(,¥S3 T/. (50rneU Hnttterattg Hibtarg 3tl|aca, Nem ^avk BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 Date Due \A^^^Q1 KCnty '— IMk J . ^Jfc^j^TT 'rl KFty 1 1 jmw w-' vSmm J|*"l \Jy3iJ ^W\ f) PK 6433JlT" ""'™'''"' '■"'"^ ...Early „ Persian poetry 3 1924 026 906 374 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026906374 EARLY PERSIAN POETRY FROM THE BEGINNINGS DOWN TO THE TIME OF FIRDAUSI BY THE SAME AUTHOR PERSIA PAST AND PRESENT A BOOK OF TRAVEL AND RESEARCH Cloth, 8to, xxxi + 471 pages, with more than 200 illustrations and a map. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1906. FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO THE HOME OF OMAR KHAYYAM TRAVELS IN TRANSCAUCASIA AND NORTHERN PER- SIA FOR HISTORIC AND LITERARY RESEARCH Cloth, 8vo, xxxiii + 317 pages, with over 200 illustrations and a map. New Yokk, The Macmillan Company, 1911. ZOROASTER, THE PROPHET OF ANCIENT IRAN Cloth, 8vo, xxiii + 314 pages, with 3 illustrations and a map. New York, Columbia University Press, 1899 (reprinted 1919). Kl.N(c IvHllSK.Vr I'AKX IZ SKATED ON' HIS ThR(1XE (From the Ciu'Iiran Ciillection of I'er.^ian Maimsi'i'ipts in the Metropolitan Miiseum of Art, >;o\y York) EAELY PERSIAN POETRY FROM THE BEGINNINGS DOWN TO THE TIME OF FIRDAUSI WITH TEN ILLUSTEATIONS BY A. V. WILLIAMS JACKSON PBOFBSSOR OF INDO-IRANIAN LANGtTAGBS IN COLUMBIA UNIVEB- SITT, AUTHOR OF 'PEESIA PAST AND PRESENT,' 'FROM CON- STANTINOPLE TO THE HOME OF OMAR KHATTAM,' AND 'ZOROASTER, THE PROPHET OF ANCIENT IRAN' TStin gotfe THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1920 All rights reserved ^1 y nV, "VTTT ^<^ ^ COPTEIflHT, 1920, I bt the macmillan company. Set up and electrotyped. Published April. 1920. c. LJ NottoonlJ Tlreag J. S. Cashing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. TO KATE PREFACE This book is a labor of love — the outcome of years of devotion to the study of Persia, its history, languages, and literature, and is in part the result of four journeys through the Land of the Sun, in 1903, 1907, 1910, and 1918. Some of the records of these travels have appeared in print elsewhere. The appreciation with which those studies were received has been an incentive to supplement them by a literary presentation, in brief form, of the earlier poetry of Persia down to about 1000 a.d., so as to include Firdausi's Shah-namah, or 'Book of Kings,' the great epic poem of Persia. Perhaps the reception of the present work may give encouragement enough to lead to the preparation of a couple of volumes on ^ Persian Mystic Poetry' and on 'The Lyric and Romantic Poetry of Iran.' The aim of the chapters included in the present volume — and I hope that they may not be found unduly long — is to give succinctly the main outlines of the several early periods now chosen for presentation, and to illustrate, by translations made from the original Persian, the charac- teristics of the various authors, regarding whom I have gath- ered material from all sorts of sources, native and foreign. Many of the citations are only small fragments of verse from Persian poets so long dead that they have been evoked almost as shades from the far-distant past; but there is something very human in their brief messages that makes their story more np-to-date than might be imagined. Some of the reliques of their works, however, vii viii PREFACE are longer and have a fuller metrical tale to tell. The episode of Suhrab and Rustam, moreover, is a well-known classic in literatm-e, so that a new rendering into blank verse may not be unwelcome. In making all these translations it has been my en- deavor to combine the feeling of the original with the element of a faithful reproduction in modern form. To be fairly literal and at the same time fau'ly literary is not an easy task. How far I have succeeded in attaining my aim must remain for others to judge. It will be easy, for any one who cares to do so, to compare text and version by making use of the references to sources, con- scientiously given in the footnotes regarding every passage I have translated. In the three brief selections where I have chosen the English version by other scholars (Cow ell, Pickering, Browne) references are likewise given directly after the passages. In making the renderings there has been no attempt in general to imitate the Persian rhythms, which are elabo- rate and depend upon the quantity of syllables, heavy and light, and thus do not lend themselves to English versifi- cation any more than do the Greek and Latin metrical schemes. But, on the other hand, the general system of rhyming in Persian has been imitated in a broad manner, occasionally even the favorite Persian monorhyme,^ and in all cases of departure from such schemes the footnotes call attention to the arrangement of the rhyme in the original stanzas. The quatrain-form has been indicated to the eye wherever it occurs, so that lovers of Omar Khayyam can quickly catch rubal verses that long antedate the famous Tentmaker of Nishapur. In one of the longer selections translated from the Shah-namah, moreover, an attempt has 1 Cf. pages 29, 33-34, 36 n. 1, 52 n. 2. PREFACE IX been made to suggest the rhythm and couplet-verse of Firdausi's epic.^ Any one who is interested in the verse- forms and the rhetoric of the Persians will find abundant material on the subject in the well-known works of Browne, Gladwin, Riickert, Blochmann, and Wahrmund, not to mention others. I have purposely omitted all diacritical marks which would indicate the length of vowels or differentiate be- tween certain consonants in Persian names. These dia- critical marks have been employed, however, in the Alpha- betical List of Poets which I have included as part of the introductory matter (pages xx-xxi). They may also be found in the very occasional transliterations from the Persian which I have given in italics. I hope that neither the general reader nor the specialist may be embarrassed by my method in either case. Regarding the pronuncia- tion of Persian names see the special note, page xxii. Persian style and its poetic characteristics — often bizarre to us — are familiar to those who know Omar Khayyam, Sa'di, Hafiz, or some of the rest ; and though I have not yet reached the period of Persian poetry when the gul and the hulbul fill the verse with tuneful measures, I still hope that even without 'the nightingale and the rose' — though they are mentioned — this volume, with lute, madrigal, and trump, may find ' gentle readers.' I now take the wished-for opportunity of expressing my thanks to some of the many to whom gratitude is due. One of the first inspirations to write on Persian poetry came in the form of an invitation, in 1908, from the Johns Hopkins University, to deliver seven lectures on the subject, as Percy Turnbull Lecturer, on the foundation established by Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull of Balti- 1 See pages 96-99. X PREFACE more, Md., in memory of a deceased son. As a later sequel, in 1919, after a fourth journey to Persia, came a request from the University of Chicago, through President Harry Pratt Judson, who had been Director of the Ameri- can-Persian Relief Commission, to present the same general subject in three addresses in a lecture-series founded by William Vaughn Moody. In addition to these sources there came also a special inspiration from the audiences present on the various occasions when I gave public lectures, in the halls of my Alma Mater, on Persian Poetry and other topics relating to the Orient. I desire to express as well, with grateful acknowledg- ment, my indebtedness to the works of scholars in the same field, especially to the writings of my friend Edward G. Browne, the most distinguished English authority on the literature of Persia, and also to the works of the late scholars Darmesteter of Paris and Horn of Strassburg. Eth^'s erudite and creative contributions, which have left a standard to emulate for all time, have been constantly consulted ; and Pizzi's name will always rank with those of the foremost Persian scholars of Italy. The essays of Pickering, though published long ago, became accessible to me only after Chapter IV was practically ready for the press, but they have been constantly consulted, as the added references will show.^ My indebtedness to these scholars in particular, as well as to others, may best be inferred from the abundant citations in the footnotes and in the List of Works of Reference. But there are likewise special debts of obligation and gratitude which I wish to record. My assistant at Columbia, Dr. A. Yohannan, whose birthplace was in Northwestern Persia and who has been my devoted helper 1 See the remarks, p. 32 n. 2 and p. 47 n. 1. PREFACE XI for years, stood ready at all times to give aid in the solu- tion of difficult problems that presented themselves in the texts translated. My former student and ever friend, Dr. Louis H. Gray, whose scholarly contributions are too well known to need mention here, most generously read through the first rough draft of a considerable number of the chapters and gave valuable suggestions which I wish heartily to acknowledge. But two fellow-workers, always at hand, come in for the highest meed of thanks. Dr. George C. 0. Haas, formerly Fellow in Indo-Iranian Languages at Columbia, has not only read the proofsheets throughout, supplementing by his skilled eye the care bestowed by the compositors and readers of the Norwood Press, but has also prepared the Index and aided with his advice in regard to all matters of detail connected with the make-up of the volume. Dr. Charles J. Ogden, who was formerly a student in the Department and who most generously supplied my place at Columbia during my eight months' leave of absence on the relief mission to Persia in 1918-1919, has worked almost daily with me on the volume as the sheets were passing through the press. To his broad scholarship, sound learning, wise judgment, and fine critical sense I owe more than I can readily state. To each and all of these willing helpers my most sincere thanks are expressed anew. A. V. WILLIAMS JACKSON. Columbia Universitt, February 12, 1920. CONTENTS PASS Preface vii List of Illustrations xv List of Works of Reference xvi List of Abbreviations xix Alphabetical List of Poets xx Note on Persian Pronunciation xxii Chapter L Persian Poetry of Ancient Days ... 1 (From before 600 B.C. to about 650 a.d.) Chapter IL The New Awakening of Persian Song after THE MUHAMMADAN CONQUEST : ThE TaHIRID AND Saffarid Periods 14 (From about 800 to 900 a.d.) Chapter III. Kays from Lost Minor Stars : Earlier Sama- NiD Period 22 (About 900-950 a.d.) Chapter IV. Rudagi, a Herald of the Dawn ... 32 (Middle of the Tenth Century a.d.) Chapter V. Snatches of Mxnstrel Song : From the Later Samanid Period to the Era of Mahmud of Ghaznah 45 (The Latter Half of the Tenth Century a.d.) Chapter VI. Dakiki 59 (In the Latter Half of the Tenth Century a.d.) Chapter Vn. The Round Table of Mahmud of Ghaznah: Court Poetry 66 (Early in the Eleventh Century a.d.) Chapter VIII. Firdausi, and the Great Persian Epic . . 82 (About 935-1025 a.d.) Chapter IX. The Shah-namah : Some Selections Trans- lated 93 Chapter X. Epilogue 115 Index 119 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS King Khuseau Paeviz Seated on his Throne . Frontispiece From the Cochran Collection of Persian Manuscripts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. PAGE A Page op as Avestan Manusceipt with Pahlavi Trans- lation 4 From the Avestan Ms. Jp. 1 in the Columbia University Library. King Khuseau Paeviz and the Minsteel Baebad . . 12 From the Cochran Collection of Persian Manuscripts, MetropoUtan Museum of Art. The Ceumbling Mausoleum at Tus 26 From a photograph by the author. The Great Minaebt oe Bukhara 36 From a photograph by Edvyard G. Pease. Embellished Introductory Page op a Persian Manu- script 72 From the Cochran Collection of Persian Manuscripts, Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Bridge over the Kashap Eivee at Tus ... 90 From a photograph by the author. Ruined Walls of Tus at the Site of the Poemee Eudbar Gate 90 From a photograph by the author. Faridun's Grief at the Murder of his Son Iraj . . 100 From the Cochran Collection of Persian Manuscripts, Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Death of Suheab at the Hands op his Fathee EUSTAM 114 From the Cochran Collection of Persian Manuscripts, Metropolitan Museum of Art. LIST OF WOEKS OF KEFERENCE This list includes only the works most often referred to as covering this par- ticular period of Persian literature. Detailed information regarding other books and papers is given in the footnotes. Aruzi. Chahar Maq^la ('The Four Discourses') of Ahmad ibn "Umar ibn 'All an-Nizami al-'Ariidi as-Samarqandi, edited by Mirza Muhammad of Qazwfn. London and Leyden, 1910. (Gibb Memorial Series, vol. 11.) The Chahdr Maq^la ('Four Discourses') of Nidhami-i- "Arudi-i-Samarqandi, translated into English by Edward G. Browne. In Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1899, pp. 613-663, 757-845. [Eeprint, pp. 1-139.] Aufi. Lubabu '1-Albab of Muhammad 'Awfi. Part 1, edited by Edward G. Browne and Mirza Muhammad Qazwini, London and Leyden, 1906 ; Part 2, edited by Edward G. Browne, London and Leyden, 1903. (Persian Historical Texts Series.) [Part 2 was issued before Part l.J Browne, Edward G. A Literary History of Persia from the Earliest Times. Volume 1, Erom the Earliest Times until Eirdawsi; Volume 2, From Firdawsi to Sa'di. London and New York, 1902, 1906. [The standard work in English, and constantly consulted, as shown by the references in the footnotes.] Biographies of Persian Poets : From Tarikh-i Guzida of Mustawfi. In Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1900-1901. [See specific references in the footnotes.] See also Aruzi, Aufi, Daulatshah, Mustaufi. Darmesteter, James. Les Origines de la poesie persane. Paris, 1887. [A valuable little book of 88 pages.] Daulatshah. Tadhkiratu 'sh-Shu'ara, 'Memoirs of the Poets,' of Dawlatsh^h bin 'Ala'u 'd-Dawla, edited by Edward G. Browne. London and Leyden, 1901. (Persian Historical Texts Series.) £th€, Hermann. Die hofische und romantische Poesie der Parser. Hamburg, 1887. [A general presentation in 48 pages.] Eudagi, der Sami,nidendichter. In Nachrichten von der xvi LIST OF WORKS OF REFERENCE xvii koniglichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschafien zu Gottingen, 1873, pp. 663-742. ' Die Lieder des KisS'i. In Sitzungsberichte der konig- lich bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschafien zu Munchen (phil.- hist. CL), 1874, vol. 2, pp. 133-153. Firdusi als Lyriker. In Sitzungsberichte der koniglich bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschafien zu Munchen 1872, pp. 275-304 ; 1873, pp. 623-659. [Two articles. — Cf. Noldeke, ' Per- sische Studien, II,' in Wiener Sitzungsb. 126. 14 and n. 3, 34 n. 1 ; also Pickering, ' Firdausi's Lyrical Poetry,' in National Bev., Feb. 1890.] EMagi's Vorlaufer und Zeitgenossen. In Morgenldnd- ische Forschungen: Festschrift H. L. Fleischer gewidmet, pp. 33-68, Leipzig, 1875. Neupersische Litteratur. In Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, vol. 2, pp. 212-368, Strassburg, 1896-1904. Firdausi. Firdusii Liber Regum qui inscribitur Schahname, ed. J. A. VuUers (et S. Landauer). 3 vols. Leyden, 1877-1884. Le Livre des rois, traduit et commente par Jules Mohl. 7 vols. Paris, 1876-1878. II Libro dei re, poema epico, recato dal persiano in versi italiani da Italo Pizzi. 8 vols. Turin, 1886-1888. Firdosi's Konigsbuch (Schabname), iibersetzt von Fried- rich Riickert, aus dem Nachlass herausgegeben von E. A. Bayer. 3 vols. Berlin, 1890, 1894, 1895. [Incomplete.] Tbe Sh£ib-nama of Firdausi, done into English by Arthur George Warner and Edmond Warner. Vols. 1-7. London, 1905-1915. [To be completed in nine volumes.] The Shah-namah, translated by Alexander Eogers. London, 1907. [Incomplete.] The Shah N^mah, translated and abridged in prose and verse by J. Atkinson. Edited by J. A. Atkinson. London and New York, 1886. (Chandos Classics.) Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, herausgegeben von Wilhelm Geiger und Ernst Kuhn. 2 vols. Strassburg, 1895-1904. Horn, Paul. Geschichte Irans in islamitischer Zeit. In Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, vol. 2, pp. 551-604, Strassburg, 1896-1904. XVlll LIST OF WORKS OF REFERENCE Geschichte der persischen Litteratur. Leipzig, 1901. (In the series Die Litteraturen des Ostens.) Asadi's neupersisches Worterbuch, Lughat-i Furs. Ber- lin, 1897. (Abhandlungen der koniglichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Gottingen, phil.-hist. Klasse, Neue Folge, vol. 1, no. 8.) JackBon, A. V. Williams. Persia Past and Present : a Book of Travel and Research. New York and London, 1906. Prom Constantinople to the Home of Omar Khayyam New York and London, 1911. Zoroaster, the Prophet of Ancient Iran. New York, 1899. (Reprinted, 1919.) Mustaufi. The Ta'rikh-i-Guzida, or ' Select History,' of Hamdu'llah Mustawfi-i-Qazwlni, reproduced in PacsimUe from a Manuscript, with an Introduction. Part 1 (text), by Edward G. Browne, London and Leyden, 1910; Part 2 (abridged translation and indices), by Edward G. Browne and R. A. Nicholson, London and Leyden, 1913. (Gibb Memorial Series, vol. 14.) Tarikh-i Guzidah, ed. and tr. J. Gantin. Vol. 1, Paris, 1903. Noldeke, Theodor. Das iranische Nationalepos. In Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, vol. 2, pp. 130-211, Strassburg, 1896-1904. Pickering, Charles J. Three articles on Persian literature in the National Review, vol. 15, London, 1890 : (a) A Persian Chaucer, pp. 327-340; (6) The Beginnings of Persian Literature, pp. 673-687 ; (c) The Last Singers of Bukhara, pp. 815-823. [See the remarks below, p. 32 n. 2, p. 47 n. 1.] Pizzi, Italo. Chrestomathie persane, avec un abreg6 de la gram- maire et un dietionnaire. Turin, 1889. Storia della poesia persiana. 2 vols. Turin, 1894. Manuale di letteratura persiana. Milan, 1887. [Sketch.] Shams ad-Din. Al-Mu'jam fi Maayiri Ash'ari 'l-'Ajam, a Treatise on the Prosody and Poetic Art of the Persians, by Shamsu 'd-Din Muhammad ibn Qays ar-R^zi, edited by Mirz^ Muhammad of Qazwin. London and Leyden, 1909. (Gibb Memorial Series, vol. 10.) LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS For full titles of pulDUcations cited in abbreviated form in the footnotes, consult the List of Works of Reference, pages xyi-xviii. A. H {Anno Hegirae), Muhammadan era. Bh inscription of Darius at Behistan. c (circa), about. Cat Catalogue. ch chapter. Chr Chrestomathie. d died. ed edition, edited by. fl (floruit), flourished. fol folio. fols folios. Grundr. . . . Grundriss der iranischen Philologie. id. .... (idejft), the same author. JE.AS. . . . Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, loc. cit. . . . (loco citato), at the place previously cited. M. F. ... Morgenlandische Forschungen. Mem Memorial. n note. op. cit. . . . (opus citatum), the work previously cited. r recto (in manuscripts). Sitzb Sitzungsberichte. tr translation, translated by. Vd., Vend. . . Vendidad. Yt Yasht. ZDMG. . . . Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Ge- sellschaft. JOX ALPHABETICAL LIST OF POETS INCLUDED IN THIS VOLUME Transliteration of names with diacritical marks added to denote the more technical spelling, and with dates given wherever possible. (Names only incidentally mentioned are omitted here ; for fuller references consult Index.) 'Abbas of Merv. A pioneer in Persian poetry, master also of Arabic. Died 815 or 816 a.d. Abu '1-Muzafiar. In fuller form, Abu 'l-Muzaffar Nasr al-Istighna'i of Nishapur. A Samanid poet. Tenth century a.d. Abii Nasr of Gilan. From this Samanid poet, Abu "l-Malik Nasr Gilani, a stanza is preserved. Latter part of the 10th century a.d. is the pre- sumable date. Abu Sa'id. The noted Persian mystic poet (to be discussed, it is hoped, in a later volume, cf. p. 58). Born 967, died 1049 a.d. Abu Salik of Gurgan. A poet of the later Saffarid period. Flourished about the end of the 9th century a.d. Abu Shukiir of Balkh. A poet of the earlier Samanid period. Flourished about 941 A.D., and completed the Afann-namah, a work now lost, in 947-948 A.D. (a. h. 336). Aghachi (or Aghaji). In fuller form, Abu '1-Hasan 'Ali ibn Ilyas al-Aghachl of Bukhara. A warrior-poet of the later Samanid period. About the middle of the 10th century a.d. or somewhat later. 'Asjadi. In fuller form, 'Abdu 'l-'Aziz b. Mansur 'Asjadi. Associated with Firdausi as a poet at Mahmud's court. Flourished 1025 a.d. Avicenna. See Ibn Sina. Bahram Giir. Sasanian king, whom legend recounts to have composed verses. Reigned 420-438 a.d. Barbad. Sasanian minstrel, called by Persian writers Barbad, and by Arab authors Bahlabad, Balahbad, or Fahlabad, being various forms of an older Persian Pahlapat. Flourished 600 a.d. Dakiki. In fuller form, Abu Mansiir Muhammad Ibrahim b. Ahmad ad-Dakiki of Tus. Poet of the latter part of the Samanid period, and noted as Firdausi's predecessor in the epic. Died after 975 a.d. Famikhi. In fuller form, Abu l-Hasan "Ali b. Jiilugh (or Kuliigh) of Sistan. Associated as a poet with Firdausi at Mahmiid's court. Died 1037 or 1038 a.d. Firdausi. The famous epic poet of Persia. His name Firdausi is a poetic title, ' of the Garden ' or ' of Paradise.' In fuller form, Abu '1-Kasim Hasan b. 'Ali of Tus, though there are variations in the nomenclature. About 935-1025 a.d. XX ALPHABETICAL LIST OF POETS XXI Firiiz al-Mashriki. A poet of the later Saffarid period. Flourished about 890 A.D. Hanzalah of Badghis. A poet of the Tahirid period. Flourished about 850 A.D. Ibn Sina, or Avicenna. The famous philosopher, physician, and poet (to be discussed, it is hoped, in a later volume, of. p. 57). Born 980, died 1037 A.D. Junaidi. In fuller form, Abu 'Abdu 'llah Muhammad al-Junaidi. A bi- lingual poet (Persian and Arabic) of the Samanid period. Tenth century a.d. Khabbaz of Nishapur. The baker-poet and physician; earlier Samanid period. Died 953 a.d. Khabbaz's son. Abu 'Ali ibn Hakim Khabbaz. Composed verses ; see pre- ceding entry regarding his father as a poet. Khusrau Parviz. Sasanian king, to whom the composition of a couplet may possibly be ascribed. Reigned 590-628 a.d. Khusrayani. In fuller form, Abu Tahir at-Tabib ('the Physician' or at Tayyib, ' the Sweet ') b. Muhammad al-Khusravani. A Samanid poet. Tenth century a.d. Kisa'i. In fuller form, Abu Ishak (or Abu '1-Hasan) Kisa'i, ' the Man of the Cloak.' A poet of the later Samanid period, who lived on, it seems, somewhat beyond that time. Date of death generally supposed to be 1002 A.D., but possibly later. Mahmud of Ghaznah. Famous ruler, and said to have been himseK a poet as well as a patron of poets, especially of Firdausi. Reigned 998- 1030 A.D. Mantiki of Rai. In fuller form, Mansur b. 'Ali al-Mantiki of Rai. A Bu- waihid poet. Flourished in the latter half of the 10th century a.d. Muntasir. In fuUer form, Abu Ibrahim Isma'il Muntasir. Last of the Samanid princes, and a poet. Died 1005 a.d. Kudagi, or Rudaki. In fuller form, Abu "Abdu llah Ja'f ar ibn Muhammad ar-RMagi (or RUdaki). The most noted of the Samanid poets. About 880-954 A.D. Shahid of Balkh. A poet of the earlier Samanid period. Died about 950 a.d. Shukur. See Abu Shukiir. 'Umarah of Merv. In fuller form, Abu Mansur b. Muhammad (or Ahmad) 'Umarah. Poet and astronomer (compare later, Omar Khayyam), of the later Samanid and the early Ghaznavid periods. Flourished end of the 10th and beginning of the 11th century a.d. "Unsurl. In fuller form, Abu '1-Kasim b. Ahmad 'Unsuri of Balkh. Poet laureate at the court of Mahmud of Ghaznah, and famed through asso- ciation with Firdausi's name. Died 1040 or 1050 a.d. NOTE ON PERSIAN PRONUNCIATION A brief remark on the pronunciation of Persian may be of some service to the reader. The accent of aU Persian words, with few exceptions, is on the last syllable, and this method of accentuation may in general be adopted throughout the book. The vowels and diphthongs have, in the main, the Continental, or Italian, value. The consonant g is always hard, as in ' go ', ' give ' ; M is spirant, as in Scotch ' loch ' or German ' noch ' ; zA is Ukewise spirant, as in ' azure ' ; gh is similarly a spirant, a sort of roughened g. It is not necessary here to enter into a discussion of minor details regard- ing the matter of pronunciation. For a similar reason I have omitted, in the body of the text, all diacritical marks which would indicate the length of vowels or differentiate between certain consonants in Persian names. These diacritical signs, however, will be found in the Alphabetical List of Poets which I have included as part of the introductory matter (p. xx). They may also be found in the very occasional transliterations from the Persian which I have given in italics. I hope that neither the general reader nor the specialist may be embarrassed by my method in either case. EARLY PERSIAN POETRY FROM THE BEGINNINGS DOWN TO THE TIME OF FIRDAUSI EARLY PERSIA]^ POETRY CHAPTER I PERSIAN POETEY OE ANCIENT DAYS (From before 600 b.c. to about 650 a.d.) ' Metre of an antique song. ' — Shakespeare, Sonnets, 17. 12. Persia has always been a land of poetry, nor has the lyric quality ever been lost from the voice of her people. The guide who leads the traveller's cavalcade Persia a across the mountains, and the master of the i-ana of Poetry caravan, as he heads the long camel train that winds its slow way among the hills, can each troll snatches of verse from poets centuries old. The nightingale still pleads with the rose ' That sallow cheek of hers t' iacarnadine,' and the plaintive note of the wood-pigeon seems yet to harmonize in poetic tenderness with the delicate per- fume of the narcissus. Even the rays of the dawning sun and the soft glances of the rising moon, as they touch the slender form of the tapering cji^press, call back to the heart, as of yore, the myriad images used by the Persian lover in paying court to the graceful damsel of his choice. The beginnings of Persia's poetry are lost in the mists of antiquity. And yet — if we may judge from analogy 2 PERSIAN POETRY OF ANCIENT DAYS ^e shall probably not be far astray if we say that the earliest poetry was of two types, the ballad and the epic. g . ■ g The ballad, which was later to develop into Obscure g^(.\i diverse forms as the lyric, hymn, satire, and panegyric, is, first of all, the recounting of a tale, and the epic itself is but a magnified and polished ballad, so that all poetry was probably, at its original inception, a ballad. The epic type in Persian poetry is admirably represented in finished form m Firdausi's Shah-namah, or 'Book of Kings,' which sets forth in measured cadence, more easy to be remembered by the narrator than prose, the deeds of the heroes of the race.^ Of the hypothetical primitive ballad no traces remain in Persian literature, nor is it with love poetry that the earliest Iranian records begin. For in Persia, as in other Zarathushtra ^^^^^ 0^ ^^i^ East, the earliest note of poetry or Zoroaster, — at least SO far as extant specimens go — Seventh Cen- <. i • tury B.C. or burst forth m a prophet s song. It was the Earlier yoice of Zarathushtra, or Zoroaster, the great religious teacher of Persia, in the seventh century B.C. or earlier, chanting in fervid tones an anthem of divine praise. His cry broke the silence of the night perchance in some mountainous cavern in Northwestern Iran, or heralded the morn as he wandered priestlike through the borders of Persia, preaching the story of his communings with the god Ormazd and the arch- angels.^ ' Cf. L. H. Gray, in Encyclop. Belig. Prophet of Ancient Iran, pp. 34, 40-51, and Ethics, 6. 2, d. (art. ' Fiction '). New York, 1899. ' Cf. Jackson, Zoroaster, the THE ZOROASTRIAN PSALMS 3 And what is the burden of these ancient chants, or psalms in verse ? It is now a vision of heaven and the future life, and now an appeal to mankind to repent, to abandon the way of the wicked, and to fol- Zoroaster's low the path of righteousness. For a moment AncientPsaims there may be a note of despondency in the tone, since deaf ears hearken not to his inspired word; but comfort is always at hand ; it is to be found in God and in the marvelous works of His creation. Hence rises to the prophet's lips the impassioned question to his Maker in that hymn of the Avesta, or Sacred Book of Zoroaster, which begins with the refrain, Tat TTiwd pdrasa drds moi vaoca Ahura This I ask Thee — tell it to me truly, Lord the ancient rhythm and divisions of three stanzas of which I attempt to imitate here in my translation. ZOROASTER DEVOUTLY QUESTIONS ORMAZD This I ask Thee — tell it to me truly, Lord ! Who the Sire was, Father first of Holiness ? Who the pathway for the sun and stars ordained ? Who, through whom is't moon doth wax and wane again ? This and much else do I long, O God, to know. This I ask Thee — tell it to me truly. Lord ! Who set firmly earth below, and kept the sky Sure from falling ? Who the streams and trees did make ? Who their swiftness to the winds and clouds hath yoked ? Who, Mazda, was the Founder of Good Thought ? This I ask Thee — tell it to me truly. Lord ! Who, benignant, made the darkness and the light ? 4 PERSIAN POETRY OF ANCIENT DAYS Who, benignant, sleep and waking did create ? Wlo the morning, noon, and evening did decree As reminders to the wise, of duty's call ? ' His own soul knows the answer, since Ahura Mazdah (Ormazd) and the celestial hierarchy form ever the theme of Zoroaster's song. These psalms — Gathas, ' hymns, anthems,' they are called — give the outpourings of the seer's heart in rhythmic measures that resemble in meter the Vedic verses of the bards of ancient India, though somewhat later than the Vedas in time of composition.^ There are touches of poetry throughout the Avestan Yashts, or 'praises' in metrical stanzas glorifying the The Avestan various personifications of divine powers or Yashts ^jjg demigods and heroes of the faith. These compositions in verse, sometimes mingled with prose, aie later than the Gathas in language and in time of Redac- tion, though metrically (and in certain religious aspects) older. The simplicity of the meter in the Yashts shows a more antique phase than the elaborate Gathic rhythms, and possibly the mixture of prose and verse may be older than is commonly thought ; but this mixture is explicable in more than one way. The Yashts, moreover, are doubt- less the work of various hands, still inspired by Zoroaster, but using material that presents religious aspects in part older than his time. 1 From the Avesta (ed. Geldner, stanza) ; 4 + 7 (5 verses) ; 4 + 7 (4 1 148) Yasna 44. 3-5- The two last verses) ; 7 + 7 (3 verses) ; 7 + 5 and lines of stanza 5 refer to the three 7+7+5 (2 verses each) ; (7 + 9) + times for daily prayer. (3 + 6) ; 4 + 7 (2 verses) and 3 + 6 2 The Gatha meters are of seven (one verse) twice repeated, types : 7 + 9 syllables (3 verses in a THE AVESTAN YASHTS AS POETRY 5 The metrical stanzas of the Yaslits, like numerous other parts of the Avesta, are composed in a somewhat free octosyllabic measure that resembles the Kalevala verse, so familiar to us through Longfellow's ' Hiawatha ' ; and sometimes a Yasht passage rises to the height of real poetry. At random might be chosen a few lines from the tenth Yasht, a composition that is devoted entirely to extolling the grandeur of Mithra as next only in the angelic host to the Supreme Lord, Ahura Mazdah, or Ormazd. Mithra, the angel of truth and the embodiment of the sun's light, rides forth majestic in his chariot across the heavens, guiding and watchiug over men, even in the battle which his mighty power sets in motion, or sternly punishing the sinner that breaks his word and pledge. Here may be cited a stanza from the Mithra Yasht in transhteration and translation : YASHT 10. 13-14 To paoiryo mainyavo yazato taro Haram dsnaoiti paurva-naemat amdsahe hu yat aurvat^aspahe. Yd paoiryo zaranyo-plso srird barasnava gdrawnaiti aSat vispam ddiSditi Airyo-sayandm Sdvisto, yahmya sastaro aurva paoiris ir& rdzayente A YASHT PASSAGE IN PRAISE OF MITHRA Mithra, the celestial angel, Foremost climbeth Mount Haraiti (Alburz) In advance o' the sun immortal. 6 PERSIAN POETRY OF ANCIENT DAYS Which is drawn by fleeting coursers. He, the first, in gold adornment Grasps the beauteous lofty summits ; Thence beneficent he glanceth Over all the Aryan home-land, Where the valiant chiefs in battle Eange their troops in countless numbers.' Poetic strains may be caught here and there in other parts of the Avesta — sometimes embedded in the midst of prosaic passages — but they are not over-many in number.^ Sufficient, however, they are to show that the musical chord was struck nearly three thousand years ago in ancient Iran. The note perhaps was sounded festally at even an earlier date, far back in the legendary reign of King Legends of Jamshid (which tradition fancifully places at Ancient Song ^bout 3000 B.C.), for the imagination of the poet Firdausi heard echoes of the bard singing at the New Year's banquet in the court of that monarch in the Golden Age of Iran.^ Catches of song, moreover, if we may believe the romantic history by Xenophon, enlivened the merry bouts in which the Median monarch Astyages indulged, in the days when Cyrus the Great was still a boy.* The pillared halls of the great Achaemenian kings Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, at Persepolis, must likewise 1 Avesta, Yasht 10. 13-14. Livre des rois, 1. 37 ; Warner, Shah- 2 On poetry in the Avesta compare noma, 1. 34 ; see also Mirkhond, His- also J. H. Moulton, Early Beligious tory of the Early Kings of Persia, tr. Poetry of Persia, Cambridge, 1911. Shea, p. 107, London, 1832. 'Firdausi, Sftoft-namaft,ed.Vullers *Ct. Xenophon, Cyropaedia, 1. 3. and Landauer, 1 . 26, 1 . 55 ; of . tr. Mohl, 10. THE LOVE-TALE OF ZARIADRES AND ODATIS 7 have echoed at times to the ring of the poet's minstrelsy. We may at least infer this from the fact that, late in the fourth century B.C., Chares of Mytilene re- Anoia ported that the Greeks in Alexander's train Romance retold in had heard ' barbarians ' (Persians) singing the AchaemenUn tale of the romantic love of Zariadres and ™** Odatis, a story in which the lover is first seen hy the heroine in a dream and later wins her hand in marriage. So well known and prized among all the peoples of Asia was this romance that, as Chares adds, ' they have repre- sented the story in paintings in their temples and palaces, and even in their own private houses.' ^ A theme hke this must have furnished inspiration to more than one poet, especially as the name Zariadres represents the Avestan Zairivairi, the brother of Zoroaster's patron, Vishtaspa, and hero of the first of the holy wars as re- counted later in a Pahlavi prose epic fragment and in Firdausi's poetic Shah-nS.7nah? Although no verses of the original love-story of Zariadres (Zairivairi, Zarir) and 1 So Chares of Mytilene in the Andreas, in Bohde, Der griechische tenth hook of his ' History of Alex- Roman, 3 ed. p. 48, note, Leipzig, 1914. ander,' as cited hy Athenaeus, Deip- 2 por references to Zairivairi in the nosophistae, 13, ch. 35 ; tr. Yonge, 3. Avesta (Yt. 5. 112 seq. ; 13. 101), and 919-920, London, 1854. Compare in the Pahlavi prose epic ¥dtkdr-l also Eapp, in ZDMG. 20. 65 ; Zarirdn, as Zarer, and in Firdausi's Darmesteter, Les Origines de lapoesie Shah-ndmah, as Zarir, see Jackson, persane, p. 2, Paris, 1887 ; id. Le Zoroaster, pp. 104-116, footnotes. Zend-Avesta, 3, p. Ixxxi ; and es- The name Zairivairi in Avestan means peciaUy G. Cowell, Life of Edward ' having a yeUow (brass) breastplate ' ; Byles Cowell, pp. 27-31, London, 1904 ; and Odatis would be presimiably the and E. B. Cowell, A Persian Legend equivalent of an assumable Avestan of Athenaeus, in Gentleman's Maga- adjective hunZditi, ' of good birth ' ; cf . zine, July, 1847, pp. 26-29 ; cf. also Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch, pp. 382, Jackson, Zoroaster, p. 73, n. 5 ; and 231, Marburg, 1895. 8 PERSIAN POETRY OF ANCIENT DAYS Odatis remain, Pirdausi, in a different connection, has woven into the narrative of his great epic certain inci- dents of the story that are easy to recognize.^ We may be sure that the minstrel's craft did not dis- appear, though it may have languished, during the dark ages of the Parthian rule in the centuries Absence of Parthian Rec- directly preceding and following the Christian or s (250 B.C.- Qj.^ — ^j^g ^ ^-j^g when Iran was at war 224 A.D.) '' with Rome. 2 Yet it must remain a source of regret to us that it is no longer possible to cite a single verse which dates from that particular era, nor has even any hterary monument in prose survived from the Par- thian period, though some sporadic passages of the Avesta may possibly date from Parthian times.^ Certain we are, however, that the poet's art was a cherished one in Sasanian times, or from the third to the , seventh century a.d., even though all the Ht- Traditionof •' ° Sasanian erary remains that have survived in the Pah- lavi, or Middle Persian of that period and later, have come down in prose.* Tradition, however, has iFirdausi in the Shdh-ndmah (tr. (tr. Yonge, 1. 235), wliioh would be Mohl 4. 238-243 ; Warner, 4. 329-332) appUoable to Parthian as well as Sasa- makes Zailr's brother Gushtasp and nian times, it we may judge from the the beautiful Kitayun (or Katabun) allusions to Bahram Gur, below, p. the hero and heroine in a strildng 10, n. 4. episode of his great heroic poem, which sjo,. a discussion of the problem practically parallels the lovenstory of (with reference to Darmesteter's Zariadres and Odatis, as told above, theory) see Geldner, in Orundr. 2. C£. also the references on p. 7, n. 2. 33-39. 2 For the custom of the Persian * Attempts to find verse in the ex- lungs having songs and music at their tant Pahlavi works, including the suppers we have the authority of Hera- Ydtkar-i Zarirdn and the Kdrndmak-i cleides of Kyme (fourth century b.c.) Artakhshlr-i Pdpakdn, have thus far as cited by Athenaeus, Deipn. 4. 26 proved unsuccessful, even though the POETRY IN THE SASANIAN PERIOD 9 preserved the names of at least three court poets, besides Barbad (mentioned below) and the harper Sakisa (or Nakisa), who was no doubt also a poet siager ; but they are mere umhrae nominum} Legend tells likewise of two well-known Sasanian Kings who could turn a verse, and to one of these, Bahram Gur (420-438 a.d.), in company with his . ^ ^ ^' r J King Bahram beloved Dilaram, 'Heartsease,' the invention Gur as a Poet of the rhyming couplet in Persian is ascribed, °~*^ the music of their souls springing to their lips in rhythmic verse. According to the story as preserved in native sources, it was on an occasion when Dilaram, the beautiful, had accompanied her lord upon a lion hunt. Bahram, upon encountering the lion, grappled with it and held it captive by the ears, then glorified his prowess by likening himself, in what happened to be cadenced words, to a wild elephant and a ram- pant lion. Dilaram caught up the cadence in the same meter and compared him to a lofty mountain, the line ending in a word that rhymed with the close of subjects of the two latter heroic and al-Baihaki, Kitdb al-Mahdsin (ed. romantic stories are found versified Van Vloten), p. 363; and the harper later by Firdausi in the Shah-namah. Sakisa occurs in Nizami's Khusrau Consult Horn, Oesch. d. pers. Litt. and Shlrin, as referred to by Browne, pp. 43-44, Leipzig, 1901 ; and espe- A Literary Sistory of Persia, 1. 18, cially Horn, AsaM^s neupersisches London and New York, 1902. But the Worterbuch Lughat-i Furs, pp. 16-17, name Sakisa is written Nakisa in the Berlin, 1897, where mention is made Nizami Mss. 7 and 8 described in Jack- of F. C. Andreas's view that the Haji- son and Yohannan, Cat. Pers. Mss., abad Inscription contains a metrical New York, 1914 ; and it appears as passage. Nakiyya in the lithographed ed. pub. »The names of the three minstrels at Teheran, 1312 a.h. (=1894 a.d.). referred to are Afarin, Khusravani, Query — cf. p. 12, n. 2, and Justi, Jran. and Madharastani, as recorded by Namenbwh, p. 289 (' Sarkas ') ? 10 PERSIAN POETRY OF ANCIENT DAYS his.^ Thus was rhyme born ! But there are other stories, besides, regarding the origin of Persian rhyme.^ We have also the authority of the earliest extant biog- raphy of the Persian poets, the work of Aufi (fl. 1210- 1235 A.D.), for the statement that ' Bahram Gur was the first who composed Persian verse,' and that he had seen a collection of his Arabic poems in Bukhara, from which he quotes fragments of odes in Arabic, together with the two Persian rhyming verses.^ Firdausi still earlier rep- resents Bahram as taking delight in verses that were chanted to him to the accompaniment of the lute.* But even if ' that great hunter ' may not have had renown as a king-poet, he nevertheless gave inspiration to many a later Persian verse by his adventurous deeds, and he thus well deserves a share in the fame. To another sovereign of the House of Sasan, the roman- tic and kingly lover Khusrau Parviz (590-628 a.d.), may possibly be ascribed a rhjmaing distich engraved on the walls of the palace of the beautiful Shirin, at Kasr-i 1 For this story see Daulatshah, ad-Din ibn Kais, al-Mu'jam (ed. Mirza Tadhkiratu ^sh-Shu'ard, ed. Browne, Muhammad, in Gibb Memorial 10), pp. 28-29, London, 1901; and compare p. 169. Browne, Lit. 3ist. of Persia, 1. 12 ; 2 See Browne, Lit. Hist. 1. 12-13. Blochmann, Prosody of the Persians, 3 Auii, Lubdb al-Albdb, chap. 4 p. 2, Calcutta, 1872 ; Eth6, Die hofische (beginning), cf. ed. Browne and Mirza und romantische Poesie der Perser, Muhammad, 1. 20, London, 1906 ; p. 1, Hamburg, 1887 ; id. BUdagVs Eth6, in Morg. Forsch. p. 36 ; and Vorldnfer, in Morgenldndische For- cf. Browne, Lit. Hist. 1. 262. schungen, p. 36 ; Darmesteter, Les Orir- * Cf . Shdh-ndmah, tr. Mohl, vol. 5, gines delapoesie persane,-p. 1 ; Pizzi, pp. 446, 474, 476, 499-500, 509-510, Storia della poesia persiana, 1. 65, 616, 617 ; tr. Warner, 7. 51-52, etc. Turin, 1894 ; Costello, Rose Garden of Observe in this connection the refer- Persia, pp. iv-v ; Horn, Gesch. d. ence to Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 4. pers. Litt. p. 47. Consult also Shams 26, given above, p. 8, n. 2. A COUPLET TO THE FAIR SHI BIN 11 Shirin, and still legible in the tenth century. The au- thority for this is Daulatshah in the fifteenth century, who cites in his memoirs of the Persian poets the statement of Abu Tahir of Khatun to ascribabieto the effect that ' in the time of Azud ad-Daulah KHusrau ii (590-628 A.D.) of Dailam [who was a Buwaihid prince of the tenth century A.D.] there was found on an inscrip- tion upon the palace at Kasr-i Shirin (" Shirin' s Palace ") in the region of Khanikin, which was not then entirely in ruins, the following couplet written in the antique Persian style ': ^ huzMra, borgaihan anushah bi-zl jihan ra ba-diddr toshah bari TO THE FAIR SHIRIN Ah, Beauteous One ! Upon this earth, happy for aye do live ! Siace to the world by thy mere glance such joyance thou dost give.' I had in memory the lines of this distich, which may reasonably be ascribed directly to Khusrau Parviz himself, as I wandered among the ruins of Kasr-i Shirin when coming from Khanikin on my fourth journey to Persia in 1918; but I could find no traces of any inscribed stones among the debris ; yet a careful search may some day unearth a stone or a tablet, which may bear still more lasting witness to the enamored verse of a Sasanian king. 1 Daulatshah, Tadhkiratu ''sh-Shu- garding this couplet consult, further- 'ard (ed. Browne), p. 29. more, A. de Biberstein Kazimirski, 2 Ordinarily the meaning of toshah, Divan de Menoutchehri, p. 7, Paris, tushah in Persian is ' sustenance,' but 1886, where a slightly different reading I have rendered it by ' joyance,' cf. and a somewhat different translation Skt. tosa, 'satisfaction, comfort.' Re- and interpretation are given. 12 PERSIAN POETRY OF ANCIENT DAYS The fact that Khusrau was also a patron of poetry is shown by the honor that he paid to the minstrel Bar bad, Du;.^.,. orBahlabad, the sweet sinser of his court.^ Barbad, the ' ° Sasanian Bard The story goes — and it is told by Firdausi — that this gifted bard first won the king's ear by singing a ballad as he stood hidden amidst the branches of a cypress tree in the royal garden on a moon- light night.^ So great was the minstrel's favor with the monarch that when the king's horse Shabdiz, ' Black-as- night/ died, the courtiers selected Barbad as the only one who might venture to break the news to his Majesty, for Khusrau had sworn to kill the man that ever should bear these tidings to him. With consummate art the child of the Muses contrived to weave the tale into verse, accom- panied by the plaintive wail of his lute, until Khusrau himself, in listening to the strain, suddenly divined the truth and cried out, ' Ah, woe is me ! My horse Shabdiz is dead ! ' ^ Thus from those ages long ago the gentle thrum of the lute strings — the true accompaniment of poesy — still faintly echoes; and that echo makes us wish that we 1 Persian authors give the poet's Justi, Iran. Namenbuch, p. 63 name as Barbad, but Arabic writers as (' Barbad '), p. 237(' Pahlapet '). BaAJaftod, which more correctly points spirjausi, Shdh-ndmah, tr. Mohl, back to an older Pahlavi-Persian form, Le Lime des rois, 7. 265-260; Fir- Pahlapat. See Browne, Lit. Hist. 1. dausi (loc. cit.) gives also the name of 14-15, where an excellent series of the rival minstrel, Sargish, whom references to Bahlabad, Barbad, in Barbad supplanted in Khusrau's favor. Persian and Arabic sources is given ; ' See also Browne, Lit. Hist. 1. 17- and compare also Browne, The Sources 18. Regarding a request made also to of Dawlatshdh . . . and an Excursus Barbad by Shirin, to remind Khusrau on Barbad and Rudagi, in JBAS. of a promise, see Browne, in JBAS. 1899, pp. 37-69. Consult likewise 1899, p. 60. King Khuseau Pabviz and the Minstrel Baebad (From the Cochran Collection of Persian Manuscripts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) [ To face page 12'} THE SASANIAN POET BABBAD 13 might have been fortunate enough to catch even a few strains also from others of those bards who sang in Pahlavi, the national language of Sasanian Persia in the seventh century a.d., before the cataclysm of the Arab Conquest. The timeful numbers of their verse, alas, have passed away ; but the names at least of some of these minstrels lived long enough after the Moslem invasion to prove to the victors that, two centuries later, the hushed music of Persian poetry would again awake to ring with the old-time spirit of Iran. CHAPTER II THE NEW AWAKENING OF PERSIAN SONG AFTEE THE MUHAMMADAN CONQUEST THE TAHIBID AND SAJFFARID PERIODS (From about 800 to 900 a.d.) ' Disjecti membra poetae.' — HoHACB, Satires, 1, 4, 62. The Moslem Conquest meant to Persia in many respects what the Norman Conquest meant to England. The battles of Kadisia and Nahavand (637, 642 a.d.) were madan Con- ^^ Hastings of Persia ; and with the murder quest (Seventh gf ^]^q j^st Sasanian king, in 651, Persia came Century A.D.) under the Muhammadan rule of the Arabs. There followed, in consequence, an infiltration of foreign blood, a certain amount of fusion in language, a partial blending in thought. But beyond the sacrifice — great as it was — of giving up the old national religion of Zoro- astrianism, vanquished Iran yielded little more to the victorious Arab than Britain gave up to the invading Norman. If the Persian vocabulary took on something of a foreign tinge, the poetic verse flowed the smoother for it- and if the freedom of religious thought was fettered for a time by the bonds of Islam, the true Persian spirit threw ofE the shackles two centuries later, when it achieved a semi-independence of its own upon the decline of the 14 RENAISSANCE OF POETRY 15 Caliphate at Baghdad in the ninth century a.d., and with this emancipation began the re-estabHshment of its national life and laid the foundations for a renaissance in the realm of letters.^ Beginnings may be small, but great results may follow. Such was the casa^with the reborn art of poesy in the Province of the Sim. The infant cry was poetry slender at first, muffled by the stifling hand of ^*'"'" Islam, but it was the vox humana. Poetry, nursed for two hundred years by the fostering care of three princely dynasties of the truer Iranian blood — Tahirid (820-872), SafEarid (860-903), Samanid (874-999), not to mention the BuwaUiids (also of the tenth century), or the eleventh century Ghaznavids of Afghanistan — was destined to grow in grace and stature until the thin register of its voice changed into the manly tone of a Firdausi with all the virility of the race within its compass. The mastery of the newer speech, with its infusion of Arabic — the Pahlavi tongue having now been transformed into New Persian — was already complete, and could develop only in range and power of expression. The language, in fact, has ever since remained essentially the same, so that Persian has changed far less in a thousand years than has English in the comparatively brief period from Shakespeare to the present.^ The cradle of the literary renaissance was Eastern Iran, 1 Cf. also Browne, Lit. Hist, of Per- Misteli, Neupersisoh und Englisch, in sia, 1. 6, 339-341. Philologische Abhandlungen Schwei- 2 On the curiously analogous devel- zer-Sidler gewidmet, pp. 28-35, Zurich, opment of Persian and English cf. 1891. 16 THE NEW AWAKENING OF PERSIAN SONG or the provinces of Khurasan and Transoxiana. The city of Merv, the ruins of which may still be visited in the environs of the modem town that perpetuates the name in Russian Turkistan, was the scene. This ancient city, the Zoroastrian Marghu of the Avesta/ and ' Queen of the World,' as it was entitled in medieval times, had witnessed the death of the last Sasanian king, but was Abbas of Merv destined to witness also the rebirth of Persian {i 8i5^or PO^^'^y? ^o^ within its walls was bom, some- 816A.D.) time before 800 a.d.. Abbas of Merv, to whom common tradition, rightly or wrongly, ascribes the renown of beiag the earliest minstrel to chant verse in the newer Persian tongue.^ The occasion which inspired the effusion of the poet was the triumphal entry made, in 809, by the Caliph Mamun, the son of Harun ar-Eashid of Arabian Nights fame. Abbas, as a bard, was chosen to greet the monarch with a panegyric in celebration of the event ; and though on other occasions he had made use of Arabic as the vehicle for his poetic compositions, he now chose his native Persian to be the medium of his encomium. A few of these laud- atory lines to Mamun have been preserved; and in fancy we can hear a faltering accent in the minstrel's tone as he apologetically sings : 1 Avesta, Vend. 1. 5, 7 ; Yaskt, 10. accepted by scholars, but is questioned 14 ; and cf . in the Old Persian Insorip- by A. de Biberstein Kazimirski, Divan tions, Bh. 2. 7 ; 3. 11 ; 4. 25. de Menoutchehri, pp. 8-9, Paris, 1886, 2 The year of the death of Abbas and Browne, Lit. Mist. 1. 13, 341 ; 2. of Merv is recorded as (200 a.h. =) 13. Consult Pizzi, Storia della poesia 815 or 816 a.d. The authenticity of persiana, 1. 66. the verses ascribed to him is generally THE EARLIEST VERSES IN NEW PERSIAN 17 FROM THE FIRST PERSIAN PANEGYRIC Before me no poet as yet, an ode in this fashion hath sung, There is lack in the Persian speech, in this manner of verse to begin ; Yet that is the reason I chose in this language J%y praises to sing, That through lauding and praising Thy Highness, real grace and true charm it may yna,^ Perhaps a better idea of the lilt of the original stanza may be obtained from a transcript of the Persian lines themselves : Kas bar-in minvdl pish az man chunln shiri na-guft, Mar zaban-i Par si rd hast td in nau'-i bain; Lek z-dn guflam man in midhcU turd td in lughat, Girad az madh u ^and'-i hazrat-i tv, zib u zain.^ Echoes of the verse, no doubt, were heard throughout the land, for other poets were emboldened, as a consequence, to raise their voice in their own vernacular. One of these bards was Hanzalah of Badghis^ (about ^ ^^^ 850 A.D.), who hved in the time of the ofBadghis Tahirids (820-872 a.d.), a dynasty more fa- (^^'""'^^soa.d.) vorable to Arabic than to Persian culture. The early Persian biographer, Aufi, praises the verses of Hanzalah by saying, ' the graceful flow of his expression is like the Water of Paradise, and his verses have the freshness of cool wine (shamul) and the agreeableness of the northern wind (shanial) .' * So well known were the poems of 1 In rendering I have preserved the schrift an Fleischer), pp. 37-38, Leip- original rhyme 6 d of the Persian. zig, 1875. 2 Aufi, Lubdb al-Albdb, 1. 21, ed. » Badghis was the name of a district Browne and Muhammad al-KazvinI, northwest of Herat. 1. 21, London, 1906 ; cf. Eth6, Buda- « Aufi, Lubdb al-Albdb, 2. 2, ed. gVs Vorldufer und Zeitgenossen, in Browne, London, 1903 ; and Eth6, in Morgenldndische Forschungen {Feat- Morg. Forsch. p. 39. 18 THE NEW AWAKENING OF PERSIAN SONG Hanzalah. that they were worth gathering into a Persian Divan, or 'Collection,' only a few fragments of which, however, remain.^ Here is a quatrain (the earliest ruhal. thus far quotable), which contains an odd conceit founded on an old superstition ; the poet warns his sweetheart that it is futile for her to throw rue-seed on the fire to avert the influence of the evil eye.^ EUE AND THE EVIL EYE Though, rue into the fire my dear one threw, Lest from the evil eye some harm accrue, 'Twould naught avaU her — either rue or fire ; Her face the fire — her beauteous mole the rue ! ' More potent, however, was the charm in another stanza ascribed to Hanzalah, for it inspired a simple ass-herd to win a crown. Chancing one day to read four of Hanzalah's verses, this donkey-driver became fired with the ambition to make an attempt to gain the throne ; and, rising triumphant over every obstacle, he finally grasped the sovereignty. The inspiring stanza which served the ass-herd king, Ahmad of Khujistan, as a motto for his life's success was this : ' Mention of the Divdn of Hanzalah Khayyam, p. 119, New York and Lon- of Badghis is made in the work, cited don, 1911 ; and of. especially Elworthy, below, by Nizami-i Aruzi, Chahar Evil Eye, pp. 344-347, London, 1895. Makdla, translated by Browne, in ' For text see Aufi, Lubdb al- JBA8. 1899, pp. 665-656 (= reprint, Albdb, 2. 2, ed. Browne, London, 1903 ; pp. 43-45). and Eth6, in Morg. Forsch. p. 40 ; of. 2 On the custom, stiU current in also tr. Browne, Lit. Hist. 1. 452 ; Persia, of burning sipand, 'rue,' to Pickering, Nat. Bev. 15. 677; Pizzi, avert the evil eye, see Jackson, From Storia, 1. 128. Constantinople to the Some of Omar HANZALAH AND FIRVZ 19 BUN THE RISK K lordship in a lion's jaws shovdd hang, Go, run the risk, and seize it from his fang ; Thine shall be greatness, glory, rank, and place, Or else, like heroes, thine be death to face.* From the period of the following dynasty, the Saffarids, or 'Braziers,' so called from their fomider in 872 A.D., Yakuh, the son of Laith, who was a 'coppersmith' {saffar), we have the names and fragmentary remains of a couple of poets.^ One of these bards was ^ ^ Firuz Firuz al-Mashriki, or 'the Easterner,' as his ai-Mashriki appellative mashriki implies, who lived about '-^ ^ ^° • 890 A.D. Only three of his stanzas, however, seem to have been preserved, even though his compatriot Aufi accounted his songs ' sweeter than a stolen kiss ' — az hublat4 duzdldah khushtar? The following two couplets, descriptive of an arrow, contain an odd fancy: THE ABEOW A bird the arrow is — ' What marvel ! ' thou wilt say — A bird that maketh ever some living thing its prey. A gift the eagle gave it — from her own quills a plume. Wherewith it straightway briageth her nestlings to their doom.* 1 For text and the whole story see longed partly to the Tahirid period as the above-mentioned work hy Nizami-i well. See Eth6, in Grundr. 2. 218 ; Aruzi, Chahdr Makdla, tr. Browne, Horn, Gesch. d. pers. Litt. p. 48. pp 43-45; and cf. Browne, Lit. Hist. ' See Aufi, Lubdb, 2. 2. 1. 355, 452. But cf . Mustaufi, Ta'rikh-i * For the text see Aufi, 2. 2 ; Eth6, Guzidah, ed. Browne In Gibb Mem. 14. in Morg. Forsch. p. 41, finds metrical 1, p. 379, who quotes the verses anony- reasons to include a nah ' not ' — mously and applies the story to Saman, ' That it may not carry away her ancestor of the Samanid dynasty. young brood ' ; but the manuscript Rhyme, 6 d. reading, adopted above in the render- 2 The name also is mentioned of ing, seems equally good ; cf . also MahmM-i Varrak, the ' Copyist ' or Browne, 1. 453 ; Darmesteter, p. 9. 'Bookseller,' who, like Hanzalah, be- 20 THE NEW AWAKENING OF PERSIAN SONG Another stanza of Firuz Mashriki, in admiration of his sweetheart, is quite bizarre in its imagery. I translate it also because it seems to have escaped notice elsewhere. HER BEAUTIFUL LIPS ANT) TEETH Ah, look at her beautiful teeth, and her lips with their exquisite line; They keep me forever inflamed with the warmth of the passion of love ! Those teeth that flash bright as the Pleiads, when aloft in the zenitb they shine ; Those lips that seem halo of moonlight round the orb of the full moon above ! ' ' This is the very ecstasy of love ! ' and it was perhaps from those very hps that the kiss was stolen to which Mashriki's verses are likened. Two other stray distichs of his poetry have been preserved in a chance quotation — but enough ! ^ The poetic artery that throbbed in the pulse of Eastern Iran must have had an answering beat as far westward Q IV as the Caspian Sea before the end of the Saf- ofGurgan f^rid era, or 900 a.d., for it is felt in the of the Ninth verse of Abu Salik of Gurgan, who lived Century A.D.) ^ ^j^g latter part of that era, and was a native of the district (Gurgan) which corresponds to the ancient Hyrcania.^ Abu Salik, we are told, ' spread out 1 The text is found cited in Horn's Mu'jam, ed. Muhammad Kazvini, in edition of Asadi's Lughat-i Furs, Gibb Memorial Series 10, pp. 267-268. fol. 17 p. 26, Berlin, 1897 (Abhand- ' This province is the same as Var- lungen d. Egl. Gesellschaft d. Wiss. kanain theold Pers. Inscriptions, Bh. zu amingen, Neue Edge, Bd. 1 Nr. 8). 2 . 92. 2 See Shams ad-Din b. ^ais, al- STANZAS OF ABU SALIK 21 the carpet of words {hisat-i sukhun) and raised aloft the banner of eloquence.'^ Nobility of thought certainly characterizes one of his few rhymed stanzas that have come down to us. ONE'S HONOR Shed, if thou wilt, thine own blood on the earth. Better than shed thine own pure honor's worth — Better to worship idols than a man ; Give ear, take heed, and practise he who can ! * Another surviving stanza, which has a sportive touch, may be quoted as perhaps having formed part of a sonnet on his mistress' eyebrow ! TO HIS SWEETHEART'S EYEBROW With thy eyebrow thou'st stolen my heart 'way from me ; What ! dost judge with thy lips, and thy eyebrow the thief ! Wilt thou claim a reward ? — for heart-robbing, a fee ? A robber rewarded ! That's passing belief ! ' Two other chance distichs of Abu Salik have been pre- served, but that is all.* With these three or four names of the olden-time poets, and their few verses, we bid adieu to the first two epochs — Tahirid and SafEarid — of the newer Persian renaissance. We may be happy at least that the voice of song had been awakened from slumber. 1 Aufi, Lubab, 2. 2-3 ; Eth6, in word muzhah is perliaps more literally Morg. Forsch., pp. 41-42. 'eyelash.' 2 Eor the text see references in the * See Shams ad-Din b. Kais, al- preceding note. The rhyme in the Mu'jam, pp. 255, 276 (in Gibb Memo- original isbd. »^J Series, vol. 10, cited above). SAufl, p. 3; Eth6, p. 41. The CHAPTER III EAYS TEOM LOST MINOR STAES EAELIER SAMAOTD PERIOD (About 900-950 a.d.) ' When the morning stars sang together.' — /o6, 38. 7. The Samanid period, or the entire century down to 1000 A.D., was a true age of minstrelsy, and this day- spring of song was marked, when the zenith ££irli6r Samanid was reached, by the fame of two poets, CFirst^if f -^^'i^gi ^^*^ Dakiki, both of whom will be Tenth Century described in the next and a later chapter. A.D.) But around these twin stars was clustered a group whose magnitude was of the second degree, yet from each of which a glimmer of light has come down through the ages, though the orb that gave it birth faded from ordinary observation more than a thousand years ago. Scintillations from one of these lost stellar orbs have been caught in rays from the poet Abu Shukurof Baikh, Abu Shukur which might have disappeared forever if lovers (fl. 941 AD.) Qjf Omar Khayyam were not scanning the horizon for quatrain-beams that may be older than the Tubals of the Tent-maker of Nishapur. Abu, or Bu Shukur as he is also called, appeared earlier than the bard Shahid, who is next mentioned, and prior to the renowned 22 A QUATRAIN BY ABU SHUKUR 23 Rudagi, from both of whom he carried off in advance ' the ball of excellence ' — to use a polo phrase from one of his native biographers.^ One of Shiikur's works is recorded as having been written in 941 a.d.,^ and among the reliques from his pen is a very early quatrain, which has, as in the case of Hanzalah of Badghis, a special interest for Omarians. Yet there is in the four lines, written on parting from one whom he has loved, something of the bitter-sweet, or rather the venerium in eauda sting of a later-day Heine, at least as I read them : A QUATRAIN BY SHUKUR — BITTER-SWEET Through grievous pangs for thee I am bowed low ; 'Neath separation's burden bent I go. But ah ! with hands wash'd of thy guile and wile I None e'er had moods and whims like thine, I know.' But on another occasion to his love — and I quote from an out-of-the-way Persian source of nearly a millennium ago — our poet Shukur says that he could never speak an untruth to his beloved, because that 'untruth would fasten his neck into the yoke {yogh).'^ There is a touch of personahty in it all. And who will fail to put down to Abu Shukur's credit as a bard, that he was the earhest writer to employ in his narrative poetry the mutakarih 1 So Valih, Biydz ash-Shu'ard, as dozen Arabic words in this quatrain quoted by Eth6, in Morg. Forsch. — a proportion which it would be p, 42. interesting to examine in other qua^ 2 Eth6, in Grundr. 2. 219. train authors. s For text see Aufi, Lubdb, 2. 21 ; ^ Asadi, Lughat-i Furs, ed. Horn, Eth6, in Morg. Forsch. p. 42. It is fol. 35, p. 56. worth noting that there are only a half 24 RAYS FROM LOST MINOR STARS meter, which Firdausi later rendered immortal in his epic verse ? ^ Simplicity of style, which is the mark of Shukm^'s verse, if we may judge from nearly a hundred stray Unes that can be gathered here and there from incidental quo- tation for lexical purposes in a Persian dictionary by Firdausi's nephew, nearly a thousand years ago, was not a quality that made his poetry live among his compatriots.^ But we of to-day can at least like one of his simple jingles, because it reminds us of some of our childhood's verse, and be glad that that old-time Persian dictionary-maker quoted Shukur's little lilt to illustrate an unusual word for 'mendicant, pauper,' in the original, instead of the ordinary ' beggar.' The lines are not without ndiveti : PAUPER — A BEGGAR A pauper there was — so Father said, Who sank ('tis told) to beg his bread ; Dry bread he begged from door to door, This was his trade — forever more ! ^ True, this is commonplace verse ; but brighter shone the rays of another of those minor lights of the past — „^ ^-^ X Shahid of Balkh, who died some time before Shahid of ' Baikh(d. about 950 A.D., and was moumed in verse by his 93° • •; friend, the renowned poet Rudagi.* Even I Cf. Horn, AsacR's Lughat-i Furs, fol. 70 r, p. 117 ; of. Horn, Gesch. d. p. 23 ; id. Gesch. d.pers. Litt. p. 68. pers. Litt. p. 68. Other stanzas also ' To the references to Abu Shukur of Shukur are quoted in Asadi, e.g. fol. by Asadi, add four citations by Shams 18 r, 43 r. So likewise lines by ibn Kais, al-Mu'jam, pp. 268, 277, 383, Shukur's contemporary, Ma'rufi, cf. 439. Shukur's Afatin-ndmah is lost, Horn, AsacR, p. 29 (introduction). cf. Browne, Lit. Hist. 1. 466. * See Aufi, 2. 3 ; and cf. Pickering, « Asadi, Lughat-i Furs (ed. Horn), in Nat. Bev. 16. 329, 678, 682. SHAHID AND HIS SOMBRE NOTE 25 though we have native authority for the statement that Shahid was a person ' of excellent mind, spirited in con- versation, noble in views, and a scholar,' ^ the tinge of melancholy that marks the few verses by which alone we can judge him, has somewhat justly entitled Shahid to be designated ' the pessimist of his century.' ^ Listen for a moment to the sombre cadence of one of his stanzas, made all the more impressive in its gravity by the alter- nation in the rhyme : IF GRIEF HAD SMOKE If grief had smoke, as hath the blazing fire, The world would be for aye in darkness blind ; Travel the world from end to end entire, A wise man wholly happy thou'lt not find.' The serious earnestness of another of Shahid's stanzas is similar in spirit, though bizarre in expression : TWO OF LIFE'S ARTISANS Two artisans there are, heaven's vault below, The one doth cut, the other spias with knack ; The first shapes naught but kings' high caps of show, WhUe weaves the other naught save sackcloth black. In a quatrain, earlier than which only one or two exist, as intimated above, Shahid gives voice to a lament over the ruins of the city of Tus in Khurasan, left desolate by the ravages of invading hordes, too oft repeated later from 1 So after the Saflnah-i Khvashgu, imitated above ; cf. also Eth§, in M.F. cited by Eth6, in M.F. p. 43. p. 44; Pizzi, Chrestomathie, p. 57; and 2 So Darmesteter, Origines de la tr. Pizzi, Storia, 1. 128. poesie persane, p. 29. ^Xext, EtM, in M.F. p. 45; Pizzi, 3 Aufi, Lubdb, 2. 4, from which text Chr. p. 67. the original rhyme a b a b has been 26 RAYS FROM LOST MINOR STARS over the Turkistan border. Any one who has wandered, as I have, among the crumbUng remains of that ancient heap of dust, near modern Mashad, will best appreciate the raven-note of these dismal four lines : ^ RUINED TUS — A QUATRAIN Last night by ruined Tus I chanced to go, An owl sat perched where once the cock did crow ; Quoth I, " What message from this waste briug'st thou ? " Quoth he, " The message is, ' Woe, woe — all's woe ! '" ^ Nature sad or glad sympathizes with the plaint of a lover, and this was Shahid's case when he bemoaned his plight and sang : A LOVER'S PLAINT The cloud is weeping like a lover sad, The garden smUeth like some maiden glad. The thunder moaneth, yea, like umto me. That make lament each dawn I'm doomed to see.' A store of world-wisdom — gathered, no doubt, through sad experience — is locked up in the following little jingle by Shahid : LEARNING AND WEALTH 'Tis with learning and wealth like narcissus and rose. At the same time and place neither one of them grows ; For, where there is learniag — well, wealth is not there, And where there is wealth — little learning's to spare.* 1 Cf. Jackson, From Constantinople the form of a Divdn, cf. Eth^, in to the Home of Omar Khayyam, pp. Grundr. 2. 219. It is also to be ob- 286-296. served that in the old Persian diction- 2Text,Eth6, p. 44; Pizzi, Cftr. p. 57. ary of Asadi, Lughat-i Furs (ed. 3 Text Aufi, 2. 4 ; cf. Eth6, p. 46. Horn), Shahid is cited some thirty- Original rhyme is 6 d. t"wo times (mostly couplets — one on