PERSIAN LITERATURE. PERIOD IV. 1350-1500. URING the last half of the fourteenth century a sultan named Ilkhani reigned, with great splendor, over Persia and parts of Asia Minor. He was a poet, artist, illuminator, and musical composer. But his cruelty was remorseless, and his morals were detestable. The enmity of the influential families of Bagdad being thus excited, they wrote to the Tartar chief Timur (or Tamerlane), inviting him to take their land, and promising him their assistance. The country had hardly recovered from the ravages of Genghis Khan when Timur conquered the whole of ancient Persia, rushed on to India, and sacked Delhi. This monster waded through rivers of blood, and made pyramids of human heads in order to display his triumphs. Yet, when his power was assured, he was friendly to scholars, and not only history but poetry flourished under the rule of the Mongol conqueror. Hafiz of Shiraz is the greatest lyric poet of Persia. He sang in praise of love and wine. When his native city was taken he was ordered into the presence of Timur, who sharply rebuked him for some wild exaggerations of his verse. Hafiz made a witty reply, and was instantly received into royal favor, and was showered with magnificent gifts. In his old age the poet became attached to the Sufis-a sect whose members prefer the meditations of mysticism to the pleasures of the world. The sons and grandsons of Timur vied with each other in encouraging scholars; under them astronomy, history, and mathematics flourished. The most illustrious poet of this age was Jami. Instead of using his long and uneuphonious name in his writings he wisely preferred to call himself from his native town of Jam, near Herar. He studied the mysticism of the Sufis, and became master of the doctrine and head of the order. Kings and princes traveled far for his advice. He wrote ninety-nine books, and is considered the last great poet and mystic of Persia. With the death of Jami, the last of the Persian Pleiades, about the end of the fifteenth century, the era of poetry, which had been so rich and varied, practically ended. For a time the descendants of Timur reigned, both in India and Persia, under the title of the "Great Mogul." India had given to Persia Sufism and her fables; Persia gave to India her immortal verse. Akbar, a Persian-Indian sovereign, appointed forty-four historians at his court. Ten of them were to be on duty at a time, and to write the doings of the day. He also planned a work to be called "The History of a Thousand Years." The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were periods of decay. All that can be said of them is, that a Persian dictionary was compiled, and letter-writing took the place of literature. At present Persia is given up to the worship of pure mysticism, as embodied in the doctrines of the Sufis. There are many reasons for this decadence-wars, famines, revolts; but perhaps the chief cause is the fanaticism and corruption of the Mohammedan priests who are the real power behind the throne. But a country that can point with pride to the world-wide fascination of such names as Firdausi, Sadi and Hafiz; to such poems as "Laili and Majnun;" to such romances as "Meher and Mushteri," need not fear for her intellectual future. There have been other decadences and other revivals, and all that Persia needs to enable her to rival her past, are freedom and opportunity. HAFIZ. HAFIZ is the assumed name of a poet of Shiraz, his real name being Shemsuddin Mohammed. When his native city was conquered by the Mongol Timur he was ordered into the presence of the tyrant who rebuked him for having falsely pretended to the possession of cities when he wrote the following line: "For the black mole on thy cheek I would give the cities of Samarcand and Bokhara." The undaunted Hafiz 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." Timur smiled, and overwhelmed him with splendid gifts, and desired his presence at court. But the poet, preferring his independence and the society of his friends, quietly refused. He died in 1388. A curious anecdote is told in connection with the poet's death. His life had been such that the Mohammedan priests hesitated to bury him with the funeral rites appropriate to their faith, but at the request of his friends, they allowed the case to be decided by a peculiar lot. Selecting a number of couplets from his odes, they placed them in a bowl. A little child was then told to withdraw one, at random; and it was agreed that the body should be buried in accordance with the sense of the lines so selected. The child took out the following: "Withhold not your step from the bier of Hafiz; for, though sunk in sin, he goes to Paradise." Upon the strength of this evidence the priests gladly gave the body honorable burial. Hafiz is the Anacreon of Persia. In his youth he sang of love and wine, being even more Anacreontic than the famous Greek poet. In his advanced years Hafiz is said by some commentators to have turned Sufi, and his poetry became so full of veiled allusions that his followers called it the "language of mystery." He combined the qualities of Pindar, Anacreon, Horace and Burns, with the insight of a mystic. To-day the muleteers and camel-drivers of the desert sing snatches of his songs to give expression to the pure joy of living, while cultivated Persians know his poems by heart. His verses are full of roses and of musk, the song of nightingales, the light of the warm stars, the shade of cypress and of olives, and all the balmy odors of the mysterious East. Emerson says of him: "Hafiz praises wine, roses, maidens, boys, birds, mornings and, music to give vent to his immense hilarity and sympathy with every form of beauty and joy. But it is the play of wit and the joy of song that he loves; and if you mistake him for a low rioter he turns on you with verses which express the poverty of sensual joys, and an heroic sentiment and contempt for the world." That a Moslem poet should write hundreds of poems in praise of wine, and even drunkenness, is a palpable anomaly. Hence around the lyrics of Hafiz a war of discussion is waging similar to that which is roused by "The Song of Solomon." Was Hafiz sensual, or under the guise of sensuality were his meanings mystical? The Persian critics, followed by some Europeans, give him a saving verdict, with recommendation to mercy. His early poems were distinctly sensual. After he became a Sufi his verses, whatever the subject, were full of hidden meanings. CHARMS THAT CHARM NOT. THIS poem illustrates the peculiar structure of the Persian ghazel. In the last stanza the poet's name is always inserted. WITHOUT the loved one's cheek the rose Can charm not. Can charm not. The spring, unless the wine-cup flows, The greenwood's border and the orchard's air, Can charm not. The sugar-lipped, the fair of rosy frame, Can charm not. The dancing cypress, the enrapturing flower, Can charm not. The painter's picture, though with genius rife, Can charm not. Wine, flower, and bower abound in charm, yet they, Lack we the friend who makes us gay, Can charm not. Thy soul, O Hafiz! is a coin that none prize; THE FEAST OF SPRING. My breast is filled with roses, Their glare no torches throwing, Who scent the perfume of her hair. The honey-dew thy charm might borrow, When thou art absent, faint with sorrow Why talk to me of power or fame? How blest am I! around me swelling O Hafiz-never waste thy hours |