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326 PERSIA (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE) paragraph is Persian, all the materials of which it is composed being Arabic ; and occasionally such a monstrosity is met with as a sentence or phrase which is pure Arabic, even to its construction. Hence, no one can now make himself a thorough Persian scholar, or gain a familiarity with the Persian literature, who has not first mastered the Arabic. In the present low condition of Persian nationality, any re- action against this abuse is hardly to be looked for ; it is the rankest injustice on the part of the Persian toward his mother tongue, which is one of the most copious and flexible, the most sonorous and musical, the most cultiva- ble, highly cultivated, and elegant of modern languages. The theory of a specially intimate connection between the Persian and the Teu- tonic (German) languages is entirely destitute of real foundation. LITERATURE. The scan- ty literatures of the earlier Persian dialects, the Avestan, the Huzvaresh, and the Parsee, being comprised within the limits of a single work, or connected body of writings, which together make up the sacred scriptures of the modern Parsees, will be best considered to- gether in the article ZEND-AVESTA. We shall accordingly speak here only of the modern Persian literature. A national feeling, and an active literary spirit, must have been for some time stirring among the masses of the Persian population, to lead to so immediate and hearty a recognition of the claims of song on the part of all the upstart dynasties of eastern Iran, which succeeded one another so rapidly during the 9th and 10th centuries. Each court had its bards, whose productions, and the admiration which they excited, shed lustre upon the throne. Royal patronage has borne an important part in the whole history of Persian literature ; one of its chief branches is panegyric, and few of its great names were not attached to the per- sonal suite, or recipients of the special bounty, of some monarch. Even the wild Tartar tribes which burst one after another into Iran, and subjugated it to their sway, were at once soft- ened and charmed by the strains of Persian song, and their barbarian dynasties became, without exception, its lovers and protectors. Had not the feeling been genuine, the genius strong, the national appreciation universal and hearty, such patronage must soon have cor- rupted the rising literature, converting it into mere servile adulation. Of servility and adula- tion there was indeed enough ; but along with it a true, healthy, growing, and productive literary life, during more than five centuries. We can give here, of course, but an outline sketch of its development, and can mention only the most prominent and highly consid- ered of the hundreds of authors of note, whose works or whose reputation have come down to later times. Although names and fragments of poetry of an earlier date have escaped obliv- ion, it is under Mahmoud of Ghuzni, the first Moslem conqueror of India, and on the extreme eastern verge of Iran, that the national litera- ture was fairly launched on its new career. Under this prince, and at his bidding, Firdusi (died in 1020) sang his immortal epic, the Shah Nameh. This earliest of the Persian poets re- mains unexcelled in genius and dignity by any of his successors. His work summed up the whole mass of native traditions respecting the national history ; it is a true national epic, a final relation, accepted by a whole people, of its own popular legends. No other Persian poem enjoys the wide repute of this ; none other has the same high interest to us of the West. Of epic-romantic poets, the most famous is Niza- mi, who flourished a century and a half after Firdusi. His " Quinquiad," or collection of his five best romances, became the model of many a like collection in later times. From among , the innumerable crowd of those who have dis- tinguished themselves especially by their pan- egyrical writings, we need mention but two : Enveri or Anvari, the acknowledged prince of panegyrists, who lived in Balkh about 1150, and Khakani, who lived about a generation later. Both are remarkable for learning, as well as for fertility of fancy and elegance of style. An important branch of Persian lit- erature, and one which began to develop it- self very early, is that which represents the doctrines of the Sufis, or religious mystics. Doubtless we are to recognize a certain resis- tance on the part of the Persians to the sla- very into which they were forced to Arab faith and doctrine, in their general adoption, on the one hand, of the unorthodox and de- tested tenets of the Shiahs, who accept the Koran and Mohammed, but deny the right of the first three caliphs; and, on the other hand, in the prevalence of mysticism among them. Persia, if not the home of Sufiism, as has been both maintained and denied, is at least the ground where it has most fully developed it- self, and held longest and most exclusive sway. The oldest Sufi poet of great celebrity is Ze- nayi, who died in 1180 ; his works were super- seded by the yet more highly esteemed produc- tions of Ferid ed-Din Attar, who, born about 1120, lived more than 100 years, and was slain at last in the Mongol storm and sack of the city where he dwelt. His works are unintel- ligible in their interior meaning without spe- cial commentaries. Among them, the most esteemed are the "Book of Counsel" (Pend NameJi), "Language of the Birds" (Mantik, et- tair), and " Essences of Substance " (Jevahir Nameh) ; the two former have been published and translated in Europe. But even Attar was excelled by his younger contemporary Jelal ed-Din Rumi (died about 1262), the founder of the most widely extended order of Moslem monks, the Mevlevi, and author of the Mesne- vi, the chief oracle of Sufiism, and, next to the- Shah Nameh, the most generally known and highly esteemed (in the Orient) of all the pro- ductions of oriental literature ; its profundity, its sublimity, and its inspired wisdom are re- garded as unapproached and unapproachable.