LATER PERIODS.
THE FOURTH PERIOD—LITERARY KINGS—HĀFIZ—PĪR-I-SEBZ—SHĪRĀZ—THE FEAST OF
SPRING—MY BIRD—FIFTH PERIOD—JĀMI—THE WORKS OF JĀMI—RECEPTION—THE
SIXTH PERIOD—THE SEVENTH PERIOD.
The fourth period, which began at the close of the thirteenth century
and continued until the beginning of the fifteenth, represents the
highest development of lyric poetry and rhetoric, although these were
stormy times in the political and literary world.
During this period Persia had many men of culture, and, indeed, she
boasted of one literary king.
Sultān Ahmed Ilkhāni, who reigned over Bagdad, Azerbaijān, and some
parts of Asia Minor, conducted his court with great pomp and splendor.
He was one of the most accomplished men of the age, being an artist and
illuminator as well as a musical composer. His beautiful calligraphy, in
various languages, was highly celebrated, and his poetical productions,
in both the Persian and Turkish tongues, were considered very
meritorious. His moral character, however, presented a sad contrast to
his intellectual attainments, and his remorseless cruelty made him an
object of detestation to his subjects. He was entirely merciless when
intoxicated with opium, and on these occasions he would put people to
death on the most trivial pretenses. His conduct provoked the enmity of
the influential families of Bagdad, and at length the public sentiment
against him became so strong that letters were written by the principal
men, inviting Amir Timūr (Tamerlane) to the conquest of their country,
and pledging him their assistance. The invitation was gladly accepted,
and when the hostile intentions of the conqueror became known, the
poetical Sultan sent him the following message:
“Why should we bare our neck on the block of misfortune?
Why should we despond at every trifling attack of adversity?
Like the Sīmūrgh, let us pass over seas and mountains
And thus bring the earth and water under our wings.”
The sentiment was given in Persian verse, and Timūr soon found a poet
who could write a suitable response, when the following answer was
returned:
“Place thy neck on the block of adversity, and move not thy head.
Thou canst not consider trifling a most severe misfortune.
Like the Sīmūrgh, why shouldst thou attempt to climb the mountain, Qāf?
Rather like the little sparrow, gather in thy wings and feathers and
retire.”
Soon afterward Timūr approached Bagdad,[272] and he not only captured
that city and province, but he proved to be the veritable scourge of the
Orient. The country had scarcely recovered from the ravages of Genghis
Khān when Timūr conquered the whole of ancient Persia, and, flushed with
success, he invaded India and sacked Delhi, where he obtained the
richest spoils of his campaign. It was said that he erected towers of
human heads,[273] waded through streams of blood, and marched over the
ruins of burning cities, in order to achieve his triumphs.
Such men are scarcely calculated to encourage the science of letters,
but it is claimed that he was friendly to scholars, and it is certain
that history was developed during this period.
HĀFIZ.
Not only history, but also poetry flourished under the rule of the
Mongol conqueror.[274] This was the period which gave birth to the
finest lyric poet of Persia, and when the great Timūr conquered Fārs and
put Shah Mansūr to death, Hāfiz was in Shīrāz.
It was at this time that he was ordered into the presence of the new
ruler, and severely reproved for writing such a line as the following:
“For the black mole on thy cheek, I would give the cities of Samarcānd
and Bokhāra.”
Timūr sternly said to the poet, “I have taken and destroyed, with the
keen edge of my sword, the greatest kingdoms of the earth, to add
splendor and population to the royal cities of my native land,—Samarcānd
and Bokhāra; and yet you would dispose of them both at once for the
black mole on the cheek of your beloved.”
Instead of being daunted by the sternness of the reproof, Hāfiz calmly
replied, “Yes, sire, and it is by such acts of generosity that I am
reduced, as you see, to my present state of poverty.”
Timūr smiled, and bestowed upon him some splendid marks of the royal
favor.
The name of Hāfiz was a _nom de plume_, the poet’s true name being
Shemsuddin Muhammed; he was born in Shīrāz early in the fourteenth
century, and it was here that he died at an advanced age. He was a
student from his childhood, but his especial talent was the gift of
song. His style is clear, his imagery harmonious, and his work had a
certain fascination of its own to the poetry-loving Persians, who are
still charmed with the peculiar accent of his musical rhythm, and the
flights of his vivid imagination. He was invited to make his home with
the reigning Sultan, but he preferred to live in retirement, enjoying
the society of friends and scholars, to the splendor and insecurity of
court life.
Hāfiz was also invited to the court of one of the Indian princes, at a
time when many poets of Persia and Arabia found favor with a literary
king, and this courtesy he intended to accept, as the monarch sent a
liberal amount of money with the invitation to present himself at the
royal abode. The poet gave a portion of the money to his creditors, and
supplied the needs of his sister’s children, before he started out upon
his journey. When he had crossed the Indus and traveled as far as
Lahore, he met a friend who was in great distress, having been robbed by
banditti, and to him he gave all his means without considering his own
needs. But fortunately he soon met two Persian merchants, who were
returning from Hindūstān, and who proposed to pay his expenses for the
pleasure of his company. They journeyed together to the Persian Gulf,
and he even went with them on board the ship that was to bear them away,
but before the anchor was weighed a terrible storm arose, and the poet
turned his back upon his friends, and returned home.
Before leaving the shore, he sent on board the ship an apology to his
friends, and this was couched in graceful verse, but it was to the
effect that at first the horrors of the sea seemed light in
consideration of the pearls which it contained, but the terror of the
storm had taught him that “the infliction of one of its waves would not
be compensated for by an hundred-weight of gold.”
PĪR-I-SEBZ.
There is a legend connected with his youth which is supposed to explain
his wondrous gift of poesy. Tradition claimed that the youth who should
pass forty successive nights at Pīr-i-sebz without sleep, would become a
great poet. Young Hāfiz therefore made a vow, that he would fulfill the
conditions with the utmost exactness. For thirty-nine days he went
faithfully to his post, walking every morning by the home of the girl he
loved, and on the fortieth morning she called him in, but he remembered
his vow and the evening found him again at the place of his lonely
vigil.
The uneventful night passed slowly away, and the gray dawn began to tint
the distant mountain tops, but no other light was visible save the gleam
of the morning star, when the watcher saw in the distance a figure
approaching him. It was a venerable man wearing a green mantle,[275] and
his white beard flowed down upon his garments like a cascade of silver.
He bore in his hand a cup, filled with the nectar of immortality, and
the reverent youth bent low before the genius of the mountain, and then
drank eagerly of the proffered cup; therefore he still lives in the
memory of man.
He was loyal to his native land, and the following lines indicate his
strong attachment to the city of his birth.
SHĪRĀZ.
“May every blessing be the lot
Of fair Shīrāz, earth’s loveliest spot.
Oh Heaven! bid Time its beauties spare,
Nor print his wasteful traces there.
Still be thou blest of him that gave
Thy stream, sweet Ruknabad, whose wave
Can every human ill assuage,
And life prolong to Khizer’s age.
And oh the gale that wings its way
Twixt Jaffrabad and Mosalay;
How sweet a perfume does it bear!
How grateful is its amber air!
Ye who mysterious joys would taste,
Come to this sacred city—haste;
Its saints, its sages seek to know,
Whose breasts with heavenly rapture glow.
And say, sweet gale—for thou canst tell—
With lovely Lailī was it well,
When last you passed the maiden by,
Of wayward will and witching eye?
Why, Hāfiz, when you feared the day
That tore you from her arms away,
Oh why so thankless for the hours
You passed in Lailī’s lovely bowers?”
In his youth Hāfiz sang freely of love and wine, and his verse upon
these themes too often betrayed a coarse sentiment, for it seems
impossible for some bards to appreciate the perfect purity of honest
affection. Of his love songs the following is the best:
THE FEAST OF SPRING.
“My breast is filled with roses,
My cup is crowned with wine,
And the veil her face discloses—
The maid I hail as mine.
The monarch, wheresoe’er he be,
Is but a slave compared to me.
Their glare no torches throwing,
Shall in our bower be found—
Her eyes, like moonbeams glowing,
Cast light enough around;
And other odors I can spare
Who scent the perfume of her hair.
The honey-dew thy charm might borrow
Thy lip alone to me is sweet;
When thou art absent, faint with sorrow
I hide me in some lone retreat.
Why talk to me of power or fame?
What are those idle toys to me?
Why ask the praises of my name,
My joy, my triumph is in thee.
How blest am I! around me swelling
The notes of melody arise!
I hold the cup with wine excelling,
And gaze upon thy radiant eyes,
Oh Hāfiz—never waste thy hours
Without the cup, the lute, and love
For ’tis the sweetest time of flowers
And none these moments shall reprove.
The nightingales around thee sing
It is the joyous feast of spring.”
As Hāfiz grew older he became attached to the Sufi[276] philosophy, and
his poetry contained so many figurative allusions that the Mussulmans
called his productions “the language of mystery,” others claim that even
his most sensual poems are figurative and should be thus interpreted. Of
his graver poems the following is the best:
MY BIRD.
“My soul is as a sacred bird, the highest heaven its nest,
Fretting within its body-bars, it finds on earth its nest;
When rising from its dusty heap this bird of mine shall soar
’Twill find upon the lofty gate the nest it had before.
The Sidrah,[277] shall receive my bird, when it has winged its way,
And on the Empyrean’s top, my falcon’s foot shall stay,
Over the ample field of earth is fortune’s shadow cast,
Where upon wings and pennons borne this bird of mine has past.
No spot in the two worlds it owns, above the sphere its goal,
Its body from the quarry is, from “No Place” is its soul.
’Tis only in the glorious world my bird its splendor shows,
The rosy bowers of Paradise its daily food bestows.[278]
The poet’s life had been such that the clergy refused to read the burial
service over his body when he died, his friends, however, obviated the
difficulty by stratagem, and it was decided that scattered couplets from
his odes should be placed in a bowl and drawn therefrom by a child, the
disposition of the body to be settled by the sense of the couplet thus
drawn out. The child took out the following distich:
“Withhold not your step from the bier of Hāfiz,
For, though sunk in sin, he goes to Paradise.”
And upon the strength of the evidence thus received the body was given
an honorable burial.
FIFTH PERIOD.
The fifth period of her literature, beginning with the fourteenth
century, and ending about the close of the fifteenth, marks a stationary
condition in the Persian world of letters.
The sons and grandsons of Timūr, although at variance in their political
interests, vied with each other in the encouragement of scholars, and
for a time the literary world retained its brilliancy. Astronomy as well
as history flourished at this period, and great mathematicians were also
in favor with royalty.
JĀMI.
The most distinguished poet of this period was Nuruddīn Abdurrahman, who
very wisely chose the briefer and more euphonious name of Jāmi. He was a
native of Jām, a small town near Herāt, the capital of Khorasān, and it
was from this circumstance that he called himself Jāmi, which signifies
a drinking cup, as well as a native of Jām.
It is said that he began his career as a student of science, and
attained great proficiency in his chosen field of investigation, but
wishing to learn the mysteries of the philosophy of the Sufis, he became
a pupil of the Shaikh al Islām Saaduddin, and remained with him until he
became a master of the mystic doctrine. On the death of the Shaikh, he
succeeded to his position, and filled it so well that kings and princes
came from distant lands to obtain his advice, while his home was the
resort of scholars, as well as court officials.
He was not only the most celebrated poet of his time, but, in the
opinion of many, he was superior to his predecessors, and being also a
Doctor of the Musselman law, he was honored by all the princes and
nobles of the age in which he lived.
He was the last great poet and mystic of Persia, and he seemed to
combine the moral tone of Sā’dī, with the imagination of Jalal-uddin,
the ease of Hāfiz, and the pathos of Nizāmī.
He was a master of the Persian language and a most prolific author; Shir
Khān Lūdi, in his “Memoirs of the Poets,” claims that he was the author
of ninety-nine different works, which continue to be admired in all
parts of Īrān and Hindūstān.
The enormous expense which has been incurred in the illumination of fine
transcripts of his manuscripts, indicates the high position which his
works still occupy in the literature of the East.
A work entitled “Khorasān in Affliction” was transcribed at Lahore for
the Emperor of Hindūstān, during the sixteenth century,[279] which
represents an expenditure of many thousand dollars. The calligraphy is
the work of a famous scribe, who, on account of his beautiful
penmanship, was called “The Pen of Gold.”
Sixteen eminent artists were engaged in the embellishment of this
manuscript of one hundred and thirty-four pages; five were employed upon
the illuminations and marginal arabesques; and five upon the finely
colored illustrations; there were three engaged upon the hunting scenes
and animals, while three others painted the faces in the vignettes and
margins.
The leaves of the book are of soft silken Kashmīrian paper, tinted in
the softest shades of various harmonious colors. The broad margins are
illuminated with chaste designs painted with liquid gold, and no two
pages are alike. Some of these designs represent mosaic work, others are
in running patterns, and many of them are delineations of field sports,
where the simple outlines of gold indicate, with marvelous accuracy, the
various forms of animal life. This was placed in the library of Shāh
Jehān,[280] with the emperor’s autograph, as the gem of his collection,
and underneath it is a second autograph of another of the royal
descendants of Timūr.
This elaborate manuscript is not only indicative of the great popularity
of Jāmi, but it also shows the liberal patronage which existed for all
works of art under the princes of the house of Timūr. The grave of Jāmi
is at Herāt, where he was laid[281] at the age of eighty-one years, and
this illustrious name completes the list of the seven great poets of
Persia who have been called “The Persian Pleiades.”
THE WORKS OF JĀMI.
Although this author was a voluminous writer, still his most important
works may be briefly summarized; there is a book on ethics and education
containing anecdotes and fables, written both in prose and verse, after
the manner adopted by Sā’-dī, and like the Gūlistān, it is divided into
eight chapters.
One of his books, entitled “Irshad” or “Instructions,” was dedicated to
a Turkish Sultan—Al Fāteh, “The Conqueror.” “The Seven Thrones” is
considered by an eminent native critic[282] to combine the most
exquisite compositions in the Persian language, except the “Five Poems”
of the celebrated Nizāmī. The seven gems which are thus alluded to bear
the following titles: (1) The Chain of Gold; (2) Selmān and Absāl; (3)
The Present of the Just; (4) The Rosary; (5) The Loves of Lailī and
Majnūn; (6) Yūsuf and Zulaikhā; (7) The Book of Alexander the Great.
The character of Jāmi’s style may be represented by the following
extract from Yūsuf and Zulaikhā, which is a description of the reception
of a Persian bride at an Egyptian court:
RECEPTION.
With a drum of gold the bright firmament beat
At morn the signal for night’s retreat.
The stars with the night at the coming of day
Broke up their assembly and passed away.
From that drum, gold-scattering, light was shed,
Like a peacock’s glorious plumes outspread.
In princely garb the Vizier arrayed,
Placed in her litter the moon-bright maid.
In the van, in the rear, on every side,
He ordered his soldiers about the bride,
And golden umbrellas a soft shade threw
O’er the heads of Zulaikhā’s retinue.
The singer’s voices rang loud and high,
As the camels moved at the driver’s cry,
And the heaven above and below the ground
Echoed afar with the mingled sound.
Glad were the maids of Zulaikhā’s train
That their lady was free from sorrow and pain,
And the prince and people rejoiced that she
The idol and queen of his home should be.
THE SIXTH PERIOD.
The sixth period, beginning near the close of the fifteenth century, and
extending to about the commencement of the seventeenth, marks a gradual
decline in poetry, although history and other literature still attract
much attention. The so-called poets of this age are unworthy of notice,
but a few good Persian historians made their appearance.
India now began to vie with Persia in the production of great historical
works, under the government of the Mongol emperors from Baber downwards.
The pantheistic doctrines of the Sufis were doubtless brought into
Persia from India, and both the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahā-bhārata were
translated into Persian by the order of Akbar. This monarch was the most
enlightened sovereign that ever reigned on the throne of India. He was
the patron, not only of learning and art, but he also richly rewarded
the calligraphers and other artists that he employed to copy and
illustrate Persian manuscripts. This illustrious patron of Persian
literature was a descendant of Timūr, and therefore belonged to the race
of Mongol emperors, usually styled the “Great Moguls.” The history of
his own times was provided for by the appointment of forty-four
historians, ten of whom were on duty each day to record every event as
it occurred. By Akbar’s order the “History of a Thousand Years” was
composed, several authors being engaged upon it, each one having a
certain number of years assigned to him. A society for literary
composition had thus been organized in India about two hundred years
before that of Guthrie and Grey had been established in England.
THE SEVENTH PERIOD.
The seventh period, beginning near the close of the sixteenth century
and continuing until about the end of the eighteenth, shows a marked
decline in Persian literature. With Shāh Akbar[283] and Shāh Abbas,[284]
who occupied respectively the thrones of India and of Persia, the
brilliancy of Persian literature, and especially of her poetry, entirely
disappeared. During this period no poet has arisen above mediocrity, and
no historian has appeared who could be compared with his predecessors.
The successors of Akbar, it is true, left contributions to the history
at their time, and a valuable dictionary of the Persian language was
compiled from forty similar works, but in lieu of poetry and history,
letter-writing began to flourish in both India and Persia. Elegant
calligraphy was now carried to an extreme, and a vast amount of time and
labor were expended upon private as well as official letters. The state
secretaries vied with each other in the production of elaborate
credentials for their ambassadors, and generally men of education who
were well read in the best Persian poets, and able to recite their best
passages, when occasion permitted, were selected for ambassadors.
From the time of Nadīr Shāh up to the present, Persia has suffered many
revolutions, wars and famines, and although they could not destroy the
admiration still bestowed upon their great poets, the genius of the race
appears to have become extinct. The poetry of the eighteenth century is
of little value, and the dominant spirit of the nineteenth is pure
mysticism, as embodied in the doctrines of the Sufis.
Nations, as well as individuals, have their periods of mental growth and
decay, and when once fallen they seldom rise again. History, however,
has some splendid exceptions to this rule, and Persia has had three
successive periods of intellectual prosperity,—three times has the
national spirit awakened as from a torpor, and for a season it has
gleamed like a star in the Orient, but three times it has either died
out, or been crushed beneath the storm of conquest.
Elated with their success under the brilliant leadership of Cyrus, a
change which was almost fatal took place in Persian character, between
his reign and that of Darius. Thus his own people proved the truth of
the warning words of Cyrus, to the effect that “the effeminate clime
produces effeminate inhabitants, nor can the same soil produce excellent
fruits and men who are valiant in war.”[285] Under the Sassanian kings,
however, the national spirit revived, and the literature of Persia
sprang to life, only to be trampled beneath the foot of the Arabian
invader. Toward the close of the ninth century her world of letters
again revived and flourished in various forms during the six periods
which have been previously discussed.
Henceforth she has a national literature, with its own peculiar faults
as well as beauties, even though her best works belong to her past. No
poetry has ever been more peculiarly national than that of Persia, for
three centuries her lyre has been virtually silent, and yet her people
cherish with peculiar fondness the memory of her poets. The finest odes
of Hāfiz and the most beautiful passages of her Shāh Nāmah still live,
even in the memory of her peasants; and the sorrows of Lailī and Majnūn
will be chanted by Persian and Arab as long as the sons of the desert
are found amidst the roses of Īrān.