In Nīzamī's _The Chahár Magála_ ("Four Discourses"), translated by
Professor Edward G. Browne, we find the _Second Discourse_ devoted
to "The Nature of Poetry, and the Utility of the Skilful Poet." In
this interesting Discourse Nīzamī very amiably discusses the training
required to become a poet of enduring fame, and intersperses these
remarks with a number of anecdotes, which in the main are examples of
the advantages derived from poetic improvisations given at opportune
moments before kings when wine has gone round two or three times.
Nīzamī sums up the nature of poetry in the following words: "Poetry is
that art whereby the poet arranges imaginary propositions and adapts
the deductions, with the result that he can make a little thing appear
great and a great thing small, or cause good to appear in the garb
of evil and evil in the garb of good." Nīzamī denounces the habit of
giving money to old poets. He remarks: "For one so ignoble as not to
have discovered in fifty years that what he writes is bad, when will
he discover it?" On the other hand Nīzamī favours the young poet with
hopeful talent, and generously remarks that "it is proper to patronise
him, a duty to take care of him, and an obligation to maintain him."
The minor poets of to-day have not these glowing advantages!
The most ingenious example of a poetic improvisation in this
_Discourse_ is, perhaps, one given by Rúdagí in connection with the
protracted stay of Amír Nasr b. Ahmad in Herát. Four years the Amír
camped with his army in this town, with its twenty different varieties
of grape and beautiful narcissus. "He preferred Herát to the Garden of
Eden." But at length the Amír's captains and courtiers grew weary of
being absent so long from Bukhárá, where they longed to see their wives
and children again. They offered Rúdagí, the poet, five thousand dinars
if he could persuade the Amír to quit Herát and return to Bukhárá.
Rúdagí, at an opportune moment, took up his harp and sang the following
song to the Amír:
The sands of Oxus, toilsome though they be,
Beneath my feet were soft as silk to me.
Glad at the friend's return, the Oxus deep
Up to our girths in laughing waves shall leap.
Long live Bukhárá! Be thou of good cheer!
Joyous towards thee hasteth our Amír!
The Moon's the Prince, Bukhárá, is the sky;
O sky, the Moon shall light thee by and bye!
Bukhárá, is the mead, the Cypress he;
Receive at last, O Mead, thy Cypress-tree!
This particular Amír seems to have been fond of flattery, and he found
the daintily turned song of Rúdagí more acceptable to his vanity than
even the beauty of Herát. He accordingly took his departure immediately
the song had concluded, and, in his absent-mindedness, forgot to put on
his boots, which were carried by an attendant who rode in hot pursuit.
Poetry in those days was evidently a remunerative pursuit. Nīzamī tells
us that Khidr Khán always had in readiness four trays of gold. "These
he used to dispense by the handful" to the successful poets. Though
the royal favour towards the poets was extremely bountiful, Persian
poets were not always particularly courteous the one to the other.
Nīzamī tells an amusing story of a minor poet named Rashídí. At the
king's command the Poet-Laureate was asked to express his opinion of
Rashídí's poetry. The Poet-Laureate accordingly remarked: "His verse
is extremely good and chaste and correct, but it wants spice." The
king afterwards repeated these words to Rashídí and bade him compose a
fitting rejoinder. Rashídí composed the following verse:
You stigmatise my verse as "wanting spice,"
And possibly, my friend, you may be right.
My verse is honey-flavoured, sugar-sweet,
And spice with such could scarcely cause delight.
Spice is for you, you blackguard, not for me,
For beans and turnips is the stuff you write!
This was not kind; but Rashídí received all four baskets of gold that
day!
The technical study of prosody was instituted by Khalil ibn i Ahmad i
Bicrí. He is said to have discovered this science by listening to the
rythmic beats of the fuller's mallets upon his clothes. This story is
mentioned in Saifi's _Treatise on Prosody_.[1]
Much of Persian poetry is conventional, and the demarcation in style,
due to the various phases of Persian history, is not as pronounced
as might be expected. The Persian poets not only conservatively
followed old metres, but old similes, old subjects as well. It was
with words they were most concerned, and not with ideas. The _Lover's
Companion_ of Sharafu'd-Dín Rámí is sufficient to prove this. The book
contains a very large number of similes on the various parts of the
body. This was intended to be a _vade mecum_ to the writer of erotic
poetry. Professor Brown defends this conservatism and remarks that it
has "guarded the Persian language from the vulgarisation which the
triumph of an untrained, untrammelled, and unconventional genius of the
barbaric-degenerate type tends to produce in our own and other European
tongues."
[Footnote 1: See _The Prosody of the Persians_. By H. Blockmann,
Calcutta, 1872.]