Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/687

LITERATURE.] PERSIA 657 murzndma ; those of his daughter, an amazon, in the Brunhild style of the German Nibelunge, in the Bdnu Gushdspndma ; those of his grandson, in the Barsundma ; those of his great-grandson, in the Shahriydrndma (ascribed to Mukhtari and dedicated to Mas iid Shah, who is probably identical with Mas iid b. Ibrahim, Sultan Mahmud s great- grandson, 1088-1114; 481-508 A.H.); and the wonderful exploits of a son of Isfandiyar, another hero of the Shdh- ndma, in the Bahmanndma. When at last these old Iranian sources were almost entirely exhausted, the difficulty was met in various but equally ingenious ways. Where some slight historical re cords of the heroic age no matter how doubtful their authenticity were still obtainable, poetical imagination seized upon them at once, and filled the wide gaps by its own powerful invention ; where no traditions at all were forthcoming, fiction pure and simple asserted its indisputable right ; and thus the national epopee gave way to the epic story, and substituting prose for verse to the novel and the fairy tale. Models of the former class are the various Iskandarndmas, or " Books of Alexander the Great," the oldest and most original of which is that of Nizami (com pleted about 1202 ; 599 A.H.) ; the latter begins with the Kitdb-i-Samak l lydr, a novel in three volumes (about 1189 ; 585 A.H.), and reaches its climax in the Biistdn-i-Khaydl, or " Garden of Imagination," a prose romance of fifteen large volumes, by Mohammed Taki Khayal, written between 1742 and 1756 (1155 and 1169 A.H.). Many aspirants to poetical fame, however, were not satisfied with either of these expedients : they boldly struck out a new path and explored hitherto unknown regions , and here again a twofold tendency manifested itself. Some writers, both in prose and verse, turned from the exhausted fields of the national glory of Persia to the comparatively original soil of Arabian traditions, and chose their subjects from the chivalrous times of their own Bedouin conquerors, or even from the Jewish legends of the Koran. Of this description are the Anbiydndma, or history of the pre-Mohammedan prophets, by Hasani Shabistari Ayani (before the 8th century of the Hijra) ; Ibn Husam s Khdwarndma (1427; 830 A.H.), or the deeds of All ; Badhil s Hamla-i-Haidari, which was completed by Najaf (1723 ; 1135 A.H.), or the life of Mohammed and the first four caliphs ; Kazim s Far- ahndma-i-Fdtima, the book of joy of Fatima, Mohammed s daughter (1737 ; 1150 A.H.), all four in the epic metre of the Shdhndma ; and the prose stories of Hdtim Td i, the famous model of liberality and generosity in pre-Islamitic times ; of Amir Hamzah, the uncle of Mohammed ; and of the Mujizdt-i-Musawi, or the miraculous deeds of Moses, by Mu in-almiskin (died about 1501 ; 907 A.H.). Quite a different turn was taken by the ambition of another class of imitators of Firdausi, especially during the last four centuries of the Hijra, who tried to create a new heroic epopee by celebrating in rhythm and rhyme stirring events of recent date. The gigantic figure of Timur inspired Hatifi (died 1521; 927 A.H.) with his Timurndma; the stormy epoch of the first Safawi rulers, who succeeded at last in reuniting for some time the various provinces of the old Persian realm into one great monarchy, furnished Kasimi (died after 1560 ; 967 A.H.) with the materials of his Shdhndma, a poetical history of Shah Isma il and Shah Tahmasp. Another Shdhndma, celebrating Shah Abbas the Great, was written by Kamali of Sabzawar ; and even the cruelties of Nadir Shah were duly chronicled in a pompous epic style in Ishratf s Shdhndma-i-Nddiri (1749; 1162 A.H.). But all these poems are surpassed in length by the 33,000 distichs of the Shdhinshdhndma by the poet-laureate of the late Feth Ali Shah of Persia, and the 40,000 distichs of the Georgendma, a poetical history of India from its discovery by the Portuguese to the conquest of Poonah by the English in 1817. In India especially this kind of epic versification has flourished since the beginning of Humayun s reign (1530-1556); the court- poets of the great Mogul emperors of Delhi, as well as of all the minor dynasties, vied with one another in glorifying the exploits of their respective sovereigns, as is sufficiently proved by the Zafarndma-i-Shdhjahdni by Kudsi (died 1646; 1056 A.H.); the Shdhinshdhndma by Talib Kalim (died 1651 ; 1061 A.H.), another panegyrist of Shah Jahan ; Atashi s Adilndma, in honour of Shah Mohammed Adil of Bijapur, who ascended the throne in 1629 (1039 A.H.) ; the Tawdrikh-i-Kuli Ifutlshdh, a metrical history of the Kutb shahs of Golkonda ; and many more, down to the Fath- ndma-i-Tipu Sultan by Ghulam Hasan (1784 ; 1189 A.H.). But the national epopee, with both its legitimate and its illegitimate offspring, was not the only bequest the great Firdausi left to his nation. This rich genius gave also the first impulse to the higher development of those other branches of poetical art which were to flourish in the following ages particularly to romantic, didactic, and mystic poetry ; and even his own age produced powerful co-operators in these three most conspicuous departments of Persian literature. Romantic fiction, which achieved its Romantic highest triumph in Nizami of Ganja s (1141-1203; 535-599 fiction. A.H.) brilliant pictures of the struggles and passions in the human heart (see NiZAMf, vol. xvii. pp. 521, 522), sent forth its first tender shoots in the numerous love-stories of the Shdhndma, the most fascinating of which is that of Zal and Rudabeh, and developed almost into full bloom in Firdausi s second great mathnawi Yusuf u Zalikhd, which the aged poet wrote after his flight from Ghazna, and dedicated to the reigning caliph of Baghdad, Alkadir- billah. It represents the oldest poetical treatment of the Biblical story of Joseph, which has proved so attractive to the epic poets of Persia, among others to Am ak of Bokhara (died 1149), who was the first after Firdausi to write a Y dsuf u Zalikhd (which can be read in two dif ferent metres), to Jami (died 1492), Mauji KAsim Khan, Humayun s amir (died 1571), Nazim of Herat (died 1670), and Shaukat, the governor of Shiraz under Feth Ali Shah. Perhaps prior in date to Firdausi s Yusuf was his patron Unsuri s romance Wdmik u Adhrd, a popular Iranian legend of great antiquity, which had been first written in verse under the Tahirid dynasty. This favourite story was treated again by Fasihi Jurjani (in the course of the same 5th century of the Hijra), and by many modern poets, as Damiri, who died under the Safawi ShAh Mohammed (1577-1586; 985-994 A.H.), Nami, the historiographer of the Zand dynasty, and Husain of Shiraz under Feth Ali Shah, the last two flourishing towards the beginning of the present century. Another love-story of similar anti quity, which had originally been written in Pahlavi, formed the basis of Fakhr-uddin As ad Jurjani s Wis u Edmm, which was composed in Isfahan (Ispahan) about 1048 (440 A.H.), a poem remarkable not only for its high artistic value but also for its close resemblance to one of the epic masterpieces of mediaeval German literature, Gott fried von Strasburg s Tristan und Isolt. The last-named Persian poet was apparently one of the earliest eulogists of the Seljuks, and it was under this Turkish dynasty, which soon became a formidable rival both of the Ghaznawids and of the Arabian caliphs of Baghdad, that lyrical romanticism that is, panegyrical Encomi- and satirical poetry rose to the highest pitch. What ast f ainl Firdausi, in his exalted descriptions of royal power and satirists - dignity, and the court-poets of Sultan Mahmud, in their unbounded praise of the great sovereign and protector of arts, had commenced, what other encomiasts under Mahmud s successors for instance, Abu 1-Faraj Runi of Lahore and Mas ud b. Sa d b. Salmdn (under Sultan XVIII. 83