We are told in the Persian histories that when Tamerlane, on his
victorious progress through the East, had reached Shiraz, he halted
before the gates of the city and sent two of his followers to search in
the bazar for a certain dervish Muhammad Shams-ad-din, better known to
the world by the name of Háfiz. And when this man of religion, wearing
the simple woollen garment of a Sufi, was brought into the presence of
the great conqueror, he was nothing abashed at the blaze of silks and
jewelry which decorated the pavilion where Tamerlane sat in state. And
Tamerlane, meeting the poet with a frown of anger, said, "Art not thou
the insolent verse-monger who didst offer my two great cities Samarkand
and Bokhara for the black mole upon thy lady's cheek?" "It is true,"
replied Háfiz calmly, smiling, "and indeed my munificence has been so
great throughout my life, that it has left me destitute, so that I shall
be hereafter dependent upon thy generosity for a livelihood." The reply
of the poet, as well as his imperturbable self-possession, pleased the
Asiatic Alexander, and he dismissed Háfiz with a liberal present.
This story, we are told, cannot be true, for Tamerlane did not reach
Shiraz until after the death of the greatest of Persian lyric poets; but
if it is not true in fact, it is true in spirit, and gives the real key
to the character of Háfiz. For we must look upon Háfiz as one of the few
poets in the world who utters an unbroken strain of joy and contentment.
His poverty was to him a constant fountain of satisfaction, and he
frankly took the natural joys of life as they came, supported under
every vicissitude by his religious sense of the goodness and kindliness
of the One God, manifested in everything in the world that was sweet and
genial, and beautiful to behold. It is strange that we have to go to the
literature of Persia to find a poet whose deep religious convictions
were fully reconciled with the theory of human existence which was
nothing more or less than an optimistic hedonism. There is nothing
parallel to this in classic literature. The greatest of Roman
Epicureans, the materialist, whose maxim was: enjoy the present for
there is no God, and no to-morrow, speaks despairingly of that drop of
bitterness, which rises in the fountain of Delight and brings torture,
even amid the roses of the feast. It is with mocking irony that Dante
places Epicurus in the furnace-tombs of his Inferno amid those
heresiarchs who denied the immortality of the soul. Háfiz was an
Epicurean without the atheism or the despair of Epicurus. The roses in
his feast are ever fresh and sweet and there is nothing of bitterness in
the perennial fountain of his Delight. This unruffled serenity, this
joyful acceptance of material existence and its pleasures are not in the
Persian poet the result of the carelessness and shallowness of Horace,
or the cold-blooded worldliness and sensuality of Martial. The theory of
life which Háfiz entertained was founded upon the relation of the human
soul to God. The one God of Sufism was a being of exuberant benignity,
from whose creative essence proceeded the human soul, whose experiences
on earth were intended to fit it for re-entrance into the circle of
light and re-absorption into the primeval fountain of being. In
accordance with the beautiful and pathetic imagery of the Mystic, life
was merely a journey of many stages, and every manifestation of life
which the traveller met on the high road was a manifestation and a gift
of God Himself. Every stage on the journey towards God which the soul
made in its religious experience was like a wayside inn in which to rest
awhile before resuming the onward course. The pleasures of life, all
that charmed the eye, all that gratified the senses, every draught that
intoxicated, and every fruit that pleased the palate, were, in the
pantheistic doctrine of the Sufi considered as equally good, because God
was in each of them, and to partake of them was therefore to be united
more closely with God. Never was a theology so well calculated to put to
rest the stings of doubt or the misgivings of the pleasure-seeker. This
theology is of the very essence of Háfiz's poetry. It is in full
reliance on this interpretation of the significance of human existence
that Háfiz faces the fierce Tamerlane with a placid smile, plunges
without a qualm into the deepest abysses of pleasure, finds in the
love-song of the nightingale the voice of God, and in the bright eyes of
women and the beaker brimming with crimson wine the choicest sacraments
of life, the holiest and the most sublime intermediaries between divine
and human life.
It is this that makes Háfiz almost the only poet of unadulterated
gladsomeness that the world has ever known. There is no shadow in his
sky, no discord in his music, no bitterness in his cup. He passes
through life like a happy pilgrim, singing all the way, mounting in his
own way from strength to strength, sure of a welcome when he reaches the
goal, contented with himself, because every manifestation of life of
which he is conscious must be the stirrings within him of that divinity
of which he is a portion. When we have thus spoken of Háfiz we have said
almost all that is known of the Persian lyric poet, for to know Háfiz we
must read his verses, whose magic charm is as great for Europeans as for
Asiatics. The endless variety of his expressions, the deep earnestness
of his convictions, the persistent gayety of his tone, are qualities of
irresistible attractiveness. Even to this day his tomb is visited as the
Mecca of literary pilgrims, and his numbers are cherished in the memory
and uttered on the tongue of all educated Persians. The particulars of
his life may be briefly epitomized as follows: He was born at Shiraz in
the early part of the fourteenth century, dying in the year 1388. The
name Háfiz means, literally, the man who remembers, and was applied to
himself by Háfiz from the fact that he became a professor of the
Mohammedan scriptures, and for this purpose had committed to memory the
text of the Koran. His manner of life was not approved of by the
dervishes of the monastic college in which he taught, and he satirizes
his colleagues in revenge for their animadversions. The whole Mohammedan
world hailed with delight the lyrics which Háfiz published to the world,
and kings and rulers vied with each other in making offers to him of
honors and hospitality. At one time he started for India on the
invitation of a great Southern Prince, who sent a vessel to meet him on
the way, but the hardships of the sea were too severe for him, and he
made his way back to Shiraz without finishing his journey.
His out-and-out pantheism, as well as his manner of life, caused him at
his death to be denied burial in consecrated ground. The ecclesiastical
authorities were, however, induced to relent in their plan of
excommunication at the dictates of a passage from the poet's writings,
which was come upon by opening the book at random. The passage ran as
follows: "Turn not thy feet from the bier of Háfiz, for though immersed
in sin, he will be admitted into Paradise." And so he rests in the
cemetery at Shiraz, where the nightingales are singing and the roses
bloom the year through, and the doves gather with low murmurs amid the
white stones of the sacred enclosure. The poets of nature, the mystical
pantheist, the joyous troubadour of life, Háfiz, in the naturalness and
spontaneity of his poetry, and in the winning sweetness of his imagery,
occupies a unique place in the literature of the world, and has no rival
in his special domain.