of many kofri motives, such as “you took me away again from Muslimhood” (bordi jân az mosalmâni); “those who stake everything” (pâkbâzân); “heathendom” (kâferi); “a hair lock like a cross” (zolf chun salib); “the religion of Christ” (kish-e nasrâni); and the qalandari motifs of “the tavern of the qalandar” (kharâbât-e qalandar), “the rows of those who are broke” (saf-e kamkâstân), and “deceits” (lebâsât). The exemplary figures referring to the story of Josef in the Qor’an (Sura 12) add to the religious flavor of this ghazal. Among the panegyrics of Sanâ’i there are a few short poems, resembling ghazals, which are marked by a reduction of the actual praise of the poet’s patron to a very brief dedication. As we have seen earlier when discussing Sanâ’i’s older contemporary Masʿud-e Saʿd, the use of ghazals as poems of praise for a patron was already 383

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

a practice in the environment of the court of Ghazna. The poems Sanâ’i wrote in this remarkable form were nearly all written for Sultan Bahrâmshâh (r. 1118–52), to whom the poet dedicated his great didactical poem Hadiqat al-haqiqe, probably about 1130.122 These “panegyrical ghazals” belong to the last phase of the poet’s life, when he had already made his turn towards a religiously inspired poetry. Nevertheless, he held on to many conventions of court poetry, not least to the love poetry of his earlier career. In modern studies of the ghazal, the use of this lyrical form as a panegyric has been associated in particular with the poetry of Hâfez. Some researchers have even suggested that this was one of the innovations by which the great master of the Persian ghazal would have widened the contextual spectrum of the genre.123 As we have seen, there was in fact nothing new about Hâfez’s use of ghazals to praise his patrons. This was already a common practice of the Persian poets for a long time. It seems to have been particularly popular in the early twelfth century at the court of Ghazna during the revival of court poetry under the sultans Arslânshâh (r. 1115–18) and Bahrâmshâh (r. 1118–52).

Seyyed Hasan Ashraf Another poet who used the ghazal very often as a panegyrical poem was Seyyed Hasan of Ghazna (d. circa 1160), to whom, as a descendant of the Prophet, the honorific Ashraf, “the most noble,” was given. According to some reports he belonged to the clerical classes, since he acted as a preacher in Ghazna. His pious reputation outlived him for centuries; his tomb is still extant as a place of worship near the village of Âzâdvâr, where he died during a journey from Hamadan to Khorasan. Nevertheless, he was also a court poet, serving first the Ghaznavid sultan and then the Saljuqs and other 122 In the second edition of Sanâ’i’s divan by M. T. Modarres-e Razavi, there are 25 of these panegyrics, 23 of which can be found also in the Kabul manuscript, but the Istanbul Veliededin copy has only 12 poems of this set. 123 See, e. g., R. Lescot, “Essai d’une chronologie de l’oeuvre de Hafiz,” Bulletin d’études orientales. Institut français de Damas 10 (1943–44), pp. 59–62.

384

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

rulers. Of his ghazals a modest collection of 85 poems has been preserved; not less than 21 are dedicated to sultan Bahrâmshâh, and a few are dedicated to other patrons.124 As a pen name he used his personal name “Hasan” in about one quarter of these poems. Remarkable is the combination of the pen name with the name of his patron in the following fragment, which serves as the ending of a ghazal. In the first example the poet contrasts the pain of his love to the reputation of his patron as a fortunate ruler: Shâd mibâsh Hasan dar gham-e to Ke ham u dard-o ham u darmân-ast Âh tarsam ke be Soltân narasad Ke gham-ash bar del-e man soltân-ast Shâh Bahrâmshah-e Masʿud ânk Surat-e dowlat-o naqsh-e jân-ast Be glad, Hasan, that he causes you pain, For this pain is also your cure. Beware that the Sultan hears about this, That this pain is the sultan of my heart! The king, Bahrâmshâh, the son of Masʿud, Who embodies fortune, image of the soul!125

Whatever the precise nature of his double role as a preacher and a court poet may have been, there are no religious ideas to be found in these ghazals. They are best described as charming secular lyrics, in which the poet successfully continues, “the tradition of clear thought and wording of the poets of Khorasan.”126 Many poems relate the poet/lover’s exchanges with his lyrical beloved, using common items in the repertoire of the Persian ghazal poet. A rather exceptional poem is the following, in which the harmony is described between erotic feelings and the birds and the flowers in an ideal picture of vernal nature: Qomri andar bahâr yâr-e man-ast Mo’nes-e nâlehâ-ye-e zâr-e man-ast 124 Seyyed Hasan, Divân-e Seyyed Hasan-e Ghaznavi, ed. M. T. Modarres-e Razavi (2 nd pr., Tehran, 1983), pp. 262–305. 125 Seyyed Hasan (ed. Modarres Razavi), p. 266, No. 7. 126 Cf. Safâ II, p. 592.

385

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Fâkhte towq-e eshq bar gardan Dar gham-e dust ghamgosâr-e man-ast Bolbol az shâkh-e gol goshâde zabân Nâyeb-e hâl-e ruzgâr-e man-ast Sâqiyâ bi qarâr-am az mey-e eshq Do-se mey dâru-ye qarâr-e man-ast Mey khoram dar bahâr bâ rokh-e to K-ân bahâr-e to in bahâr-e man-ast Gar nabâshad bahâr-o ni abri Abr-e u chashm-e âbdâr-e man-ast Gol-e suri shekofte andar bâgh Râst gu’i rokh-e negâr-e man-ast Lâle bar sabzezâr pendâri Ruy-e maʿshuq bar kenâr-man-ast Gu’i az dur narges-e makhmur Chashm-e delbar dar entezâr-e man-ast Dar banafshe negah konam guyam Zolf-e u yâ tan-e nazâr-e man-ast Har shabi z-ân be mah nazâre konam K-u ze-maʿshuq yâdgâr-e man-ast Dar chenin vaqt bi mey-o maʿshuq Bihode zistan na kâr-e man-ast In spring the turtle dove is my companion Who joins in with my bitter complaints. The ring-dove wearing the ring of Love around his neck Tends to my sorrow for the loss of the beloved. The nightingale can be heard from the rosebush Expressing faithfully my miserable lot. Cupbearer! Love has made me restless. I’ll come to rest with two, three draughts of wine. I am drinking wine in spring when I see your face Because your spring is also my spring! If there is no spring, if there are no clouds, My eyes full of tears serve as its clouds. The fragrant rose has blossomed in the garden, It is as if my love’s face has appeared. The tulip grows in the green of the meadow, It is as if the beloved is sitting next to me. From afar the drunken narcissus looks on, You would say it is my sweetheart waiting for me.

386

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry I look at the violets and I say to myself: These are his locks, or my emaciated body. Because I always think of my beloved. I gaze at the moon each night: It reminds me of my beloved. At such a moment would it not be foolish To live without wine and my loved one?127 The Ghazal in the Twelfth Century

Throughout the twelfth century, the popularity of the ghazal further increased. It became a fixed feature at the center stage of Persian poetry. Groups of these poems have been handed down as part of the works of most of the poets who flourished during this period, when the Saljuq empire began to fall apart into a plurality of smaller political entities in various parts of Persia. At the same time new dynasties of Turkish origin established themselves in the northwestern area of Transoxania—increasingly designated in this period as Turkistan— such as the Qarakhanids and the Khwârazmshâhs. At all these recently founded courts, poetry was considered to be a necessary asset of the ruler’s status as a monarch in the Persian tradition. There can be no doubt that the ghazal had already reached a generally accepted position among the poetical forms, which assured it a place in the works of most poets as they were assembled into divans. It had certainly risen above the level of a mere composition for entertainment. It had even acquired an enhanced literary value, because it had been proven in practice that the theme of love as it takes shape in these short poems could not only serve very well to express a romantic sentiment, but also could be employed for other ends. Most promising among these new usages was its potential as a mystical poem.

Suzani The newly acquired status of the ghazal, in particular its use as a vehicle of a symbolically expressed spirituality, as it was exemplified in the first quarter of the century in particular by Sanâ’i, was 127 Seyyed Hasan (ed. Modarres Razavi), p. 267, No. 9.

387

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

in some circles still regarded as a novelty. This is evident from the poems of the satirist Mohammad b. Ali Suzani of Nakhshab or Nasaf (d. 1173 or 1179), who served the western Qarakhanid rulers residing in Samarqand. His divan contains most interesting specimens of literary parody, and the ghazals of Sanâ’i are the favorite target of his often obscene invectives. He made fun, in particular, of the frequent references to debauchery and unbelief in the latter’s poems. Although there can be no doubt about Sanâ’i’s pious intention in applying such daring imagery, it could very easily be ridiculed by a malicious wit like Suzani. Unfortunately, his divan still awaits an adequate edition, which would enable us to study in depth these important documents for the reception of Sanâ’i’s ghazals.128

Abd-al-Vâseʿ Jabali The possibility of inserting panegyric references into a ghazal certainly gave the form more prestige, but that does not mean that it became a suitable medium for panegyrical court poetry as it was understood in the twelfth century. The supremacy of the qaside and, to a lesser degree, the stanzaic forms, was by no means broken. In the environment of the courts the actual praise of a patron was still considered to be too important to be left to the ghazal, in which this subject matter could never play more than a marginal role. All poets who are known to us as writers of ghazals from about the middle and the second half of the twelfth century were foremost the poets of panegyrics in the larger forms. This already applies to Seyyed Hasan Ashraf, but even more to Abd-al-Vâseʿ Jabali, who was attached to the court of sultan Sanjar (r. 1118–57) in Khorasan, as can be concluded from the dedications in his qasides.129 The ghazals in his divan (152 poems) further show that the convention of the use of a pen name was still far from fully established as 128 Divân-e Suzani, ed. N. Shâh-Hoseyni (Tehran, 1959), is a very unsatisfactory edition of Suzani; see also de Blois, PL V (1999), pp. 546–50. 129 Cf. de Blois, PL V (1999), pp. 244–47, where Jabali’s attachment to the court of Ghazne is cast into doubt; see further Safâ II, pp. 650–56.

388

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

a feature of the ghazal. Only two instances are to be found in his ghazals, whereas the pen name “Jabali” occurs much more often in his qasides.130 In this specimen of Jabali’s ghazals, quoted from an early citation by the anthologist Owfi, the poet shows his ingenuity by weaving different images into a fanciful picture of his beloved’s face (“the sun,” “the rose”) and locks (“violets,” “amber,” “hyacinths”), introducing also a play with the forms of Arabic letters and a reference to sorcery: Ey az banafshe sâkhte bar gol methâlhâ. Bar âftâb karde ze-ambar halâlhâ Bâshad del-am cho halqe-ye mim az ghamân-e to Tâ halqehâ-ye zolf-e to mânad be dâlhâ Yâqut-e to ze-moʿ jeze dârad dalilhâ Hârut-e-to ze shaʿvade dârad methâlhâ131 Gah sâherân ze chahsm-e to sâzand sihrhâ Gah delbarân ze-ruy-e to ârand fâlhâ Har ruz bâmdâd ze bahr-e ma-râ nehi Az moshk-e sude bar saman tâze khâlhâ Nârad be âsheqi-o be khubi cho mâ do tan Gardun be omrhâ-o zamâne be sâlhâ Oh you who drew with violets signs on the rose, Who made crescents of amber on the sun, My sufferings contracted my heart to the eye of a mim, Whereas your curls resemble the loop of a dâl. Your hyacinth (yâqut) reveals a miracle, Your sorcerer (Hârut) performs his tricks.132 The magicians make their talismans from your eyes, The fair ones read their auguries from your face. Every morning at dawn you lay down for me Fresh spots of fine musk on the jasmine. The world nor fate could bring forth again A pair of lovers like us, in a thousand lives.133 130 Jabali, Divân-e Jabali, ed. Z. Safâ (Tehran, 1960–61), II, pp. 491–598. 131 Shaʿvade, “trickery,” is a phonetic variant of the more common form shoʿ bada. 132 The wicked angel Hârut (cf. Qor’an 2, 102) taught the people of Babylon forbidden magic. Jabali uses his name as a metaphor for the beloved’s eyes. 133 Owfi, Lobâb al-albâb, II, p. 108.

389

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Anvari Of more interest is the role as writers of ghazals played by two great masters of the Persian qaside who lived in this period. The divan of Owhad-al-Din Anvari, who rose to prominence at the court of the Saljuq sultan Sanjar and died at a still uncertain date, but not earlier than 1169, contains a far more extensive collection of ghazals (322), about forty percent of which have the form of the classical ghazal, i. e., they contain the poet’s pen name, mostly in the final line.134 According to Ali Dashti, Anvari’s importance lies in the influence he must have exerted on Saʿdi, the poet who brought the ghazal to full maturity in the next century.135 Expressing to his beloved his despair of getting anywhere along a path where his feet “stumbled on the stone of your love,” he sadly concludes: Anvari pây-at ze-râhi bâz kash K-andar ân har markabi lang âmad-ast Anvari, turn back from that road Where every mount has become lame.136

One of the most common themes of such final lines is making a reflection on one’s own poetry; usually this is a ploy for inserting a “self-advertisement” wrapped up in an elegant rhetorical phrasing. In one ghazal Anvari asserts, in a roundabout way, the sincerity of his poem which involuntarily betrays his love: Âsheqi ey Anvari dorugh che gu’i Râz-e del-at dar sokhan cho ruz ayân-ast You are in love, Anvari, why lie about it? Your heart’s secret is as plain as daylight in your words.137 134 Anvari, Divân-e Anvari, ed. Modarres-e Razavi (3 rd pr., Tehran, 1983), II, pp. 765–943; cf. the present writer’s “Anvarī and the Ghazal: an Exploration,” in D. Meneghini, ed., Studies on the Poetry of Anvari (Venice, 2006), pp. 9–36. 135 Dashti, Qalamrow-e Saʿ di, pp. 131–50. 136 Anvari (ed. Modarres-e Razavi), II, p. 776, No. 21. 137 Anvari (ed. Modarres-e Razavi), II, p. 782, No. 32.

390

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

In another, two-line conclusion, in which the poet is engaged in a dialogue with his beloved, he claims the highest expressive force for his poems by means of an inverted hyperbole: Gu’i az niku’i rokh cho mah-am Dar kham-e âsmân namigonjad Che ajab sheʿr-e Anvari-râ niz Maʿni andar bayân namigonjad You say: “The beauty of my moonlike cheeks Cannot be contained in the arc of the sky.” Little wonder! For Anvari’s verse also Is too brimful of meaning to fit into words.138

In most of Anvari’s ghazals, the voice of the courtly lover can be heard, speaking about the tribulations of his experiences in love in a manner that had become already conventional by the middle of the twelfth century. Some of his biographers have reported that Anvari, in spite of his exceptional success as an encomiast, in the end became disillusioned with professional poetry. Towards the end of his days he would even have left the Saljuq court to withdraw into a secluded life in the city of Balkh.139 There is indeed evidence for this to be found in his work, although one has to be careful not to take his words too literally. Answering in an occasional poem the question of a “little” lover (âsheqak, perhaps “someone who still only pretends to be in love”) whether he was a writer of ghazals, he stated that he had renounced this genre, together with panegyrics and satire, because it was only inspired by his lust (shahvat), causing him to exclaim as follows: ­… ham shab dar gham-e-o andishe ân Ke konad vasf-e labi chun shekar-o zolf be kham ­… worry all night asking myself How to describe lips like sugar and locks with curls.140

Such occasional poetry need not be taken too seriously. However, it is remarkable that in Anvari’s ghazals a note of criticism of worldly values is sometimes noticeable. Of course such thoughts are not 138 Anvari (ed. Modarres-e Razavi), II, p. 798, No. 60. 139 On Anvari as a court poet see further Chapter 2 in this volume. 140 Owfi, Lobâb al-albâb, II, p. 136; Anvari (ed. Modarres-e Razavi), II, pp. 694–95.

391

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

incompatible with the central repertoire of the ghazal, and were expressed by most poets of the ghazal. Melancholy feelings about the passing of time and the transience of life are a natural part of a lover’s ruminations. They do not tell us much about the poet’s religious attitude, although among them are fine formulations of eternal truths, such as: Dar bahâr-e zamâne bargi nist Ke na bâd-e khazân bekhwâhad bord In the spring of time there is no leaf Which the wind of autumn will not carry away.141

In some poems Anvari appears to go a bit further and to resort, undoubtedly under the influence of Sanâ’i, to the imagery of debauchery and unbelief, as in this poem: Del az khubân-e digar bar gereftam Ze-del now bâz-e eshqi dar gereftam Nadânestam ke asl-e âsheqi chist Cho dânestam rahi digar gereftam Fekandam daftar-o jastam ze tâmât Kharâbâti shodam sâghar gereftam Atâb-e dustân yaksu gereftam Ketâb-e âsheqi-râ bar gereftam Ze-bahr-e eshq-e to dar botparasti Tariq-e Mâni-o Âzar gereftam I took my heart away from other beauties, As I found a new play of love in my heart.142 I did not know the basic rules of being a lover; When I learned about them I took another path. I threw my notebook away, left all pious words aside, And became addicted to the tavern, raising a glass. I turned away from my friends’ reproaches And picked up the book of being a lover. For the sake of your love, as an idolizer, I chose the way of Mâni and Âzar.143 141 Owfi, Lobâb al-albâb, II, p. 807, No. 78. 142 The reading of this line is uncertain and the translation tentative. 143 Owfi, Lobâb al-albâb, II, p. 870, No. 189.

392

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

Depicting himself as a sinner who seeks forgetfulness in wine, he declares: Har ke cho man be-kofr-ash imân-ast Az hame khalq u mosalmân-ast Ruy-e imân nadide-yi be khodâ Gar be imân-e khwish-at imân-ast Ey pesar madhhab-e qalandar gir Ke dar u din-o kofr yaksân-ast Dast az-in towbe-o salâh bedâr K-andarin râh kâferi in-ast ­… Sâqiyâ dar deh ân meyi ke ez-u Âfat-e aql-o râhat-e jân-ast Whoever, like me, believes in unbelief Among all people he is the true Muslim! By God, you have not found true faith If you still believe in your own convictions. My boy, follow the rite of the Qalandars, As in that rite belief and unbelief are the same! Leave aside this repentance and pious behavior, For on this path they count as unbelief ­… Oh cupbearer! Pour out the wine which Confuses the mind, but comforts the soul.144

Utterances of this nature certainly are exceptional in Anvari’s ghazals. It is difficult to say how much weight one should give to them. Are they evidence of an otherworldly orientation of the poet, perhaps of his alleged withdrawal from worldly pleasures at the end of his career as a court poet? Or is this just an extension of the complex of motifs acceptable in ghazal poetry, which as such are not necessarily to be interpreted as specimens of the mystical use of the ghazal, for which Sanâ’i had given the first examples? We will return later to this fundamental question when we study the hermeneutical problems of the ghazals of Hâfez.

144 Owfi, Lobâb al-albâb, II, pp. 784, No. 35.

393

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Khâqâni The name of Afzal-al-Din Badil Khâqâni (1121–99) is not often mentioned in connection with the development of the ghazal.145 Yet, as it appears from his divan, this writer of monumental qasides, who spent most of his life at the Caucasian court of the Sharvânshâhs, is perhaps the first major poet in the western parts of Persia to cultivate this genre. The number of his ghazals, 338 poems, is moreover quite considerable.146 From a formal point of view, it should be noted that the pen name “Khâqâni” has been used very frequently, either in the final line or in the line before last. Like his predecessor Sanâ’i, with whom he liked to compare himself, he extensively applied the device of the radif. A few of them are complete phrases such as chonân âmad ke man khwâham, “He came just as I wished,” or nami binam nami binam, “I do not see, I do not see.”147 The former fills most of the second half-verses in the ghazal; the repetition of the latter provides an impetus to the verses which invokes the aura of a song. Occasionally, a panegyrical dedication occurs, as in a ghazal praising Khâqâni’s patron, the Sharvânshâh Âkhsetân.148 Khâqâni is renowned for his rich metaphorical style, which abounds in highly original conceits. This is particularly evident in his monumental qasides and in the mathnavi entitled Tohfat al-‘Erâqeyn (“A Homecoming Present from the Two Iraqs”), a mixture of travelogue and panegyrics.149 The thick texture of his metaphors is also apparent in his ghazals, as in these lines cited 145 The wide-ranging study by A. Korangy, Development of the Ghazal and Khâqânî’s Contribution. A Study of the Development of Ghazal and a Literary Exegesis of a 12 th c. Poetic Harbinger (Wiesbaden, 2013), could not be used for this chapter. 146 Khâqâni, Divân-e Khâqâni-ye Sharvâni, ed. Z. Shajjâdi (2 nd pr., Tehran, 1978), pp. 548–700. 147 Khâqâni (ed. Shajjâdi), p. 636 and p. 646 respectively. 148 Khâqâni (ed. Shajjâdi), p. 699. 149 See in particular the monographs on Khâqâni’s poetic art by B. Reinert, Hāqāni als Dichter. Poetische Logik und Phantasie (Berlin and New York, 1972) and A. L. Beelaert, A Cure for the Grieving. Studies on the Poetry of the 12 th-Century Persian Court Poet Khaqani Sirwani (Leiden, 2000).

394

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

from a poem which is based entirely on the motif “under water” (zir-e âb) constituting its radif. The imagery applied to this poem deviates far from the conventions of the ghazal, describing the desperate lover’s predicament with a rhetorical wit that goes against that elegant facility that one expects in a love poem. The extended metaphor of water and fish is as unusual as the radif of this poem and would be better suited to one of Khâqâni’s famous qasides: Ruy-am ze-gerye bin cho gelin kâh zir-e âb V-az sharm-e ruy-e to-st rokh-e mâh zir-e âb Mâhitani-o mikoni az ashk-e man goriz Na mâhiyân konand vatangâh zir-e âb Look what tears did to my face: it looks like muddy straw under water, And ashamed of your face the moon has hid its face under water. Your body is like a fish and you flee for my tears. Do not fish have their home under water? ­… Dar ashk-e garm gharq-am-o bongâh sukhte Kas did gharq-e sukhte bongâh zir-e âb I am drowned in hot tears and my eyesight is burning: Did you ever see someone drowned with burning eyes under water? ­… Geryam chonânke az dam-e daryâ-ye chashm-e man Har gushmâhi-yi shavad âgâh zir-e âb Âb-am beraft-o gar shonud sang âh-e man Az sang beshnavand “alâ’llâh” zir-e âb I weep so much that from the shore of my eyes’ sea All the shells in the sea become aware of it under water. My dignity is gone. When the stones could hear my sighs, The echo “O my God” would be heard under water. 150 ­… Hâl-e man-o to az man-o to dur nist z-ânk To âb zir-e kâhi-o man kâh zir-e âb 150 This is a twofold double entendre: gush-mâhi, “shell,” means literally “fishear”; âbi, “the freshness [of water],” has the figurative sense of “dignity, honor.”

395

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Khâqâniyâ be châh foru guy râz-e del K-az dust râzdârtar ân châh-e zir-e âb The condition of you and me is not so different: You are deceptive like water under straw and I am straw under water. Oh Khâqâni, speak the secret of your heart into a pit, For there is no friend who keeps your secret like a pit under water.151

The following ghazal is another specimen of Khâqâni’s rhetorical dexterity. The radif dominating the poem semantically (ma-râ … bas, “enough for me”) is woven into the proper rhyme (i. e., the sound –uy), for instance in the opening line of a poem that shows his talents as a lyricist: Mah najuyam mah ma-râ ruy-e to bas Gol nabuyam gol ma-râ buy-e to bas Aql-e man divâne-ye eshq-e to gasht Band-ash az zenjir-e gisu-ye to bas Ashk-e man bârân-e bi abr-ast lik Abr-e bi bârân kham-e muy-e to bas Âyene az dast befkan k-az safâ Posht-e dast â’ine-ye ruy-e to bas Rang-e zolf-at bas shab-e me’râj-e man Qâb-e qowseyn-am do abru-ye to bas Âsmân dar khun-e Khâqâni cerâ-st K-in mah-am-râ nâmzad-e khoy-e to bas I do not reach for the moon, your face is moon enough for me. I do not smell the roses, your scent is rose enough for me. My mind became deranged by your love, Being chained by your locks is enough for me.152 My tears fall down, but there are no clouds. Your dark rainless curls are cloud enough for me. Break the mirror you are holding! So pure Is the back of your hand that it is mirror enough for me. 151 Khâqâni (ed. Shajjâdi), p. 554. In the final distich an allusion is made to the Greek legend about king Midas, who divulged the secret of his donkey ears to a well. In Islamic literature it is transferred to Alexander the Great and his barber, e. g., in Nezâmi of Ganja’s Eqbâl-nâme. 152 The implication is that in lunatic asylums deranged people were kept in chains.

396

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry To me your hair shows the night of the Heavenly Journey, “Two bow lengths near”—your eyebrows are enough to me.153 Why are the Heavens after Khâqâni’s blood? That this beauty aimed his moods at me is enough for me!154

Nezâmi of Ganje Although in the course of the twelfth century the ghazal had gained a firm footing in the literary tradition, this did not prevent the early loss of the ghazals by two poets who were renowned for their other works. It has been accepted that Nezâmi of Ganje (d. ca. 1211) did indeed leave a divan of his lyrical poetry as distinct from the five mathnavis assembled into the famous Khamse. This assumption is based on a single reference in his poem Leyli o M ­ ajnun, in the section in the prologue of the narrative poem where, as in the other books of the Khamse, Nezâmi discusses his choice of the subject for the poem. It opens with a description of an inspired working session: joyful, well disposed, and relaxed (“the brows like the moon sickle opened”), he sets himself down besides his own “volume of poetry” (divân-e Nezâmi-yam nehâde). The scene provides a most interesting picture of the poet’s daily routine: it offers a picture of how he prepares himself to take on a new challenge. As far as this goes, it is undoubtedly exemplary, but that does not mean that the scene as such is more than a literary fiction. This also applies to the “divan” mentioned; the context is too vague to allow any positive conclusion. Perhaps nothing more is meant here than a notebook where Nezâmi jotted down from day to day his compositions in whatever form they might be. More value should be attached to a line in Khosrow o Shirin where, describing his visit to the court of his patron Qizil Arslân, Nezâmi says: Ghazalhâ-ye Nezâmi-râ ghazâlân Zade bar zakhmehâ-ye chang nâlân 153 Qor’an, Sura 53, 9. In this passage a vision of Mohammad is related who saw “one terrible in power” approaching him from “the higher horizon.” It is commonly associated with the accounts of the Prophet’s Nightly Journey. 154 Khâqâni (ed. Shajjâdi), p. 622.

397

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA The gazelles performed Nezâmi’s ghazals While the lamenting harp was struck.155

This detail of what in all likelihood is a realistic report leaves us no choice than to accept that the great writer of romantic and didactic poems did indeed write ghazals, but whether or not in his own day they were brought into circulation in a proper divan remains uncertain. The anthologist Owfi, who wrote in the early thirteenth century, already noted the scarcity of Nezâmi’s lyrical poetry. He could only cite a few poems, which “in Nishapur I heard … recited as his by a certain great scholar.”156 In a few miscellaneous albums preserved from medieval times, more of his ghazals can be found, identifiable by the mention of his pen name. However, the few manuscripts containing a Divân-e Nezâmi-ye Ganjavi are either not dated or belong to the Safavid period (sixteenth–eighteenth centuries) or later. In the twentieth century, Vahid Dastgerdi and Saʿid Nafisi have both tried to reconstruct the divan of Nezâmi, but without an entirely satisfying result.157 Unfortunately, the issue is further confused by the fact that in many manuscripts his lyrical poems are mixed up with the works of a later poet who also used the pen name Nezâmi.158 As a result of these textual uncertainties, it is impossible to evaluate Nezâmi‘s importance as a poet of ghazals, although some scholars have attempted to do so. The Dutch scholar M. T. ­Houtsma, who examined a manuscript of his divan in the National Library of Berlin, concluded that: [after] perusing these verses we may easily explain why the dîwân has never acquired the immense popularity of the poet’s Khamsa and has been handed down only in a few copies. Nizâmî is … the acknowledged master of romantic mathnawî, he is perhaps equally 155 Nezâmi, Khosrow o Shirin, ed. V. Dastgerdi (2 nd pr., Tehran, 1954), p. 740. The “gazelles” are the court singers and musicians. Both editors comment that the ghazals are represented as a plaster on the wounds inflicted on the harp, a conceit based on the double meaning of zakhm as an Arabic verbal noun: “playing on an instrument” and “wounding.” 156 Owfi, Lobâb al-albâb, II, pp. 396–97; see also Browne, LHP II, p. 402. 157 See V. Dastgerdi, Ganjine-ye Ganjavi (Tehran, 1939) and the introduction of S. Nafisi to Divân-e qasâyed va ghazaliyyât (Tehran, 1958). 158 See further de Blois, PL V (1999), pp. 447–61.

398

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry great as a didactical poet, but he is not especially distinguished in other forms of verse … .159

Jan Rypka, who examined some of Nezâmi’s ghazals found in a volume copied in 1329 ce, in the Süleymaniye Library, Istanbul (Aya Sofya, No. 2051), arrived at a quite different conclusion. He hailed Nezâmi as “a great master of the ghazal,” whose lyrical poems were “permeated with passionate emotion and transported into a state of constant ecstasy by an unusual distinction between Thou and I.”160 Pending a further enquiry into the complicated textual tradition of Nezâmi’s lyrical poetry I can only give here one sample from the most reliable source available, Owfi’s anthology, which was assembled only a few decades after Nezâmi’s death: Jow be jow mehnat-e man z-ân rokh-e gandomgun-ast Ke hame shab rokh-e por-kâh-am az ân por khun-ast Dâne-ye gandom-e u sombol-e tar dârad-o bâz Kamtarin khoshe-ye u sombole-ye gardun-ast Man na khordam bar az-u sabr-am az-u gandom khord K-az behesht-e dar-e u jesm-e rahi birun-ast Man cho gandom shode am az gham-e u del be do nim Ey gham âvar ânki ju ke Nezâmi chun-ast Az tarâzu-ye do zolf-ash cho juy-e moshk khorram Gandomi mikhwâham afzun ke sokhan mowzun-ast Someone with a complexion like wheat is torturing me, grain by grain, And brings all night blood to my face, that is withered like straw. His grain of wheat and his fresh hyacinth surpass The signs of the Zodiac which are akin to them.161 159 M. T. Houtsma, “Some Remarks on the Dīwān of Niẓāmī,” in T. W. Arnold and R. A. Nicholson, eds., ʿAjab-nâme (Cambridge, 1922), pp. 224–27. The Berlin copy, described in the catalogue by W. Pertsch (No. 691,2) belonged to the col­ lection of A. Sprenger’s manuscripts and is probably the same as the copy men­ tioned by the latter in his Catalogue of the Oudh Manuscripts (Calcutta, 1854). 160 Rypka, HIL, pp. 212–13. Rypka published the ghazals from the Aya Sofya volume in the Persian journal Armaghân 16/1 (1935). François de Blois’ statement that these poems are “almost entirely of religious content” is not borne out by the facts. 161 The Persian text uses the names of Khushe, “ear of corn,” and Sombol, “hyacinth,” but also “ear of corn,” both names for the Zodiac sign of Virgo. The “grain” refers to the beloved’s mole, the “hyacinths” to the curly locks.

399

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Tasting from this wheat was fruitless, my patience was deceived.162 The gates of Paradise are closed for me now. I am a grain split into two halves by my sorrow. Have pity on Nezâmi when you ask how he is! On the balance of these locks—a merry stream of musk — I search for wheat beyond the measure of my verse.163

This enigmatic poem becomes much more understandable when one realizes that it is based on the legend of Adam and Eve’s being banned from Paradise. It is told several times in the Qor’an (e. g., Suras 2, 35–37; 7, 19–25; and 20, 121), but the forbidden fruit is never specified. In Jewish legend, wheat is named among other items, and this influenced Muslim speculations as found in the commentaries of the Qor’an. If this poem, which reached Owfi only by way of an oral transmission, is genuine, it shows that Nezâmi’s mannerist style also affected his lyrical work, just as in the case of Khâqâni. The metaphor of the wheat is extended throughout the poem and provides it with a unity of imagery rare in ghazals.

Jamâl-al-Din of Isfahan Finally one should mention a poet who, more than any of his contemporaries, is regarded by modern critics as the precursor of the great master of the ghazal in the next century, Saʿdi. As writers of qasides, Jamâl-al-Din Mohammad b. Abd-al-Razzâq of Isfahan (d. ca. 1192) and his son Kamâl-al-Din Esmâʿil (d. 1238) participated in the continuing tradition of court poetry as well as in the line of homiletic poetry introduced earlier in the twelfth century by Sanâ’i.164 162 The text of the distich in the edition of Owfi is based on an emendation, and the translation here is tentative. In his didactical mathnavi, the Makhzan al-asrâr, Nezâmi calls this grain the “Adam-deceiving wheat” (gandom-e Âdam-farib); cf. R. Würsch, Nizamis Schatkammer der Geheimnisse (Wiesbaden, 2005), p. 37. 163 Owfi, Lobâb al-albâb, II, p. 397; cf. Owfi, Lobâb al-albâb, ed. S. Nafisi (Tehran, 1956), p. 529, and the editor’s Taʿ liqât, pp. 746–59. 164 See further the chapter on the qaside in the Saljuq period, which is Chapter 3 in this volume.

400

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

Their patrons were first of all members of the two clans of Islamic scholars who dominated the politics of Isfahan: the Shâfiʿite Khojandi and the Hanafite Sâʿed family. However, Jamâl-al-Din offered his services also to royal patrons such as the Saljuq Rokn-al-Din Toghrel III (r. 1176–94) and Hosâm-al-Dowle, the Bâvandi ruler of Mazandaran. The collection of ghazals he left is rather small, no more than 173 poems in the printed edition.165 Nevertheless, this is generally considered to be the best part of his literary legacy. Badiʿal-Zamân Foruzânfar mentioned among its special features the use of subtle ideas (maʿ âni-ye latif), smooth and attractive formulations (alfâz-e narm va delâviz), and working miracles “like Moses’ White Hand” in “comforting burning hearts.” His sole point of criticism was that his poetical ideas and radif rhymes were not entirely suitable for ghazal poetry. According to Dhabih-Allâh Safâ his ghazals are free from mannerisms (khâli az takallof), fluent, elegant, and simple (ravân va sahl-o sâde).166 It would certainly be worthwhile to investigate further Jamâlal-Din’s part in the development of the ghazal at this crucial moment in its history, especially as he seems to have been familiar with the poetry of important predecessors such as Anvari and Khâqâni, both of whom he imitated in his qasides. However, in this case also, there are still textual problems to be overcome before a proper evaluation of this small corpus can be made. As Vahid Dastgerdi, the editor of his divan, noticed in the manuscripts at his disposal, many poems in the divan have undergone distortions and abbreviations: “In one of the old manuscripts the half or a third of each ghazal has been deleted. … None of the early manuscripts of the Divân has more than 4,000 to 5,000 distichs.”167 It should be noted in this connection that in none of these ghazals can the poet’s pen name be found. This is particularly surprising, insofar as by the late twelfth century the convention of concluding a ghazal with the author’s name was an almost established feature of the Persian ghazal. 165 Jamâl-al-Din, Divân-e Jamâl-al-Din Esfahâni, ed. V. Dastgerdi (Tehran, 1941, reprint 1983), pp. 430–86. 166 B. Foruzânfar, Sokhan va sokhanvarân (2 nd pr., Tehran, 1970), p. 549; Safâ II, p. 733. 167 Dastgerdi, Divân-e Jamâl-al-Din Esfahâni, Introd., p. yt.

401

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

In the following poem Jamâl-al-Din treats the topos of vernal lyricism in a manner which mixes the joy about the return of spring with a sharp awareness of the brevity of life and the predicament of human existence. This theme is echoed in the ghazals of Saʿdi. Bar khiz ke mowsem-e tamâshâ-st Bekhrâm ke ruze-e bâgh-o sahrâ-st Emruz be naqd-e eysh khosh dâr Ân kist k-ash eʿtemâd-e fardâ-st Mey hast-o samâʿ-o ân degar niz Asbâb-e tarab hame mohayyâ-st Gol-râ cho mashshâte-ye mâh bâshad168 Gar jelve konad sazad ke zibâ-st Nargis cho be dide khâk rubad Natvân goftan ke sakht raʿnâ-st Rang-e rokh-e lâle bas latif-ast V-ân khâl-e siyâh chashm-e bad-râ-st Tâ kheyme zade-st dar del-am dust Mâ-râ ze-darun-e del tamâshâ-st Az khod be-dar ây-o shâd benshin K-in hasti-ye mâ-st k-âfat-e mâ-st Arise! This is the season for wandering about. Go out for a walk! These are days for gardens and open spaces! Make this day a happy one, spend all you have: Who would have trust enough to wait till tomorrow? There is wine, there is music and all other things; All that will excite you has been prepared. The moon is the chambermaid of the rose; It befits that she is splendorous when she appears. As dust has troubled the eyes of the narcissus She cannot tell you how beautiful she is. How tender is the hue of the tulip’s cheeks! The black spot guards them against the evil eye. Since my friend has settled down in my heart I use to go out walking inside my heart. Come out of yourself and be merry, For this existence of ours is our plague!169 168 The moon was supposed to give color to the roses (note by Dastgerdi). 169 Jamâl-al-Din (ed. Dastgerdi), pp. 430–31.

402

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

In another poem the poet relates a meeting with his beloved: Bâmdâdân be-gâh-e khwâbzade Âmad ân delbar-e sharâbzade Lab-e shirin be khande bogshâde Sar-e zolfeyn-râ be tâb zade Sombol-e zolf halqe halqe shode Narges-e nimmast khwâbzade Chun ma-râ did ze-ashk dide chonân Kheyme andar miyân-e âb zade Goftam ey dar vafâ nemude derang V-ey be khun-e rahi shetâb zade Chand bâshim dar ferâq-rokh-at Barzakh az dide khun-e nâb zade Chand tâbi tan-e zaʿ if shode Chand suzi del-e adhâb zade Barkhi sâʿati ke benshastim Man khajel gashte u atâb zade At daybreak when I had gone to sleep My intoxicated beloved came. His sweet lips were parted with a smile, The tips of his locks were curled; The hyacinth of the locks full of rings, His narcissus [i. e., “eyes”] half drunk and drowsy. When he saw all the tears in my eyes He sat down amidst all this water. I said: “How long it took you to come! How quickly you hurt your slave! Till when do I have to suffer your absence While my cheeks are red with bloody tears? Till when do you set this weak body in fire, Do you keep this wretched heart burning?” How many hours we sat together, he and I: I was ashamed, he was making reproaches.170

This little scene may have provided the model for the famous ghazal by Hâfez describing a drunken beloved, which has been cited above.171 170 Jamâl-al-Din (ed. Dastgerdi), pp. 476–77. 171 See above under “Lover and Beloved,” Conviviality and wine.

403

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

6. The Age of Saʿdi (Thirteenth Century) The Historical and Cultural Context In the thirteenth century, when successive waves of Mongol hordes invaded Persia, most cities in the eastern parts where royal patronage had flourished, suffered damage or were even totally destroyed. However, Azerbaijan in the north and Fars in the south were much less affected by this destruction and could even avail themselves of new opportunities. Tabriz, the main city of Azerbaijan, became the most important seat of power under the Mongols and a leading cultural center. Within a remarkably short time both the state and the court of the Mongol Il-Khans became attuned to Persian-Islamic culture, thanks to the influence of Persian state officials who came to terms with the new rulers and continued the patronage of the arts and literature of earlier times. In some areas, especially in miniature painting and historiography, significant new developments took place during the Mongol period. Also, in the south of Persia, where local rulers remained in power under the suzerainty of the Mongol Il-khans, traditions of courtly patronage did survive. Southern cities such as Isfahan, Yazd, and in particular Shiraz, served as safe havens for Persian writers and poets fleeing from the upheavals in other parts of the country. Persian poetry could not escape entirely from the effects of these historic events and the grave consequences for the social and economic life of the Persians. It is difficult, however, to correlate the literary developments of this period exactly to these external causes. Both the literary and the historical facts are too complicated—and most often too contradictory—to justify a facile reductionism. The spectacular rise of the ghazal in the two centuries when Saʿdi and Hâfez lived occurred at petty courts in southern Fars. Much importance has been attached to the undeniable fact that both poets did use the ghazal for panegyrics occasionally, but we know already that this was done by earlier poets, long before the arrival of the Mongols. 404

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

The Expansion of Sufism and the Ghazal The devastating onslaught of the Mongols evoked deep feelings of uncertainty throughout Persian society and fostered the wider spread of Sufism, especially in its organized forms. These were the circumstances in which the great Sufi brotherhoods emerged. Collectively performed rituals became increasingly a focal point of Sufi life, and this opened up a new venue for the use of poetry. However, this merely invigorated a tendency the roots of which lie well before the coming of the Mongols. An example of the practical importance of the ghazals in the life of the Sufis is given by Jâmi in a report about the learned mystical sheikh Emâd-al-Din Ali, better known as the “Jurisprudent of Kerman” (Faqih-e Kermâni), who was a contemporary of Hâfez. Emâd was a prolific poet and used to recite his own ghazals to visitors to his Sufi hospice as an edifying welcome.172 We have discussed above the important role of Sanâ’i of Ghazna, as early as the beginning of the twelfth century, in the promotion of religious poetry, in particular of the amatory themes expressed in ghazals. From his day onwards the ghazal was no longer exclusively a medium for secular love poetry. His divan contains ghazals in which the expression of transcendental love is unequivocal, next to poems lending themselves to a secular reading, although it may be that in practice the latter were susceptible to a symbolic re-interpretation. This has created the difficult hermeneutical problem of the Persian ghazal in its later development, which in particular characterizes the poems of Hâfez, but also, to a lesser degree, those of Saʿdi.

Three Great Mystical Poets of Ghazals Farid-al-Din Attâr. During the first two decades of the thirteenth century, Farid-al-Din Attâr was probably still alive, if the account of his death during the conquest in 1220 of his native Nishapur by the 172 Jâmi, Bahârestân, ed. A. K. Afsahzâd (Tehran, 2000), p. 150. See also J. T. P. de Bruijn, EI2 Suppl., s. v. ‘Imād al-Dīn ‘Alī; idem, EIr, s. v. ʿEmād-Al-Dīn ­ʿAlī Faqīh Kermānī.

405

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Mongols is historical, which has been doubted by some biographers.173 Attâr was the first major poet of the ghazal to follow in Sanâ’i’s footsteps, but also one of the earliest who used the form exclusively for mystical purposes. For all we know, he led a secluded life far away from the courts where most poets of his time normally found their audiences and their patronage. The biographical information is extremely scarce. Not even his relationship to the Sufi communities of his day can be fully established. It is even difficult to say for which people he actually wrote his many poems. Apart from his mathnavis, such as the famous Manteq al-Teyr (“The Conference of the Birds”), he left a voluminous divan and a selection from his quatrains, the Mokhtârnâme. The most important part of his lyrical poetry are the ghazals, which amount to 873 poems in the critical edition by Taqi Tafazzoli.174 The German scholar Hellmut Ritter devoted an extensive and profound essay to Attâr’s ghazals, comparing them to those of his predecessor Sanâ’i and the later Hâfez. Ritter in particular paid attention to the use of debauchery themes by the three poets.175 He classified Attâr’s ghazals into a number of thematical sections on the basis of the dominant topics of Attâr’s ghazals, such as various aspects of love poetry, including what Ritter labeled as Weinhausmystik, “the mysticism of the tavern,” in which the antinomian motifs predominate. There are only a few ghazals that apparently deal with nothing else than earthly love. In two following examples the poet celebrates the physical beauties of a beloved of flesh and blood, such as the teeth and the mouth, and the face and the hair: Jânâ dahani chu peste dâri Dar peste gohar-e do-raste dâri Sad shur be peste dar fetâde-st Z-ân qand ke maghz-e peste dâri Qandi-yam ferest-o marhami sâz Z-in bish ma-râ che khaste dâri Dar har sar-e muy-e zolf-e shast-at 173 On the problems of his biography see B. Reinert, EIr, s. v. ‘Aṭṭār with further references. 174 Attâr, Divân-e ghazâliyât va qasâyed, ed. T. Tafazzoli (Tehran, 1962). 175 H. Ritter, “Philologika XV. Farīddīn ‘Attār 7. Der Dīwān,” Oriens 12 (1959), pp. 1–88.

406

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry Sad fetne-ye nâneshaste dâri Gofti be dorost ahd kardam Sad ahd-e cunin shakeste dâri Dar tâz-o jahân begir k-az hosn Sad ablaq-e tang baste dâri Yak gol nadahi ze-rokh be Attâr V-ângah hazâr daste dari176 My sweetheart, your mouth is like a pistachio, Inside your pistachio there are two rows of pearls. With this pistachio what outcries did you cause Because of the candy with which it is stuffed! Give me some candy to relieve my wounds, And do no longer inflict them on me! On each end of your locks there is a hook That goes on creating all sorts of temptations. Go out, attack and conquer the world With all the horses you keep so tightly! Can’t you spare one rose of your cheeks for Attar, You who are holding so many bunches? *** Zolf be angosht parishân makon Ruy bed-ân khubi penhân makon Torre-ye moshkin-e siyahrang-râ Sâye-ye khorshid-e dorafshân makon Az sar-e bidâd sar-e sarvarân Dar sar-e ân sarv-e kherâmân makon Âsheq-e delsokhte-râ dast gir Jân-o del-am bi sar-o sâmân makon Chun bar mâ âmade-yi yak zamân Hâl-e del-e khaste perishân makon Dar bar-e mâ yak nafas ârâm gir Az bar-e mâ qasd-e shabestân makon Bi rokh-e khod âlam hamchun behesht Bar-e man-e delsukhte zendân makon Bar to chu Attâr jafâyi nakard Ânche ze-to nasâzad ân makon.177 176 Attâr (ed. Tafazzoli), Ghazal No. 790. 177 Attâr (ed. Tafazzoli), Ghazal No. 673.

407

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Don’t disturb your hair with your fingers, Don’t hide a face with such beauty! Don’t let those musky black locks Become a shadow for the sun that sheds pearls! Don’t put unjustly that what is uppermost On top of that strolling cypress! Hold the hand of the lover with a wounded heart, Don’t put my soul and heart into disarray! Now that you have come to me for a while Don’t confuse this heart that has been hurt. Take a rest for a moment at my breast, Don’t withdraw to your room to go to sleep. Without your face a world that looks like Paradise Will become a prison for me whose heart is burning. As Attâr has not been cruel to you, Don’t do that which is unbecoming to you.

Mowlânâ Jalâl-al-Din Rumi. The great mystic Jalâl-al-Din Rumi (1207–73) is one of the most prolific poets of ghazals in the history of Persian literature. A collection of his lyrical poetry, known as the Divân-e kabir (The Great Divan), including no less than 3502 ghazals, was published by the Persian scholar Badiʿ-al-Zamân Foruzânfar.178 The alternative title, Divân-e Shams-e Tabrizi, refers to Rumi’s remarkable habit of mentioning in the concluding passage of many ghazals not his own name but rather that of the dervish Shams-al-Din of Tabriz, whom he passionately loved and worshipped as the true inspiration for his ghazals. Rumi’s immediate influence was on his own descendants: his son Soltân Valad (d. 1312) and his grandson Ulu Âref Chelebi (d. 1320), who continued to write ghazals in the same style.179 Countless members of the 178 Divân-e kabir or Divân-e Shams-e Tabrizi, ed. B. Foruzânfar (10 vols., Tehran, 1957–67), many reprints. Among the English translations, the most notable are: R. A. Nicholson, Selected Poems from the Dīvāni Shamsi ­Tabrīz (Cambridge, 1898), and A. J. Arberry, Mystical Poems of Rūmī (2 vols., Chicago, 1969–79, reprint 1991), a selection of 400 ghazals; for a comprehensive survey of translations from Rumi’s works see F. D. Lewis, Rumi. Past and Present, East and West (Oxford, 2000), Chapter 14, pp. 564–615. 179 Cf. Lewis, Rumi, passim; Soltân Valad, Divân, ed. S. Nafisi (Tehran, 1959); T. Yazici, EIr, s. v. ʿᾹref Čelebī.

408

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

Mevlevi Order throughout the centuries followed them, writing in Turkish as well as in Persian. The style of Rumi’s lyrics sets them apart from the mainstream of Persian ghazal poetry. It is marked by a forceful expression of mystical eroticism, extremely rich and unconventional imagery, and a large measure of freedom in the application of the metrical rules, as well as exceptional musicality.180 Although there can be no mistake about Rumi’s intentions, this does not mean that he was less aware of the emotional strength of love as a human affect. He could express this with all the vital force that marks the true ghazal poet: Aql âmad âsheqâ khod-râ bepush Vey mâ ey vey mâ az aql-o hush Yâ borow az jamʿ-e mâ ey chasm-o aql Yâ shavam az nang-e to bi chashm-o gush To cho âbi z-âtesh-e mâ dur show Yâ dar â dar dig-e mâ bâ mâ bejush Gar nami khwâhi ke kherad-at beshkanad Morde show bâ mowj-o bâ daryâ makush Gar beguyi âsheq-am hast emtehân Sar mapich-o ratl-e mardân-râ benush Mi khorushan likan az masti-ye eshq Hamcho chang-am bi khabar man az khorush Shams-e Tabrizi ma-râ kardi kharâb Ham to sâqi ham to mey ham meyforush181 Reason has come, oh lover, hide yourself! Beware, beware, beware of reason and sense! Disappear, eyes and mind, from our midst, Or else the shame will rob our seeing and hearing. You are like water, stay out of our fire! Or, join us in the pot that we may boil together. If you want to avoid that reason destroys you, 180 On the metrical irregularities in Rumi’s ghazals, see the third appendix added separately to F. Thiesen, A Manual of Classical Persian Prosody (Wiesbaden, 1982). The imagery of Rumi is described in A. Schimmel, The Triumphal Sun (London and The Hague, 1978). A modern appreciation of the poetic value of Rumi’s ghazals is F. Keshavarz, Reading Mystical Lyric. The Case of Jalal-al-Din Rumi (Columbia, South Carol., 1998). 181 Rumi (ed. Foruzânfar), Ghazal No. 1259.

409

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Act like a corpse, do not fight the waves and the sea. When you say “I am a lover,” be prepared for the test. Do not turn aside, taste from the cup of the brave! Love made me cry out as if I were drunk, Like a harp unaware of the noises I make. Oh Sun of Tabriz, you have ruined me, You are the cupbearer as well as the wine you sell.

As a poet Rumi often shows an inventiveness that goes far beyond the limits of conventional ghazal poetry, even where he does not resort to an explicitly mystical rhetoric. In this little poem he imagines dreaming about his sweetheart, whom he tries to reach in vain, while the latter is lying asleep in a paradisiac surrounding. In this charming phantasy the question whether Rumi speaks here of an earthly beloved or a supernatural Beloved remains unanswered. Yâr-e khod-râ khub didam ey barâdar dush man Bar kenâr-e chashme khofte dar miyân-e nastaran Halqe karde dast baste huriyân bar gerd-e u Az yaki su lâlezâr-o az yaki su yâsman Bâd mizad narm narmak bar kenâr zolf-e u Buy-e moshk-o buy-e ambar mirasid az har shekan Mast shod bâd-o robud ân zolf-râ az ruy-e yâr Chun cherâgh-e rowshani k-az vey to bar giri lagan Z-avval-e in khwâb goftam man ke âheste bâsh Sabr kon tâ bâ khod âyam yak zamân to dam mazan182 Brother, I had a good look at my beloved last night: He was lying asleep at the brim of the well. Hand in hand were the maidens of paradise around him, On one side a bed of tulips, on the other the jasmine. The wind went tenderly through his hair Wafting the scent of musk and amber from each curl. The drunken wind removed these locks from his face, As one takes the shade from a shining lamp. When this dream began I said: “Not too hasty! Have a care, wait a moment till I come to myself!”

For centuries, Rumi’s ghazals have fulfilled a ritual function, not only in the mystical séances of the Mevlevi dervishes, but also 182 Rumi (ed. Foruzânfar), Ghazal No. 1962.

410

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

in other religious communities; for instance, they are celebrated among contemporary Sufis in Iran and Ismaili minstrels in Tajik Badakhshan.183 Both Rumi and Soltân Valad acknowledged their indebtedness to the tradition of Sanâ’i and Attâr. Rumi’s ghazals had an enormous impact on later mystical literature and were frequently imitated by anonymous poets, with the result that many spurious poems have been added to the already monumental volume of the authentic poems. Fakhr-al-Din Erâqi. The life of Fakhr-al-Din Ebrâhim b. Shahriyâr Erâqi (d. 1289) was in complete harmony with his output of mystical ghazal, just as in the case of both Attâr and Jalâl-al-Din Rumi. There are no traces of any dependence on secular patronage. Throughout his life he was in contact with mystics of various kinds. According to a medieval account of his life, a hybrid of biography and hagiography, Erâqi was born in a village near Hamadan. When a group of wandering qalandar dervishes passed through Hamadan, he joined them and traveled eastwards in their company as far as Multan in the present-day Baluchi province of Pakistan. Here he became the pupil of Zakariyâ of Moltan (1182–1268), a prominent sheikh of the Sohravardiyye, one of greatest Sufi orders of Sunnite Islam. After a stay of more than twenty years in India, he returned to the West for the pilgrimage to Mecca. In 1268 he settled down in Konya, shortly before Rumi died there. Finally he went to live in Damascus, where he died in 1289 and was buried near the tomb of the mystical philosopher Ebn-e Arabi.184 His ghazals are an important part of his writings. They contain the most outspoken examples of the application of qalandari motifs in Persian poetry.185 This poem gives the poet’s imagined account of his conversion to the “path of the qalandars”: 183 See, respectively, J. During, Musique et mystique dans les traditions de l’Iran (Paris and Tehran, 1989); and G. van den Berg, Minstrel Poetry from the Pamir Mountains (Wiesbaden, 2004). 184 Cf. A. J. Arberry, Classical Persian Literature (London, 1958), pp. 263–72. 185 The themes of Erâqi’s ghazal poetry have been studied by E. Feuillebois-­ Pierunek, À la croissée des voies célestes. Faxr al-Din ʿErâqi, poésie mystique et expression poétique en Perse médiévale (Tehran, 2002).

411

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Erâqi bâr-e digar towbe beshkast Ze-jâm-e eshq shod sheydâ-o sarmast Parishân-e sar-e zolf-e botân shod Kharâb-e chashm-e khubân-ast peyvast Che khosh bâshad kharâbi dar kharâbât Gerefte zolf-e yâr-o rafte az dast Ze-sowdâ-ye pariruyân ajab nist Agar divâne-i zanjir bogsast Be gerd-e zolf-e mahruyân hami gasht Chu mâhi nâgehân oftâd dar shast Be pirânsar del-o din dâd bar bâd Ze khod fâregh shod-o az jomle vâ rast Sahargah az sar-e sajjâde bar khâst Be buy-e jorʿe-i zonnâr bar bast Ze-band-e nâm-o nang ângah shod âzâd Ke del-râ dar sar-e zolf-e botân bast Beyafshând âstin bar har do âlam Qalandarvâr dar meykhâne benshast Lab-e sâqi salâ-ye buse dar dâd Erâqi towbe-ye sisâle beshkast186 Again Erâqi broke his vow of repentance, Infatuated with the cup of love and dead drunk. The locks of beautiful idols had confused him, Their ravishing eyes had made him destitute. How wonderful to be destitute in an old inn, Clutching the locks of the beloved, out of control! Such passion is caused by magical faces; Is it surprising if madmen break their chains? Caught by the locks on shining faces All at once he was hooked like a fish, Not caring about himself, freed from all people. In the morning he rose from his prayer rug; Smelling the wine he abandoned his faith. He became indifferent to blame or honor As soon as he was attached to idolized locks. He shook off both this world and the hereafter And settled down like a debauchee in the tavern. When the cupbearer offered him a kiss After thirty years Erâqi broke his vow. 186 Erâqi, Kolliyât, ed. S. Nafisi (4 th pr., Tehran, 1959), p. 146.

412

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

Saʿdi of Shirâz. Mosharref-al-Din b. Mosleh al-Din Saʿdi (d. 1292), also affectionately called Sheykh Saʿdi, was the poet who by common assent molded the Persian ghazal into its perfect form. In spite of the even greater popularity of Hâfez, who lived exactly one century later, Saʿdi is hailed by a modern Persian critic as the “master of the ghazal” (ostâd-e ghazal).187 This high opinion is founded on an authentic experience of the superb poetic qualities of his verse, such as its elegance of expression, the “inimitable” simplicity of its style, and the fluency of its diction that perfectly harmonizes with its subject matter. These are appraisals that no connoisseur of Persian poetry would gainsay. However, there is far less agreement about the key question concerning the ultimate meaning of Saʿdi’s love poems: is this secular poetry or is this mystical poetry? Saʿdi himself has provided fuel to this hermeneutic ambiguity. In a number of stories in the Golestân and the didactical mathnavi Bustân, his most famous works, he often depicts himself as a pious man drawn to a secluded life of moderate asceticism, who not only goes on pilgrimage as a humble dervish and acts as a wandering preacher, but even claims to have studied in Baghdad with Sheikh Sohravardi, the founder of the Sufi Sohravardiyye Order. On the other hand, he also speaks about his attendance at the courts and relates love stories that appear to be all too human. There are valid reasons for not taking Saʿdi to the letter in these autobiographical statements. However, they have become part of his popular image, and are frequently mentioned by his biographers. It should be added that the ghazals provide hardly any clues to connect them to one aspect or another of the colorful story of Saʿdi’s life. Hâli, an early modern Urdu poet and biographer of Saʿdi, who is quoted by Jan Rypka, assigned him explicitly to a Sufi context. Under the guise of earthly love his ghazals would have expressed mystical emotions. They were recited in the sessions (samâʿ) of the Sufis with the aim to bring the listeners into a state of unconsciousness in order to draw closer to the Divine Beloved. To the same end served his contempt of religious authority and condemnation of pious hypocrisy. This clearly refers to the theme of debauchery; 187 Dashti, Qalamrow-e Saʿ di, p. 338.

413

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

however, this theme is far less important in Saʿdi’s poetry than it is in the ghazals of the poets whom we have discussed before.188 This view of Saʿdi as a mystical poet finds few supporters nowadays, although it has not yet faded away completely. More recently others have tried to find words for their special fascination with Saʿdi’s ghazals by putting them into a less exclusively mystical perspective. The historian of Persian literature Dhabih-Allâh Safâ noticed, in Saʿdi’s lyrical poetry as well as in his didactical works, the harmony between “good taste” (dhowq), i. e., poetic sensibility, and the search for truly humanistic values as expressed in wise sayings (hekam) and parables (amthâl), which made a lasting impact on the Persian language.189 The extraordinary qualities of Saʿdi’s handling of the characteristic idiom of the ghazal is also stressed by Ali Dashti, the author of a widely read series of literary essays on the Persian classical poets. He mentions the “dignity and power of expression” (vaqâr-o qovvat-e taʿ bir), the subtlety, fluency, natural grace, and rhythmic quality of his language, together with his economy in the application of rhetorical figures. Dashti ascribes to Saʿdi a motivation that went further than literary art (honar-e enshâ) for its own sake or the desire to create ever more ingenuous concetti (âfaridan-e mazmun). He recognizes an emotional involvement that must have been based ultimately on a personal experience of human love, which was more than just a veil for mystical ideas.190 Western scholars initially followed those Persian, Indian, and Turkish critics who were convinced of Saʿdi’s mystical intentions. Hermann Ethé called Saʿdi’s poems “ghazals with an erotico-mystical tendency” (Ghazelen erotisch-mystischer Tendenz). Especially in the collection of the Khavâtim—containing probably Saʿdi’s latest ghazals—he found poems which “almost exclusively deal with the mystical love of God” (fast ausschließlich die mystische Liebe zu Gott 188 Cf. Rypka, HIL, p. 252; for a list of the characteristics of Saʿdi’s ghazals, see the biography of Saʿdi by A.-H. Hâli (1837–1914), Hayât-e Saʿ di (Tehran, 1937), pp. 96–97. 189 Safâ III, pp. 610–14. 190 Dashti, Qalamrow-e Saʿ di, pp. 338–65.

414

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

zum Gegenstand haben.)191 An unqualified mystical point of view also marks the interpretation by Lucas White King, the indefatigable English translator of Saʿdi’s ghazals. Reynold Nicholson, who wrote an introduction to King’s translations, tried to mitigate the translator’s extreme position by pointing out that, even in his lyrics, Saʿdi shows himself to be a moral teacher rather than an inspired mystic: The best mystical poetry is not produced by men of Saʿdi’s type … . He was too fine an artist to leave enthusiasm out of the picture, but “God-intoxicated” is the last epithet one would think of applying to him. His poems do not suggest that he knew the higher stages of the mystical life except by hearsay, and his treatment of the subject must seem conventional and superficial to those who compare him with the great Mystics of his own country, including Hafiz.192

Arthur J. Arberry, who contrasts Saʿdi to the mystical poet Sanâ’i, stresses the secular nature of his ghazals, affirming that “with Saʿdi the lyric is firmly established as a medium for conveying human, carnal passion.”193 These few examples of the often contradictory evaluations by modern scholars and connoisseurs in East and West could easily be multiplied. Whatever their merits as evidence for the living appreciation of Saʿdi’s art, such statements are of limited value to the literary historian who wants to describe what really distinguishes Saʿdi’s corpus of ghazals, which by common assent constitutes a landmark in the history of the form. In order to answer this question, his ghazals need to be studied in much greater detail than they have been studied so far. A step forward is the statistical investigation of Saʿdi’s lyrical vocabulary in a volume of the series Lirica Persica, prepared by a group of scholars in Venice.194 However, this 191 H. Ethé, “Neupersische Litteratur,” in W. Geiger and E. Kuhn, eds., Grundriss der iranischen Philologie II (Strassburg, 1904), p. 294. 192 R. A. Nicholson, introduction to L. W. King, tr., Badâyeʿ. The Odes of Shaikh Muslihu-’d-Din Saʿ dī Shirāzī (Berlin, 1925). 193 Arberry, CPL, p. 207. 194 S. Manoukian and R. Zipoli, Saʿ di: Concordance and Lexical Repertories of 1000 Lines (Venice, 1992). The poems of this sample were published separately by S. Manoukian with an Italian translation in L’argento di un povere cuore. Centouno ghazal di Saʿ di Shirāzi (Rome, 1991).

415

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

useful research only provides the material for a more fundamental investigation. The textual tradition of Saʿdi’s ghazals is almost ideal, at least if we compare it to the fate of the poems left by most of his predecessors. Evidence going back to his own lifetime shows that he was very concerned about the preservation of his own works. This is not to say that there are no textual problems left. At the time of Saʿdi’s death, his poetical inheritance had not yet been cast into a final shape. Soon the need for a rearrangement was felt. From prose introductions and early manuscripts at least five different versions can be traced: one of these versions may go back to Saʿdi himself, while two others are the work of an editor who calls himself Ali b. Ahmad b. Abi-Bakr b. Bisotun. In a preface he explains as his main purpose the arrangement of the ghazals in such a manner that stray lines, cited at random in a conversation or otherwise, could more easily be traced to the ghazal to which they belong. Bisotun claims to have introduced an alphabetical order in the ghazals, first of the initial letters of the opening lines, and then of the rhymes. He completed this system in two stages, in 1325 and 1333 respectively.195 This arrangement of the lyrical poems became the pattern for later manuscript copies and printed texts, not only of Saʿdi’s ghazals, but of Persian divans in general. A novelty of the transmission of Saʿdi’s ghazals is the classification of the ghazals into four separate collections, each one under a more or less ornate title: Tayyebât (Perfumed Poems, 392 ghazals), Badâyeʿ (Artful or Marvelous Poems, 198 ghazals), Khavâtim (Concluding Poems, 67 ghazals), and Ghazaliyyât-e qadim (Old Ghazals, 36 ghazals). By this precedent, a new trend was set that was followed by other major ghazal poets, such as Amir Khosrow of Delhi (1253–1325), Khwâju of Kerman (1281–ca. 1349), and Jâmi of Herat (1414–92). It is not known whether Saʿdi himself or some other editor made this arrangement, but it can already be found in early manuscripts.196 When in 1941 the Persian scholar 195 Cf. A. Ateş, İstanbul kütüphanelerinde Farsça manzum eserler (Istanbul, 1968), I, p. 170. 196 The numbers of the poems in each section are based on the edition of the Kolliyyât-e Saʿ di by M. A. Forughi (Tehran, 1959), with the ghazals in the traditional arrangement.

416

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

and statesman Mohammad-Ali Forughi (1877–1942) published a modern critical edition, “based on the earliest extant manuscripts,” he did away with this feature of most Saʿdi manuscripts and made a radically different division of the corpus based on the criteria of their contents, namely, whether they were “true ghazals” treating of secular love themes (the great majority, 637 poems) or whether they were of a didactical nature and dealt with such themes as wisdom, morality, or mysticism (59 poems).197 Even if the authenticity of these four collections is not absolutely certain as an arrangement intended by the poet himself, their early occurrence in the manuscripts of Saʿdi’s collected works forces us to take them seriously. The first two collections present a particular problem because their titles are not very informative. By far the largest volume of Saʿdi’s ghazals is Tayyebât, whereas the second volume, Badâyeʿ, contains only half of its number of poems. These two titles were often taken to refer to the nature of the ghazal poetry they contain. The former title might refer to the predominance of lyrical motifs and therefore would be suitable for a set of straightforward, graceful love poems; the latter to the use of rhetorical artifices under a title derived from the term elm-e badiʿ, “the science of rhetoric,” dealing with the rules for the application of rhetorical figures.198 Both terms occur in Saʿdi’s ghazals, but it is doubtful whether the lines in which they are used do in fact refer to collections of poems or are merely descriptive.199 The collections themselves do not provide arguments for a classification based on the contents of the poems. More plausible is the theory that they represent a chronological division of the corpus of Saʿdi’s ghazals, 197 M. A. Forughi, ed., Ghazaliyyât-e Saʿ di (Tehran, 1939), Introduction, pp. 5–16; see also K.-K. Rahbar, ed., Divân-e ghazaliyyât (2 vols., Tehran, 1987), a revision of Forughi’s text. In the edition by N.-A. Irânparast (2 vols., Tehran, 1976), the ghazals are assembled into a continuous alphabetical series (644 poems). A critical edition prepared by G.-H. Yusofi was published posthumously (Tehran, 2006). 198 See Z. Safâ, EIr, s. v. Badiʿ. 199 Forughi, Ghazaliyyât-e Saʿ di, Introduction, p. 7. For other explanations see, e. g., Ethé, “Neupersische Litteratur,” p. 294; J. D. Yohannan, The Poet Saʿ di. A Persian Humanist (Lanham, Maryl., 1987), p. 93.

417

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

which would also be the best explanation for the titles of the remaining two volumes.200 If this is a correct assumption, it would provide the classification into four volumes with the additional value of providing evidence for the development of Saʿdi as a poet of the ghazal. This unequal division of the poems over the four collections may correspond to a pattern in the poet’s activity as a lyricist. In spite of the many uncertainties in his biography, it is an established fact that there was an important turning point in his life around the late 1250 s, when he wrote his two major works, the Bustân and the Golestân. Apparently, a long period of travels through several countries of the Middle East had come to an end, and he settled down permanently in Shiraz, his native city. Whether or not this entailed a loosening of his ties to secular patronage remains uncertain. Traditional biographers report that from this time onwards he retreated into the life of a recluse and severed all his former ties to the world. Whatever the truth may be, this seems to conform to a sharp decrease in his writing of ghazals compared to the preceding period, which is represented by the early collections, notably by the Tayyebât. The mixture of profane poetry of love, concealed or open panegyrics, and didacticism preaching a mildly mystical—or perhaps merely humanitarian—ethics would fit in very well with the overall picture that the autobiographical statements in Saʿdi’s other works present to us. All the evidence available now points to the innovating role of Saʿdi in the history of the Persian ghazal; it is however equally true that he continued a tradition already established long before his time. He did not significantly change the form of the ghazal. Saʿdi made use, for instance, of his pen name in the conclusion of nearly all his poems, but so had some earlier poets with almost the same regularity. His radif rhymes are not particularly remarkable in comparison to the poems of others whose works we have discussed above. Saʿdi’s choice of illustrative images does not go beyond the boundaries of lyrical convention, although certain idiosyncrasies 200 Cf. Ateş, İstanbul kütüphanelerinde Farsça manzum eserler, I, p. 170; T. Yazıcı, IA, s. v. Saʿdî.

418

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

can be detected. A promising area for further investigation is the structural coherence of his poems. Saʿdi was the immediate predecessor of Hâfez, whose ghazals pose the problem of the internal unity of this kind of poetry in an acute form. It is important to study in what manner Saʿdi’s handling of poetical structure can be contrasted with the stylistic innovations attributed to Hâfez. There is a remarkable difference between the appreciation of Saʿdi in the West and in the Persian cultural area, in particular Persia itself. On both sides his literary status is beyond any question. However, to the West Saʿdi is foremost the writer of the Golestân (The Rose Garden), the charming prose work interlaced with poetry by which his reputation was already made secure in seventeenth-century Europe, and which has never substantially declined. To a lesser extent his didactical mathnavi the Bustân (The Orchard), known to the West almost as long as the Golestân, was also held in high esteem but has proved especially popular among Orientalists. On the other hand, his ghazals have received only scant attention, far less than the poems of Hâfez, that other Shirazi master of ghazal poetry. The most obvious indication for this is the wide difference in the number of translations into European languages of the ghazals of each poet: whereas there is a very long line of Hâfez translations—mainly into English, German, and French— starting from the late eighteenth century and continuing up to the present day, the number of translations of Saʿdi’s ghazals is quite insignificant; the only major attempt to render his lyrical poetry into English verse was made by L. W. King, in three volumes with selected ghazals, published in the 1920 s; and these have now fallen into oblivion. As the statements of modern Persian critics referred to earlier clearly show, in his homeland Saʿdi is still revered as one of the greatest poets and writers for all his works. His ghazals in particular are admired and loved as the most perfect realization of the potential of the ghazal, bringing Persian love poetry to its full maturity. It could even be said that he brought the development of this kind of poetry, as we have followed it in the present chapter from the early twelfth century onwards, to a point of saturation. It is understandable that many scholars have pointed to his work as the 419

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

real birth of the typical Persian ghazal, although this is historically a debatable view. If in the thirteenth century Saʿdi reached this level of perfection, his successor Hâfez in the next century could only open up new perspectives by exploiting the polythematical possibilities of the ghazal, which were explored far less by Saʿdi. Among the special qualities constituting the greatness of Saʿdi’s ghazals are in particular his mastery of the literary idiom, the great impact he made on the idiom of literary Persian, and the finesse of his application of the characteristic themes and motifs of the genre of love poetry. These features can only be appreciated fully by those readers who are familiar with Persian and the Persian erotic idiom that pervades his poetry. Perhaps this explains the less enthusiastic appreciation of Saʿdi’s ghazals by foreign readers and the scarcity of translations. In this chapter we must restrict ourselves to giving a few glimpses of Saʿdi’s handling of the ghazal by examining the following poems. Majles-e mâ degar emruz be bostân mânad Eysh-e khalvat be tamâshây-e golestân mânad Mey halâl-ast kasi râ ke bovad khâne behesht Khasse az dast-e harifi ke be Rezvân mânad Khatt-e sabz-o lab-e laʿ l-at be che mânande konam Man beguyam be lab-e cheshme-ye heyvân mânad Tâ sar-e zolf-e parišân-e to mahbub-e man-ast Ruzgâr-am be sar-e zolf-e parishân mânad Che konad koshte-ye eshq-at ke naguyad gham-e del To mapendâr ke khun rizi-o penhân mânad Har ke chun mum be khorshid-e rokh-at narm nashod Zinhâr az del-e sakht-ash ke be sendân mânad Nâder oftad ke yaki del be vesâl-at nadehad Yâ kasi dar balad-e kofr mosalmân mânad To ke chun barq bekhandi che gham-at bâshad az ânk Man chonân zâr begeryam ke be bârân mânad Taʿne bar heyrat-e Saʿ di na be ensâf zadi Kas chonin ruy nabinad ke na heyrân mânad Har ke bâ surat-o bâlâ-ye to-ash onsi nist Heyvâni-st ke bâlâ-sh be ensân mânad201 201 Saʿdi, Kolliyât-e Saʿ di, ed. G.-H. Yusofi (Tehran, 2006), pp. 115–16; Tayyebât, No. 249.

420

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry Today we are together in an orchard, it seems; Our private meeting is walking in a rose garden, it seems. Wine is permitted to anyone who dwells in Paradise, Especially if offered by a friend who is like Rezvân.

Saʿdi evokes the scene of an amorous gathering, imagined to take place in a pleasure ground, which, through the supernatural charms of the beloved cupbearer, assumes the status of a heavenly garden. In passing, this hyperbolic comparison provides an excuse for the wine drinking at such a party, because in a Qoranic summing up of the delights of Paradise, it has been written that there will be “gardens and vineyards and maidens with swelling breasts, like of age, and a cup overflowing.”202 But more important to the purpose of the poem is the comparison of the cupbearer to Rezvân, the Gardener or Doorkeeper of Paradise. What is it, the likeness of your green line and ruby lips? I would say: the edge of the Fountain of Life. Ever since I fell in love with the tip of your disheveled locks My fate is like that of tips of disheveled locks.

In a few descriptive lines the poet identifies the cupbearer by the thin “green” line of a budding beard as a boy at the verge of puberty. Another exemplary reference—the legendary Fountain of Life, known from the stories about Eskandar’s (Alexander’s) quest for immortality—adds another fascinating feature to his appearance. The most dangerous part of the boy’s looks, however, are his locks hanging loose and in disarray: they suggest a net in which the lover-poet has been caught, but also his confused state of mind. This leads to the main theme of this love poem: the complaint of a suffering lover about the ruthlessness of his beloved. What else can the victim of your killing love do than speak his grief? Do not think that you may shed blood and keep it a secret! Whoever does not melt like wax in the sun of your face, His heart must be as hard as an anvil. Be careful! Your laugh strikes like a lightning; how would it grieve you That I shed so many bitter tears that it seems to be raining? 202 Qor’an 78, 32; translated by A. J. Arberry in The Koran Interpreted. A Translation (2 vols., London and New York, 1955).

421

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Could anyone avoid setting his heart on being with you? Could anyone among idol-worshippers remain a Muslim?

The conventional ending, including the poet’s pen name, perfectly concludes this lover’s complaint: Do not chide Saʿdi for being so bewildered; Can anyone not be bewildered who beholds such a face? Whoever is not familiar with your countenance and your stature Is no more than an animal with the stature of a human being. *** Che delhâ bordi ey sâqi be-sâq-e shahvatangiz-at Darighâ buse chandi bar zanakhdân-e delâviz-at Khadang-e ghamze az har su nehân andâkhtan tâ key Separ bendâkht aql az dast-e nâvokhâ-ye khunriz-at Bar âmizi-yo bogrizi-yo benmâyi-yo borbâyi Faghân az qahr-e lotfandud-o zahr-e shakkarâmiz-at Lab-e shirîn-at ar Shirin bedidi dar sokhan goftan Bar-u shokrâne budi gar bedâdi molk-e Parviz-at Degar raghbat kojâ mânad kasi-râ suy-e hoshyâri Cho binad dast dar âghush-e mastân-e saharkhiz-at Damâdam dar kash ey Saʿ di sharâb-e serf-o dam dar kash Ke bâ mastân-e majles dar nagirad zohd-o parhiz-at203

Saʿdi expresses himself much more explicitly in this description of a cupbearer, whose physical beauty dangerously attracts the attentions of other lovers. How many hearts, Oh cupbearer, did your seducing ankles steal, Oh, how many times has your charming chin been kissed? How long do you aim the arrows of your glances to all sides? Reason surrendered on account of your blood-shedding arrows. You embrace then escape, show yourself then withdraw; Beware of your charming violence! Such poison mixed with sugar! Could Shirin have seen your sweet lips while they speak, If she gave you the kingdom of Parviz, she would still be in your debt.

The aggressiveness of the seductive cupbearer is hardly hidden behind his charms, to which even Reason has no defense. The “sugar” 203 Saʿdi (ed. Yusofi), p. 247; Badâyeʿ, No. 548.

422

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

of the cup-bearer elicits the mention of the sweetheart of the Sasanian king Khosrow II (nicknamed Parviz), Shirin, whose name actually means “sweet.” The poet’s words have no effect. At daybreak the gathering ends in a wild drinking bout: No one would desire to stay sober any longer, When he sees the drunkards embracing you at dawn. Do not stop drinking the unmixed wine, Saʿdi, hold your breath: Your abstinence has no effect on the drunk of this meeting. *** Dush dur az ruy-at ey jân jân-am az gham tâb dâsht Abr-e chashm-am bar rokh az sowdâ-ye del seylâb dâsht Na-z tafakkor aql-e meskin pâymâl-e sabr shod Na-z parishâni del-e shuride cheshm-e khwâb dâsht Kus-e ghârat zad ferâq-at gerd-e shahrestân-e del Shahne-ye eshq-at sarây-e omr dar tabtâb dâsht Naqsh-e nâm-at karde del mehrâb-e tasbih-e vojud Tâ sahar tashbihguyân ruy dar mehrâb dâsht Dide-am mijast goftand-am bebini ruy-e dust Âqebat maʿ lum kardam k-andar u simâb dâsht Z-âsmân âghâz-e kâr-am sakht shirin mi nomud Key gomân bordam ke shahdâlude zahr-e nâb dâsht Saʿ di in rah moshkel oftâde-st dar daryâ-ye eshq Avval âkher dar saburi andaki pâyâb dâsht204 Last night my soul missing your face was fevered with grief, O soul of mine! The clouds in my eyes poured out torrents of blood from the heart. The poet looks back at a night spent in loneliness, pining over his beloved’s absence. Pondering, my poor brain became crushed by patience, Though confused, my excited heart longed for sleep. Your absence beat the drum for the plunder of my heart’s city, The police of your love knocked at the abode of the brain. The image of your name made the heart into a place of worship, Till dawn my heart faced the mehrâb, intoning prayers. My eyes were twitching, promising: “You will see the beloved’s face!” But as it turned out there were only mercurial tears in my eyes. 204 Saʿdi (ed. Yusofi), pp. 243–44; Badâyeʿ, No. 538.

423

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

The expression of his pains uses images of violence in the beleaguered “city” of the lover’s heart. This is contrasted by the wonderful effects of the beloved’s appearance in a dream, turning the heart into a mosque and his “mercury” tears into precious pearls. By the heavens, my beginnings looked nice and sweet, Could I have guessed that this was honey with pure poison inside? Saʿdi has stumbled upon this harsh route across the ocean of love, Afore he at least had some footing in being patient. *** Farhâd-râ cho bar rox-e Shirin nazar fetâd Dud-ash ba sar bar âmad-o az pây dar fetâd Majnun ze-jâm-e talʿat-e Leyli cho mast shod Fâregh ze-mâdar-o pedar-o sim-o zar fetâd Râmin cho ekhtiyâr-e gham-e eshq-e Vis kard Yakbâregi jodâ ze-kolâh-o kamar fetâd Vâmeq cho kâr-ash az gham-e Adhrâ be jân rasid Kâr-ash modâm bâ gham-o âh-e sahar fetâd Z-in gune sad hazâr kas az pir-o az javân Mast az sharâb-e eshq cho man bi-khabar fetâd Besyâr kas shodand asir-e kamand-e mehr Tanhâ na az barây-e man in shur-o shar fetâd Ruzi be delbari nazari kard chashm-e man Z-ân yak nazar ma-râ do jahân az nazar fetâd Eshq âmad-o chonân be del-am dar zad âteshi K-az vey hazâr suz ma-râ dar jegar fetâd Bar man magir agar shodam âshoftedel ze-showq Mânand-e in basi ze-qazâ-o qadar fetâd Saʿ di ze-khalq chand nehân râz-e del koni Chun mâjarâ-ye eshq-e to yak-yak ba dar fetâd205 When Farhâd caught a glimpse of Shirin’s cheeks,206 The shock dazzled him and he fell from his feet. When Majnun was intoxicated by the cup of Leyli’s countenance, He did not care any longer for mother or father, silver, or gold.207

205 Saʿdi (ed. Yusofi), p. 281; Badâyeʿ, No. 630. 206 The tragic love of the sculptor Farhâd for Shirin is a secondary tale in Nezâmi’s romance Khosrow va Shirin.

424

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry As soon as Râmin had chosen the grief of his love for Vis,207 He abandoned his crown and his girdle at once.208 When the pain of his love of Azrâ became unbearable, The sighs of Vâmeq’s grief could be heard every morning.209 In the same way a hundred thousand persons, old and young, Were made drunk by the wine of desire like me, the unaware. So many people were caught in the lasso of love, All this tumult is not caused by me alone.210 One day my eye caught a glimpse of a ravishing sweetheart. That single glance stole my hopes for this world and the next. Love came and kindled such a fire in my heart That it caused a hundred burnings inside my liver. Do not blame me if my heart became confused by desire, As it was the inexorable fate of so many others. Saʿdi, why hide the secret of your heart from others? All that happened to you in love is now the talk of the town.

Saʿdi’s love is more than a personal matter; it is a universal phenomenon. He adduces the experiences of famous lovers as they are told in Persian literature, all well-known to his audience. They suffered just like all lovers do, the poet-lover himself not excepted. Not all Saʿdi’s ghazals are poems of love. Sometimes the didactical side of Saʿdi’s poetry takes over, as in this pious reflection of the transience of life: Besyâr sâlhâ be sar-e khâk-e mâ ravad K-in âb-e cheshme âyad-o bâd-e sabâ ravad In panj ruze mohlat-e ayyâm-e âdami Bar khâk-e digarân be takabbor cherâ ravad 207 The obsessed Arab poet Majnun and his beloved Leylâ are the eponyms of another mathnavi by Nezâmi; see on this romance A.-A. Seyed-Gohrab, Laylī and Majnūn (Leiden, 2003). 208 The hopeless love of the royal children Vis and Râmin is related in a mathnavi by Gorgâni (eleventh century); see the translation and introduction by D. Davis, Vis and Ramin (Washington, DC, 2008). 209 Vâmeq and Adhrâ are the heroes of a love story treated in a mathnavi by the Ghaznavid poet Onsori on the basis of a Greek novel; cf. T. Hägg and B. Utas, The Virgin and her Lover (Leiden, 2003). 210 I. e., I am not the only one in the world suffering from love-sickness.

425

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Ey dust bar janâze-ye doshman cho bogdhari Shâdi makon ke bar to hamin mâjarâ ravad Dâmankashân ke miravi emruz bar zamin Fardâ ghobâr-e kâlbod-at bar havâ ravad Khâk-at dar ostekhwân ravad ey nafs-e shukhchashm Mânand-e sormadân ke dar u tutiyâ ravad Donyâ harif-e sofle-o maʿshuq-e bi-vafâ-st Chun miravad har âyene bogdhâr tâ ravad In-ast hâl-e tan ke to didi be zir-e khâk Tâ jân-e nâzanin ke bar âyad kojâ ravad Bar sâyebân-e hosn-e amal eʿtemâd nist Saʿ di magar be sâye-ye lotf-e khodâ ravad [Yâ rabb magir bande-ye meskin-o dast gir K-az to karam bar âyad-o bar mâ khatâ ravad]211 How many a year will pass over our dust While water flows from the source, a gentle breeze blows? Only these five days of delay are allowed to man; Why spend them with disdain for the dust of others? My friend, when you pass by the bier of your enemy, Do not rejoice, because the same will happen to you. Today a man is strutting pompously, showing off his attire; Tomorrow the ashes of his body will blow away in the wind. Your bones will be filled with dust, oh soul, eying so impudently, Just like the box where you put the make-up for your eyes. Such is the condition of the body, that you see lying in the earth, Where will it be until the time when the tender soul arises?212 You cannot put your trust in the protection of good deeds. Only the shadow of God’s grace will be your shelter, Saʿdi. [My Lord, do not reprehend your poor slave, give a helping hand Because the mercy is all yours, ours are the sins.]

The First Followers of Saʿdi Homâm of Tabriz. A lively interest in Saʿdi’s works started already during his lifetime. This is not only evident from the early care for 211 Saʿdi (ed. Yusofi), p. 24; Tayyebât, No. 45; the final distich is not to be found in all manuscripts. 212 A reference to the return of the soul to the body at the Resurrection.

426

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

the conservation and proper arrangement of his works, but also from the impact that in particular Saʿdi’s ghazals made on poets who were more or less his contemporaries. Among those who imitated the models set by the great master were two original poets, to whom we should pay some attention here. Very similar to Saʿdi was Homâm of Tabriz (d. 1314), not only artistically but also in actual life. Homâm was active both as a courtier and as an official of the Mongol state, and as a Sufi sheikh. In the former capacity he enjoyed the protection of the Joveyni family, led by the influential vizier Shams-al-Din Mohammad (d. 1284), better known as the Sâheb-Divân, who was, during Saʿdi’s later years, a patron of his as well. As a mystical teacher Homâm headed a hostel for Sufis (zâviye) at Tabriz, financially supported by his secular protectors. An apocryphal anecdote, recorded for the first time by the fifteenth-century anthologist Dowlatshâh, recounts a row between Saʿdi and Homâm when, not knowing each other, they met in a public bath.213 More interesting is the fact that at least one ghazal can be found in early manuscripts of the works of both poets: Dar ân nafas ke bemiram dar ârzuy-e to bâšam Bed-ân ommid deham jân ke khâk-e kuy-e to bâsham Be-khwâbgâh-e adam gar hazâr sâl bekhosbam Ze-khwâb âqebat âgah be-buy-o ruy-e to bâsham Be-vaqt-e sobh-e qiyâmat ke sar ze-khâk bar âram Be ârzu-ye to khizam be jostojuy-e to bâsham Be-majmaʿ i ke dar âyand shâhedân-e do âlam Nazar ba-suy-e to dâram gholâm-e ruy-e to bâsham Hadith-e rowze naguyam gol-e behesht nabuyam Jamâl-e hur najuyam davân ba-suy-e to bâsham Mey-e behesht nanusham ze-jâm-o sâghar-ye Rezvân Ma-râ be-bâde che hâjat ke mast-e ruy-e to bâsham214 On the moment that I die I shall be longing for you, I shall give my life to be the dust on your footpath. 213 Cf. Browne, HPL III, pp. 152–53. 214 Homâm of Tabriz, Divân, ed. R. Eyvazi (Tehran, 1991), pp. 124–25, Ghazal No. 141; cf. Saʿdi, Divân-e ghazaliyyât, ed. K. Khatib-Rahbar (Tehran, 1987), II, pp. 593–94, where a final line with Saʿdi’s pen name is added. Three distichs from these poems were translated by Browne, HPL III, p. 153.

427

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA On the bed of non-being I may sleep for a thousand years, When I awaken in the end, I’ll be aware of your hair’s fragrance. At the dawn of the Resurrection, as I shall raise my head, I’ll rise desiring you and I’ll start looking for you. When Witnesses to Beauty from both worlds enter the Gathering,215 I shall look at you, I shall be the slave of your face. I shall not speak of the Meadow, I shall not smell the Rose, I shall not seek the splendor of the Huri’s, I’ll only run after you. I shall not taste the Wine of Paradise from the cup and the beaker of Rezvân, What do I care about wine when I shall be drunk with your fragrance?

Although this poem is full of eschatological motifs, its final interpretation remains ambiguous: the “you” addressed could be the Eternal Beloved, the expectation of whose meeting overshadows all other features of the bliss awaiting the loving believer in the afterlife; however, it could equally be concluded that the entire scene is a hyperbolical expression of intense earthly love. The two sides of Homâm’s intentions are clearly mirrored in the following ghazal describing the effect of a minstrel’s performance: Bâz ey motreb hadithi dar miyân andâkhti Fetne-i dar majles-e sâhebdelân andâkhti Râz-e mâ-râ fâsh kardi dar miyân-e khâss-o âm V-in hekâyat dar zabân-e in-o ân andâkhti Ârefân-râ bâ pariruyân kashidi dar samâʿ Bolbolân-e mast-râ dar golestân andâkhti Ey negâr-e sarvqâmat tâ be meydân âmadi Bâ to har âsheq ke âmad dar miyân andâkhti Fetne-râ bidâr kardi z-ân do chashm-e nimkhwâb Goftogu-ye eshqbâzi dar jahân andakhti Garche ensâni khodâ az nur-e pâk-at âferid Hamcho Isâ âlami-râ dar gomân andâkhti Tâ ke beshnidim buyi hâyohuyi mizadim Ruy benmudi-o mâ-râ az zabân andâkhti Eshq nagdhârad ke shabhâ dide-râ bar ham nehim Khwâb-e mâ-râ bar sar-e âb-e ravân andâkhti216 215 The place where the resurrected bodies will assemble for the Final Judgment. 216 Homâm (ed. Eyvazi), p. 144, Ghazal No. 180.

428

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry O minstrel, once more you began to speak in our midst, Creating an uproar in the company of sensible people. You disclosed our secret both to the elect and to the common, And you made this story into everyone’s talk. You took the mystics and the dainty ones to a musical session, You gave the drunken nightingales access to the garden of the rose. O my beautiful cypress! Since you appeared217 You took every lover with you into the open. Your drowsy eyes raised an uproar, All over the world there was talk about courting. Human though you are, God made you from pure light, Like Jesus you threw an entire universe into confusion. When I noticed these fragrances and uttered my cries, You revealed yourself and brought us to silence. Love does not let me close my eyes at night, It has thrown my sleep on the running water.

Amir Khosrow of Delhi. Outside Persia, both Saʿdi and Homâm found an early admirer in Abu’l-Hasan Yamin-al-Din Amir Khosrow of Delhi (1253–1325), the first major representative of Persian literature on the subcontinent. In his epic poem Noh Sepehr of 1318 he declared that, within the realm of the Persian poetry of his day, these two names occupy the first and the second places because of “their perfect handling of the ghazal.”218 Like Homâm, Khosrow was a servant at the courts of several Muslim Indian rulers, but also a distinguished mystic as a follower of the Sufi sheikh Mohammad Nezâm-al-Din Owliyâ (d. 1325) of the Chestiya Order. The size and variety of his literary works exceed even those of Saʿdi, whom he clearly imitated by collecting his own poems into five divans according to their chronology. In his case, however, each album contains poems in several lyrical forms. The ghazals of Khosrow as they occur in these divans were also assembled separately into collections of ghazaliyyât, of which a number of early manuscripts with varying contents have been preserved. In his ghazals the reflection of his mysticism could be expected. However, there is historical evidence to prove that many of these poems were composed 217 Literally: “Oh beauty with the stature of a cypress.” 218 Har do-râ dar ghazal â’in-e tamâm, cf. Safâ III/2, p. 786.

429

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

for an audience of courtiers. As the fourteenth-century historian Ziyâ’-al-Din Barani has recorded in his history of the reign of Jalâlal-Din Firuzshâh Khalji (1290–95), Khosrow “every day produced new ghazals in the Sultan’s majles and … received many presents (anʿ âm) from the Sultan, who was enamored (shifte) of his ghazals.”219 A full assessment of the works of this outstanding figure in the tradition of Indo-Persian literature must be left to another volume of this series. Only one sample from his ghazals can be cited here, because it perfectly demonstrates the specific qualities ascribed to them by the modern Indian critic Muhammad Wahid Mirza, such as simplicity, inner coherence, wealth of feeling, and subtlety of thought.220 It contains a superb picture of an aged lover, who still feels the inescapable attraction of an earthly infatuation at the moment when he is already preparing himself to leave this world. Tan pir gasht-o ârzu-ye del javân hanuz Del khun shod-o hadith-e botân bar zabân hanuz Omr-am be-âkher âmad-o ruz-am be-shab rasid Masti-o botparasti-ye man hamchenân hanuz Âhang karde suy-e berun jân-e gomrah-am Kâferdelân-e hosn darunsuy-e jân hanuz Sad gham rasid-o marg hanuz-am nami kashad Sad kaʿ b raft-o mohre-e mâ râyegân hanuz Âlam tamâm bar shâhedân fetne gasht Tork-e ma-râ khadang-e balâ dar kamân hanuz Bidâr mânde shab hame khalq az nafir-e man V-ân chashm-e nimmast be-khwâb gerân hanuz Har dam kereshmehâ-ye vey afzun v-ângahi Khosrow ze-band-e u be-omid-e amân hanuz221 The body has grown old, but the longing of the soul is still young; The heart is bleeding, but the tongue still speaks about adorable beauties. My life came to an end and my day reached the night; 219 As translated by C. A. Storey, PL I/1, p. 496. 220 M. W. Mirza, The Life and Works of Amir Khusrau (Calcutta, 1935), as quoted by Rypka, HIL, p. 258. 221 Amir Khosrow Dehlavi, Divân-e kâmel, ed. M. Darvish (2 nd pr., Tehran, 1983), Ghazal No. 1021.

430

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry Yet the intoxication and the idolizing of beauties are still the same. My lost soul is already destined for the way out; Yet the mischievous beauties are still inside the soul.222 A hundred sorrows came, but still Death does not take me away; A hundred dices have been thrown, but my dice is still free. The entire world is seduced by the witnesses of beauty, While my Turk holds the arrow of torture still in his bow. All people lie awake at night because of my clamor, But those half-drunk eyes are still fast asleep. Each moment his glances increase and yet Khosrow is hoping still for a pardon from his bondage.

7. The Age of Hâfez (Fourteenth Century) Politics and Persian Culture during the Fourteenth Century During the fourteenth century, the course of political events and the developments in the cultural life of Persia apparently followed diverging paths, in spite of the fact that they remained inextricably intertwined. In the middle of the century, there was a vacuum of central power between the collapse of the Mongol Il-Khanid empire (1336) and the rise of Timur Lang (Tamerlane, 1370–1405), another formidable nomad leader who for a brief period of time restored the imperial unity of Mongol rule. During the intervening decades the power was divided between regional dynasties deriving legitimacy from Mongol suzerainty, such as the Jalayerids of Baghdad, the Injus of Southern Persia—the latter being soon replaced by their rivals, the Mozaffarids—and the Karts of Herat. The century also witnessed the appearance of a new type of state based on religious movements, of which the Sarbadarids of Sabzevar, inspired by an amalgamation of Shiʿism and Sufism, provided the most striking example. It is remarkable that in spite of the atmosphere of unrest and insecurity that these political upheavals 222 Literally, “with the heart of an unbeliever.”

431

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

brought about, Persian culture continued to prosper and even to expand in a number of new directions. During the early decades of the century, at the Il-Khanid court at Tabriz, which by now had become fully Islamicized, the reputation of the Mongol period as a time of cultural flowering was established under the patronage of the vizier Rashid-al-Din Fazl-Allâh (d. 1318). Persian historiography, science, and, in the domain of the arts, miniature painting and architectural decoration flourished and received strong incentives to further development. In a number of cases, the models were created which have continued to dominate Persian culture ever since. Local centers of patronage, mainly Baghdad, Isfahan, and Shiraz, participated in this movement as long as the Mongol Il-Khanid empire was in existence, and afterwards kept the flame alive, not least by providing a refuge to scholars and artists who fled from the areas where the most violent events occurred. As regards the subject which concerns us in this chapter, the patronage of the lesser dynasties during the fourteenth century was important because it strengthened the status of the ghazal as a courtly poem by making it more and more important, not only as a vehicle for entertainment and secular moral education, but also as an alternative medium of panegyrics, which were much reduced in scope, and yet at the same time more subtle and elegant than the rather pompous qaside had been in the past. Simultaneously, Sufism, spectacularly growing already during the previous century, obtained an even greater grip on Persian Islam. The number of brotherhoods with their institutions for communal life (khâneqâhs) multiplied; qalandars and other dervishes became a common, if debased, feature of society. On a higher intellectual level, speculative thought in the line of the great Spanish sheikh Mohyial-Din Ebn-e Arabi (d. 1240) became an all-pervasive influence and created an increasing number of writings. In the preceding section we have sketched the emergence of a distinct tradition of mystical poetry during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries from Sanâ’i through Attâr and Rumi to Erâqi. The ghazal played a major role in this development, but this also posed the problem of determining the proper intentions of those poets whose names have been claimed both by proponents of a secular and by advocates of a 432

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

mystical interpretation. If this question needs to be taken into serious consideration already in the discussion of Saʿdi’s ghazals, this is even more so when we examine the more intricate case of Hâfez, the poet who not only dominated the literature of the fourteenth century, but also overshadowed the further history of the Persian ghazal in particular.

Hâfez of Shiraz The almost complete absence of reliable facts about the life of Hâfez is deplorable in particular because it has robbed us of a yardstick to put the interpretation of his poetry on a solid basis of history. The anecdotes that the traditional sources have preserved—e. g., the anthologist Dowlatshâh and the historian Khwândamir, both writing around 1500—provide some interest as documents for the reception of his ghazals. However, they hardly contain any sound biographical material. Sometimes it is evident that elements derived from his poetry have been taken literally, and were elaborated in fictional stories about incidents in the poet’s life. His real name was Shams-al-Din Mohammad, to which often the honorific Khwâje, “Master/Sir,” is prefixed. Hâfez, the name under which he is generally known, is the nom de plume he used in his ghazals. Literally meaning “the one who knows by heart,” it is commonly held to be a reference to his knowledge of the Qor’an, or sometimes as an indication that he was a professional reciter of the Sacred Book, although this cannot be substantiated. A secular explanation of the pen name Hâfez was proposed by Homâ Nâteq, who has pointed to its medieval occurrence as a “fairly common soubriquet for a professional musician.”223 The date of his birth is unknown. It has been guessed that he was born at Shiraz about 1315, but later dates up to 1325 have also been suggested. The most likely dating for his death is 1390, also at Shiraz, where his tomb in a garden called the Hâfeziyye is still 223 Cited by D. Davis in his Introduction to Faces of Love. Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz (New York, 2012), p. xxxvii.

433

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

venerated as one of greatest literary shrines of Persia. His family background is sketched in the later biographical sources, but the only trustworthy pieces of information are a few poems mourning the death of a child.224 Only one biographical notice can reliably go back to his life time: the introduction to an early collection of Hâfez’s poetry by a friend who calls himself Mohammad Golandâm. The authenticity of this document has been challenged, but seems to be confirmed by recent findings. According to Golandâm, Hâfez was fully occupied, on the one hand by his duties at the court, on the other hand by studying and teaching the traditional Islamic sciences, including the interpretation of the Qor’an and Arabic grammar and literature. He could not free himself to take care of his own poems and collect them properly.225 Both his contacts with the rulers of Shiraz and with contemporary Islamic scholars of his day are confirmed by references in his poems. However, his relationship to the Sufis in his home town is unclear. There is no evidence that he was ever initiated in a Sufi brotherhood. Shiraz plays a conspicuous role in the poems of Hâfez, such as in these famous lines in praise of the city’s pleasure grounds: Bedeh sâqi mey-e bâqi ke dar jannat nakhwâhi yâft Kenâr-e âb-e Roknâbâd-o golgasht-e Mosallâ-râ Bring, Cup-bearer, all that is left of thy wine! In the Garden of Paradise vainly thou’lt seek The lip of the fountain of Ruknabad, And the bowers of Mosalla where roses twine.226

Already during his lifetime, Hâfez became a celebrity far beyond the boundaries of his native Shiraz. He appears to have shunned many invitations by foreign princes and would-be patrons. The 224 Cf. B. Khorramshahi, EIr, s. v. Hafez ii. Hafez’s Life and Times, p. 466 a with further references. 225 The text of Golandâm was translated by Browne, LHP III, p. 72, and published in the Divân-e Hâfez, eds. M. Qazvini and Q. Ghani (Tehran, 1980), pp. ṣâd/bâ–qâf/yâ; see further the edition by P. N. Khânlari, II, pp. 1145–47 and the contribution of Khorramshahi and the editors, EIr, s. v. Hafez ii. Hafez’s Life and Times. 226 G. Bell, tr., The Hafez Poems of Gertude Bell (Bethesda, Maryl., 1975), p. 71.

434

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

only journey he certainly made—probably involuntarily—was to the city of Yazd, which he did not like very much. The scarcity of reliable biographical information has turned the attention of many modern scholars to the historical context of his life, attempting to clarify certain statements in his ghazals, either overt or oblique, by the light of the contemporary circumstances, which in Shiraz were very unstable, politically as well as socially. In Hâfez’s younger years the city was the residence of the Injus, by origin a family of Mongol officials to whom the administration of the southern provinces was entrusted by the Il-Khans. The last of this dynasty, Abu-Eshâq (1343–53), was the first ruler who patronized Hâfez. When in 1353 another dynasty, the Mozaffarids, seized power in Shiraz, he transferred his allegiance to the new rulers. However, under Mobârez-al-Din Mohammad b. Mozaffar (1318– 63) the liberal and relaxed atmosphere of the reign of Abu-Eshâq changed completely. The harsh and cruel amir turned out to be also a religious fanatic who enforced the full application of Muslim law and a strict control of public morality. This involved the closing down of the taverns and the persecution of wine drinkers. His son and successor was a quite different personality. Jalâl-al-Din Abu’l-Favâres Shâh Shojâʿ (r. 1358–84; between 1364–66 his reign was interrupted when he was deposed by his brother Shâh Mahmud) put an end to the austerity of Mobârez-al-Din’s government and restored the artistic freedoms of the past. Shâh Shojâʿ was by far the most important patron of Hâfez. The poet was then at the height of his productivity, and most of the personal references in the ghazals concern people who were attached to Shâh Shojâʿ. The latter has been compared to a Renaissance prince because he combined the ruthlessness of an autocratic ruler with a keen interest in cultural matters, including Hâfez’s poetry, and was moreover himself an amateur poet.227 227 A fundamental study of the context of Hâfez’s life is the unfinished work by Q. Ghani, Bahth dar âthâr va afkâr va ahvâl-e Hâfez, in two volumes, which provided the basis for Roger Lescot’s “Essay d’une chronologie de l’œuvre de Hafiz,” Bulletin d’études orientales. Institut français de Damas 10 (1944), pp. 57–100.

435

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Recent researchers have scrutinized Hâfez’s poems to find clues for filling the biographical gap. The direction in which this internal evidence is interpreted has had important consequences for the answers given to the main problems presented by Hâfez’s ghazals. Although this line of study has certainly helped to clarify many features of his life and work, it is not without certain problems. The most specific difficulty is of a general hermeneutical nature. References found in poetic sources can only be properly used if it is taken into account that these materials are essentially literary and were never intended as statements of fact. The search for references that can be used in a reconstruction of the poet’s actual life is often based on preconceptions about the meaning of his poems, and it is therefore very difficult to avoid circular reasoning. Moreover, the few traits in our image of Hâfez that we can regard as more or less certain are not very helpful in reconciling the most fundamental contradictions. Hâfez’s divan contains abundant references, either openly or covert, to the rulers of Shiraz and their courtiers. On the other hand, the most reliable external document that we have makes it clear that he was not merely a poet of the court, but also a man who spent much of his time on religious studies. Before entering upon a further discussion of the various, often widely diverging opinions on how to interpret Hâfez’s poetry, we should first briefly survey the scope of his literary output. Like no one before him, Hâfez was foremost a poet of the ghazal. His other poems include a small number of qasides addressed to his patrons, and occasional poems in the form of moqattaʿ ât; both types of poems are mainly of interest as biographical documents. Of greater importance from a literary point of view are the few short pieces in mathnavi, notably the famous Sâqi-nâme (Book of the Cupbearer) and the Moghanni-nâme (Book of the Singer), which are more of a lyrical than of an epic nature. The quatrains, only to be found in a limited number of the older manuscripts, are usually considered to be of little poetic value or even of questionable authenticity.228 There can be no doubt that at the center of Hâfez’s poetical art stands his collection of ghazals. The earliest manuscripts still 228 See Khânlari, Divân-e Hâfez, II, pp. 1089–115.

436

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

extant date from the first decades of the fifteenth century. They show a confused picture of the transmission of the ghazals shortly after the poet’s death. The number of the poems differs from manuscript to manuscript. Some of these early copies are merely selections, written in the margins of other literary works or incorporated in miscellany volumes. How and by whom the independent collection that we now know as the Divân-e Hâfez was made remains unclear. The claim of the editor Mohammad Golandâm that he shouldered the task of assembling the scattered works of his teacher, who lacked the time and leisure to do this by himself, seems to be credible, but the actual contents of this collection is unknown. Most likely, collections of varying contents became current even during the poet’s lifetime, either prepared by the poet himself or by others. After a century, in 1501, it was felt necessary at the court of Herat to prepare a comprehensive redaction from the disparate volumes that were in circulation, incorporating also poems that had remained outside the main tradition of the divan as it was known at the time. Possibly a number of spurious poems were inserted into the corpus of his poetry at that occasion.229 The sixteenth-century recension of the Turkish commentary by Sudi (d. ca. 1598) has for a long time been authoritative to students of Hâfez; it provided the basic text of the divan as it was known to the West in the nineteenth century, e. g., in the first full translation, into German, by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall—providing the inspiration of Goethe’s West-östlicher Divan—and the foundation of Hermann Brockhaus’s edition in three volumes (Leipzig, 1854– 60), which is partly accompanied by Sudi’s commentary. Throughout the twentieth century, the search for early manuscripts and the improvement of the text of the divan have been important concerns of modern philologists in Persia, among whom are several of the finest literary scholars of the past century. A milestone on the road towards a more authentic text of Hâfez was the edition prepared by Mohammad Qazvini and Qâsem Ghani (Tehran, 1941), reproducing essentially a manuscript dated 827 Q / 1424 ce from the private 229 Cf. Khânlari’s survey of his sources, Divân-e Hâfez, II, pp. 1127–37; J. S.  Meisami, EIr, s. v. Hâfez v. Manuscripts of Hâfez.

437

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

library of Seyyed Abd-al-Rahim Khalkhâli.230 Several other editions have appeared in the second half of the past century. All these efforts culminated in the text published by Parviz Nâtel Khânlari, which, especially in its second, improved edition (Tehran, 1983), is generally accepted as a standard. Through a rigid recension of the manuscripts, quite a number of poems that were subsequently added to the divan were eliminated. In the best editions, which include the edition brought out by the modern poet Sâye (Hushang Ebtehâj) in 1993, the total number of the ghazals accepted as genuine works of Hâfez is less than 500.231 The question whether or not a significant loss of ghazals had occurred already during Hâfez’s life was raised by another modern Persian poet, Ahmad Shâmlu, who ventured upon an idiosyncratic and largely speculative edition of the divan (first published in Tehran, 1975, and repeatedly reprinted). He took his clue from an anecdote, recorded for the first time in the fifteenth century, which relates that the womenfolk of the poet burned his most subversive poems when the police of Shiraz invaded his house. Shâmlu gave credit to the story because it confirmed his preconceptions about the role of Hâfez as a revolutionary critic of his social environment. A more convincing argument behind his experimental text was the observation that, in spite of all modern textual criticism, the order of the lines in several poems still shows a great variety, which the collation of the recent editions has not been able to eliminate. Shâmlu’s unfounded proposals for the rearrangement of the texts do not have any scholarly value, but the fact that so many differences in the order of the lines in these ghazals existed already at a very early stage still awaits a satisfactory explanation.232 Far-fetched as these ideas might be, Shâmlu was not the only critic to stress Hâfez’s role as a social critic. Earlier in the twentieth century, the political implications of Hâfez’s ghazals had been 230 An edition based solely on this manuscript appeared already in 1927. 231 The number of ghazals respectively: 495 in Qazvini and Ghani’s text, 486 in Khânlari’s second edition, and 484 in Sâye’s edition. 232 The problem of the variations in the divan is discussed by Khorramshâhi and the editors in EIr, s. v. Hafez vi. Printed Editions of the Divān of Hafez; see also S. Neysari, Moqaddeme-i bar tadvin-e ghazalhâ-ye Hâfez (Tehran, 1988).

438

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

affirmed already by Mohammad-Taqi Bahâr (1880–1951), the noted poet and political figure who had been particularly active in Persian politics during the years of the Constitutional Revolution.233 Apart from providing an exemplar of a rebellious poet, Hâfez has also gained the status of a national icon in modern times, whose poetry is regarded as embodying the most genuine expression of the Persian identity. As a Persian literary critic put it, understanding Hâfez equals “understanding ourselves.”234 This view gained strength during the period of fervent modern nationalism of the Pahlavi period, but it has survived subsequent political changes during the last three decades.235 The extraordinary popularity of Hâfez in modern times continues along with the folkloristic tradition of fâlgiri (prognostication), in which the divan is handled almost as a sacred book.236 Perhaps this is also related to the idea that Hâfez’s poetry transmits some kind of esoteric knowledge, expressed by the honorific “Tongue of the Unseen” (Lesân-al-gheyb), applied respectively to the poet or to his poetry. In discussions concerning the social context of Hâfez’s poems, an important role is given to the type of the rend, as he usually calls the debauchee with whom he frequently identifies himself.237 All over the divan there are references to the life of debauchees loitering in the taverns (meykhâne, also called the kharâbât, the “ruins”), where an antinomian cult is celebrated under the guidance of an alternative spiritual leader, the “magians’ guide” (pir-e moghân) or the “wine-selling mentor” (pir-e meyforush). Wine drinking is the central motif in their scandalous behavior, coupled with gambling and all the other vices that shock the pious feelings of the bien pensant. The corollary of this is the fierce ridicule of all those who represent the religious establishment, be it the orthodox scholars, 233 Rypka, HIL, p. 267, referring to M.-T. Bahâr, Armaghân 17 (1936), pp. 181– 88, 254–62. 234 A. M. Haqqshenâs, “Hâfez-shenâsi: khod-shenâsi,” Nashr-e Dânesh 3/4 (1983), pp. 26–36. 235 Cf. A. Ferdowsi, “The ‘Emblem of the Manifestation of the Iranian Spirit’: Hafiz and the Rise of the National Cult of Persian Poetry,” Iranian Studies 41 (2008), pp. 667–91. 236 Cf. I. Afshar, EIr, s. v. Fāl-nāma. 237 See in particular F. Lewis, EIr, s. v. Hâfez viii. Hafez and Rendi.

439

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

jurists, and preachers, or the Sufis with their ecstatic utterances (tâmât) and the ascetics practicing abstention (zohd) in their hermitage (sowmeʿe). A favorite target is the “inspector of morals” (mohtaseb), whose duty, termed hesbe in Islamic law, was to police the observance of religious prescriptions in public life. The debauchees were forced to hide their sins behind a hypocritical show of piety. It is obvious that this rendi is the same qalandariye that has been described earlier in this chapter as a strain of the ghazal tradition that can be traced back to Sanâ’i at the beginning of the twelfth century. Hâfez makes this clear when he celebrates the “drunken debauchees” (rendân-e qalandar): Bar dar-e meykade rendân-e qalandar bâshand Ke setânand-o dehand afsar-e shâhenshâhi Khesht zir-e sar-o bar târak-e haft akhtar pây Dast-e qodrat negar-o mansab-e sâhebjâhi238 At the gate of the tavern are the drunken debauchees, Who take and give the crown of kingship. They rest their heads on tiles, their feet above the seven stars. Look at this power, at this honorable state!

As we have seen, the introduction of these motifs into the imagery of Persian ghazals was influenced by the Sufi “doctrine of blame” (malâmatiye), which found a practical application in the life style of the qalandari dervishes, who are historically known as a phenomenon of Muslim society since the thirteenth century. The frequent use by Hâfez of this complex of motifs has given rise to different explanations, which touch the essential question of the significance of his ghazals. Was he merely following a literary tradition into which the motifs and images of debauchery had become integrated already centuries earlier as a forceful allegory for the total devotion of a lover to a beloved who might be an earthly or a supernatural being? Or did he exploit the genre of taghazzol, emphasizing in particular the denunciation of the hypocrisy of religious scholars, Sufis, and ascetics to create a provocative kind of poetry protesting against the political and religious restraints put upon him by 238 Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), No. 479,3–4.

440

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

contemporary society in Shiraz? The question is complicated by other characteristics of Hâfez’s poetry. In spite of his alleged rebelliousness against the powers that be, it is clear that from time to time Hâfez appears to be on good terms with both the court of Shiraz and the local representatives of the Islamic clergy. There can be no doubt that he was well versed in the Qor’an and fully familiar with the idioms and the ideas of the Sufis, notwithstanding his biting criticism of their false show of piety. It might be argued that such a cultural background would be normal in the poems of a Muslim with a traditional religious education, who moreover lived in an environment where ideas tinged with Sufism had become a part of the general culture. It should be taken into consideration that the literary tradition of antinomian utterances in which Hâfez participated had been followed before him by poets like Sanâ’i, Attâr, and Erâqi, who without any possible doubt had used this tradition to express mystical ideas.239 The controversy over the ambiguity of Hâfez’s ghazals is as old as the poems themselves. Already Shâh Shojâʿ, the cultured patron of the poet, is on record as objecting to his talking about many different and conflicting subjects within the compass of a single ghazal: On one occasion the Prince criticized Hâfez’s verse on the ground of its many-sided aspects: no one motive, he complained, inspired it; it was at one moment mystical, at another erotic and bacchanalian; now serious and spiritual, and again flippant and worldly, or worse.240

His display of erotic, antinomian, and “bacchanal” motifs mingled with mystical and gnostic notions and terms in many ghazals apparently baffled his contemporaries as much as it does the modern interpreter, and must have been perceived as baffling from the very beginning. Quite early, a purely mystical reading gained the upper hand, which translated every statement of the poet—be it the 239 See in particular the comparisons made between the qalandari theme in the ghazals of Sanâʾi, Attâr, and Hâfez in Ritter’s essay, “Philologika XV. Farīddīn ‘Attār 7. Der Dīwān,” pp. 1–88. 240 Paraphrased by Browne, HPL III, p. 281, from Khwândamir’s chronicle Habib al-siar (1524).

441

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

invitation to drink and become drunk, to enjoy the pleasures of nature in springtime and of love, and to celebrate the subversive cult of the rendi, or the fierce denouncement of pious hypocrisy—as items of a rigid allegorical code for mystical concepts. Already in the late fifteenth century, the Shirazi philosopher Jalâl-al-Din Davâni (d. 1501) wrote two short essays on lines from poems by Hâfez expounding tenets of the great mystic Ebn-alArabi (1165–1240), whose monistic theosophy had in the time of Hâfez already become widely known in Persia.241 The most extensive commentary, giving an uncompromisingly mystical exegesis of the ghazals, is the four-volume work ascribed to an Indian author of the seventeenth century, by the name of Seyf-al-Din Abu’lHasan Abd-al-Rahmân Khatmi of Lahore.242 However, the Turkish commentators of the sixteenth century, such as Sudi, Shem’i, and Soruri, restricted themselves almost entirely to the linguistic and literary explanation of the ghazals. Sufi poets like Maghrebi (d. 1406), Shâh Neʿmat-Allâh (d. 1431), and Qâsem-e Anvâr (d. 1433), wrote ghazals that sometimes are really encrypted utterances about mystical concepts, using many of the same images and motifs that one finds in the poems of Hâfez. This allegorical language could lend itself easily to a codification and could be listed in a catalogue fashion. The most famous example of this treatment of ghazal imagery is the Golshan-e râz (“The Rose Garden of Mystery”), a didactic mathnavi by Mahmud Shabestari, written in 1317; this short poem had a great influence and was explained in many commentaries. Two recent translators of the divan in the West, Peter Avery and Charles-Henri de Fouchécour, have pointed to the Golshan-e râz as a likely source for Hâfez’s use of mystical allegory. An extreme example of a mystical reading of Hâfez by a Western scholar of the late eighteenth century is the translation made by H. Wilberforce Clarke.243 From the fourteenth century onwards, short listings were made of the 241 Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), Ghazals 179 and 481; cf. Reza Purjavâdi, “Ketâbshenâsi-ye âthâr-e Jalâl al-Din Davâni,” Maʿ âref 15/1–2 (1998), pp. 81–138, at pp. 93–94. 242 Published in four volumes as Sharh-e erfâni-ye ghazalhâ-ye Hâfez. 243 H. Wilberforce Clarke, The Dīvān-i-Hāfiz (2 vols., Calcutta, 1891).

442

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

so-called estelâhât, the “terms,” as they were supposed to be used by poets as allegories for abstract mystical concepts. One of these treatises was attributed to the poet Fakhr-al-Din Erâqi, probably without justice. Similar texts have been published by E. E. Bertel’s and Nasr-Allâh Purjavâdi.244 However, it is certainly a misrepresentation to try to fit Hâfez into such a narrow hermeneutical framework. This amounts to denying him his high status as a great poet and to robbing his symbolism of all its vitality. A different opinion was expressed by Gilbert Lazard, who proposed to approach Hâfez’s ghazals first of all as a superior kind of “occasional poetry” (poésie de circonstance). Apart from the few instances where there are explicit or easily decipherable references to specific persons, as a rule no clues pointing to the original occasion for the ghazal are available. However, very often it can be imagined that the poet addresses patrons of his art or other people to whom he used to present his poems when “he expresses his loyalty or even his affection, stating how happy he is with the benevolent attention of a patron and how grateful for the gifts he received; at times also feeling neglected, hoping for renewed favors, or looking forward to a message.”245 Hâfez does not speak about all this in straightforward language but rather in the symbolic speech of love poetry, which he had inherited from a long line of predecessors. Unlike the question concerning the essence of Hâfez’s poetry, which has given rise to such diverging answers, the verdict on his merits as a poet has been unanimous, both in the East and in the West. There exists a consensus that his ghazals are to be put on the highest level of literary art, a place they share with the sonnets of Petrarch and Shakespeare in the Western tradition. The greatness of Hâfez goes far beyond his amazing juggling with conventional motifs, themes, and ideas of the ghazal, and the allusive manner in which he reacted and commented to personal and social 244 See respectively Kolliyât-e Erâqi, ed. S. Nafisi (Tehran, 1959), pp. 410–27; E. E. Bertel’s, Sufizm i sufijskaja literaruta (Moscow, 1965), pp. 126–28; Nasr-Allâh Purjavâdi, “Resâle-i dar estelehât-e erfâni,” Maʿ âref 2/3 (1986), pp. 3–17. 245 G. Lazard, tr., Hâfez de Chiraz. Cent un ghazals amoureux (Paris, 2010), pp. 24–25; my English translation.

443

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

circumstances, but lies no less in his superb handling of the Persian language and the rules and idioms of Persian love poetry. The Czech historian of Persian literature, Jan Rypka, has succinctly, but quite aptly, described these remarkable characteristics: His thoughts are aphoristically concentrated, elegantly pointed, his style fittingly embellished with tropes and figures, often—though not always—simple and natural, in fact a song containing numerous idioms taken from colloquial language, always however with charm and a personal touch that reflects the poet’s inner life and his relation to the world at large.246

In the late eighteenth century, the very first European translators of Hâfez, such as Count C. A. de Reviczky and Sir William Jones, were already struck by the apparent lack of a coherent structure in many of Hâfez’s poems, which seemed hard to reconcile with classical Western ideas about poetic composition. A. J. Arberry has labeled this problem appropriately by the phrase “Orient Pearls at Random Strung.” This is actually a quotation from the final lines of Sir William Jones’ translation of one of Hâfez’s most celebrated ghazals. Go boldly forth, my simple lay, Whose accents flow with artless ease, Like orient pearls at random strung: Thy notes are sweet, the damsels say; But O! Far sweeter, if they please The nymph for whom these notes are sung.247

The eighteenth-century English poet freely elaborates Hâfez’s own conclusion to a ghazal that is remarkable for the extreme variety of its themes. He speaks in this line of “piercing the pearl,” which is a double entendre meaning “making a perfect poem,” but also alludes to the metaphor of a necklace of separate pearls often applied for a line of verse.248 246 Rypka, HIL, p. 269. 247 Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), Ghazal No. 3. This translation was first published in W. Jones, Grammar of the Persian Language (London, 1771). The full text is reprinted in Arberry, Fifty Poems of Ḥāfiẓ, pp. 85–86. 248 See above for the text and translation of Hâfez’s line.

444

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

In Arberry’s view, the thing that induced Hâfez to search for new ways in the writing of ghazals was the inimitable success of his predecessor Saʿdi, who had reached the highest point in elaborating the ghazal: (T)he miraculous facility of Saʿdī’s style might well have rendered further development impossible. The problem Hāfiz faced was similar in its own way to that which confronted Beethoven—how to improve upon the apparently perfect and final.249

On this consideration Arberry built a theory of Hâfez’s development as a poet of the ghazal, claiming that it might be used to establish a chronology in the corpus of his ghazals. Starting from writing in a style which was still very close to that of Saʿdi, Hâfez tried to renew the form by applying a “fundamentally thematic technique.” He constructed his ghazals as a combination of principal and subsidiary themes, the latter varying according to the extent of their development, which often was only fragmentary. Only the final theme, containing the poet’s signature, had a fixed place in the overall structure as a “clasp” theme, a term borrowed from the metaphor of the poem as a necklace of individual pearls.250 In the sixties and seventies of the last century, many attempts were made by other scholars in the West to tackle this tantalizing problem, the most elaborate among them being a monograph by Michael C. Hillmann.251 A further step in this line of research was taken by Julie Scott Meisami in her comparative study of the semantic aspects of structure in Arabic and Persian poetry.252 The secondary literature about Hâfez is very extensive, in particular if we compare it to the paucity of studies devoted to most other Persian poets. It is not possible to deal with it here in a manner that would do justice to the variety of points of view expressed. We must restrict ourselves therefore to a few references. A useful 249 Arberry, Fifty Poems of Ḥāfiẓ, pp. 28–29. 250 Arberry’s ideas were set forth in several of his writings, but most fully in “Orient Pearls at Random Strung,” BSOAS 11 (1943–46), pp. 699–712. 251 M. C. Hillman, Unity in the Ghazals of Hafez (Minneapolis and Chicago, 1976). 252 J. S. Meisami, Structure and Meaning in Medieval Arabic and Persian Poetry: Orient Pearls (London, 2003).

445

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

survey of the major questions as they were debated in the first half of the twentieth century, especially by Western scholars, was published in a German article by Hans Robert Roemer, “Probleme der Hafizforschung und der Stand ihrer Lösung” (“Problems of the Research on Hafiz and the State of their Solution,”) in which the light thrown by the studies of Qâsem Ghani and Roger Lescot on the relationship between the divan and the historical context of Hâfez’s life was reflected.253 Roemer’s review was continued and brought up to date by Jan Rypka.254 In addition to her recent contribution to the debate on the coherence of Hâfez’s poems, Julie Scott Meisami gave him a prominent place in an earlier monograph, Medieval Persian Court Poetry (Princeton, 1986), in which the function of the ghazal as a medium for propagating the ethics of court life is investigated. She also wrote several articles focusing on, e. g., the use of allegorical techniques by Hâfez and their application to his representation of nature, and the personae figuring in his poems.255 J. Christoph Bürgel wrote essays and German translations on Hâfez and with Michael Glünz, edited Intoxication: Earthly and Heavenly (Bern, 1991), a volume of seven studies on Hâfez.256 Noteworthy are also the contributions by Annemarie Schimmel to a number of collective works.257 A remarkable event was the publication by Daniela Meneghini Correale of The Ghazals of Hafez. Concordance and Vocabulary (Rome, 1988) prepared by computer on the basis of Khânlari’s critical edition, and emphasizing especially the statistics of the vocabulary of his divan.258 In 2003, a comprehensive collec253 H. R. Roemer, “Probleme der Hafizforschung und der Stand ihrer Lösung,” in Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur. Abhandlungen der Klasse der Literatur (Mainz, 1951), pp. 97–115. 254 Rypka, HIL, pp. 263–71. 255 For a recent bibliography of Meisami’s publications, see her Structure and Meaning, pp. 493–95. 256 The volume contains contributions by E. Glassen, C.-C. Kappler, J. S. Meisami, D. M. Correale, T. Widmer, and the editors. 257 See, e. g., A. Schimmel, “Hāfiẓ and his Contemporaries,” CHIr VI (1986), pp. 929–47. 258 See also her contribution, EIr, s. v. Hâfez iv. Lexical Structure of Hâfez’s Ghazals.

446

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

tive article on Hâfez, covering the present state of Hâfez studies from various angles, was published in the Encyclopaedia Iranica.259 Recently, new translations of the complete divan were published: in Italian, by Stafono Pellò and Gianroberto Scarcia (Milan, 2005); in French, by Charles-Henri de Fouchécour (Lagrasse, 2006); and in English, by Peter Avery (Cambridge, 2007). Recently, selections from Hâfez’s ghazals with noteworthy introductions have been published by Gilbert Lazard (2010) and Dick Davis (2012), as mentioned earlier. From the continuous stream of publications in Persia, only a few works can be mentioned here. A very erudite study of some quintessential motifs in Hâfez’s poetry—including items from the Sufi tradition, the famous image of the Jâm-e Jam (Cup of Jamshid), and the theme of rendi—which were placed within a wide literary context, is Manuchehr Mortazavi’s Maktab-e Hâfez yâ ­moqaddame bar Hâfez-shenâsi (The School of Hâfez, or An Introduction to the Study of Hâfez) (Tehran, 1965). Intended for a broader readership are Ali Dashti’s Naqshi az Hâfez (A Picture of Hâfez) (Tehran, 1957, several times reprinted), a volume in his series of essays on the great classical poets, and Abd-al-Hoseyn Zarrinkub’s Az kuche-ye rendân. Dar bâre-ye zendegi va andishe-ye Hâfez (From the Street of the Debauchees. On the Life and Thought of Hâfez) (Tehran, 1970), a romanticized biography, extrapolating literary motifs from his poetry into an outline of his thought as it was supposed to have developed in the course of his life. More recently, Bahâ-alDin Khorramshâhi made several contributions to the criticism of Hâfez’s poetry. His Hâfez-nâme (2 vols., Tehran, 1997) contains a detailed commentary on 250 ghazals—more than half of the contents of the divan. Several of his essays were collected in Dhehn va zabân–e Hâfez (The Mind and the Language of Hâfez) (5 th enlarged edition, Tehran, 1995). Khorramshâhi examines a number of key issues, e. g., the influence of the Qor’an on Hâfez’s style, the problem of his “sinful life,” the difficulty to judge the poet’s 259 EIr, s. v. Hâfez; the contributors to this article are: E. Yarshater, B. Khorramshahi, J. T. P. de Bruijn, D. M. Correale, J. S. Meisami, F. Lewis, P. Loloi, H. Tafazzoli, P. Soucek, and K. K. Sarvestâni.

447

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

religious convictions, and his use of amphibology (ihâm). Hâshem Jâvid examined the manifold echoes from the Qor’an, the influences from Nezâmi’s Khamse, and a number of the notorious difficulties in the interpretation of the ghazals, in his volume Hâfez-e jâvid (The Eternal Hâfez) (Tehran, 1996).

Some Samples of Hâfez’s Ghazals Within the limits of the present survey, the best way to introduce Hâfez as a poet of the ghazal is to demonstrate his art in a few translated samples, accompanied by brief notes which suggest possibilities of an interpretation. Sabâ be-lotf begu ân ghazâl-e raʿnâ-râ Ke sar be kuh-o biyâbân to dâde-i mâ-râ Shakarforush ke omr-ash derâz bâd cherâ Tafaqqodi nakonad tuti-ye shakarkhâ-râ Ghorur-e hosn ejâzat magar nadâd ey gol Ke porseshi bekoni andalib-e sheydâ-râ Be kholq-o lotf tavân kard seyd-e ahl-e nazar Be band-o dâm negirand morgh-e dânâ-râ Cho bâ habib neshini-o bâde peymâ’i Be yâd dâr mohibbân-e bâd-peymâ-râ Nadânam az che sabab rang-e âshnâ’i nist Sahiqadân-e siyahchashm-e mâh-simâ-râ Joz in qadar natavân goft dar jamâl-e to eyb Ke vazʿ-e mehr-o vafâ nist ruy-e zibâ-râ Dar âsmân na ajab gar be gofte-ye Hâfez Samâʿ-e Zohre be raqs âvarad Masihâ-râ260 O Zephyr, convey graciously to that frivolous Gazelle: “It was you who drove us to the mountains and the desert. Has the Seller of sugar (may he live long!) No need for the Parrot who chews lumps of sugar? Did not your loveliness allow you, my Rose, To inquire one time about your lovesick Nightingale? By being kind and gracious you may hunt wise people, 260 Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), Ghazal No. 4.

448

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry A clever bird cannot be caught with a rope and a trap. While you sit with your loved one sipping wine, Do remember your lovers who taste nothing but wind. I wonder why they do not have a touch of intimacy, These tall cypress trees with their black eyes and moon faces. Only one thing can be said against your beauty: One should not look for faithfulness in a pretty face!” Does it surprise you that in heaven the music of Venus Invites the Messiah to dance to the lyrics of Hâfez?

The structure of this ghazal, indicated here by quotation marks—a feature missing in the orthography of the original, of course—is clear: the poet entrusts a letter to the wind, by convention acting as a messenger in Persian poems. Most probably all lines should be read as the text of this message, with the exception of the introductory first half-verse and the final distich, which stands on its own insofar as it contains the “clasp theme” of the ghazal, in this case, a statement of professional pride. It is also not difficult to imagine for what occasion the poem might have been written. Apparently a friend of the poet has left him and is elsewhere enjoying himself with others. The letter is meant as a reminder of their former intimacy. As soon as this pattern is recognized, the coherence of the seemingly heterogeneous imagery also becomes obvious. The principal personae of love poetry—the poet/lover and his beloved— are alternatively represented by a seller of sugar, a wildly singing nightingale, a parrot, and a “clever bird” on the one hand, and a shy gazelle, a splendid rose, and a hunter on the other. Elements properly belonging to a love song are the description of the beloved’s beauty and the complaint about unfaithfulness in love. The exempla appearing in the clasp theme are: Venus (Zohre), by whom in an Islamic context not the goddess of love is meant, but rather the harp-playing planet personifying the art of music; and Masih, the Messiah (i. e., Isâ or Jesus), who in Islam is associated with bringing to life again—a miraculous power that Hâfez also claims for his own poem. In view of all these features taken together, the poem reveals itself as a perfect example of a charming courtly poem. Agarche bâde farahbakhsh-o bâd golbiz-ast Be bâng-e chang makhor mey ke mohtaseb niz-ast

449

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Sorâhiyi-o harifi gar-at be chang oftad Be aql nush ke ayyâm fetneangiz-ast Dar âstin-e moraqqaʿ peyâle penhân kon Ke hamcho chashm-e sorâhi zamâne khunriz-ast Ze-rang-e bâde beshu’im kherqehâ dar ashk Ke mowsem-e varaʿ-o ruzgâr-e parhiz-ast Sepehr-e bar shode Parviz nist khunafshân Ke rize-ash sar-e Kesrâ-o tâj-e Parviz-ast Majuy eysh-e khosh az dowr-e vâzhgun-e sepehr Ke sâf-e in sar-e khom jomle dordiâmiz-ast Erâq-o Pârs gerefti be sheʿr-e khosh Hâfez Beyâ ke nowbat-e Baghdâd-o vaqt-e Tabriz-ast261 Though the wine gives joy and the wind goes through the roses, Do not drink wine to the sound of the harp, the censor is out sharply! Even if you are able to get hold of a flask and a companion, Use your wits while you drink, these times are full of strife! Hide your cup in the sleeves of your ragged frock: Fate pours out blood as freely as the eye of the pitcher. Let us wash with tears the stain of wine from our habits, For this is the season of pious behavior, a time for chastity. The high vault of heaven is a sieve shedding blood; Kesrâ’s skull and the crown of Parviz are all that remains behind.262 Do not ask the circling inverted heavens for an easy life, The pure wine in the jar’s upper part is mixed with the dregs. Your charming poems have conquered Iraq and Fars, Hâfez; Come, now it’s the turn of Baghdad, this is the time for Tabriz!

The drinking of wine, which is the main theme of this ghazal, is represented as not without its problems. Although the right time has arrived with the coming of spring, there is the imminent danger of being caught in the act because the censor is on the lookout. It is therefore better to be careful and practice some dissimulation. A poem like this can hardly be taken otherwise than as a reference to actual events in the poet’s life. This ghazal is usually read as Hâfez’s 261 Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), Ghazal No. 42. 262 Kesrâ (the arabicized form of the Persian Khosrow or Chosroes) and Parviz are two of the most glorious Sasanian kings: Khosrow I Anushirvân (531– 79) and Khosrow II Parviz (591–628). The mention of royal names and the sieve reminds of rubâʿ iyyât attributed to Omar Khayyâm.

450

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

criticism of the situation in Shiraz during the oppressive reign of the first Mozaffarid prince of Shiraz, the zealot Mohammad Mobârezal-Din (1314–75), who enforced the strict maintenance of Islamic law, closing down the taverns and persecuting offending drinkers. The figure of the “censor” (mohtaseb) of public morality is the official policing the town and the markets to ensure the observance of the prescriptions of the law. Like other representatives of Muslim orthodoxy, such as judges and preachers, the censor is a frequent target of satire in Hâfez’s poetry, next to the hypocrite Sufis and ascetics “with their ragged frocks.” It may be that under the cloak of the persona of the censor Hâfez was aiming obliquely at Mobârez-al-Din himself. The apparent insincerity that is advocated in the poem only seemingly contradicts the declared “debauchery” (rendi) of the poet, because this implies a subversive attitude with regard to the accepted social norms. The deplorable state of the dissimulating drinker is compared to the condition of life on this earth, where all pleasures (“pure wine”) are accompanied by the troubles caused by the heavenly powers; they are like the “dregs” that spoil the enjoyment of pure wine. The “clasp theme” of the final line, advertising the poet’s past and future successes, is again largely independent of the contents of the poem. An alternative reading of this ghazal might be to take the enjoyment of “spring” and the “drinking of wine” as allegories for the experience of ecstatic mysticism, which should be veiled from critical eyes by ostensibly pious behavior, as this is symbolized by donning the “habit,” although it will hardly be possible to avoid the result that “bloody tears” betray the passionate inner life. However, the latter explanation is both forced and flat, and it is hardly compatible with the candor of the poet’s pride in his art expressed in the “clasp theme.” Sâlhâ del talab-e jâm-e Jam az mâ mikard Ânche khod dâsht ze-bigâne tamannâ mikard Gowhari k-az sadaf-e kown-o makân birun-ast Talab az gomshodegân-e rah-e daryâ mikard Moshkel-e khwish bar-e pir-e moghân bordam dush K-u be ta’yid-e nazar hall-e moʿammâ mikard Didam-ash khorram-o khoshdel qadah-e bâde be dast V-andar ân âyene sad gune tamâshâ mikard

451

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Goftam in jâm-e jahân-bin be to key dâd hakim Goft ân ruz ke in gombad-e minâ mikard Goft ân yâr k-az-u gasht sar-e dâr boland Jorm-ash in bud ke asrâr hoveydâ mikard Feyz-e ruholqodos ar bâz madad farmâyad Digarân ham bokonand ânche Masihâ mikard Goftam-ash zolf-e cho zenjir-e botân az pey-e chist Goft Hâfez gele-i az del-e sheydâ mikard263 For years the heart has begged me for the Cup of Jam; It desired from a stranger what it already possessed. It sought the pearl outside the shell of Being and Place From those who had lost their way traveling over the seas. Last night I took my problem to the Magians’ Guide Who can solve riddles with the help of his insight. I saw him happy and cheerful, a cup of wine in his hand, And in that cup he contemplated a hundred things. I asked: “When did the Wise [Creator] give you this beaker showing the world?” He replied: “On the day when He made this blue-green copula.” He said: “The friend whose head gave honor to the gallows; His only crime was that he revealed the secrets. If the bounty of the Holy Spirit should assist again, Others will also perform what Jesus could do.” I asked him: “Why do the idols have curling locks like chains?” He replied: “Hâfez was uttering a cry from his love-crazed heart!”

This poem, one of the most famous of Hâfez’s ghazals, but at the same time one of the most difficult to interpret, abounds in motifs that cannot be explained otherwise than as items of a symbolic code. The central image is the jâm-e Jam, the miraculous Cup attributed to king Jamshid, the last of the primeval kings of Persian legend. One of the features associated with this Cup is the magical prognosis of the future. It was supposed to have been used by the ancient kings at the festival of New Year (Nowruz) to predict the events of the coming year. The Cup also became a symbol in the language of the mystics, and in this meaning it is relevant to the present instance: it signifies the human heart, i. e., the most intimate 263 Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), Ghazal No. 136.

452

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

part of the soul, through which the human being has access to an esoteric knowledge of supernatural truths.264 In this ghazal the search for the Cup is the beginning of a brief and sketchy narrative telling about the narrator’s experience during the “previous night” (dush). He approaches a spiritual counselor, who looks into his cup of wine and tells the poet in sibylline sentences what has been revealed to him. The persona of the “Magians’ Guide” (pir-e moghân), the quest for an answer to an existential problem, the association with a heathen cult, and wine drinking are all familiar features of the complex of qalandari motifs which, as we saw earlier, were used already in ghazals by mystical poets since the early twelfth century. It is hard to accept that Hâfez would have borrowed this set of motifs only to use them for entirely secular purposes. The conclusion that, in this case, we are dealing with a poem written with a mystical intention seems to be difficult to deny. This is confirmed by the Guide’s own words, when he speaks about “the friend” who died on the gallows. This is an allusion to the mystic Hoseyn b. Mansur Hallâj—in Persian poetry often named Mansur—whose trial and execution in 922 at Baghdad had become a cause célèbre with an emblematic significance far beyond the mere historical fact. Among the charges on which he was sentenced were his utterances about the experience of unity with God in such phrases as the famous “I am the Truth” (ana ‘l-Haqq). Although theologically such statements were absolute heresy, to the mystically minded they made a deep impression, because they pithily expressed their own experiences of Divine inspiration. Even orthodox Sufi sheikhs had to admit that Hallâj’s only crime was that he had spoken publicly about a truth that ought to be kept secret. It is to this point of view that the words of Hâfez’s Guide refer.265 264 On the history of this mythical item, reaching back into Babylonian times, see A. Christensen, “La coupe magique,” in idem, Les types du premier homme et du premier roi dans l’histoire légendaire des Iraniens (Leiden, 1934), II, pp. 128–37; there is an extensive treatment of its use in Persian literature in M. Mortazavi, Maktab-e Hâfez (Tehran, 1965), pp. 149–235. 265 Cf. L. Massignon and L. Gardet, EI2 , s. v. al-Ḥallādj; J. Mojaddedi, EIr, s. v. Ḥallāj.

453

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Sâqi ar bâde az-in dast be jâm andâzad Ârefân-râ hame dar sharb-e modâm andâzad V-ar chonin zir-e kham-e zolf nehad dâne-ye khâl Ey basâ morgh-e kherad-râ ke be dâm andâzad Ey khoshâ hâlat-e ân mast ke dar pây-e harif Sar-o dastâr nadânad ke kodâm andâzad Ruz dar kasb-e honar kosh ke mey khordan –e ruz Del chun âyene dar zang-e zelâm andâzad Ân zamân vaqt-e mey-e sobhforugh-ast ke shab Gerd-e khargâh-e ofoq parde-ye shâm andâzad Zâhed-e khâm ke enkâr-e mey-o jâm konad Pokhte gardad cho nazar bar mey-e khâm andâzad Bâde bâ mohtaseb-e shahr nanushi Hâfez Bekhorad bâde-at-o sang be jâm andâzad266 When the cupbearer pours a glass of wine so graciously, He seduces the mystics to go on drinking forever. And when he puts like this the grain of his mole in his curly locks, How many clever birds does he not allure to his trap! Oh how happy is the drunk who does not know Which to throw down at his friend’s feet: his head or his turban. In daytime strive to improve yourself, because drinking in daylight Darkens the heart just as patina blackens the mirror. The time to savor wine that shines forth like a new dawn Comes when night covers the tent of the horizon with dusk. The unripe ascetic, who rejects both wine and cup, Becomes mature when he sets his eyes on freshly made wine. Do not share your wine with the censor of the town, Hâfez: He will drink the wine, and then break your cup with a stone.

In spite of the prominence of the motif of wine drinking in this ghazal, this is not just another wine song. The essential element is a consideration of several controversial aspects of the subject to which admonitory remarks are added. They are discussed in a not unequivocal manner with clear ironic undertones. The poem can be divided into three sections. The first (lines 1–3) describes a scene at a nightly party. The cupbearer is the life and soul of this merry gathering; his grace and beauty adds an erotic flavor to the licentious atmosphere. Then the speaker starts to admonish (lines 4–5), 266 Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), Ghazal No. 146.

454

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

but his words are subverted by irony when he contrasts the attitude one should adopt in daytime, when one has to attend to serious occupations, to the indulgence permissible only during the night. He seems to preach a double moral standard. Alternatively, it is also possible to read a contrast between a literal and a figurative meaning of wine. The ghazal could be read then like this: with the change of day into night, the nature of the drinking of this wine—referred to earlier by the ambiguous expression mey-e bâqi, which may be translated by “the wine that is left” as well as by “eternal wine”—also changes, from reprehensible behavior, to an esoteric act. In the final section (lines 6–7) Hâfez criticizes the representatives of religious and moral respectability, who only condemn external behavior, but do not know anything about the nocturnal side of wine drinking. The concluding line is unmistakably ironic. If both lines of thought can indeed be read in this ghazal, its ambiguity presupposes a sophisticated audience, which is capable of catching the subtleties of the poet’s handling of this theme. Sahargâhân ke makhmur-e shabâne Gereftam bâde bâ chang-o chaghâne Nehâdam aql-râ rah-tushe az mey Ze shahr-e hasti-ash kardam ravâne Negâr-e meyforush-am eshve-i dâd Ke eyman gashtam az makr-e zamâne Ze-sâqi-ye kamânabru shenidam Ke ey tir-e malâmat-râ neshâne Nabandi z-ân miyân tarfi kamarvâr Agar khod-râ bebini dar miyâne Borow in dâm bar morghi digar neh Ke Anqâ-râ boland-ast âshiyâne Nadim-o motreb-o sâqi hame u-st Khiyâl-e âb-o gol dar rah bahâne Bedeh kashti-ye mey tâ khosh bar â’im Az-in daryâ-ye nâpeydâ kerâne Vojud-e mâ moʿammâ’i-st Hâfez Ke tahqiq-ash fosun-ast-o fesâne267 267 Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), Ghazal No. 418.

455

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA In the morning when, with a hangover from the night, I took wine to the music of the harp and a song. With wine I prepared reason’s provision for the road, And I sent it away from the town of existence. The coquetry of the beautiful wine-seller Was a charm against the tricks of Time. I heard the cupbearer, whose brows are like bows, say: “You, who are a target for the arrows of rebuke, You will never embrace that waist like a girdle As long as you look at yourself in between. Go away! Lay this trap for another bird! The nest of the Anqâ is beyond your reach.” Boon companion, musician, cupbearer: all in one is he. The phantasy of water and clay is a pretense for the road. Give me that ship of wine so that I may emerge happily.268 From this sea, the shores of which are not in sight. Our existence is an enigma, Hâfez, That our delusions and phantasies cannot solve.

The situation understood in this ghazal is the morning after the party, when the speaker announces his intention to start the day with another drink. Apparently, the intention is just to celebrate the “morning drink” (sabuh), a traditional theme of Persian wine songs; an example, containing in the opening line the Arabic exclamation al-sabuh alsabuh yâ ashâb (“The morning drink, the morning drink, o companions!”), can be found among Hâfez’s ghazals.269 Equally conventional is the motivation brought forward for a renewed drinking bout: the intoxication should provide a remedy for the uncertainties of life and its riddles, which one has to face again at daybreak. Secondary motifs are the beauty of the beloved and his demand on the true lover for self-sacrifice. The structure of the poem is a dialogue with the cupbearer, the main subject of which is the latter’s admonitions. Also here, his words make the poem into more than a simple wine song. Although the tone is predominantly secular, there is philosophical musing about the riddle of life and its inscrutability to our futile quests: our delusions and phantasies cannot reach as high as the nest of the legendary bird Anqâ. 268 Hâfez plays with the double meaning of kashti: a ship and a winecup in the shape of a vessel. 269 Hâfez (ed. Khânlari), Ghazal No. 13,1 b.

456

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

Hâfez and Other Poets of the Ghazal Although Hâfez’s eminence in the treatment of the ghazal has never been questioned, many critics have adduced evidence of the influence on his poetry by predecessors and by several of his contemporaries. Undoubtedly, Hâfez’s art is firmly rooted in the tradition of ghazal as the genre had developed over the preceding centuries, especially since the beginning of the twelfth century. For many of the forms, themes, and motifs, earlier examples can be found. This presupposes an impressive knowledge on Hâfez’s part of the ghazals produced before his day. Some of his models must have been found in the local tradition of his hometown Shiraz, partly perhaps only in an oral tradition. However, he certainly will have taken advantage of manuscript sources available to him as far as poets are concerned who lived before his time and in other parts of Persia. An awareness of Hâfez’s close connection to the tradition of the ghazal is noticeable in a number of references to other poets in pieces that already at an early date were incorporated into his divan. The authenticity of most of these poems is questionable, but they do have a certain value as documents for an early interest in Hâfez’s indebtedness to his fellow poets. Modern scholars have intensified this line of research, and have uncovered abundant material on which a comparative study of Hâfez’s ghazals should be based.270 This is a very wide topic of research inasmuch as it has to include the works of practically all the major poets preceding him. It could best be approached through an investigation of single items, either of form or of content. Some examples mentioned already are the “pedigree” (nasab-nâme) of a single ghazal established by Parviz Nâtel Khânlari, and Hellmut Ritter’s comparison of the use of qalandari motifs in the poetry of Sanâ’i, Attâr, Erâqi, and Hâfez.271 More recently Riccardo Zipoli has published a number of comparative studies of individual items of ghazal imagery on 270 See, e. g., Browne, LHP III, pp. 293–99, who reproduces Shibli Nuʿmani’s comparisons of poems by Hâfez with those of Khwâju, Salmân-e Sâvaji, and Bahâ-al-Din Khorramshâhi, Hâfez-nâme (Tehran, 1987), I, pp. 40–90. 271 Cf. above in “6. The Age of Saʿdi (Thirteenth Century),” then under “Three Great Mystical Poets of Ghazals.”

457

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

the basis of the rich statistical material assembled by the contributors to the Lirica Persica Project.272 Not only poets of the thirteenth century who played a role in the history of the ghazal seem to have influenced Hâfez. He probably also derived his inspiration from Kamâl-al-Din Esmâʿil of Isfahan (d. 1237), who, although mainly known for his qasides, was a master in the use of amphibology (ihâm) and poetic aetiology (hosn-e taʿ lil), devices often applied by Hâfez to his poetry.273 The influence of Saʿdi, the dominating poet of the ghazal before Hâfez, is too pervasive to need proof. Even more important perhaps are the contrasts between the two masters from Shiraz. Hâfez deviated from Saʿdi’s more coherent style by making each distich of a ghazal into a more or less independent unit, sometimes almost a short poem in itself. Some modern Persian scholars have emphasized the strong impact of the style and wordings of the Qor’an.274 The symbolic dimension of Hâfez’s poetry remains a matter of controversy. Remarkable, however, is his greatly extended vocabulary of typically Sufi terms. As a result of these innovations Hâfez became a much more cerebral and self-conscious lyricist than Saʿdi had been.275 Nezâri of Qohestan. In his chapter on poetry in the Bahârestân, Jâmi comments briefly on the relationship between the ghazals of Hâfez and those of his older contemporary Nezâri of Qohestan (1247–1320), a poet who stood outside the mainstream of Persian poetry of his day because of his affiliation to an Ismâʿili court in eastern Persia. Jâmi states that Hâfez’s “(good) taste” (saliqe) was 272 These studies have been published in a long series of separate volumes and summarized in two volumes by D. M. Correale and R. Zipoli, The Collected Lirica Persica (Venice, 1998). 273 Cf. Khorramshâhi, Hâfez-nâme, I, pp. 5–57; on this poet’s art of the qaside see M. Glünz, Untersuchungen zur panegyrischen qaṣīda bei Kamāl ud-dīn Ismā’īl aus Isfahan (Stuttgart, 1993). 274 Notably by Khorramshâhi and by H. Jâvid in the first section of his Hâfez‑e jâvid (Tehran, 1996), pp. 3–26. 275 A detailed comparion between the two masters of the ghazal was made by Khorramshahi, Hâfez-nâme, I, pp. 60–62; see also the same author’s paper “Haqq-e Saʿdi be-gardan-e Hâfez” (“Hâfez’s Indebtedness to Saʿdi”) in the conference volume Dhekr-e jamil-e Saʿ di (Tehran, 1985), pp. 303–34.

458

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

close to Nezâri’s, though “in Nezâri’s poetry there is much lean and fat (ghath va samin),”—i. e., good and bad.276 In spite of the imprecise critical terms Jâmi used, the observation that there are remarkable similarities between the two poets is correct. Nezâri was a prolific writer of ghazals, but until recently his works were better known in Central Asia than in Persia itself.277 The religious convictions of the poet have left hardly any trace in his lyrics; one of the ghazals opening the collection, in which he addresses the “Family of the Mantle” (Âl-e abâ), namely the closest relatives of the prophet Mohammad, is rather an exception. There seems also to be no ground for the assertion that the ghazals of Nezâri should be read as “a reflection of the embittered social sentiments aroused by the Mongol oppression.”278 However, the frequent use in Nezâri’s ghazals of rendi terms, which are often mentioned as a special feature of Hâfez’s poetical language, is remarkable. To cite just one example, the “censor” (mohtaseb) who keeps an eye on the debauchees and the drinkers, also appears here: Az mohtaseb matars ke u niz mey khorad … Mâlek konad be hashr mokâfât-e mohtaseb Do not be afraid of the censor for he too drinks … At the Resurrection the Owner [sc. God] will give him his due …279

One of Nezâri’s ghazals even found its way into manuscripts of the divan of Hâfez.280 Khwâju of Kerman. Among the poets who, unlike Nezâri, lived in Shiraz more or less at the same time as Hâfez—and almost certainly were personally acquainted with him—mention should be made in 276 Jâmi, Bahârestân, ed. Afsahzâd, p. 148. 277 An edition of Nezâri’s divan by Mazâher Mosaffâ (Tehran, 1992), which remains incomplete, contains 788 ghazals. 278 Cf. Rypka, HIL, pp. 255–56. Rypka relates the stereotyping views of Russian scholars in the Soviet period. 279 Nezâri (ed. Mosaffâ), pp. 509–12, Ghazal No. 24. 280 Nezâri (ed. Mosaffâ), pp. 550–51: mâ be-raftim o to dâni o del-e ghamkhor‑e mâ; this ghazal is not included in the recent critical editions of Hâfez’s divan.

459

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

the first place of Khwâju of Kerman (d. 1352), a most versatile poet who excelled in the mathnavi as well as in the qaside. However, his production of ghazals was also very extensive. These poems were transmitted in three collections, made already during the poet’s lifetime. In the Sanâye’ ʿal-kamâl (Artifices of Perfection), Khwâju’s first divan, which was assembled under his own supervision, there are even two sets of ghazals: the first, entitled Hazariyyât, contains 369 ghazals, composed while the poet was in “residence,” presumably at Shiraz; the second, Safariyyât, apparently contains poems written during Khwâju’s “travels,” which brought him to various parts of Persia. In an additional volume of his lyrical poetry, entitled Badâyeʿ al-jamâl (Marvels of Beauty), assembled towards the end of his life, there is another set, called Showqiyyât, with 299 “poems of longing.”281 Khwâju was undoubtedly one of the most important influences on Hâfez, all the more to be taken into consideration because the two poets were very close to each other both in time and place. However, they differ in one crucial point: whereas whatever is said about the mystical affiliations of Hâfez is no more than speculation, Khwâju made no secret of his allegiance to the Kâzeruniyye Sufi Order, as is evident from the dedications to Sufi patrons included in some of his mathnavi poems. Khwâju used to express himself very forcefully, with great passion and a display of rhetorical virtuosity. Ahmad Soheyli-Khwânsâri, the modern editor of Khwâju’s divans, characterized his style as “erotic and exciting to rapture” (âsheqâne va shurangiz).282 His ghazals, often reminding of Sanâ’i and Khâqâni, often exceed the size of about seven couplets, which had become more or less conventional in the ghazals of his contemporaries. He excelled in difficult rhymes and radifs. The latter are sometimes extended to phrases, which by their sheer length play a major part in Khwâju’s poetical statements, e. g., gar nabâshad gu mabâsh (“If it is not let it be”; p. 282, No. 225), bar âtash nahâde-i (“You set on fire”; p. 327, No. 317), and ke na man dânam-o to (“Neither do 281 In the edition of Khwâju’s poetry, Divân-e ash’ âr, ed. A. Soheyli-Khwânsâri (Tehran, 1957), respectively, pp. 176–353, 372–505, and 624–779. 282 Soheyli-Khwânsâri, Divân-e ashʿ âr, Introduction, p. 40.

460

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

I know nor do you”; p. 751, No. 249). In one instance the radif is replaced by an anaphora, a phrase filling the first half of a hemistich: ey del nagoftam-at ke (“O heart, did I not tell you that ”; p. 379, No. 16). Several ghazals contain Arabic lines, either in the opening distich (p. 493, No. 244), in alternation with Persian lines as macaronic verse (p. 292, No. 246; p. 492, No. 243), or make a conspicuous use of Arabic terms (p. 226, No. 105). This is a feature that is also frequently encountered in Hâfez’s poetry. It has been generally recognized that a number of the latter’s ghazals were written as “responses” (javâbs) to poems by Khwâju.283 The subject of the themes, the motifs, and the vocabulary shared by the two poets is too vast to be treated here exhaustively. Obeyd-e Zâkâni. During most of Hâfez’s career, Obeyd-e Zâkâni (d. ca. 1370) was his compatriot. In Shiraz, to where Obeyd fled from his homeland in northern Persia, both poets were patronized by the same rulers. Although he is most famous for his satirical works and obscene facetiae, a divan of Obeyd’s “serious” poetry is also extant, including a small collection of ghazals.284 As A. J. Arberry remarked: These poems deserve study not only for their own sake, but because they reveal their author as bridging the gap between Saʿdī and Hāfiz, and introducing into the ghazal innovations that must assuredly have exercised influence on his junior contemporary who attended the same court circles.285

Obeyd’s ghazals show an elegance and simplicity which is in contrast to Khwâju’s style, as in this poem: To-râ ke goft ke bâ mâ vafâ nashâyad kard Dorugh goft che bâshad che-râ nashâyad kard Gholâm-e laʿ l-e lab-e to-st jân-e shirin-am Chonin hekâyat-e shirin kojâ nashâyad kard 283 Many examples are quoted by Soheyli-Khwânsâri, Divân-e ashʿ âr, Introduction, pp. 47–55. 284 The editions by Eqbâl (1953) and Usha (1952) contain about 70 ghazals, but the former editor afterwards found additional poems in other manuscripts. 285 Arberry, CPL, pp.  297–99, translating two ghazals; more English translation in Davis, Faces of Love, pp. 195–217.

461

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Ba-buse qasd-e lab-at kardam az miyân-e chashm-at Ba-ghamze goft nashâyad halâ nashâyad kard Miyân-e muy-o miyân-e to nokte-ye bârik-ast Dar ân miyân sokhan az lab rahâ nashâyad kard Hazâr sâl tan-am gar ze-jân jodâ mânad Hanuz mehr-e to az jân jodâ nashâyad kard Hadith-e dard-e del-e mastmand-o sine-ye rish Hekâyati-st ke dar sâlhâ nashâyad kard Magar Obeyd be-jân bâ lab-am mozâyeqe kard Ke in be-mazhab-e “ashâbonâ” nashâyad kard286 Who told you that you cannot sincerely love me? That is a lie! What else? Why couldn’t you be? I am the slave of your ruby lips with all my soul; Where could such a sweet story not be told? I reached for your lips with a kiss; from your eyes A glance told me: “No, you cannot now do this!” What is the difference between your waist and a hair? The lips find no proper words to describe this. Even if my soul were separated from the body for a millennium Still your love could not be taken away from the soul. The tale of the pain suffered by an intoxicated heart, It would take years to relate such a story. “Perhaps Obeyd’s soul has sealed my lips; That is against the rules of our intimate circle.”287

Occasionally Obeyd identifies himself with a qalandar who has severed all ties with the hypocritical world in his total devotion to love: Khoshâ kasi ke ze-eshq-ash dami rahâ’i nist Gham-ash ze-rendi-o meyl-ash ba parsâ’i nist Del-e ramida-ye shuridegân-e rosvâ’i Shekasta-i-st ke dar band-e mumiyâ’i nist Ze-fekr-e donyâ-o oqbâ farâghati dârad Khodâshenâs ke bâ khalq-ash âshnâ’i nist Gholâm-e hemmat-e darvish-e qâneʿ-am ku-râ 286 Obeyd (ed. Eqbâl Âshtiyâni), p. 44; (ed. Atâbaki), p. 235. 287 Literally: “the rite of our companions,” an Arabic phrase with a religious connotation, referring probably to a circle of like-minded lovers whom Obeyd addresses in particular.

462

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry Sar-e bozorgi-o sowdâ-ye pâdeshâ’i nist Morâd-e khod matalab har zamân ze-hazrat-e Haqq Ke bar dar-e karam-ash hâjat-e gadâ’i nist Be konj-e ozlat az ân-ruy gashte am khorsand Ke digar-am havas-e sohbat-e riyâ’i nist Qalandari-st mojarrad Obeyd-e Zâkâni Harif-e khâjegi-o mard-e kadkhodâ’i nist288 Happy is he who is forever enthralled by love; Who does not mind to be a tramp, not caring about piety. The fleeing heart of those who are notorious for their ecstasy Is a broken heart which does not wish to be mended. Freed from his cares about this world or the hereafter, Is he who knows his Lord and does not care for His creatures. I adhere to the ambitions of the austere dervish Who neither covets greatness, nor pines for kingship. Do not seek fulfillment of your wishes at the Divine court: At the gate of His generosity there is no need for begging. Obeyd-e Zakani is a qalandar detached from the world; He shuns respectability and will never strive to become a master.

Jahân Malek Khâtun. Another of Hâfez’s contemporaries was Jahân Malek Khâtun, a female poet who belonged to the Inju family. For a few years her father Masʿud Shâh was a semi-independent ruler in Shiraz (1337–39). After his death she was raised at the court of her uncle Sheykh Abu Saʿid, the most prominent patron of Hâfez’s early years. In 1353, when the happy days of the latter’s reign were over, she suffered from Abu Saʿid’s downfall and the conquest of Shiraz by the rival Mozaffarid dynasty. After some hard times, including probably a period of exile, under the severe rule of Mobârez-al-Din, she seems to have come to some understanding with his successor Shâh Shojâʿ, to whom she even dedicated some of her poems. Her death is said to have occurred in 1382, or shortly afterwards. Jahân Khâtun is not merely of interest because the story of her life shows that she spent her days in the same environment as Hâfez. She also deserves to be mentioned in her own right. Until recently 288 Obeyd (ed. Eqbâl Âshtiyâni), p. 39; (ed. Atabaki), p. 252.

463

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

her poetry, which consists mainly of ghazals and quatrains, has remained very little known; she actually was a distinguished writer of ghazals and by far the most productive poetess in classical Persian literature as a whole (not even excluding Mahsati, whose historical identity, moreover, remains uncertain.) Women, especially those belonging to the aristocracy, were not supposed to go public with their literary works. It is not unlikely at all that many women of her class, like Jahân, did produce poems, but these would not have circulated easily outside the closed circles of female friends and relatives. Very seldom, they would have been collected into divan manuscripts prepared for wider circulation. Therefore, hardly any of their works have survived. Apparently, Jahân’s case was different. A small number of manuscripts with her poems is still extant. The most important is a copy in the Bibliothèque nationale of Paris (Catalogue Blochet No. 1580, containing more than 15,000 couplets), which is not dated but may go back to her own lifetime. It includes a prose introduction by her own hand praising the Mozaffarid ruler Shâh-Shojâʿ. The other manuscripts carry dates from the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries and show that Jahân’s poems continued to be appreciated for at least two centuries after their composition. A comprehensive collection of Jahân’s divan was reconstructed and published in 1995. Its contents consist of no less than 1413 ghazals, 357 robâʿ iyât, and a very limited number of poems in different forms. Remarkable from a biographical point of view is an elegy for the loss of a child that Jahân wrote in mathnavi and 15 quatrains.289 Translations in English have been published recently by Dominic Parviz Brookshaw and Dick Davis.290 The fact that the poet was a woman is hardly noticeable in Jahân’s lyricism. Like her male colleagues, she conforms throughout to the 289 Jahân Malek Khâtun, Divân-e kâmel, eds. P. Kâshânirâd and K. Ahmad­ nezhâd (Tehran, 1995), pp. 509–14. In addition to the mathnavi and the quatrains, there are seven elegiac ghazals mourning her child. 290 D. P. Brookshaw, “Odes of the Poet Princess: the Ghazals of Jahān-Malik Khātun,” Iran 43 (2005), pp. 173–95; Davis, Faces of Love, pp. 135–93, and Introduction, pp. xl–lvi. See also D. P. Brookshaw, EIr, s. v. Jahān-Malek Kātun; Safâ III/2, p. 1048.

464

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

generic conventions of the Persian ghazal. The gender of the speaking voice in these poems is undetermined. If the poet complains about painful experiences in love—such as the beloved’s unfaithfulness, absence, or cruelty—this need not be read necessarily as the utterances of a woman who talks of her relationship with a male lover. Looking for other biographical clues that could tell us something about her often eventful life is equally futile. These ghazals are essentially splendid models of the art of the ghazal as it must have been practised in the majles of the refined ladies of the court. The circumstance that her poems circulated beyond the restricted area where women met is indeed exceptional in the social conditions of her times. Perhaps this bears evidence to the relatively liberal lifestyle at the court of Shiraz during the fourteenth century, at least under the reigns of the Inju’id Sheykh Abu Saʿid Inju and the Mozaffarid Shâh Shojâʿ. Undoubtedly, it is also to be attributed to the great poetic qualities of Jahân’s ghazals in their own right. Perhaps it is legitimate to read the traces of the poet’s gender in the chaste tone pervading these ghazals, in which the more daring motifs of debauchery, wine drinking, and the challenging criticism of religious authority that mark much of the ghazal poetry of male poets cannot be heard. On the other hand, there are also no references to Sufism and mystical love. Jahân’s poetry is strictly secular without any suggestion of transcendental symbolism. Because of this, a comparison with her great contemporary Hâfez, with whose work she must have been familiar, is instructive, in particular for the contrasting features of their poetry. In many respects Jahân’s style is closer to Saʿdi’s.291 To the first of the following samples from Jahân Malek’s ghazals, she applies the form of a letter to a departed beloved, a letter entrusted to the wind: Ey sabâ buyi az ân zolf-e parishân be-man âr Mozhde-yi z-ân gol-e sirâb be-suy-e chaman âr Lab-e jânparvar-e u cheshme-ye heyvân-e man-ast Sharbat-e âbi ze-sar-e lotf ma-râ z-ân dahan âr 291 For an analysis of Jahân’s ghazals see further the studies by Brookshaw and Davis mentioned above.

465

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Khaste-ye bâr-e ferâq-e rokh-e yâr-am shekari Be-davây-e del-e ranjur-e jahâni be-man âr Hâlat-e dide-ye mahjur-e setamdide bebin Ey bashir-e del-e man buyi az ân pirahan âr Gol be-bostân-e malâhat ze-sabâ ruy namud Bolbol-e tabʿ-e ma-râ ey del-o din dar sokhan âr Ey sahi sarv be-bostân-e malâhat bogdhar Larze az qâmat-e khod dar badan-e nârun âr Nist joz sukhtan-o sâkhtan-at châre jahânhamchu shamʿ az sar-e khod bogdhar-o pâ dar lagan âr.292 Oh Zephyr, bring me a waft from these disheveled locks, A message to the meadow from that fresh rose. These life-giving lips are the source of my life; Be so good to pour out to me the moisture of that mouth. I am hurt by bearing your absence; please, give some sugar To heal the ailing heart of an entire world [or: someone like Jahân] Look at my eyes: how lonely I am, how much I have suffered! Oh you bringer of good tidings to my heart! A waft from that shirt! On the pleasure ground the zephyr made the rose appear. Let the nightingale of my talent speak, o heart and faith. Oh upright cypress, stroll through the pleasure garden, Pass on your stature’s quiver to the body of the pomegranate. There is nothing but burning and suffering patiently; Jahân, Abandon your head like the candle and stay put in the candlestick.

The next example, containing an intimate complaint on the condition of the tormented heart, develops into a dialogue discussing the question whether the heart or the eyes are to blame for the lover’s sorrows: Dard-am ze-hadd gozasht-o nadâram davây-e del Az vasl-e sâz châre davâyi barây-e del Shod khân-o mân-e in del-e bicâre-m siyâh Tâ gasht shast-e zolf-e to jânâ sarây-e del Ânche man az barâ-ye del-e khaste mi kasham Âkher begu ke bâ ke be guyam jafây-e del Del raft-o gasht mo’nes-e deldâr-o man konun Bi-yâr-o bi-del-am beshnow mâjarây-e del Gar ân del-e ramide degar bâr yâbam-ash Dânam ke chun deham be-gham-e u sazâ-ye del 292 Jahân (eds. Kâshânirâd and Ahmadnezhâd), No. 726.

466

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry Del khun ze-râh-e dide-ye mâ rikht dar gham-at Âkher che kard dide-ye meskin be-jây-e del Del dar javâb goft ke khun gun beriz chashm K-az dide khâst zahmat-o ranj-o belây-e del Del-râ gonâh nist hame dide mi konad K-u mi shavad hamishe be-gham rahnemây-e del Bigâne gashte-am ze jahân-o jahâniyân Tâ gasht eshq-e ruy-e to-am ashnây-e del Bigâne gashte-am ze-Jahân-o jahâniyân Tâ gasht eshq-e ruy-e to-am âshnâ-ye del.293 My pain has no bounds, there is no cure for my heart. Return to me! Only this could heal my heart! All that belonged to my poor heart looks black Since the heart sticks to the hook of your locks, my love. All my suffering on account of this wounded heart, Tell me: to whom can I tell the torture of my heart? The heart has gone and is now the dear friend of my sweetheart. I have lost both friend and heart. Hear the heart’s tale! If I can retrieve the heart that has fled from me I know how to give it what becomes it by longing for my love. The heart sheds tears of blood through my eyes longing for you. What could the poor eyes do instead of the heart? The heart replied: “Say to the eye: Pour out this blood! Because the eyes caused the hardship, pain, and affliction of the heart.” The heart is not to be blamed. It was all the doing of the eyes Which always guides the heart towards sorrow. I am estranged from Jahân [the world] and the people of this world Since the heart became acquainted with the love of your face.

Salmân of Sâve. In the history of Persian literature Jamâl-al-Din Salmân of Sâve (d. 1376) is renowned especially as one of the last great poets of the courtly qaside of the medieval period. His style has been compared to that of Kamâl-al-Din Esmâʿil because it shows the same kind of inventiveness as far as the use of new motifs and poetic conceits is concerned. As the son of an official of the Il-­Khanid state, he had access to patronage already at an early age. For the vizier Ghiyâth-al-Din, the son of Rashid-al-Din Fazl-Allâh, he composed 293 Jahân (eds. Kâshânirâd and Ahmadnezhâd), No. 889.

467

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

a qaside-ye masnuʿe, “a crafted qaside,” a poem in which each verse demonstrates the application of a different rhetorical device. After the death in 1335 of Abu-Saʿid, the last reigning Il-Khân, he accompanied his widow Delshâd Khâtun to Baghdad, where she became the wife of the founder of another Mongol dynasty, the Jalayerids. Until the end of his life Salmân stayed at the Jalayerid court and he became their leading panegyrist. Only shortly before his death did his loyalty towards the Jalayerids wane. At this time, he eulogized their opponent, the Mozaffarid Shâh Shojâʿ of Shiraz, Hâfez’s most important patron, after the latter had occupied Tabriz, the capital of the Jalayerid state since 1360. This incident is of interest to the present discussion, insofar as it provides a solid historical link between Salmân and Hâfez. Otherwise there is no evidence of any contacts between the two poets, although Salmân may have visited Shiraz in the train of Sheikh Oweys, who intervened in the internal quarrels of the Mozaffarids. It has also been suggested that they must have been in correspondence about their poetry, which would explain the numerous parallels in their ghazals. Since their lifetimes were almost overlapping, it is difficult to tell the direction of the influence, but it is most likely to assume that Salmân, who at the time was the most prestigious poet, provided models to Hâfez, who served a lesser dynasty. Salmân’s production of ghazals was indeed impressive.294 In the Bahârestân, Jâmi entered a critical remark on the intrinsic value of his contribution to ghazal poetry: He wrote also many ghazals, both in a pleasantly natural (matbuʿ) and an artificial (masnuʿ) fashion. However, as he had no taste for love and affection (eshq va mahabbat)—the essence of the ghazal— the people of good taste do not favor them (arbâb-e dhowq bar ân eqbâl nami nomâyand).295

The social position of Salmân as a courtier undoubtedly should be taken into account in an evaluation of his ghazals, the great bulk 294 In the edition of Salmân’s divan by M. Moshfeq (Tehran, 1957), the collection of his ghazals (not numbered) fills 314 pages. In the introduction by T. Tafazzoli to this edition (pp. xxvii–xxxii), the similarities with Hâfez’s poems have been listed. 295 Jâmi, Bahârestân, ed. Afsahzâd, p. 146.

468

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

of which must have been composed for social events where his Jalayerid patrons enjoyed themselves. In the following passages, different strains in Salmân’s ghazals are exemplified. They also display close parallels with important themes in Hâfez’s poetry. The first is a very simple song of love— missing even the conventional “clasp line” at the end with the poet’s name—and featuring one of the localities in Shiraz that is famous from the latter’s ghazals: Sahargah bolboli âvâz mikard Hami nâlid-o bâ gol râz mikard Niyâz-e khwish bâ maʿshuq mikard Niyâz-ash mishenid-o nâz mikard Be har âhi ke mizad dar gham-e yâr Ma-râ bâ khwishtan damsâz mikard Nasim-e sobh did-o mishenidam Del-am divânegi âghâz mikard Khiyâl-e âb-e Roknâbâd mipokht Havâ-e khette-ye Shirâz mikard296 At dawn a nightingale was singing Complaining and telling his secrets to the rose. He spoke of his desires with his beloved; She listened, but she stood aloof. With every sigh, pining for his beloved, He made me share his sorrow. He felt the morning breeze and I heard “My heart became frenzied: It dreamt about the stream of Roknâbâd, Longing to be in the realm of Shiraz again.”297

In the second poem the concept of love has been enlarged to a cosmic proportion as a primeval force affecting everything in the universe. Salmân refers to the Islamic version of Adam’s fall, in which the grain of wheat replaces the biblical apple, and characterizes the overwhelming strength of love as a threat to ordinary piety. Is this an expression of mystical ecstasy, or just the hyperbolic statement of earthly erotic sentiments? 296 Salmân (ed. Moshfeq), p. 89. 297 In the translation, it is assumed that the speaker is the nightingale.

469

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Dar azal aks-e mey-e laʿ l-e to dar jâm oftâd Âsheq-e sukhtedel dar tamaʿ-e khâm oftâd Jâm-râ az shakar-e laʿ l-e lab-at noqli kard Râz-e sarbaste-ye khom dar dahan-e âm oftâd Khâl-e moshkin-e to dar ârez-e gandomgun did Âdam âmad ze-pey-e dâne-o dar dâm oftâd Bâd zonnâr-e sar-e zolf-e to az ham bogshud Sad shekast az taraf-e kofr bar eslâm oftâd Eshq bar koshtan-e oshshâq tafaʿol mikard Avvalin qorʿe ke zad bar man-e badnâm oftâd Eshq-am az ruy-e tamaʿ parde-ye taqvâ bar dâsht Tabl penhân che zanam tasht-e man az bâm oftâd Dush Salmân be qalam sharh-e gham-e del midâd Âtesh andar varaq-o dud dar aqlâm oftâd298 In primordial time your ruby wine reflected in the cup;299 The lover, burning inside, fell victim to a vain hope. The sugar of your lips was added to the cup as a sweetmeat. The secret enclosed in the jar became part of the common parlance. Adam saw the black mole on your wheat-colored cheek: He tried to get hold of the grain but fell into the trap.300 The wind loosened the Christian girdle of your locks; Islam suffered a hundred defeats from such unbelief. Love drew the lots of the lovers who would be murdered; The first dice thrown fell on me, the accursed one. My desire became so strong that it tore the veil of my piety; Why beat about the bush, when everything came into the open?301 Last night Salmân’s pen related the tale of his heart’s grief; This set the paper on fire and the smoke fell on all other pens.

Also the satire of the false piety of a Sufi sheikh and the glorification of the attitude of the debauchees, such typically Hâfezean themes, are to be found in Salmân’s ghazals:

298 Salmân (ed. Moshfeq), p. 141. 299 I. e., “a reflection from your red lips.” Hyperbolically it is said that the beloved’s beauty is eternal. 300 In the Islamic story, a grain of wheat caused Adam’s fall instead of an apple, see above. 301 Literally: “Why silence the drum when my bowl fell down from the roof?”

470

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry Sheykh-e mâ naʿrezanân bar dar-e meykhâne dush Naʿre-ye mastân shenid bâde dar âmad be jush Jushesh-e mey modda’i did be pichid sar Zâri-ye chang-ash ba gush âmad-o begreft gush Rend-e kharâbâti-yash dâd sharâbi k-az-ân Har ke khord jorʿe-i bâz nayâyad be hush Motreb-e majles be sâz parde-ye abrisham-at Tâ hame bar ham zanim pambe-ye pashminepush Har ke be-sobh-e azal jâmi az in mey kashid Dar arasât-ash kashand ruz-e qiyâmat be dush302 Last night at the gate of the tavern, our uproarious sheikh Overheard the lament of the drunkards; the wine was fermenting. The imposter saw the wine ferment but turned his head away; He heard the complaint of the harp but he closed his ears. A regular of the tavern offered him such a drink that anyone Who took a draught from it never became sober again. Musician, strike the notes on your silken strings At the party! Let us all card the cotton of that wearer of wool!303 Whoever in the eternal morning tasted from this wine Will be carried on the shoulders to the Day of Resurrection.

8. The Age of Jâmi (Fifteenth Century)—Persian Culture under the Timurids and their Rivals After his death in 1405, the attempt by Timur Lang (known in the West as Tamerlane) to revive the Mongol empire of Chengis Khan turned out to have been a great illusion. What he left behind was not a vast and strong centralized state, but a political landscape as divided as it had been before his meteoric appearance. Although his heirs, the Timurids, continued to rule—mainly in Khorasan and Transoxiana—throughout the fifteenth century, they could not prevent the rise of new powers in the western parts of Persia: first the Qara Qoyunlu, and then, from 1467 onwards, the Aq Q ­ oyunlu. Both dynasties based their rule on confederations of Turkmen 302 Salmân (ed. Moshfeq), pp. 199–200. 303 This is probably an allusion to the woollen habit of a Sufi.

471

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

tribes from which they derived their names, meaning respectively “the People of the Black Sheep” and “the People of the White Sheep.” Throughout the century of their rule, the area between eastern Anatolia and central Persia remained full of strife and insecurity. This was also the time and the place of the steady rise of the Safavids, who would win in the end and unite Persia again in the next century. The nomadization of power, a process which had been going on already for a long time in this part of the Middle East, did not mean necessarily a decline of culture. As had happened in the past, the new masters very soon adopted the traditions of Persian kingship with the obligations of patronage that they entailed. Timur—or Tamerlane, under which name he continued to fascinate Europeans for centuries—had “moved like a whirlwind through Eurasia … conquering and reconquering, razing some cities, sparing others.”304 Yet he did have a constructive side to his personality, showing itself in the interest he took in architecture and the restoration of Samarqand as a capital with imperial grandeur. After him the Timurid sultans and princes extended their stimulation of artistic endeavors to other fields. Whether this was a deliberate policy on their part or not, this has made the fifteenth century one of the most glorious periods in the history of Persian art. This artistic flowering included, besides architecture and material art in general, the arts of the book, such as miniature painting, calligraphy, and the illumination of manuscripts.305 The Turkmen rulers did their best to emulate the cultural efforts of the Timurids. It is less certain if the favorable climate for the arts fostered to the same extent the literature of the fifteenth century. There can be no doubt about the quantity of literary works produced. As had happened in earlier times, the diffusion of power in itself was not a disadvantage to the life of letters. The existence of more than one center of patronage offered greater opportunities to court poets, who continued to be in the majority among literary artists. The geography of literature expanded as well. Next to Tabriz and Shiraz, 304 B. F. Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane (Cambridge, 1993), p. 1. 305 An assessment of Timurid civilization is to be found in La civiltà timuride come fenomeno internazionale, a volume of essays in the monograph series of Oriente Moderno 15/2, ed. M. Bernardini (Rome, 1996).

472

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

cities in the east such as Herat—under great patrons like Shâhrokh (r. 1405–47) and Hoseyn-e Bayqara (r. 1470–1506)—and Bukhara and Samarqand in Transoxania emerged again as royal residences, and took a leading part in the development of Persian culture. Simultaneously the appearance of new, influential Sufi brotherhoods, such as the Neʿmatollâhis and the Naqshbandis, increased the production of literary works that could be used both as means of spiritual education and as an accompaniment of rituals. It is of some interest to answer the question of what all this meant to the development of a small poetical item like the ghazal. Two facts should be taken into account, each of which is relevant to one of the two poles of the field of literary production.306 First, there is the astonishing success of the ghazal as an item in the repertoire of courtly lyricism. This went together with an increasing refinement in poetic taste and a more sophisticated appreciation of rhetorical virtuosity. The second fact to be considered is the impact of mystical ideas on the thematic complex of the ghazal. By itself, this was not a novelty. Ever since the early twelfth century two lines in the history of this form can be discerned, one of which continued the line of the “light” ghazal of the courts, while the other opened up a new, much more “heavy” application of the form as a mystical poem. All poets, whatever their ultimate intentions might be, resorted to the same stock of images and motifs. The crucial point is the difference in the social context of these poems, but the scarcity of historical information makes it often impossible to determine what that context actually was. The former manifested itself in an increasingly subtle play with the conventional ingredients of ghazal poetry. The latter involved a further development of symbols the ghazal. The poets who devoted themselves exclusively to the mystical ghazal spent most of their lives following the Sufi path, and had only very slight—if any—contacts with the courts. However, as we have also seen, some poets of the preceding period cannot be classified in one category or the other so easily, inasmuch as they had affiliations 306 The concept of the “literary field,” in which the interplay of socioeconomic factors and cultural phenomena is taken into account, has been coined by Pierre Bourdieu; see in particular his study Les règles de l’art. Genèse et structure du champ littéraire (Paris, 1992).

473

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

with both sides. This applies in particular to Homâm of Tabriz and Khwâju of Kerman, but also to Hâfez. Kamâl of Khojand. A poet who seems to have belonged to the last-mentioned type was Kamâl-al-Din Masʿud (d. ca. 1400). He is usually named Kamâl-e Khojandi because he was born in the Central Asian town of Khojand, but early in his life his family moved to Tabriz where he spent most of his days. The main interruption of his apparently quiet life occurred when in 1385 Toqtamish, the Khan of the Golden Horde, invading from the Qipchaq steppe (South Russia), raided Tabriz and took Kamâl with him to Saray, the capital of the Golden Horde on the Volga. Only after four years of captivity Kamâl was allowed to return. He enjoyed the patronage of the successive rulers of Tabriz, first Sultan Oweys’ son Hosayn (r. 1374–82) of the Jalayerids, and then the Timurid Mirânshâh (r. 1404–9), the son and successor of Timur in western Persia. Notwithstanding his close relationship to the secular powers, he was first of all known as a mystic to whom, with an allusion to his name, the honorific “Sheikh of Perfection” (Sheikh Kamâl) was given. He was initiated as a Sufi by a Central Asian master, Khwâje Obeyd-Allâh of Shâsh. The Jalayerid sultan honored him by establishing a retreat where Kamâl could devote himself to his mystical pursuits. After his death it became clear hat he had lived there in ascetic poverty. Jâmi included him among the Sufi poets in his collection of hagiographies, and called him “a very great [saint], who occupied himself with poetry and mannerisms (takallof) only to screen his spiritual status (hâl); or it may have been that he did not want his inner condition to overwhelm his outward behavior so that he would not be neglectful in maintaining the form of humble submission (obudiyat).”307 His poetical output is extensive. Most of his divan consists of ghazals, of which he wrote more than twice as many as Hâfez.308 He was the first who mentioned the name of his contemporary in

307 Jâmi, Nafahât al-ons, ed. M. Towhidipur (Tehran, 1957), p. 611. 308 981 ghazals in the edition of K. A. Sidfar (Moscow, 1975), two volumes in four parts.

474

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

Shiraz in a line that expresses the usual competition of a professional poet with a renowned rival: Nashod be-tarz-e ghazal ham-enân-e mâ Hâfez Agarche dar saf-e Soltân Abu’l-Favâres shod Hâfez could not keep our pace in the gallop, Even if he were a horseman of Soltan Abu’l-Favâres.309

As a literary critic Jâmi praised Kamâl for his “elegance of words and the subtlety of his motifs,” but at the same time remarked that “in his hyperboles he went beyond the limits of what reads smoothly”; also, he had “no taste for love and eroticism.” The mystics who had known him personally said “that being in his company was better than his poetry was, but Hâfez’s poetry was better than his company.”310 This sample of Kamâl’s ghazal poetry shows how the description of libertine revelers and drinkers could be used to evoke the atmosphere of spiritual ecstasy: In che majles che behesht in che maqâm-ast injâ Omr-e bâqi lab-e sâqi lab-e jâm-ast injâ Dowlati k-az hame bogrikht az-in dar nagodhasht Shâdi-i k-az hame bogrikht gholâm-ast injâ Chun dar â’i be tarabkhâne-ye mâ bâ gham-e del Hame guyand makhor gham ke harâm-ast injâ Mâ be bâm-e falak-im az bar-e mâ gar beravi Borow âheste ke jâm-o lab-e bâm-ast injâ Nist dar majles-e mâ pishgah-o saff-e neʿ âl Shâh-o darvish nadânand kodâm-ast injâ Sefat-e ud hame garmrow-o sukhte im Be joz az zâhed-e afsorde ke khâm-ast injâ Chand porsi che maqâm-ast Kamâl in ke to-râ-st In maqâm ke na manzel na maqâm-ast injâ311 What is this: a party, Paradise? What kind of place is this: Eternal life, the cheeks of the cupbearer, the edge of the cup. 309 Kamâl (ed. Sidfar), I/2, p. 428; Abu’l-Favâres, literally, “Father of Horsemen,” was the nickname of Hâfez’s patron Shah Shojâʿ (d. 1384). 310 Jâmi, Bahârestân, ed. Afsahzâd, pp. 148–49. 311 Kamâl (ed. Sidfar), I/1, p. 35, No. 17; the text with a translation also in Browne, LHP III, pp. 322–23.

475

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Happiness which was beyond everything, lingered on here. Joy which no one could get hold of, is here serving as your slave. If you enter this house where we make merry with a saddened heart, They all shout at you: “Do not be sad, for that is forbidden here.” We are on the roof of the Heavens. When you go higher, Be careful! The cup and the edge of the roof are here! There is no place of honor in our midst, no row for the shoes; King or beggar, you cannot tell them apart here. We are all burning like aloe wood, our faces are red-hot. Only a dull ascetic would not become ripe here. How long do you ask, Kamâl, what is this place where you are? This place is neither a station not a destination.

Although he actually belongs to the time of Hâfez, the impact of Kamâl’s poetry becomes particularly evident in the avowedly mystical turn that the ghazal took in the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Representative names include those of Mohammad-Shirin Maghrebi of Tabriz (d. 1406)—who was close to Kamâl but later became estranged from his master, Qâsem al-Anvâr (d.1433), and above all, Shâh Neʿmat-Allâh (d. 1431), the founder of the great Sufi Order of the Neʿmatollâhis. All these poets used the ghazal mainly to express the concept of the “Unity of Being” (vahdat al-vojud), propagated by the most influential teacher of pantheism in Islam, Mohyi-al-Din Ebn-e Arabi (d. 1240). However, they continued to use the entire scope of conventional themes and motifs that had become a constitutive feature of the Persian ghazal. The mystical ghazals of these poets have been aptly described as follows: ­… generally abstract, dry, and sprinkled with technical Sufi terms. The chief—almost the sole—theme of these poems is the mystical pantheism and related ideas which were in vogue. They speak of the emanation of the One in the plurality of our world, the priority of existence (wujūd) over the quiddities (māhiyyāt), and the basic unity of all creation despite appearances, particularly in transcendence of opposites such as lover and beloved, worshipper and worshipped, the hidden and the apparent, the praising and the praised, the drunk and the sober, Moses and Pharaoh, the mote and the sun, etc.312 312 E. Yarshater, “Persian Poetry: Timurid and Safavid Periods,” CHIr VI, p. 970.

476

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

As it appears from this characterization, an important effect of this trend was a strong impulse towards a further symbolization of the conventional imagery. The individual items of this stock were more and more treated as elements of an allegorical code in which each item was attached to a fixed meaning. What had been a flowing source of poetic images, ready to be used by the ghazal poets and to be applied in a comparatively free and imaginative manner, became a frozen set of symbols, almost a terminological system. The key to this code was provided by a genre of treatises that were really no more than lists so-called of such stereotyped symbols, the so-called estelehât. Yet, this was not a sudden break with the past. The tendency to deal with ghazal imagery in a symbolic fashion can be traced already for centuries, both in the poems themselves and in mystical textbooks. Instances can be found in Najm-al-Din Dâye’s influential textbook Mersâd al-ebâd men al-mabdaʿ elâ’l-maʿad (early thirteenth century);313 further examples appear more clearly in Mahmud Shabestari’s short mathnavi Golshan-e râz (composed in 1317).314 However, the lighter variety of the ghazal, in which mystical references are either absent or play only a minor role, did not disappear altogether from the scene. To the contrary, at the various courts of this period, a lively literary activity was continuing, and neither the number of poets nor their poetic output was less than in previous times. This is quite in line with the general picture of the Timurid period as an era of great artistic productivity. The ghazal was the favorite of nearly all these poets, and their artistry and rhetorical virtuosity was in no way inferior to that of the great masters of the preceding centuries. This self-confidence was echoed by an important (though not always trustworthy) contemporary observer such as Dowlatshâh, the author of the anthology Tadhkerat al-shoʿarâ, completed in 1487 when the Timurid period was drawing to its end. Edward Browne quotes Dowlatshâh’s high 313 A criticial edition of the Mersâd-al-ebâd was made by M. A. Riyâhi (Tehran, 1973); English translation, The Path of God’s Bondsmen from Origin to Return, by H. Algar (Boulder, Col., 1980). 314 For examples of the gradual allegorization of the terms used in qalandari poems, see de Bruijn, “The Qalandariyyāt in Persian Mystical Poetry,” pp. 75–86.

477

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

praise of the poet Amir Shâhi of Sabzavâr (d. 1453), who “combined the ardour of Khusraw, the grace of Hasan, the delicacy of Kamál, and the clarity of Ḥáfeẓ.”315 Modern writers, however, have given a much more negative verdict of Timurid poetry. A relatively sympathetic view was taken by E. J.W. Gibb who, though admitting that this poetry was “but too often marred by an excessive use of rhetoric,” and showed “subjectivity, artificialness and conventionality,” also claims that it was marked by “an ever-increasing deftness of craftsmanship and brilliance of artistry.”316 The most outspoken and severe critic was Mohammad-Rezâ Shafiʿi Kadkani, who denied any “particular artistic value” to the poetry of this period, though admitting that he is measuring it “by the standards of our age.”317 Another writer on the literature of the Timurid period, Maria Eva Subtelny, has warned of the inevitable errors in perspective involved in such evaluations from the angle of a modern bias, which should be corrected by holding them against the standards of contemporaries.318 The same Amir Shâhi of Sabzavâr (d. 1453), for instance, was still highly regarded by Ottoman literati in the sixteenth century, including Sultan Selim I (1512–20), who imitated his verses. To the emerging Turkish poetry, both in Central Asia and in Anatolia, the Persian writers of the Timurid period have provided important examples. Passing by a number of names which perhaps deserve to be mentioned in this chapter, we now turn to the one really great figure of the period. Jâmi. Mollâ Nur al-Din Abd-al-Rahmân Jâmi (1414–92) was not only the towering figure of his age, but also he was one of the most 315 Browne, HPL III, p. 498; Amir Khosrow (1253–1325) and Hasan of Delhi (1253–1328) were famous Indo-Persian poets who flourished at the court of the Sultans of Delhi. On Kamâl of Khojand see above. 316 E. J.W. Gibb, A History of Ottoman Poetry (6 vols., London, 1900–9), II, pp. 11–13, cited by M. E. Subtelny, “A Taste for the Intricate: The Persian Poetry of the Late Timurid Period,” ZDMG 136/1 (1986), pp. 56–79. 317 M. R. Shafiʿi- Kadkani, “Persian Literature (Belles-lettres) from the Time of Jāmī to the Present Day,” in G. Morrison, ed., History of Persian Literature from the Beginning of the Islamic Period to the Present Day (Leiden and Cologne, 1981), pp. 137–38; see also p. 141. 318 Subtelny, “A Taste for the Intricate,” pp. 57–60.

478

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

productive writers in the entire history of Persian literature. He lived, moreover, at a very critical point in time, when the political and cultural conditions in Persia were about to change drastically. Although it can be disputed whether or not Jâmi was really the “last classical poet,” there can be no question about his crucial importance as the last major representative of a constellation which was on the verge of disappearance. This becomes clear when we consider the size and the tremendous diversity of his contribution to Persian, and even Arabic, literature. As a mystic and theologian, he was a staunch defender of Sunni orthodoxy, but he left the actual interference in politics to the other sheikhs of the Order to which he belonged, the Naqshbandiyya. He recognized that his strength lay in teaching and writing, and these were the occupations to which he devoted almost his entire life. However, there was another side to his personality: he was passionately in love with Persian poetry. This is not only evident from the variety of his poetical works, which include virtually every form and genre of the tradition, but also from several explicit statements. The poems he wrote in mathnavi and in the various lyrical verse forms were of course to a large extent dominated by his mysticism, and were used as an alternative medium of expression besides his more discursive writings. There can be no doubt therefore that he should be appreciated in the first place as a great Sufi poet, who expressed in an allegorical idiom the “Unity of Being” doctrines prevailing in his day. He did so, for instance, in the allegorical treatment of the Qoranic story of Yusof and Zoleykhâ in the style of the romantic mathnavi, and in the prosimetric text Lavâ’eh (Flashes of Light), composed on the lines of Ahmad Ghazâli’s famous treatise on love, the Savâneh. Although Jâmi stated that he would prefer the secluded life of a scholar, this did not prevent him from keeping up a wide network of contacts with the contemporary political powers. They included, apart from the Timurid courts of Samarqand and Herat and the Aqqoyunlu sultan in Tabriz, rulers farther away, on the Indian subcontinent and in the Ottoman Empire. This means that Jâmi was as much a “hybrid” poet, who divided his interests between the world and his mysticism, as other poets of the ghazal we have discussed before, such as Amir Khosrow of Delhi and Kamâl-al-Din of Khojand. 479

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

It is quite evident that Jâmi was extremely fond of the ghazal. The poems in this form constitute the most important part of his lyrical poetry. Like his predecessors Saʿdi and Amir Khosrow, he collected his lyrical poems in more than one divan. He took care of their classification himself, just as he did with other parts of his literary output. The still extant manuscripts show that the formation of these collections was a gradual process extending over more than one decade. The first collection that can be recognized from the sources is known as the Ancient Divan (Divân-e qadim), to which a brief prose introduction was attached. It came into being in at least three stages between 1463 and 1475. A renewed edition, including also an extended introduction, was prepared in 1479, and then two more divans followed, completed respectively in 1489 and 1491. Eventually the last-mentioned three divans were given titles, apparently in imitation of the divans of Amir Khosrow of Delhi. Like Khosrow’s collections—and unlike those of Saʿdi—Jâmi’s divans do not only contain ghazals. The first of the three was called Fâtehat al-shabâb (The Opening of Youth), which suggests that the contents were only juvenile compositions, but since the collection was made when the poet had already passed the age of sixty, it is very likely that poems from later years also were included. The relationship of the titles to the poet’s age is more plausible in the case of the other two collections: Vâsetat al-eqd (The Middle [Bead] of the Necklace) and Khâtemat al-hayât (The Conclusion of Life). The total number of ghazals in these divans is about 1800, of which more than half (1010 ghazals) is contained in the Fâtehat al-shabâb. Jâmi was already active as a poet at the Timurid court of Samarqand before 1450, when he was still in his thirties. The disproportion in the number of ghazals between the first divan and the two later divans is so striking that the conclusion seems inevitable that the writing of ghazal poetry—in the generic sense of love poetry— was a favorite pastime of Jâmi’s during the first part of his life. This is confirmed by the narrowing down of the themes of the poems in the latter collections, in which he deals mostly with mystical subjects, and the insertion of Arabic lines becomes more conspicuous. In line with this are the poet’s own reflections on the art of poetry. They can be found in several of his works and show him to be very 480

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

conscious of the contradictions between his spiritual devotion and his artistic pursuits, more than any of his predecessors had been. However, Jâmi never lost his taste of poetry for its own sake. One of his most direct utterances is contained in the introduction that he wrote for the final version of his first divan, where he explains that he was making poems during all his life, not only in social gatherings whenever a suitable occasion presented itself, but even during his studies in the religious schools. He tried to reconcile the two sides of his intellectual practice by referring to the natural gifts that God had given to him: At the beginning the Wise and Exalted Creator made a talent for poetry my inborn nature and He gave my thought in general an inclination towards it. Never have I been able to erase this verdict fully from the pages of my life so that I would be fully freed from that feature. There was no escape from it: since the early flowering of my youth, the first page of life, till this very day when I have passed the age of sixty looking on to my seventies, I never went altogether without it nor has it ever left my mind alone …319 In the conventional praise of the “Word” (sokhan) introducing the mathnavi Kherad-nâme-ye Eskandari, written in 1485, he made mention of a wavering attitude with regard to his poetical activities: Sokhan mâye-ye sehr-o afsun bovad Be takhsis vaqti ke mowzun bovad Az-ân sehr bastam zabân chand bâr V-az ân nâder afsun shodam towbe-kâr Valikan cho bud ân ma-râ dar seresht Nagasht az sar-am harf-e ân sarnevesht Degar bâre gashtam be ân harf bâz Sokhan-râ be har sorati herfesâz Zadam omri az bimethâlân mathal Sorudam be vasf-e ghazzâlân ghazal Qalamvâr az sar qadam sâkhtam Ze-moshkinkhatân nâme pardâkhtam 319 Jâmi, Divân-e Jâmi, ed. A. K. Afsahzâd (2 vols., Tehran, 1999), I, p. 39; cf. J. T. P. de Bruijn, “Chains of Gold: Jāmī’s Defence of Poetry,” Journal of Turkish Studies. Essays in Honour of Barbara Flemming 26/1 (2002), pp. 81–92.

481

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Dam az sâderuyân-e raʿnâ zadam Ghazal-râ ze-mah kheyme bâlâ zadam320 The Word is the source of sorcery and magic, Especially when it is bound by meter. At times I stopped using such magic words And repented from that strange sorcery. But, as this was my disposition, my fate, I could not put it out of my head. So I returned to this kind of speech In every way sculpting what I had to say. All my life I gave form to those without form, I sang ghazals about graceful “gazelles.” I lowered my head to my feet like a pen To write about budding musky beards. In subtle phrases I praised tender faces, I raised the ghazal higher than the Moon.

If the intensity of Jâmi’s dealings with the ghazal is beyond doubt, a negative answer is often given to the question whether or not he was a very creative poet, especially by modern critics. It is obvious that in Jâmi’s concept of literature, the emulation of the masters of the past is very important. In this he was just a child of his time, and even the most outspoken representative of the conservatism that marked all Timurid literature. According to Jâmi, none of the classical forms of Persian poetry had been fully exhausted. There was always the possibility to bring them to life again by giving them a new depth of meaning.321 The same holds true for his ghazals. However, it should be considered that as yet all statements on the intrinsic value of this extensive corpus, which until now has been hardly analyzed, are premature. For the time being, we can do nothing better than conclude this chapter by presenting a few samples of Jâmi’s art of the ghazal, which mark the final stage in the development of the form during the Persian Middle Ages. The longing for a beloved, who dwells in a transcendental realm, is put into words that, without the poet’s explicit indication, could easily be read as the expression of an intense human emotion: 320 Jâmi, Kherad-nâme-ye Eskandari, ed. Afsahzâd, p. 433, ll. 335–41. 321 Cf. Rypka, HIL, p. 287, quoting Bertel’s.

482

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry Harim-e manzel-e jânân berun ze-âlam-e mâ-st Khoshâ kasi ke darin goftoguy mahram-e mâ-st Ze bâr-e gham qad-e mâ halqe gasht chun khâtam Be farq sang-e malâmat negin-e khâtam-e mâ-st Jodâ ze sarvqadân farsh-e sabze-râ dar bâgh Besât-e eysh magu k-ân palâs-e mâtam-e mâ-st Mezâj-e khastedelân-râ be joz gham-e to nasâkht Alâj-e mâ be gham owlâ agar to-râ gham-e mâ-st Derâzi-ye shab-e mâ-râ agar namidâni Ze-nâle pors ke tâ vaqt-e subh hamdam-e mâ-st Tabib rish-e ma-râ did goft dar jegari Ke zakhm-e eshq konad jâ che jây-e marham-ast Be bazm-e mâ sokhan az jâm-o Jam magu Jâmi Sefâl-e meykade jâm-o gedâ-ye u Jam-e mâ-st322 The privacy of my sweetheart’s house is outside our universe; How happy we are if someone joins our talking about it. The burden of sorrow has bent our stature like a ring; The stone of rebuke [thrown] to our head is the stone of our ring.323 If there are no tall cypresses on the green in the garden, Do not call this a carpet for pleasure: it is the place of our mourning. The temperament of all hearts is made by their sorrow about you; Sorrow is our best cure if it is because of you that we are in sorrow. Do you not know how long our vigils last? Ask the sighs! They were with us till the time of dawn. The doctor looked at our wound and said: “On a heart Struck by love, where should we put our plaster?” Jâmi, do not mention at our party the Cup of King Jam: The Cup is but crockery in the tavern, our Jam just a beggar.

No more than the suggestion of an infatuation which keeps the lover in its grip, even when he lies buried in his grave, must do as a transcendental reference in this poem: Rafti-o man molâzem-e in manzel-am hanuz Z-âb-e mozhe be kuy-e to pâ dar gel-am hanuze Rândi cho barq mahmel-e khod garm-o man cho abr Dar gerye-o afghân ze pey-e mahmel-am hanuz 322 Jâmi (ed. Afsahzâd), I, p. 295. 323 I. e., rebuke aimed at us is an honor.

483

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Bogsast chun zamâm-e shotor reshte-ye hayât Dast az davâl-e mahmel-e to nagsalam hanuz Ey gashte del ze tigh-e jafây-e to-am do nim Bâ man dodel mabâsh ke man yakdel-am hanuz Man morgh-e nimbesmel-am az showq-e tigh-e to To tigh-e nâkashide pey-e besmel-am hanuz Farsud chashm-e gharqe be khun zir-e khâk-o man Mostaghraq-e moshâhede-ye qâtel-am hanuz Jâmi nehâde chashm be tâq-e mazâr-e khwish Yaʿni be shekl-e abruy-e to mâyel-am hanuz324 You went away but I am still lingering on at your house, My feet are stuck in the mud: so much water poured from my whimpers. Quick as lightning your litter drove away; I am the cloud That weeping and lamenting still follows behind the litter. The thread of life is broken like the camel’s rein; Yet my hands still hold on to the litter’s straps. Oh, your cruel sword split my heart in two, Even if you do not draw your sword, I am still your victim. When the eyes, drowned in blood, are decaying in the earth, I shall still be merged in the contemplation of my killer. Jâmi will fix his eyes on the vault of his tomb; That means that he is still inclining towards the form of your brows.

In this evocation of amorous desire amidst the pleasures of a vernal garden, the orientation of the poet’s love seems to be irrelevant: Bogshâd neqâb az rokh-e gol bâd-e bahârân Shod tarf-e chaman bamzgah-e bâdegosârân Shod lâlestân gerd-e gol az bas ke nehâdand Ru suy-e tamâshâ-ye chaman lâle-edhârân Dar mowsem-e gol towbe ze-mey dir napâyad Yâd-ast ma-râ in sokhan az tajrobekârân Az sobheshomârân matalab gowhar-e maqsud K-âmad sadaf-e ân kaf-e angurfeshârân Bar sohbat-e gol del maneh ey morgh ke chun to Gashtand dar-in bâgh-o godhastand hazârân Az gomshodegân zir-e gel âmad be to sabze Hamchun khat-e yârân ke nevisand be yârân 324 Jâmi (ed. Afsahzâd), I, pp. 485–86.

484

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry Bin ghonche-ye nashekofte ke âvard be suy-at Sarbaste piyâmi ze-del-e sinefagârân Jâmi naravad suz-e to az sine be gerye Dâgh-e del-e lâle nashavad shoste be bârân325 The wind of spring lifted the veil from the cheeks of the rose, The drinkers took their revelry to the meadows. A bed of tulips appeared around the rose as all Who showed up to enjoy the meadow had cheeks like tulips. In this season of the rose a vow of sobriety does not last long. That is what men of experience have told me. The desired pearl is not with those who count their rosaries. Its shell is the palm of the hands that press the grapes. Do not set your heart on the company of the rose, my bird, So many like you were once in this garden and thousands are gone. The green herbs lost under the rose are for you Like the lines which lovers write to their lovers. Look! The bud which is still closed brings to you A hidden message from those who are wounded at heart. Jâmi, the burning in your breast is not put out by your weeping, The mark on the heart of the tulip is not washed away by the rain.

9. Conclusion During the period surveyed in this chapter, the field of literature in Persia was dominated by two poles: on the one hand the courts, on the other hand the religious institution in all its formal and informal manifestations. On both sides, the economic conditions for the practice of poetry were eventually provided by patronage, either of the rulers themselves, the high officials of state, and other people in the royal entourage, or of the sheikhs and scholars who acted as spiritual teachers, but also guided behavior in daily life and led the rituals of their communities. The similarities on both sides were perhaps greater than it seems at first sight, if one considers that the religious authorities were responsible for the raising and spending 325 Jâmi (ed. Afsahzâd), I, p. 653.

485

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

of the funds necessary to maintain such artistic activities as the writing of religious poetry and its performance in religious ceremonies. This is all the more so inasmuch as the conditions of the literary field to which we have just referred did not change significantly in the period studied here. However, a single feature needs to be put into the foreground in conclusion. In the early phase of its development, the Persian ghazal seems to have been little more than a form of oral court poetry. Gradually rising to the level of polite literature, it adopted other themes besides erotic lyricism. The emphasis on the devotion of the poet/lover to his beloved in these poems could well be read as a reflection of moral ideas, such as the imperative of a total commitment and loyalty towards a patron for whom the poem was written. The environment in which ghazals were composed and performed also invited the occasional use of the ghazal for an elegant, playful kind of panegyric; we have noted that the first examples of this can already be dated at the turn of the eleventh to the twelfth century. Almost simultaneously, the potential of ghazal lyricism to be exploited for a symbolization of a transcendental or mystical concept of love was discovered. For the study of this portentous event in the history of the ghazal, the poetry of Sanâ’i of Ghazna offers the best material—which is still far from being adequately investigated. From this moment onwards, the ghazal was equally important at the secular and at the religious side of the literary field. As we have had occasion to mention repeatedly, this situation did not lead to a clear-cut division between two different kinds of ghazal poetry. Since the twelfth century, mystical ideas penetrated further and further into the religious awareness of Persian Muslims, whether or not they actually partook in the more demanding practices of the Sufis. In a highly popular lyric such as the ghazal, this became noticeable in a growing tendency to add a spiritual flavor to these poems. This resulted in an ambiguity which has been appreciated by many critics as one of the most fascinating features of a Persian ghazal. As we have seen, this hermeneutical embarrassment marks not only the ghazals of the greatest masters of the form, Saʿdi and Hâfez, but those of many other poets as well. 486

The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry

In post-Mongol Persian society, the distance between the secular and the religious poles seems to have narrowed even more. It can be observed that the influence of the spiritual leadership on the centers of worldly power was on the increase. The most important example of this was the growing interference of prominent sheikhs of the great Sufi Order of the Naqshbandiya in politics during the later Timurid period. In the career of Abd-al-Rahmân Jâmi, an important Naqshbandi sheikh as well as a prolific writer of ghazals, the relationship with the rulers of his age played a major part. By convention, historians of Persian literature have regarded Jâmi’s poetical works as the finale of Persian “classical” poetry. The drastic changes setting in as soon as the sixteenth century began— foremost among them, the rise of the Safavid shahs who united Persia under a single ruler and made the country into a bulwark of Shiʿism—could not fail to influence the further course of literature as well. Yet, this historical watershed did not exclude a fundamental continuity in the use of literary forms, and this also holds true as far as the development of the ghazal is concerned. In the next centuries, ghazal poetry became a central element in the stylistic innovations designated under the heading of the “Indian style” (sabk-e Hindi) or the “style of Isfahan” (sabk-e Esfahâni), as some modern Persian critics prefer to call it.326 It may very well be that Jâmi’s role was not restricted to that of the poet who came last and gracefully closed the doors on a “golden” period behind him. It is perhaps even true to say that in Jâmi’s ghazals, the first signs of future developments could be noticed. However, they become much more evident in the poetry of Jâmi’s contemporary Bâbâ Faghâni (d. 1519). With this harbinger of a new style, another chapter on the development of the Persian ghazal would be opened.327

326 See in particular E. Yarshater, “The Indian Style: Progress or Decline?” in idem, ed., Persian Literature (Albany, 1988), pp. 249–88. 327 Cf. the monograph by P. E. Losensky, Welcoming Fighānī. Imitation and Poetic Individuality in the Safavid-Mughal Ghazal (Costa Mesa, Calif., 1998).

487

CHAPTER 9 THE FLOURISHING OF PERSIAN QUATRAINS A. A. Seyed-Gohrab

1. Introduction The quatrain is one of the most popular literary forms in classical Persian literature. Ever since the rise of Persian poetry in the ninth and tenth centuries, most Persian authors have composed quatrains on a variety of subjects. The quatrain form appears in virtually all the major genres of Persian poetry, from didactic and mystical, to the satirical and philosophical. It has always enjoyed a wide audience, as pointed out by the medieval Persian writer on rhetoric and prosody Shams-e Qeys Râzi, in his manual on prosody (al-Moʿ jam, composed after 1232–33): [… For] the learned and the ordinary folk have become besotted with this kind of poetry; the ascetic and the sinner alike take delight in it. It is the favorite of the pious and the impious … Those lacking in discrimination who cannot tell prose from poetry and know nothing of meter and rhythm, start dancing on the pretext of a [melodious] quatrain (tarâna) … Many young virgins (while still secluded at the parental) home are so transfigured by the passion induced by the quatrain that they break the doors and demolish the walls of their abode of chastity …1

Audiences are captivated by the compact form and terse formulation, usually conveying a concise maxim, or a witty saying. Shams-e Qeys also refers to the use of the quatrain by the early mystics. 1

Shams-al-Din Mohammad b. Qeys-al-Râzi, Al-moʿ jam fi maʿ â’ir ashʿ âr alajam, eds. M. Qazvini and M. Razavi (2 nd ed., Tehran, 1957), p. 107.

488

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

These used quatrains in musical devotional séances (samâʿs) in the same way that the divine name or a phrase from the Qor’an was often used. The quatrain would be repeated again and again to bring the audience to an ecstatic state, the devotees dancing to the rhythm of mostly erotic poems to celebrate their direct communion with the immaterial beloved. This chapter will explore the reasons for its continued popularity. In so doing, some aspects of the history of the quatrain will also be discussed, in particular its origins, rhyme, and meter, its use in texts which contain both verse and prose, and the phenomenon of the so-called “wandering quatrains.” The development of the quatrain will be discussed with reference to Omar Khayyâm (d. either 1123 or 1132) and the first extant thematic collections of quatrains; as well as some important later collections of quatrains by such major poets as Saʿdi, Rumi, Hâfez, and Jâmi and several of their contemporaries.2

2. The Quatrain’s Origins, Rhyme, and Meter The Persian word robâʿ i (pl. robâʿ iyyât) is derived from the Arabic arbaʿa, meaning “four.” This refers to the unit of four half-verses (mesrâʿ) or two verses, each containing two mesrâʿs. The terms dobeyti or “two verses” and tarâna “song” are also sometimes used as near synonyms. As in other Persian poems, the meter consists of a pattern of long and short syllables. Persian quatrains are composed in two metric variants, differing in the second foot. The patterns are – – ⏑ ⏑ / – – ⏑ ⏑ / – – ⏑ ⏑ / - and – – ⏑ ⏑ / – ⏑ – ⏑ / – – ⏑ ⏑/ – (– indicates a long syllable and ⏑ stands for a short syllable.)3 Although 2 3

On Khayyâm’s date of death see C.-H. de Fouchécour, EI2 , s. v. ‘Umar Khayyām. See B. Utas, “Prosody: Meter and Rhyme,” in HPL I (2009), pp. 119–21 where the author discusses the meter of the quatrain and its relation to folk poetry. Also see B. Reinert, “Die prosodische Unterschiedlichkeit von persischem und arabischem Rubā‘ī,” in R. Gramlich, ed., Islamwissenschaftliche Abhandlungen (Wiesbaden, 1974), pp. 205–24; C.-H. de Fouchécour, EI2 , s. v. Rubāʿī.

489

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

quatrains exist in Arabic, dating as far back as the ninth century, their meter is different. The special meter used in Persian quatrains is a Persian invention. The origin of the quatrain has been widely debated. Alessandro Bausani proposed a hypothesis for a possible origin of the quatrain, which may go back to China, via Turkic sources in Central Asia.4 A Turkic influence is possible, although the surviving early specimens of Turkic poetry do not include quatrain-like forms. The later specimens have syllabic rather than quantitative meter. Comparing the rhyme pattern (aaba) of Persian and Chinese quatrains, Bausani observes, “in Chinese poetry the quatrain became popular during the Tang dynasty (seventh–ninth centuries), when relations between China and Central Asia were stronger than ever, and one of the most famous authors of quatrains, Li Poh (d. 762), was exiled for a certain time in Central Asia.”5 We should also note the existence of folk quatrains or fahlaviyyât in Middle Persian. As defined by Ahmad Tafazzoli, fahlaviyyât is “an appellation given especially to the quatrains and by extension to the poetry in general composed in the old dialects of the Pahla/Fahla regions (…) namely Isfahan, Ray, Hamadān, Māh Nehāvand, and Azerbaijan, that is a region comprising Media.”6 Mohammad-Reza Shafiʿi-Kadkani refers to quatrains sung by the Persian Sufis of Baghdad in the third/ninth century during their religious musical performances (samâʿ).7 Such quatrains were in all probability in a local Iranian dialect.8 The didactic tone of the Persian quatrain resembles some pre-Islamic epigrammatic literature.9 There is, however, no hard 4

B. S. Amoretti, EIr, s. v. Alessandro Bausani. For Bausani’s treatment of the quatrain see chapter “La quartina,” in A. Pagliaro and A. Bausani, La letteratura persiana (Milan, 1968), pp. 319–55. In the first part of the book, Pagliaro covers the pre-Islamic period (pp. 1–127) and Bausani covers the Islamic period (pp. 133–578). 5 According to Amoretti, Bausani applied this hypothesis to Persian ghazal as well. See Amoretti, EIr, s. v. Alessandro Bausani. 6 A. Tafażżolī, EIr, s. v. Fahlavīyāt. 7 The reference is to: Mohammad-Rezâ Shafiʿi-Kadkani, Musiqi-ye sheʿr (5 th pr., Tehran, 1997), pp. 473–74. 8 Ibid. 9 See B. Utas, “Prosody: Meter and Rhyme,” pp. 119–21.

490

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

evidence for the existence of quatrains in pre-Islamic Persia in the form that we know today.10 Referring to theories of the possible Turkish or Persian origins of the quatrain, Tilman Seidensticker introduces a third hypothesis, of an Arabic origin, which he says, “has the advantage of having much more textual evidence.”11 Seidensticker surmises that to support a Turkish origin, we need textual evidence of four-line poems prior to the appearance of Persian quatrains, which is lacking. Seidensticker justifies his theory with reference to the poetry of Khâled b. Yazid al-Kâteb, an Arab poet who died no later than 884, who wrote exclusively four line poems in long meters, each verse containing as much as 24–28 syllables. Less than one fifth of his poems (104 in number), have verses of 16 to 18 syllables. The Persian robâʿ i has between 10 and 13 syllables. Seidensticker argues that the connection between the first Persian robâʿ i, around 930, and al-Kâteb’s poetry is obvious because al-Kâteb died no later than 884. Seidensticker admits that there is one difficulty still to explain: the Persian robâʿ i may have an aaba rhyme scheme, which does not exist in the Arabic quatrains. In Seidensticker’s view, this rhyme scheme is an “innovation accomplished in Persia.” The oldest Persian quatrains date back to the tenth century. In his al-Moʿ jam, Shams-e Qeys tells the story of the Persian poet Rudaki (d. 940) who overhears a boy rolling walnuts into a ditch while singing ghaltân ghaltân hami ravad tâ bon-e gu (“rolling, rolling it goes to the bottom of the hole”).12 This is metrically identical to the second metric variant cited above. When Rudaki heard this, he reportedly went home and composed several poems in the same meter. The origin of this anecdote perhaps goes back to a popular etiology seeking to find a precise origin for the verse form while at the same time confirming Rudaki’s pivotal position in early Persian 10 See Z. Safâ, EIr, s. v. Andarz: Andarz Literature in New Persian. 11 T. Seidensticker, “Die Herkunft des Robâ‘i,” Asiatische Studien 53 (1999), pp. 905–36; idem, “An Arabic Origin of the Persian Rubā‘ī,” Middle Eastern Literatures 14.2 (2011), pp. 155–69. 12 Shams-al-Din Mohammad b. Qeys-al-Râzi, Al-moʿ jam fi maʿ â’ir ashʿ âr alajam, eds. M. Qazvini and M. Razavi (Tehran, 1935), p. 84.

491

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

poetry. Throughout his work, Shams-e Qeys frequently cites examples from Rudaki, including the following: Vâjeb nabovad be kas bar afzâl-o karam Vâjeb bâshad har âyena shokr-e neʿam Taqsir nakard khwâje dar nâvâjeb Man dar vâjeb chegune taqsir konam It is not binding for one to be benevolent and magnanimous, Though it is binding at all times to be grateful for bounties Since my lord cannot be faulted even on conduct discretional How can I flout the law in matters mandatory?13

Among extant early examples of Persian poetry are a handful of poems in the robâʿ i meter attributed to Rudaki’s contemporaries and poets of the following generation, such as Shahid of Balkh (d. 927), Manjik (d. ca. 991), and Abu Shakur of Balkh (d. 947).14 We have many more examples from the poets of the Ghaznavid and Saljuq eras. In the divans (collected works) of these poets, quatrains are usually placed in the final pages. The quatrain’s popularity, over more than a millennium, relates in part to its form, in which a subject is presented in a terse fashion. The first two lines usually introduce a topic, the third raises a question or presents the crux, and the last line brings the resolution. As Hans de Bruijn points out, if a quatrain is to be successful, it should “express a certain development of thought, for which in many cases the third non-rhyming line is used. It connects the initial idea or image put forward in the first two lines to a conclusion contained in the final line.”15 To illustrate this structure, in the first two lines of the following quatrain the poet invites us to imagine ourselves as Solomon’s son, having his proverbial power of being carried on 13 Shams-e Qeys (Qazvini and Razavi), p. 175. 14 For the quatrains of these poets see A. E. Gilâni, Shâʿerân-e hamʿasr-e Rudaki (Tehran, 1991); also see G. Lazard, Les premiers poètes persans (IXe – Xe siècles). Fragments rassemblés, édités et traduits (2 vols., Paris and Tehran, 1964). 15 J. T. P. de Bruijn, Persian Sufi Poetry. An Introduction to the Mystical Use of Classical Poems (Richmond, 1997), p. 8; idem, EIr, s. v. Epigram; also see C.-H. de Fouchécour, EI2 , s. v. Rubā’ī; L. P. Elwell-Sutton, “The ‘Rubā’ī’ in Early Persian Literature,” CHIr IV, pp. 633–57.

492

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

his throne by the wind wherever he likes. The third line generalizes from this image, raising the implicit question: what then? An answer is given in the last line: Giram ke soleymân-e nabi râ pesari Bar bâd neshaste-i jahân misepari Giram ke ba kâm-e tost giti shab-o ruz Bengar ke pedar che bord tâ to che bari Assuming you are Solomon the prophet’s son, Sitting astride the wind, traversing the world, Assuming that you find the world entirely to your satisfaction, night and day! Ponder on what your father took along with him (to the next world) to reckon what you’ll take.16

Another example of this structure is the following poem attributed to Khayyâm: Yek chand be kudaki be ostâd shodim Yek chand be ostâdi-ye khod shâd shodim Pâyân-e sokhan shenow ke mârâ che resid Az khâk dar âmadim-o bar bâd shodim For a while, in our childhood we were enrolled with a master For a while we basked in our status as a master, Hearken to the end of the tale to hear what we gained from all this: We rose from the dust and vanished in the wind.17

Independent collections of quatrains were written from the thirteenth century onwards, although reports about earlier collections also exist. The Persian anthologist and biographer, Mohammad Owfi, reports that Ali b. Hasan Bâkharzi (d. 1075) was the author of a well-known Tarab-nâme in which he had collected his ­robâʿ iyyât and gives a few examples. The book is no longer extant.18 16

Afzal-al-Din Kâshâni, Mossanafât, eds. M. Minovi and Y. Mahdavi (2 nd ed., Tehran, 1987), p. 772. 17 Omar Khayyâm, Robâʿ iyyât-e Khayyâm, eds. M. A. Forughi and Q. Ghani (Tehran, 1942), new edition by B. Khorramshâhi (Tehran, 1994), p. 151, Quatrain 134. 18 Mohammad Owfi, Lobâb al-albâb, eds. E. G. Browne and M. Qazvini (London, 1903–6), I, p. 70.

493

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Quatrains are found not only in the poets’ collected works, but also as citations in a wide range of prose works, where they are cited for didactic reasons to bolster the argument. As a genre, quatrains use simple, and usually unambiguous, language with few literary embellishments. Because of its short length and plain language, the quatrain is eminently quotable. Its very brevity is an invitation to the amateur to try his hand, while on the other hand the restrictions on form may well challenge the master. The themes and imagery in the quatrains are similar to those in ghazals, the main difference being that a single ghazal combines several themes and imagery in a mesmerizing way so that several interpretations may be simultaneously feasible. In quatrains, the poet usually concentrates on one theme, and where more than one theme and type of imagery are involved, they should be easily comprehensible. The structure makes the quatrain a medium for expressing subtle ideas in a succinct way. Their conciseness has made quatrains popular for citation within works in prose, in sermons and debate, and as decorations on walls, ceramics and tile work from early on. The terse form of the quatrain allows poets to display their wit and talent in improvisation. Nezâmi Aruzi’s Chahâr maqâle (Four Discourses) relates how Moʿezzi (d. 1120), the poet-laureate (malek al-shoʿarâ) at the Saljuq court, had fallen from favor, his stipend stopped, and himself barred from entering the court for one year.19 When he complained to Amir Ali b. Farâmarz, the Amir advised him to accompany the Sultan on the occasion of observing the new moon, the signal confirming the end of Ramadan. The Sultan is the first to spot the crescent of the new moon, and Amir Ali asks Moʿezzi to recite an impromptu poem for the occasion. He responds: Ey mâh, chu abruvân-e yâri gu’i Yâ ney, chu kamân-e shahriyâri gu’i Naʿ li zada az zarr-e ayyâri gu’i Bar gush-e sepehr gushvâri gu’i 19

Nezâmi Aruzi, Chahâr maqâle, ed. M. Qazvini (London and Leiden, 1910), pp. 40–43. Cf. Chapter 2 on “The Qaside after the Fall of the Ghaznavids 1100–1500 CE,” by J. T. P. de Bruijn, in the present volume.

494

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains O Moon, you are like the brows of the beloved, one might say, Or perhaps more like the prince’s bow, one might say, You are like a horsehoe, wrought of pure gold, one might say, Hanging as a pendant on Heaven’s ear, one might say.

When the Sultan heard this quatrain, he rewarded him with a horse of his own choice from the royal stables. The quatrain does not usually contain intricate rhetorical figures. Where they are used, it is probably part of an effort to outshine other past or contemporary poets. In competing with each other, poets sought to write the most embellished example of the quatrain, using as many rhetorical figures as possible. The following poem by Lotf-Allâh Neyshâburi displays the rhetorical figure of morâʿ ât-e nazir or “congruity of imagery” by using a) four days (the day before yesterday, yesterday, today, and tomorrow), b) four articles of war, c) four colors, d) four precious stones, d) four flowers, and e) the Four Elements, all in a unified fashion. The word fardâ, tomorrow, is not apparent, but is expected in the last line, so that the reader searches for it and finds it concealed in the words nilufar dâd. Gol dâd parir derʿ-e firuze be-bâd Dey jowshan-e laʿ l-e lâle bar khâk fetâd Dâd âb-e chaman khanjar-e minâ emruz Yâqut-e sanân âtash-e nilufar dâd The day before yesterday, the rose gave a turquoise armor to the wind Yesterday, the tulip’s ruby breast-plate fell to earth The watering of the grass tempered an emerald dagger Tomorrow, from the spear’s sapphire tip the lily’s fire.20

20 D.-A. Safâ, Târikh-e adabiyyât (5 vols., 5 th pr., Tehran, 1989), IV, p. 212; Dowlatshâh Samarqandi, Tadhkerat al-shoʿarâ (Memoirs of the Poets), ed. E. G. Browne (London and Leiden, 1901), p. 319. The verb in the third line âb-dâdan has several meanings, among which, “to water,” “to polish,” and “to temper” (steel).

495

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

3. Early Collections of Quatrains A large number of quatrains are attributed to the great mystic Abu Saʿid Abu’l-Kheyr (d. 1049). The quatrains appear originally in two prose biographies, one by his great-grandson Jamâl-al-Din Abu Rawh Lotf-Allâh b. Abi Saʿid and one by Mohammad b. Monavvar. The biographers quote quatrains and other poetic forms that Abu Saʿid cited during his sermons. He is probably not the author, but in later centuries the quatrains were attributed to him in various sources. His saintly reputation certainly played a role in this ascription. On the authority of Mohammad b. Monavvar, Shafiʿi-Kadkani concludes that Abu Saʿid composed no more than one quatrain and a couplet. The couplet was written on the top of a letter written as a response to one by Hamzat-al-Turâb, and intended to show his humility, using the word khâk, meaning earth or dust, five times, and internal rhymes with pâk, meaning clear or pure. It reads as follows: Chun khâk shodi khâk-e torâ khâk shodam Chun khâk-e torâ khâk shodam pâk shodam Since you have become earth [for me], I have become the earth of your earth Now that I have become the earth of your earth, I have become pure.21

Mohammad b. Monavvar, citing the authority of his own grandfather who had said that some people had thought that the verses uttered by Abu Said in the course of his speeches and conversations were composed by him, goes on to say, but this was not the case, for he was so immersed in his mystic states, in contemplating the Truth, that he did not have the wherewithal to think of [composing] poetry or of anything else. During all his life, he did not write any other poetry except one couplet on the letter to Hamza and this quatrain. 21 Abu Saʿid, Hâlât va sokhanân-e Sheykh Abu Saʿ id Fazl Allâh ibn Abi ’lKheyr al-Meyhani, ed. V. A. Zhukovsky (Petersburg, 1899), p. 54; Mohammad b. Monavvar-e Meyhani, Asrâr al-towhid, ed. M.-R. Shafiʿi-Kadkani (Tehran, 1987), I, p. 202.

496

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains Jânâ be zamin-e khâbarân khâri nist K-ash bâ man-o ruzgâr-e man kâri nist Bâ lotf-o navâzesh-e jamâl-e to marâ Dar dâdan-e sad hazâr jân âri nist Dearest! There’s not a single thorn in the land of Khâbarân That has left me and my life untouched; But for me, soothed by the grace and love of your beauty It is easy to give up a hundred thousand lives.

He never composed any other verses than these. Whatever else he recited, he had memorized from his spiritual masters.22 The example of Abu Saʿid illustrates how quatrains were used, and also says something about their attribution to historical figures. There is a collection of quatrains attributed to Abu Saʿid, many of which are also attributed to poets of later centuries. While Abu Saʿid is probably not the author, the use of profane and erotic quatrains for a spiritual purpose did begin with mystics such as Abu Saʿid. In the eleventh century and later, quatrains were often used during mystics’ samâʿ sessions (the word refers to “listening,” i. e., listening to the remembrance of God), alongside the Qor’an. For example, when Abu Saʿid was asked which verse of the Qor’an should be recited over him after his death, he answers that the Qor’an is too exalted, instead the following quatrain should be recited: Khubtar andar jahân az in che buvad kâr Dust bar-e dust raft-o yâr bar-e yâr Ân hama anduh bovad v’in hama shâdi Ân hama goftâr bovad v’in hama kerdâr What could possibly be better in this world than this: The friend going to the friend’s embrace and the lover to the beloved’s embrace. All that is sorrow, all this is bliss All that are but words, all these are deeds.23

The poetess Mahsati, alledgedly serving, according to some early sources, at the court of Sultan Sanjar (r. 1118–57) or earlier at the court 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid., pp. 346–47; intr., pp. 110–11.

497

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

of Mahmud of Ghazna (r. 998–1030), also wrote quatrains. Our information about her is open to debate. There are various biographical stories about her and she is even the protagonist of a romance. Her name is connected to explicitly erotic quatrains and the genre of shahr-âshub.24 Through her erotic poems, she allegedly corresponded with the son of a preacher from Ganje. Her authorship of all these quatrains is also questionable. In the same way that quatrains on certain topics were associated with Khayyâm, or with Abu Saʿid, it is possible that explicitly erotic poetry became associated with her name, although several other poets such as Suzani and Saʿdi also wrote such quatrains. These were collected in Mohammad b. Badr Jâjarmi’s anthology Mo’nes alahrâr fi daqâ’eq al-ashʿ âr, completed in 1341, which is an important source for quatrains.25 In contents and style this collection does not differ much from the earlier collections, except that the compiler has devoted a section to bawdy, humorous, and pornographic quatrains (hazliyyât), a number of them describing genitals.26 The name of Bâbâ Tâher-e Oryân (the Naked) appears foremost in discussions of the quatrains. In the reception history of his personality, he is presented as a naked dervish wandering in deserts and mountains, composing poetry on various aspects of his mystic search. There are several, possibly apocryphal, anecdotes about his life. The oldest reference is in Râhat al-sodur, describing the arrival of Sultan Toghrel Beg at Hamadan between 1055–58. The story goes that on Toghrel’s arrival, three Sufi saints were standing on a hill close to the city gate. The Sultân’s eyes fell upon them; he halted the vanguard of his army, alighted, approached, and kissed their hands. Bâbâ Tâher, who was somewhat crazy in his manner, said to him, “O Turk, what wilt thou do with God’s people?” “Whatever thou biddest me,” replied the 24 Asadi, Loghat-e fors, ed. P. Horn (Berlin, 1897), p. 45; F. Meier, Die schöne Mahsatī. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des persischen Vierzeilers (2 vols., Wies­ baden, 1963), p. 377. The posthumously published second volume of Meier’s study contains the quatrains inserted in the popular novel and an essay by B. Rienert, “Notizen zum Stammbaum des persischen Vierzeilers,” in Die schöne Mahsatī, eds. G. Schubert and R. Würsch (Leiden and Boston, 2005). 25 Jâjarmi, Mo’nes al-ahrâr fi daqâ’eq al-ashʿ âr, ed. M. S. Tabibi (2 vols., Tehran, 1958–71), II, ch. 28, sub, ch. 8, pp. 1151–55; as well as in other sections in ch. 28. 26 Ibid., pp. 1212–14.

498

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains Sultân. “Do [rather] that which God biddeth thee,” replied Bâbâ; “Verily God enjoineth Justice and Well-doing.” The Sultân wept (…).27

Although the meter and the language of the dialect used in the quatrains attributed to Bâbâ Tâher set them apart from the standard quatrain, they are very popular and belong to the canon of Persian quatrain poetry.28 Indeed, his name, and that of Omar Khayyâm, are inextricably connected with quatrains in and outside Iran. The attribution of these quatrains to Bâbâ Tâher is problematic because the oldest source containing his quatrains dates only from the fifteenth century. The subject matter of his corpus revolves around loneliness, love-frenzy, suffering, and human shortcomings. Reading his corpus, one can see an ascetic who has renounced the world, and is in search of mystic union and of releasing his soul from the prison of the body. The following quatrain illustrates his worldview: The great day when the grave shall hold me tight, My head will rest on tiles and mud and stones. The feet turned to the kiblah, the soul set free, My body will be in a fight with snakes and ants.29

4. Quatrains and the Genre of Prosimetrum One of the earliest appearances of the quatrain is in the genre of prosimetrum, a text organized around the alternate use of prose and poetry.30 In Persian literary tradition, writers frequently inserted all kinds of poetry, both in Persian and Arabic, in their prose works. Mohammad-Taqi Bahâr discusses prosimetrum in 27 Browne, LHP II, p. 260. Râvandi, Râhat al-sodur, ed. M. Eqbâl (Tehran, 1983), pp. 98–99. 28 See de Bruijn, Persian Sufi Poetry, pp. 13–16; also see Browne, LHP II, pp. 259–61. 29 As translated by de Bruijn, Persian Sufi Poetry, p. 16. For the original Persian see Bâbâ Tâher, Bâbâ Tâher-nâme: hevdah goftâr va gozine-ye ashʿ âr, ed. P. Adhkâ’i (Tehran, 1996), p. 285, Quatrain 102. 30 J. S. Meisami, “Mixed Prose and Verse in Medieval Persian Literature,” in J. Harris and K. Reichl, Prosimetrum. Crosscultural Perspectives on Narrative in Prose and Verse (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 295–319.

499

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

several places in his Sabk-shenâsi, indicating that this genre developed under the influence of Arabic prose.31 The earliest specimens of Persian prose such as the Persian translation of Tabari’s history (Târikh-nâme-ye Tabari) contain no poetry. The tradition of using poetry in prose starts with historical works such as the History of Sistân, which cites poetry dealing with historical events. In the later genres of Persian literature, the insertion of poetry into passages of prose serves a wide range of purposes: to give advice, to change the subject, to round off a discussion, to lend authority to the discussion in the prose text by quoting a literary parallel, and to embellish the prose. Chapter two of Ahmad Ghazâli’s Savâneh is an example of how poetry, and in particular the quatrain, is used in a prose composition. This chapter explains how love enters the heart and how it intermingles with the soul, presenting multiple images of its unity. It contains quatrains and other types of poetry, both Arabic and Persian: When it finds the house vacant and the mirror polished clean, the image becomes visible and fixed in the pure and serene air of the soul. Perfection here is this: if the inner intuitive eye of the soul should wish to behold itself, it would see the image of the beloved, or her name or her attributes; and this state will abide with him in time. It will shield him from contemplating himself, and the inner discerning eye will take over so that the lover’s place would be taken by the beloved; and he will see her instead of himself. It is in this context that the poet says: “Since your image is so much in my mind’s eye, Every face I look at, I imagine it is you.” For the lover’s road to himself is through love. Until he passes through love, when it has enthralled him completely, he cannot reach himself. And the aura of love will not allow the eye of self-contemplation to pass through, for a man in love is the envy of others, and not jealous of himself:

31 For a discussion on this topic see Mohammad-Taqi Bahâr, Sabk-shenâsi (3 vols., Tehran, 1942), II, pp. 69–70; III, pp. 127–28.

500

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains Every night the image of my (beloved) Turk turns into the attributes of my very essence; My own attributes then become like a thousand sentinels over me.32 I am he whom I love; whom I love is I: We are two souls inhabiting a single body. If you see me, you see him too, If you see him, you see us both. Here the allusion is to the same (inner) meaning but the poem strays from it in the second hemistich, “we are two souls inhabiting a single body,” for it steps out of oneness into duality. The first hemistich comes closer with: “I am he whom I love; whom I love is I.” It is here in the line below that the meaning is rendered correctly where the poet says: “I said, ‘O my Idol, I thought of you as my dearest beloved But now that I look, I see that you are my soul;’” And in the ending verse where he says: “I will become a heretic if you turn away from me, O my life and world, you are both my faith and unfaith.” Except that he should have said: “I will lose my life and soul if you turn away from me.” But since this was couched in the language of poetry, it had to remain within the bounds of metre and rhyme. The afflictions of lovers are one thing, and the language of the poets something else. They cannot venture beyond rhyme and metre.33

This is not the place to analyze the entire passage. The focus will be on the last two couplets in this excerpt, which is a quatrain 32

Such ideas also appear in other mystical works. See Nasr-Allâh Purjavâdi’s footnote on this particular couplet, in Ahmad Ghazâli, Sawānih. Inspirations from the World of Pure Spirits. The Oldest Persian Sufi Treatise on Love, tr. N. Purjavâdi (London, 1986), p. 19, n. 4. “This verse, as Farghâni has observed (Mashâriq al-Dirâri, p. 175), expresses almost exactly the same idea in the following line of Ibn Fâriḍ’s Tâ’iyyah. ‘She set, to guard her, one taken from myself who should watch against me the amorous appraoch of my spiritual thoughts.’ (Nicholson’s translation of Tâ’iyya in Studies in Islamic Mysticism. London, 1978, p. 212.)” 33 Ahmad Ghazâli, Sawānih. Aphorismen über die Liebe, ed. H. Ritter (Istanbul, 1942), pp. 6–8.

501

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

wrongly attributed to poets such as Jalâl-al-Din Rumi.34 This quatrain is part of Ahmad Ghazâli’s discussion about love overwhelming the lover in such a way that the lover, the beloved, and any other realities are reduced to the Oneness of Love. To explain this subtle point, Ghazâli quotes a Persian couplet and a famous poem attributed to Hosayn Mansur Hallâj (857–922). In the Persian couplet, the emphasis is on the way the image (khayâl) of the beloved haunts the lover at night, and robs him of sleep. Ghazâli says that as this haunting continues, it shapes the lover’s attributes. Having said this in the Persian couplet, Ghazâli moves on to the Arabic poem, a commentary on the prose section. Here the poet Hallâj depicts the complete state of union between the lover and the beloved, a complete fusion in which the duality of lover and beloved is eradicated. In sum, Ghazâli employs different types of poetry in his prose composition as illustrations and embellishments, when shifting from one subject to another, and as commentary on his prose. In this excerpt, we can also see the complementary relationship between prose and poetry. The author cites poetry as a poetic proof for his arguments, but the poetry falls sometimes short of the subtle point he wishes to express. The limitation of the poetic language requires a comment on it, in prose. As Wolfhart Heinrichs rightly states: There is a dialectic between prose and poetry: the poetry cannot really be understood without the prose, and the prose is not considered trustworthy and true without the poetry to corroborate it.35

It would be beyond the scope of the present study to examine prosimetrum in Persian literature, yet even a quick look at medieval Persian prose shows that most prose authors favored quatrains. This is not surprising: quatrains express a complete argument in a short space, the subject of each quatrain is clearly demarcated, and authors knew many quatrains by heart. The plain and direct language of the quatrain can also come as a relief when set within 34 Jalâl-al-Din Rumi, Kolliyyât-e shams, ed. B. Foruzânfar (Tehran, 1963), VIII, p. 317, Quatrain 1889. 35 See W. P. Heinrichs, “Prosimetrical Genres in Classical Arabic Literature,” in Prosimetrum, p. 260.

502

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

ponderous and difficult prose, in order to round off one subject or introduce a new one. The quatrain cited by Ghazâli also shows its conversational or preaching setting, since the poem contains a question and answer form. The quatrain is a favorite poetic form cited in conversation even today. The early quatrains attributed to the mystics Abu Saʿid Abi’l-Kheyr and Abd-Allâh Ansâri (1006– 89) are also used in sermons.

5. Wandering Quatrains The use of quatrains in prose compositions and sermons has left us with insoluble questions about the true authorship of popular quatrains, since the original author is often not named.36 Moreover, many quatrains have a multiple attribution, occurring in both collected lyrical works and in collections of quatrains. These quatrains lack any context in their present state but could have originally been written within a certain context, as an interlace in a prose work or used for preaching purposes or other forms of oral delivery. After examining a corpus of quatrains attributed to Khayyâm, Valentin A. Zhukovsky concluded that individual quatrains were attributed to other poets in different sources and that was impossible to ascertain their original authorship.37 He called these poems “wandering quatrains.” In several cases, the quatrains appear in the divans of individual poets. The result is that many quatrains are ascribed to more than one poet. 36 In chapter 18 of the Sawānih by Ahmad Ghazâli (d. 520/1126), he introduces a quatrain with the words, “the following poem I composed in my youth,” whereas he introduces anonymous quatrains saying “as they say.” Ahmad Ghazâli, Sawānih, p. 35, fasl. 18, 2, l. 8. 37 The idea of “wandering quatrains” was coined by V. A. Zhukovsky in his al-Muzaffariya (St. Petersburg, 1897), pp. 324–63, who discussed this in relation to Khayyâm’s quatrains, but these wandering quatrains comprise the whole tradition of Persian quatrains. See the English translation of the article by E. D. Ross, “Al-Muzaffariyé: Containing a Recent Contribution to the Study of ‘Omar Khayyām,” JRAS 30 (1898), pp. 349–66; also see Browne, LHP II, pp. 256–58.

503

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

The convention of citation changed to some degree in the thirteenth century. At the end of the Golestân (Rose-Garden), Saʿdi states, “Throughout [i. e., in the entire Golestân], the usual custom of authors who mix lines taken from past poets with their own has not been followed.”38 Nevertheless, many authors continued to use quatrains by others.39 As Sayyed Ali Mir-Afzali has shown, a large number of the quatrains attributed to different poets in the thirteenth century collection Nozhat al-majâles have a multiple attribution. Many of these quatrains, or variants of them, are very popular in the Persian speaking-world even today. To illustrate the problem of authorship, we can consider the example of Rumi: his name is not mentioned in the Nozhat al-majâles, yet this collection includes eighty quatrains that are also included in Rumi’s divan. Mir-Afzali has identified the composers of fifty-three of these poems, showing that their attribution to Rumi is problematic.40 Several of Rumi’s quatrains can also be found in the divans of other Persian poets. Some of them are even painted on decorative boards dating from the time when Rumi was just a small child. Arberry refers to the likelihood that during dhekr sessions, while Rumi was in a state of ecstasy, he may have recited poems composed by earlier poets, which were then attributed to him without sifting the “original from the remembered.”41 38 Saʿdi, Golestân, ed. M.-A. Foroughi (3 rd pr., Tehran, 1994), p. 191. According to Owfi, the first author who organized his own collection of quatrains into a separate volume was Abu’l-Hasan Bâkharzi (d. 468/1075), but our information about this volume is limited and we do not know how many chapters it contained. See Mohammad Owfi, Lobâb al-albâb, I, p. 68. 39 For a discussion on Saʿdi’s interpolation of poetry in his prose see Mohammad-Taqi Bahâr, Sabk-shenâsi, III, pp. 127–28. 40 For list of these quatrains see S. A. Mir-Afzali, “Barresi-ye Nozhat al-­ majâles (bakhsh-e dovvom),” Maʿ âref 14.2 (1997), pp. 135–80, at pp. 147–56. Here it is baksh-e dovvom that means simply the second part. 41 A. J. Arberry, tr., The Rubâʿ iyât of Jalâl al-Din Rumi. Selected Translations into English Verse (London, 1949), p. xxii; also see M. A. Riyâhi in Jamâl Khalil Shervâni, Nozhat al-majâles, ed. M. A. Riyâhi (Tehran, 1987), p. 42; also see A. Quchâni, “Sofâlgarân-e Kâshân va sheʿr-e fârsi,” Nashr-e dânesh 14.6 (1994), pp. 31–40.

504

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

Several quatrains attributed to Rumi can be found in Ahmad Ghazâli’s writings. For instance, the following quatrain appears in the introduction to Ghazâli’s treatise on love, the Savâneh: Bâ eshq ravân shod az adam markab-e mâ Rowshan ze sharâb-e vasl dâyem shab-e mâ Z-ân mey ke harâm nist dar madhhab-e mâ Tâ sobh-e adam khoshk nayâbi lab-e mâ Our steed set out from non-existence, in company with love Our night is always bright with union’s wine, Thanks to that wine which is not forbidden in our faith You will not find our lips dry until the dawn of non-existence.42

This quatrain is cited after a Qoranic quotation proclaiming the mutual love between man and his creator, “He loves them and they love Him” (5, 54), as a commentary on it.43 In the accompanying text, Ghazâli explains how the soul journeys from non-existence to existence. The soul is presented as a steed carrying love to existence. In this relationship between love and the soul, they are mixed in such a way that it is not clear which of them is the essence and which the attribute. Using wine imagery, the last two lines refer to the state of mystic lovers who, having tasted the primordial wine, are still inebriated by that draught. The first draught has become an allusion, depicting how God breathed from his own breath into mankind. Rumi’s poem is almost identical to a quatrain occurring in the Savâneh, although in Rumi’s version, cherâq-e vasl, “the light of union” becomes sharâb-e vasl, “the wine of union.”44 In the last line, the words bâz adam “again, in non-existence” read, in Rumi’s version, sobh-e adam “the dawn of non-existence.” Both of these readings refer to the soul’s return to its origin. 42 Rumi, Kolliyyât-e shams, p. 8, Quatrain, 46. 43 Ahmad Ghazâli, Sawānih, p. 4. Ritter gives several textual variations in different manuscripts. Ritter prefers the compound cherâgh-e vasl (the light of union), while sharâb-e vasl would also be an alternative. 44 Textual variants already exist in several manuscripts of the Savâneh. For example “bâz” appears as “ruz’-e adam” in another manuscript, “the day of non-existence,” which also makes sense.

505

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Another quatrain attributed to Rumi but also occurring in Ghazâli’s Savâneh is the following, in which the poet employs the rhetorical figure so’âl-o javâb, “question and answer”: Goftam sanami shodi ke jân râ vatani Goftâ ke hadith-e jân makon gar ze mani Goftam ke be tigh-e hojjatam chand zani Goftâ ke hanuz âsheq-e khishtani I said: “You have become an idol who resides in the soul” He/She said: “Do not talk of ‘my’ soul if you are an idolator” I said: “Why do you lash me about with the blade of argumentation?” He/She said: “Because you are still in love with yourself.”45

This poem appears in chapter 34 of the Savâneh where Ghazâli states: At the beginning of love, the lover longs for the beloved for the sake of himself. Such a lover is, however, in love with himself through the medium of the beloved and wants to use her in the direction of his own needs, but he is not aware of this. (…) When love’s perfection shines, its least refraction is that the lover values and preserves his being solely for the sake of the beloved and considers it a mere child’s play to sacrifice his own life for the sake of her contentment. This is love, and the rest hallucination and infirmity.46

One last quatrain to be found both in Ghazâli’s Savâneh and in Rumi’s divan is the following, which Ghazâli cites in one of the longest chapters (39) of the Savâneh to explain why “love is free from having any attribute of union or separation.” To show this subtle point, Ghazâli gives several metaphors and anecdotes, showing how the lover yearns to become a lock of the beloved’s hair or how a moth yearns to be united with the candle’s flame. After a long discussion, Ghazâli concludes that “The instrument of union is the beloved’s existence and the instrument of separation is the lover’s existence, while love has no need for either of them. If the bliss of the mystical experience (vaqt) favors this, the lover’s existence will sacrifice itself for the beloved’s existence. This is what is 45 Rumi, Kolliyyât-e shams, p. 317, Quatrain 1889. 46 Ghazâli, Aphorismen über die Liebe, pp. 54–55.

506

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

called perfect union (vesâl be kamâl).” The quatrain is then cited to round off this discussion: Eshqi be kamâl-o delrobâʿ i be jamâl Del por sokhan-o zabân ze goftan shode lâl Zin nâderetar kojâ bovad hargez hâl Man teshne-o pish-e man ravân âb-e zolâl A perfect love and a perfect heart-ravisher; The heart brims with speech while the tongue is mute. Where could there ever be a state more rare than this! I am thirsty; the limpid water flows before me.47

6. Later Collections of Quatrains The popularity of the quatrain increased from the twelfth century on. From that time we can find quatrains in the collected works of almost all Persian poets. When they are included in a poet’s divan, the quatrains are usually placed at the end, and are arranged alphabetically according to their rhyme. There are also compilations of quatrains written by different poets. In what follows, several important quatrain collections will be discussed, and then there will be a survey of the corpus of quatrains composed by poets such as Saʿdi, Rumi, Hâfez, and several of their contemporaries. From the twelfth century, we have several quatrain collections with a clear thematically organized structure, usually dealing with motifs related to love. The individual quatrains describe love, the qualities of the lover, the beloved’s beauty from head to waist, and concepts such as fidelity, jealousy, separation, and union. Perhaps the oldest such collection is that of Farid-al-Din Attâr (d. 1221) whose output of quatrains was so large that it was not added to his divan, but was collected in a separate volume entitled Mokhtârnâme. Attâr’s volume is unique in classical Persian, as all the other collections contain quatrains by many poets, arranged thematically. 47 Rumi, Kolliyyât-e shams, p. 183, Quatrain 1082.

507

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Attâr’s Mokhtâr-nâme was first discussed in a scholarly article by Helmut Ritter in 1938.48 Its authenticity was questioned by some scholars including Abd-al-Hosayn Zarrinkub, who placed these poems in a later period.49 But Mohammad-Rezâ Shafiʿi-Kadkani, who has published a critical edition of the text, rejects these doubts and hails Attâr as one of the finest composers of quatrains.50 After examining various opinions about the authenticity of the Mokhtâr-nâme, Daniela Meneghini concludes “in the absence of new elements it can be assumed that this work, despite all the unresolved textual questions, is by Attâr.”51 In his prose introduction to the Mokhtâr-nâme, Attâr indicates that his friends complained about the difficulty of his quatrains and their disarray, and asked the poet to select some and arrange them thematically so that they could find their way. The poet first selected six thousand quatrains, but later removed almost a thousand of them because they were not “fitting for this world, [so] they were sent to the other world.”52 He arranged the remaining five thousand in fifty chapters. In Shafiʿi-Kadkani’s critical text edition, there are only 2279 quatrains: the remainder have apparently been lost. These quatrains treat mystical concepts in a poetic and erotic manner. The thematic arrangement indicates which subjects the poet considered important. The first twenty-eight chapters (Quatrains 1–1085) are devoted to ascetic subjects, explaining the basic 48 H. Ritter, “Philologika. X. Faridaddin Attâr,” Der Islam 25 (1938), pp. 134–73. 49 Abd-al-Hosayn Zarrinkub, Az godhashte-ye adabi-ye Irân (Tehran, 1996), p. 334. 50 Attâr, Mokhtâr-nâme, ed. M.-R. Shafiʿi-Kadkani (2 nd pr., Tehran, 1996), p. 11. Kadkani’s introduction is for the most part devoted to the question of the authenticity of the romance Khosrow-nâme. For a discussion on Attâr’s quatrains and a specimens of these poems see de Bruijn, Persian Sufi poetry, pp. 21–23. 51 D. Meneghini, EIr, s. v. Moktār-nāma; idem, “Il Moxtârnâme di ‘Attâr: profazione e capitol nono su Heyrat Sargashtegi,” in M. Bernardini and N. L. Tornesello, eds., Scritti in onore Giovanni M. D’Erme (2 vols., Naples, 2005), II, pp. 709–31; also see Sayyid Ali Mir-Afzali, “Âyâ mokhtâr-nâme az Attâr ast?,” Nashr-e Dânesh 17.1 (2000), pp. 32–43. 52 Attâr, Mokhtâr-nâme, p. 71.

508

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

concepts of Sufism. Chapters 28 to 40 (Quatrains 1086–1573) portray the beloved’s comportment, his reactions to the lover, and his moral and physical qualities. Only three chapters (41–43) depict the lover’s state, his pain of separation, and his anxieties (Quatrains 1574–1658). The remaining eight chapters (Quatrains 1659–2088) are devoted to antinomian motifs (qalandariyât) and to wine, the rose, dawn, a candle, a moth’s address to a candle, the candle’s answer, and a complaint about old age. Together, these quatrains depict key concepts on the mystical path in an elegant and terse formulaic fashion. A list of the chapter titles, followed by the number of quatrains in each chapter, will indicate the Mokhtârnâme’s scope and structure. This list of contents is included in the Mokhtâr-nâme at the end of the poet’s prose introduction. Chapter

Rubric

Quatrains

1

On God’s unicity

1–103

2

In praise of the Prophet

104–116

3

On the excellence of the Prophet’s companions

117–122

4

On ideas relating to Oneness

123–216

5

On explaining Oneness in the language of detachment

217–225

6

On explaining the one obliterated in Oneness while annihilated in detachment

226–317

7

On explaining that all things not related to eternal Oneness will be obliterated and turn to nothingness

318–360

8

On becoming inflamed by annihilation and being lost in subsistence

361–419

9

On explaining the station of bewilderment and wandering

420–462

10

On various ideas relating to the soul

463–494

11

That the secret of the invisible and of the soul cannot be stated and cannot be known

495–539

12

Complaining about the lower soul and blaming oneself

540–571

509

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Chapter

Rubric

Quatrains

13

On blaming impatient people and ideas related to the heart

572–600

14

On blaming the world, complaining of time, and of uncomprehending people

601–629

15

On the need to encounter an intimate companion

630–649

16

On withdrawal, sorrow, pain, and choosing fortitude

650–670

17

On the advantages of choosing silence

671–692

18

On having an elevated ambition and being ready for the work

693–741

19

On abandoning diverse associations and looking for a community

742–756

20

On being humble, carrying the burden, and choosing one-colouredness

766–794

21

On submitting the work to God and seeing that everything is from Him

795–825

22

On directing one’s face towards the next world and abandoning this world

826–852

23

On fearing consequences [in the hereafter] and abandoning the world

853–911

24

That death is necessary and the face of the earth is the dust of those who are gone

912–941

25

Elegy on those who have gone

942–982

26

On qualities of weeping

983–1029

27

On hopelessness and acknowledging one’s shortcomings

1030–1069

28

Explanation of being hopeful

1070–1085

29

On yearning for the beloved

1086–1150

30

On distancing oneself from the beloved

1151–1181

31

On the fact that no one will attain union with the beloved

1182–1255

32

On complaining about the beloved

1256–1312

510

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains Chapter

Rubric

Quatrains

33

On praising the beloved

1313–1360

34

On the beloved’s arrival

1361–1394

35

On the quality of the beloved’s face and curls

1395–1464

36

On the quality of the beloved’s eyes and eyebrows

1465–1484

37

On the quality of the beloved’s down and beauty spot

1485–1505

38

On the quality of the beloved’s lips and mouth

1506–1532

39

On the quality of the beloved’s stature and waist

1533–1543

40

On the beloved’s flirtation, unfaithfulness, and illness

1544–1573

41

On the quality of the lover’s destitution and shortcomings

1574–1612

42

On the lover’s agony

1613–1635

43

On vagabonds and wine

1636–1658

44

On ideas relating to the rose

1659–1735

45

On ideas relating to dawn

1736–1791

46

On ideas relating to the candle

1792–1815

47

On speaking through the mouth of the candle

1816–1927

48

On speaking through the mouth of the moth

1928–2027

49

On the quality of old age and the end of life

2028–2044

50

In conclusion

2045–2088

Other interpolated quatrains in various manuscripts

2089–2279

Appendix

This thematic structure shows that the author tried to give the quatrain a new function. Quatrains, which had been used in prose works, in sermons, and in mystic devotions, are now used to explain mystic love in plain language. The contents of the Mokhtârnâme show the central position of love.53 53 From chapter 43, the chapter numbers and chapter headings do not correspond with those in the second edition of Shafiʿi-Kadkani’s Mokhtâr-nâme

511

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

It is interesting that the oldest extant redaction of Mokhtârnâme dates from 1330, a few years after the completion of the Safine (copied 1321–23), a unique manuscript of a miscellany containing several collections of quatrains.54 One of these was complied by the scribe and owner of this precious miscellany, Abu ’l-Majd, and is entitled Kholâsat al-ashʿ âr fi robâʿ iyât (“An Anthology of Quatrain Poetry.”) This collection (see below), shows great similarities with another collection of quatrains, Jamâl Khalil Shervâni’s Nozhat al-majâles. Since both the Kholâsat al-ashʿ âr and the Nozhat are thematically organized and deal with the theme of love, the question arises as to whether these collections were influenced by Attâr’s work. In his extensive studies of quatrain collections, Sayyed Ali Mir-Afzali concludes that the inclusion of only two quatrains from Attâr’s Mokhtâr-nâme in the Nozhat al-majâles indicates that Shervâni did not know the Mokhtâr-nâme.55 Abu’l-Majd’s collection Kholâsat al-ashʿ âr fi robâʿ iyât contains five hundred quatrains.56 The collection is organized in fifty chapters and the compiler provides a well-organized table of contents at the beginning, and a justification for compiling these quatrains: “Among the versified (manzum) forms of speech, all people prefer published in 1996. In this list, there is only one chapter devoted to the lover’s agony (42), but in the book itself there are two chapters (42–43), which mean that there are 51 chapters instead of 50. Moreover, chapter 49, “On the Quality of Old Age and the End of Life” is not included in this edition, but the subject-matter of the last chapter (50) revolves around this theme. Probably the last two chapters should be seen as the conclusion. Shafiʿi-­Kadkani adds an appendix to these fifty chapters, containing some quatrains (2089– 2279) that only occur in one manuscript. 54 According to the editor of Mokhtâr-nâme, M.-R. Shafiʿi-Kadkani, the library of the consultative assembly in Tehran possesses a manuscript of the Mokhtâr-nâme, said to date from 711, but its dating is quite uncertain. See Abu’l-Majd Mohammad b. Masʿud Tabrizi, Safine-ye Tabriz (facsl. ed., Tehran, 2003). 55 Mir-Afzali, “Âyâ mokhtâr-nâme az Attâr ast?,” p. 40; Mir-Afzali has made a close analysis of the quatrains selected in the Nozhat al-majâles. See S. A. Mir-Afzali, “Barresi-ye Nozhat al-majâles (bakhsh-e avval),” Maʿ âref 14.1 (1997), pp. 90–147, and idem, “Barresi-ye Nozhat al-majâles (bakhsh-e dovvom),” pp. 135–80. 56 Abu’l-Majd, Safine-ye Tabriz, pp. 593–612.

512

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

the quatrain to other types of poetry. The reason for this preference is that the difference between the meters of quatrains is not immediately noticeable to them. A person who has not studied aruz may believe that the quatrain possesses only one meter.57 Moreover, every new and surprising idea occurring in a ghazal, is also splendidly expressed in a quatrain.”58 Comparing Nozhat’s contents, thematic arrangement, and the choice of authors, who are mostly from Azerbaijan, with Abu ’l-Majd’s collection, there remains little doubt that the latter modeled his selection on Shervâni’s book, but this was probably not his only source.59 One group of quatrains comes from lectures given by Abu’l-Majd’s teacher, Amin al-Din Hâjj Bolah, and the sources of several quatrains are unclear. Several of these poems belong to the “wandering quatrains” as they are attributed to different poets in various works.

7. Amatory Motifs in Collections of Quatrains What is conspicuous of Persian collections of quatrains is that many of them deal with motifs of love. Persian authors started to write theories on the nature and working of love from the twelfth 57 On the meter of the quatrain see L. P. Elwell-Sutton, The Persian Metres (Cambridge, 1976), pp. 252–56. 58 Abu’l-Majd, Safine-ye Tabriz, p. 593. In his concise analysis of the meter of the quatrain, de Bruijn states: “The pattern of the rubâʿi is a sequence of twenty metrical units, called mora in metrical theory. In some places of the sequence, only long syllables (equivalent to two moras) can be used, but in others one long syllable may be replaced by two short ones so that the actual number of syllables in a line may vary between ten and thirteen. This variety gave the rubâʿi a great measure of flexibility, which may have been one of the reasons for its immense popularity.” See de Bruijn, Persian Sufi Poetry, p. 7. 59 Sayyed Ali Mir-Afzali, Robâʿ iyyât-e Khayyâm dar manâbeʿ-e kohan (Tehran, 2004), p. 72. See also S. Sharma, “Wandering Quatrains and Women Poets in the Khulâsat al-ashʿâr fi rubâʿiyât,” in A. A. Seyed-Gohrab and S. McGlinn, eds., The Treasury of Tabriz. The Great Il-Khanid Compendium (Amsterdam and West Lafayette, Ind., 2007), pp. 153–69, at p. 155.

513

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

century. In such theories, the authors minutely examine the psychology of love, the relationship between the lover and the beloved, the pangs of separation and the sweet moment of union.60 Persian theoretical love treatises such as Ahmad Ghazâli’s Savâneh, treat limited topics, but in later centuries, theoretical treatises were written to elaborate on existing theories and in some cases tried to fill gaps left by previous theorists. Apparently, theories of love were in great demand during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Along these prose treatises on love, quatrain compilers tried to present a sophisticated exposition of the motifs related to the nature and workings of love. Abu’l-Majd’s collection and Shervâni’s Nozhat elaborate on these topics in a poetic manner. Yet these collections do not use the formulaic theoretical idiom of prose treatises. Their poetic language does not lend itself to a straightforward definition of love, or presentation of theory, but their strict thematic arrangement enables the reader to construct a theory of love and its related topics. My intention here is not to minimize the significance of the Persian treatises on love. Rather, I wish to emphasize that many allusions to an aspect of love, the lover, or the beloved are further elaborated in the quatrain collections. Several of the quatrains are quoted in the body of prose treatises on love as illustrations. One of the reasons for choosing the quatrain form for this elaboration is its flexibility and concise formulation. Quatrains had been the vehicle for mystic poets from the ninth century onwards to express intricate mystical ideas succinctly. The language of these quatrains is plain, expressing intricate ideas on the subtlest qualities of love, the lover, and the beloved in a comprehensible idiom. For the sake of convenience, a list of the subjects treated in Abu’l-Majd’s collection of quatrains is given below. Chapter

Subject-matter

1

On [God’s] unity and gnosis

2

On great calamities

60 Cf. the chapter on “The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Poetry” by J. T. P. de Bruijn in the present volume.

514

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains Chapter

Subject-matter

3

On advice

4

On wisdom

5

Encomium to the Prophet

6

On the heart and the conditions of the heart

7

On love and its conditions

8

On sorrow and the states of sorrow

9

On union, the days of union, and a ­complaint about the short nights

10

On separation, the days of union, and a complaint about the long nights

11

On describing the time of union

12

On wishing and yearning

13

On the lover’s hope for union with the beloved

14

On keeping love concealed

15

On the revelation of love [and the disgrace it brings to the lover]

16

On the lover’s bad name

17

On the lover’s weeping and groaning

18

On the lover’s reproach and complaint

19

On complaining about the watcher (raqib)

20

On the lover giving a message to the wind

21

On the lover’s different states

22

On the description of the beloved’s countenance

23

On the description of the beloved’s curls

24

On the description of the beloved’s eyes

25

On the description of the beloved’s down

26

On the description of the beloved’s ear and his earring

27

On the description of the beloved’s eyebrows and forehead

28

On the description of the beloved’s stature

29

On the description of the beloved’s beauty spot

30

On the description of the beloved’s lips and his kisses

515

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Chapter

Subject-matter

31

On the description of the beloved’s mouth and teeth

32

On the description of the beloved’s street and his house

33

On the description of the beloved’s apparition

34

On the description of the beloved’s flirtation

35

On the description of the beloved’s promise

36

On the beloved’s questions and answers

37

On the description of the beloved ­looking at himself in a mirror

38

On the beloved’s illness

39

On the beloved’s going on a journey and his return

40

On the beloved’s unfaithfulness

41

On the beloved’s falling in love

42

On the beloved’s different deeds

43

On correspondence

44

On satire

45

On the description of a candle

46

On devotional dance and singing (samâʿ)

47

On bacchanalia

48

On the elegy

49

On riddles

50

On the description of flowers and aromatic plants

The difference between Abu’l-Majd’s collection and Attâr’s Mokhtâr-nâme is that the former devotes only five chapters to the introduction and the remainder, up to chapter 43, are specifically on love, the lover, and the beloved. The remaining chapters also relate to love, but indirectly. For instance, in the chapter “On correspondence,” the compiler has collected several quatrains in which the lover describes how the pen is also in love, and that actually the situation of the lover and the pen are the same: Har gâh ke ze del nâme nevisam bar-e yâr Tâ sharh daham jomle parishâni-ye kâr

516

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains Sar-gashte-o del-khaste qalam dar dastam Migardad-o migeryad-o minâlad zâr Every time I want to write a letter from my heart to the beloved To explain all the sad complexities of affairs, The pen turns in my hand with dizziness, its heart is broken: It is weeping and lamenting bitterly.61

A large part of Shervâni’s Nozhat is devoted to the beloved’s physical form and character traits: not even the most trivial qualities escape the compiler’s attention.62 Of a total of 4,085 quatrains, 1705 describe the beloved, his moral and physical qualities, daily activities, occupations, etc. Here, we find sections on how the beloved perspires, his visiting the bath, combing his hair, his keeping pigeons, etc. Similarly, in Abu ’l-Majd’s collection, chapter 42 deals with “the various deeds of the beloved,” which include taking a bath, combing his hair, wearing a girdle, sacrificing oneself, shooting an arrow, throwing invectives, drinking wine, supplication, daily prayer and fasting, looking for the new moon, coming and going, dancing, laughter, his sorrow and weeping, his talking, drinking water, the beads of his perspiration, his nature, his performing phlebotomy. The conventions for depicting the beloved’s physical and moral qualities were already established during the early phase of classical Persian poetry, in various poetic forms (such as ghazal, qaside, mathnavi).63 But in these quatrain collections, the compiler assembled all possible deeds and descriptions as a kind of dictionary, defining the nature, physical aspects and deeds of the beloved.

61 Abu’l-Majd, Safine-ye Tabriz, p. 609. 62 Shervâni, Nozhat al-majâles, pp. 298–514, Quatrains 1137–2842 (1375). 63 J. T. P. de Bruijn, EIr, s. v. Beloved; see also E. Yarshater, “The Theme of Wine and Wine-drinking and the Concept of the Beloved in Early Persian Poetry,” Studia Islamica 13 (1960), pp. 43–53.

517

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

8. Collections with Mystical Contents Although the main focus in Persian quatrain collections is on love, the lover, and the beloved, other quatrains in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries treated the doctrinal aspects of mysticism and philosophical reflections. Afzal-al-Din Kâshi, known as Bâbâ Afzal (d. c. 1213), has a corpus of quatrains dealing with mystic and philosophical subjects. Since he was a contemporary of the Ismaʿili Shiʿite scholar Nasir-al-Din Tusi (1200–73), it is conjectured that the religious ideas in these quatrains were influenced by Ismailism.64 Saʿid Nafisi has collected 482 quatrains by Bâbâ Afzal from a variety of sources. As Nafisi states, the attribution of many of these quatrains to other Persian poets does not mean that they are not by Bâbâ Afzal, who became known as a popular quatrain writer. The quatrains are on a wide range of subjects, ranging from Shiʿism to mysticism, philosophy, ethics, and wisdom literature. Without knowing the context in which these poems were composed and used, it is hard to determine which of them treat Shiʿite subjects. One, however, shows the poet’s devotion to Ali: Gar badr-e moniri-yo samâ manzel-e to V-az kowthar agar sereshte bâshad gel-e to Gar mehr-e Ali nabâshad andar del-e to Meskin to-o sa’yhâ-ye bi hâsel-e to If you are the shining moon and heaven is your home, And if your clay is kneaded with the waters of paradise, But the love of Ali is not in your heart You are destitute, your efforts yield nothing.65

The following quatrain illustrates the wisdom literature: Kam gu-yo ba joz maslahat-e khish magu Chizi ke naporsand to khod pish magu Dâdand do gush-o yek zabânat z-âghâz Yaʿni ke do beshnow-o yeki bish magu 64 De Bruijn, Persian Sufi Poetry, p. 20; W. Chittick, EIr, s. v. Bābā Afzal al-Din. 65 Bâbâ Afzal, Robâʿ iyât-e Bâbâ Afzal Kâshâni, ed. S. Nafisi (Tehran, 1932), p. 165, Quatrain 379.

518

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains Speak little, say nothing except in your interest. What people do not ask, do not rush to tell. In the beginning they gave you two ears and one tongue, Meaning, hear two and say no more than one.66

Another maxim is on how to purify the heart: Khâhi ke shavad del-e to chon â’ina Dah chiz berun kon az darun-e sina Kebr-o hasad-o zolm-o harâm-o gheybat Bokhl-o tamaʿ-o hers-o reya-o kina If you want your heart to become like a mirror Remove ten things from your breast: Haughtiness, jealousy, oppression, unlawfulness, backbiting, Avarice, greed, covetousness, hypocrisy, and vengefulness.67

Several of these quatrains deal with ascetic themes such as sleeplessness, silence, eating as little as possible, and avoiding the community of men. In the following poem, the poet advises withdrawing to a corner to live in contentment: Ey del to dar in ruz ferâghat matalab V-az mardom-e in zamâne râhat matalab Dar sohbat-e khalq juz parishâni nist Konji beneshin-o joz qanâʿat matalab O heart! Seek no satisfaction from this day. From the people of this age, seek no ease. Companionship with people brings nothing but distress. Sit in a corner, seek nothing but contentment.

Another figure whose corpus of quatrains deserves attention is Owhad-al-Din Kermâni. His collection was published in Tehran in 1987, but one of the oldest manuscripts of his corpus is included in Abu’l-Majd’s miscellany, the Safine.68 This contains more than four hundred quatrains by Owhad-al-Din Kermâni, compiled by Aminal-Din Hâjj Bolah and organized in twelve chapters, each chapter 66 Bâbâ Afzal (Nafisi), p. 165, Quatrain 378. 67 Bâbâ Afzal (Nafisi), p. 168, Quatrain 394. 68 The collection published in Tehran: Owhad-al-Din Kermâni, Divân-e robâʿ iyyât, ed. A. Abu Mahbub (Tehran, 1987).

519

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

subdivided into various sections, dealing with mystical ethics.69 The difference between this collection and Kholâsat al-ashʿ âr, Nozhat al-majâles, and Mokhtâr-nâme is that Hâjj Bolah has compiled what looks like a manual of mysticism. Subjects such as gnosis, renunciation of the world, the conquest of the lower soul, mystic dancing, poverty, longing, union, love, etc., treated in mystical handbooks, are dealt with here in quatrains. This treatment through quatrains naturally lacks in theoretical exposition, cohesion, and force of argumentation. I suggest that the quatrains are collected primarily for their individual poetic and didactic value, and have been thematically arranged to make it easier to find particular quatrains. The quatrains grouped under a rubric do not present a theoretical exposition comparable to the Persian mystical mathnavis such as Shabestari’s Golshan-e Râz. Rather, each has a didactic message on a specific topic, a kind of wisdom formulated to be remembered as a maxim. For example, the following quatrain refers to a traditional mystic distinction between two Houses of God, Kaʿbe-ye gel, “the Kaʿbe of the clay,” and Kaʿbe-ye del, “the Kaʿbe of the heart.” The former is usually depreciated: “pilgrims” are advised to worship the master of the house of the heart, and not the clay house. According to mystics, the master of the house can be found in any cleansed heart, especially in the heart of the beloved. In the following poem, the beloved is the direction in which the soul turns, and is preferred to the house of clay in Mecca, to which the faithful turn in prayer: Tâ ru-ye to-am qeble shod ey jân-o jahân Az qeble khabar nadâram az Kaʿ be neshan Bi ru-ye to ru be Kaʿ be kardan natavân K-ân Kaʿ be-ye surat ast-o in qeble-ye jân O my soul and my all, until your face became my kiblah I knew nothing of where to turn in prayer, saw no sign of the Kaʿ be Without your face I cannot turn to the Kaʿ be, For that is the Kaʿ be of form, this is the kiblah of the soul.70

As can be seen, there is no attempt at theorizing on the contrast between “the Kaʿ be of form” and “the Kaʿ be of the heart.” The poet’s 69 Abu’l-Majd, Safine-ye Tabriz, pp. 581–92. 70 Abu’l-Majd, Safine-ye Tabriz, p. 583.

520

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

didactic message is clear: disregard the first and embrace the last, as emphasized by the immediately following quatrain: Marham talabi be gerd-e del-e parishân gard Tâ mohtashami be gerd-e darvishân gard Kaʿ be be haqiqat del-e darvishân ast Hajjat bâyad, gerd-e del-e ishan gard If you seek a salve, circle round a wounded heart. If you have the means [to go to Mecca], circle round the mystics. In reality, the Kaʿbe is the mystics’ hearts, To perform the pilgrimage, circle round their hearts.71

It would not be surprising if such a collection was used as a reference work, through which preachers and poets could easily find quatrains on a specific topic for use in their preaching, treatises, etc.

9. Omar Khayyâm and the Persian Quatrains Omar Khayyâm is commonly known as a scientist, a mathematician, and astronomer in the Persian literary tradition, but he is also referred to as a poet of quatrains dealing with themes and motifs such as carpe diem, life’s transience, wine, disbelief, man’s position in the creation, death, and the hereafter. His works, both scientific and poetic, are in Arabic and we do not have evidence from the early biographical sources that he wrote poetry in Persian. In the early sources, his name is associated with astronomy and astrology.72 In his Chahâr maqâle, Nezâmi Aruzi recounts anecdotes about Khayyâm as astrologer at court. A work that is wrongly attributed to Khayyâm in connection to calendar reform is Nowruz-nâme (Book of the New Year). Other early sources such as al-Khâzeni (1121) and Beyhaqi (1154) refer to Khayyâm as a scientist. In these 71 Ibid. 72 For a treatment of Khayyâm in early sources see A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, “Khayyām’s Universal Appeal: Man, Wine, and the Hereafter in the Quatrains,” in idem, ed., The Great ‘Umar Khayyām. A Global Reception of the Rubáiyat (Leiden, 2012), pp. 11–38, at 11–13.

521

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

references, we usually see that fact and fiction about Khayyâm’s life is mixed. So we read in the chronicle by Rashid-al-Din Fazl Allâh the famous legend of the three school-friends. The three friends, Khayyâm, Hasan Sabbâh, and Nezâm al-Molk promise each other that if one of them achieves a high position, he would support the other two. However, the three friends did not live in the same period and this is a legendary account. The earliest reference to Khayyâm as a poet appears in 1176, in Kharidat al-Qasr by Emâd-al-Din al-Kâteb al-Esfahâni. Here Khayyâm’s name appears as a poet from Khorâsân who writes in Arabic. Some time later, al-Shahrazuri, the author of Nozhat al-arvâh (c. 1214), refers to Khayyâm’s bad-tempered behaviour and phenomenal memory.73 Jamâl-al-Din Yusof Qefti refers to Khayyâm as a scientist whose ideas were against the holy law: his poetry was like a serpent for the Sharia. Attâr refers to Khayyâm in his Elâhi-nâme in a story in which a seer, who could tell what happens in tombs, recounts Khayyâm’s anxiety in the grave. He tells the reader that despite all his knowledge, Khayyâm is perspiring and has no answer to the questions about the Resurrection, Last Judgment, etc. In all these works Khayyâm is portrayed as a scientist and the author of Arabic poetry. The earliest reference to Khayyâm as the author of quatrains is to be found in Fakhr-al-din Râzi’s (d. 1209) Arabic theological treatise Resâlat fi ’l-tanbih alâ baʿz al-asrâr al-mudaʿa fi baʿz al-sura al-Qorʾ ân al-azim (written in 1203), in which he cites Khayyâm to comment on Sura XCV. Râzi quotes the following quatrain to show Khayyâm’s opinion about the doctrine of the Last Judgment: Dârande chu tarkib-e tabâyeʿ ârâst Az bahr-e che owfekandash andar kam-o kâst Gar nik âmad shekastan az bahr-e che bud V-ar nik nayâmad in sovar-e eyb ke-râst 73 The first references to Khayyâm in Persian and Arabic texts have been dealt with in several studies such as M. Aminrazavi, The Wine of Wisdom. The Life, Poetry and Philosophy of Omar Khayyâm (Oxford, 2005), pp. 18– 66; A. Dashti, Dami bâ Khayyâm (Tehran, 1998), pp. 17–56; H. Dânesh, Robâʿ iyât-e Omar-e Khayyâm, ed. and trans. T. H. Sobhâni (Tehran, 2000), pp. 21–41.

522

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains Why did the Owner who arranged the elements of nature Cast it again into shortcomings and deficiency? If it was ugly, who is to blame for these flaws in forms? And if is beautiful, why does he break it again?74

The next author who attributes quatrains of the same contents to Khayyam is the mystic Najm-al-Din Dâye, who in his Mersâd alebâd (1223) characterizes Khayyâm as a materialist philosopher and atheist, citing the following quatrain:75 Dar dâyere’i ke âmad-o raftan-e mâst U râ na bedâyat na nehâyat peydâst Kas mi-nazand dami dar in âlam râst K-in âmadan az kojâ-o raftan be kojâst We come and go in a circle Whose begin and end are invisible. No one speaks a sincere word in this world As to where we come from and where we are going.

Along with these quatrains denying the doctrine of the Last Judgment, quatrains with the following themes are linked to his name: in vino veritas (“in wine there is truth,”) life’s transience, man’s shortcomings, the here and now, disbelief and wondering about the creation, death, and determinism. The first collection of quatrains in which such poems are attributed to Khayyâm is Shervâni’s Nozhat al-majâles in which 31 quatrains are ascribed to him. Next to this thirteenth-century collection, Jâjarmi adds thirteen quatrains in his Munes al-ahrâr in the fourteenth century. From the fifteenth century onwards, the number of quatrains and the collections of quatrains increases. In these collections, we see how a substantial number of quatrains are attributed to Khayyâm. One collection from the fifteenth century, which contains 158 quatrains, is in the Boldeian library at Oxford (the Ouseley collection, no. 140).76 Tarab-khâne (compiled in 1462) is another collection in which 554 quatrains are ascribed to Khayyâm. As we can see, from 74 Najm-al-Din Râzi, Mersâd al-ebâd, ed. M.-A. Riyâhi (Tehran, 1992), p. 31. 75 Ibid. 76 A facsimile and a transcript of the Bodleian ms. can be found in E. Heron-­ Allen, The Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyâm (London, 1898).

523

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

the thirteenth century onwards, quatrains dealing with subjects such as wine, hedonism, the position of mankind in creation, his relationship with the Creator, and the mystery of life, death, and the hereafter were connected to Khayyâm’s name in such a way that the name “Khayyâm” stood for a specific genre and it did not specifically refer to a historical figure who composed quatrains. As F. de Blois rightly indicates, “In the Mongol period ‘Khayyam’ is no longer a historical person but a genre.”77 The meagre number of quatrains in the early centuries and the increasing number of quatrains attributed to Khayyâm from the thirteenth century onwards makes the authenticity of the quatrains extremely difficult. More than thouasand quatrains are attributed to Khayyâm, and it is not easy to recognize the authentic ones. Khayyâm’s quatrains have been extremely successful in the West. This success owes much to Edward Fitzgerald (1809–83), who adapted his poetry and its Persian sentiment and spirit to English literature.78 Fitzgerald was not the first English poet to translate this poetry but his translation secured unmatched popularity for the quatrains around the world.79 Although his first edition entitled The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, the Astronomer-poet of Persia (1859) appeared anonymously in only 250 copies, and 40 copies were taken by Fitzgerald himself, these quatrains were reprinted several times, in 1868, 1872, 1879, and the fifth edition was posthumously published in 1889. Fitzgerald’s adaptations became a huge success and ran to more than 300 reprints, selling millions of copies around the world. Fitzgerald was a rich Victorian who lived in Suffolk where he cared for his garden and pursued literary activities. He was a friend 77 de Blois, PL, V/2, p. 363. De Blois deals with Khayyâm’s life, work, and manuscripts of the quatrains. See pp. 356–80. 78 D. Davis, EIr, s. v. Fitzgerald, Edward. Also see A. S. Byatt’s characterization in The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, tr. E. Fitzgerald (New York, 1996), p. vii. “FitzGerald’s response to Khayyám’s mixture of the ‘Grave’ and the ‘Gay’ gave rise to an English poem that changed the landscape of English poetry and added a new tone of voice to the English lyric.” Also compare V.-M. D’Ambrosio, Eliot Possessed. T. S. Eliot and FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát (New York, 1989). 79 H. G. Keene first translated Khayyâm’s poetry into English in 1816.

524

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

of several poets and artists such as Alfred Tennyson and William Makepeace Thackeray, major literary figures of Victorian England. At the age of forty seven, he married the forty-eight years old Lucy Barton in 1856 and separated in the same year, for the marriage was a fiasco. It appears from his wife’s phrasing that Fitzgerald had the inclination of becoming infatuated with “any embryo Apollo.” This might refer to his relationship with Edward Byles Cowell (1826–1903), who was at the moment of their acquaintance eighteen, while Fitzgerald was thirty five. It was Cowell who taught Fitzgerald Persian, and at the moment that he wanted to leave for India for an academic post in 1856, he gave Fitzgerald as a parting present a copy of a manuscript of Khayyâm quatrains, held in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Fitzgerald translated the poems and sent them to Cowell for comments. As Dick Davis observes, the late 1850 s “were the most momentous period of Fitzgerald’s life.” His mother died in 1855, Cowell left him for India in 1856, and shortly thereafter his short marriage broke up. Fitzgerald had no home for a while, staying with his friend Kenworthy Browne. In this period, he was “sorely missing Cowell.” Fitzgerald’s identification with Khayyâm was due to these events. Dick Davis describes this as follows: “This sense of emotional crisis—of estrangement from sources of possible happiness, and of a momentary general loss of direction in his life—was undoubtedly a factor in the extraordinary concentration of pathos and complaint that Fitzgerald was able to infuse into his Khayyam translation.” Translating the quatrains was a “way of being close to his absent friend and mentor.”80 The translation did not sell well, and in 1861 the remainder of the books were offered for a penny, placed into the bargain box of a bookshop. Here the books were found by Whitley Stokes, who gave copies to his friend Richard Monckton Milnes, Richard Burton, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.81 These people bought other copies and gave them to Swinburne and Browning, who in turn purchased copies for Burne-Jones and William Morris. Later copies came to the hands of Meredith and Ruskin. 80 Davis, EIr, s. v. Fitzgerald, Edward. 81 See the introduction of Byatt, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, p. viii.

525

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

In addition to Fitzgerald, there are at least 200 other translations.82 In a publication (1899) in which Edward Heron-Allen collated some five thousand quatrains, he conveyed that Fitzgerald’s translation was not a literal translation, concluding: “Of Edward Fitzgerald’s quatrains, forty-nine are faithful and beautiful paraphrases of single quatrains to be found in the Ouseley or Calcutta MSS., or both. Forty-four are traceable to more than one quatrain. Two are inspired by quatrains found by Fitzgerald only in Nicolas’ text. Two are quatrains reflecting the whole spirit of the original poem. Two are traceable exclusively to the influence of the Mantik ut-tair of Farid-al-Din Aṭṭār. Two quatrains primarily inspired by Omar were influenced by the Odes of Hafiz. And three, which appeared only in the second edition and were afterwards suppressed by Edward Fitzgerald himself are not—so far as careful research enables me to judge—attributable to any lines of the original texts. Other authors may have inspired them, but their identification is not useful in this case.”83 Another translator was J. B. Nicolas (1867), who worked at the French Embassy in Tehran. He translated 464 quatrains with a Sufi interpretation. The Russian scholar Valentin Zhukovsky published for the first time a study on the authenticity of quatrains attributed to Omar Khayyâm in 1897.84 Zhukovsky shows that 82 of these quatrains also appear in the works of 39 other poets. Christensen went one step further than Zhukovsky in his publication (1904), showing that the number of quatrains increased in manuscripts younger than fifteenth century. Christensen accepted the possibility of only 14 quatrains that might be written by Khayyâm, and the numbers of spurious quatrains are 101.85 These 14 authentic quatrains form the thematic core of all the other quatrains that have been written throughout the centuries, showing the Persian sentiment. E. H. Whinfield (1882) believed that quatrains appear 82 J. Coumans, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. An Updated Bibliography (Leiden, 2010), p. 19. 83 As cited by J. Navarre, EIr, s. v. Herron-Allen, Edward. 84 V. A. Zhukovsky, “Umar Khayyâm and the ‘Wandering’ Quatrains,” JRAS 30 (1898), pp. 349–66. 85 A. Christensen, Critical Studies in the Rubâʿ iyât of ‘Umar-i-Khayyâm (Copenhagen, 1927).

526

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

in certain thematic groups, evolving from one another. Friedrich Rosen (1856–1935) criticized the idea of wandering quatrains, proving that 23 quatrains were authentic and these were the key quatrains on the basis of which other quatrains were evolved. The majority of manuscripts that Nicolas and Whinfield used were of late date, and differed from each other considerably. Ritter was of the opinion that it was practically impossible to find the authentic quatrains of Khayyâm and offered the suggestion that the quatrains belonged to the genre of folk poetry which were handed down orally, expressing common people’s reaction against the religion.86 All such attempts about the authenticity of quatrains did not offer much results. The doubt went so far that figures such as Hans-Heinrich Schaeder suggested to scrap Khayyâm’s name from the history of Persian literature. In 1934, Christian Rempis, who was also the director of German Omar Khayyam Club, published his Die Vierzeiler Omars in der Auswahl und Anordnung Edward Fitzgerald. In 1930 s, Omar’s quatrains were seen as having anti-Nazi messages, insofar as they were regarded as anti-authoritarian and not compatible with Nazi doctrines.87 It was clear that there was no reliable manuscript in which Khayyâm’s authorship was solidly transmitted before the fifteenth century. The early Persian sources do not say much about Khayyâm’s literary activities, except short references to his Arabic poetry. In such an uncertain situation, various attempts were made to find the authentic quatrains written by Khayyâm. In the midst of these doubts and discussions about the authenticity of quatrains, a manuscript was found that would eradicate all doubts about Khayyâm and the quatrains. Arthur J. Arberry (1905–69) published a text edition and a translation but within a few years, it appeared that the manuscript was a modern forgery.88 Almost 86 H. Ritter, “Zur Frage der Echtheit der Vierzeiler ‘Omar Chajjāms,” Orientalistiche Literaturzeitung 32 (1929), pp. 156–63. 87 C. Rempis, Beiträge zur Ḫayyām-Forschung (Leipzig, 1937); see Aminrazavi, The Wine of Wisdom, pp. 273–74. 88 See E. P. Elwell-Sutton, EIr, s. v. Arberry, Arthur John. For Arberry’s views on quatrains see A. J. Arberry, The Rubâʿ iyât of Omar Khayyâm (London, 1949); idem, The Romance of Rubâʿ iyât (London, 1959).

527

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

the same thing happened to Robert Graves, who trusted Omar Ali Shah’s claim of having an early twelfth century manuscript of quatrains, which was never published. The cult of quatrains in the west also affected the popularity of Khayyâm in his home land.89 Although Khayyâm was known in Persia before the discovery of Fitzgerald, his popularity increased. Sâdeq Hedâyat (1903–51) is a key figure for the reception of Omar Khayyâm’s quatrains in the twentieth-century Persia. Consolidating the research conducted in Europe, Hedâyat published twice the quatrains of Omar Khayyâm in 1923 (Robâʿiyyât-e Khayyâm) and in 1934 (tarâne-hâ-ye Khayyâm), in a new thematic arrangement and an introduction. Hedâyat selected 14 quatrains from early manuscripts, and on the basis of these quatrains, he published 143 quatrains. These two volumes are important for the modern appreciation of Khayyâm in Iran, both for the way Khayyâm is presented to the Iranian public and for Hedâyat’s thematic organization of the quatrains.90 In 1941, Mohammad-Ali Forughi chose 66 quatrains, which he considered to be written by Khayyâm. On the basis of these quatrains, he selected 113 other quatrains, which he regarded to be authentic poems. Several other Persian scholars such as Ali Dashti, M. A. Forughi Mohsen Farzâne, Jalâl-al-Din Homâi, and Sayyed-Ali Mir-Afzali have published editions of Khayyâm’s quatrains using different arguments for the inclusion or exclusion of certain quatrains.91 There are a prodigious number of studies on Khayyâm and his quatrains. A. G. Potter offered 700 bibliographical references in 1929. In Angurâni’s Bibliography of Omar Khayyâm, published in 2002, the number of bibliographical references runs to 3767. Jos Coumans’ bibliography is the most recent publication, in which the author has named more than a thousand translations of the 89 J. Biegstraaten, EIr, s. v. Khayyam, Omar xi. Impact on the Literary and Social Scene Abroad; also see J. D. Yohannan, Persian Poetry in England and America (Delmar and New York, 1977), pp. 199–244. 90 S. Hedâyat, Robâʿ iyât-e Omar-e Khayyâm (Tehran, 1923). 91 Dashti, Dami bâ Khayyâm; M. Farzâneh, Naqd va Barresi-ye robaʿ ihâ-ye Omar Khayyâm (Tehran, 1977); M. A. Foroughi, Robâi’yyât-e Omar Khayyâm, ed. A. Jorbozehdâr (Tehran, 1992); J. D. Homâ’i, Khayyâmi-­ nâme (Tehran, 1967).

528

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

quatrains based on Fitzgerald’s translations in various languages from 1929 onwards. Mention should be made of Aminrazavi’s study on Khayyâm’s life, work, and times. Seyyed-Ali Mir-Afzali’s Robâʿ iyât-e Khayyâm dar manâbeʿ-e kohan offers a systematic analysis of almost all sources of the quatrains in Persian. Ali Dehbâshi compiled a large collection of articles in Mey-o minâ in 2004. Another recent collection of articles is The Great Umar Khayyam. A Global Reception of the Rubáiyat, which studies the reception of Khayyâm in the Netherlands, Russia, Armenia, and India.92

10. Khayyâmian Motifs Employed by Other Poets The ideas found in “Khayyâm” quatrains constitute another ubiquitous motif in the poetic tradition of quatrains. Due to the enormous popularity of Fitzgerald’s adaptation of the quatrains attributed to Khayyâm, it is sometimes thought that Khayyâm was not influential in the Persian cultural region before he was “discovered” in the west in 1859. But Khayyâm did play an important role in the history of quatrain. There are popular collections of quatrains containing motifs drawn from the poems attributed to Omar Khayyâm in Nozhat al-majâles and Kholâsat al-ashʿ âr fi robâʿiyât. In addition to several quatrains by Khayyâm included in these collections, other quatrains also contain Khayyâmian motifs and topics. In the Nozhat, the compiler has an entire chapter entitled dar maʿ âni-ye Khayyâm (“On Khayyâmian Concepts”).93 This is an 92 See C.-H. de Fouchécour and B. A. Rosenfeld, EI2 , s. v. ‘Umar Khayyām. For bibliographical studies on Khayyâm see A. G. Potter, A Bibliography of the Rubâiyât of Omar Khayyâm (London, 1929, repr. 1994); Coumans, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám; a Persian book under the title of Ketâbshenâsi-ye Omar-e Khayyâm, compiled by F. Angurâni and Z. Angurâni (Tehran, 2002); A. Dehbâshi, Mey-o minâ: seyri dar zengedi va âthâr-e hakim Omar Khayyâm-e Neyshâburi (Tehran, 2004); and Seyed-Gohrab, ed., The Great ‘Umar Khayyām. 93 In addition to this chapter, there are several other quatrains by Khayyâm in Shervâni, Nozhat al-majâles. For a list see Mir-Afzali, Robâʿ iyyât-e Khayyâm dar manâbeʿ-e kohan, pp. 45–46.

529

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

ambiguous rubric: we do not know whether the quatrains were thought to belong to Khayyâm, to embody the same philosophical thought as Khayyâm’s original poems, or simply represent a genre to which Khayyâm gave his name. It is also important to note that this particular chapter appears between chapters fourteen and seventeen, on “separation” of the lover and “On the complaint against the Spheres and their unfavourableness” respectively. The pessimistic and carpe diem line of thought characteristic of Khayyâm’s poems fits the transition between the lover’s separation and his complaint about his ill fortune in love.94 Of the total of thirty-eight quatrains in this chapter, nine are ascribed to Khayyâm. The following quatrain is ascribed to Sanâ’i, but the editor Mohammad Amin Riyâhi has removed Sanâ’i’s name and has inserted Khayyâm’s name in square brackets, explaining that this quatrain is ascribed to Khayyâm in the Tarab-khâne manuscript and in a miscellany dated to 750; also, it, is included in Forughi’s edition and “has the scent of the philosophy of Khayyâm rather than of Sanâ’i’s mysticism.”95 Abu ’l-Majd’s Kholâsat al-ashʿ âr contains only three quatrains attributed to Khayyâm. These appear in chapters with the titles “Advice,” “Wisdom and Preaching,” “Wine,” or “Bacchanalia.” The first reads: Har dharra ke dar khâk-e zamini bud-ast Pish az man-o to tâj-o negini bud-ast Gard az rokh-e nâzanin ba âzarm feshân K-ân ham rokh-e khub-e nâzanini bud-ast Each particle of dust in the soil of a land Was a crown or a ring-stone before our time. Wipe the dust with kindness from your loving countenance For it too was once a loving face.96

The second quatrain appears in chapter four, on “Wisdom and Preaching”: 94 On the contents of Khayyâm’s quatrains see chapter four of Aminrazavi, The Wine of Wisdom, pp. 90–133. 95 Shervâni, Nozhat al-majâles, p. 602, nn. 40–42. 96 Abu’l-Majd, Safine-ye Tabriz, p. 594. The quatrain also appears in Shervâni, Nozhat al-majâles, p. 114.

530

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains Ey khâje bedân kin falak-e bihude dow Hamchun man-o to did basi kohne o now Âghâz-o saranjâm-e jahân râ che kuni Az omr nasib-e khis bardâr-o berow O learned man, know that these spheres that race in vain Have seen many like you and me, young and old. Why bother about the beginning and end of the world? Take your share from life and go.97

The third quatrain reads as follows: Sâqi barkhiz o nâm bar nang bezan Qorrâbe-ye zohd o towbe bar sang bezan Motreb to tabib-e râst qowli pis ây Qârure-ye mey gir-o rag-e chang bezan. Rise, cup-bearer and smash the good name, Smash the glass of asceticism and of repentance on a stone. O musician, you physician speaking true, come forth! Take the glass of wine and play with the veins of the heart.98

This quatrain is followed by another quatrain by Jamâl al-Din Ashhari and then by the following two quatrains, which are attributed to Khayyâm in several later sources but are anonymous here. These show how quatrains with certain themes are associated with Khayyâm: Vaqt-e sahar ast khiz ey mâye-ye nâz Narmak narmak bâda deh-o rud navâz K-ânân ke bejâyand napâyand basi V-ânhâ ke shodand kas nemiyâyad bâz Awake, oh source of love, it is the break of morn. Pour wine gently and pluck the strings, For the living will not live long, And those who have gone will not return.99 Bardâr piyâle-o sabu ey deljuy Fâregh mey nush bar lab-e sabze-o juy 97 Abu’l-Majd, Safine-ye Tabriz, p. 595. 98 Abu’l-Majd, Safine-ye Tabriz, p. 611. 99 Ibid.

531

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Bas shakhs-e aziz râ ke dahr-e bad-khuy Sad bâr piyâle kard-o sad bâr sabuy O sweetheart, take the cup and the goblet, Drink wine peacefully on the green banks of streams. A hundred times, malevolent Fate Has changed many loved ones into cups and goblets.100

In sum, the attention given to “Khayyâm” quatrains in these collections indicates that he was already recognized as the composer of a certain genre during the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries. Quatrains dealing with transient nature of life, determinism, carpe diem, and so forth are attached to Khayyâm’s name. In addition to these quatrain collections in which several poems are composed in the spirit of Khayyâm, we can find a number of Khayyâmian quatrains in the divans of famous Persian poets such as Saʿdi, Rumi, and Hâfez. In Saʿdi’s corpus, we find two quatrains composed in the style of Khayyâm. These poems also fit perfectly in the genre of love poetry. In the following two poems he describes how precious the moments of union are for the lover. Both foreground a carpe diem message, recalling Khayyâm’s philosophy: Ân shab ke to dar kenâr-e mâ’i ruz ast V-an ruz ke bâ to miravad now-ruz ast Di raft-o be entezâr-e fardâ maneshin Daryâb ke hâsel-e hayât emruz ast The night when you are by our side is day, And the day spent with you is New Year’s day. Yesterday has gone: do not sit and wait for tomorrow, See that the harvest of life is today.101 Mâ hâsel-e omri be dami befrushim Sad kharman-e shâdi be ghami befrushim Dar yek dam agar hezâr jân dast dahad Dar hâl be khâk-e qadami befrushim We would sell the harvest of a lifetime for one moment. We would sell a hundred joyful times for one sorrow. 100 Ibid. 101 Saʿdi, Matn-e kâmel-e divân, ed. M. Mosaffâ (Tehran, n. d.), p. 246.

532

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains If we had one thousand souls in our hands, in one breath We would sell them instantly for the dust of one footstep.102

These quatrains combine the theme of love with the topos of cherishing the moment the lover spends with the beloved, which does not entirely fit with the themes of Khayyâm. However, the choice of words and intertextual elements are reminiscent of Khayyâm. The last line of the first quatrain, dar yâb ke hâsel-e hayât emruz ast, is semantically close to the following phrase ascribed to Khayyâm: “See that you cannot regain the life that is gone” (daryâb ke omr-e rafta râ natvân yâft). More of these intertextual elements can be found in Saʿdi’s quatrains. In another quatrain, we find the phrase ey mâya-ye nâz or “O, essence of loveliness” which recalls the opening line of Khayyâm’s quatrain, vaqt-e sahar ast khiz ay mâya-yi nâz, “It is dawn, rise, O essence of loveliness.” In the divan of Saʿdi’s contemporary, Jalâl-al-Din Rumi, there are several quatrains which have the color of Khayyâm’s poems and even the vocabulary is inspired by quatrains attributed to Khayyâm. The following quatrain is clearly inspired by one of Khayyâm’s poems: Yek chand ba kudaki ba ostâd shodim Yek chand ba ru-ye dustân shâd shodim Pâyân-e hadith-e mâ to be-shenow ke che bud Chun abr dar âmadim-o chun bâd shodim For a while, in our childhood we were enrolled with a master For a while we were cheered by the face of friends Hearken to the end of the tale, how it was: “As a cloud we came, as a wind we departed.”103

Compare this to poem attributed to Khayyâm, quoted above: Yek chand be kudaki be ostâd shodim Yek chand be ostâdi-ye khod shâd shodim Pâyân-e sokhan shenow ke mârâ che resid Az khâk dar âmadim-o bar bâd shodim 102 Saʿdi, Matn-e kâmel-e divân, p. 659. 103 Rumi, Kolliyyât-e shams, p. 219, Quatrain 1303; this is a quatrain attributed to Khayyâm, which is cited at the beginning of this chapter.

533

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA For a while, in our childhood we were enrolled with a master For a while we basked in our status as a master, Hearken to the end of the tale to hear what we gained from all this: We rose from the dust and vanished in the wind.104

Not only is the first line identical, the idea expressed in the entire poem is very similar. While Khayyâm emphasizes the growth from a child or novice to a master, Rumi replaces the “master” with “friends,” removing the idea of spiritual or intellectual growth. In both, the last line expresses the vanity of life. It is difficult to ascertain the authenticity of the quatrain and there are variants on this quatrain. The next quatrain contains Khayyâmian ideas about renouncing the world, but its overall message is one of ascetic practice: Yek chand meyân-e khalq kardim darang Z-ishân ba vafâ na buy didim na rang Ân beh ke nahân shavim az dida-ye khalq Chun âb dar âhan-o chu âtash dar sang For a while we spent our lives among people: We did not sense in them any hue or scent of faithfulness. Better than that, is to hide from people’s eyes Like the water in iron and like fire in the stone.105

In the divan of Hâfez, several poems (30, 38, 39, 48, 50–55, 58–59, 61) are reminiscent of Khayyâm’s quatrains, with a focus on themes such as carpe diem philosophy, hedonism, doubt, predestination, etc. As indicated by Khânlari, most of these quatrains occur in a single manuscript. The authenticity of some of them is, therefore, uncertain, and some have been attributed to other poets as well. The scene in the following poem could have come straight from Khayyâm, with a lover amorously engaged with a sweetheart, a bottle of wine, and music in a quiet corner. The word shâhed might refer here to the doctrine of shâhed-bâzi or contemplating the divine through the face of a beautiful person as a “witness” (shâhed) 104 Omar Khayyâm, Robâʿ iyyât-e Khayyâm, eds. M. A. Foroughi and Q. Ghani (Tehran, 1942); new edition by B. Khorramshâhi (Tehran, 1994), p. 151, Quatrain 134. 105 Rumi, Kolliyyât-e shams, p. 1070, Quatrain 1075.

534

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

of transcendental Beauty. The historical allusion is to Hâtam from the tribe of Taiy, who was famous for his generosity: Bâ shâhed-e shukh-o shang-o bâ bârbat-o ney Konji-yo ferâghati-yo yak shisha-ye mey Chun garm shavad ze bâda mâ râ rag-o pey Mennat nabarim yek jow az Hâtam-e Tey With the cheerful and graceful witness, a lute and a reed-flute, In a corner, at ease, and one bottle of wine: When our veins and flesh are warmed by the wine We ask Hâtam for nothing, not a barley grain.106

Another carpe diem quatrain tells us: Ân beh ke ze jâm-e bâda del shâd konim V-az âmade-o gozashte kam yâd konim V-in âriyati ravân-e zendâni râ Yek lahze ze band-e aql âzâd konim It is better to cheer our hearts with a cup of wine, Thinking little of the past and what is to come. Releasing this borrowed imprisoned soul For a moment from bondage to reason.107

Two quatrains with the same imagery and themes as Khayyâm’s poems are about a “jug” and a “potter,” in which the “principle of generation and corruption” is depicted.108 In these quatrains, earth (khâk) is used as imagery to emphasize life’s transient nature, the fragility of man, and the process of generation. Hâfez also uses this imagery in three of his ghazals. In ghazal 388, l. 4, he warns the reader about the transient nature of life and how the rotation of the spheres will turn man to dust. It is possible that a potter will one day make a goblet from the clay of a man’s skull: Ruzi ke charkh az gel-e mâ kuzehâ konad Zenhâr kâsa-ye sar-e mâ por sharâb konad 106 Hâfez, Divân-e Hâfez, ed. P. N. Khânlari (2 nd ed., Tehran, 1983), II, p. 1106, Quatrain 30. 107 Hâfez, Divân, II, p. 1113, Quatrain 54. 108 For Khayyâm’s use of this imagery and his philosophy see Aminrazavi, The Wine of Wisdom, p. 101.

535

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA On the day that the Wheel makes a jug from our clay, Beware! It will fill the cup of our heads with wine.

More or less the same idea is expressed in another ghazal (472, l. 2): Âkher al-amr gel-e kuzegarân khâhi shod Hâliyâ fekr-e sabu kon ke por az bâda koni At the end of all things, you’ll become the clay of potters, For now, think of a cup to fill it with wine.

In ghazal 441, l. 7, Hâfez states: Gowhar-e jâm-e jam az kân-e jahâni degar ast To tamannâ ze gel-e kuzegarân midâri The substance of the World-reflecting Cup is from the mine of another world, Yet you’re asking favors from potters’ clay?

The same ideas are expressed in his quatrains. In the following poem, the poet underlines the fleeting nature of life by referring to two powerful mythical kings of ancient Persia, Fereydun and Anushirvân. The former fought successfully against the evil ruler Zahhâk and the latter is famous for his justice: Ey khâje-ye kozegar agar hoshyâri Tâ chand koni bar gel-e mardom khâri Changâl-e Fereydun-o sar-e Nushervân Dar charkh keshide’i che dar sar dâri O master potter! If you are so wise, How long will you humiliate the earth of men? The hand of Fereydun and the head of Nushervân You’ve thrown on your wheel; what do you have in mind?109

The potter’s creative wheel is also the “wheel” of fortune (charkh), which reduces all things to dust. The poet asks about God’s purpose, in creating mankind, but also destroying even great men such as Fereydun and Nushervân. In the following quatrain, Hâfez warns the potter that when he dies, another potter will make a jug from his clay: 109 Hâfez, Divân, II, p. 1114, Quatrain 58.

536

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains Goftim be kuzegar ke mikon nazari Fardâ be sar-e khâk-e to âyad degari Tâ chand ze khâk-e degarân kuze koni Az khâk-e to ham kuze konad kuzegari We said to the potter: “Consider this, Someone else will come to your clay-pit tomorrow. How long will you make jugs from others’ clay? A potter will make a jug from your dust too.”110

From this discussion we can see that the presence of Khayyâm-like themes in Hâfez’s quatrains does not mean that these quatrains are spurious. Such themes are also found in Hâfez’s ghazals. The simpler style of the quatrains is normal for the genre: it need not indicate a different author. However, as the investigations of Khânlari on the oldest extant manuscripts of Hâfez have shown, some of the quatrains are poorly attested and their authenticity remains problematic.

11. Quatrains of Saʿdi Another thirteenth century corpus of quatrains is that of Moslehal-Din Saʿdi (d. ca. 1291). The majority of these poems deal with the theme of love, but there is one quatrain about the poet’s personal experience: this is an allusion to his journey from Damascus to Jerusalem when Franks forced him to do hard labor in Tripoli. In the following quatrain, Saʿdi refers to his captivity, which is also mentioned in a famous story in his Rose-Garden.111 The story goes that he was captured by crusaders, who made him dig the earth, but he was released by one of his old acquaintances: Dar dide be jâ-ye sorme suzan didan Barq âmade-o âtash zade kharman didan Dar qeyd-e farang gholl be gardan didan Beh z-ân-ke be jâ-ye dust doshman didan 110 Hâfez, Divân, II, p. 1114, Quatrain 61. 111 See chapter two, anecdote 30 of Mosleh-al-Din Saʿdi, Golestân, ed. G.-H. Yu­ sofi (Tehran, 1994), pp. 99–100.

537

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA To feel needles instead of kohl in your eye, To see lightning and the burning of the harvest, To feel chains on your neck as a prisoner of the Franks, Is better than seeing the enemy instead of the Friend.112

In the critical text editions, Saʿdi’s quatrains are not arranged thematically. The subject matter revolves around the theme of love, the moral and physical description of the lover and the beloved, and recurrent favorite topoi such as the candle and the moth, and the rose and the nightingale. As usual in quatrains, these poems are terse in expression, lyrical in composition, and at times have fresh imagery and metaphor. Another characteristic feature is their overall profane undertone. Persian ghazals are open to different layers of interpretation, with a message that oscillates between spiritual and mundane spheres. Although mystical terminology can be detected in these quatrains, most of them do not invite a mystic reading. This is not the place for an exposition of Persian love theory, but since the great majority of Saʿdi’s quatrains treat amatory subjects, a brief survey of the way he treats love is appropriate. In the following quatrain, the poet shows the start of love and how, through the eye, the beloved catches the lover’s heart in his lasso: Dar chashm-e man âmad ân sahi sarv-e boland Berbud delam ze dast-o dar pây afkand Ey dide-ye shukh mibarad del be kamand Khâhi ke be kas del nadahi dide beband The graceful tall cypress came to my sight, It stole my heart from my hand and placed it underfoot. This enchanting eye charms the heart in a lasso, Close your eye, if you do not want to give your heart to anyone.113

The following poem depicts how love makes the lover boil within, like the mythical lover Majnun who was stricken with Leyli’s love and became mad: Har sâ‘atam andarun bejushad khun râ V-âgâhi nist mardum-e birun râ 112 Saʿdi, Matn-e kâmel-e divân, p. 659. 113 Saʿdi, Matn-e kâmel-e divân, pp. 651–52.

538

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains Ellâ magar ânke ru-ye leyli dida-st Dânad ke che dard mikeshad majnun râ Blood boils within me all the time, While the people outside are unaware. Only those who have seen the face of Leyli Know what pain Majnun is enduring.114

Love was seen as a disease, an illness which could be treated by physicians. Signs of being in love and advice on treating this illness were detailed in various medical treatises. Poets used this medical knowledge and attached it to many other ideas about the phenomenon of love. The beloved is commonly depicted as the only physician who has the remedy for the lover’s pain, as in the following quatrain, which uses the parallelism in tabibân (physicians) and habibân (beloveds). The poet also introduces another convention of love, namely secrecy. The convention is that the lover is expected to hide his love in public to protect the beloved’s reputation, but the power of love is so intense that the lover’s state is revealed by symptoms of love, such as blushing, stuttering, and weeping: Ân dard nadâram ke tabibân dânand Dardist mahabbat ke habibân dânand Mâ râ gham-e ru-ye âshenâ’i koshtast In hâl nabâyad ke gharibân dânand I do not have the pain which is known to physicians. Love is a pain that lovers know. The sorrow we have from the face of a friend slays us. This state should not be revealed to strangers.115

Many of Saʿdi’s quatrains describe the beloved’s cruelty, his unfaithfulness in keeping his promise and his disloyalty. This too is conventional: the lover always forgives the beloved and invites the beloved to a new relationship. The following poem emphasizes how lovers yearn for the beloved and overlook the beloved’s faults: Oshshâq be dargahat asirand beyâ Bad-khu’i-ye to bar to nagirand beyâ 114 Saʿdi, Matn-e kâmel-e divân, p. 645. 115 Saʿdi, Matn-e kâmel-e divân, pp. 652–53.

539

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Har jowr-o jafâ ke karde’i maʿ dhuri Z-ân pish ke odhrat napadhirand beyâ Lovers are captives at your court, Come! None will fault you for your foul temper, Come! The injuries and injustices you inflicted, all are absolved. Ere they reject your mitigating excuses, Come!116

These quatrains often speak of the qualities of both the lover and the beloved. Below, the beloved is portrayed as not keeping his promises, and the lover as an insomniac. Lack of sleep is one of the essential traits of the lover. A true lover remains awake: if he falls asleep, he is accused of being a false lover. Ân yâr ke ahd-e dustyâri beshekast Miraft-o manash gerefte dâmân dar dast Migoft degar bâre be khâbam bini Pendâsht ke baʿ d az ân marâ khâbi hast The beloved who broke the oath of love Is leaving, and I hold his hem in my hand. He says: “You will see me again in your dream.” Does he think I will sleep, after that?117

The theme of the beloved’s ill-temper recurs in many of Saʿdi’s quatrains. The following poem describes how the lover accepts wholeheartedly everything that pertains to the beloved, even if it is ill-temper and cruelty inflicted on the lover: Guyand rahâ konash ke yâri bad-khust Khobish nayarzad be doroshti ke dar-ust Bellâh bogdhârid miyân-e man-o dust Nik-o bad-o ranj-o râhat az dust nekust They say, “let him go because he is an ill-tempered friend His kindness is not worth his boldness.” By God, do not come between me and the beloved. Good and bad, trouble and tranquility; what comes from him is good.118

116 Saʿdi, Matn-e kâmel-e divân, p. 645. 117 Saʿdi, Matn-e kâmel-e divân, p. 646. 118 Saʿdi, Matn-e kâmel-e divân, p. 648.

540

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

In the next quatrain, the poet combines the theme of insomnia with the favorite topos of koshte-ye maʿshuq or “killed by the beloved,” meaning that the lover should be ready unconditionally to offer everything, including his life, in exchange for one moment of union.119 Saʿdi uses this topos in his other works, but here we see how skillfully he combines the themes of insomnia and the beloved’s bloodthirsty quality: Shabhâ godharad ke dide natvânam bast Mardom hame az khâb-o man az fekr-e to mast Bâshad ke be dast-e khish khunam rizi Tâ jân bedaham dâman-e maqsud be dast Nights pass when I cannot close my eyes. People are drunk with sleep, I’m drunk with thinking of you. May you shed my blood with your own hand, So I can yield my soul, the goal attained.120

The theme of being killed at the hand of the beloved is sometimes connected with martyrdom. In the following quatrain, Saʿdi distinguishes two types of martyrdom. The classical category refers to the fighters killed during battles, fighting for the cause of the faith and to spread Islam. Such a fight was going on during Saʿdi’s time.121 This category of martyrdom is, however, inferior to death in the path of love at the hand of the beloved. In couching this theme in a quatrain, the poet expresses the difference between the two kinds of death very succinctly: Ghâzi ze pey-ye shahâdat andar tak-o pust V-ân râ ke gham-e to kosht fâzeltar az ust Fardâ-ye qiyâmat in bedân key mânad K-ân koshte-ye doshman ast-o ân koshte-ye dust 119 On the topos of being killed by love or the beloved see A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, Laylī and Majn‎ū n. Love, Madness and Mystic Longing in Niẓāmī’s Epic Romance (Leiden, 2003), pp. 127–38. 120 Saʿdi, Matn-e kâmel-e divân, p. 646. 121 For various aspects of martyrdom in Islamic culture see the collection of essays entitled Martyrdom in Literature. Visions of Death and Meaningful Suffering in Europe and the Middle East from Antiquity to Modernity, ed. F. Pannewick (Wiesbaden, 2004).

541

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA The Islamic warrior makes efforts to die as a martyr, Yet he who is killed by sorrow for you, excels him. How could one be compared to the other, tomorrow at Judgment Day, For one is killed by the enemy, the other by the beloved.122

The matchless physical beauty of the beloved is a favorite subject in these quatrains. It is usually depicted through imagery and metaphors drawing on flora and fauna. In the following quatrain, using the rhetorical figure of hyperbole, the lover emphasizes the beauty of the beloved, especially his round and shining countenance: Sad bâr begoftam be gholâmân-e darat Tâ âyine digar nagodhârand barat Tarsam ke bebini rokh-e hamchun qamarat Kas bâz nayâyad andar nazarat A hundred times I told your household slaves Not to place a mirror before you again. For I fear you will see your moon-like face And you’ll give no thought to anyone else.123

The beloved’s tall stature is described in several of these quatrains. Traditionally, the beloved’s stature is compared to the cypress, but in the following poem, Saʿdi combines this cliché imagery with the rising (“standing”) of the dead at the Resurrection. By a process of association, the poet imagines that the beloved’s stature could cause the corpses in the grave to mistake the time for Resurrection day. This is an evident use of tajnis or paronomasia in the words qâmat (“stature”) and qiyâmat (“resurrection”) in this poem: Vah vah ke qiyâmat ast in qâmat-e râst Bâ sarv nabâshad in letâfat ke torâst Shâyad ke to digar be ziyârat naravi Tâ morde naguyad ke qiyâmat bar khâst Cheer, for this upright stature is the resurrection. The cypress does not have this grace that you have. It is be better that you do not visit the shrines, So that the dead do not say: “the Resurrection has arrived.”124 122 Saʿdi, Matn-e kâmel-e divân, p. 647. 123 Saʿdi, Matn-e kâmel-e divân, p. 645. 124 Saʿdi, Matn-e kâmel-e divân, p. 466.

542

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

Such hyperbolic descriptions were—and still are—much appreciated, especially when the poet is able to express elusive and subtle meanings through novel imagery and suitable rhetorical figures. For instance, in the following quatrain, the poet compares the beloved’s stature to a cypress, his teeth to the pearls in the ocean, and his hair to violets on the steppe: Sarv az qadat andâze-ye bâlâ bordast Bahr az dahanat la‘l-e lâlâ bordast Har jâ ke banafshe’i bebinam guyam Mu’i ze sarat bâd be sahrâ bordast The cypress took loftiness from your stature, The ocean took precious pearls from your mouth. Whenever I see a violet, I say The wind has carried a hair from your head to the plain.125

Since the Persian language does not have any gender distinction in pronouns, it is hard to ascertain the gender of the beloved, but from the poetic context and often courtly background, it appears that the beloved is usually a boy, often of Turkish or Chinese origin. These boys were taken as slaves from Central Asia and brought to Persia where they were trained for various disciplines at the court, from musicians to cupbearer to soldiers. Some attained high positions at the court, becoming generals and even founding a dynasty, as in the case of the Ghaznavids. Like other Persian poets, Saʿdi relies on Persian courtly paradigms to describe the beloved and the conventions of love. In the following quatrain, he describes the beloved as a youthful soldier: Ân kudak-e lashgari ke lashgar shekanad Dâyem del-e mâ cho qalb-e kâfar shekanad Mahbub ke tâziyâne dar sar shekanad Beh z-ânke bebinad-o enân bar shekand That army boy who breaks armies! He always cleaves our hearts like the heart of an infidel. It is better that the beloved breaks his whip on our heads Than that he sees us and pulls the reins aside.126 125 Ibid. 126 Saʿdi, Matn-e kâmel-e divân, p. 652.

543

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

In the second line, the poet is also using a military imagery by referring to qalb or the heart, which in this context refers to the centre of an army. In other words, the line could be translated as: “Our heart always breaks like the centre of an infidel’s army.” In the next quatrain, Saʿdi draws attention to the beloved’s beauty spot, the down on his chin, and the growth of his beard: Khâli ke marâ âjez-o mohtâl bekard Khati beresid-o daf ‘-e ân khâl bekard Khâl-e siyahash ke khunam mirikht Rish âmad-o ruyash hame chun khâl bekard A beauty spot that made me helpless and scheming: The down appeared and covered the spot. His black beauty spot shed my blood, The beard appeared and made all his face like a beauty spot.127

The next quatrain refers to the beloved’s dimple, which is usually depicted as a prison on the lover’s road to the beloved’s mouth. Here it is a resting place for the soul until the beard’s growth turns it into a dungeon: Ân khâl-e hosn ke didami khâli shod V-ân loʿ bat-e bâ jamâl jamâli shod Châl-e zanakhash ke jân dar-u miâsud Tâ rish barâvard siyah châli shod That beautiful beauty spot that I could see is gone And that beautiful idol has turned to a heavenly beauty The pit in his chin where the soul was resting Turned into a prison as his beard grew.128

In a number of quatrains, Saʿdi uses the structure of a quatrain, and its conventions, to delay revealing what he wants to say. The following is an example: Goyand havâ-ye fasl-e âzâr khosh ast Bu-ye gol-o bâng-e morgh-e golzâr khosh ast Abrisham-e zir-o nâle-ye zâr khosh ast Ey bikhabarân in hame bâ yâr khosh ast 127 Saʿdi, Matn-e kâmel-e divân, p. 649. 128 Saʿdi, Matn-e kâmel-e divân, p. 651.

544

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains They say that the air of the season of spring is pleasant, That the scent of roses and the songs of meadow birds are pleasant, That soft silk and a sad lament are pleasant. You ignorant people! All these are pleasant with the beloved.129

Another amatory theme recurring in these quatrains is the sweet scent of the beloved. From the earliest specimens of Persian love poetry, the beloved’s scent has been emphasized, and associated with a wide range of ideas. The lonely separated lover who roams the desert and mountains day and night is often advised to breathe the beloved’s scent and to find him. In the following poem, Saʿdi stresses the miraculous healing effects of the beloved’s scent, which can even bring the dead to life again: Dastârche’i k-ân bot-e delbar dârad Gar bu’i az ân bâd-e sabâ bardârad Bar morda-ye sad sâle agar bar godharad Dar hâl ze khâk-e tire sar bar dârad If a zephyr took a little scent From the turban of this heart-snatching idol, When it passed by one who’s a hundred years dead, He would instantly raise his head from the dark clay.130

12. Rumi as a Poet of Quatrains Jalâl-al-Din Rumi (1207–73) is chiefly known for his didactic Spiritual Poem (Mathnavi-ye maʿnavi) and his ghazals. Less attention has been given to his quatrains, and few scholarly studies or translations are available. His quatrains were first published separately in Istanbul in 1312–14/1894–96, later in Isfahan in 1320/1941, and since then several times in Iran.131 The number of quatrains differ in almost every manuscript, and consequently they diverge in critical text editions. A. J. Arberry states that “the Istanbul edition of 129 Saʿdi, Matn-e kâmel-e divân, p. 647. 130 Saʿdi, Matn-e kâmel-e divân, p. 649. 131 L. Bogdanov, “The Quatrains of Jalâl-al-din Rumi,” JRASB 1.2 (1935), pp. 65–80.

545

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

the Robâʿiyât contains 1,646 poems,” while “the Isfahan edition comprises 1,994.”132 He calculates that the Chester Beatty manuscript contains 1,980 poems.133 He translated 360 of them, selecting what he considered to be “the finest and most individual of the quatrains attributed to Rumi.”134 In Rumi’s corpus, there are several quatrains about the mystical dance. The quatrain plays an important role in samâʿ rituals, a devotional practice involving dance, music, and the recitation of poetry.135 Although Islamic orthodoxy forbids dancing for Muslims (just as Saint Chrysostom and others condemned dancing for Christians), dancing rituals among the Islamic mystics date back at least to 864, when one of the first Sufi dancing performances is reported to have taken place in Baghdad.136 In Persia, from about tenth century, Persian mystics used erotic quatrains during their samâʿ to commune with the immaterial beloved. Several Sufi Orders, such as the Naqshbandiyya, forbid samâʿ, but many others, including the Mowlaviyya and Kobraviyya orders, consider samâʿ as praiseworthy. Abu ’l-Mafâkher Yahyâ Bâkharzi (d. 1335–36), in his Owrâd al-ahbâb wa fosus al-âdâb, compares samâʿ to rain showering upon sweet-smelling soil, turning it into a verdant field. Every part of the body enjoys immense pleasure when hearing the spiritual concert. Samâʿ seizes man in various ways: sometimes it makes man shed tears;

132 Arberry, tr., The Rubâʿ iyât of Jalâl al-Din Rumi, p. xix. 133 See F. D. Lewis, Rumi. Past and Present, East and West (Oxford, 2000), pp. 391–93 in which Lewis translates eight quatrains by Rumi. Also see Ibrahim Gamard and Rawan Farhadi, The Quatrains of Rumi (San Rafael, Calif., 2008), which is a complete translation of Rumi’s quatrains with commentaries. 134 Arberry, The Rubâʿ iyât of Jalâl al-Din Rumi, p. xix. 135 de Bruijn, Persian Sufi Poetry, pp. 17–18. 136 For St. Chrysostom’s (354–407) condemnation of dancing see E. L. Backman, Religious Dances in the Christian Church and in Popular Medicine (Westport, Conn., 1952), pp. 32–33. Also see chapter nine of the same book, entitled “The Prohibition of Religious Dances”; A. Schimmel, A Dance of Sparks. Imagery of Fire in Ghaleb’s Poetry (London, 1979), p. 26. Also compare idem, As Through a Veil (New York, 1982), p. 17.

546

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

sometimes it induces him to yell, clap his hands or dance. At times, it even carries him away from himself.137 Although mystics such as Abu Saʿid Abu al-Kheyr (d. 1050) and Abd Allâh Ansâri from Herat (1006–89) were criticized for using poetry (quatrains) in their preaching and during samâʿ sessions, the practice flourished and many poets wrote poems for samâʿ purposes.138 Today, Rumi’s name is inextricably bound up with mystic dance around the world. Compared to other topics, he composed only a few ghazals and a limited number of quatrains on samâʿ. The following quatrain is built on repetitions of the words dance, rays, merchandise, and farewell, each repeated three times in each line respectively. This repetition reminds us of the ritual recitation (dhekr) of mystics, who wish to attain ecstasy by focusing on the breath and repeating one of the names of God, a phrase from the Qorʾan, or a line of poetry. The contents refer to love, a precious possession: he who has it bids farewell to reason: Emruz samâʿ ast-o samâʿ ast-o samâʿ Nur ast-o shoʿ âʿ ast-o shoʿ âʿ ast-o shoʿ âʿ In eshq matâʿ ast-o matâʿ ast-o matâʿ Az aql vedâʿ ast-o vedâʿ ast-o vedâʿ Today is dance, dance, dance. There is light, and rays, rays, rays. This love is precious, precious, precious. As for reason: farewell, farewell, farewell.139

In the next quatrain, the poet speaks on behalf of guests who are praising a Sufi sheikh who stands on the dancing floor: Mehmân-e to’im-o mehmân-e samâʿ Ey jân-e moʿ âsherân-o soltân-e samâʿ Ham bahr-e halâvati-o ham kân-e samâʿ Ârâsta bâd az to meydân-e samâʿ 137 Abu’l-Mafâkher Yahyâ Bâkharzi, Owrâd al-ahbâb wa fosus al-âdâb, ed. I. Afshar (2 nd pr., Tehran, 1966). 138 G.-H. Yusofi, Didâri bâ ahl-e qalam (Tehran, 1988), p. 185. 139 Rumi, Kolliyyât-e shams, p. 177, Quatrain 1046.

547

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA We are your guests and the guests of the dance, O soul of the companions and sultan of the dance. You are both the ocean of sweetness and the mine of the dance, May the arena of dance be adorned with you.140

In addition to the theme of dance, biographical references can be detected in several of Rumi’s quatrains. Although one should be cautious in taking such poetic texts as biographical notices, sometimes the information is too strong to be overlooked. For instance, in the following quatrain, the poet describes his transformation from a type of ascetic theologian to a mad lover who roams the streets. We know from several biographical sources that Rumi’s personality entirely changed after meeting the antinomian mystic Shams from Tabriz. Here we see how the poet describes himself as an ascetic who composes and sings poetry, who has assumed a vagabond lifestyle by quarreling in taverns and drinking wine. The dignified preacher has become a plaything for children in the street. Antinomian mystics employed apparently anti-social and irreligious behavior, like that of foolish lovers or drunkards, to provoke censure, thus avoiding the temptations of effortlessly earned public respect. Their intention was to achieve a pure piety, free from any hypocrisy, which they considered one of the most dangerous pitfalls on the mystic path: Zâhed budam tarâna-guyam kardi Sar fetna-ye bazm-o bâda-khuyam kardi Sajjâda-neshin-e bâ vaqâri budam Bâzicha-ye kudakân-e kuyam kardi I was an ascetic, you turned me into a singer of poems, The source of unruliness at feasts, at one with the wine. I was dignified, seated on the prayer mat [in the mosque], You made me a plaything of the children on street.141

140 Rumi, Kolliyyât-e shams, p. 176, Quatrain 1045. 141 Rumi, Kolliyyât-e shams, p. 289, Quatrain 1716.

548

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

13. Fakhr-al-Din Erâqi (d. 1289) and Homâm-al-Din Tabrizi (d. ca. 1314–15) Several other thirteenth century poets composed quatrains. In this section, I will give a few examples of quatrains by Fakhr-al-Din Erâqi and Mowlânâ Homâm-al-Din Tabrizi.142 Erâqi composed 167 quatrains. The majority of these quatrains deal with the theme of love, and resemble Saʿdi’s quatrains in style and tone. Here I give two examples from his collection: Avval qadam az eshq sar bâkhtan ast Jân bâkhtan ast-o bâ balâ sâkhtan ast Avval in ast-o âkharash dâni chist Khodi râ ze khodi-ye khod pardâkhtan ast The first step in love is to offer one’s head. It is offering one’s life and living in suffering. This is the first. Do you know what the last is? It is to free oneself from the selfness of the self.143 Ey jân-o jahân to râ ze jân mitalabam Sar-gashte to râ gerd-e jahân mitalabam To dar del-e man neshaste’i fâregh-o man Az to ze jahâniyân neshân mitalabam O my soul and world! I am longing for you with my soul In search of you around the world, I have become bewildered. Although you are seated peacefully in my heart, I am asking the world’s people for a sign of you.144

Homâm-al-Din Tabrizi, a poet of the Il-Khanid period, is best known for his ghazals. Homâm, who was later called “the Saʿdi of Azerbaijan,” composed 98 quatrains whose style and tone are close to those of Saʿdi. In the following quatrain he uses hyperbole to express the burning pain of love: 142 For short introductions of these poets see W. Chittick, EIr, s. v. ‘Erāqī, Fakr-al-Dīn Ebrāhīm; W.  L. Hanaway and L. Lewisohn, EIr, s. v. Homām-al-Dīn. 143 Fakhr-al-Din Erâqi, Kolliyât-e Erâqi, ed. S. Nafisi (6 th pr., Tehran, 1991), p. 308. 144 Ibid., p. 317.

549

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Eshq-e to ke dar del âtash afrukht Dânam ke be shamʿ sukhtan u âmukht Bar ru-ye to shamʿ hamcho man âsheq shod Nâgah nafasi sard zad-o dastat sukht Your love which kindled a fire in the heart: I know that it taught the candle to burn. Like me, the candle fell in love with your face Suddenly, it let out one despairing breath, burning your hand.145

In several of his quatrains, Homâm refers to the cities of Tabriz and Marâghe. In the following poem, he inquires about the condition of his family from the breeze blowing from Marâgha: Ey bâd-e marâghe hâl-e khishân chun ast V-ân yâr marâ zolf-e parishân chun ast Khun gasht delam ze dard-e nâdidaneshân Gu’i del-e nâzanin-e ishân chun ast O breeze of Marâghe! How fares it with my kin? And my beloved, how is his disheveled hair? My heart is bleeding from the pain of not seeing them. And their lovely hearts, say, how are they?146

14. Quatrains by Hâfez (about 1315–1390) Like almost all other Persian poets, the grand lyricist of Persia composed a corpus of quatrains. Hâfez’s fame is based primarily on his ghazals and his small collection of quatrains is usually neglected by historians of Persian literature. Not all editions of Hâfez’s divan have included quatrains.147 Despite the popularity of Hâfez from his own time until the present day, we do not have a textus receptus of his collected works. The oldest extant manuscripts reveal many 145 Mowlânâ Homâm-al-Din Tabrizi, Divân, ed. R. Eyvazi (Tehran, 1991), p. 206, Quatrain 8. 146 Ibid., p. 208, Quatrain 20. 147 See, for instance, Sâya’s edition (1372/1993), which has omitted the entire corpus of quatrains. See the Introduction, p. 45.

550

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

textual differences, making an authoritative edition difficult.148 In his introduction, the editor of Hâfez’s divan, Parviz Nâtel Khânlari, explains that most of the old and trustworthy manuscripts are incomplete. Several manuscripts, containing the collected work of some other poet, have included a selection of Hâfez’s work in the margins of pages, while other manuscripts contain only a selection of his ghazals, omitting other poetic forms such as the quatrain, narrative poetry, fragmentary pieces, and panegyrics.149 Khânlari adds that as a result, the quatrains that are attributed to Hâfez can only be found in a “limited number of manuscripts, in which both the numbering of quatrains and their texts differ from one another.” According to Khânlari, it is important to understand that “none of the quatrains has much merit and value either in terms of poetic sound (lafz), or in the meaning (maʿni). These quatrains do not add to the distinction and dignity of this great lyricist. Some of these poems are very weak and popular to such a degree that anyone with sound taste would avoid ascribing them to Hâfez.” Moreover, several of these quatrains are sometimes included in the collections attributed to Khayyâm or to other Persian poets. Despite this negative appraisal of the quatrains, their merits and authenticity, Khânlari has collected all the poems occurring in the manuscripts he has used to prepare his critical text edition of Hâfez’s divan. He has placed those quatrains that appear in more than one manuscript at the beginning, followed by the quatrains that occur only in the manuscripts indicated by the Persian letters yâ, lâm, and ze. Based on Khânlari’s edition, Hâfez’s corpus contains 63 quatrains, the first 32 of which are found in most of the manuscripts the editor has used. Four quatrains (33 to 36) occur only in manuscript yâ; eleven quatrains (37 to 47) are included only in manuscript lâm, and sixteen quatrains (48 to 63) only in manuscript ze. Khânlari’s evaluation of these quatrains is based on the qualities of Hâfez’s ghazals. It is true, as he says, that Hâfez’s quatrains lack the poetic excellence of his ghazals, but to place them in the history of the quatrain form, we should analyze them before judging their 148 See J. T. P. de Bruijn, EIr, s. v. Hâfez iii. Hâfez’s Poetic Art. 149 See Hâfez, Divân, II, p. 1094.

551

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

quality. De Bruijn has located Hâfez’s individuality in the “greatly increased density in the use of the various elements which the tradition of the preceding centuries had delivered into his hands,” and “a stylistic and rhetorical virtuosity unmatched by all other ghazal poets.” But these characteristics are hard to find in his quatrains. It would not be fair to evaluate the quatrains on the basis of the poetic standards applied to Hâfez’s ghazals, in which “ethical, philosophical, mystical, homiletic and even political subjects” are combined in a single poem without downplaying the lyrical and erotic intent. Some favorite themes in Hâfez’s ghazals, such as vernal or autumnal descriptions of nature, the nightingale’s lament for the rose, the Elder Magi’s advice, etc., are missing in the surviving quatrains. Most of the quatrains are on erotic and amatory themes, describing the lover’s pain because of separation, his hard fate, the beloved’s indifference, physical and moral descriptions of the beloved, or recounting the difficult path to union, etc.

Language, Rhetoric, and Distinctive Features of Hâfez’s Quatrains Hâfez has become famous for his rhetorical virtuosity in complex poems. In his quatrains, the poet uses several figures of speech, yet the language of the poems remains direct and plain. In the following quatrain, he uses the antithesis (tazâdd) between “faithfulness” (vafâ) and “oppression” (jafâ), and the device of “harmony of imagery” (tanâsob) between the Four Elements, fire, water, earth, and air: Avval be vafâ mey-e vesâlam dar dâd Chun mast shodam jâm-e jafâ bar sar dâd Por âb do dida-o por az âtash del Khâk-e rah-e u shodam be bâdam bar dâd First, in good faith, he gave me the wine of union. When I was drunk, he gave me the cup of oppression. Two eyes well with water, the heart brimmed with fire. I became the dust of his path, he gave me to the wind.150 150 Hâfez, Divân, II, p. 1098, Quatrain 10.

552

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

Several of Hâfez’s quatrains celebrate wine drinking (khamriyât) (15, 24, 30, 31, 34, 37, 39, 42, 47, 51, 54, 56) combined with antinomian (qalandari) motifs, criticizing the hypocrisy of both Sufis and the orthodox. The following quatrain concerns the tenets and conduct of an antinomian mystic: Gar hamchu man oftâda-ye in dâm shavi Ey bas ke kharâb-e bâda-o jâm shavi Mâ âsheq-o mast-o rend-o âlam-suzim Bâ mâ maneshin-o gar na bad nâm shavi If you, like me, were to fall in this snare, You would surely be drunk from this wine and cup. We are lovers, drunkards and debauchers, setting the world on fire: Do not sit with us, lest you get a bad name.151

Here, the behavior is that of a rend (“debaucher” or “rogue”), or qalandar. According to rends, a reputation for piety is easily earned, and is essentially hypocrisy (riyâ). To avoid it, qalandari mystics avoided mosques and sought refuge in a “tavern” (meykhâna or kharâbât) or a Christian or Zoroastrian cloister.

Use of a “Pen Name” (Takhallos) in Quatrains Three of these quatrains employ the “pen name” (takhallos) Hâfez, meaning literally “he who knows the Qor’an by heart.” The use of a pen name is not a typical feature of quatrains, although some poets have done so incidentally.152 The pen name has various functions in ghazals, giving the poet an opportunity to introduce a direct speaking voice, or providing an elegant conclusion to the ghazal. In the following quatrain, which is couched in “question and answer” (so’âl 151 Hâfez, Divân, II, p. 1107, Quatrain 31. 152 For more information on the use of the pen-name in Persian poetry see J. T. P. de Bruijn, “The Name of the Poet in Classical Persian Poetry,” Proceedings of the Third European Conference of Iranian Studies held in Cambridge, 11 to 15 September 1995. Societas Iranologica Europaea. 2., ed. C. Melville (Wiesbaden, 1999), pp. 45–56; also see P. Losensky, “Linguistic and Rhetorical Aspects of the Signature Verse (takhallus) in the Persian Ghazal,” Edebiyat 8 (1997), pp. 239–71.

553

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

o javâb) form, the amatory dialogue ends with praise for Hâfez’s poetic talent. This resembles the endings of some of his ghazals, where the motif of fakhr, “professional pride,” rounds off the poem. Goftam dahanat goft zahi âb-e hayât Goftam ke labat goft zahi âb-e nabât Goftam sokhanat goft ke Hâfez haqqâ Shâdi-ye hama latifa-guyân salavât I said: “Your mouth,” He said: “Better than the Fount of Life.” I said: “Your lips,” He said: “Better than the juice of the sugar cane” I said: “Your words,” He said: “That truly remember (Hâfez)” Praise be to him who is the delight of the eloquent.153

In the following quatrain, Hâfez’s name is again mentioned in the last couplet. It is not poetically complex, but the way Hâfez’s name is used is reminiscent of several of Hâfez’s ghazals, in which the poet admonishes himself to consult another authority for a favor. Here, he reminds himself that the sincere seeker goes to the best and purest source: truth is to be drawn from the Kowthar, a fountain in Paradise, and not from any lesser source. The first line refers to the physical and spiritual strength and chivalry of Ali b. Abi Tâleb, the first Shiʿite imam, who in Shiʿite lore is famous for chivalrous deeds. The poet refers to Ali’s feat of strength during the expedition against Kheybar, a settlement of Jews near the city of Medina. The following allusion is to Ali’s freeing of a slave named Qanbar. Mardi ze kandande-ye dar-e kheybar pors Owsâf-e karam ze khwâja-ye qanbar pors Gar teshne-ye feyz-e haqq be sedqi Hâfez Sar cheshme-ye ân ze sâqi-ye kowthar pors Seek heroic qualities from he who unhinged Kheybar’s gate. The quality of generosity, seek it from Qanbar’s master. Hâfez, if you sincerely thirst for Truth’s o’erflowing Ask Kowthar’s cupbearer of Kowthar’s fountainhead.154

The third quatrain, using the pen name of Hâfez, connects his poetry to magic. Persian poets describe their poetry as sehr-e halâl 153 Hâfez, Divân, II, p. 1095, Quatrain 2. 154 Hâfez, Divân, II, p. 1101, Quatrain 19.

554

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

or lawful magic because of its matchless design and the power it exercises on the listener. In the following poem, Hâfez describes the beloved’s enchanting beauty with the cliché imagery of his magical glance, and a description of the learning of magic from the fallen angels in Babylon. The poet hopes that his poetry would be graced by a share of this magic: Chashm-e to ke sehr-e bâbol ast ostâdash Yâ rabb ke fosunhâ beravad az yâdash Z-ân dâna ke hosn kard dar gush-e vesâl Âviza’i dar nazm-e Hâfez bâdash Your eyes have been taught by Babylon’s magic: O Lord, may those spells be forgotten! May Hâfez’s verse bear an earring From that gem that loveliness placed on union’s ear.155

Hâfez’s quatrains display the themes usually treated in Persian quatrains, i. e., the complaint about fate, amatory topics, and the carpe diem philosophy. While Hâfez does not use complex rhetorical figures combined with original imagery in his quatrains, he does try to distinguish himself in this genre. For example, he uses the “pen name” principle, which is characteristic of ghazals, to his quatrains, and in some respects reminiscent of his ghazals.

15. Quatrains by Hâfez’s Contemporaries Quatrains flourished in the fourteenth century, and all major poets of this period wrote a corpus of quatrains. Hâfez’s contemporary Kamâl-al-Din Mohammad Khwâju Kermâni (ca. 1281–1352), who is a poet of romantic and didactic mathnavis and ghazals, also composed 117 quatrains. As in the case of Saʿdi, the majority of Khwâju’s quatrains deal with amatory and lyrical subjects. One interesting feature is that, in several cases, the poet draws on astrological imagery to describe the matchless physical appearance of the beloved. 155 Hâfez, Divân, II, p. 1102, Quatrain 20.

555

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

In the first line of the following poem, the beloved’s face is compared to a world-illumining day, which is beside the dark night, a metonym for the beloved’s black tresses. Or it is like the moon, the ornament of night. Then, in the last two lines, the poet uses “feigned astonishment” (ta’ajjob), saying, who has ever seen a scorpion sitting on the moon? The poet compares the beloved’s curly locks to a scorpion sitting on a harvest. The imagery also refers to the zodiacal sign of Scorpio. In the last line, the hyperbolic comparison of the beloved’s shining face to the sun adjacent to the night completes the feigned astonishment. Ey ruz-e jahântâb-e to hamsâye-ye shab Parvin-e qamar-sâ-ye to pirâye-ye shab Aqrab ke shenidast bar kharman-e mâh Khorshid ke didast hamsâye-ye shab O! Your world-illumining day is the neighbor of the night Your moon-like Pleiades is the ornament of night Who has heard of Scorpio on the harvest of the moon? Who has seen the Sun to be the neighbor of the night?156

Khwâju makes extensive use of floral imagery, in order to present a contrived etiology. In the following poem, the poet builds his images from the characters of plants in a garden. Narges ke modâm khoshgel-o sar mast ast Z-ânast ke dast az qadah-e zar shostast Dar susan-o sarv bin ke maʿ lum koni K-âzâde zabân derâz-o kotah dast ast The narcissus, so constantly drunken and cheerful, Has washed its hands in a golden bowl. Look at the lily and cypress and know That the free [man] has a long tongue and short arms.157

Another type of imagery frequently used by Khwâju is the polo metaphor. Persian poets draw extensively on polo metaphors to 156 Khwâju Kermâni, Divân, ed. A. S. Khwânsâri (2 nd pr., Tehran, 1990), pp. 779– 80, Quatrain 3. 157 Khwâju, Divân, pp. 780–81, Quatrain 11.

556

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

express a wide range of activities at the court.158 Such metaphors were used to describe a person’s riding skills, beauty, and eloquence. In the context of love, the metaphor is used to depict the relationship between lovers; usually, some part of the lovers’ bodies are compared to the ball and the stick. The polo metaphor does not limit itself to these topics: it is also used to describe man’s destiny. In the following poem, the poet depicts an amatory context to show the lover’s fervor at seeing the beloved: Chun zolf-e to bar mah sar-e chowgân beshekast Gu-ye del-e man bar sar-e meydân beshekast Az mu-ye to kâr-e moshk dar pâ oftâd Az ru-ye to posht-e mâh-e tâbân beshekast When your locks break on the moon of the polo-stick’s head The ball of my heart breaks at the head of the arena. Because of your hair, the musk’s effects have fallen to the feet Because of your back, the back of the shining moon breaks.159

Another contemporary of Hâfez is the poetess Jahân Malek Khâtun (c. 1324–1382), who has usually been neglected by historians of Persian literature.160 In addition to the hundreds of ghazals that Malek Khâtun composed, she also wrote 357 quatrains, which revolve around love. As examples of her style, I quote the following quatrains. In the first, the poet skillfully describes how her secret—being in love—is revealed through her eyes: Ey sarv qadd-e to raste dar dide-ye mâ Bi ru-ye to khâb nist dar dide-ye mâ In mardomak-e dide ze mâ sharm nadâsht Râz-e del-e khaste goft u dar har jâ 158 For the polo metaphor in Persian literature see A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, “My Heart is the Ball, Your Lock the Polo-Stick: The Development of Polo Metaphors in Classical Persian Poetry,” in A.-M. Piemontese, F. D. Lewis, and S. Sharma, eds., The Necklace of the Pleiades. Studies in Persian Literature Presented to Heshmat Moayyad on his 80 th Birthday (Amsterdam and West Lafayette, Ind., 2007), pp. 183–205. 159 Khwâju, Divân, p. 781, Quatrain 18. 160 See D. P. Brookshaw, EIr, s. v. Jahān Malek Khātun; D. Davis, Faces of Love. Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz (Washington, 2012).

557

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA O cypress, your stature has grown in our eye. Without your face, I have no sleep in my eye. This pupil of the eye had no shame for us: It tells the secret of a wounded heart, everywhere.161

In another quatrain, using the cliché imagery of the rose and the nightingale to call on the beloved to come and admire the garden, she creates a dialogue in the last two lines between the lover and the beloved, using insect imagery: Bar-khiz-o be bâgh ây ke gol dar josh ast Bi ru-ye to bolbol-e chaman khâmush ast Zanbur sefat cherâ zani nish marâ Goftâ che shavad ke nish-e man bâ nush ast Rise and come to the garden, because the rose is in fervour, The nightingale of the meadow is silent without your face: “Why do you bite me like a wasp?” He said: “what can I say? My sting is sweet.”162

Another poet deserving mention is Mohammad Shirin Maghrebi (d. 1408), who composed Arabic and Persian poems, elaborating upon Ebn-e Arabi’s (1165–1240) philosophy of Unity of Being. Only 35 quatrains have come down to us. In the following quatrain, the poet refers to Ebn-e Arabi’s pantheistic view of the universe, indicating that all the entities of the world reflect an aspect of the Creator: Ey hosn-e to dar koll-e mazâher zâher V-ey chashm-e to dar jomle manâzer nâzer Az nur-e rokh-o zolmat-e zolfat be jahân Qowmi hama mu’menand-o qowmi kâfer O you whose loveliness is manifested in all created beings, O you who behold all manifest things: Because of your countenance’s brightness, your hair’s darkness, in the world One people are devout believers, another are unbelievers.163 161 Jahân Malek Khâtun, Divân, eds. P. Kâshânirâd and K. Ahmadnezhâd (Tehran, 1995), p. 518, Quatrain 7. 162 Jahân Malek Khâtun, Divân, p. 519, Quatrain 14. 163 L. Lewisohn, ed., A Critical Edition of the Divan of Muhammad Shirin Maghribi (London, 1993), p. 465, Quatrain 7.

558

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

In the next quatrain, the poet is alluding to a tradition in which God explains why he created mankind: “I was a Hidden Treasure and I desired to be known, so I created the creation in order that I might be known.”164 God wished to reveal Himself in order to enable mankind to acquire knowledge of His names and attributes (asmâ-o sefât).165 The Qor’an refers to man’s creation and how God created him in His own image, in the fairest of forms (95, 5). In mystic texts, mankind is a limpid mirror displaying these “names and attributes.” In the following poem, the poet refers to mankind as the treasure who possesses God’s greatest name: Ganji ke telesm-e ust âlam mâ’im Dhâti ke sefât-e ust âdam mâ’im Ey ânke to’i tâleb-e esm-e aʿzam Az mâ magodhar ke esm-e aʿzam mâ’im We are a treasure whose talisman is the world We are an essence whose attribute is Adam. O you who seek the Greatest Name Do not leave us, for we are the Greatest name.166

A near-contemporary of Maghrebi, Shah Neʿmat-Allâh Vali (d. 1431), also refers to the philosophical language of Ebn-e Arabi. He is known for his ghazals, but also wrote many quatrains, which combine amatory themes with religious concepts. Several of these quatrains refer to the creation myth recounted in Islamic mystic texts, using wine and love imagery. In the following quatrain, the poet uses this imagery to say that the entire universe was created for man’s heart. Mystics often cite this tradition to stress the centrality of the heart as the seat of love: “The reason for My creating you, is to see My vision in the mirror of your spirit, and My love in your heart.”167 In mystic practice, polishing the mirror of the heart through ascetic discipline cleanses it from any stain: 164 165 166 167

Najm-al-Din Râzi, Mirsâd al-ebâd, p. 49. Najm-al-Din Râzi, Mirsâd al-ebâd, p. 2. Najm-al-Din Râzi, Mirsâd al-ebâd, p. 468, Quatrain 17. A. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill, North Carol., 1975), p. 295.

559

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Meykhâne-ye eshq-e u sarâ-ye del-e mâst V-ân dordi-ye dard-e del davâ-ye del-e mâst Âlam be tamâm jomle asmâ-ye elâh Peydâ shode ast az barâ-ye del-e mâst The wine house of his love is the home of our heart And the dregs of the heart’s pain are the remedy for our heart. The universe together with all the names of God Has been revealed for the sake of our heart.168

Although the majority of Neʿmat-Allâh’s quatrains are mystical and are commentaries on concepts and theories in Ebn-e Arabi’s philosophy, there are also quatrains in which he conveys his view of other poets. In praise of Fakhr al-Din Erâqi, the poet states that he has replaced the great mystic poet Attâr: Gar qatre namânad âb bâqi bâshad V-ar kuze shekast bahr sâqi bâshad Attâr be surat az khorâsân raft Âmad avazash sheykh Erâqi bâshad If the drop were no more, water would continue to exist, If the jar is broken, the ocean is the cupbearer. In form, Attâr has gone from Khorâsân Sheykh Erâqi has come in his place.169

In closing our discussion of the Persian quatrain between the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries, we cannot avoid paying attention to the quatrains of another major classical poet of the fifteenth century, namely Abd-al-Rahmân Jâmi (1414–92), who not only composed a large collections of quatrains, but also used quatrains in his prose works such as Lavâmeʿ and Lavâyeh. Jâmi also wrote a treatise entitled Sharh-e robâʿ iyyât in which he comments on 44 of his own quatrains that explain the principles of “the unity of being” (vahdat-e vojud) developed by Ebn-e Arabi. He says that “the arena of phraseology was too constricting for the ‘translator of language’ (the poet), who had to consider the medium of rhyme.” 168 Shâh Neʿmat-Allâh Vali, Divân, ed. S. Nafisi (Tehran, 1996), p. 629, Quatrain 30. 169 Shâh Neʿmat-Allâh Vali, Divân, p. 634, Quatrain 77.

560

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

Therefore, he explains the difficult concepts and phrases in prose. For example, he presents the quatrain: Aʿyân ki mokhaddarât-e serr-e qedamand Dar molk-e baqâ pardegiyân-e haramand Hastand hame mazâher-e nur-e vojud Bâ ânke moqim-e zolemât-e adamand The prototypes that are behind the curtain of the eternal secret Are the virgins of the sanctuary, in the Realm of subsistence. They are all manifesting the Light of existence, Though they live in the darkness of non-existence.

This quatrain is followed by a short philosophical explanation of the aʿyân al-thâbeta (unmanifest archetypes): This quatrain refers to the idea that the author of Fosus (Ebn-e Arabi) (…) elaborates: the archetype of each individual creation (aʿyân althâbeta) has not breathed the fragrance of existence. In other words, aʿyân-e thâbeta, which are imaginary forms, subsist in their original non-existence and have not breathed any scent of existence outside their realm. This implies that, compared to the emanation of existence, the aʿyân al-thâbeta are firmly fixed in their own innerness. There is no way that they can manifest themselves, because interiority and concealment are their essence, and the essence of a thing cannot be separated from the thing. Thus whatever becomes manifest from these archetypes is not the essence of the archetypes, but only their laws and traces of them, which manifest themselves either in existence or in the existence of God.170

16. The Quatrain’s Use in Public As we have seen, the quatrain appears in a wide range of literary, religious, and philosophical contexts. It also appears on textiles, earthenware, or ironware. Several quatrains occur in epigraphy, i. e., inscriptions on stone or metal whose message is intended to last eternally and be seen by a large public. Babai gives an example of two 170 Abd-al-Rahmân Jâmi, Se resâle dar tasavvuf, ed. I. Afshar (Tehran, 1981), p. 63.

561

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

quatrains engraved above the entrance to a cistern built in 1055/1645 by the Safavid vizier Sâru Taqi at the eastern corner of the courtyard of the madrese of Dâr-al-shafâ in Qom.171 As Babai explains, The first two verses dedicate the cistern to the memory of Imam Hosayn b. Ali, who was martyred in the desert of Karbalâ still thirsting for water. The Shiʿite sentiment of the theme is further heightened by the curse on Yazid, the Omayyad caliph responsible for the martyrdom of Hosayn and his followers, and the curse on Yazid’s tomb is included as the chronogram in the quatrain.172

The quatrain was and still is used on many gravestones in the Persian-speaking world. In 1937, the German scholar Fritz Meier collected several quatrains from the Takht-e Fulâd cemetery in Esfahan, which show the popularity of this poetic genre in the Persian cultural region.173 I quote only two of these: Afsus ke sarmâye ze kaf birun shod Az dast-e ajal basi jegarhâ khun shod Kas nâmad az ân jahân ke tâ porsam az u Ahvâl-e mosâferân chun shod Alas, the capital has gone from the hand: Many hearts bleed at Death’s hand. No one returns from that world, that I might ask him How do the wayfarers fare? Har kas ke be in manzel-e âbâd resad Gar bâ gham-o gar bi gham-o gar shâd resad Az bahr-e khodâ na az barâ-ye del-e man Bâ fâtehe’i marâ be faryâd resad May all who attain this pleasant spot, Whether they come with grief, without grief, or full of cheer, Come to my aid with a prayer, Not for my heart’s sake, but for the sake of God.

Another popular context for the quatrain is in artifacts. There is evidence that quatrains were being written on Persian tiles and other 171 See Sussan Babai, EIr, s. v. Epigraphy iv. Safavid and Later Inscriptions. 172 See ibid. 173 Meier, Die schöne Mahsatī, pp. 22–27.

562

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains

earthenware as early as the eleventh century. Abdallâh Quchâni has identified a large number of these.174 The dates of these artifacts help us to identify the true authorship of several quatrains. For example, Quchâni has shown that fifteen quatrains attributed to Jalâl-al-Din Rumi were painted on artifacts before Rumi started to compose poetry. The quatrain is also used in paintings, and is quite common in Persian miniatures. To give an example, in the illustrated manuscript of Mu’nes al-ahrâr, an anthology completed in 1341 by Mohammad b. Badr-al-Din Jâjarmi, twelve quatrains are placed as inscriptions between images, each referring to a sign of the zodiac.175 The following quatrain refers to Asad, the Lion (Leo): Mah dar asad ast kâr-e âtash niku Dar nazd-e moluk hâjat-e khish beju Bonyâd neh-o fasd kon-o ahd beband V-az dukhtan-o pushesh-e now show yeksu The Moon is in Leo. Work with fire is good. Make your requests in the presence of kings. Lay foundations, be bled, and make compacts And avoid sewing and wearing new clothes.176

The quatrain is used orally, providing adages to buttress the arguments of a speaker, and to mark events. There is a large body of folk quatrains which are performed as part of rituals, from birth, circumcision, and wedding ceremonies to death. There are also subgenres in these folk quatrains for subjects such as loneliness, 174 A. Quchâni, “Sofâlgarân-e Kâshân va sheʿr-e fârsi,” Nashr-e dânesh 14.6 (1994), pp. 31–40. 175 For the use of quatrains in this manuscript see the chapter by A. H. Morton, “The Mu’nis al-ahrâr and Its Twenty-ninth Chapter,” in M. L. Swietochowski and S. Carboni, eds., Illustrated Poetry and Epic Images. Persian Painting of the 1330 s and 1340 s (New York, 1994), pp. 49–66, particularly pp. 62–65. 176 As translated by Morton, “The Mu’nis al-ahrâr and Its Twenty-ninth Chapter,” p. 63. Morton adds a note (p. 66, n. 51) on the phrase kâr-e âtash, meaning “work with fire.” Possibly this refers to cauterization, resorted to for medical reasons.

563

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

traveling, misfortune, lullabies, etc., each specified by a term in different parts of Persian-speaking world.177 The Persian quatrain did not cease to exist after the fifteenth century: it has remained popular with almost all Persian poets until today. The quatrain, and classical Persian poetry in general, is a living tradition, in literature and in everyday life. Medieval quatrains, and new quatrains in the same tradition, are put to music, cited in everyday conversation, used in calligraphy, etc. One of the most conspicuous uses of the quatrain was during the IraqIran war (1980–88). Persian poetry with its mystic overtones was used to mobilize Iranians to go to the front and offer their lives. By propagating the cult of martyrdom and introducing the mystic concept of the “academy of love” (madrese-ye eshq), in which self-sacrifice is the lesson, the war was interpreted in terms of love and its violence was justified. This new use of classical poetry in the context of warfare created a new dimension in Iranian identity. In this Persian war poetry, medieval Islamic martyrs such as Hoseyn Mansur Hallâj become role models for soldiers. These soldiers saw war against the well-equipped Iraqi army as a mystic path which would lead to the attainment of the object of their love. In the medieval model, the mystic traveller would metaphorically pass through various stages to arrive at annihilation (fanâ) and the life in God (baqâ). The mystic’s ego had to be annihilated. In the war, these metaphors became a sad reality. In classical poetry, the candle and moth trope represented union with the beloved: during the war soldier-lovers offered their lives, like moths, in the same spirit. Many classical quatrains deal with martyrdom, and the war poets drew on these. A classical example is in Attâr’s Mokhtâr-nâme: Parvâne be sham‘ goft az ruz-e nakhost Chun koshte shavam bar sarat az ahd-e dorust Zenhâr be ashk-e khod beshu’i to marâ Shamʿash goftâ shahid râ natvân shost 177 See P. G. Kreyenbroek, EIr, s. v. Folk Poetry; G. van den Berg, Minstrel Poetry from the Pamir Mountains. A Study on the Songs and Poems of the Ismâ`îlîs of Tajik Badakhshan (Wiesbaden, 2004), chapter two, pp. 142–63; see also S. Blum, EIr, s. v. Do-beyti.

564

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains The moth said to the candle: “Because of the true covenant, because of that first day, Would you wash my body with your tears, if I were to be killed for your head?” The candle answered: “A martyr needs no washing.”178

The mystic martyr Hoseyn Mansur Hallâj (d. 922) is a favorite of the Persian war poets. He is associated with martyrdom and related subjects such as unconditional love, being beheaded, heavenly ascension, etc. The contemporary poet Zakariyâ Akhlâqi composed many quatrains, one of which reads: Our beheaded Mansur, with red tongue, Without words, recounted the endless story of blood, Lamenting love at every moment from the minaret of being The call of ‘I am the Truth’ is still heard from the gibbet of blood.179

Here Hallâj is presented as a lover who is ready to offer his head. His famous saying “I am the Truth,” for which it is said that he was executed, although the real reason was that he had built a Kaʿba in his house and used to walk around it, is transposed to Iranian soldiers who defend the Truth. Hallâj was an interesting figure for the war poets, insofar as he was executed in Iraq at the orders of the Sunni religious establishment. Persian poets represent Hallâj as an oppressed Persian in Arab lands who courageously offered his life for the sake of truth. In this poetry, there is no reference to the fact that Hallâj was a Sunni Muslim. Professional poets, and volunteer soldiers with no poetic pretentions, composed quatrains about the war. Many are propagandistic, seeking to mobilize youth for the front, and attempt to make the sacrifices meaningful. The use of classical quatrains and mystic concepts is common. The following quatrain by Qeysar Aminpur incorporates the second couplet of a quatrain attributed to the eleventh-century mystic Khâja Abdollâh Ansâri. With a change to the classical quatrain rhyme scheme, Aminpur writes: 178 Farid-al-Din Attâr, Mokhtâr-nâme, ed. M.-R. Shafiʿi-Kadkani (Tehran, 1979), p. 337, Quatrain 2030. 179 M. Akbari, Naqd va tahlil-e adabiyyât-e enqelâb-e eslâmi (Tehran, 1992), I, p. 310.

565

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Ân morgh ke par zanad be bâm-o dar-e dust Khâhad ke dahad sar be dam-e khanjar-e dust In nokte neveshtand bar daftar-e eshq Sar dust nadârad ânke dârad sar-e eshq The bird that flies around the roof and the door of the friend Wants to offer its head to the friend’s blade, “This maxim was written in the book of love He who loves the head of love, does not love his own head.”180

Ansâri’s quatrain, to which Aminpur refers, begins: Har del ke tavâf kard gerd-e dar-e eshq Ham khaste shavad dar âkhar az khanjar-e eshq Every heart that walks around the door of love, Will be at last wounded through the dagger of love “This maxim was written …”

The compound dar-e eshq, or the “door of love,” is an allusion to the House of God which the mystic’s heart ritually circumambulates. Ansâri’s poem says that the mystic must be ready to offer his life for the beloved, because the beloved only accepts unconditional love. The lover must renounce everything, even his head. In this poetry, death in a mystic context is praised and is depicted through a wide range of metaphors, especially as a journey. In the following quatrain, Aminpur starts with the metaphor of the journey of a grape as it is processed to red wine. A common theme in classical Persian poetry is that of the personified grape, which describes how the grapevine became pregnant by the sun or the moon, how it bears grapes which are later cut off and trampled to make wine. Aminpur uses this familiar image to refer to the colour of martyrdom, i. e., crimson red, as the end of the grape’s journey: Man hamsafar-e sharâb az zard be sorkh Man hamrah-e ezterâb az zard be sorkh Yek ruz be showq hejrati khâham kard Chun hejrat-e âftâb az zard be sorkh

180 Q. Aminpur, Gozine-ye ash‘ âr (Tehran, 2007), p. 160.

566

The Flourishing of Persian Quatrains I am the travelling companion of the wine, from yellow to crimson I am the travelling companion of anxiety, from yellow to crimson One day I will leave my homeland, full of longing, Like the migration of the sun from yellow to crimson.181

17. Conclusion From this survey of Persian quatrains, we can conclude that this poetic form has always been popular and is used in a wide range of contexts, from epigraphy to grave stones, in paintings, by mystics, philosophers and common people. In modern times, it became a vehicle to mobilize the nation for war and to justify its violence. Between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, many poets tried their hands at writing quatrains in the spirit of Khayyâm, with themes of wine, carpe diem, predestination, etc., and the corpus of “wandering quatrains” expanded as a result. Several collections of thematically organized quatrains appeared in this period which dealt in detail with the psychology of love, the moral and physical traits of the lover and the beloved, the pain of separation, and the joy of union. From the fourteenth century onwards, the quatrain was increasingly used as commentary on mystical and philosophical concepts, and on the doctrines developed by Ebn-e Arabi. Because of its compact form and terse formulation, the quatrain remained popular with almost all poets in both secular and religious contexts. The quatrain has been popular for more than one millennium in the Persian speaking world. In this long period, new themes, new audiences and new contexts have enriched this poetic form, which has received less scholarly attention that forms such as the ghazal, qaside and mathnavi. The quatrain’s short form and terse expression make it suitable for every imaginable context, even at the head of a letter, as illustrated in the following quatrain: Tâ sharh-e ghamat begoft del bâ qalamam Sar-gashte shod-o dar âmad az pâ qalamam 181 Ibid.

567

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Chun nâme tamâm gasht maʿ lum nabud K-az showq-e to man khastetaram yâ qalamam As soon as the heart explained its sorrow to my pen My pen became dizzy and fell from its feet, (exhausted.) When the letter came to an end, it was not clear Whether I, or the pen, was more wounded in longing for you.182

182 Jamâl Khalil Shervâni, Nozhat al-majâles, p. 195.

568

CHAPTER 10 SHAHRÂSHUB Sunil Sharma Part of the problem of studying shahrâshubs is the multiplicity of terms used for poetry in this genre. Pre-modern Persian poets did not use the term consistently, if at all, and it is applied to many texts only in retrospect. The term shahrâshub, or the equally frequent shahrangiz (and later, even falakâshub, ‘âlamâshub, etc.), was originally an appellation in poems for a young beloved whose beauty caused an uproar in town; the term was equally used for a short, sometimes bawdy, lyric addressed to a young boy engaged in a trade or craft who coquettishly offers his wares to the love-struck poet. Later these terms came to be used loosely to describe any city poem, whether a panegyric or satire, and the multiple ways in which the term was employed by poets suggest that although it was a literary genre in its early history, it was more often a topos employed in longer and more complex poems. The panegyric type of poems on cities and their inhabitants outnumber the satirical, and this essay will include a discussion of those poems only.1 The shahrâshub, then, can be defined in J. T. P. de Bruijn’s words as “[a poem] based on the representation of the beloved as a youthful artisan or member of another social group having such marked features as to allow a poet to make fanciful allusions to this quality.”2 Additionally, “[t]he formula of the genre consists of 1

2

For a discussion of the few satirical poems that are classed as shahrâshub, see A. Golchin-e Maʿâni’s Shahrâshub dar sh‘er-e fârsi (2 nd ed., Tehran, 2001), which although chiefly an anthology is the most comprehensive treatment of the subject; the author also discusses these type of poems in Arabic, pp. 2–7. J. T. P. de Bruijn, EIr, s. v. Shahrangīz.

569

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

three main ingredients, each of which has had a separate existence in the Persian tradition”: firstly, the motif of “the uproar created in the city” caused by the beloved’s appearance, as found in one of Sanâ’i’s poems and later in poems by Anvari and Hâfez; secondly, the beloved as a craftsman or ethnic/social/religious group, as seen in the poems discussed below; thirdly, a panegyric or satire on the inhabitants of an individual city.3 These poems were rarely, if ever, of a personal nature, and the descriptions of individuals were of an ideal social type. Early poems in this genre were often written in the robâʿ i form, along with the qetʿe and the ghazal, while the mathnavi became the preferred form for later poets as the shahrâshub became part of larger narrative works. E. J. W. Gibb, the scholar of Ottoman literature, suggested that the shahrangiz genre of poetry was the invention of the poet Masihi who wrote a poem describing the youths of Edirne in 1510. Gibb’s contention that there were no Persian models for this kind of poetry is true to the extent that from the beginning of New Persian literature until the sixteenth century, shahrangiz or shahrâshubs were independent short poems and did not pertain to a specific city. It is possible that Masihi’s work, influenced by shahrâshub Persian quatrains, in turn influenced Persian poets to compose longer works about specific cities. In Ottoman literary culture, which was multilingual, one finds the occasional Persian shahrâshub, such as the one by the poet Sâfi (b. 914/1508) on the city of Istanbul. However, most Ottoman poems are in Turkish and, significantly, their number far exceeds those found in Persian literature. Future research may uncover new works that will increase the canon of such Persian poems. Although there are stray quatrains by Rudaki and others, one of the earliest instances of a substantial number of such poems is found in the divan of the late Ghaznavid poet Masʿud-e Saʿd Salmân (d. 1121), whose 94 shahrâshub qetʿes, although replete with useful information on the crafts and trades prevalent during his time, do not suggest a particular city as the context of the poems. Masʿud-e Saʿd’s poems span the entire spectrum of possible youths to be 3 Ibid.

570

Shahrâshub

found in a typical city of the time, including those distinguished by a trade or craft (baker, ambergris-seller, dancer, singer), but also by their membership in a religious or social community (Sufi, Hindu, Christian, etc.), or even those with a distinctive physical characteristic (curly hair, mute, squint, etc.). During the Saljuq period, the shahrâshub poem gained popularity, most often in the form of quatrains, and some verses of a bawdy nature suggest an oral setting for their performance. The female poet Mahsati (fl. eleventh–twelfth centuries), who is a semi-mythical figure in the Persian literary tradition, is best known for her poems in this genre, and some of the off-color verses attributed to her, such as the following about a butcher, earned her a reputation as a poet of the bazaar: The ravishing butcher’s shop was well-stocked As people gathered all around. He slapped a rump and said sweetly, “Wow! What a fat piece of meat I have.”4

In this period, a number of shahrâshub quatrains, some specific to the Indian context, such as ones about a tanbuli (pân seller) and jugi (ascetic), are also attributed to the renowned court poet of Sultanate Delhi, Amir Khosrow (d. 1325); although these poems may be spurious, they form part of the popular memory of the poet’s œuvre. The shahrâshub would become particularly fashionable in late Timurid and early Safavid literature, perhaps due to the rise of literacy in urban life and participation in the literary culture by craftsmen. An innovative work in this regard is a cycle of poems in the ghazal form by the poet Sayfi Bokhâri (d. 1503) who was connected to the court of Sultan Hoseyn Bayqara. Entitled Sanâyeʿ al-badâyeʿ (Arts of Innovations), this work is in the form of 124 independent ghazals of five beyts each praising the beauty and skill of different youthful professionals and social types. As with Masʿud-e Saʿd, Sayfi does not provide a social context or unifying device by linking his poems to any particular city. Sayfi’s work is 4

For the Persian text of this poem, see Golchin-e Maʿâni, Shahrâshub dar sh‘er-e fârsi, p. 28.

571

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

perhaps the only collection of shahrâshubs, apart from scattered individual poems, that are written as ghazals, testifying to the popularity of the form among Timurid poets. His poem on a musician (sâzandeh), translated here, exemplifies how a poet maintains all the conventions of a poetic form while writing in a specific genre: How long will the musician dally with others while I suffer? My complaint is due to the moon-like musician. He makes strings for his lute form my soul’s sinews, To torture me by strumming them with a pick. Since I do not have the endurance to look at him, In his presence I listen to his music with head bent. His melody invokes mood-swings in me: Sometimes I cry at my condition, sometimes I laugh. Although Sayfi has sacrificed his soul and heart, He is embarrassed in the presence of the tall cypress.5

Sayfi’s work is contemporary with Kamâl-al-Din Hoseyn Gazargâhi’s immensely popular Majâles al-‘oshshâq, a collection of biographical sketches of famous lovers who are mainly Sufis. This prose work contains the narratives of the Sufis’ lives against the backdrop of the bazaar of a city, and includes shahrâshub verses as well. The connection between guilds of craftsmen and Sufis, especially the fotovva or javânmardi orders, with shahrâshub poetry cannot be ignored, especially in the Timurid context. The use of technical words and terms, some now obsolete, also suggests a special social context for these poems. With the rise of major urban centers of Persianate culture from the fifteenth century onwards, this kind of poem became a unified work that was specifically written for a city and a ruler who are named therein. By providing a catalogue of youths who are cheerfully engaged in their sundry professions or who just happen to inhabit a city, the poet attempted to convey a sense of the dynamic and complex structure of a society in which everyone, including the poet himself, had an assigned role. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Persian shahrâshubs were written 5

For the Persian text of this poem, see Golchin-e Maʿâni, Shahrâshub dar sh‘er-e fârsi, p. 78.

572

Shahrâshub

in the entire Persianate world, from Istanbul to Bukhara and Agra, often as sections of a long narrative in the mathnavi form. Thus, the shahrâshub became a topos that was utilized in sâqi-nâmes, topographical poems, and even romances. Such poems almost always included descriptions of the architectural monuments of the city such as a mosque, hammâm, garden, or palace, and even natural landscapes in the Mughal context. The youths appear as a catalogue of social/professional types, with the amorous element downplayed sometimes, and in this sense, these works have the quality of proto-ethnographic descriptions of pre-modern cities. Studies of shahrâshub poetry have emphasized the socio-historical value of these poems, since they provide information on a multitude of professions and crafts in various cities and times in history, as evidenced by Mehdi Keyvani’s statement, For knowledge of the technical and social affairs of crafts and trades in the Timurid and Safavid periods, the shahrâshub literature is a valuable source because it mentions tools and technical terms used in different crafts and the traditions and characteristic customs of particular guilds.6

However, this poetry was not composed to represent a realistic view of a city; rather, it represented a poet’s utopian vision of his society. An increase in the participation of working class people in the composition of poetry after the fifteenth century was a noticeable social phenomenon that has led some modern scholars to describe these poetic efforts as anti-feudal. In connection with the poet Sayyedâ Nasafi, who wrote shahrâshub poems about Bukhara in the late seventeenth century, it is stated that “[T]he poetry of these authors is permeated with the ideology of the middle-urban classes, which determines such stylistic qualities as a trend towards a realistic reflection of the world in the themes and poetic images, abandonment of the rhetorical verse of the court poets, and simplicity of language.”7 This view, of course, does not apply to all 6 7

M. Keyvani, Artisans and Guild Life in the Later Safavid Period (Berlin, 1982), p. 197. A. Mirzoev, quoted by Rypka, HIL, p. 508.

573

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

poets and poems connected with this genre, since many poets were active exclusively in a courtly milieu. Under the patronage of the Safavids, the first shahrâshub poem about the inhabitants of a city composed as a single text was by Lesâni Shirâzi (d. ca. 1534), an associate of the prince Sâm Mirzâ, about the Safavid capital Tabriz and dedicated to Mansur Karahrudi, a monshi of Shah Tahmâsp I (r. 1525–76). Lesâni’s Majma‘ al-asnâf (Collection of Vocations) is another literary innovation in the form of 109 sections of five robâʿ is each, 95 of which are devoted to the youths themselves, making up the whole work. Lesâni sets the scene of his work by first praising the sultan and dedicatee, then the city of Tabriz, which he describes as the mole on the face of the garden of Iram and the envy of the temples of China: Dar khette-ye Tabriz keh khubân-e jamil hastand shekofteh chun gol-e bâgh-e Khalil In the land of Tabriz there are beautiful beloveds blossoming like flowers in Abraham’s garden.8

His catalogue of youths paints a panorama of the society of Tabriz, but strictly through the metaphoric language of love. From this period there is also an Ottoman Persian poem in the mathnavi form, the shehrengiz on Istanbul by Safi, written in the reign of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (r. 1520–66). In this work, there is an equal emphasis on the neighborhoods of the imperial capital, as well as the bazaars dedicated to a specific product or craft. What is most striking about some Ottoman poems of this genre when compared to the ones from other Persianate societies is that some beloveds are identified by proper names, while others are on multiple individuals pursuing the same profession. The other Safavid work of note appears a century later. After the establishment of the third Safavid capital in Isfahan in the late sixteenth century, poems were composed in its praise, most notably by the poet-monshi-historian Vahid Tabrizi (d. 1700), who wrote two works that included shahrâshub verses during the rule of Shah Abbâs II (r. 1642–66) and Shah Solaymân (r. 1666–94). The first is 8

Golchin-e Maʿâni, Shahrâshub dar sh‘er-e fârsi, p. 104.

574

Shahrâshub

a romance, Masnavi-ye âsheq o ma‘shuq, of an Indian prince and princess who embark on an imaginative journey and end up in Isfahan. The lovers marvel at the city and its sites rapturously: Shahri hameh khâne-hâsh por zar chun kâkh-e kheyâl-e kimiyâgar Isfahan is a city whose houses are filled with gold, like the imaginary palace of an alchemist.9

Then in amorous verses a catalogue of 53 types of individuals working in the city is provided, mostly craftsman, but also teachers and scribes. As if one work of this kind was not enough, Vahid composed another poem, this time a sâqi-nâme in which he described 80 urban inhabitants along with the cityscape of Isfahan. In this latter work, he was most certainly influenced by the literary developments in India earlier, especially the work of the poet Zohuri. In the Indo-Persian tradition, shahrâshubs are of a different variety than the Safavid variety, although they were written by émigré Iranian poets at the Mughal or Deccan courts. These texts usually come in the form of hybrid texts where the shahrâshub tends to be used as a topos in the context of a larger work, instead of a catalogue with poems of equal length for each individual, and the verses are integrated into the narrative. This may reflect the tastes of the Indian patrons or the sensitivity of poets to their surroundings, and challenges the widespread monolithic view of Persian poetry as uniform through the Persianate regions. The first poet of note to utilize the shahrâshub in a longer narrative was the Iranian Nur-al-Din Mohammad Zohuri (d. 1616), a court poet of the Nezâmshâhi and Âdelshâhi rulers in Ahmadnagar and Bijapur (Deccan). Zohuri wrote an ambitious work, the Sâqi-nâme (Book of the Saqi), dedicated to Sultan Borhân II (r. 1591–95), in a genre that enjoyed great vogue among poets of the sabk-e Hendi style in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Zohuri’s work takes up the familiar topics of Iranian kingship and mysticism by addressing the sâqi (cup-bearer) and motreb (minstrel), and develops it into a complex work of about 4500 lines that deals with all aspects of 9

Golchin-e Maʿâni, Shahrâshub dar sh‘er-e fârsi, p. 225.

575

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

courtly life. Zohuri’s work innovatively combines images and topoi from different literary genres to produce a verbal panorama of a new city on the outskirts of Ahmadnagar. Zohuri’s panoramic tour of the city begins with the private spaces of the assembly (majles) and tavern (meykhâneh), both places where wine drinking takes place, then it expands to public sites in the city such as the fort, baths, gardens, and bazaars. While passing through the bazaar, a section comprising 135 lines, Zohuri rapturously lapses into the shahrâshub mode in order to describe the flourishing and active marketplace. Included in his catalogue are Hindu boys, as well as professionals such as a kamângar (archer), bazzâz (cloth-seller), sabbâgh (dyer), ʿattâr (druggist), talâgar (goldsmith), javâherforush (jeweler), and sarrâf (money-changer). His hierarchy of the inhabitants of the city: the ahl-e ‘elm (men of learning), hakimân (physicians), and ahl-e nojum (astronomers), ending with poets, harks back to the Kârnâme-ye Balkh of the Ghaznavid poet, Sanâ’i. Zohuri dwells much less on the amorous qualities of the professionals and more on the commercial aspects of their activities, resulting in a more direct praise of his patron’s achievements that in other poets is alluded to metaphorically. After Zohuri’s work appeared, poets at the Mughal court also devoted themselves to including shahrâshub verses in longer mathnavis. As part of a large body of poetry on newly constructed buildings and gardens, Shâh Jahân’s poet laureate Abu Tâleb Kalim Kâshâni (d. 1650) composed a mathnavi of 237 lines on the capital Akbarabad (Agra) that includes some lines in the shahrâshub mode. Including descriptions of the magnificent building complexes sponsored by the emperor, this poem is the verbal equivalent of what painters of this time were representing in Mughal miniatures. The work ends with a description of the garden of Princess Jahânârâ and a dedication to the empress Mumtâz Mahal. While he takes the reader through the bazaars of Akbarabad, he describes professionals such as an ʿattâr (druggist), bazzâz (cloth-seller), sarrâf (money changer), javâherforush (jeweler), khayyât (tailor), and zargar (goldsmith); in addition, he lists local professionals such as mahâjan (merchant), tanbuli (pân seller), and dobi (washerman), as well as Rajput and Afghan lads, particularizing the work to a 576

Shahrâshub

Mughal setting. This work is also characterized by a certain ethnographic quality as the Iranian poet Kalim gazes upon the cosmopolitan Indian metropolis. In both Zohuri and Kalim’s poems, the number of craftsmen or professionals is few compared to the long catalogues in the Safavid poems discussed above. Another difference is that practitioners of the book arts are more frequently represented in Safavid poems. Other Mughal poets such as Monir Lâhuri (d. 1644) and Fâni Kashmiri (d. 1670) include a few shahrâshub verses effectively in their mathnavis on the topography of Kashmir. Attesting to the great movement of poets in this period and cosmopolitan nature of the Persianate world, Faghfur Lâhiji (d. 1620) spent time in the Caucasus where he wrote shahrâshub verses in a work dedicated to the governor of Georgia, and eventually ended up in the service of the Mughals. Another important work, one of the last ambitious ones, in this genre is by Sayyedâ Nasafi (d. ca. 1707) produced in Bukhara. Sayyedâ composed a work in mathnavi form comprising 405 beyts describing 212 crafts in one or more beyts. According to Keith Hitchins, the poet “drew abundantly on the everyday speech of the people, thereby introducing into the literary language words and expressions up to then unknown.” Several unpublished works of Safavid and Mughal poets contain shahrâshub verses embedded in longer poems praising cities, and when these texts are eventually published, our views about the use of this genre/topos will be broadened. The second edition of Golchin-e Maʿâni’s work is a useful anthology of these poems, but is not exhaustive by any means. The popularity of the shahrâshub seems to have ended with the decline of the great empires when poets no longer privileged this genre/topos. However, there were peculiar transformations in the Indian context, where in Urdu poetry it became exclusively the literature of a city’s decline; and vestiges of the shahrâshub topos survived in different forms until the early twentieth century. The early Persian travelogue by the monshi from Calcutta, Mirzâ Abu Tâleb Esfahâni (d. 1805), who, in his Masir-e Tâlebi fi belâd-e afranj, written during a sojourn in Britain from 1799–1803, described the people, buildings, and landscape of that land in exuberant tones recalling the rapturous reaction of the 577

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

Safavid-Mughal poets in earlier centuries. Abu Tâleb also included ghazals that he composed on women and boys who enamored him. Even in the early twentieth century Shebli Noʿmâni (d. 1914), the Indian scholar of Persian literature, wrote some rapturous ghazals on the port city of Bombay that are shahrâshub in tone. Thus, even though the shahrâshub was a genre/topos of classical Persian poetry, even in the modern age it continued to inform the way that poets imagined their city, its architecture, and its inhabitants, in many innovative ways.

578

CHAPTER 11 HAJV AND PROFANE PERSIAN Paul Sprachman Hajv (also hejâ’) is a term of Arabic origin that refers to a broad range of defamatory poetry in Persian. Hajv takes a variety of poetic forms: the fragment (qetʿe) of one or two couplets, the quatrain (robaʿ i), and the mono-rhyme ode (qaside) with many lines. While it is difficult to speak about content or themes common to all insult poetry in Persian, one can think of hajv as the literary complement to praise poetry (madh). Both are prone to hyperbole (eghrâq), which, in the case of panegyrics, is to go too far in praising the patron (mamduh), or, in insult poetry, to use foul language to vilify the abused (mahju’). An eleventh-century mirror for princes, the Qâbus-nâme, speaks to the complementary nature of praise and insult in Persian poetry when it advises: Agar hejâ’ khvâhi goftan [va] nadâni Hamchonânke kasi dar madh setâ’i zedd-e ân madh begu’i If your aim is abuse and you don’t know how, merely say the opposite of what one says to praise.1

Owing to their intrinsic stretching of the truth, praise and insult poetry often come under the same moral cloud in criticism. A number of editors and scholars have condemned poets for staining their works, and, by extension, their characters (akhlâq), by stretching the truth about their patrons (often petty tyrants) or using profanity to defame their targets. Despite recent efforts to absolve praise and invective of the taint of immorality by interpreting them in new ways, the cloud has yet to dissipate. The title of Nâder Vazinpur’s 1

Onsor-al-Maʿâli Kaykâvus b. Voshmgir, Qâbus-nâme (Tehran, 1973), p. 191.

579

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

study of the panegyric calls it the “mark of shame on the face of Persian literature.” Likewise, in order to show a positive side to insult poetry, Azizollâh Kâseb speaks of hajv-e râstin or “proper invective.”2 This is one of many attempts to find a socially redeeming aspect to abuse poetry. Another student of insult literature, Nâder Nikubakht, divides composers of classical insult poetry into two groups: those who used profanity and those who did not. In the first group are Manijak Termedhi (fl. late tenth century), Suzani of Samarqand (d. ca. 1173), Owhad-al-Din Anvari (d. 1189), Sanâ’i of Ghaznâ (d. ca. 1131), Khâqâni of Shirvân (d. 1121), Jamâl-al-Din Abd-al-Razzâq of Isfahan (d. 1192), Pur Bahâ of Jam (d. ca. 1300), and Serâj-al-Din Qomri (d. 1228).3 The second group consists of poets who disparaged their targets using figures of speech instead of obscenity, thereby rendering their insults quotable and suitable for inclusion in anthologies. Thus, poets like Jalâl-al-Din Rumi (d. 1273), whose odes were almost never obscene, and the greatest lyric poet in Persian, Hâfez of Shiraz (d. 1389), wrote what critics today term “figurative” hajv, a type of abuse with a hidden punch. The utility of dividing abuse poetry into the blunt and the subtle is open to question; however, there is no doubt that what makes the vast corpus of Persian invectives obscene is the presence of three little words: kir (cock), kos (cunt), and kun (asshole). These terms constitute the pudendum (awrat), which must be kept hidden even in print. In most manuscripts these words are spelled out, but in published works they usually appear only with their first letter (k) followed by ellipses. This naïve device fools very few readers whose knowledge of the so-called kâf words comes as part of growing up in Persian. Also found in this type of poetry, but less frequently, are khâye (testicles, balls) and all forms of the verb gâidan (fuck). The strategy of defamation in a great deal of early abuse literature was very simple: to use obscenities to refer to the target’s private parts or to those of his close family members. This was to insinuate on the part of the abused an inability to keep hidden what must be hidden and thereby to suggest he was not man enough to protect his privacy. To unman 2 3

Azizollah Kâseb, Chashmandâz-e târikhi-ye hajv (Tehran, 1987), pp. 31, 53. Nâser Nikubakht, Hajv dar sheʿr-e fârsi (Tehran, 2001), p. 158.

580

Hajv and Profane Persian

their targets further, abusers would often assert the abused took what was generally perceived as the female role in sexual intercourse, becoming a passive receiver or “direct object” (mafʿul). A number of Arabic chronicles tell us one of the earliest poems in classical Persian was abusive. According to these accounts, an Arab poet known for his lampoons, Yazid Ebn Mofarregh al-Hemyari (d. 688), made the mistake of mocking his patron, the Umayyad governor of Sistân, Abbâd b. Ziâd. Persuaded by the Caliph not to execute the poet, the governor chose a program of public humiliation. He forced Ebn Mofarregh to eat pork, drink wine laced with a laxative, and parade through the market place bound to a cat, a dog, and a pig. When Persian-speaking children asked about the dark fluid that stained his cloak, Ebn Mofarregh explained: Âb ast-o nabidh ast va osârât-e zabib Va donbe-ye farbe-o pey ast va somayye ruspi ast It’s water and wine and the squeezing of the grape; And fatty rumps and gristle. And Somayye is a whore.4

The story is worth telling in full because it contains three of the main ways lampoonists figuratively degraded their targets: religious excommunication through the consumption of forbidden food and drink; humiliation by making private parts and functions public; and defamation by insinuating depravity on the part of a close relative (Somayye was the name of Ziâd’s mother). That an Arab poet composed this early abuse in Persian led one scholar, Mohammad Jaʿfar Mahjub, to assert that the Muslim invasion from the east was responsible for introducing abusive poetry in Persian literature.5 The question of whether Persian writing had been devoid of obscenity until the Arab conquest in the eighth century will always be open to debate—so much of pre-Islamic Iranian literature has been lost to us. Beyond dispute, however, is that almost all Persian writers, from the formative period of classical poetry in the tenth century to its golden age, which lasted well into the fifteenth, composed abusive or obscene poetry. We must credit philologists 4 Kâseb, Chashmandâz, pp. 43−44. 5 Mohammad Jaʿfar Mahjub, Sabk-e Khorâsâni (Tehran, 1967), p. 84.

581

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

in large part for the survival of many of the earliest specimens of insult poems in Persian. Generally not valued as literature, defamatory or bawdy poems appeared in lexicons and chrestomathies because they illustrated the use of rare or arcane expressions. For example, a piece of abuse attributed to Mohammad b. Musâ Farâlâvi (fl. early tenth century) and apparently directed at a sarjik, “chief,” has survived, because it is the only poetic instance of kharchik, or “vast desert”: Ay bar hame-ye qahbegân-e giti sarchik Kun-e to farâkhtar ze-seh-sadd kharchik O chief, above all whores of the world, Your butt is broader than three hundred Kharchiks.6

Similarly, this abusive fragment by Emâre Marvazi (fl. ca. 980) appears in an early lexicon solely because it includes the word kalkhach, “bodily filth, skuzz”: Gonde-o bi qimat-o dun-o haqir Rish por az guh-o hame-ye tan kalkhach Stinking, worthless, mean and abject, With beard full of shit and body covered in skuzz.7

The verse also exemplifies another of the most common means of slander in Persian: the figurative use of human and animal waste to defile the beard, the principal badge of masculinity in Islam. In another early piece of abuse, Mohammad b. Mohammad Morâdi (fl. late ninth century) employs the arcane word âzhakh, “wart,” to paint his target as a giant phallus, a grotesque image also found in later obscene writing: Ân sorkh amâme bar sar-e u Chun âzhakh-e zesht bar sar-e kir That red turban on his head Is like an ugly wart on the tip of a cock8 6 7 8

Les premiers poètes persans. IXe –Xe siècles, ed. G. Lazard (Paris, 1964), p. 45. Abu Mansur Ahmad Asadi Tusi, Loghat-e fors, ed. D. Siâqi (Tehran, 1957), p. 167. Les premiers poètes, p. 50.

582

Hajv and Profane Persian

Despite the obvious similarities between praise and insult poetry, many examples of the former are studied and discussed today as part of the Persian canon, while the latter is rarely considered worthy of scrutiny. Obscene poems are occasionally found in the published works of classical poets or in literary biographies; however, few “complete” editions of these works spell out offensive words. A rare example from the collected odes of Rumi is a five-liner reviling the target with the kind of offensive language and imagery that disqualifies it from being literature. It begins: Ân kun-e khar ke-z hâsedi isâ bovad tashvish-e u Sadd kir-e khar dar kun-e u sadd tiz-e sag dar rish-e u That donkey’s asshole, who out of jealousy [has the nerve] to be concerned [he’s on a par] with Jesus; May a hundred donkey cocks be up his ass, and may a hundred dog farts be in his beard!9

The Rumi exception proves the rule in abuse poetry; if it weren’t in the authoritative edition of his odes, no one would accept the great mystic had been capable of such filth. With the passage of time, insult poetry, like other forms of verse in Persian became more imaginative. By the early twelfth century, some of it had left its crude beginnings behind and developed into a mannered—albeit obscene—weapon in a poet’s arsenal. Often it was an effective means of extortion. The mere threat of having a catchy lampoon written on a wall or in oral circulation was enough to persuade patrons to be more generous. Poets, especially those at court or in the retinues of men of wealth and power, were obliged to flatter the sources of their patronage. If they did not receive what they deemed just compensation for their praise, however, they would turn on their miserly benefactors. In fact, it was in threatening retaliation that some professional writers of invective expressed their gifts as poets. One of the most prolific of these, Anvari, addressed a potentially stingy patron this way: Seh bayt rasm bovad shâʿerân-tâmeʿ-râ Yaki madih-o degar qetʿe-ye taqazâ’i 9

Jalâl-al-Din Rumi, Kolliyyât-e shams, ed. B. Foruzânfar (Tehran, 1976), V, p. 15.

583

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Agar bedâd sevom shokr var nadâd hejâ Az in seh bayt do goftam degar che farmâ’i The needy poets have but three verses at their command; First, there’s the line that flatters, then comes their demand. If met, they pen their thanks—if not, their derision; I’ve authored two, so what comes next is your decision.10

By the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the ad hominem attack on parsimony was considered so integral to a poet’s repertoire that Kamâl-al-Din Esmâʿil of Isfahan (d. 1237) could say: Che ân shâʿeri ke-u nabâshad hejâ-gu chu shiri ke changâl-o dandân nadârad Khodâvand emsâk-râ hast dardi ke ellâ hejâ hich darmân nadârad. The poet who does not insult is like a lion without claws and teeth. Lord, miserliness presents a pain for which there is no relief save abuse.11

In time, then, abuse poetry achieved a measure of respectability among professional writers. The obvious utility of the form appears to have made it a regular feature of a poet’s works or of literary anthologies.12 However, this respectability notwithstanding, abusive poetry was never able to shed its profane beginnings. Writing in the late twelfth century, Anvari could become quite foul-mouthed if disappointed by the gift he received from his patron: Chun kos-e bekr-e madhat âvardam Kun-e khâter daridam az sudâ Khâye-ye hajv-e to biafshâram Gar nagâyi marâ be-kir-e atâ 10 Owhad-al-Din Abivardi Anvari, Divân, ed. M.-T. Modarres-e Razavi (2 nd ed., Tehran, 1968), intro. p. 123; a similar piece is attributed to a later poet, Jamâl-al-Din Abd al-Razzâq; see Nikubakht, Hajv dar sheʿr-e fârsi, p. 161. 11 Kamâl-e Esmâʿil, Divân, ed. H. Bahr-al-Olumi (Tehran, 1969), p. 675. 12 The thirteenth-century compendium known as Mones al-ahrâr fi daqâ’eq al-ashâʿr (The Nobles’ Companion to the Niceties of Poetry) contains a section called Hazliyât va Ahâji or “Amusements and Abuses”: Mohammad b. Badr Jâjarmi, Mones al-ahrâr fi daqâ’eq al-ashʿ âr, ed. M. S. Tabibi (2 vols., Tehran, 1971), II, pp. 893−924.

584

Hajv and Profane Persian After I exposed the virgin cunt of your renown, I’ve torn my backside from being so down. Now, if you do not fuck me with the cock of largess, The nutcracker of my hajv will your testicles press13

Its obscenities notwithstanding, Anvari’s poem transcends the crude attack of early abuse. He not only insults his target, but also he purposely complicates the form by pretending to assume the role of the abused. In addition, he flaunts his literary skill by performing a feat of what rhetoricians term “heeding the similar” (moraʿ ât al-nadhir). In two lines, he manages to pack in four of the main taboo words mentioned above, while, at the same time, expressing a theme basic to poetics of abuse. In Anvari’s hands, the ordinarily unsexed terms found in praise poetry sprout genitalia and thus become capable of copulating: “the virgin cunt of praise” (kos-e bekr-e madh); “the anus/butt of the mind/psyche” (kun-e khâter); “the testicles of abuse” (khâye-ye hajv); and “the cock of largess” (kir-e atâ). In the same vein, a complaint by Kamâl-al-Din Esmâʿil playfully compares the ceremonial cloak bestowed on the poet for praising his patron to his private parts: Madhati goftam-at ke chun zivar Dar hame majlesi konand padid Khalʿati dâdid ke chun awrat Az hame kas bebâyadam pushid The praise I composed about you is like a jewel; They display it at every gathering. The robe you gave me in return Is like a pubes (awrat), I must keep it hidden from everyone14

Not only did the language of abuse poetry develop with time, but also so did its targets. The growth in the number and nature of the abused made it possible for invective to take on forms comparable to types of satire in other literatures. In this way abuse crossed the porous boundary of invective to become what Persian writers term hazl, something akin to bawdy or lewd writing. Thus the ad hominem 13 14

Anvari (ed. Nafisi), p. 330. Lotf Ali Beg Âdhar, Âteshkade, ed. H. Sâdât Nâseri (3 vols., Tehran, 1961), III, p. 998.

585

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

attack evolved into lampoon and caricature; abuse directed at groups of people (inhabitants of a particular city or pliers of a specific trade, for example) developed into social satire; and obscene imitations of serious poetry naturally became parody and pastiche. We can see this evolution in the works of the prolific Sanâ’i of Ghazne, whose invectives encompass a wide range of abuse, including everything from crude ad hominem attacks to fully developed social satires. An example of the former is the following two-liner, in which Sanâ’i defames a Christian poet pen-named Moʿjezi, “Miraculous,” with explicit references to his and his spouse’s private parts: Az to zibâtar ast kun-e zanat Chun hami bengaram be-tabʿ-o be-khu Gar nashod hâjatam ravâ az to Hâjat-e kir-e man ravâ az u Prettier than you is the ass on your wife, When it I with my bent and nature view. Were not my manly needs sufficed by you, With her would my big cock a doodle do.15

Sanâ’i is also the author of a mystical epic called Hadiqat alHaqiqe (The Walled Garden of Truth). The tone of the poem is largely homiletic, alternately exhorting listeners/readers to follow the path to salvation and fulminating against the sins of society. The poet illustrates a fiery sermon against pedophilia among Sufi adepts with a tale containing elements of ad hominem abuse. It tells the story of a certain Khvâje (master) from Herat during a period of drought and famine, which happened to coincide with a stretch of widespread public immorality. The Khvâje’s learning puts him head and shoulders above his fellow Sufis, and he would be the perfect guide but for one nagging problem: “it had been a while since he last had a fuck” (moddati bud tâ ke gâi nadâsht).16 He 15 Abu-al-Majd Sanâ’i, Divân, ed. M. T. Modarres-e Razavi (Tehran, 1975), p. 1094. 16 Abu-al-Majd Sanâ’i, Hadiqat al-haqiqa wa sharʿ iat al-tariqa, ed. M. T. Mo­ darres-e Razavi (Tehran, 1980), p. 668; for a translation of the tale, see P. Sprachman, Suppressed Persian: An Anthology of Forbidden Literature (Costa Mesa, Calif., 1995), pp. 10−12.

586

Hajv and Profane Persian

finds a willing boy and reasons a mosque, given the generally low level of morality in town, would allow him to meet his needs in private. The grotesque language of abuse emerges in Sanâ’i’s account of the tryst: the boy’s backside is a “hill of silver ore” (tall-e sim), and the mystic’s aroused member a “fish” (mâhi) [swimming] toward a spring in that hill (bord sui-ye cheshme).17 Just before the union can be consummated, a seemingly pious man (zâhed) enters the mosque and blames the drought and famine on the mystic’s insistent vice: Az chonin kârhâ-st dar keshvar Âsmân bi nam-o zamin bi bar bar Besât-ezamin nabât namânad Khalqrâ mâye-ye hayât namânad Your wicked ways and wrongs the country stained; The land is barren and the sky is drained. The surface of the earth’s bereft of greens; Our country folk have lost their ways and means.18

Shamed by the tirade, the master withdraws, but, just before exiting the mosque, he looks back and sees the busybody doing to the boy exactly what he had intended. In ridiculing the double dealing of the sanctimonious intruder, Sanâ’i again resorts to the grotesqueries of abuse. The man’s member is a vegetable obtained for next to nothing (bi nim dâng-o bi-habbe), erect nevertheless and perched on the boy’s “leather bag” (dabbe: figuratively, “testicles”): Did bi nim dâng-o bi habbe Kazar-e shaykh bar sar-e dabbe He [the mystic] found that that old hypocrite Had bagged his carrot without weighing it.19

The boy in this transaction is styled a “beardless youth” (shâhed), the object of scandalous affection of men in the cloistered, homosocial world of the seminary (madrase) or Sufi retreat (khâneqâh). Sanâ’i’s rage in the end is directed at the meddling hypocrite, who 17 Sanâ’i, Hadiqat, p. 668. 18 Sanâ’i, Hadiqat, p. 669. 19 Ibid.

587

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

under the cloak of piety is able to carry out publicly what the master from Herat was shamed out of doing in private. The mystic laments: Likan az bakht-e mâ-o gardesh-e hâl Bovad bar man harâm-o bar to halâl It’s just our luck, the way our lives must be; What’s kosher for you is denied to me.20

Sanâ’i’s serious poetry also figures in the development of the obscene in Persian literature. Some of his odes became so well known that parodists like Suzani of Samarqand felt compelled to “answer” (javâb) them with off-color imitations. In the beginning of one celebrated poem, Sanâ’i boasts of his accomplishments and altruism in the face of life’s vicissitudes: Mâ farsh-e bozorgi be-jehân bâz kashidim Sadd gune sharâb az kaff-e eqbâl chashidim Ân jâ-ye ke abrâr neshastand neshastim Va ân râh ke ahrâr gozidand gozidim Gush-e khod-o gush hame ârâste kardim Az bas sokhan-e khub ke goftim-o shanidim Az ru-ye sakhâ hâsel-e dah molk bedâdim Bâ asb-e sharaf manzel noh charkh boridim The carpet of our deeds is grand and worn; We’ve tasted a hundred vintages served by fate. The place where the righteous sat, we sat; And that path the freeborn chose, we took. We have adorned our ears and the ears of all; So much good speech have we uttered and heard. Out of generosity we’ve given the bounty of ten lands; On the steed of honor we’ve traversed the mansion of the nine heavens.21

The image in Sanâ’i’s first hemistich is not to be taken literally, of course; the speaker of the poem has carpeted the world in the sense that he has achieved many things despite the obstacles fate has put 20 Ibid. 21 Sanâ’i, Divân (ed. Razavi), p. 1084.

588

Hajv and Profane Persian

in his way. Suzani’s parody undermines Sanâ’i’s self-regard by making the figure literal and then fouling the rest of the poem with the anal eroticism of slander: Mâ farsh-e bozorgi be-jehân bâz kashidim Bas kun-e gholâmân-e neku-rui daridim Shalvâr-e arusân-e zere zolf goshâdim Bar gonbad-e torkân-e parichehre khazidim Bas gonde-ye mafluk-e kohan-râ yale kardim Va-ze gonde-ye bi farmân doshnâm shanidim Bas kudak-e zarin kalle sim banâgush Ke-u-râ be-kalle be-kalle-ye buq kashidim Az bahr-e rezâ-ye del-e in kir-e negun bakht Az gonde kasân gâdan guni talabidim Chun nik negah kardim az ru-ye haqiqat Râhi khosh-o behtar ze rah-e posht nadidim Ân râh rahânid ma-râ az gham-o ghosse Tâ zenn nabari ke-in rah bi marze gozidim In-ast javâb-e ghazal-e khvâje sanâ’i Mâ farsh-e bozorgi be-jehân bâz kashidim The carpet of our deeds is grand and worn; So many pretty boys’ bums have we torn. With brides whose braids are linked like (coats of) mail we’ve slept, And o’er the (cupola) domes of (fairy-face) Turki boys we’ve crept. To poor old hulks have we given full rein, And many have cursed us with their disdain. Many a golden lad [with silver temples] while serving wine I’ve hoisted atop this bugle of mine. To please this cock, ill-fed and unlucky, We’ve begged the dolts for a backside fucky. Indeed, when we examined ev’ry fact, The backside path we found the better tack. That way our hearts were freed of grief and pain; Lest you believe we have chosen in vain. This answers Master Sanâ’i’s old corn: “The carpet of our deeds is grand and worn.”22

This parody represents an advance of sorts on the crude tactics of early Persian slander. The target of Suzani’s abuse is a poem, and 22 Suzani Samarqandi, Divân, ed. N. Shâh-Hoseyni (Tehran, 1959), pp. 401−2.

589

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

thus is immune to threats of sexual violation, beard defilement, etc. Instead, Suzani exposes his own manhood to Sanâ’i’s ode, extolling it for its many exploits in the field of anal intercourse. The parodist’s member, in effect, detaches from his body to become an object of praise in its own right. Suzani’s parody amounts to a kind of anti-praise, in that the panegyric addressed to the poet’s penis (an anti-mamduh), which rather than bringing idolaters to Islam or lavishing royal riches on the deserving, the customary reasons for singing the praises of the powerful and well-to-do, prefers the contrary course of deflowering scores of prepubescent boys or of showing compassion by sleeping with brutes long past their prime. In addition to attesting to the kinship of abuse and panegyric poetry, Suzani’s parody brings up another salient feature of offcolor Persian literature: its misogyny. Obscene writing in classical literature is a wholly male preserve. Women, if they appear in this type of literature at all, are usually reduced to their genitals, which themselves are often targets of abuse. The one exception is the poet Mahsati of Ganje (fl. twelfth century), who could boast of her own beauty in one line, and vulgarly complain about her lover’s shortcomings in the next: Man mahsati-am bar hame khubân shode tâq Mashhur be-hosn dar khorâsân-o erâq Ay pur-e khatib ganjeh kunat chu revâq Nân bâyad-o gusht-o kir var ne se talâq I’m Mahsati, the fairest of the flock For beauty famed from Mashhad to Iraq O preacher’s boy, you sorry-ass layabout, We’re through if I’ve no bread or meat or cock!23

While it was quite possible for Suzani’s penis to have a storied past, it would be inconceivable—even in the surreal world of Persian invective—for Mahsati to celebrate the many accomplishments of her private parts. Suzani’s obscene works were models for parodists for at least two centuries. One of the most skillful appliers of his methods 23 Sprachman, Suppressed Persian, p. 3.

590

Hajv and Profane Persian

was the exceptional ironist Obeyd-e Zâkâni (d. ca. 1370). Rather than parodying Sanâ’i, however, he answered several of the poems of the twelfth-century Saʿdi of Shiraz, who by Obeyd’s time was considered the master of Persian poetry and prose. Love in Saʿdi’s lyrics is often couched in mystical terms; the lover gets a “glimpse” (nazar) of the Friend’s (dust: beloved, God) beauty (jamâl), and yearns for “union” (vesâl) with the Friend. One of Saʿdi’s odes begins with a pun on the word bar meaning both “upon” and “fruit”: Sobhi mobârak-ast nazar bar jamâl-e dust Bar khordan az derakht-e omid-e vesâl-e dust Blessed is the morning when the glance is upon the Friend’s beauty; To savor fruit from the tree of hope of union with the Friend”.24

Obeyd’s parody eliminates the pun and, à la Suzani, shifts the focus from the metaphysical to the genital: Chun kir did vaqt-e sahar kos be khande goft Sobhi mobârak-ast nazar bar jamâl-e dust When the cock saw the cunt at dawn, it said with a laugh; Blessed is the morning when the glance is upon the Friend’s beauty.25

In a more complex spoof, Obeyd—employing an Anvari-like feat of heeding the similar—implants the expression of erotic love that begins one of Saʿdi’s odes in a thicket of taboo words. Saʿdi’s line is: Ân sarv-e nâz bin ke che khosh mi-ravad be râh V-ân cheshm-e âhuâne che khosh mi-konad negâh That darling cypress, behold how sweetly she walks along; And that doe-like eye, how sweetly it casts a glance”.26

Obeyd fronts Saʿdi’s eroticism with the standard unmentionables: Mi-raft kir dar rah-e kos dush-o har zamân Mi-kard kun be chashm-e tahassor dar u negâh 24 Abu Mohammad Mosleh-al-Din Saʿdi, Kolliyât, ed. M.-A. Foroughi (Tehran, 1984), p. 447. 25 Nezâm-al-Din Obeyd-e Zâkâni, Kolliyât, ed. M.-J. Mahjub (New York, 1999), p. 221: this is a masculine reading; the poem is ambiguous, for “cunt” could also be the speaker here. 26 Saʿdi, Kolliyât, p. 592.

591

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Az hadd beraft-o sabr namândash be khâye goft K-ay hamdam-e aziz-e man ay yâr-e nik khvâh Ân sarv-e nâz bin ke che khosh mi-ravad be râh V-in cheshm-e âhuâne che khosh mi-konad negâh Last night as the cock traveled the path of cunt, The asshole looked on with the eye of regret. Out of patience and unable to contain itself, it said to the testicles, “O my dear confidant, O my goodhearted friend, That darling cypress, behold how sweetly she walks along; And that doe-like eye, how sweetly it casts a glance.”27

There is a noteworthy departure from Suzani’s method in Obeyd’s spoof. Instead of mocking Saʿdi’s ode by simply wagging his member at it, Obeyd puts the great poet’s words in the “mouth” of an anus. His member not only leaves his body; rather, it becomes a separate character with its own feelings and opinions. Here we see a shift in the nature of abuse in Persian. In Obeyd’s parody, genitals are not mere anti-patrons, the facile instruments of insult they are for Suzani. They are capable of speech in their own right, expressing themselves, engaging in conversations with other private parts, and, like good courtiers, artfully declaiming the line of poetry best suited the occasion. At times the speeches of personified genitalia in Obeyd’s parodies become pleas for sexual satisfaction. An example is Obeyd’s parody of a poem by Fakhr-al-Din Erâqi (1213–89), in which the speaker asks his beloved: Bovad âyâ ke kharâmân ze-daram bâz âyi Gereh az kâr-e foru-baste-ye man begoshâyi Won’t you come prancing through my door, I pray. And make the knots in my (tied up) life (work) go away?28

Exploiting the profane undertones of “knots in one’s thing,” Obeyd breaks open Eraqi’s line and puts it in the “mouth” of his own decrepit member: In kohan kir-e marâ tâze kosi mi-bâyad Ke-ze kos kohne-ye puside nami-asâyad 27 Obeyd-e Zâkâni, Kolliyât, p. 228. 28 Fakhr-al-Din Erâqi, Divân, ed. N. Mohtashem Khazâ’i (Tehran, 1993), p. 252.

592

Hajv and Profane Persian Az khodâ dokhtaraki-ye bekr tamanâ dârad Bovad âyâ ke kharâmân ze-daram bâz âyad Tâ ke bar khizad-o mardâne kamar dar bandad Gere az kâr-e foru baste-ye u begoshâyad For this worn cock (of mine) fresh pussy only, please; For decaying old cunts give it no ease. A little virgin, O Lordy, it bays. “Won’t she come prancing though the door,” it prays. The moment knots in its (tied up) workings go away, It’ll stand up like a man, gird its loins, and play.29

The personified privates in Obeyd’s parodies can also debate about which of them is the better genital. In a two-liner, he records the following exchange between a jealous posterior and a thoughtful vagina: Kun goft ke kir joz majâzi nabovad Fe’l-o amalash cho kos namâzi nabovad Kos goft beru hadith-e behude magu’i Behude sokhan bedin derâzi nabovad “All cocks are unreal,” said the anus once, “Their actions are not routine like the cunts.” “Stop,” said the cunt, “this stupid dance and song; Nonsense would never have gotten that long.”30

A closer look at this quatrain reveals it is more than idle banter among genitalia. The last hemistich is from a famous quatrain by the influential and renowned mystic Alâ-al-Dowle Semnâni (1261–1336), and has become proverbial in Persian for indicating that some matter is so complex or involved it must be significant. Semnâni belonged to the Kobravi (Kubrawi) Sufi order, whose members used unorthodox (irreligious, according to some) rituals like chanting, singing, and listening to music to achieve a heightened state of consciousness. Alâ-al-Dowle’s quatrain vigorously defends those practices: In vajd-o samâʿ-ye mâ majâzi nabovad Va-in raqs ke mi-konim bâzi nabovad 29 Obeyd-e Zâkâni, Kolliyât, p. 225. 30 Obeyd-e Zâkâni, Kolliyât, p. 211.

593

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Bâ bi-khabarân begu ke-ay bi-kheradân Bihude sokhan be-din derâzi nabovad Our ecstasy and music are not vain, Nor is our dancing whimsical or feigned. So tell the fools, “You morons are all wrong; Nonsense would never have gotten that long.”31

Having a vagina cite Semnâni’s poem enables Obeyd to educe a profane sense from the otherwise chaste word “length” (derâzi). Though Obeyd clearly profited from Suzani’s invectives, his bawdy departs from his predecessor’s in a consequential way: his choice of targets was more ambitious. While the principal butt of Suzâni’s parodies, Sanâ’i, was certainly an influential and widely cited poet, famed for a number of odes, lyrics, and a mystical epic, he did not have the iconic status that Rudaki (d. ca. 940) and Ferdowsi (d. 1020) had and continue to have. The former is considered the father of classical Persian poetry, while the latter is the author of the Iranian national epic Shâhnâme, which many believe revived Persian after two centuries of silence brought on by the Arab conquest in the eighth century. Because language and literature are basic to Persian identity, one cannot overestimate the stature of the two poets among the literate. Rudaki is the author of “The Scent of the Muliân Brook,” an ode devoted to the favorite Bukhara hunting grounds of the Samanid ruler Amir Nasr II (r. 914−43). The panegyric is basic to the Persian canon and is still popular as the lyrics to popular renditions. E. G. Browne’s translation captures the ballad-like quality of the original: Bu-ye ju-ye muliân âyad hami Yâd-e diâr-e mehrabân âyad hami Rig-e âmu-o doroshti-ye râh-e u Zir-e pâyam parniân âyad hami Âb-e jeyhun-o shegarfihâ-ye u Kheng-e mârâ miân âyad hami Ay bokhârâ shâd bâsh-o dir zi mir Zi-ye to shâdmân âyad hami 31 Mozaffar Sadr, Sharh-e ahvâl-o âsâr-e Alâ al-Dowle Semnâni (Tehran, 1955), pp. 108−9.

594

Hajv and Profane Persian Mir mâh-ast-o bokhârâ Âsmân mâh su-ye âsmân âyad hami Mir sarv-ast-o bokhârâ bustân Sarv su-ye bustân âyad hami The Ju-ye Mulian we call to mind, We long for those dear friends long left behind. The sands of Oxus, toilsome though they be, Beneath my feet were soft as silk to me. Glad at the friends’ return, the Oxus deep Up to our girths in laughing waves shall leap. Long live Bokhara! Be thou of good cheer! Joyous towards thee hasteth our Amir! The moon’s the prince, Bokhara is the sky; O sky, the moon shall light thee by and by! Bokhara is the mead, the cypress he; Receive at last, o mead, thy cypress-tree!32

The scatological potential of the first line, literally “the scent of the Mulian brook,” would have been obvious to many parodists (bu, like “smell,” can be both positive and negative); but Obeyd seems to have been the first to take advantage of the piece. His parody breaks open the line and fills the resulting gap with the accustomed anal eroticism while, at the same time, making sure all the requisite genitals are heard from: Gand-e kos beshanid kiram dush goft Bu-ye ju-ye muliân âyad hami Bâdi az kun jost sar bar dâsht goft Yâd-e diâr-e mehrabân âyad hami The stench of pussy reached my cock, who said, “The Ju-ye Mulian we call to mind.” A fart issued (from my ass) and dicky raised his head, “We long for those dear friends left behind.”33

One can only speculate why Obeyd’s parody came to be in the first place and has survived. Perhaps he composed it when Rudaki’s ode had ripened into a cliché begging for a send-up; in any case, one 32 33

E. G. Browne, LHP I, p. 16. Obeyd-e Zâkâni, Kolliyât, p. 229.

595

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

thing is clear: the method of Obeyd’s derision is a kind of coarse ventriloquism that puts the father of Persian poetry’s most famous opening in the “mouth” of a misogynist penis. Obeyd’s parody of the Shâhnâme comes in his masterwork, a satirical treatise called “The Ethics of the Aristocracy” (Akhlâq alashrâf). The satire pits two schools of morality against each other: the “outmoded” (mansukh) and the “preferred” (mokhtâr). The outmoded school endorses such traditional values as wisdom, courage, purity, justice, generosity, etc., while the preferred one, which in Obeyd’s time prevailed, upholds contrary values like ignorance, cowardice, impurity, injustice, stinginess, etc. Like two learned adversaries, the two schools of thought cite scripture, the sayings of the Prophet Mohammad, literature, etc. to debate the truth of their positions. In the third chapter of the treatise, “On Purity,” holders of the preferred view argue that values like “chastity” and “purity” are not keys to success in life. No one, they claim, ever rose to a position of power or gained renown without first submitting to the sexual advances of others. The evidence they cite to prove the futility of chastity (“anal correctness,” in Obeyd’s words) is one of the rare examples of the mock-heroic in classical Persian literature. Obeyd’s parody of the Shâhnâme mimics the meter, rhyme, and diction of the original. His ostensible purpose is to unman two of the epic’s champions, the Iranian Rostam (Tahmtan) and the Turanian general Human, by picturing them taking turns assuming the female role in intercourse: Tahmtan cho begshâd shalvâr band Be zânu dar âmad yal-e arjmand Amudi bar âvard human cho dud Bedân sân ke pirânash farmude bud Chonân dar zeh-e kun-e rostam sepukht Ke az zakhm-e ân kun-e rostam besukht Degar bâre humân dar âmad be zir Tahmtan besân-e hozhabr-e delir Bedu dar sepuzid yak kir-e sakht Ke shod kun-e humân hame lakht lakht Do shamshir-zan-e kun daride shodand Miân-e yalân bar gozide shodand

596

Hajv and Profane Persian To niz ay barâdar cho gardi qavi Sazad gar sokhan-hâ-ye man beshnavi Bekhosbi-o kun su-ye bâlâ koni Honarhâ-ye khodrâ hoveydâ koni Ke tâ har kas âyad hami gâyadat Del az kir khordan beyâsâyadat Cho bar kas namânad jahân pâydâr Hamân beh ke niki bovad yâdgâr As soon as Tahmtan had untied his belt, Before Human the noble hero knelt; Like smoke Human whipped out his great upright, The very way Pirân [Human’s brother] said he might. He battered Rostam harder and harder, Till Rostam’s rectum smoldered with ardor. Human then turned and bared a mighty rear, A lion, fierce, Tahmtan displayed no fear. He lanced Human with such a rock-like staff, That Human’s behind was nearly torn in half. Behold the two swordsmen, their assholes worn, Became the greatest heroes ever born. You too, my brother, once you’re big and strong, And have the sense to heed my song, Lie with your asshole raised for all to see, And let the people view your artistry. So fucked you’ll be by anyone you meet; Your heart will lose all fears of cocks you eat. Because your stay on earth is short you’ll find, ‘Tis best to leave only goodness behind.34

The encounter between Rostam and Human, of course, is wholly a product of Obeyd’s perverse imagination. The Shâhnâme does record a meeting (not a battle) between the two. In part of the epic known as the Eleven (or Twelve) Battles, a war between Iran and Turan, the Turanian general Human is sent in disguise to identify and size up Rostam, who, despite his renown, was not easily recognized. Human returns to his camp impressed beyond words by the Iranian champion’s massive build, his mountain-size steed, and 34 Obeyd-e Zâkâni, Kolliyât, pp. 241−42; reading gardi qavi for gordi novi follows Abbâs Eqbâl: Obeyd-e Zâkâni, Kolliyât, p. 169.

597

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

his weaponry, which includes a weighty mace (amud-e gerân). References to Human and his brother Pirân in the parody notwithstanding, it would be a mistake to conclude Obeyd only had the Turanian general in mind. Some of the language of the parody, in fact, suggests he was indeed mocking Ferdowsi’s account of another contest. Human was by no means Rostam’s physical or social equal. Given the frequency in Persian abuse poetry of alleging a feminine sexual passivity on the part of the abused, it would make sense for a satirist like Obeyd to depict two of the greatest epic heroes in Persian literature as homosexuals. The only character in the Shâhnâme comparable to Rostam as a hero was Esfandiâr, the crown prince of Iran, who but for his eyes was invulnerable to attack. The tale of Rostam’s near fatal encounter with the prince, one of the most compelling in the epic, was certainly a worthy target for Obeyd’s parodic gifts. At the time of the confrontation, the aged Rostam is a highly accomplished champion living in retirement and devoted more to the hunt and strong drink than he was to combat. He has been called on time and time again to save the kingdom, which, out of fealty to Iran’s often headstrong and delinquent kings, he has done. Young Esfandiâr is a crown prince impatiently waiting for his father, Goshtâsp, to abdicate in his favor. He has shown himself worthy of the throne by going on many seemingly impossible quests. He is also a loyal defender and proselytizer of the Zoroastrian faith. Rostam’s sole connection to the immaterial is through his father, Zâl, who had been saved by the Simorgh, a mythical bird. The instigator of the tragedy is Goshtâsp, who, out of a kind of royal bullheadedness often found in the Shâhnâme, refuses to abdicate in favor of his son unless he accomplishes one more impossible task: forcing Rostam to come to Iran in chains. The clash between the two champions seems inevitable from the beginning. Although Rostam repeatedly tries to distract Esfandiâr from his task with flattery, food, and drink, the prince insists on carrying out his father’s wishes. The conflict begins with the slander of Persian verbal abuse. Esfandiâr impugns Rostam’s ancestry by attacking Zâl (an albino) for being “of evil seed, born of a devil” (bad gowhar az div zâd) with a “dark body and white face and hair” 598

Hajv and Profane Persian

(tanash tir bod, rui-o muy-ash sepid).35 Rostam counters by calling Esfandiâr an “upstart” (to andar zamâne raside noi).36 After the battle begins in earnest, the champions break so many spearheads they “resort to swords” (be shamshir bordand nâchâr dast).37 Thus they become the “two swordsmen” (shamshir-zan) of the parody, which is another reason to suspect Obeyd had Esfandiâr in mind. Human never crosses swords with Rostam in the Shâhnâme. In the end, Rostam’s weapons have no effect on Esfandiâr, but, to avoid the shame of being taken to Iran in chains, the nearly mortally wounded hero arranges for Zâl to summon the Simorgh for help. The bird teaches Rostam how to string his bow (be zeh kon kamân-râ) and shoot Esfandiâr in the eye with a special arrow (tir) made from the tamarisk tree.38 For “bowstring,” Ferdowsi uses the expected zeh, an animal gut. Obeyd’s parody has Human literally put his upright into the “bowstring” of Rostam’s asshole (zeh-e kun-e Rostam). This is the only instance of a collocation of zeh and kun in Persian literature (ordinarily only bows have strings). Using a conceit employed by many other abusive poets, Obeyd furnishes ordinarily innocent expressions with obscene undertones. In his parody the weapons of war are genitalized; thus kamân suggests kun, and tir and shamshir suggest kir (cock) There are also echoes in the second line of the original’s description of Rostam loading his bow just before he blinds Esfandiâr. The original reads: Tahmtan gaz andar kamân rând zud Bar ân sân simorgh farmude bud The mighty Tahmtan bowed his arrow fast and right, The very way the Simorgh said he might.39

In the parody Pirân stands in for the Simorgh. The final hemistich of Obeyd’s poem is also from the Shâhnâme, which as a moral to the tale of the tyrant Zahhâk, advises: 35 Abu-al-Qâsem Ferdowsi, Shâhnâme, ed. D. Khaleghi-Motlagh (8 vols., Costa Mesa, Calif., 1987–2008), V, p. 344. 36 Ferdowsi, Shâhnâme, V, p. 349. 37 Ferdowsi, Shâhnâme, V, p. 380. 38 Ferdowsi, Shâhnâme, V, p. 404. 39 Ferdowsi, Shâhnâme, V, p. 412.

599

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Nabâshad hami nik-o bad pâydâr Hamân beh ke niki bovad yâdgâr As neither good nor evil last for keeps, ‘Tis best to leave only goodness behind.40

Obeyd undermines the wisdom in Ferdowsi’s line, an oft-quoted Persian bromide, with the pun: “behind” = “posterity”/“posterior,” which works in both English and Persian. In Obeyd’s mock Shâhnâme, two paragons of masculinity become lovers, alternating in mounting each other rather than their steeds. This degenerate writing is not just the clowning or raving of a foul-mouthed court poet. The anti-Rostam and the pathetic Human/Esfandiâr illustrate a serious principle that sustains many hierarchies: climbers of ladders to power tolerate abuse from those higher up than they are, and dish it out to inferiors once they get to the top. Abusive and obscene writing in classical Persian go as far as they can go in Obeyd-e Zâkâni’s works. Most forms of writing and conventional thought, for that matter, were prey to his profane inventiveness. Obeyd used abuse to undermine the scholarly essay, the compendium of familiar quotations, the strophic poem, the Arabic-Persian lexicon, and even the horoscope. The mock epic, as we have seen, comes in a chapter on “chastity” in his essay on the morals of the elect. Obeyd’s mock book of aphorisms, echoing the saga of the feminized couple Rostam and Human/Esfandiâr, “The Hundred Counsels” (Sadd Pand), advises, An kas-râ pahlavân makhvânid ke posht-e degarân bar zamin ârad pahlavân-e haqiqi ân kas ast ke ru-ye tavâzoʿ bar khâk-e madhallat nahad va yak gaz kir bi-tahâshi dar kun girad.41 Don’t call that person a champion who pins others’ backs to the ground. The true champion is one who rubs the face of humility in the soil of humiliation and takes a whole yard of cock up his ass without flinching”

In his parody of the stanzaic poem, “The Book of Jerking Off” (Jalqnâme), Obeyd sings the praises of his penis as Suzani and 40 Ferdowsi, Shâhnâme, I, p. 85. 41 Obeyd-e Zâkâni, Kolliyât, p. 322.

600

Hajv and Profane Persian

other hazlists had done. He also mines the conventional misogyny of abuse poetry to belittle female genitalia for their ablution-invalidating impurity, while lauding masturbation for being superior to both vaginal (too broad) and anal (too narrow) intercourse: Dustân kâr-e kir bâzi nist Hich kâri bedin darâzi nist Kir-e man chun alam bar afrâzad Kam az sanjâq-e shah-e ghâzi nist Pishe khar gâdan ast-o jalq zadan V-ân degarhâ bejoz majâzi nist Kirrâ pish-e kun be sajde dar âr Z-ân ke mehrâb-e kos namâzi nist Jalq mizan ke jalq khush bâshad Jalq dar zir-e dalq khush bâshad My friends, it’s no joke to play the schlong; Nonsense would never have gotten that long. My cock’s a battle standard, no less swell, The banner of a shah who fights the infidel. To fuck donkeys, to wank, are its professions; The other tasks’re nothing but false impressions. Before the bum must the cock bend its knee; The cunt’s not regular or pure, you see … So let us beat our meat, for wanking’s a ball; It’s fun to whack it ‘neath a woolen shawl.42

Obeyd’s “cunt of the mihrab” (kos-e mehrâb) is analogous to Anvari’s “virgin cunt of praise,” insofar as it furnishes with genitals something ordinarily unsexed, the prayer niche of a mosque. Another element of mosque architecture is likewise genitalized in Obeyd’s mock “Horoscope of the Celestial Mansions” (­Fâlnâme-­ye Boruj). A quatrain at the end of house of Aries warns: Eblis torâ navâzad ay nik nahâd Gardi to basi shâd-o ze-gham ham âzâd Likan cho menâre-i be kun-e to ravad Kiri-o to bar kashi faghân-o faryâd

42 Obeyd-e Zâkâni, Kolliyât, p. 202.

601

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA The Devil pets you, O good-natured guy; Now joy is yours, and nothing goes awry. But like a minaret shall come a cock Up yours, making you howl in pain and cry.43

Such insults and profanity sully almost all types of writing in Obeyd’s satires, travesties, and pastiches; but one area remained off limits to his obscenities: scripture. Although he does read the Qor’an ironically in “The Ethics of the Aristocracy,” neither holy writ nor the sayings of the Prophet Mohammad ever became fodder for his parodies. Classical Persian abusiveness could target people, but never the Prophet, his family, or the holy Imams. It could parody the Shâhnâme, revered odes from the canon, the scholarly essay, the bilingual dictionary, horoscopy, etc., but never the word of God. The barrier to such writing would not lift until the early to mid-twentieth century, a relatively secular time when writers like Dhabih Behruz composed “The Book of Ascension” (Meʿrrâj-­ nâme), a parody in verse of the tale of the Night Journey in which the Prophet Mohammad, mounted on a winged quadruped, traveled the heavens to meet and speak with other prophets; ultimately, he reached God. Be that as it may, over a period of some five centuries the abuse poetry of Persian insult poetry evolved from the basest insults into a form of writing that could be witty, imaginative, and, at times, irreverent. Professional foul-mouths like Suzani, Anvari, Kamâl al-Din Esmâʿil of Isfahan, etc. paved the way for the irony of the master satirist Obeyd-e Zâkâni. The tradition of steeping poetry and prose with the language of abuse continues in Persian writing. Though many of the satires of Iraj Mirzâ (1874– 1926) and Sâdeq Hedâyat (1903–51) are unprintable today, ironists continue to curse creatively, and their works continue to circulate among Persian readers by word of mouth, in tattered texts, or electronically.44

43 Obeyd-e Zâkâni, Kolliyât, p. 362. 44 For a detailed discussion of how classical abuse lives on in modern Persian literature, see P. Sprachman, Licensed Fool: The Damnable, Foul-Mouthed Obeyd-e Zâkâni (Costa Mesa, Calif., 2012), pp. 129−50.

602

ABBREVIATIONS OF BOOKS AND JOURNALS FREQUENTLY CITED BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (London) CHAL The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature (Cambridge, 1974–2006) CHIr The Cambridge History of Iran (Cambridge, 1968–89) CPL Classical Persian Literature (London, 1958) EAL Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, 1 st edition (London, 1998) EI1 Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1 st edition (Leiden, 1913–36) 2 EI Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2 nd edition (Leiden, 1954–2005) 3 EI Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3 rd edition (Leiden, 2007–) EIr Encyclopaedia Iranica (New York, print 1982–, online 1996–) GIE Great Islamic Encyclopaedia (Tehran, 1984–) HdO Handbuch der Orientalistik (Leiden, 1968) HIL History of Iranian Literature (Dordrecht, 1968) HPL A History of Persian Literature (New York, 2009–) IA Islam Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul, 1988–2013) JA Journal Asiatique (Paris) JAL Journal of Arabic Literature (Leiden) JOAS Journal of Oriental and African Studies (Athens) JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies (Chicago) JRAS The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (London) LHP A Literary History of Persia (London, 1902–24) LP Lirica Persica (Venice) MDAT Majalla-ye Dâneshkade adabiyyåt (Tehran) PL Persian Literature (London, 1927–53) PL Persian Literature (London, 1994–2004) TADI Târikh-e adabiyyât dar Irân (Tehran, 1956–91) ZDMG Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (Halle)

603

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources Âdhar, Lotf Ali Beg. Âteshkade. Ed. H. Sâdât Nâseri. 3 vols. Tehran, 1961. Adib Sâber, Divan-e Adib Sâber Termedhi. Ed. M.-A. Nâseh, Tehran, 1964. Afzal, Bâbâ. Robâʿ iyât-e Bâbâ Afzal Kâshâni. Ed. S. Nafisi, Tehran, 1932. Ahli of Shirâz. Kolliyât-e ashʿ âr-e Ahli-ye Shirâzi. Ed. H. Rabbâni, Tehran, 1964. al-Qayravâni, Abi Ali-al-Hasan b. Rashiq. Al-omda fi mahâsen al-sheʿr wa-âdâbehi wa-naqdeh. Ed. M. M. Abd-al-Hamid. 2 vols. Beirut, 1972. al-Râduyâni, Mohammad Omar. Tarjomân al-balâghe. Ed. A. Ateş, Istanbul, 1949. al-Zubayr, Ibn. Kitāb al-hadāyā wa al-tuḥaf (Book of Gifts and Rarities); tr. and annotated by Ghāda al-Ḥijjāwī al-Qaddūmī, Cambridge, Mass., 1996. Amʿaq. Divân-e ʿAmʿaq-e Bokhâri. Ed. S. Nafisi, Tehran, 1960. Aminpur, Q. Gozine-ye ash‘âr. Tehran, 2007. Anvari. Divân. Ed. S. Nafisi, Tehran, 1958. —. Divân-e Anvari. Ed. M.-T. Modarres Razavi. 2 nd ed., Tehran, 1968. Aruzi, Nezâmi. The Chahâr Maqâle. “Four Discourses.” Tr. E. G.  Browne, Hertford, 1899. —. Chahâr Maqâle. Eds. M. Qazvini and M. Moʿin, Tehran, 1955–57. Ashraf, Hasan-e. Divân-e Seyyed Hasan-e Ghaznavi. Ed. M. T. Mo­ darres-e Razavi, Tehran, 1949. Asadi. Loghat-e fors. Ed. P. Horn, Berlin, 1897. Atʿame, Busḥâq-e. Divân. Ed. M. Rastgâr Fasâ’i, Tehran, 2003. Attâr, Farid-al-Din. Divân-e ghazâliyât va qasâyed. Ed. T. Tafazzoli, Tehran, 1962. —. Divân-e Farid al-Din Attâr. Ed. S. Nafisi, Tehran, 1991. —. Mokhtâr-nâme. Ed. M.-R. Shafiʿi-Kadkani, Tehran, 1979; 2 nd print, Tehran, 1996.

605

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Badr-e Châchi, Qasâyed. Kanpur, 1898. Balkhi, Hamid-al-Din Abu Bakr Omar b. Mahmudi. Maqâmât-e Hamidi. Ed. R. Enzâbi-Nejâd, Tehran, 1986. Beyhaqi, Abu’l-Fazl Mohammad. Târikh-e Beyhaqi. Ed. S. Nafisi. 3 vols. Tehran, 1953. —. Târikh-e Beyhaqi. Ed. A. A. Fayyâz, Mashhad, 1971. Borhân, M. T. Borhân-e qâteʿ. Ed. M. Moʿin. 4 vols. Tehran, 1951; repr. 1963. —. Dâ’erat-al-maʿ âref-e Fārsi. Ed. G. Mosâheb. 2 vols. Tehran, 2001. Dâghestâni, Ali-Qoli Khan. Riyâz al-shoʿarâ. Ed. S. H. Qâsemi, Rampur, 2001. Daʿvidâr, Rokn-al-Din. Divân. Ed. A. Mohaddeth, Tehran, 1986. Dâye, Najm-al-Din. Mersâd al-ebâd men al-mabdaʿ elâ ‘l-maʿ âd. Ed. M. A. Riyâhi, Tehran, 1973. Dowlatshâh Samarqandi. Tadhkerat al-shoʿarâ. Ed. E. G. Browne, London and Leiden, 1901. —. Tadhkerat al-shoʿarâ. Ed. M. Abbâsi, Tehran, 1962. Ebn-al-Athir. Al-kāmel fi’l-taʾrīḵ. Ed. C. J. Tornberg as Ibn-el-Athiri Chronicon quod Perfectissimum Inscribitur, Leiden, 1851–76; reprs., Beirut, 1965–67, 1979. Ebn-e Hosâm, Divān, lithograph, n. p., n. d. Emâmi Heravi, Razi-al-Din, Divân. Ed. H. Shahidi, Tehran, 2003. Erâqi, Fakhr-al-Din. Kolliyât-e Erâqi. Ed. S. Nafisi; 4 th printing, Tehran, 1959; 6 th printing, Tehran, 1991. —. Divân. Ed. N. Mohtashem Khazâ’i, Tehran, 1993. Esfahâni, Jamâl-al-Din. Divân-e Jamâl-al-Din Esfahâni. Ed. V. Dast­ gerdi, Tehran, 1941; repr. 1983. Esfarangi, Seyf-e. Divân. Ed. Z. Sadiqi, Tehran, 1978. Esmâʿil Esfahâni, Kamâl-al-Din. Divân. Ed. H. Bahr-al-Olumi, Tehran, 1969. Esmat Bokhârâ’i. Divān. Ed. A. Karami, Tehran, 2003. Faghâni, Bâbâ. Divân-e ashʿ âr. Ed. A. Soheili Khwânsâri, Tehran, 1961. Farghâni, Seyf-e. Divân. Ed. Z. Safâ, Tehran, 1978. Farrokhi. Divân-e Farrokhi-ye Sistâni. Ed. M. Dabir-Siyâqi, Tehran, 1956; repr., 2 nd ed. Tehran, 1970. Fazl-Allâh, Rashid-al-Din. Jâmeʿ-al-tavârikh. Ed. B. Karimi, 1983. Ferdowsi, Abu-al-Qâsem. Shâhnâme. Ed. Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh et al., 12 vols. in 11, New York, 1987–2009; 8 vols. Persian text with 3 vols. Persian commentary. —. Shahnameh. The Persian Book of Kings. Tr. D. Davis, London, 2007.

606

Bibliography Ghazâli, Ahmad. Sawānih. Aphorismen über die Liebe. Ed. H. Ritter, Istanbul, 1942. —. Sawānih. Inspirations from the World of Pure Spirits. The Oldest Persian Sufi Treatise on Love. Tr. Naṣr-Allâh Purjavâdi, London, 1986. Hâfez. Divân-e Hâfez. Ed. M. Qazvini and Q. Ghani, Tehran, 1941, repr. 1980. —. Divān-e Ḥāfeẓ. Ed. P. N. Khânlari. 2 vols. Tehran, 1970; 2 nd ed., Tehran, 1983; repr. 1996. Hamgar, Majd-e. Divân. Ed. A. Karami, Tehran, 1996. Hasan, Seyyed. Divân-e Seyyed Hasan-e Ghaznavi. Ed. M. T. Mo­ darres-e Razavi, 2 nd printing, Tehran, 1983. Hâtef. Divân-e Hâtef-e Esfahâni. Eds. M. Shahrokhi and M. Alidust, Tehran, 1992. Hedâyat, Rezâ-Qoli Khan. Majmaʿ al-fosahâ. Ed. M. Mosaffâ. 6 vols. Tehran, 1957. Helâli Jaghatâ’i. Divân. Ed. S. Nafisi, Tehran, 1968. Homâ’i, Jalâl-al-Din. Fonun-e balâghat va Senâʿ ât-e adabi. 2 vols. Tehran, 1975. —. Mokhtâri-nâme. Tehran, 1981–82. —. Montakhabât-e akhlâq-e Nâseri (Selections from Nâseri Ethics). Tehran, 1941. Jabali. Divân-e Jabali. Ed. Z. Safâ, Tehran, 1960–61. Jâjarmi, Mohammad b. Badr. Mo’nes al-ahrâr fi daqâ’eq al-ashʿ âr. Ed. M. S. Tabibi. 2 vols. Tehran, 1958–71. Jâmi, ʿAbd-al-Rahmân. Nafahât al-ons. Ed. M. Towhidipur, Tehran, 1957. —. Divân-e kâmel-e Jâmi. Ed. H. Râzi, Tehran, 1961–62. —. Se resâle dar tasavvof. Ed. I. Afshar, Tehran, 1981. —. Kolliyât. Ed. S. S. Barilâvi, Tehran, 1982. —. Divân-e Jâmi. Ed. A.K Afsahzâd. 2 vols. Tehran, 1999. —. Bahârestân. Ed. A. K. Afsahzâd, Tehran, 2000. Jovayni, ʿAtâ-Malek Mohammad. Târikh-e Jahân-goshâ. Ed. M. Qazvini. 3 vols. Leiden, 1911. Kâshâni, Afzal-al-Din. Mossanafât. Eds. M. Minovi and Y. Mahdavi. 2 nd ed., Tehran, 1987. Kermâni, Khwâju. Divân-e ashʿ âr-e Khwâju-ye Kermâni. Ed. A. Soheili Khwânsâri. Tehran, 1957; repr. 1994. —. Divân. Ed. A. S. Khwânsâri. 2 nd printing. Tehran, 1990. Kermâni, Owhad-al-Din. Divân-e robâʿ iyyât. Ed. A. Abu Mahbub, Tehran, 1987. Keykâvus b. Eskandar b. Qâbus. Qâbus-nâme. Ed. G.-H. Yusofi, Tehran, 1966.

607

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Khâqâni Shervâni, Afzal-al-Din. Divân-e Khâqâni Shervâni. Ed. Z. D. Sajjâdi, Tehran, 1959 and reprs. Khatib Qazvini, Mohammad b. Abd-al-Rahmân. Izah fi’l-olum albalâgha. Ed. M. A. al-Khaffâji, Cairo, 1949. Khâtun, Jahân Malek. Divân-e kâmel. Eds. P. Kâshânirâd and K. Ahmad­ nezhâd, Tehran, 1995. Khayyâm, Omar. Robâʿ iyyât-e Khayyâm. Eds. M.-A. Foroughi and Q. Ghani, Tehran, 1942. —. Robâʿ iyyât-e Khayyâm. Ed. B. Khorramshâhi, Tehran, 1994. Khayyâmpur, A. Farahang-e sokhanvarân. Tehran, 1961. Khosrow Dehlavi, Amir. Divân-e kâmel. Ed. M. Darvish. 2 nd printing, Tehran, 1983. Khosrow, Nâser. Divân-e ashʿ âr. Ed. N.-A. Taqavi. Tehran, 1969. —. Safar-nâme. Ed. N. Vazinpur. 4 th printing, Tehran, 1979. Khwândmir, Ghiyâth-al-Din. Târikh-e Habib-al-Siyar. Ed. M. Dabir-­ Siyâqi. 3 vols. Tehran, 1953. Kord-Ali, Mohammad. Rasâ’el al-balaghât. Cairo, 1946. Kotobi, Mahmud. Târikh-e Âl-e Mozaffar. Ed. A.-H. Navâ’i, Tehran, 1985. Lahijâni, Shams-al-Din Mohammad. Sharh-e qaside Masihiye-ye Khâqâni. Ed. with commentary by Z. Sajjâdi. Farhang-e Irânzamin 17 (1969), pp. 244–360. Lâmeʿi. Divân. Ed. S. Nafisi, Tehran, 1940. —. Divân. Ed. M. Dabir-Siyâqi, Tehran, 1974. Lonbâni, Rafiʿ-al-Din. Divân. Ed. T. Binesh, Tehran, 1990. Ludi, Amir Shir-Ali Khan. Mer’ât al-khiyâl. Ed. M. M. K. M. Khan, Bombay, 1906. Manuchehri. Divân. Ed. M. Dabir-Siyâqi, Tehran, 1947; 3 rd ed., Tehran, 1968. Masʿud Khojandi, Kamâl-al-Din. Divân. Ed. A. Dowlatâbâdi, Tabriz, 1958. —. Divân. 2 vols. Ed. K. A. Sidfar, Moscow, 1975. Masʿud Tabrizi, Abu’l-Majd Mohammad b. Safine-ye Tabriz. Facsl. Ed., Tehran, 2003. Meyhani, Mohammad b. Monavvar-e. Asrâr al-towhid. Ed. M.-R. Shafiʿi-­ Kadkani, Tehran, 1987. Moʿezzi. Divân-e Amir Moʿezzi. Ed. A. Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, Tehran, 1939– 40; repr. 1959. —. Kolliyyât. Ed. N. Heyyeri, Tehran, 1983. Mohtasham of Kâshân. Divân-e Mowlânâ Mohtasham-e Kâshâni. Ed. M. A. Gorgâni, Tehran, 1965.

608

Bibliography Mokhtâri. Divân-e Othmân-e Mokhtâri. Ed. J. Homâ’i, Tehran, 1962. Mowlânâ Tabrizi, Homâm-al-Din. Divân. Ed. R. Eyvazi, Tehran, 1991. Nasavi, Shehâb-al-Din Mohammad Khorandazi Zaydari. Sirat-e Jalâlal-Din Minkoberni. Ed. M. Minovi, Tehran, 1965. Nezâmi. Khosrow o Shirin. Ed. V. Dastgerdi. 2 nd printing, Tehran, 1954. Nezâri Qohestâni. Divân. Ed. M. Mosaffâ, Tehran, 1992. Obayd Zâkâni. Kolliyât. Ed. P. Atâbaki, Tehran, 1957. —. Kolliyât. Ed. M.-J. Mahjub, New York, 1999. Key-Qâvus, Onsor al-Maʿâli. Qâbus-nâme. Ed. G.-H. Yusofi, Tehran, 1967. Onsori. Divân. Ed. M. Dabir-Siyâqi, Tehran, 1963; 2 nd ed., Tehran, 1970. Orfi Shirazi. Kolliyyât-e ashʿ âr. Ed. G.-H. Javâheri, Tehran, 1956. Otbi, Abu Nasr. Ta’rikh al-Yamini. 2 vols. Cairo, 1869. Owfi, Mohammad. Lobâb al-albâb. Eds. E. G. Browne and M. Qazvini. 2 vols. Leiden and London, 1903–6. —. Lobâb al-albâb. Ed. S. Nafisi, Tehran, 1956. Owhadi Marâqi Esfahâni. Divân. Ed. S. Nafisi, Tehran, 1961. Qarib, Yahyâ. Divân. 2 nd ed., Tehran, 1962. Qatrân. Divân-e hakim Qatrân-e Tabrizi. Ed. M. Nakhjavâni, Tabriz, 1954. Qodâma b. Jaʿfar. Naqd al-šiʿr. Ed. S. A. Bonebakker, Leiden, 1956. Qomri Âmoli, Serâj-al-Din. Divân. Ed. Y. Shokri, Tehran, 1989. Râmi Tabrizi, Sharaf-al-Din. Haqâ’eq al-hadâ’eq. Ed. S. M. K. Emâm, Tehran, 1962. Râvandi. Râhat al-sodur. Ed. M. Eqbâl, Tehran, 1983, reprint. Râzi, Ahmad-Amin. Haft eqlim. Ed. J. Fâzel. 3 vols. Tehran, n. d. Râzi, Najm-al-Din. Mersâd al-ebâd. Ed. M.-A. Riyâhi, Tehran, 1992. Râzi, Shams-e Qeys. Al-moʿ jam fi maʿ â’ire ashʿ âr al-ajam. Ed. M. Qaz­ vini. Leiden and London, 1909. Eds. M. Qazvini and M. Modarres Razavi. 2 nd ed., Tehran, 1956. Rudaki. Rudaki. Ed. K. K. Rahbar, Tehran, 1964. Rumi, Jalâl-al-Din. Selected Poems from the Dīvāni Shamsi Tabrīz. Tr. R. A. Nicholson, Cambridge, 1898. —. Mathnavi-ye Maʿnavi. Tr. R. A. Nicholson. 8 vols. London, 1925–40. —. Divân-e kabir. Ed. B. Foruzânfar. 10 vols. Tehran, 1957–67. —. Kolliyyât-e Shams. Ed. B. Foruzânfar, Tehran, 1963. Runi, Abu’l-Faraj. Divân. Ed. M. Mahdavi Dâmghâni, Tehran, 1968. Saʿdi, Mosleh-al-Din. Matn-e kâmel-e divân. Ed. M. Mosaffâ, Tehran, n. d. —. Ghazaliyyât-e Saʿ di. Ed. M.-A. Foroughi, Tehran, 1939.

609

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA —. Kolliyât-e Saʿ di. Ed. M.-A. Foroughi, Tehran, 1959; 2 nd ed., Tehran, 1977. —. Divân-e ghazaliyyât. Ed. K.-K. Rahbar. 2 vols. Tehran, 1987. —. Golestân. Ed. G.-H. Yusofi, Tehran, 1994. —. Kolliyât-e Saʿ di. Ed. K. Â. Motlaq, Tehran, 2006. —. Kolliyât-e Saʿ di. Ed. G.-H. Yusofi, Tehran, 2006. Sadr, Mozaffar. Sharh-e ahvâl-o âsâr-e Alâ al-Dowle Semnâni. Tehran, 1955. Salmân, Masʿud-e Saʿd-e. Divân. Ed. R. Yâsemi, Tehran, 1960. —. Divân, Ed. M. Nuriyân. 2 vols. Isfahan, 1985–86. —. Divân. Ed. M. Mahyâr, Tehran, 2011. Salmân-e Sâvaji. Divân-e Salmân-e Sâvaji. Ed. T. Tafazzoli, Tehran, 1958. Samarqandi, Mohammad b. Ali Zahiri. Sendbâd-nâme. Ed. A. Ateş, Tehran, 1983, reprint. Sanâʾi, Abu-al-Majd. Divân. Ed. M. T. Modarres-e Razavi. 2 nd ed., Tehran, 1962; repr., 1983. —. Hadiqat al-haqiqa wa sharʿ iat al-tariqa. Ed. M.T Modarres-e Razavi, Tehran, 1980. —. Divân-e hakim Sanâ’i Ghaznavi. Ed. P. Bâbâ’i and B. Foruzânfar, Tehran, 1996. —. Divân. Ed. M. Hoseyni, Tehran, 2003. Sâveji, Salmân-e. Divân. Ed. M. Moshfeq, Tehran, 1957. Serâji Khorâsâni. Divân. Ed. N. Ahmad, Aligarh, 1972. Serâj, Menhâj-e. Tabaqât-e Nâseri. Ed. A. Habibi. 2 vols. Kabul, 1964. Shabânkâre’i, Mohammad-Ali b. Mohammad. Majm’-al-ansâb. Ed. M.‑H. Mohaddeth, Tehran, 1984. Shervâni, Jamâl Khalil. Nozhat al-majâles. Ed. M. A. Riyâhi, Tehran, 1987. Shirâz, Mohammad Ahli. Kolliyyât-e ashʿ âr. Ed. H. Rabbâni, Tehran, 1964. Soltân Valad. Divân. Ed. S. Nafisi, Tehran, 1959. Suzani. Divân-e Suzani. Ed. N. Shâh-Hoseyni, Tehran, 1959. Tâher, Bâbâ. Bâbâ Tâher-nâme: hevdah goftâr va gozine-ye ashʿ âr. Ed. P. Adhkâ’i. Tehran, 1996. Târikh-e Sistân. Ed. M. T. Bahâr, Tehran, 1935. Tohfat al-Erâqayn. Ed. Y. Qarib, Tehran, 1954. Tohfat al-Erâqayn. Ed. A. A. Âq Qalʿa, Tehran, 2009. Tusi, Abu Mansur Ahmad Asadi. Loghat-e fors. Ed. M. Dabir-Siyâqi. Tehran, 1957. Tusi, Nasir-al-Din. Montakhabât-e akhlâq-e Nâseri. Tehran, 1941.

610

Bibliography Vali, Shâh Neʿmat Allâh. Divân. Ed. S. Nafisi, Tehran, 1996. Vatvât. Hadâ’eq al-sehr fi daqâ’eq al-sheʿr. Ed. A. Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, Tehran, 1930. —. Divân. Ed. S. Nafisi, Tehran, 1960. Vaziri, Ahmad Khan. Târikh-e Kermān. Ed. M. E. Bâstâni-Pârizi. 2 vols. 3 rd printing, Tehran, 1985. Yazdi, Jalâl Azod. Divân. Ed. A. Karami, Tehran, 1987.

Secondary Literature ʿAbdu’l-Ghani, Mohammad. A History of Persian Language and Literature at the Mughal Court. 2 vols., Allahabad, 1929–30. Abdullaeva, F. “The Bodleian manuscript of Asadī Ṭūsī’s Munāẓara between an Arab and a Persian: Its Place in the Transition from Ancient Debate to Classic Panegyric.” Iran 47 (2009), pp. 60–95. Âbedi, Amir Hasan. “Ash’âr-e tâze az Zahir Fâryâbi.” In I. Afshâr and K. Esfahâniân, eds., Nâmvâr-ye doktor Afshâr VI., Tehran, 1991, pp. 3561–91. Afshar, I. EIr, s. v. Fāl-nāma. Ahsan, Muhammad Manazir. Social Life Under the Abbasids, London, 1979. Akbari, M. Naqd va tahlil-e adabiyyât-e enqelâb-e eslâmi, Tehran, 1992. Alam, Mozaffar, et al. “The Pursuit of Persian: Language in Mughal Politics.” Modern Asian Studies 32/2 (1998), pp. 317–49. Alam, Mozaffar. The Making of Indo-Persian Culture: Indian and French Studies. New Delhi, 2000. Âl-e Dâvud, ʿAli. “Āl-e Sāʿed.” GIE, II, pp. 39–45. Algar, H. The Path of God’s Bondsmen from Origin to Return. Delmar, NY, 1982. Aminrazavi, M. The Wine of Wisdom. The Life, Poetry and Philosophy of Omar Khayyâm. Oxford, 2005. Amoretti, B. S. EIr, s. v. Alessandro Bausani. Angurâni, F. and Angurâni, Z., eds. Ketâb-shenâsi-ye Omar-e Khayyâm. Tehran, 2002. Arberry, A. J. “Orient Pearls at Random Strung.” BSOAS 11 (1943–46), pp. 699–712. —. The Rubâ’iyât of Jalâl al-Din Rumi. Selected Translations into English Verse. London, 1949.

611

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA —. The Rubâ’iyât of Omar Khayyâm. London, 1949. —. Fifty Poems of Ḥāfiẓ. Cambridge, 1953. —. The Koran Interpreted. A Translation. 2 vols. London and New York, 1955. —. Classical Persian Literature. London, 1958. —. The Romance of Rubâ’iyât. London, 1959. —. Arabic Poetry. A Primer for Students. Cambridge, 1965. —. Mystical Poems of Rūmī. 2 Vols. Chicago, 1969–79, reprint 1991. —. Edebiyât 1 (1976), pp. 153–70. Âryanpur, Yahyâ. Az Sabâ tâ Nimâ. 2 vols. Tehran, 1971. Ateş, A. İstanbul kütüphanelerinde Farsça manzum eserler. Istanbul, 1968. Avery, P., tr. The Collected Lyrics of Háfiz of Shíráz. Cambridge, 2007. Âzâd-e Belgrâmi, G. Khazâne-ye ʿ âmere. Kanpur, n. d. Babai, Sussan. EIr, s. v. Epigraphy iv. Safavid and Later Inscriptions. Backman, E. L. Religious Dances in the Christian Church and in Popular Medicine. Westport, Conn., 1952. Bahâr, Mohammad-Taqi. Armaghân 17 (1936), pp. 181–88, 254–62. —. Sabk-shenâsi. 3 vols. Tehran, 1942. 2 nd ed., Tehran, 1958. Bâkharzi, Abu’l-Mafâkher Yahyâ. Owrâd al-ahbâb wa fosus al-âdâb. Ed. I. Afshar. 2 nd printing, Tehran, 1966. Bauer, T. Liebe und Liebesdichtung in der arabischen Welt des 9. und 10. Jahr­ hunderts. Eine literatur- und mentalitätsgeschichtliche Studie des arabischen Ġazal. Wiesbaden, 1998. Bausani, A. “Letteratura Neopersiana.” In A. Pagliaro and A. Bausani, eds., Storia della letteratura persiana. 2 vols. Milan, 1960. —. EI2, “Hidjâ’ ii. Persia.” Beelaert, A. L. A Cure for the Grieving. Studies on the Poetry of the 12 th-Century Persian Court Poet Khaqani Sirwani. Leiden, 2000. —. EI2, s. v. Sayyid Ḥasan Ghaznawī. —. EIr, s. v. Kāqāni Šervāni. Bell, G., tr. The Hafez Poems of Gertude Bell. Bethesda, MD, 1975. Bernardini, M., ed. La civiltà timuride come fenomeno internazionale. Oriente Moderno 15/2. Rome, 1996. Bertel’s, E. E. Sufizm i sufijskaja literaruta. Moscow, 1965. Biegstraaten, J. EIr, s. v. Khayyam, Omar xi. Impact on the Literary and Social Scene Abroad. Bivar, A. D. H. “Manuchihri’s Mâzandarân Ode: An English Version.” JRAS (1990), pp. 54–63. Blum, S. EIr, s. v. Do-beyti.

612

Bibliography Bogdanov, L. “The Quatrains of Jalâl-al-din Rumi.” JRASB 1.2 (1935), pp. 65–80. Borhâni, Mehdi. “Nazari enteqâdi bar madihe-sarâ’i dar Divân-e Hâfez.” In N. Kermâni, ed., Hâfez-shenâsi, Tehran, 1987. Bosworth, C. E. “Mahmud of Ghazna in Contemporary Eyes and in Later Persian Literature.” Iran 4 (1966), pp. 85–92. —. The Later Ghaznavids. Splendour and Decay. The Dynasty in Afghanistan and Northern India, 1040–1186, New York, 1977. —. “Farrukhī’s Elegy on Mahmūd of Ghazna.” Iran 29 (1991), pp. 43–49. —. The New Islamic Dynasties, New York, 1996. —. EI2, “Djand.” —. EI2, s. v. Laḳab. —. EI2, s. v. Malik-shāh. —. EI2, s. v. Niẓām al-Molk. Bosworth, C. E., tr. and Ashtiany, M., rev. The History of Beyhaqi. 3 vols. Cambridge, Mass., 2011. Bourdieu, P. Les règles de l’art. Genèse et structure du champ littéraire, Paris, 1992. Boyce, M. “The Parthian Gōsān and Iranian Minstrel Tradition.” JRAS 1/2 (1957), pp. 10–45. —. “Middle Persian Literature.” HdO 2/1 (1968), 31–79. Brookshaw, D. P. “Palaces, Pavilions and Pleasure-gardens: the Context and Setting of the Medieval Majlis.” Middle Eastern Literatures 6/2 (2003), pp. 199–223. —. “Odes of the Poet Princess: the Ghazals of Jahān-Malik Khātun.” Iran 43 (2005), pp. 173–95. —. EIr, s. v. Jahān-Malek Kātun. Bürgel, J. C. “Qasida as Discourse on Power and Its Islamization: Some Reflections.” In S. Sperl and C. Shackle, eds., Qasida Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa. 2 vols. Leiden, 1996, I, pp. 451–74. Calmard, J. EI2, “Mihragân.” Chelkowski, P. EIr, s. v. Dāneš. Chittick, W. EIr, s. v. Bābā Afzal al-Din. —. EIr, s. v. ‘Erāqī, Fakr-al-Dīn Ebrāhīm. Christensen, A. Critical Studies in the Rubâ’iyât of ‘Umar-i-Khayyâm, Copenhagen, 1927. —. “La coupe magique.” In idem, Les types du premier homme et du premier roi dans l’histoire légendaire des Iraniens. 2 vols. Leiden, 1934. Clinton, J. W. The Divân of Manūchihrī Dāmghānī. A Critical Study. Minneapolis, Minn., 1972.

613

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA —. “The Madāen Qaṣida of Xāqāni Sharvāni, II: Xāqāni and al-Buhturī.” Edebiyât 2/1 (1977), pp. 191–206. —. EI2, s. v. Lāmiʿī. —. EI2, “Manuchihri.” Correale, D. M. EIr, s. v. Hâfez iv. Lexical Structure of Hâfez’s Ghazals. Correale, D. M. and Zipoli, R. The Collected Lirica Persica, Venice, 1998. Coumans, J. The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. An Updated Bibliography, Leiden, 2010. Crone, Patricia and Jafari, Masoud Jazi. “The Muqannaʿ Narrative in the Tārīkhnāma.” Part I, BSOAS 73/2 (2010), pp. 157–77. —. “The Muqannaʿ Narrative in the Tārīkhnāma.” Part II, BSOAS 73/3 (2010), pp. 381–413. Dâghestâni, Ali-Qoli Khan. Riyâz al-shoʿarâ. Ed. S. H. Qasemi, Rampur, 2001. D’Ambrosio, V.-M. Eliot Possessed. T. S. Eliot and FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát, New York, 1989. Dânesh, H. Robâʿ iyât-e Omar-e Khayyâm. Ed. and tr. T. H. Sobhâni, Tehran, 2000. Dankoff, R. “The Lyric in the Romance: The Use of Ghazals in Persian and Turkish Masnavīs.” JNES 43 (1984), pp. 9–25. Dashti, A. Qalamrow-e Saʿ di, Tehran, 1960. —. “Nasabnâme-ye yek ghazal-e Hâfez.” In Naqshi az Hâfez. 4 th printing, Tehran, 1963. —. Dami bâ Khayyâm, Tehran, 1998. Dastgerdi, V. Ganjine-ye Ganjavi, Tehran, 1939. Davis, D. Vis and Ramin, Washington, DC, 2008. —. Faces of Love. Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz, New York, 2012. —. EIr, s. v. Fitzgerald, Edward. Davood, Âl-e. “Âl-e Sâʿed.” GIE, II, pp. 44–45. de Blois, F. Persian Literature. A Bio-bibliographical Survey. 5 vols. London, 1994–2004. —. “Textual Problems of Early Persian Dīwāns.” HPL V (1999), pp. 603–9. —. EI2, “Rashīd al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Djalīl al-­ ʿUmarī, known as Waṭwāṭ.” —. EI2, “Ṣābir b. Ismāʿīl al-Tirmidhī.” de Bruijn, J. T. P. Of Piety and Poetry. The Interaction of Religion and Literature in the Life and Works of Ḥakīm Sanāʾī of Ghazna, Leiden, 1983. —. “The Transmission of Early Persian Ghazals (with Special Reference to the Dīvān of Sanaī’ī).” Manuscripts of the Middle East 3 (1988), pp. 27–31.

614

Bibliography —. “The Qalandariyyât in Persian Mystical Poetry, from Sanā’ī Onwards.” In L. Lewisohn, ed., The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufism. London and New York, 1992, pp. 75–86. —. Persian Sufi Poetry. An Introduction to the Mystical Use of Classical Poems, Richmond, 1997. —. “The Name of the Poet in Classical Persian Poetry.” In C. Melville, ed., Proceedings of the Third European Conference of Iranian Studies held in Cambridge, 11 to 15 September 1995. Societas Iranologica Europaea. 2. Wiesbaden, 1999, pp. 45–56. —. “Chains of Gold: Jāmī’s Defence of Poetry.” Journal of Turkish Studies. Essays in Honour of Barbara Flemming 26/1 (2002), pp. 81–92. —. “Anvarī and the Ghazal: an Exploration.” In D. Meneghini, ed., Studies on the Poetry of Anvari, Venice, 2006, pp. 9–36. —. “Persian Literature as a Tradition.” HPL I (2009), pp. 18–22. —. EI2, “Chronograms,” V, pp. 550–51. —. EI2, “Hâfez’s Poetic Art,” XI, pp. 469–74. —. EI2, “Iran. vii. Literature.” —. EI2, s. v. Takhalluṣ. —. EI2, “ʿUbayd-i Zākānī,” X, pp. 764–65. —. EI2, Suppl., s. v. Abū’l-Faradj Rūnī. —. EI2, Suppl., s. v. ʿAmʿaḳ. —. EI2, Suppl., s. v. Ḥabsiyyāt. —. EI2, Suppl., s. v. ʿImād al-Dīn ‘Alī. —. EIr, s. v. Beloved. —. EIr, “Court and Courtiers X. Court Poetry,” VI/4, pp. 384–88. —. EIr, s. v. Elegy. —. EIr, s. v. Emād-al-Dīn Faqīh. —. EIr, s. v. Epigram. —. EIr, s. v. Farrokī Sīstānī. —. EIr, s. v. Hâfez iii. Hâfez’s Poetic Art. —. EIr, s. v. Shahrangīz. de Fouchécour, C.-H. La description de la nature dans la poésie lyrique persane du XIe siècle, Paris, 1969. —. EI2, s. v. Rubāʿī. de Fouchécour, C.-H and Rosenfeld, B. A. EI2, s. v. ‘Umar Khayyām. Dehbâshi, A. Mey-o minâ: seyri dar zengedi va âthâr-e hakim Omar Khayyâm-e Neyshâburi, Tehran, 2004. Dehghan, Iraj. EI2, “Khwādjū,” IV, pp. 909–10. Dehkhodâ, Ali-Akbar. Loghat-nâme. 50 vols. Tehran, 1946–81. de Khânikof, N. “Mémoire sur Khâqâni, poëte persan du XIIe siècle,” JA 6/4 (1864), pp. 167–200.

615

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA —. “Mémoire sur Khâqâni, poëte persan du XIIe siècle,” JA 6/5 (1865), pp. 296–367. de Weese, D. A. “Stuck in the Throat of Chingiz Khan: Envisioning the Mongol Conquests in Some Sufi Accounts from the 14 th to 17 th Centuries.” In J. E. Woods, J. Pfeiffer, and S. A. Quinn, eds., History and Historiography of Post-Mongol Central Asia and the Middle East, Wiesbaden, 2006. Durand-Guédy, D. Iranian Elites and Turkish Rulers: A History of Iṣfahān in the Saljūq Period, New York, 2010. —. “Where Did the Saljūqs Live? A Case Study Based on the Reign of Sultan Masʿūd b. Muḥammad (1134–1152).” Studia Iranica 40 (2011), pp. 211–58. —. EIr, s. v. Kamāl al-Din Esfahāni. During, J. Musique et mystique dans les traditions de l’Iran, Paris and Tehran, 1989. El-Rouyaheb, K. Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500–1800, Chicago, 2005. Elwell-Sutton, L. P. “The ‘Rubā’ī’ in Early Persian Literature.” CHIr IV (1975), pp. 633–57. —. The Persian Metres, Cambridge, 1976. —. EIr, s. v. Arberry, Arthur John. Eqbâl Âshtiyâni, Abbâs. Târikh-e Mofassal-e Iran. Tehran, 1962. Ethé, C. H. “Über persische Tenzonen.” In Verhandlungen des fünften inter­nationalen Orientalisten-Congresses. Berlin, 1882, II/1, pp. 48–135. —. Catalogue of Persian, Turkish, Hindûstânî, and Pushtû Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library. 2 vols. Oxford, 1889–1930. —. “Neupersische Litteratur.” In W. Geiger and E. Kuhn, eds., Grund­ riss der iranischen Philologie II. Strassburg, 1904, pp. 263–65. Farzâneh, M. Naqd va Barresi-ye robaʿ ihâ-ye Omar Khayyâm, Tehran, 1977. Feuillebois-Pierunek, E. À la croisée des voies célestes. Faxr al-Din ʿErâqi, poésie mystique et expression poétique en Perse medieval, Tehran, 2002. Ferdowsi, A. “The ‘Emblem of the Manifestation of the Iranian Spirit’: Hafiz and the Rise of the National Cult of Persian Poetry.” Iranian Studies 41 (2008), pp. 667–91. Fitzgerald, E., tr. The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, New York, 1996. Foroughi, M.-A. Robâiyyât-e Omar Khayyâm. Ed. A. Jorbozehdâr, Tehran, 1992. Foruzânfar, Badiʿ-al-zamân. Sokhan va sokhanvarân. 2 nd ed., Tehran, 1971.

616

Bibliography Fragner, B. G. “Ilkhanid Rule and Its Contributions to Iranian Political Culture.” In L. Komaroff, ed., Beyond the Legacy of Genghis Khan. Leiden and Boston, 2006, pp. 68–80. Freeman-Grenville, G. S.P. EI2, “Nawruz.” Frye, R. N. “Turks in the Middle East before the Saljuqs.” JAOS 63/3 (1943), pp. 194–207. —. Bukhara: The Medieval Achievement. 2 nd ed., Costa Mesa, Calif., 1997. Gamard, Ibrahim and Farhadi, Rawan. The Quatrains of Rumi: Complete translation with Persian Text, Islamic Mystical Commentary, Manual of Terms, and Concordance, San Rafael, CA, 2008. Gardizi, Abd-al-Hayy. Zeyn al-akhbâr. Ed. A.-H. Habibi, Tehran, 1968. Ghani, Q. Bahth dar âthâr va afkâr va ahvâl-e Hâfez. 2 vols. Tehran, 1942–43. Gibb, E. J.W. A History of Ottoman Poetry. 6 vols. London, 1900–9. Gilâni, A. E. Shâʿerân-e hamʿasr-e Rudaki, Tehran, 1991. Gitiforuz, Ali Mohammad. “Barrasi-ye shivehâ va shegerdhâ-ye Badr-e Chachi dar ihâm sâzi va eshârat pardâzi bâ mafâhim va mostalahât-e nojumi.” In Majmuʿe maqâlât-e chahârdahomin kongere-ye tahqiqat-e Irani 5 (1974), pp. 247–68. Glunz, M. Die panegyrische qaṣīda bei Kamāl ud-Dīn Ismāʿīl aus Isfahan, Stuttgart, 1993. —. “Poetic Tradition and Social Change: The Persian Qasida in Post-­ Mongol Iran.” In S. Sperl and C. Shackle, eds., Qasida Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa. 2 vols. Leiden, 1996, I, pp. 189–203. Golchin-Maʿâni, A. Shahrâshub dar sheʿr-e fârsi, Tehran, 1967. —. EI2, s. v. Shahrangīz. Hägg, T. and Utas, B. The Virgin and her Lover: Fragments of an Ancient Greek Novel and a Persian Epic Poem, Leiden, 2003. Hâli, A.-H. Hayât-e Saʿ di, Tehran, 1937. Hanaway, W. L. “Blood and Wine: Sacrifice and Celebration in Manu­ chihri’s Wine Poetry.” Iran 26 (1988), pp. 69–80. —. EI2, “Marthiya. 2. In Persian Literature.” Hanaway, W. L. and Lewisohn, L. EIr, s. v. Homām-al-Dīn. Haqqshenâs, A. M. “Hâfez-shenâsi: khod-shenâsi.” Nashr-e Dânesh 3, Part 4 (1983), pp. 26–36. Hedâyat, Rezâ-qoli Khân, Majmaʿ al-fosahâ. 2 vols. Tehran, 1878. Hedâyat, S. Robâʿ iyât-e Omar-e Khayyâm, Tehran, 1923. Heinrichs, W. “Prosimetrical Genres in Classical Arabic Literature.” In J. Harris and K. Reichl, eds., Prosimetrum. Crosscultural Perspectives on Narrative in Prose and Verse, Cambridge, 1997, pp. 249–76. —. EI2, s. v. Radīf.

617

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Heron-Allen, E. The Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyâm, London, 1898. Hillman, M. C. Unity in the Ghazals of Hafez, Minneapolis and Chicago, 1976. Homâ’i, J. D. Khayyâmi-nâme, Tehran, 1967. Houtsma, M. T. “Some Remarks on the Dīwān of Niẓāmī.” In T. W. Arnold and R. A. Nicholson, eds., ’Ajab-nâme, Cambridge, 1922, pp. 224–27. Jackson, P. The Delhi Sultanate. A Political and Military History, Cambridge, 1999. —. EI2, “Jalāyerids,” XIV, pp. 415–19. —. EI2, “Muẓaffarids,” VII, pp. 820–22. Jacobi, R. EI2, s. v. Nasīb. Jalâli Nâ’ini, M.-R. “Teymuriyân-e Iran va Hend.” Nashriyye-ye vezârat-e omur-e khâreje 2/9. Tehran, 1959, pp. 49–58. Jâvid, H. Hâfez-e jâvid, Tehran, 1996. Jones, W. Grammar of the Persian Language, London, 1771. Karamustafa, A. T. God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later Middle Period 1200–1550, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1994. Kâseb, Azizollah. Chashmandâz-e târikhi-ye hajv, Tehran, 1987. Kazzâzi, Mir Jalâl-al-din. Rokhsâr-e sobh, Tehran, 1989. —. Gozâresh-e doshvârihâ-ye divân-e Khâqâni. 2 nd ed., Tehran, 2006. Keshavarz, F. Reading Mystical Lyric. The Case of Jalal-al-Din Rumi, Columbia, S. C., 1998. Keyvani, M. Artisans and Guild Life in the Later Safavid Period: Contribution to the Social-Economic History of Persia, Berlin, 1982. Khan, Ghulam Mustafa. “A History of Bahram Shah.” Islamic Culture 23 (1949), pp. 200–4. Khânlari, P. N. Sokhan 5 (1953–54), pp. 736–41. Khorramshahi, Bahâ-al-Din. “Haqq-e Saʿdi be-gardan-e Hâfez.” In Dhekr-e jamil-e Saʿ di. Tehran, 1985, pp. 303–34. —. Hâfez-nâme. 2 vols. Tehran, 1987. —. EIr, s. v. Hafez ii. Hafez’s Life and Times. —. EIr, s. v. Hafez vi. Printed Editions of the Divān of Hafez. King, L. W., tr. Badâyeʿ. The Odes of Shaikh Muslihu-’d-Din Saʿ dī Shi­ rāzī, Berlin, 1925. Kirkpatrick, W., tr. “The Tears of Khorasan.” In The Asiatick Miscellany. 2 vols. Calcutta, 1785. Korangy, A. Development of the Ghazal and Khāqānī’s Contribution. A Study of the Development of Ghazal and a Literary Exegesis of a 12 th c. Poetic Harbinger. Wiesbaden, 2013. Kotobi, Mahmud. Târikh-e Âl-e Mozaffar. Ed. A.-H. Navâ’i, Tehran, 1985.

618

Bibliography Kreyenbroek, P. G. EIr, s. v. Folk Poetry. Lazard, G. La langue des plus anciens monuments de la prose persane, Paris, 1963. —. Les premiers poètes persans (IXe-Xe siècles). Fragments rassemblés, édités et traduits. 2 vols. Tehran and Paris, 1964. —. “The Rise of the New Persian Language.” CHIr IV (1975), pp.  595–632. —, tr. Hâfez de Chiraz. Cent un ghazals amoureux, Paris, 2010. Lescot, R. “Essai d’une chronologie de l’oeuvre de Hafiz.” Bulletin d’études orientales. Institut français de Damas 10 (1943–44), pp. 59–62. Lewis, F. D. “Reading, Writing, and Recitation: Sanâ’i and the Origins of the Persian Ghazal.” Ph. D. diss. 2 vols. University of Chicago, 1995. —. “The Rise and Fall of a Persian Refrain: The Radīf Ātash u Āb.” In S. P. Stetkevych, ed., Reorientations/Arabic and Persian Poetry. Bloomington and Indianapolis, Ind., 1994, pp. 199–226. —. Rumi. Past and Present, East and West, Oxford, 2000. —. EIr, s. v. Hâfez viii. Hafez and Rendi. Lewisohn, L. ed. A Critical Edition of the Divan of Muhammad Shirin Maghribi, London, 1993. Loloi, Parvin. Hâfiz. Master of Persian Poetry. A Critical Bibliography: English Translations Since the Eighteenth Century, London, 2004. Losensky, P. E. “‘The Allusive Field of Drunkenness’: Three Safavid-­ Moghul Responses to a Lyric by Baba Fighani.” In S. P. Stetkevych, ed., Reorientations/Arabic and Persian Poetry. Bloomington and Indiana­polis, Ind., 1994, pp. 227–62. —. “Linguistic and Rhetorical Aspects of the Signature Verse (Takhalluṣ) in the Persian Ghazal.” Edebiyât 8 (1998), pp. 239–71. —. Welcoming Fighānī. Imitation and Poetic Individuality in the Safavid-­ Mughal Ghazal. Costa Mesa, Calif., 1998. —. EIr, s. v. Moḥtašam Kāšāni. Ludi, Amir Shir-Ali Khan. Mer’ât al-khiyâl. Ed. Mirza Mohammad Khan Malek-al-Kottâb al-Mokhâteb Khan, Bombay, 1906. Macuch, M. “Pahlavi Literature.” HPL XVII (2008), pp. 116–96. Maʿdankan, Maʿsume. Bazm-e dirine-ye ‘arus. 2 nd ed., Tehran, 1999. Mahjub, Mohammad-Jaʿfar. Sabk-e Khorâsâni, Tehran, 1967. —. “Qaside, the Oldest Persian Poetical Form.” Talâsh 23 (1970), pp. 34–39. Manoukian, S. L’argento di un povere cuore. Centouno ghazal di Saʿ di Shirāzi. Rome, 1991. Manoukian, S. and Zipoli, R. Saʿ di: Concordance and Lexical Repertories of 1000 Lines. Venice, 1992. Manz, B. F. The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane, Cambridge, 1993. Mashreqi, Shams-al-Din. Divân. Ed. A. Mir-Âbedini, Tehran, 2003.

619

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Massignon, L. and Gardet, L. EI2, s. v. al-Ḥallādj. Meier, F. Die schöne Mahsatī. Ein Beitrag der Geschichte des persischen Vierzeilers. 2 vols. Wiesbaden, 1963. —. Abū Sa’īd-i Abū’l-Hayr (357–440/967–1049): Wirklichkeit und Legende, Leiden, 1976. Meisami, J. S. “The World’s Pleasance: Ḥāfiẓ’s Allegorical Gardens.” Comparative Criticism 5 (1983), pp. 153–85. —. “Allegorical Gardens in the Persian Poetic Tradition: Nezami, Rumi, Hafez.” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 17 (1985), pp. 229–60. —. Medieval Persian Court Poetry, Princeton, 1987. —. “Mixed Prose and Verse in Medieval Persian Literature.” In J. Harris and K. Reichl, eds., Prosimetrum. Crosscultural Perspectives on Narrative in Prose and Verse. Cambridge, 1997, pp. 295–319. —. “Medieval Ghaznavid Panegyrics: Some Political Implications.” Iran 28 (1990), pp. 39–42. —. “Poetic Microcosms: the Persian Qasida to the End of the Twelfth Century.” In S. Sperl and C. Shackle, eds., Qasida Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa. 2 vols. Leiden, 1996, I, pp. 173–82. —. “Imagery as an Argument: Khāqānī’s Qaṣīda to the Sharvānshāh on the Occasion of ‘Īd al-Fiṭr.” Edebiyat 9 (1998), pp. 35–39. —. “Palaces and Paradises: Palace Description in Medieval Persian Poetry.” In O. Grabar and C. Robinson, eds., Islamic Art and Literature, Princeton, 2001. —. Structure and Meaning in Medieval Arabic and Persian Poetry. Orient Pearls, London, 2003. —. “Genres of Court Literature.” HPL I (2009), pp. 233–69. —. EI2, s. v. Muʿizzī. —. EI2, s. v. Mukhtārī. —. EIr, s. v. Hâfez v. Manuscripts of Hâfez. Melikian-Chirvani, A. S. “L’évocation littéraire du bouddhisme dans l’Iran musulman.” In J. Aubin, ed., Le monde iranien et l’Islam. 2 vols. Geneva and Paris, 1971, 1974. Melville, C. P. The Fall of Amir Chupan and the Decline of the Ilkhanate, 1327–1337. A Decade of Discord in Mongol Iran. Papers on Inner Asia (no. 30), Bloomington, Ind., 1999. —. EI2, “Sarbadārids,” IX, pp. 47–49. Melville, C. P. and Zaryâb, ʿAbbâs. EI2, “Chubānids,” V, pp. 496–502. Meneghini, D. “Il Moxtârnâme di ‘Attâr: profazione e capitol nono su Heyrat Sargashtegi.” In M. Bernardini and N. L. Tornesello,

620

Bibliography eds., Scritti in onore Giovanni M. D’Erme. 2 Vols. Naples, 2005, II, pp. 709–31. —, ed. Studies on the Poetry of Anvari. Venice, 2006. —. “Anvari Speaking of Poetry in His Qeṭʿes.” In idem, ed., Studies on the Poetry of Anvari. Venice, 2006, pp. 37–76. —. EIr, s. v. Moktār-nāma. Minorsky, V. “Khāqānī and Andronicus Comnenus.” BSOAS 11 (1945), pp. 550–78. —. “Pûr-i bahâ’s Mongol Ode.” BSOAS 18 (1956), pp. 261–78. —. Iranica. Twenty Articles, Tehran, 1964. Minovi, M. “Ejtemâʿ-e kavâkeb dar sâl-e 582.” MDAT 2/4 (1955), pp. 16–53. Mir-Afzali, Sayyed Ali. “Barresi-ye Nozhat al-majâles (bakhsh-e avval).” Maʿ âref 14.1 (1997), pp. 90–147. —. “Barresi-ye Nozhat al-majâles (bakhsh-e dovvom).” Maʿ âref 14.2 (1997), pp. 135–80. —. “Âyâ mokhtâr-nâme az Attâr ast?” Nashr-e Dânesh 17.1 (2000), pp. 32–43. —. Robâʿ iyyât-e Khayyâm dar manâbeʿ-e kohan. Tehran, 2004. Mirza, M. W. The Life and Works of Amir Khusrau, Calcutta, 1935. Mirzoev, A. Rudaki i rozvitiye gazeli v X–XI vv. Stalinabad, 1958. Modarres, Mohammad-Ali, Reyhânat-al-Adab. 8 vols. Tehran, n. d. Moʿin, Mohammad. Majmuʿe-maqâlat-e doktor Mohammad Moʿ in. 2 vols. Ed. M. Moʿin, Tehran, 1985–88. —. Hâfez-e Shirin Sokhan. 2 vols. Ed. M. Moʿin, Tehran, 1990. Mojaddedi, J. EIr, s. v. Ḥallāj. Montgomery, J. E. “Tardiyya.” In J. S. Meisami and P. Starkey, eds., Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, London, 1998. Morgan, D. “The Mongol Empire in World History.” In L. Komaroff, ed., Beyond the Legacy of Genghis Khan, Leiden and Boston, 2006, pp. 425–38. Mortazavi, M. Maktab-e Hâfez, Tehran, 1965. Morton, A. H. “The Mu’nis al-ahrâr and Its Twenty-ninth Chapter.” In M. L. Swietochowski and S. Carboni, eds., Illustrated Poetry and Epic Images. Persian Painting of the 1330 s and 1340 s, New York, 1994, pp. 49–66. Moʿtaman, Zayn-al-Âbedin. Sheʿr o adab-e Fârsi, Tehran, 1953. Mottahedeh, R. P. Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society. 2 nd ed., London and New York, 2001. Nafisi, Sayyed, ed. Divân-e qasâyed va ghazaliyyât, Tehran, 1958. —. Mohit-e zendegi va ahval va ašar-e Rudaki. 2 nd ed., Tehran, 1962. —. “Khânedân-e Sâʿediyyân.” In Mélanges d’orientalisme offerts à Henri Massé. Tehran, 1963, pp. 85–101.

621

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA —. Târikh-e nazm o nathr dar Iran va dar zabân-e Fârsi, Tehran, 1965. —. EI2, s. v. Rūdakī. Nasim, K. B. The Life and Works of Hakim Auhad-ud-Din Anwari, Lahore, 1967. Navarre, J. EIr, s. v. Herron-Allen, Edward. Nāẓim, Muḥammad. The Life and Times of Sulṭān Maḥmūd of Ghazna, Cambridge, 1931. Neysari, S. Moqaddeme-i bar tadvin-e ghazalhâ-ye Hâfez, Tehran, 1988. Nicholson, R. A. Studies in Islamic Mysticism, London, 1978. Nikubakht, Nâser. Hajv dar sheʿr-e fârsi, Tehran, 2001. Nizami, Khaliq Ahmad. Royalty in Medieval India, New Delhi, 1997. Orsatti, P. “Anvari’s Qaṣides as Letters and the Problem of Identifying the Addressee.” In D. Meneghini, ed., Studies on the Poetry of Anvari, Venice, 2006, pp. 79–109. Pagliaro, A. and Bausani, A. La letteratura persiana, Milan, 1968. Palmer, E. H. The Song of the Reed and Other Pieces, London, 1877. Pannewick, F., ed. Martyrdom in Literature. Visions of Death and Meaningful Suffering in Europe and the Middle East from Antiquity to Modernity, Wiesbaden, 2004. Pedersen, J. EI2, “Âdam.” Pellat, C. EI2, “Hidj.” Piemontese, A. “The Girdle Figured in the Persian Intextus Poem.” In E. Emery, ed., Muwashshah: Proceedings of the Conference on Arabic and Hebrew Strophic Poetry and its Romance Parallels. School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). London, 8–10 October 2004, London, 2006, pp. 173–95. Potter, A. G. A Bibliography of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, together with kindred matter in prose and verse pertaining thereto, London, 1929; repr. 1994. Potter, L. G. “Herat under the Karts: Social and Political Forces.” In N. Yavari et al., eds., Views from the Edge: Essays in Honor of Richard W. Bulliet, New York, 2004, pp. 184–207. Purjavâdi, Nar-Allâh. “Resâle-i dar estelehât-e erfâni.” Maʿ âref 2/3, (1986), pp. 3–17. —. Zabân-e hâl dar erfân va adabiyyât-e pârsi. Tehran, 2006. Purjavâdi, Reza. “Ketâbshenâsi-ye âthâr-e Jalâl al-Din Davâni.” Maʿ âref 15/1–2 (1998), pp. 81–138. Qazvini, Mohammad. “A Qasida by Rudaki.” JRAS 2 (1926), pp. 213–37. —. Athâr al-Belâd, Beirut, 1960. Quchâni, A. “Sofâlgarân-e Kâshân va she’r-e fârsi.” Nashr-e dânesh 14.6 (1994), pp. 31–40.

622

Bibliography Rahman, M. L. Persian Literature in India during the Time of Jahangir and Shah Jahan, Baroda, 1970. Reinert, B. Haqani als Dichter. Poetische Logik und Phantasie, Berlin and New York, 1972. —. “Die prosodische Unterschiedlichkeit von persischem und arabischem Rubā’ī.” In R. Gramlich, ed., Islamwissenschaftliche Abhandlungen. Wiesbaden, 1974, pp. 205–24. —. “Notizen zum Stammbaum des persischen Vierzeilers.” In G. Schubert and R. Würsch, eds. Die schöne Mahsatī: der Volksroman über Mahsatī und Amīr Aḥmad, Leiden and Boston, 2005. —. EIr, s. v. ʿAṭṭār. —. EIr, s. v. Khākānī. Rempis, C. Beiträge zur Ḫayyām-Forschung, Leipzig, 1937. Richard, F. EIr, s. v. Forgeries iv. Of Islamic Manuscripts. Rieu, C. Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum. Supplement. London, 1895. Ritter, H. Über die Bildersprache Niẓāmīs, Berlin, 1927. —. “Zur Frage der Echtheit der Vierzeiler ‘Omar Chajjāms.” Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 32 (1929), pp. 156–63. —. “Philologika. X. Faridaddin Attâr.” Der Islam 25 (1938), pp. 134–73. —. Das Meer der Seele. Leiden, 1955; tr. J. O’Kane as The Ocean of the Soul, Leiden and Boston, 2003. —. “Philologika XV. Farīddīn ʿAttār 7. Der Dīwān.” Oriens 12 (1959), pp. 1–88. Riyâhi, Mohammad Amin. Kesâ’i Marvazi: zendegi, andishe va sheʿr-e u. Tehran, 1988. —. Zabân o adab-e pârsi dar qalamrov-e ‘Othmâni, Tehran, 1990. Roemer, H. R. “Probleme der Hafizforschung und der Stand ihrer Lösung.” In Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur. Abhandlungen der Klasse der Literatur. Mainz, 1951, pp. 97–115. Ross, E. D. “Al-Muzaffariyé: Containing a Recent Contribution to the Study of ‘Omar Khayyām.” JRAS 30 (1898), pp. 349–66. Rypka, J. Armaghân 16/1 (1935). —. “Ḫāqānīs Madā’in-Qaṣīde rhetorisch beleuchtet.” Archiv Orientální 27 (1959), pp. 199–205. —. “Poets and Prose Writers of the Late Saljuq and Mongol Periods.” CHIr V (1968), pp. 594–601. Rypka, J. and Borecký, M. “Labibi.” Archiv Orientální 14 (1943), pp.  261–307. Sadarangani, H. I. Persian Poets of Sind, Karachi, 1956. —. Pârsiguyân-e hend va Send, Tehran, 1976. Safâ, Dhabih-Allāh. Târikh-e adabiyyât dar Irân. 5 Vols. Tehran, 1956–91.

623

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA —. Ganj-e sokhan. 3 Vols. Tehran, 1968. —. EIr, s. v. Andarz: Andarz Literature in New Persian. —. EIr, s. v. Badiʿ. —. EIr, s. v. Hâtef, Sayyed Ahmad Esfahâni. —. EIr, s. v. Hamgar, Majd-al-Din. Saʿid, Abu. Hâlât va sokhanân-e Sheykh Abu Saʿ id Fazl Allâh ibn Abi ’l-Kheyr al-Meyhani. Ed. V. A. Zhukovsky. Petersburg, 1899. Sajjâdi, Ziyâ-al-Din, ed. Havâshi doctor Mohammad Moʿ in bar ashʿ âr-e Khâqâni -ye Shervân, Tehran, 1979. Schimmel, A. “Turk and Hindu: A Literary Symbol.” Acta Iranica 3 (1974), pp. 243–48. —. Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill, NC, 1975. —. The Triumphal Sun, London and The Hague, 1978. —. A Dance of Sparks. Imagery of Fire in Ghaleb’s Poetry, London, 1979. —. As Through a Veil: Mystical Poetry in Islam, New York, 1982. —. “Hāfiẓ and his Contemporaries.” CHIr VI (1986), pp. 929–47. —. “Orientalische Einflüsse auf die deutsche Literatur.” In W. Heinrichs, ed., Neues Handbuch der Literaturwissenschaft. Band 5. Orientalisches Mittelalter, Wiesbaden, 1990, pp. 546–62. —. EIr, s. v. Hindu. Schoeler, G. “Neo-Persian Stanzaic Poetry and its Relationship to the Arabic Musammaṭ.” In E. Emery, ed., Muwashshah. Proceedings of the Conference on Arabic and Hebrew Strophic Poetry and its Romance Parallels. School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). London, 8–10 October 2004. London, 2006, pp. 257–68. Schoeler, G. and Rahman, Munibur. EI2, “Musammaṭ,” VII (1993), pp. 658–61. Scott, C. T. Persian and Arabic Riddles. A Language-Centered Approach to Genre Definition, The Hague, 1965. Seidensticker, T. “Die Herkunft des Robâʿi.” Asiatische Studien 53 (1999), pp. 905–36. —. “An Arabic Origin of the Persian Rubāʿī.” Middle Eastern Literatures 14.2 (2011), pp. 155–69. Seyed-Gohrab, A. A. Laylī and Majnūn. Love, Madness and Mystic Longing in Niẓāmī’s Epic Romance, Leiden, 2003. —. “Description (wasf ) and Ekphrasis in Anvari’s Poetry.” In D. Meneghini, ed., Studies on the Poetry of Anvari, Venice, 2006, pp. 111–26. —. “My Heart is the Ball, Your Lock the Polo-Stick: The Development of Polo Metaphors in Classical Persian Poetry.” In A.-M. Piemontese, F. D. Lewis, and S. Sharma, eds., The Necklace of the Pleiades. Studies

624

Bibliography in Persian Literature Presented to Heshmat Moayyad on his 80 th Birthday. Amsterdam and West Lafayette, Ind., 2007, pp. 183–205. —. Courtly Riddles. Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry. Amsterdam and West Lafayette, Ind., 2008. —. “Khayyām’s Universal Appeal: Man, Wine, and the Hereafter in the Quatrains.” In idem, ed., The Great ‘Umar Khayyām. A Global Reception of the Rubáiyát, Leiden, 2012, pp. 11–38. Shafi’, Mohammad. “The Sons of Mikal.” In Proceedings of the Idara-e Ma’arif-e Islamia, Lahore, 1933. Shafiʿi-Kadkani, M.-R. “Persian Literature (Belles-lettres) from the Time of Jāmī to the Present Day.” In G. Morrison, ed., History of Persian Literature from the Beginning of the Islamic Period to the Present Day, Leiden and Cologne, 1981. —. Sovar-e khiyâl dar sheʿr-e fârsi, Tehran, 1987; repr.1979. —. Mofles-e kimiyâforush. Naqd va tahlil-e sheʿr-e Anvari. 2 nd printing, Tehran, 1995. —. Musiqi-ye sheʿr. 5 th printing, Tehran, 1997. —. Qalandariyye dar târikh, Tehran, 2007. Shahid Ali, Agha, ed. Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English, Hanover, New Hamp., 2000. Sharma, S. Persian Poetry at the Indian Frontier: Masʿ ûd Saʿ d Salmân of Lahore, New Delhi, 2000. —. “Wandering Quatrains and Women Poets in the Khulâsat al-ashʿâr fi rubâʿiyât” In A. A. Seyed-Gohrab and S. McGlinn, eds., The Treasury of Tabriz. The Great Il-Khanid Compendium, Amsterdam and West Lafayette, Ind., 2007, pp. 153–69. Smith, J. M. The History of the Sarbadâr Dynasty, (1336–1381) A. D. and its Sources, The Hague, 1970. Sperl, S. M. “Islamic Kingship and Arabic Panegyric Poetry in the Early 9 th Century.” JAL 8 (1979), pp. 20–35. —. Mannerism in Arabic Poetry: A Structural Analysis of Selected Texts, Cambridge, 1989. Sprachman, P. Suppressed Persian. An Anthology of Forbidden Literature, Costa Mesa, Calif., 1995. —. “Obayd-e zâkâni va Aristophanes.” Iranshenasi 15/4 (2004), pp. 714–25. —. Licensed Fool: The Damnable, Foul-Mouthed ‘Obeyd-e Zakani, Costa Mesa, Calif., 2012. Sprenger, A. Catalogue of the Arabic, Persian and Hindu’sta’ny Manuscripts of the Libraries of the King of Oudh, Calcutta, 1854. Spuler, B. EI2, “Âl-e Kart,” I, pp. 758–66.

625

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Stern, S. M. “Yaʿqūb the Coppersmith and Persian National Sentiment.” In C. E. Bosworth, ed., Iran and Islam. In Memory of the Late Vladimir Minorsky, Edinburgh, 1971, pp. 541–43. Stillmann, N. A. EI2, “Khilʿa.” Storey, C. A. Persian Literature: A Bio-bibliographical Survey. 4 vols. London, 1927–53. Subtelny, M. E. “The Persian Poetry of the Late Timurid Period.” ZDMG 136 (1986), pp. 56–79. —. “Socioeconomic Bases of Cultural Patronage under the Late Timurids.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 20/4 (1988), pp. 479–505. Tafażżolī, A. EIr, s. v. Fahlavīyāt. Tâj-al-Halâvi, Ali b. Mohammad. Daqâ’eq al-sheʿr. Ed. S. M. K. Emâm, Tehran, 1962. Termedhi, Adib Sâber. Divân-e Adib Sâber Termedhi. Ed. M.-A. Nâseh, Tehran, 1964. Tetley, G. E. The Ghaznavid and the Seljuk Turks: Poetry as a Source for Iranian History. London and New York, 2008. Thiesen, F. “Tardjīʿ-band and Tarkīb-band.” EI2, X, pp. 235–46. Thiesen, T. A Manual of Classical Persian Prosody: with chapters on Urdu, Karakhanidic, and Ottoman Prosody, Wiesbaden, 1982. Utas, B. “‘Genres’ in Persian Literature 900–1900.” In idem, Manuscript, Text and Literature, Wiesbaden, 2008, pp. 219–61. —. “Prosody: Metre and Rhyme.” HPL I (2009). van den Berg, G. “The Nasībs in the Dīvān of Farrukhī Sīstānī: Poetical Speech versus the Reflection of Reality.” Edebiyât 9 (1998), pp. 17–34. —. “Musammaṭ or Musajjaʿ? The Description of a Specific Form of Internal Rhyme in Persian Prosody.” Annali di Ca’Foscari 39/3 (2000), pp. 215–29. —. Minstrel Poetry from the Pamir Mountains. A Study on the Songs and Poems of the Ismailis of Tajik Badakhshan, Wiesbaden, 2004. van Gelder, G. J.H. Beyond the Line: Classical Arabic Literary Critics on the Coherence and Unity of the Poem, Leiden, 1982. —. EI2, “Hija.” Veit, F. Platens Nachbildungen aus dem Diwan des Hafis, Berlin, 1908. Wagner, E. Grundzüge der klassischen arabischen Dichtung. 2 vols. Wies­ baden, 1988. Welch, A. “Architectural Patronage and the Past: The Tughluq Sultans of India.” Muqarnas 10 (1993), pp. 311–22. Wilberforce Clarke, H., tr. The Dīvān-i-Hāfiz. 2 vols. Calcutta, 1891. Windfuhr, G. “Riddles.” HPL I (2009), pp. 312–32.

626

Bibliography Woods, J. E. The Aqquyunlu: Clan, Confederation, Empire. A Study in 15 th/9 th Century Turko-Iranian Politics, Minneapolis and Chicago, 1977. Wright, E. “Patronage of the Arts of the Book under the Injuids of Shiraz.” In L. Komaroff, ed., Beyond the Legacy of Genghiz Khan, Leiden amd Boston, 2006, pp. 246–68. Würsch, R. Niẓāmīs Schatzkammer der Geheimnisse: eine Untersuchung zu Maẖzan ul-asrār, Wiesbaden, 2005. Yarshater, Ehsan. Sheʿr-e Fârsi dar ‘asr-e Shâhrokh, Tehran, 1955. —. “The Theme of Wine and Wine-drinking and the Concept of the Beloved in Early Persian Poetry.” Studia Islamica 13 (1960), pp. 43–53. —. “Persian Poetry: Timurid and Safavid Periods.” CHIr VI (1986). —. “The Indian Style: Progress or Decline?” In idem, ed., Persian Literature. Albany, 1988, pp. 249–88. Yazici, T. EIr, s. v. ʿᾹref Chelebī. —. IA, s. v. Saʿdî. Yohannan, J. D. Persian Poetry in England and America: A 200-year History, Delmar and New York, 1977. —. The Poet Saʿ di. A Persian Humanist, Lanham, MD, 1987. Yusofi, Gholâm-Hoseyn. Farrokhi Sistâni: bahthi dar sharh-e ahvâl va ruzgâr va she’r-e u, Mashhad, 1962–63. —. Didâri bâ ahl-e qalam, Tehran, 1988. Zanolla, V. Sana’i: Concordance and Lexical Repertories of 1000 Lines, Venice, 1997. —. I gazal di Sanā’i nei manoscritti più antichi. 3 vols. Ph. D. diss., University of Naples Federico II, 1999. Zarrinkub, Abd-al-Hoseyn. Farhang-e Irânzamin 1 (1953), pp. 111–72. —. Az godhashte-ye adabi-ye Irân. Tehran, 1996. —. Âshnâ’i bâ târikh-e Iran. Tehran, 2007. —. EI2, “Kamāl-al-Dīn Ismāʿil,” IV, pp. 515–16. Zhukovsky, V. A. Ali Aukhadeddin Enveri. Materialy dlya yego biografii i kharakteristiki. St. Petersburg, 1883. —. al-Muzaffariya. St. Petersburg, 1897. —. “Umar Khayyâm and the ‘Wandering’ Quatrains.” JRAS 30 (1898), pp. 349–66. Zipoli, R. The Technique of the Ǧawāb: Replies by Nawāʾ i to Ḥāfiẓ and Ǧāmī, Venice, 1993.

627

INDEX Abâqâ  210, 249 Abbâd b. Ziâd  581 Abbâs II, Shah  574 Abbasid Caliphate  11, 31, 45, 105, 107, 109, 196, 206, 254, 358, 382 Abivard 124 Abu Bakr b. Saʿd b. Zangi  221, 223 Abu Dolaf  186, 187 Abu Eshâq Inju, Sheikh  214–15, 224–26, 243, 274, 435 Abu Jaʿfar Ahmad, Amir  4, 38 Abu Jahl  81 Abu Nasr  12 Abu Nasr Pârsi  54, 100 Abu Nuwâs (Novâs)  309, 330, 382 Abu Saʿd Mohammad b. Mozaffar  8 Abu Saʿid Abu’l-Kheyr  496–98, 503, 547 Abu Saʿid Bahâdor Khan  210–11, 213–15, 224 Abu Saʿid, Sheykh  463, 465, 468 Abu Shakur of Balkh  492 Âfarin-nâme 10 Abu Sufıyân  8 Abu Tâleb Esfahâni, Mirzâ, Masir-e Tâlebi fı belâd-e afranj 577–78 Abu Tammâm  50, 171 Abu Yaʿqub, Mir  40 Abu’l-Alâ of Ganje  188 Abu’l-Hasan Ali Lashgari  300

Abu’l-Majd Mohammad b. Masʿud Tabrizi Kholâsat al-ashʿ âr fı robâʿ iyât  512–13, 520, 529–31 Safine-ye Tabriz  512–17, 519–21 Abu’l-Mozaffar, Amir  12, 39 Abu’l-Qâsem Ahmad  64 Abu’l-Roshd Rashid b. Mohtâj  301 Abu’l-Shis 79 accession poems  49, 60–62 Adam and Eve  38, 76, 400, 469 Âdelshâhi dynasty  575 Âdhari of Esfarâyen  230–31 Adib Sâber Termedhi  166, 167, 175, 179–84 Divân-e Adib Sâber Termedhi  169–72, 181–84 education 180 figurative language and rhetoric 169–70 and Khwârazmshâhids 169 patrons 180–81 personality 180 qasides 181–84 style 170–72 admonition qasides  252, 268 aetiology, poetic  458 Âfarin-nâme (Abu Shakur)  10 Afghanistan  11, 15, 102, 205 Afzal, Bâbâ, quatrains  493, 518–19 Afzal-al-Din Khâqâni Sharvâni 173 Agra  53–54, 576

629

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Ahli of Shiraz  244, 259, 263–64, 267, 273, 289, 291, 311–13 Ahmad, Soltân  214 Ahmad, Sultan  230 Ahmadnagar 575–76 Ahval, Farid-e  232, 235 Akbarabad  see Agra Akhlâq-al-ashrâf (Zâkâni)  226, 596 Akhlâqi, Zakariyâ  565 Âkhsetân  189, 394 Akkadians 119 al-Alavi, Mohammad b. Nasr  100 al-Bohtori 199 Âl-e Afrâsiyâb  see Qarakhanid dynasty Âl-e Jalâyer dynasty  see Jalayerid dynasty Âl-e Kart dynasty  see Kart dynasty Âl-e Khojand  248 Âl-e Mozaffar  see Mozaffarid dynasty Âl-e Sâʿed  221 al-Jomahi 346 al-Kâteb, Khâled b. Yazid  491 al-Khâzeni 521 al-Mahdi, Caliph  196 Al-Moʿ jam fı maʿ â’ire ashʿ âr alʿajam (Shams-e Qeys)  127, 212, 295–96, 309, 338–39, 345–47, 349, 488, 492 al-Moqannaʿ 196 al-Qâ’em, Caliph  107 al-Râduyâni, Mohammad Omar, Tarjomân al-balâghe 12, 174, 305–8 al-Shahrazuri, Nozhat al-arvâh 522 Alâ’-al-Din Mohammad  216–17, 228 Alam, Muzaffar  218 Alexander the Great  52, 59, 338, 421

Ali b. Abi-Tâleb  8, 189, 225, 231, 255–57, 259, 263, 302, 554 Ali b. Emrân  78 Ali Dehestâni  241 Ali Tegin  56 Alishir Navâ’i, Amir  283 allusions 287 Alp Arslân  106–7 Amʿaq of Bukhara  105, 163–66 Divân 164 Aminpur, Qeysar  565–67 Aminrazavi, M. 529 Amorium, Battle of  50 amphibology (ihâm)  448, 458 Anatolia  472, 478 andarz 373 Andronicus Comnenus I, Emperor 190 Angurâni, F. and Z. 528 Ankiyânu  211–12, 252–53, 270 anniversaries of reigns  60, 62 Ansâri, Abd-Allâh Qalandar-nâme 335 quatrains  503, 547, 565–66 antinomian motifs  335–37, 441, 509, 548, 553 Anushtegin Gharcha’i  205 Anvâr, Qâsem-e  442, 476 Anvari, Owhad-al-Din Mohammad (Ali)  149, 170–71, 224, 230, 275, 285, 337 Divân  125, 131, 132–44 ghazals  330, 359, 369, 390–93, 401 hajv  580, 583–85, 591, 601–2 qasides  12, 16, 104, 123–44, 146, 164, 228, 286 shahrâshub 570 Âq-Quyunlu Turkomans  219–20, 471–72, 479 Arab invasions  102, 581

630

Index Arabic language  20–21, 185, 247–48 Arabic poetry ghazal in  345–49 influence of  323 love poetry  329–30, 342 obscene poetry  330, 581 Arberry, Arthur J. 157, 415, 444– 45, 461, 504, 527, 545–46 Arghun 249 Arjestân 122 Armenia 218 army, reviews of  63, 65–66 Arrân  105, 166, 167, 213 Arslân, Sultan  164 Arslân b. Toghrel II, Sultan  204 Arslânshâh b. Masʿud  27, 43, 45, 59, 60–62, 68, 96, 364, 384 Aruzi, Nezâmi  25, 108, 352 Chahâr maqâle  12, 16, 163–64, 352–53, 361, 494, 521 Asadi of Tus, Abu-Mansur Ali 186–87 Garshâsp-nâme 186 Loghat-e fors  3, 12, 145 Âsaf 337 asceticism 321 A’shâ 171 Ashhari, Jamâl-al-Din  531–32 Ashraf, Hasan-e of Ghazna  18, 149, 163, 384, 388 Divân  57–59, 69–70, 77–78, 96–97, 100 ghazals  359, 384–87 Ashraf-al-Din 240 Âshtiyâni, Abbâs Eqbâl  109, 115–16 Asjadi, Abu Nazar Abd-al-Aziz  15, 289 Atâ-Malek Jovayni  223–24, 239, 246

Atâbaks of Fars  211–12, 221 Atâbaks of the Great Lur (Lor-e bozorg) 212–13 Atabeg dynasties  103, 105, 137, 145, 185–86, 204 Âthâr al-Belâd (Qazvini)  167 Athir of Akhsikat  204 Atsez (Atsïz) Khwârazmshâh 100– 101, 167–69, 172–75, 179, 181, 183, 189, 205 Attâr, Farid-al-Din  301, 320, 369, 560 Divân 406 Elâhi-nâme 522 ghazals  316, 405–8, 411, 432, 441, 457 mathnavis 406 Mokhtâr-nâme  322, 406, 507–12, 564–65 quatrains 507–12 Attâr, Ruh-e  255 authorship, variation in attribution of  350 Avâref-al-maʿ âref (Shehâb-al-Din Omar Sohrevardi)  157 Avery, Peter  442, 447 Avicenna (Ebn Sina)  129 Awhad-al-Din Sayyed  262 Âyeshe 256–57 ayyârs 333–34 Ayyuqi, Varqe o Golshâh 347 Âzâdvâr 384 Azerbaijan  105, 145–46, 149, 166–67, 169, 185–86, 204, 213, 218, 220, 230, 233, 404, 490, 513, 549 Bâbâ Tâher-e Oryân  498–99 Babai, Sussan  562 Babor, Zahir-al-Din Mohammad  218

631

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Badakhshan 411 Badâyeʿ (Saʿdi)  416–17 Bâdghis 352 Badiʿ, Mirzâ  283 Badr of Jâjarm  251 Badr-e Châchi  255, 261, 276, 279, 285, 287 Bâgh-e Now (Balkh)  69 Baghdad  31, 105, 137, 157, 189, 214, 219, 222, 226, 254, 413, 431–32, 468, 490 Bahâr, Mohammad-Taqi  252, 439, 499–500 Bahârestân (Jâmi)  405, 458–59, 468 Bahmanid dynasty  230 Bahmanjane 44–45 Bahrâmshâh, Sultan  18, 57–59, 69, 97, 100–101, 104, 109, 113, 359, 364, 384, 385 Bâkharzi, Abu’l-Mafâkher Yahyâ, Owrâd al-ahbâb wa fosus al-âdâb 546–47 Bâkharzi, Ali b. Hasan, Tarab-nâme 493 Bâkharzi, Sayf-al-Din  258 Bakhtiâr, Abu Harb  43 Balkh  10, 32, 69, 125, 142, 167, 172, 175, 179, 212, 391 Balkhi, Hamid-al-Din Abu Bakr Omar b. Mahmudi, Maqâmât-e Hamidi 125 Banâ’i  220, 278 banishments 77–78 Barandaq of Khojand  273–74, 277, 279 Barani, Ziyâ’-al-Din  430 Barâq (Borâq), Amir  212 Barkiyâroq 109 Barlaam and Josaphat 11 Barton, Lucy  525

Bausani, Alessandro  490 Bâvandi dynasty  145, 149, 401 Bayhaq 215 Bâysonghor Mirzâ  218, 220 beards, defilement of  582 Bêdel 316 Bedouins 1 begging 229–30 Behbahâni, Simin  316 Behruz, Dhabih  602 Meʿrâj-nâme 602 Behzâd 220 beloved description of  326–27 as disturbing character  332–34 gender of  328–31 identity of  328 in shahrâshub 569–78 synonyms of  326 Belqis, Queen of Sheba  337 Bertels, E. E.  349, 443 betrothals 68–69 Beyhaqi, Abu’l-Fazl Mohammad  358, 521 Târikh-e Beyhaqi  35, 41 Beylaqân  192, 204 Beylaqâni, Mojir-al-Din  175, 189, 204 beyt (a line of verse)  293, 295–96, 298–300, 302, 304–8 Bijapur 575 birthdays 253 births quatrains for  563 royal 259 of sons  49, 63, 66–68, 259, 261 Bisotun, Ali b. Ahmad b. AbiBakr b.  416 Black Sheep Turkomans  218–19, 472 Blois, François de  125, 524

632

Index Bodleian Library (Oxford)  523, 525 Boghrâ Khan  175 Bohtori 171 Bombay 578 Borhân II, Sultan  575 Borhâni of Nishapur  107–8 Boshâq-e Atʿeme of Shiraz  276–77 Bosworth, C. E.  88 branding-ground 72–73 Brockhaus, Hermann  437 Brookshaw, Dominic Parviz  464 Browne, E. G.  72–73, 117, 129, 143–44, 209, 276, 294, 303, 368, 477–78, 594–95 Browne, Kenworthy  525 Browning, Robert  525 Bukhara  10, 163, 165, 179, 352, 473, 573 Bürgel, J. Christoph  227–28, 288, 446 Buritegin (Böritegin)  35 Burne-Jones, Edward  525 Burton, Richard  525 Bustân (Saʿ di-nâme) (Saʿdi)  222, 331, 413, 418–19 Buyid dynasty  14, 32, 144, 185 Byzantine Empire  50, 185, 189–90 calendars, solar and lunar  31 calligraphy 564 carpe diem philosophy  325, 521, 530, 532, 534–35, 555, 567 Caspian Sea  145, 185 Caucasus  186, 577 censorship 451 Chaghâniyân  12, 15, 39, 72 Chahâr maqâle (Aruzi)  12, 16, 163–64, 352–53, 361, 494, 521 Chelebi, Ulu Âref  408 Chengis Khan  471

Chester Beatty Library (Dublin)  546 Chestiya Order  429 China, and origin of quatrains  490 chivalry 333–34 Christensen, A.  526 Christianity  185, 189–90, 336, 382–83 chronograms 282–83 Chupânid (Chobânid) dynasty  213, 214 circumcisions  259, 563 cities shahrâshub 569–78 shift in Persian society to  359– 60, 572 Clarke, H. Wilberforce  442 Clinton, J.W. 203 complaint poetry  77–85, 264–67 congratualtory poetry  62–70, 259–61 Constitutional Revolution  203, 439 coronations 62 corruption 81 Coumans, Jos  528–9 court poetry qasides as  1 Samanid and Ghaznavid  3, 10–11, 14–16, 19–101, 103 under Saljuqs  105 Cowell, Edward Byles  525 Creator 337 Ctesiphon  191, 198 cup-bearers (sâqi)  328–29, 331–32 Dahagân 54 Damascus  411, 537 dancing rituals  546–48 Dandanqân, Battle of  358 Dânesh, Hosayn  203

633

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Daqâ’eq al-ashʿ âr 119 Daqiqi, Abu Mansur Mohammad  7–10, 21, 187 Dashti, Ali  339, 390, 414, 447, 528 Dastgerdi, Vahid  150, 398, 401 Davâni, Jalâl-al-Din  442 Davʿidâr, Rokn-al-Din  248, 281 Davis, Dick  447, 464, 525 Dâye, Najm-al-Din, Mersâd alebâd men al-mabdaʿ elâ’lmaʿ da  216, 477, 523 Daylam 185 de Bruijn, Johannes Thomas Pieter xv, 21, 492, 552, 569 ghazals in medieval Persian poetry 315–487 panegyrical qasides  1–18 qaside after the fall of the Ghaznavids 102–61 qaside in Western Persia ​ 185–204 debauchery  334–37, 367, 382, 388, 392–93, 413, 439–40, 451, 465, 470–71, 475, 553 Deccan 230 defamatory poetry  see hajv Dehbâshi, Ali  529 Delhi  261, 429 Delhi Sultanate  216, 571 Delshâd Khâtun  225, 242, 260, 468 dervishes  334–35, 408, 410–11, 432, 440 Dhu’l-feqâr, Sayyed Qavâm-alDin  286, 288 didactic poetry  321 Divân (Adib Sâber)  169–72, 181–84 Divân (Amʿaq)  164 Divân (Anvari)  125, 131–44 Divân (Attâr)  406 Divân (Farrokhi)  27–30, 32–33, 36–44, 46–49, 51–53, 55–56,

60, 63–72, 75–77, 87–89, 93–95, 297–99, 357 Divân (Hâfez)  436–37, 439, 442, 446, 459, 534–37, 550–55 Divân (Hasan of Ghazna)  57–59, 69–70, 77–78, 96–97 Divân (Jahân Malek Khâtun)  464, 558–59 Divân (Jamâl-al-Din)  150–56, 401 Divân (Jâmi)  302, 480–81 Divân (Kamâl of Khojand)  474 Divân (Kamâl-al-Din Esmâʿil)  247–48 Divân (Khâqâni)  190–203, 301–2, 394 Divân (Khosrow)  340 Divân (Khwâju Kermâni)  460, 556–57 Divân loghât al-Tork (Mahmud of Kashgar) 163 Divân (Manuchehri)  34–35, 37, 39–40, 43–44, 47–48, 78–79, 86, 91–94, 310–11 Divân (Masʿud-e Saʿd)  33–34, 48–49, 53–55, 59, 60–61, 64–65, 68, 79–80, 84–85, 89–90, 93, 97, 99–100, 295, 301, 333, 361, 570 Divân (Moʿezzi)  108, 113–18, 122–23, 307–8 Divân (Mokhtâri)  40, 43–45, 56–57, 62, 69, 74–75, 82–83, 96 Divân (Nezâmi)  397–98 Divân (Onsori)  30, 34, 41–42, 50–51, 54, 65–66, 73–74, 94–95, 98–99, 170 Divân (Qatrân)  187, 299–301 Divân (Rudaki)  3 Divân (Rumi)  408, 504 Divân (Runi)  31, 45, 53, 62, 131 Divân (Saʿdi)  532–33, 538–45

634

Index Divân (Sanâ’i)  80–81, 108, 368, 370 Divân (Suzani)  163, 388 Divân (Vatvât)  169–70, 176–77 division (taqsim) 290 Diyarbakr 219 doʿ â (prayer)  22, 95–96, 237–38, 240, 242–45, 269 dobeyti (quatrain)  489 Dowlatshâh Samarqandi  12, 427, 433 Tadhkerat al-shoʿarâ  158, 477–78 doxological qasides  255, 258–59 Draxt ı āsōrīg ud buz 119 drunkenness 332 earthenware, quatrains on  561, 563 Ebn Mofarregh al-Hemmyâri, Yazid 581 Ebn-e Arabi, Mohyi-al-Din  411, 432, 442, 476, 558–61, 567 Ebn-e Hosâm  245–46, 255, 258–59, 262–63, 275 Ebn-e Nasuh  263, 280 Ebn-e Nosrat  see Barandaq of Khojand Ebn-e Yamin  215, 232, 237, 251 Ebrâhim, Sheikh  230 Ebrâhim, Sultan  15–16, 43, 54, 62, 85, 89, 97, 301, 362 Ebtehâj, Hushang (Sâye)  316, 438 Edirne 570 Elâhi-nâme (Attâr)  522 Eldigüzid (Ildigizid) dynasty  145, 149, 204 elegies (marthiya) Mongol and Timurid  261–64 Samanid and Ghaznavid  86–90 eltezâm (voluntary obligations)  92–93, 290–91, 319 Elwell-Sutton, L. P.  304

Emâd-al-Din al-Kâteb al-Esfahâni  522 Emâd-al-Din Ali Faqih-e Kermâni 405 Emâd-al-Dowlat Abu’l-Qâsem  89–90 Emâmi of Herat  263, 286 Emâmi Heravi  246 Emrâni, Majd-al-Din Abu’l-Hasan 124–25 encomium  21, 49, 175–76, 228, 237 Encyclopaedia Iranica 447 enshâ’ 230 epigrammatic literature  490 epigraphy  561–62, 567 Eqbâl, Abbâs  226 Eram, lost garden of  337 Erâq, style of (sabk-e Erâqi)  3, 12, 26, 129, 206, 231 Erâqi, Fakhr-al-Din  320, 369, 441, 443, 457, 560 ghazals  411–12, 432 parodied 592–93 quatrains 549 eroticism in ghazals  329, 381, 414, 441 in quatrains  489, 497–98, 552 Esfahan  see Isfahan Esfahâni, Jamâl-al-Din  48, 181, 369 Divân  150–56, 401 ghazals 400–403 hajv 580 qasides  149–55, 221 stanzaic poems  296 Esfandiâr 598–600 Esfarangi, Sayf-al-Din  253–54, 257–58, 275 Eshqi, Mohammad Rezâ Kafan-e siyâh 203 Rastâkhiz-e shardârân-e Irân 203

635

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Esmâʿil I, Shah  219, 289 Esmâʿil b. Abbâd  185 Esmat of Bukhara (Nasiri)  230, 243, 255–57, 275 Esmat-Allâh of Bukhara  258 estelâhât  443, 447 etâb (reproaches)  73 eʿtezâr (apologies)  73 Ethé, Hermann  119–20, 414 events, celebrating special  253 exchange of poetry  281 exempla 337–38 exordium  21–22, 171, 175–76, 178, 181–82, 184, 237–40, 261, 278, 280 Eyvân-e Madâ’en (Khâqâni)  191, 198–203 Faghâni, Bâbâ  220, 257, 487 fahlaviyyât (folk quatrains)  490 fakhr (self-praise)  1, 73, 237, 345 Fakhr-al-Din (otherwise anonymous) 119–20 Fakhr-al-Din Manuchehr Shervânshâh 175 Fakhr-al-Dowle, Amir  241 Fakhr-al-Molk 109 Fakhri, Shams-e, Meʿyâr-e Nosrati 213 Falaki, Mohammad  178, 204 Fâni Kashmiri  577 Farâhâni, Abu’l-Hasan Hoseyni, Sharh-e moshkelât-e Divâne Anvari 131 Farâlâvi, Mohammad b. Musâ  582 Farâmarz, Amir Ali b. 494 Farghâni, Seyf-e  216, 235, 245, 251, 263–64, 275, 286 Farhâd and Shirin  337, 424 Farrokhi, Abu’l-Hasan Ali  10, 15, 171–72, 350

Divân-e Farrokhi-ye Sistâni  27–30, 32–33, 36–44, 46–49, 51–53, 55–56, 60, 63–72, 74–77, 87–89, 93–95, 182, 297–99, 357 ghazals 355–57 qasides  12–13, 23, 110, 112, 115, 233, 364 stanzaic poetry  300 Fars  211, 214–15, 231, 276, 404 Fâryâb 145 Farzâne, Mohsen  528 fatalism 324–25 Fâtehat al-shabâb (Jâmi)  480 Fâtema Zahrâ  256–57 fath-nâmes  12, 50 felicitations 259–61 ferâq (separation)  323 Ferdowsi, Abu-al-Qâsem  7, 74, 132, 186 parodied  596–600, 602 Shâhnâme  594, 596–600, 602 Fereydun, King  536 Fergana 204 festivals and feasts  31–49, 253, 259, 261 feudal courts  359–60 FitzGerald, Edward, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 325, 524–25, 528–29 folk quatrains  563–64 food, forbidden  581 Forughi, Mohammad-Ali  417, 528 Foruzânfar, Badiʿ-al-Zamân  115– 16, 174, 401 Fouchécour, Charles-Henri de 442, 447 Fountain of Life  338, 421 Fragner, B. G.  208 Franks 537

636

Index Ganges, river  55 Ganje  186–88, 300 Garshâsp-nâme (Asadi)  186 Gazargâhi, Kamâl-al-Din Hoseyn, Majâles al-’oshshâq 572 Genghis Khan  205–7, 210, 217 Georgia  185, 189–90, 577 German language  317 Ghani, Qâsem  437, 446 Ghavvâs, Fakhr-al-Din  217 Ghazâ’eri Râzi  14, 98–99 Ghazâli, Ahmad, Savâneh 335, 342, 479, 500–503, 505–7, 514 Ghazaliyyât-e qadim (Saʿdi)  416 ghazals  103, 140, 171, 181, 206 abstract love in  342–43 Age of Hâfez (14th century)  431–71 Age of Jâmi (15th century)  471–85 Age of Saʿdi (13th century)  404–31 Age of Sanâ’i (late  11th–12th centuries) 358–403 in Arabic poetry  345–49 brief survey of  315–17 come to dominate literary scene  228, 251–52, 285, 292, 314–15, 341, 359–60 content of classical  321–44, 357 conviviality and wine in  331–32 debauchery in  334–37 emergence as established form of classical poetry  357–60 exempla in  337–38 in Ghaznavid period  359 lack of contextual data  341 lover and beloved in  323–38 in medieval Persian poetry  315–487 modes of speech and style in  338–39

mysticism in  343–44, 360, 387, 405–12, 414–15, 432, 441– 43, 451, 473–74, 476, 486 origin of Persian  348–49 outside Iran  316–17 panegyrical  383–84, 388, 404, 432, 486 pre-classical (10th–11th centuries) 345–57 prosody of classical  317–21 purpose of writing  339–42 sex and gender in  328–31 Sufısm and growing prestige of 360 textual history  349–51 transmitted in divans  340–41 use of pen names in  553, 555 Ghâzân Khan  207, 210 Ghazna  11, 13–15, 17, 27, 57, 82, 87–89, 100, 104, 106, 109, 113–14, 358–59, 361–62, 364, 367, 384, 405 Ghaznavid period court at Lahore  361 end of  102–4 ghazals in  341, 355, 359 introductions to panegyrics  10 invasion of Ghurids  359 literary revival under  358–60 panegyrical qaside in  11–102, 350 patronage in  384 quatrains in  492 shahrâshub in  570–71 slave boys at court in  543 stanzaic poems in  301, 350 survival of poetry from  350 western empire lost to Saljuqs  358 Ghiyâth-al-Din Mohammad  232, 288, 467 Ghurid dynasty  18, 104, 212, 359

637

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Ghuzz 143 Gibb, E. J. W.  478, 570 Gilaki dialect  185 Gilân 185 Glünz, Michael  157–58, 237, 446 God invocation to (monâjât) 258–59 qasides in praise of  253–55 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von  316, 437 Golandâm, Mohammad  434, 437 Golchin-e Maʿâni, Ahmad  577 Golden Horde  474 Golestân (Saʿdi)  222, 413, 418–19, 504, 537 Golshan-e râz (Shabestari)  442, 477, 520 Gorgân  13, 185 Gorgâni 348 Gorgânj 51 Goshtâsp 598 Graves, Robert  528 Great Lur  212–13 Greek mythology  324 Gurkanid dynasty  see Mughal dynasty Guzz tribes  124 habsiyye (prison poems)  16, 84–85, 189, 361 Hadâ’eq al-sehr fı daqâ’eq al-sheʿr (Vatvât)  144, 174 Hadiqat al-haqiqe (Sanâ’i)  18, 384, 586–88 Hadith 248 Hâfez, Khwâja  224, 276, 320, 369, 433–35 Divân  436–37, 439, 442, 446, 459, 534–37, 550–55 ghazals  214–15, 311–13, 315–16, 323, 325, 328, 331, 333,

336, 341, 344, 354, 384, 393, 403–4, 406, 413, 419–20, 433–56, 474–75, 486, 535–36, 550–52 hajv 580 influence of other poets on  457–71 language, rhetoric, and distinctive features of quatrains 552–53 mathnavis 436 Moghanni-nâme 436 qasides  215, 231, 252 quatrains  507, 532, 534, 536–37, 550–55 Sâqi-nâme 436 shahrâshub 570 use of “pen name” in quatrains  553–55 haft-band 302–3 hair shaving  260 Hâjeb, Yusof Khân, Qudatghu Bilig 162–63 Hâjj Bolah, Amin al-Din  513, 519–20 Hajjâj 212 hajv (defamatory poems)  1, 73, 86, 90–92, 579–602 Hâli, A.-H.  413 Hallâj, Hoseyn b. Mansur  453, 502, 564–65 Hamadan  189, 204, 384, 411, 490 Hâmedi of Isfahan  216 Hamgar, Majd-e  146, 223–24, 244– 45, 251, 262, 282, 284, 286 Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph von  316, 437 Hamzat-al-Turâb 496 Hanafıtes  148–49, 162, 221, 257, 263, 401 Hanaway, William  39

638

Index Hasan, Amir  217, 260 Hasan b. Ali, Imam  8, 256, 259 Hasan b. Mansur of Qâ’en  79–80 Hasan of Delhi  276 Hasan of Kashan  263, 275 Hasan Shâh of Herat  278 Hasan-e Ahmad  69–70 Hasan-e Bozorg, Sheikh  214, 225 Hasan-e Chapâni, Amir Sheikh  213 Hasan-e Juri, Sheikh  215 hasb-e hâl (personal cirumstances)  22, 73, 117, 140 Hassân b. Thâbet  171, 190–91 Hâtam 535 Hâtef of Isfahan  303, 314 Hazârasp, Battle of  50, 54 hazl (bawdy/lewd writing)  585–86 heart, symbol of  326 Hedâyat, Sâdeq  528, 602 Hegira calendar  283 Heinrichs, Wolfhart P.  502 hejâ’ see hajv Helâli 285 Hendushâh of Nakhjavân, Tajâreb-al-salaf 213 Herat  211–12, 220, 359, 431, 437, 473, 479 Heron-Allan, Edward  526 Hillmann, Michael C.  445 Hindustan  15, 104, 362 Hitchins, Keith  577 Homâ’i, Jalâl-al-Din  209, 365, 528 Mokhtâr-nâme 43 Homâm-al-Din Tabrizi  230 ghazals  426–29, 474 qasides 269 quatrains 549–50 Homâyun, Amir  231 homecomings 253 homilies 268–76

homoeroticism  329–30, 334, 337, 382 Honar-nâme (Mokhtâri)  17 Hosâm-al-Din, Amir  262 Hosâm-al-Dowle Ardashir  145, 156–57, 221, 401 Hosayn b. Ali, Imam  256, 259, 263–64, 302, 562 Hosayn, Sultan  253, 474 Hoseyn-e Bâyqarâ  218, 220, 473 Hoseyni, Sharaf-al-Din FazlAllâh, Moʿ jam fı âthâr-e moluk-al-Ajam 213 hosn-e taʿ lil 137 Houtsma, M. T.  398–99 Hülegu  206, 210, 212 Human 596–600 hunting 70–73 hyperbole  252, 287–88, 579 Ibn al-Zubayr, Kitāb al-Hadāyā wa al-Tuḥaf 46 Id-e Azhâ  31, 39, 49, 110, 259 Id-e Fetr  31, 40, 45–49, 110, 261, 355 Id-e Qorbân  49 Ilig-khâns  see Qarakhanid dynasty Ilkhanid dynasty  207–8, 210–11, 213–15, 224, 232, 247–48, 251, 270, 404, 431–32, 435, 467–68 illness, recovery from  63, 70, 253 imagery  285, 291–92 Imams elegies for  263 praise of  255–58 India  15–16, 126, 218, 276, 316, 358–59, 411, 429, 479 Indian style (sabk-e Hindi) 292, 316, 487, 575 Indo-Persian tradition, shahrâshub 575–78

639

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Inju dynasty  214, 224, 431, 435, 465 inscriptions, quatrains in  561–62 insult poetry see hajv invective poems see hajv investitures in office  49, 62–65 Iraj Mirzâ  602 Iraq-Iran war  564 ironware, quatrains on  561 Isfahan  105, 145, 148–61, 189, 204, 218, 221, 239, 248, 404, 432, 490, 545, 562, 574–75 Isfahan style (sabk-e Esfahâni) 487 Islam rise of  1 Ismailis/Ismailism  411, 518 Istanbul  545, 570, 574 Jabali, Abd-al-Vâseʿ, ghazals  388–99 Jacob (Yaʿqub)  8 Jaʿfari, Dhu’l-saʿâdât Sharafshâh  107 Jahân Malek Khâtun Divân  464, 557–58 ghazals 463–67 quatrains 557–58 Jahânârâ, Princess  576 Jâjarmi, Mohammad, Mo’nes alahrâr  107, 110, 117, 121, 498, 523, 563 Jalâl-al-Din Firuzshâh Khalji  430 Jalâl-al-Din Khwârazmshâh 2–6, 205, 221 Jâlandhar 54 Jalayerid dynasty  214, 217–18, 225–26, 242, 278, 431, 468 Jamâl-al-Din Abu Rawh LotfAllâh b. Abi Saʿid  496 Jamâl-al-Din Ahmad  241 Jamâl-al-Din of Isfahan  see Esfahâni, Jamâl-al-Din Jâmi, Abd-al-Rahmân  158, 220, 231, 320, 474 Bahârestân  405, 458–59, 468

Divân-e Jâmi  302, 481 Divân-e qadim 480 Fâtehat al-shabâb 480 ghazals  416, 478–85, 487 Khâtemat al-hayât 480 Lavâmeʿ 560 Lavâyeh 560 mathnavis 481–82 Nafahât al-ons 474 qasides  253, 257, 265, 267, 276, 285 quatrains  489, 560–61 Sharh-e robâʿ iyyât 560 Vâsetat al-eqd 480 Jamshid, King  337–38, 447, 452–53 Jand 168 jashn-e golafshân 45–46 javâb (response poem)  92, 98–101, 588 Jâvid, Hâshem  448 Jerusalem 537 Jesus 449 Jones, Sir William  316, 444 Joseph (Yusof)  8 Jovanyi, Shams-al-Din Mohammad  223–24, 230, 246, 249 Jovayni, Alâ-al-Din Atâ-Malek Mohammad, Târikh-e Jahân-goshâ  168, 239–40 Jovayni family  209, 224, 249, 427 Judaism 336 Kaʿba 197–98 Kabul 212 kâf words  580 Kafan-e siyâh (Eshqi)  203 Kâfı-al-Din Omar b. Othmân  188 Kalile va Demne 11 Kalim Kâshâni, Abu Tâleb  576–77 Kamâl-al-Din Esmâʿil  225, 229–30, 400

640

Index amphibology and poetic aetiology 458 Divân 247–48 hajv  584–85, 602 qasides  156–61, 221–22, 232, 234–35, 246, 258, 260, 262, 266–67, 273, 277, 279–82, 284–85, 290, 292, 467 Kamâl-al-Din Mahmud b. Arslân 168, 178 Kamâli of Bukhara  99 Karahrudi, Mansur  574 Karbalâ  263, 302 Kârnâme-ye Balkh (Sanâ’i)  576 Kart dynasty  212, 217, 431 Kart-nâme (Rabiʿi)  212 Kâseb, Azizollâh  580 Kâshâni, Afzal-al-Din see Afzal, Bâbâ Kashgar 162 Kashmir 577 Kâtebi of Neyshâbur  230, 232, 263 Kâzerun 225 Kâzeruniyye Order  460 Kerman  17, 27, 56–57, 105, 211–12, 214, 224, 364 Kermani, Owhad-al-Din, quatrains 519–20 Kesâ’i of Marv  14, 303, 305–7 Ketâb-e dah fasl (Zâkâni)  226 Key-Qâvus, Qâbus-nâme 333–34, 338–39, 357, 579 Keyvani, Majdoddin  xv, 205–92 Keyvani, Mehdi  573 Khalaji Turks  216 Khâles, Shehâb-al-Din  151, 155 Khalil, Sultan  230, 282 Khalkhâli, Sayyed Abd-al-Rahim 438 khamriyyât 278–79 Khamse (Nezâmi)  397, 448

Khân-e Khânân  261 khâne (stanza)  293, 296 khâneqâhi Sufısm  209, 228 khâneqâhs 432 Khânlari, Parviz Nâtel  369, 438, 446, 457, 537, 551 Khâqâni Shervâni, Afzal-al-Din Ebrâhim  129, 146, 149, 174–75, 274–75 Divân  190–203, 301–2, 394 Eyvân-e Madâ’en  191, 198–203 ghazals  394–97, 400, 460 hajv 580 Manteq al-Teyr  191, 194–98 mathnavis 165 Mer’ât al-Safâ 191 Nozhat al-arvâh 191 qasides  103, 105, 178, 182, 188–204, 228–29, 245, 250, 285–86, 401 Tohfat al-Erâqeyn  189, 394 Khâtemat al-hayât (Jâmi)  480 Khatmi, Seyf-al-Din Abu’l-Hasan Abd-al-Rahmân 442 Khavâtim (Saʿdi)  416 Khayyâm, Omar  521–22 as a genre  524 Khayyâmian motifs employed by other poets  529–37 quatrains  325, 489, 493, 498– 99, 503, 521–29, 551, 567 khelʿat (robes of honor)  63–65 Khezr  164, 194, 338 Khiyâli of Bukhara  252, 258 Kho’i, Esmâil  316 Khojand 474 khojandi family  148, 401 Khojandi, Kamâl-al-Din Divân 474 ghazals 474–79 qasides  252, 273

641

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Kholâsat al-ashʿ âr fı robâʿ itât (Abu’l-Majd)  512–16, 520, 529, 530–31 Khorasan  3, 11, 15, 17, 38, 62, 104, 124, 143–45, 179, 181, 186, 189, 196, 215, 218–19, 233, 263, 358–59, 367, 384–85, 388, 471, 522 Khorasan, style of (sabk-e Khorâsâni)  2, 26, 233 Khorramshâhi, Bahâ-al-Din  447 Khosrow I Anushervân  199–200, 223, 375, 536 Khosrow II (Parviz)  423 Khosrow, Nâser-e  14, 103, 130, 157, 250 Divân-e ashʿar 340 Safar-nâme 187 Khosrow Dehlavi, Amir  217, 276, 478 ghazals  416, 429–31, 479–80 shahrâshub 571 Khosrow Malek  68 Khosrow o Shirin (Nezâmi) 397–98 Khwâja Ali b. Mohammad  37 Khwaja Esmat of Bukhara  282 Khwâja Shams-al-Din Pârsâ  258 Khwâje Obeyd-Allâh of Shâsh  474 Khwâje Vajih-al-Din Zangi  249 Khwâju Kermâni  214, 369, 474 Divân  460, 556–57 ghazals  416, 459–61, 555 qasides  224–25, 237, 256, 258, 260, 279, 285–86, 291–92 quatrains 555–57 stanzaic poems  310 Khwândamir, Giyâth-al-Din  433 Khwârazm  167, 173, 179–80, 205 Khwârazmshâh dynasty  50–51, 109, 144, 156, 163, 167, 189,

207, 210–11, 221, 228–29, 247, 254, 266, 278, 288, 291, 387 Adib Sâber and  169 qasides under  166–84, 205–6 Vatvât and  167–69 King, Lucas White  415, 419 Kirkpatrick, Captain William  143 Kitāb al-Hadāyā wa al-Tuḥaf (Ibn al-Zubayr)  46 Kobraviyya Order  546, 593 kofriyyât (poems about unbelievers) 382 Konya 411 Kor, river  192 Korangy, Alireza  xv–xvi, 162–84 Kufa 189 Kurdish language  185 Labibi  14–15, 99 Lâhiji, Faghfur  577 Lahore  15–17, 104, 131, 358–59, 361–62 Lâhuri, Monir  577 Lâhuti, Abu’l-Qasem  203 Lâmeʿi of Gorgân, Abu’l-Hasan  106–7 Lâmiyye (Ghazâ’eri)  14 landowners 81 Last Judgment  522, 523 Latin 316 Lavâmeʿ (Jâmi)  560 Lavâyeh (Jâmi)  560 Lazard, Gilbert  20–21, 443, 447 legitimacy, confirmation of  60 Lesâni Shirâzi, Majmaʿ al-asnâf 574 Lescot, Roger  446 Lewis, Franklin  99–101, 370 Leyli and Majnun  337, 538–39 Leyli o Majnun (Nezâmi of Ganje) 347 Li Poh  490

642

Index Lirica Persica project  370, 415, 458 Lobâb al-albâb (Owfı)  3, 110, 124, 131, 146, 163, 170–71, 183–84, 187, 359, 389, 398–400 Loghat-e fors (Asadi)  3, 12, 145, 186 Lonbâni, Rafiʿ-al-Din  244 Lorestan 211 Lorestan, Emirs of  212–13 Lotf-Allâh Neyshâburi  233, 263, 266, 291, 495 love poetry Arabic 345–49 ghazals as  321–22, 339–43 quatrains 513–17 lunar calendar  31 macaronic poems  248 Madâ’en/Madâyen  191, 198, 203 madih (eulogy)  21–23, 86, 91, 237–39, 319, 345, 347 Maghrebi, Mohammad-Shirin  442, 476 quatrains 558–59 Mâh Nevâvand  490 Mâh-e Molk Khâtun  164 mahju’ 579 Mahjub, Mohammad-Jaʿfar  245, 581 Mahmud and Ayâz  337 Mahmud b. Ebrâhim  33, 53–54, 64–65 Mahmud of Ghazna, Sultan  11–14, 20, 24, 27, 29–30, 34, 36, 41, 47, 50–53, 55–56, 60, 63–65, 69, 71–72, 75–77, 87–89, 93, 95, 98, 112–13, 356, 498 Mahmud of Kashgar, Divân loghât al-Tork 163 Mahmud, Shâh  435 Mahsati 464 hajv 590

quatrains  328, 497–98 shahrâshub 571 Majâles al-’oshshâq (Gazargâhi)  572 Majmaʿ al-asnâf (Lesâni Shirâzi)  574 Majnun  347, 538–39 malâmatiyya (doctrine of blame)  334–35, 440 Malek Arslân  17, 43, 113, 361–62 Malek Ashraf, Amir  213–14 Malek Fakhr-al-Din  212 malek-al-shoʿarâ (poet laureate)  11, 65, 223, 494 Malekshâh  106–9, 114, 119–20 mamduh (person eulogized)  22– 23, 237, 242, 252, 269, 287–88, 299 manqabat 302 Manteq al-Teyr (Khâqâni)  191, 194–98 Manuchehr III  188–89, 192 Manuchehri (Abu’l-Najm Ahmad) 13, 22, 106, 182, 303, 305, 309–10, 314, 350 Divân  34–35, 37, 39–40, 43–44, 47–48, 78–79, 86, 91–94, 310–11 Maqâmât-e Hamidi (Balkhi)  125 maqtaʿ 319 Marâghe  185, 550 Maranj 85 marâthi 302 Marv  15, 104, 124, 143, 167, 359 Marvazi, Emâre  582 Marvazi, Eyn-al-Zamân Hasan Qottân 173 Mashad 263 Mashreqi, Shams-al-Din  252, 256 Masihi, and shahrâshub 570 Masir-e Tâlebi fı belâd‑e afranj (Abu Tâleb Esfahâni)  577–78

643

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Masnavi-ye âsheq o maʿshuq (­Vahid Tabrizi)  575 masnuʿ (belabored) qasides  93, 289 Masʿud I, Sultan  13, 35, 39, 41, 43, 47–48, 62–63, 79, 86, 89, 93, 99, 101 Masʿud III, Sultan  17, 43, 45, 56–57, 100, 358, 362, 364 Masʿud Shâh  463 Masʿud-e Saʿd-e Salmân  16–17, 82–83, 104, 358, 360–61, 377 Divân  33–34, 48–49, 53–55, 59, 60–61, 64–65, 68, 79–80, 84–85, 89–90, 93, 97, 99–100, 295, 301, 333, 361, 367, 571 ghazals  359–64, 383 prison poems  16, 361 shahrâshub  361, 366, 570–71 stanzaic poems  310 Mathnavi-ye maʿnavi (Rumi)  373–74, 545 mathnavis  251, 278, 322, 326, 342, 347, 359–60 and shahrâshub  570, 574 Mazandaran  44, 149, 157, 185, 221, 401 Mazdaqâni, Ziyâ’-al-Din  277 Mecca  49, 110, 137, 189, 191, 198, 259, 411 Media 490 Mehne 124 Mehregân  31, 37–41, 43, 95, 110 Meier, Fritz  562 Meisami, Julie Scott  xvi, 19–102, 117, 130, 341, 369–70, 445–46 Meneghini, Daniela C.  446, 508 Meʿrâj-nâme (Behruz)  602 Mer’ât al-Safâ (Khâqâni)  191 Meredith, George  525

Mersâd al-ebâd men al-mabdaʿ elâ’l-maʿ da (Dâye)  216, 477, 523 Mesopotamia 213 mesrâʿ (hemistich)  293–94, 298, 300, 303–5, 308, 310, 311–12, 489 metaphors, overuse of  286–87 meter qasides 285 quatrains 489–91 metonymies  287, 327 Mevlevi Order  409–10 Meʿyâr-e Nosrati (Fakhri)  213 Meybod 214 Meyhani, Mohammad b. Monavvar 496 Meymandi, Ahmad b. Hasan  40, 48, 63–64 middle class poets  573 Mikâli, Hasan b. Mohammad (Hasanak) 63 Milnes, Richard Monckton  525 Minorsky, Vladimir  250 Minovi, Mojtabâ  226 minstrels  2, 24, 315, 339, 348–49, 355–57, 372, 411, 428 Mir-Afzali, Sayyed Ali  504, 512, 528–29 Mirânshâh 474 Mirzâ, Muhammad Wahid  430 misogyny 590 moʿammâ  282, 289 Moʿâviye 8 Mo’ayyad-al-Molk 109 Mobârez-al-Din Mohammad b. Mo­ zaffar  215, 224, 435, 451, 463 Modarres Razavi, MohammadTaqi  126, 368, 370 Moʿezz-al-Din b. Ghiyâth-al-Din 212

644

Index Moʿezz-al-Din Mohammad b. Malekshâh 181 Moʿezzi, Amir  15, 59, 101, 107, 124, 139, 171 Divân-e Amir Moʿezzi 108, 113–18, 122–23, 307–8 qasides  104, 108–23, 233, 250 quatrains 494–95 Mofles-e kimiyâforush (Shafıʿ ͑Kadkani) 131 Mohammad, Amir  32, 47, 49, 60, 68, 71–72, 77, 94 Mohammad, the Prophet  191, 253, 255–56, 258–59, 263, 602 Mohammad II Khwârazmshâh 205 Mohammad II, Sultan  189 Mohammad the Conqueror, Sultan 216 Mohammad of Ghazna  88–89, 356 Mohammad Khodâbande, Sultan  249 Mohammad Shah  261 Mohammad Shah b. Toghloq  261 Mohaqqeq, Borhân-al-Din  216 Mohtasham of Kâshân  302, 314 Moʿin of Jovayn  263 Moʿin-al-Molk 109 Moʿ jam fı âthâr-e moluk-al-Ajam 213 Moʿjezi 586 Mojir-al-Dowle 122 mojun (obscene poetry)  330 mokhammas  304, 310–12 Mokhtâr-nâme (Attâr)  322, 406, 507–12, 516, 564–65 Mokhtâr-nâme (Homâ’i)  43 Mokhtâri, Othmân  104 Divân-e Osmân-e Mokhtâri  40, 43–45, 56–57, 62, 69, 74–75, 82–83, 96 ghazals  359, 364–67, 382

Honar-nâme 17 qasides  17, 27, 53, 100, 119, 163 stanzaic poems  294 molammaʿ 248 monâjât 258–59 monâzare/moʿ âraze (strife poems) 119, 186 Mo’nes al-ahrâr (Jâjarmi)  107, 110, 117, 121, 498, 523, 563 Mongol period beyond the Iranian territories 216–17 collapse of Il-Khanid empire  341 invasion and conquest of Iran 205–8, 228–29, 233, 404 literary milieu  208–10 minor courts  210–15 sociopolitical backdrop  207–8 and spread of Sufısm  405 Tamerlane attempts to reveive empire 471–72 Mongolian words  249–50 Monjik 187 monorhyme pattern  1 moqattaʿ ât (occasional poems)  18, 318, 361, 436 morabbaʿ 304, 309, 313 Morâd b. Yusof  219 Morâdi, Abu’l-Hasan  86–87 Morâdi, Mohammad b. Mohammad 582 Morris, William  525 Mortazavi, Manuchehr  447 mosabbaʿ 304 mosaddas  304, 309 mosammats  13, 39, 86, 293, 295, 297, 303–14 Moses (Musâ, Prophet)  5, 108 moshâʿere 281 Mostaʿsam, Caliph  261 Mostowfı, Hamd-Allâh  190, 224

645

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Mosul  137, 189 Motakallem, Hasan-e  263 Motannabi 171 Moʿtasem, Caliph  50 motassaʿ 304 mothamman  304, 309–10 mowashshah 296 Mowdud b. Zangi  125 Mowlaviyya Order  546 Mozaffarid dynasty  8, 214–15, 217, 224, 364, 431, 435, 451, 463–65, 468 Mughal dynasty  218 shahrâshub under  575–78 Muhammad Wahid Mirzâ  430 Multan 411 Mumtâz Mahal, Empress  576 Musâ, Prophet  see Moses musical accompaniment  339, 564 mysticism in ghazals  316, 334–35, 341, 343–44, 360, 368–69, 387–88, 405–12, 414–15, 432, 441–43, 451, 473–74, 476, 486 in quatrains  488–89, 496, 511, 514, 518–21, 548, 559–60, 564, 567 Nafahât al-ons (Jâmi)  474 Nafısi, Saʿid  163–64, 175, 351, 398, 518 Nakhchevân  186, 187 Nakhjavân, Battle of  219 Nakhjavâni, M.  299 Nakhshab  196, 388 Naqshbandis  473, 479, 487, 546 Nasafı, Sayyedâ, shahrâshub 573, 577 Nâser of Bukhara  231, 237, 275, 286

nasibs (prologues)  13, 21–24, 237–39, 269, 287, 301, 321–22 and development of ghazal  345–47, 349, 357 Nasir-al-Din Khalil Mirzâ  230 Nasir-al-Din Nasr b. Ebrâhim 163–64 Nasr, Amir  42, 94–95 Nasr II b. Ahmad  3–4, 10, 19, 38, 41, 86, 594 Nasr b. Ahmad, Emir  352 Nasr b. Ebrâhim  165 Nasr-e Khalaf  365 Nâteq, Homâ  433 nationalism  203, 439 natural phenomena, description of 279–81 nature, poetry of  233 Negar Kut  261 Neʿmat-Allâh Vali, Shâh  476, 559–60 Neʿmatollâhis  473, 476 New Persian language  185 Nezâm al-Molk  105–6, 109–12, 522 Nezâmi of Ganje  129, 137 Divân 397–98 ghazals  347–48, 397–400 Khamse  397, 448 Khosrow o Shirin 397–98 Leyli o Majnun  347, 397 Nezâmshâhi dynasty  575 Nezâri of Qohestân  237, 458–59 Nicholson, Reynold  415 Nicolas, J. B.  526–27 Night Journey (Meʿrâj)  602 nightingale, symbol of  325 Nikubakht, Nâder  580 Nimruz 175 Nishapur  58, 96, 114, 145, 167, 221, 359, 398, 405

646

Index nom de plume 319–21 nomadic tribes  162 nomadization of power  472 Noʿmâni, Shebli  349, 578 Nosrat b. Ahmad  213 Nosrat-al-Din Abu Bakr  146 Nowruz  31–37, 43, 55, 65, 93, 110, 239, 245, 298–99, 326, 452 Nowruz-nâme 521 Nozhat al-arvâh (al-Shahrazuri)  522 Nozhat al-arvâh (Khâqâni)  191 Nozhat al-majâles (Shervâni)  322, 504, 512–14, 517, 520, 523, 529–30, 567–68 Nuh I b. Nasr  10, 86 Nurâ 249 oath qasides  283–85 Obayd-e Zâkâni Akhlâq-al-ashrâf  226, 596 ghazals 461–63 hajv 591–602 Ketâb-e dah fasl 226 qasides  214, 226, 233, 237–39, 244, 276, 278–79, 285–86 Resâle-ye delgoshâ 226 Rish-nâme 226 obscene poetry Arabic  330, 581 Persian 579–602 Odhrite poets  347 old age  83–84 Ologh Beyg (Ulugh Beg)  218–19, 230 Omar Ali Shah  528 Omar Sheikh  218 Omari, Rashid-al-Din Mohammad  see Vatvât Onsori, Abu’l-Qâsem Hasan  13– 14, 24, 171, 172

Divân  30, 34, 41–42, 50–51, 54, 65–66, 73–74, 94–95, 98–99, 170 ghazals  350–52, 355 qasides  12, 25, 29, 43, 110, 115, 190, 233, 245, 364 oral tradition  2, 315, 345, 348, 503 Orfı Shirazi  231, 246, 256, 261, 267, 275, 285–86 Ormavi, Qâzi Serâj-al-Din  216 ornateness, excessive  288–89 Orsatti, Paola  140 Othmân b. Fakhr-al-Din  219 Ottoman Empire  216, 316, 479, 570, 574 Ouseley collection (Bodleian Library)  523, 526 Oveys (Oweys) I, Sultan  225–26, 259, 278, 468, 474 Owfı, Mohammad, Lobâb alalbâb  3, 110, 124, 131, 146, 163, 170–71, 183–84, 187, 359, 389, 398–400, 493 Owhadi Marâqi Esfahâni  257, 259, 269, 281 Owliyâ, Mohammad Nezâm-alDin 429 Owmân, Athir-al-Din  251, 281 Owrâd al-ahbâb wa fosus al-âdâb (Bâkharzi) 546–47 Oxus, river  50, 162–63, 179 Pahlavi period  439 paintings, quatrains in  563 palaces, building/completion of  49, 62–63, 69–70, 253 pand 373 panegyric qasides  see qasides panegyrists, socioeconomic position (13th–15th century)  229–31 parody  586, 588–91

647

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA pastiche 586 patronage and emergence of ghazal  358 flattery of patrons  1, 24 in Ghaznavid era  358–59 and hajv 583–84 propaganda value of  20 under Mongols and Timurids 228, 251, 404, 432, 473 under Saljuqs  359 pederasty 331 pedophilia 586–87 Pellò, Stefano  447 pen names  319–21 Persian language  102, 185, 247 Petrarch 443 Pir Hasan  260 Pirân 598–99 Platen, Graf August von  317 poetic correspondence  281 politics, poets and  25 polo  70, 72–73, 556–57 pornographic quatrains  498 Potter, A. G.  528 praise, poems of general  27–30 primordial day (Ruz-e alast) 337 private parts, keeping hidden 580–81 profanity 579–602 prosimetrum genre, quatrains and 499–503 prosodical theory mosammats 305–9 tarjiʿ-band and tarkib-band 295–97 prosody of medieval ghazals  317–21 mosammats 303–5 tarjiʿ-band and tarkib-band 293–95 pseudepigraphy 350

Punjab  15–16, 54, 102, 104 Pur Bahâ of Jâm  249, 580 Purjavâdi, Nasr-Allâh  443 Purjavâdi, Rezâ  442 Qabuli 216 Qâbus-nâme (Key-Qâvus)  333– 34, 338–39, 357, 579 qâfıye  305, 308 qalandar  334–36, 347, 367, 382–83, 393, 411, 432, 440, 457, 462, 509, 553 Qalandar-nâme (Ansâri)  335 Qamar, Nezâm-al-Din Mahmud  248 Qanbar 554 Qandahar 118 Qara Quyunlu Jahânshâh  218–19 Qara Quyunlu Turkomans  218– 19, 471–72 Qara Yusof  218 Qarakhanid dynasty (Karakhanid) 35, 105, 162–67, 215, 359, 387 Qarâkhatâ’is of Kerman (Qotloq­ khâniyye)  212, 223 Qarluq confederation  162 Qarmatis 51 qasides aesthetic judgments on  25–26 after fall of the Ghaznavids  102–61 Arabic  1–2, 21–22, 227 and art of celebration  26–85 at feudal courts  359–60 componential features  234–35 composition for festivals and feasts 31–49 and development of ghazal  345–47, 349 didactic and homiletic themes  103 early Ghaznavid period  11–15

648

Index in Eastern Iranian World  19–101 as form/framework  19, 21–22, 103, 321 formal and rhetorical strategies 92–101 hajv 579 historical preview  1–18 importance and literary status of 227–28 increasing complexity of  233 linguistic considerations  247–50 non-panegyric 235–37 and occasions in court life  49–73 origins of  1–2 panegyric  1––101, 237–47, 251–53 performance of  23–24, 26 personal elements in  73–79 as poems of general praise  27–30 purpose of  25–26 relative decline of  228, 251, 286, 292, 314–15, 341, 359 rhetorical features  92–101, 285–91 thematic division  235–47 themes of  250–85 under Khwârazmshahids 166– 84, 205–6 under Mongols and Timurids 205–92, 237–47 under Qarakhanids  162–66 under Saljuqs  103–61 under Samanids and Ghaznavids  2–11, 19–101 as vehicle for advice or criticism 25, 252 in Western Persia  185–204 qatʿe (occasional poems)  86, 278, 282–83, 318 Qatrân, Sharaf-al-Zamân  3, 145, 187–88, 299–301, 309 Divân  187, 299–301

Qayravan 118 Qazvin  107, 226 Qazvini, Mirzâ Mohammad  126, 437 Qefti, Jamâl-al-Din Yusof  522 qetʿe  570, 579 Qilij Tamghâh Khan, Rokn-alDin 143 Qipchaq steppe  474 Qiyâth-al-Din Mohammad  209 Qizil Arslân  397 Qodâma b. Jaʿfar  345 Qom  248, 562 Qomri Âmoli, Serâj-al-Din  235, 240–41, 246, 258, 262, 268, 277–78, 281, 283–84, 580 Qor’an quotations from  248 as source for ghazals  337, 383, 400, 447–48, 458, 479 Qotb-al-Din Aybak  216 Qotb-al-Din Mohammad  221 Qotloq Sultan  212 quatrains (robâʿ iyyât)  140, 322, 328, 570 amatory motifs  513–17, 538–45, 552 by Hâfez’s contemporaries 555–61 in divans  492, 504, 507 early collections of  496–99 Erâqi and Homâm  549–50 folk 563–64 Hâfez 550–55 hajv 579 Khayyâmian motifs employed by other poets  529–37 later collections of  507–13 mysticism in  488–89, 496, 511, 514, 518–21, 548, 559–60, 564, 567

649

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Omar Khayyâm  521–29 origins, rhyme and meter  389–95 post 15th century  564 and prosimetrum genre  499–503 Rumi 545–48 Saʿdi 537–45 and shahrâshub 571 themes and imagery  494 true authorship of  503–7, 513 use of pen names in  553–55 use in public  561–67 used to mobilize for war  564– 65, 567 wandering  503–7, 513 Quchâni, Abdallâh  563 Qudatghu Bilig (Hâjeb)  162–63 question and answer (so’âl o javâb) 94 Rabenjani, Abu’l-Abbâs  10, 21, 41, 86, 90–91 Rabiʿi, Kart-nâme 212 radif (refrain after the rhyme)  92, 99–101, 158–59, 234–35, 245, 285 medieval ghazals  318–19, 394–97 rahil 22 Ramadan  4, 31, 46–49, 110, 261, 355 Rashid-al-Din Fazl-Allâh  209, 225, 230, 432, 467, 522 Rashidi 164 Rastâkhiz-e shardârân-e Irân (Eshqi) 203 râvi 23–24 Ravvâdi dynasty  187 Ray  14, 145, 185, 218, 221, 490 Râzi, Fakhr-al-Din, Resâlat fı’l-tanbih alâ baʿz al-asrâr al-mudaʿa fı baʿz al-sura al Qor’ân al-azim 522 reinstatement of rule/office  62–64

relatives, insinuations about 580–81 religious leaders  81 Rempis, Christian  527 repetition 289–90 Resâlat fı’l-tanbih alâ baʿz al-asrâr al-mudaʿa fı baʿz al-sura al Qor’ân al-azim (Râzi) 522 Resâle-ye delgoshâ (Zâkâni)  226 response poems  98–101 Resurrection  522, 542 Reviczky, Count C. A. de  444 Rey  see Ray Rezâ, Imam  257, 263 rhetorical devices  92–101, 285–91 rhyme (qâfıye)  234, 285 medieval ghazals  318–19 quatrains 491 riddles (loghaz or chistân) 96, 118–19, 122, 155–56, 282 Rish-nâme (Zâkâni)  226 Ritter, Hellmut  137–38, 406, 457, 508, 527 Riyâhi, Mohammad Amin  530 robâʿ i form  570, 579 robes of honor  see khelʿat Roemer, Hans Robert  446 Rokn-al-Din Abu Bakr  212 Rokn-al-Din Mahmud  156 Rokn-al-Din Masʿud  149, 156, 221 Rokn-al-Din Sâʿed b. Masʿud  221 Rokn-al-Din Toghrel III  401 rose, symbol of  325 Rosen, Freidrich  527 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel  525 Rostam 597–600 Rostam of Khuriyân  232 Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (FitzGerald)  325, 524–25, 528–29

650

Index Rückert, Friedrich  316–17 Rudaki, Abu Abdallâh Jaʿfar  11, 13, 23, 187 Divân-e Rudaki 3 ghazals  318, 351–55 parodied 594–96 qasides  3–7, 21, 28, 38, 83–84, 86–87 quatrains  491–92, 570 shahrâshub 570 stanzaic poems  303, 309 Rum  216, 320 Rumi, Jalâl-al-Din  216, 320 Divân-e kabir  408, 504 ghazals  316, 408–11, 431, 545 hajv  580, 583 Mathnavi-ye maʿnavi 373–74, 545 quatrains  489, 504–7, 532–34, 545–48, 563 Runi, Abu’l-Faraj  104, 275, 358 Divân  31, 45, 53, 62, 131 qasides  15–16, 100 Ruskin, John  525 Rypka, Jan  25, 157, 203, 291, 399, 413, 444, 446 Sabbâh, Hasan  522 Sabzavâr  212, 215, 431, 478 sacred, glorification of the  253–58 Saʿd b. Salmân  85 Saʿd b. Zangi  211, 221, 320 Saʿd, Sharaf-al-Din Abu-Tâher-e 121 Sade (festival of winter solstice) 31, 35, 41–44 Saʿdi, Mosleh-al-Din  211–12, 224, 231, 276, 429 Badâyeʿ 416, 417 Bustân (Saʿ di-nâme)  222, 331, 413, 418, 419

Ghazaliyyât-e qadim 416 ghazals  320, 325, 339, 369, 390, 400, 402, 404, 413–27, 433, 445, 458, 465, 480, 486 Golestân  222, 413, 418–19, 504, 537 Khavâtim 416 Matn-e kâmel-e divân 532–33, 538–45 parodies of  591–92 qasides  132, 150, 206, 222–23, 232–33, 236–37, 239–40, 243, 246, 248, 250, 252–55, 258, 261, 268–73, 277, 284–86, 292 quatrains  489, 498, 507, 532–33, 537–45 Tayyebât 416–18 Sadr Tâj-al-Din  283 Sadr-al-Din Khatib  see Rabiʿi Sâ’eb of Tabriz  316 Sâʿedi clan  148–49, 156, 401 Safâ, Dhabih-Allâh  116–17, 150, 209, 233, 401, 414 Safar-nâme (Khosrow)  187 Safavid dynasty  205, 217, 219, 256, 316 rise of  472, 487 shahrâshub under  571–75, 577–78 Saffarid dynasty  175, 365 Sâfi, shahrâshub  570, 574 Safine-ye Tabriz (Abu’l-Majd) 512–17, 519–21 Sâheb of Astarâbâd  283 Sâheb b. Abbâd  145 sajʿ 305, 309 Salghurid dynasty  211–12, 223, 320 Saljuqs  15, 17–18, 27, 56, 62, 72, 101, 185–86, 189, 204, 211, 216 declining political stability  143, 167, 204–5, 207, 387

651

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA gain territory from Ghaznavids 358 patronage  359, 384 qaside under  103–61 quatrains under  492, 494 rise of  104–6 shahrâshub under  571 stanzaic poems under  301 Salmân, Masʿud-e Saʿd-e  see Masʿud-e Saʿd-e Salmân Salmân-e Sâvaji, Jamâl-al-Din  230 ghazals 467–71 qasides  225, 242, 251, 259, 263, 265, 273, 285–86, 288 Sâm Mirzâ  574 Samanid era disintegration of  162 loss of poetry from  351 qaside in  2–11, 20–21, 102 Samarkand  105, 143, 163, 472–73, 479, 480 samâʿs (musical devotional séances)  489–90, 546–47 Sanâ’i, Majdud  104, 130, 171, 190, 341, 392, 441 Divân  80–81, 108, 368, 370 ghazals  316, 320, 329, 333, 336, 348, 359, 360, 367–84, 393–94, 400, 405–6, 411, 432, 440, 457, 460, 486 Hadiqat al-haqiqe  18, 384, 586–88 hajv  580, 586–88 Kârnâme-ye Balkh 576 mathnavis 376 mystical poetry  368–69, 38–88 parodied  588–91, 594 qasides  17–18, 103, 109, 146, 150, 157, 165, 285, 310 quatrains 530 Seyr al-ʿebâd elâ’l-maʿ âd 18

shahrâshub 570 Sanâm 57 Sanâyeʿ al-badâyeʿ (Sayfı Bokhâri) 571–72 Sanjar, Sultan  18, 59, 62, 99, 101, 104, 109, 113–14, 118, 122–25, 132, 143, 148, 164, 167, 169, 175, 179, 180–81, 388, 390, 497 Sâqi-nâme (Hâfez)  436 Sâqi-nâme (Zohuri)  575–76 sâqi-nâmes  573, 575 Sarakhs 17 Saray 474 Sarbadarid/Sarbedâr dynasty  215, 217, 431 Sâru Taqi, grand vizier  562 Sasanid period  186, 198, 375, 423 downfall of  102 loss of poetry from  349–50 love poetry in  348–49 panegyric qaside in  11, 19–101 satire  276–78, 345, 569–70, 602 social 586 Savâneh (Ghazâli)  335, 342, 479, 500–503, 505–7, 514 Sâve  225, 467 Sâyen, Rokn-e  251, 285 Sayfı Bokhâri, Sanâyeʿ al-badâyeʿ 571–72 Sayyed Hasan  89 Sayyerâ 54 Scarcia, Gianroberto  447 Schaeder, Hans-Heinrich  527 Schoeler, G. 296–7, 309 Sebüktegin, Yamin-al-Dowle Mahmud b. see Mahmud of Ghazna secular powers, praise of  251–53 Seidensticker, Tilman  491 self-reproach 267–68

652

Index Selim I, Sultan  478 Semnâni, Alâ’-al-Dawla  225, 593–94 Serâj-al-Din Qomri see Qomri Âmoli, Serâj-al-Din Serâji Khorâsâni  233, 246, 262, 274, 289–91 Seyed-Gohrab, Ali-Asghar  xvi, 117, 137, 488–568 Seyf-al-Dowle Mahmud  15, 358 Seyf-al-Haqq Mohammad b. Mansur 17 Seyr al-ʿebâd elâ’l-maʿ âd (Sanâ’i) 18 Shabestari, Mahmud, Golshan-e râz  442, 477, 520 Shaddâdi dynasty  187, 300 shâdhgola 45–46 Shafar-al-Din Mozaffar I, Amir 214–15 Shâfeʿi faction  221, 401 Shafıʿi-Kadkani, MohammadRezâ  116, 233, 287, 478, 490, 496, 508 Mofles-e kimiyâforush 131 Shafı’ites 148 Shâh Jahân, Emperor  576 Shâh Neʿmat-Allâh  442 Shâh Shojâʿ, Jalâl-al-Din Abu’lFavâres  215, 226, 435, 441, 463–65, 468 Shâhi of Sabzavâr, Amir  478 Shahid of Balkh  10 Shahidi, Seyyed Jaʿfar  131 Shâhnâme (Ferdowsi)  594, 596–600, 601 Shâhnâmes 56 shahrâshub (shahrangiz) 332–33, 361, 366, 377–79, 382, 498, 569–78 Shahriyâr, Mohammad-Hosayn  316

Shâhrokh Mirzâ b. Timur  218, 230, 473 Shakespeare, William  443 shakvâ’iyyât 264 Shamâkhiye 186 Shâmlu, Ahmad  438 Shams-al-Din I  212 Shams-al-Din II  212 Shams-al-Din Eltotmesh  216 Shams-al-Din Mohammad of Tabriz  216, 270, 408, 427, 548 Shams-e Qeys Râzi, Al-Moʿ jam fı maʿ â’ire ashʿ âr al-ʿajam 127, 212, 295–96, 309, 338–39, 345–47, 349, 488, 492 Shams-e Tabasi  146 Sharaf-al-Din Mahmud Shah, Amir 214 Sharh-e moshkelât-e Divân-e Anvari (Farâhâni)  131 Sharh-e robâʿ iyyât (Jâmi)  560 Sharia law  522 Sharma, Sunil  xvi, 569–78 Sharvânshâh dynasty  186, 188, 394 Shehâb-al-Din  see Amʿaq of Bukhara Shehâb-al-Din Abu Hafs alSohravardi, Sheikh, Avâref-al-maʿ âref 157 Shem’i 442 Shervân/Shirvân/Sharvân 166–67, 178, 185–86, 189–90, 204 Shervâni, Jamâl Khalil, Nozhat al-majâles  322, 504, 512–14, 517, 520, 523, 529–30, 567–68 Shiʿite Islam  105, 215–16, 254, 256, 263, 431, 487, 518, 554 Shir-Ali, Kamâl-al-Din  see Banâ’i Shiraz  214, 222, 224–26, 320, 404, 418, 432, 434, 436, 441, 451, 457, 459, 463, 468, 472

653

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Shirin and Farhâd  337, 424 signatures, classical ghazals  319–21 Simorgh 598–99 Sistan  38, 212, 218, 581 Small Lur, Emirs of the (Lor-e kuchak) 212–13 Soheyli-Khwânsari, Ahmad  460 Sohravardiyye  411, 413 Sohrevardi, Shehâb-al-Din Omar, Sheikh  222, 258, 334, 413 Sojâsi, Shams  146 solar calendar  31 Soleymân, King  337 Soleymân, Shah  574 Soleymân Boghrâ Khan  175 Soleymân Khan, Khaqan  175 Soleymân Shâh (Safavid)  125 Soltân Abu Saʿid Mirzâ  218 Soltân Valad  408, 411 Soltânshâh b. Ebrâhim  74–75 Somnath  13, 15, 52 Sorkhâb  146, 190 Soruri 442 soyurghâl system  220 Sperl, Stefan  178 sporting activities  70–73 Sprachman, Paul  xvii, 579–602 springtime 325–26 stanzaic poems  293–314 Stokes, Whitley  525 Subtelny, Maria  219–20, 478 Sudi  437, 442 Sufısm  18, 80, 107–8, 157, 209, 217, 222, 225, 228, 257–58, 269, 334, 341, 343, 440–41, 479 brotherhoods  409–10, 429, 432, 434, 460, 473, 487, 546, 593 and ghazals  360, 405, 408, 410–11, 413, 429, 473, 486–87 and quatrains  490, 509, 546–48

and shahrâshub 572 and Shiʿism  431 Suleyman the Magnificent, Sultan 574 Summerians 119 Sunni Islam  105, 162, 216, 221, 254, 256–57, 479 Suri, Seyf-al-Din  57–59 Suzani, Mohammad b. Ali  105 Divân  163, 388 ghazals 387–88 hajv  90, 580, 588–90, 592, 594, 600, 602 quatrains 498 swearing 283–85 Swinburne, Algernon Charles  525 sycophancy 287–88 Tabarestân  185, 221, 241 Tabari, Târikh-nâme-ye Tabari 500 Tabari dialect  185 Tabas  17, 109, 364 Tabriz  145–46, 185, 187, 190, 214, 216, 218, 226, 404, 432, 468, 472, 474, 479, 550, 574 Tadhkerat al-shoʿarâ (Dowlatshâh)  158, 477–78 tadhkeres 14 Tafazzoli, Ahmad  490 Tafazzoli, Taqi  406 taghazzol  19, 21, 49, 55, 62, 171, 175–77, 181, 183, 269, 321–23, 330, 339, 357, 363, 440 Tâher, Nâser-al-Mella va’l-Din Abu’l-Fath 140 tahniyat 50 Tâj-al-Din Erâqi  260 Tâj-al-Din Nasr b. Tâher  175 Tâj-al-Maʿâli, Sayyed Majd-al-Din 181–82 Tajâreb-al-salaf (Hendushâh)  213

654

Index tajdid-e matlaʿ (renewal of opening distich)  234, 238, 245–47 Takesh b. Il-Arslân  168–69, 221 takhallos (transitional lines)  238, 240–41, 319–20, 553–55 takrâr (repetition)  289–90 Tâleb, Amir al-Mo’menin Ali b. Abi 174 Tâleb, Majd-al-Din Abi  142 Tamerlane  208, 215, 217, 219, 431, 471–72, 474 Tang dynasty  490 taqâzâ (requests)  73 taqsim (division)  290 Tarab-khâne  523, 530 Tarab-nâme (Bâkharzi)  493 tarâna (song)  489 Târikh-e Beyhaqi (Beyhaqi)  35, 41 Târikh-e Jahân-goshâ (Jovayni)  168 Târikh-nâme-ye Tabari (Tabari) 500 tarjiʿ-band  293–303, 305, 313–14 Tarjomân al-balâghe (alRâduyâni)  12, 174, 305–6 Tarjome-ye sad kalame (Vatvât)  174 tarkib-band  86, 293–303, 305, 313–14 tashbib 346–47 Tayyebât (Saʿdi)  416–18 Tekish 156 Tennyson, Alfred  525 tenzones  119, 186 Termedh 179 Termedhi, Manijak  580 Termez 216 textiles, quatrains on  561 Thackeray, William Makepeace  525 Theqat-al-Molk Tâher  84–85, 100 Thiesen, F.  297 Tigris, river  191, 199 tiles, quatrains on  562

time, passage of  324–25, 332, 392 Timur  see Tamerlane Timurid period literary milieu  219–26 Persian culture in  471–85 shahrâshub in  571–73 sociopolitical background 217–19 Toghâmshâh, Azod-al-Din  145 Toghrel Beg, Sultan  68–69, 106 Tohfat al-Erâqeyn (Khâqâni)  189, 394 tombs, quatrains on  562, 567 topographical poems  573 Toqtamish 474 toshih 288 Transcaucasian lands  103 Transoxiana  3, 11, 102, 103, 163, 205, 206, 218, 364, 387, 471, 473 Tripoli 537 Turân Khosrow  175 Turanians 162 Turkik lexical elements  249–50 Turkish language  316 Turkish poetry  478 Turkmenistan 167 Turkomans  218–19, 472 Tusi, Nasir-al-Din  209, 518 Umayyad Caliphate  347, 581 Unity of Being doctrine  476, 479, 558, 560 Urdu  316, 577 Uzbekistan 167 Uzun Hasan b. Ali  219 Vahid Tabrizi Masnavi-ye âsheq o maʿshuq 575 shahrâshub 574–75 Vajih-al-Din Masʿud  215 Valad, Bahâ-al-Din  216

655

PERSIAN LYRIC POETRY IN THE CLASSICAL ERA Vâmeq and Adhrâ  337 van den Berg, Gabrielle  xvii, 293–314 Varqe o Golshâh (Ayyuqi)  347 Vâsetat al-eqd (Jâmi)  480 vâsete  293–95, 302 vâsete-beyts 293–94 Vassâf-al-Hazra 249 Vatvât, Rashid-al-Din  101, 144, 149, 166, 172–79, 189 Divân  169–70, 176–77 education 173 figurative language and rhetoric 169–70 Hadâ’eq al-sehr fı daqâ’eq alsheʿr  144, 174 and Khwârazmshahids 167–69 other works  174 patrons 175 personality 173–74 qasides  100, 167, 175–79, 184 stanzaic poems  306–9 style 170 Tarjome-ye sad kalame 174 Vazinpur, Nâder  579–80 Vesâl (reunion)  323 victory poems  49–59, 253, 259, 261 Volga, river  474 war, engagement in  253 war poets  564–5 weddings  68–9, 253, 259, 563 Whinfield, E. H.  526–27 White Sheep Turkomans  219, 472

wine drinking, celebration of 278–79, 331–32, 439, 450–51, 454–56 wisdom literature  11 working class poets  573 Yahyâ, Jamâl-al-Din Mohammad 246 Yaʿqub Âq Quyunlu, Sultan  219– 20, 231, 278 Yarshater, Ehsan  vii, xvii, xix–xxi Yazd  211, 214, 223, 404, 435 Yazdi, Jalâl-e Azod  233, 243–44, 260–61, 273–75 Yusof, Amir  37, 40, 44, 47, 66–70, 73–74, 77, 88–89 Yusof b. Yaʿqub  56 Yusof and Zoleykhâ  337, 479 Zahhâk  536, 599–600 Zahir of Fâryâb  105, 145–49, 22–25, 275, 285–86 Zakariyâ of Moltan  411 Zâl 598–99 Zamakhshari 173 Zanolla, Valentina  370 Zarrinkub, Abd-al-Hoseyn  210, 447, 508 Zhukovsky, Valentin  126, 503, 526 Zipoli, Riccardo  457–58 Ziyarid dynasty  43 Zohuri, Nur-al-Din Mohammad 575, 577 Sâqi-nâme 575–76 Zoroastrianism 336

656