CHAPTER VI.

The Romancists (continued) — Sheykhí

Sheykhí, whose name, as we have seen, Latífí couples in a somewhat suspicious story with that of Ahmedí, is a figure of considerable importance in the history of Turkish literature; for it is by him that the Persian artistic mesneví was introduced among the Western Turks. This poet, whose personal name was Sinán, was born in Kutahiya the capital of the little state of Germiyan, the birthplace of so many of the poets of those days. If we are to trust the Crimson Peony, Sheykhí studied first under Ahmedí. Somewhat later, according to all the authorities, he became a disciple of the famous mystic teacher and saint Hajji Beyrám of Angora,¹ under whose tuition he attained a high point in Súffistic lore. Latífí speaks of a journey to Persia undertaken in early life for the purpose of visiting the saints and sages of that land; but none of the other biographers refers to any such expedition. Indeed, according to the Crimson Peony, after his studies with Hajji Beyrám, Sheykhí settled in a place near his native Kutahiya whence he never stirred during the rest of his life. Here too he died and was buried; and here his tomb was visited by the author Tash-köpri-záde who, as the reader may have observed, had a great fondness for visiting the last resting-places of learned and holy men. Assuming the account in the Crimson Peony to be correct (and its simplicity commends it), if there be any truth in Latífí’s statement that Sheykhí made the acquaintance at Brusa of the gifted and intrepid poet Nesímí (of whom more in the next chapter), this must have occurred before the former settled down at Kutahiya.

According to Tash-köpri-záde, who quotes the authority of his teacher ῾Alá-ud-Dín ῾Arebí, Sheykhí was mean-looking in person, and was moreover blear-eyed. In the latter connection the same author tells the following story, which has been copied by Ἅshiq, Hasan and Ἅlí. In order to eke out his living, Sheykhí, who was of great repute as a physician, and especially as an oculist, was in the habit of preparing a powder which he sold at a small price to those whose eyes were weak. One day a man of some intelligence and wit happened to pass by the place where the poet was dispensing his simples, and gathering from the inflamed state of the vender’s own eyes that he was but ‘throwing dust in the eyes’¹ of the people, he asked for an asper’s worth of the powder, on receiving which he handed Sheykhí two aspers, saying sarcastically, ‘Buy some of your powder with this second asper and annoint your own eyes therewith; it may be that through the grace of God they will be healed!’ Sheykhí, it is added, was greatly pleased with the speaker’s wit, and used always to laugh when he recalled the incident.

I have said that Sheykhí was famed for his skill in medicine; this is mentioned by all the biographers. Latífí even says that in his lifetime he was popularly known as Hekim Sinán or Doctor Sinán. Possibly the following anecdote, which first appears in Ἅshiq, may be to some extent the offspring of this side of the poet’s reputation. Sultan Mehemmed the Debonair was lying grievously ill, and search was made far and near for a skilful physician. Sheykhí was found and brought before the royal patient, and when he had felt the Sultan’s pulse and looked at his eyes, he said, ‘The denser humours¹ have become mingled; the cure for this ill is an exceeding joy.’ Just then a courier arrived bringing news of the capture of a great and well-nigh impregnable fortress, news which so delighted Mehemmed that he straightway began to regain his spirits, and day by day his health continued to improve till ere long it was quite restored. By way of rewarding the physician for his skill, the Sultan granted him as a fief a village called Doquzlar,² apparently oblivious of the fact that this village was already the property of another. Be this as it may, as Sheykhí was travelling to his new possession, the original lord of Doquzlar fell upon him, plundered his baggage, slew his attendants, and left him lying wounded and half-dead upon the road. By and by, when he had recovered from his wounds, the poet embodied this adventure in a versified narrative which he named the Khar-Náme or ‘Book of the Ass,’ and in which he vigorously satirized his enemy. By means of this book the Sultan was made aware of what had occurred, whereupon he punished the author of the outrage and compelled him to indemnify Sheykhí for the loss he had sustained.

Such is the story told by Ἅshiq and repeated by Hasan and Ἅlí, a story not altogether easy to reconcile with Tash-köpri-záde’s, statement that Sheykhí never left the place near Kutahiya whither he retired on finishing his studies at Angora. Possibly a desire to account for the composition of the Khar-Name may have had some influence in moulding the details of the narrative.

Concerning that poem Ἅlí tells us that as no one could be found willing to bring under the notice of the Sultan a work with so unseemly a title as ‘The Book of the Ass,’ an extra letter dál (d) was slipped in after the ri (r) which changed the name into Khired-Náme or ‘The Book of Wisdom.’ It is noteworthy that while there is no entry in Kátib Chelebi’s lexicon under the title of Khar-Náme, among those under Khired-Níme we find ‘a Turkish poem by Mevláná Sheykhí of Germiyan who wrote it for Sultan Mehemmed the son of the Thunderbolt.’

Of this Khar-Náme or Khired-Náme I can give no account, as I have never seen a copy or come across any adequate description of its nature or contents. All I have been able to learn is from an anonymous note in the printed edition of Latífí, where moreover a different account is given of the occasion of its composition. It is there said that when Sheykhí presented his poem of ‘Khusrev and Shírín’ to Sultan Murád, certain persons, jealous of the poet’s skill, declared his work to be nothing more than a translation from Nizámí and therefore unworthy of praise or reward, whereupon Sheykhí wrote this Khar-Náme in which he satirizes those malevolent critics. This story would fit better with Tash-köpri-záde’s statement that Sheykhí never quitted Kutahiya; but the difficulty in accepting it is that Sheykhí died before he had completed the Khusrev and Shírín, and it is not likely that he would present to the Sultan a work that was still in progress. In the same note are quoted fourteen couplets, the only extract from the work that I have seen. These describe a poor hungry ass, whose master, taking compassion on him, turns him out to graze in a rich pasture, where he sees many fat oxen regaling themselves. In the absence of the context it is impossible to say what this picture refers to; possibly Sheykhí is the poor lean ass whose master the Sultan would provide for him, while the fat oxen may represent his enemies.

Far more important than this satire is Sheykí’s long and beautiful romantic poem on the loves of Khusrev and Shírín. This work, by which alone the author is now remembered, was begun some time after the accession of Murád which took place in 824 (1421). The author unhappily died before he had quite finished the poem. The year of his death is unrecorded, but it cannot have been later than 855 (1451), that of the death of Sultan Murád, as that prince is eulogized as the reigning monarch in the brief epilogue wherein another writer tells us that Sheykhí is dead, having left his work unfinished. This other writer is said by Ἅshiq, Hasan and Ἅlí (the earlier biographers Latífí and Tash-köpri-záde are silent on the subject) to have been Sheykhí’s sister’s son Jemálí; but in the epilogue he calls himself Báyezíd and says nothing whatever as to any relationship or connection between himself and the dead poet.¹

The recorded literary works of Sheykhí consist of the already-mentioned Khar-Náme (or Khired-Náme), a Díwán of lyric poems, and the famous mesneví of Khusrev and Shírín. Concerning the first of these, I can add to what I have already said only the fact that it is written neither in the familiar metre of the Iskender-Náme nor in that used by the author in his Khusrev and Shírín, but in an altogether new variety, that known as khafíf.¹ Likewise with the Díwán; I have never seen a copy, and from the few stray fragments quoted by the biographers, it is impossible to form any independent opinion as to its value. The authorities, however, are unanimous in declaring that the poet was much less successful with the ghazel than with the mesneví.

It is, as has been said, solely through the Khusrev and Shírín that Sheykhí occupies his prominent position in Turkish literature.² It is in this poem that grace of style and beauty of language are for the first time deliberately sought after in mesneví verse. Hitherto, whatever grace and beauty had been achieved had found expression in the lyric forms alone; while in such mesnevís as had been written, directness and simplicity, not elegance or curiosity, had been the qualities aimed at. That this beauty and refinement should have been sought for almost exclusively through the medium of the art of Bedí῾ or Euphuism is perhaps regrettable, but was of course inevitable. What is important to note, is that the step here taken by Sheykhí — the introduction into mesneví of the Persian euphuism which had already seized upon the lyric poetry — determined what was to be during two centuries the note of the Ottoman metrical romance.

The Khusrev and Shírín of Sheykhí is a fairly close translation of Nizámí’s poem of the same name. The fact that it was such a translation did not militate against its success or popularity. For although the style was so far removed from the everyday speech that a just appreciation must have been impossible to those without some knowledge of Persian, it was a novelty to all to see the famous old romance in a Turkish dress.

The early Ottoman critics are at one in doing honour to the old poet who first of his countrymen essayed to present a story in literary guise. Latífí gratefully says that it is from him the poets of Rúm learned grace of style in mesneví, and that these have done no more therein than follow in his footsteps; while he adds that though many have endeavoured to ‘parallel’ the Khusrev and Shírín, none has succeeded in surpassing it. Ἅshiq, while admitting that in matter it is little else than a translation, praises it for its strength and force and for the high level it maintains throughout. Comparing it with later famous Turkish romantic mesnevís, that writer declares that though Ἀhí’s poem of the same name is full of grace and pith, and Hamdí’s Joseph and Zelíkhá is clear and lucid, and Kemál-Pasha-záde’s Joseph and Zelíkhá is artistic and ingenious, and Ja῾fer Chelebi’s Heves-Náme is distinguished by eloquence, and the poems of Lámi῾í are brilliant and fluent,¹ Sheykhí’s Khusrev and Shírín yet holds its own and is famous far and wide throughout the land. Hasan endorses the verdict of Ἅshiq. Ἅlí speaks of many of the lines from Sheykhí’s poem as being household words, and quotes a passage describing an interview between the hero and heroine as an example of vivid representation. Sheykhí, it may be remarked, is with the exception of Suleymán Chelebí, the only poet of the First Period whom Ziyá Pasha mentions in the preface to his Anthology. The modern author, it is true, can see nothing in the old romancist except uncouthness of language; but the compiler of the Kharábát, though a remarkable and in some respects a highly gifted man, did not possess the critical faculty.

Looked at from our point of view, Sheykhí appears as an extremely skilful adapter. He saw that to completely and effectually graft the Persian system into the nascent literature of his people it was needful to bring the mesneví — so far the most important poetical form — into line with the qasída and ghazel. He thereupon took a story which he found ready to his hand, carefully studied the manner in which it had been dealt with by the Persian master, and set to work to reproduce this manner with all its peculiarities as closely as possible, using every effort to make his innovations blend harmoniously, always on the long-established lines, with the native material in which he was working.

The effect was revolutionary. All uncertainty as to which prosodial system should prevail disappears for ever. A studied grace of language and a laborious search for curiosity in idea and in expression, almost equal to what already was the rule in the lyric forms, replaces the more homely if ruder vocabulary and the more direct though less ingenious phraseology of the earlier mesnevís. That the time was ripe for the change is clearly shown alike by the popularity which the work attained and by the fact that all subsequent mesnevís were modelled on the lines therein laid down. Whether the change thus accomplished by Sheykhí was to the real advantage of Turkish poetry is, however, open to serious question. It is true that thereby the cultivation of what we may call wit — of grace, refinement and ingenuity — was greatly fostered; but this was at the price of not only spontaneity and straightforwardness, but too often, it is to be feared, of sincerity. Naturalness was superseded by affectation.

But it would be unfair to blame the author for this; Sheykhí was before all things an artist, and no other path of art was open to him than that along which the force of circumstances was impelling his countrymen. In reality this poet deserves much praise; for it is he who first showed the Turks how to tell a story artistically. Ahmedí had not attempted this; his narrative, set forth in the baldest language and constantly interrupted by irrelevant digressions, has no pretensions to being a work of art; whereas Sheykhí was constrained by the same instinct that led him to shun the continual interruptions which destroy the unity of the Iskender-Náme, to make of his own book a thing of beauty by the employment of the choicest and most perfect forms of expression he could devise.

Sheykhí is consequently ahead of all previous writers of mesneví in matters of technique. He has no hesitation as to prosody, and with him halting lines are few and far between. One of his most noteworthy innovations is his adoption of a new metre. Hitherto all West-Turkish poems in mesneví form — the Rebáb-Náme of Veled, the Gharíb-Náme of Ἅshiq, the Mevlid of Suleymán, the Iskender-Náme of Ahmedí — have been written in one and the same metre, the hexametric remel, that which had been chosen by Jelál-ud-Dín for his great work. Sheykhí for the first time breaks new ground, and writes his Khusrev and Shírín in a fresh measure, a hexametric variation of the hezej,¹ that of Nizámí’s poem on the same theme. In so doing Sheykhí not only opened a wider field to the Turkish poets, he dealt a fatal blow to the supremacy of the old remel. Henceforward mesnevís are composed now in one metre now in another, as the fancy of the poet may determine; there is none that can claim universal favour, least of all that which in early times reigned undisputed.

Another of Sheykhí’s innovations destined to take lasting root is the introduction of lyrics into the body of the mesneví.² These lyrics, which are almost always ghazels (there are four qasídas and one terjí῾-bend in the Khusrev and Shírín), are generally presented as being sung by one or other of the actors in the romance in moments of excitement or exaltation. The idea of introducing such lyrics, which may be in any metre the poet pleases, is certainly a happy one, as they break to some extent the monotony of the mesneví in which line follows line through several thousand couplets without so much as the alteration of a single accent. That Sheykhí did not derive this idea from Nizámí whom as a rule he closely follows, is certain, for there are no such lyric interludes in the work of the great poet of Genje; but whether he adopted it from some other Persian writer or himself devised it, I cannot say. If he did devise it (which is the less likely alternative), he must have possessed a quite unusual originality of which he has given no other evidence.¹

It is important to note that with Sheykhí’s Khusrev and Shírín the language of poetry definitively breaks away from the language of everyday life. All previous writers of mesneví (and all the important poetry had hitherto been in this form) had made use of a plain simple language such as everyone might understand and use. Sheykhí put an end to this. By devoting his exceptional talent to the work of introducing into the more serious form of poetry the artificial dialect of the lyric writers, who had so far been rather players and triflers with the art than its earnest cultivators, he did more than perhaps any other to the fixing of that great gulf between the language of literature and the speech of the people, which yawned ever wider with the centuries, and which has been partially bridged over only in our own day.

Sheykhí chose well when he selected the tale of Khusrev and Shírín as his theme; for the story of Shírín the Sweet is the prettiest and most interesting of the dozen or so legends that go to make up the repertory of the Eastern romantic poet. It may be called an historical romance, the hero, Khusrev-i Pervíz, being the Sasanian King whom the Byzantines named Chosroes II. Nizámi, who first put the story into verse, drew most of his materials from the early historian Taberí,² to whom Sheykhí also had recourse when he wished to check or supplement the statements of his model. For the Turkish poet was no blind copyist; he did not hesitate to improve upon his predecessor when he thought such an operation desirable. In two instances in particular did he depart from Nizámí’s lead; the first of these is in the account of the rebellion of Behrám-i Chúbín, to which he devotes an entire dástán, whereas the Persian poet dismisses it in a chapter or two;¹ the second is in the prominence which he gives to Buzurg-Umíd’s discourse concerning the creation of the universe and other recondite matters, a discourse which, though left unfinished, runs through several chapters and would probably have occupied a whole dástán, and which Nizámí rounds off in a few lines. Whether Sheykhí was well advised in the introduction of this additional matter admits of question. With regard to the Behrám incident, it may be pleaded that this gives more completeness to the story; but it is in no wise essential to the development of the plot; while the lecture of the sage is only too much after the fashion of Ahmedí. Both additions are in themselves interesting; but by distracting the attention of the reader, they are hurtful to the unity of the poem, and in introducing them, Sheykhí, departing from his wont, allowed the scholar to prevail over the artist.

The story of Khusrev and Shírín was dealt with by several subsequent Turkish poets, among the best known being Jelílí and Ἅhí, both of whom flourished somewhere about a century later.² But none of these more recent poems ever achieved anything like the popularity won and retained by this earliest of all, the quaint old Germiyan Turkish of which, with its long-obsolete words and forms, seems to harmonize well with the old-world story of the gallant King and the brave and lovely Princess.

Had it been completed, the book would no doubt have consisted of the customary three divisions: Prologue, Subject and Epilogue. As it is, we have only the first of these and a part (though a large part) of the second. This was never finished; the brief epilogue added by another hand merely announces the death of the poet and winds up with some common-place lines eulogizing the reigning Sultan. No date of composition is anywhere mentioned; but as the panegyrics both in the prologue and the epilogue speak of Murád II as the occupant of the throne, the poem was most likely written during his reign which, as already said, extended from 824 (1421) to 855 (1451).¹

The prologue consists, as is usual, of a number of cantos dealing with religious subjects, including the expositions of certain Súfíistic technicalities praised so highly by Latífí. In the midst of these is a qasída concerning a couplet in which the biographer Riyází tells this story.² One day the famous Sheykh Aq Shems-ud-Dín, a contemporary of Mehemmed the Conqueror, and the father of the well-known poet Hamdí, was seated amid his pupils; but instead of discoursing to them as usual, he appeared to be absorbed in contemplation and oblivious to all around, only uttering from time to time the words ‘O Germiyan! O Germiyan!’ Those present were bewildered at his conduct till at length he said to them, ‘I behold in my vision the Heavenly Host, and they dervishdancing, and the words of their litany are these lines of Sheykhí of Germiyan: —

Ne’er may Reason yield us tidings of Thy Godhead’s caravan;

Only soft unto the Soul’s ear is there borne a chime of bells.’¹

The religious and mystic cantos are followed by that ‘Touching the Reason of the Writing of the Book.’ In this Sheykhí says that one day when sorrow was bearing him company, his Hátif-i Ján or ‘Inward Monitor’ addressed him, asking why he is thus sick at heart, and bidding him be up and doing, for it may be truly said of him whose name lives on in the world that he never dies; and he himself may win such immortality, for the gift of poetry has been bestowed on him. He is then exhorted to write a mesneví; for, he is told, that though he may be strong in the ghazel, yet it is the mesneví which is the touchstone of the coin of eloquence. The poet seeks to excuse himself, partly on the score of his lack of ability, but chiefly because the people of his day have no taste or discernment in things literary, and that to write for them were labour in vain. But the Inward Monitor rejects these excuses, telling him that it matters not though he see none about him to appreciate his work, for his verses will take wing and fly to those who know their value; and bidding him in the meantime hope for grace from God and for help from the enlightened patronage of the Sultan, on whose name he is commanded to build his work. This is followed by two cantos and a qasída in honour of Sultan Murád, which bring the prologue to a close.

The poet then enters on his proper subject, the story of Khusrev and Shírín. Of this we have nine complete Books, called as usual Dástáns or ‘Legends,’ and one unfinished. These carry the narrative down to the nuptials of the hero and heroine, and, as little except the final catastrophe remains to tell, it is unlikely that even had the life of the author been prolonged, the poem would have contained more than eleven or twelve of such Books.

The epilogue, which consists of just over a hundred couplets, is divided into two cantos, the first announcing the death of Sheykhí, the second devoted to the praises of Sultan Murád. It is, as we have seen, the work of a writer who calls himself Báyezíd, but whom the biographers call Jemálí.

Here is an outline of the story of Khusrev and Shírín as told by Sheykhí: —¹

Khusrev-i Pervíz, the son of King Hurmuz of Persia, is educated by the sage Buzurg-Umíd (Great Hope), and grows up an accomplished and valiant prince. The King, full of gratitude to Heaven for his gallant son, determines to rule with yet greater justice than before, and issues a proclamation that whosoever wrongs his neighbour shall be visited with condign punishment. One dáy, when Hurmuz is seated giving judgment, some villagers come into his presence and complain that last evening, when returning from one of his frequent hunting expeditions, the Prince had entered their village and caroused all night in one of their houses to the music of his minstrel; furthermore, that his horse had broken loose and trampled down a poor man’s corn, while one of his slaves had entered a garden and stolen some unripe grapes. Hurmuz is enraged at his son’s conduct; he orders the horse to be given to the owner of the corn, the slave to the proprietor of the garden, and the Prince’s trappings and accoutrements to the man in whose house he passed the night. He is further about to condemn his son, but on the intercession of the nobles pardons him on his confessing his misdemeanour. Shortly after this, Khusrev sees in a vision his grandsire Núshírewán who tells him that since at his father’s bidding he has cheerfully given up his minstrel and his horse, his slave and his accoutrements, he shall get for the first a singer sweeter yet, whose name shall be Bárbud, for the second a steed called Shebdíz,¹ fleeter than the thought of man, for the third an all-lovely mistress whose name shall be Shírín,² and for the last the glorious throne Táqdís.

One day not long after this a friend of Khusrev’s, Sháwúr³ by name, a cunning artist and a great traveller, tells the Prince, in course of a conversation, that in his wanderings he has passed through a charming country called Armenia, which is governed by a great queen, Mehín⁴ Bánú, who is famous among the monarchs of Christendom. The heir of this princess is her niece the lovely Shírín, a peerless beauty, of whose heavenly charms Sháwúr treats Pervíz to a glowing description. This enchanting lady is given to roaming the country at the head of three hundred fair maidens, engaged in long picnic parties and hunting expeditions. Mehín Bánú has further a matchless steed, night-black in hue, and Shebdíz by name. Khusrev is struck by the identity of the names in Sháwúr’s story with those in his dream; and having fallen in love with Shírín from his friend’s account of her, he sends that friend off to Armenia to try to arrange matters there Sháwúr arrives at a monastery in Armenia where he learns that Shírín and her maids are expected immediately to bivouac in a meadow hard by. The Persian accordingly paints a portrait of Khusrev which he hangs on a tree in a place where Shírín will see it, and then hides himself. Shírín and her maids arrive, she finds the picture, is greatly impressed by the beauty it portrays, weeping over it and kissing it. Her maidens seeing how deeply the picture affects her, manage to get hold of it, and secretly tear it up; they tell her that the demon who displayed it has hidden it, and persuade her to leave the place as it is haunted. Sháwúr, who has seen and heard all, is before them, and hangs up another similar picture in the place whither they are going. The same thing happens over again; and Sháwúr hangs up a third picture in the third place. This time Shírín keeps the picture, and sends her maids to look whether anyone is hiding near. Sháwúr, thinking it time to disclose himself, comes forward disguised as a priest; and after getting Shírín to make her attendants retire, he tells her that the pictures were painted by himself and represent Prince Khusrev-i Pervíz, whose praises he extols, and who, he goes on to say, is deeply in love with her, and sends her as token a ring, which Sháwúr hands to her. Shírín replies confessing her love for Khusrev, and praying to be directed to Medá᾽in the Persian capital. Sháwúr, having directed her, departs; and she and her maidens return to Mehín Bánú, and that very night she prevails upon her aunt to lend her Shebdíz to go a-hunting on the morrow. So next morning she arms herself, mounts the nightblack steed, and sets out with her maids. Pretending to chase a deer, she easily makes her escape from the maidens, none of whose horses can come near Shebdiz. So after vainly seeking for their mistress, the girls return to Mehín, who is sadly grieved at Shírín’s disappearance. That lady, after riding for seven days, feels tired and dismounts to rest. She commends herself to God and then falls asleep, but is soon awakened by Shebdíz neighing, when she sees a lion approaching, which she kills with an arrow. Going on, she reaches a meadow in the midst of which is a fair pond in which she determines to bathe, being tired and dust-stained from her journey. She accordingly ties up her arms on Shebdíz, makes him fast to a tree, and having stripped, binds a blue cloth about her waist, and descends into the stream.

In the meantime, certain persons at Medá᾽in, jealous of Khusrev, have accused him before the King of intriguing to usurp the throne. Hurmuz, who is of a suspicious nature, having given ear to them, the Prince, by the advice of his old tutor Buzurg-Umíd, leaves the capital for a season. Before starting, Khusrev, who is half-expecting Shírín in consequence of Sháwúr’s mission, tells the slave-girls at his splendid palace of Mushkú¹ that possibly a fair lady may arrive as his guest, and charges them, in case she does, to receive her with all honour and respect. He then sets out for Armenia, attended by a few followers, purposing to employ the time of his exile in prosecuting his love-suit. They halt by the way, when Khusrev, wandering about by himself, suddenly comes upon a black horse tied to a tree, and hard by, a beautiful girl bathing in a pond. She does not see him at first, and he gazes at her bewildered by her loveliness; but when she turns round and he perceives her confusion at being discovered thus, he modestly retires, whereupon Shírín (for it is she though Khusrev knows it not) springs out of the pond, seizes her clothes, leaps upon Shebdíz, and is off. None the less the beauty is troubled in mind by the vision of the fair young Prince, and continues her journey with a heart ill at ease, vaguely surmising that he may have been Khusrev. At length she reaches Medá᾽in, goes to the palace of Mushkú as Sháwúr had instructed her, where she is honourably entertained on presenting Khusrev’s ring. When she learns that the Prince is gone, she does not care to remain in Mushkú; and as Pervíz had left orders that all her wishes were to be carried out, a castle¹ is built for her at her request among the hills.

Meanwhile, Khusrev, no less agitated in mind than Shírín, and like her haunted with an idea that he has seen the fair object of his quest, proceeds to Armenia and becomes the guest of Mehín Bánú, who tells him of her niece’s disappearance, and invites him to winter there. Ere long Sháwúr arrives and tells the Prince all he has done. Khusrev informs Mehín of his friend’s arrival with news of Shírín, and they resolve to send him off to Medá᾽in to fetch the beauty back, the Queen mounting him on Gulgún,² another wonderful steed in her possession, which is reckoned well-nigh the equal of Shebdíz. When Sháwúr reaches the Persian capital he is informed that Shírín has retired to her Castle; he goes there, tells the lady all that has happened, and persuades her to return to Armenia where Khusrev is. She accordingly mounts Gulgún, having left Shebdíz at Medá᾽in, and sets off accompanied by Sháwúr.

In the meantime a messenger from Medá᾽in comes to Armenia and tells Khusrev that a revolution has broken out in the Persian capital, and that his father, who had been seized and blinded by the rebels, has resigned the crown in his favour. Sheykhí now proceeds to tell how this has come about. Hurmuz, though just, was severe, and many of the nobles and the people had revolted against him. The Caæsar, the Arabs, and the Kháqán of Tartary had made common cause with the rebels, but Hurmuz had bought off the Caæsar and the Arabs, and had sent his famous general Behrám-i Chúbín¹ to fight Sáya Khan the Tartar Kháqán. Behrám had defeated and slain that monarch who was the maternal uncle of Hurmuz, the latter’s mother having been Sáya’s sister. The Persian sovereign was thereupon seized with an unreasoning fit of anger against his general, and incited by certain evil-disposed persons about the court, he had sent that officer an insulting letter and a woman’s dress. On this Behrám had renounced his allegiance to Hurmuz and given out that it was his intention to place Khusrev on the throne. The nobles of Medá᾽in having heard of this, and being weary of the severity of Hurmuz, had seized and blinded him, and sent off to Khusrev bidding him come and sit in his place. When he hears all this, Khusrev returns at once to his capital, where he is crowned king. He is told of Shírín’s departure with Sháwúr, and is presented with Shebdíz. It soon becomes evident that Behrám’s real purpose is to secure the throne for himself, and as he is stronger than Khusrev, the latter, acting on Buzurg-Umíd’s advice, retires from the country for a year, till his star shall be in the ascendant.

Sháwúr has now taken Shírín back to Armenia, only to find Khusrev gone. Not long after, however, when out hunting with her maidens, Shírín meets Khusrev who is on his way to Armenia. They recognise one another, and in great delight go together to Mehín Bánú who receives them with all kindness. Mehín takes an opportunity of earnestly entreating her niece to be circumspect and in every case jealously to guard her honour, which Shírín solemnly swears to do. Khusrev and she then go out into the country with their respective suites, and after a month spent in hunting and polo and other amusements, the King invites the beauty to an entertainment in his camp. They have a fair banquet and concert where Bárbud, Khusrev’s musician, sings some ghazels interpreting the emotions of his master’s heart, to which Nigísá, Shírín’s minstrel-maid, replies on behalf of her fair mistress. This, it may be noted in passing, is a feature of the story; Bárbud and Nigísá are continually acting as the mouthpieces of Khusrev and Shírín respectively. The party proceeds to the banks of the River Aras (Araxes) where they have another feast and another concert, and where Khusrev kills a lion with a blow of his fist; and here the King and the Princess do a little love-making. And so they pass a long time in all delight, hunting and feasting, till one night Khusrev forgets himself and tries to tempt Shírín; but she, mindful of her promise to her aunt, resists him, and by her bold words makes him resolve to win back his ancestral throne.

He accordingly departs next morning, but has not gone far ere he bitterly regrets having left his fair friend. Still he determines to go on, and makes his way into the land of Rúm, where he comes upon a great monastery to which he goes up alone. He is refused admission, but the voice of Nestor, a wise and learned monk, tells him who he is and what he seeks, and prophesies that in eighteen months he will attain all his desires. Khusrev then goes on to the Cæsar (Maurice), who receives him well, makes him marry his daughter Meryem (Maria), and supplies him with troops by whose aid he fights and overcomes Behrám who flies to the King of China. Khusrev accordingly reascends the throne of his fathers, and rules with justice; but despite his success, he is sad, mourning the absence of Shírín. She, on her part, is disconcerted when she discovers that Khusrev has really left the camp, and returns to her aunt who does her best to comfort her. Not long after this the good Mehín Bánú dies, and Shírín reigns in her stead; but she still grieves for Khusrev, and is sadly vexed when she hears that he is married to Meryem. However, accompanied by a large retinue in which is the faithful Sháwúr, who has never left her, she starts for Persia, and reaches her Castle among the mountains. She sends Sháwúr thence to Medá᾽in, considerately telling him not to mention her to Khusrev lest it should annoy him now that he is married. But Sháwúr does not heed this; he finds the King, who has just heard of the death of Behrám, and rejoices him with the news of Shírín’s presence, and then returns to the Castle.

We are now introduced to one of the most famous characters in Eastern romance. Shírín in her Castle is unable to get any milk, as the pasture-lands and the herds are far away on the other side of the mountain, and on her complaining of this one day in the presence of Sháwúr, the latter tells her of a talented fellow-student of his, named Ferhád, who will, he thinks, be able to arrange some means to gratify her wish. He accordingly goes and fetches Ferhád, who no sooner looks upon Shírín than he is smitten to the heart for love of her. She tells him her wishes, but he is too dazed to understand her, and his friends have to explain to him what she has said. He then sets to work with a will, and within a month digs a canal through the mountain from the pasture-land to the Castle; into this canal the shepherds milk their animals, and thus Shírín is provided with a constant supply of fresh milk. When the beauty sees this she is filled with admiration and praises the work as more than human; she offers Ferhád gold and jewels; but he, distraught by love of her, takes nothing, and flies into the desert where he wanders about like a maniac. Khusrev, hearing of this, sends messengers to fetch Ferhád; one of these finds him and brings him before the King, who tries him with offers of riches and threats of punishment; but seeing all such to be in vain, he promises to give him Shírín if he will cut a road through the great mountain Bí-Sitún.¹ Ferhád at once agrees; but before beginning to cut through the mountain, he carves in the rock figures of Shírín and of Khusrev and Shebdíz,² to the first of which he often speaks and makes his moan during the progress of his labours. On learning this, Shírín is much affected and determines to go to Bí-Sitún and try to comfort him. The sculptor is dumbfoundered when he sees her, but a draught which she gives him restores him to his senses, and he declares to her his sad case. Shírín bids him farewell; but as she is going down the hill, her horse stumbles, which Ferhád sees, and rushing forward, he saves her from falling and escorts her back to her Castle. Khusrev, having got word of these doings and also of Ferhád’s having well-nigh accomplished his almost superhuman task, is filled with anger, and consults with his vezirs how to escape from his promise. By the ad vice of those ministers, he sends an old woman to Ferhád with the false information that Shírín is dead. When the devoted lover hears that his dear one has passed away, he feels that life is no longer possible for him, and throwing himself down from a high rock, meets the death he seeks. When Shírín is told of this she grieves deeply and orders a dome to be built over Ferhád’s grave on the spot where he died, to be a shrine for lovers for ever more.

This episode of Ferhád causes a misunderstanding between Khusrev and Shírín, which it takes a considerable time and all the ingenuity of Sháwúr to remove. Meanwhile Meryem, Khusrev’s wife, dies, but Shírín refuses his advances, being annoyed alike at his marriage and at his conduct with regard to Ferhád. Khusrev accordingly solaces himself for a time with a fair lady named Sheker or ‘Sugar,’ of whose society, however, he soon tires and yearns as before for the peerless Shírín. That lady, on her part, begins to regret her harshness, and consents to receive Khusrev who has come from Medá᾽in to her Castle, nominally on a hunting expedition. After upbraiding him for his faithlessness, she dismisses him, and he returns sadly to his camp where Sháwúr tries to console him. Shírín again regrets her conduct, slips out of the Castle disguised as one of the King’s attendants, and makes for the camp. There she is met by Sháwúr who recognises her, and at her request hides her in a pavilion, in which he induces Khusrev to hold a banquet. Nigísá, whom Shírín had presented to Khusrev on the Aras, is let into the secret, and at the feast she sings to the King as from Shírín; Bárbud replies in an affecting strain, whereupon Shírín betrays her presence by a deep sigh. Sháwúr then pulls back the curtain, and Khusrev and Shírín are in each other’s presence. They soon arrange their marriage, which is shortly afterwards celebrated at Medá᾽in with great pomp. Nigísá is at the same time married to Bárbud, and Humáyún, Shírín’s favourite damsel, to Sháwúr, who is made King of Armenia. Khusrev now leads a happy life with his beloved Shírín, until one day he sees a grey hair in his beard, which makes him think how all this must have an end. He speaks about this to Buzurg-Umíd who proceeds to tell him of the creation of the universe and of the nature of things.

And here, in the middle of the sage’s discourse, Sheykhí’s narrative breaks off.

The conclusion of the story can be supplied from Nizámí, and is soon told. Khusrev is comforted and edified by the words of Buzurg-Umíd, but he suffers much anxiety from the undutiful and seditious spirit of Shírúya, his son by Meryem the Greek princess. This youth, having become enamoured of Shírín, resolves to murder his father, and so secure at once the throne and his mistress. One night, when Shírín, having lulled Khusrev to sleep, has fallen asleep herself, worn out by vague forebodings that have been preying on her mind, an assassin, the emissary of Shírúya, steals into the room, creeps up to the couch, plunges a dagger into Khusrev’s breast, and flies. The King, waking, finds himself covered with blood and wounded to the death. Intensely thirsty, his first thought is to rouse Shírín and get her to bring him some water, but then remembering that she has not slept for some nights, and knowing she will need all her strength for the morrow, he nobly resolves to let her sleep on, and so dies in his anguish. By and by Shírín awakes, and when she realises what has happened, she weeps as though her heart would break; but knowing that she has yet somewhat to do, she calms herself as best she may. She then washes and annoints the body of the King; and she has scarce finished this task when Shírúya sends her a secret message declaring his love. To gain her ends she feigns acquiescence, and gets him to destroy the private residence and personal property of Khusrev, she being unable to endure the thought that those things so associated with their mutual happiness should pass into the murderer’s hands. She then causes a magnificent bier to be made; and the body of Khusrev is borne in great state to the mausoleum, Buzurg-Umíd and Bárbud and all the grandees of the empire marching in the procession. Shírín herself, magnificently arrayed and wearing her splendid jewels, walks in the midst of a troop of youths and maidens, with so glad a mien that Shírúya believes her to be rejoicing in his love. On reaching the mausoleum, the procession draws up outside, the bier is carried in, and Shírín follows to watch by it. When the door is closed, Shírín goes up to the bier, uncovers the King’s breast, kisses the wound, and thrusts a dagger into the same spot in her own body. She then throws her arms about the dead King, lays her cheek to his, and uttering one loud cry which is heard by those outside, she dies.

The following passage is from the Introduction to the Khusrev and Shírín; in it the poet speaks of the Tevhíd, that knowledge or perception of the underlying Unity of all things which is so dear to the Eastern mystic. As we have no single word in English to express this idea, I have in the translation represented it by the phrase ‘Ken of Unity.’ This is one of the passages to which Latífí refers as showing Sheykhí’s intimacy with the Súfí mysteries.

From the Khusrev u Shírín. [49]

Concerning the Degrees in the Ken of Unity.

   Come, heart, if thou the loftiest aim desire,

Know, soul, if thou the Utmost Goal¹ enquire,

That Ken of Unity the loftiest is,

The utmost limit of all saintship this.

Each sect hath told, far as its wit hath seen,

As far as hath its sight had power to win,

Of this full many a hint half-understood,

By some as Taste,² by some as Knowledge,³ viewed.

Yet to the Truth of Ken of Unity

The Path leads not the traveller-company;⁴

For that an Ocean is that hath no bound,

And none may that encompass or surround.

What they whose lore and reason perfect be

Have reached is but the shore of yonder Sea!

Of Irem-garth⁵ how should the leaflet know?

Or how the mote the sun’s vast body show?

On high His Glory over all their speech!

Aloft His Essence over all they teach!

   The wonder this, the more it is revealed

The more the nature of The Truth’s concealed.

Its radiance is a veil, and so its light,

The more it waxeth, hides it more from sight.¹

But they of the Unveilment² thence have brought

From time to time a hint to such as sought,

A hint the soul-perceivéd taste whereof

To ecstasy upraiseth them of Love.

As theirs who relativity deny: —

‘To drop relation’s Ken of Unity.’³

Or his who far upon this Path hath gone: —

‘Phenomenal maketh Eternal known.’⁴

Saith who divides ’tween true and vain withal: —⁵

‘Outside is God of aught phenomenal.

‘What’s proved as upshot of the whole is this: —

‘Outside phenomena their Maker is.’⁶

His Beauty’s one, though manifold their speech;

To yonder Beauty ’tis that pointeth each.

   Division in the Ken of Unity

Is not, yet thus they of philosophy: —

In Ken of Unity are three degrees;

And Knowledge, Eye, and Truth, the names of these.

On reason founded doth the Knowledge lie;

And ’tis through intuition comes the Eye.

The Truth is proper to the One for e’er;

Nor reason wins, nor intuition, there.¹

The remaining translations are all from the story itself. The reader will observe how much more figurative Sheykhí’s style is than that of any of his predecessors in mesneví; In particular how lavish he is in the use of metaphor.

From the Khusrev u Shírín. [50]

Khusrev-i Pervíz discovereth Shírín bathing in the Pond.

The spot whereat the Prince Pervíz did light

Was where yon Moon² was bathing in delight;

E’en then whenas the sugar-dulce Shírín,

Like Moon in Watery Sign,³ did lave amene.

And pacing on, he gains that meadow-land,

And casts his glance around on every hand.

He sees a flowery plain like Eden-close,

A stream which e’en as Kevser-river flows.

Among the treen is bound a black destrier,

(Y-brent with envy were that steed the Sphere!)

A charger such, the Monarch bright of blee

Had ne’er bestridden steed so fair as he.

   Advancing softly, sudden did he sight

That Moon within the water shining bright.

And what a Moon! the world-illuming sun

Would gain in glore if ’neath her shade he won.

From mid the fount effulgence flasheth forth;

The fount laves her, she laves in light the earth.

The violets spread in clusters o’er the rose,

The comb-teeth did the hyancinths dispose.¹

Her body made the pond a treasure-scryne,²

O’er which she’d loosed her locks to twist and twine.³

Her hand had pushed those writhing snakes away,

As saying: ‘Hence! A charm here holdeth sway!’⁴

For raving wildly when it saw her ear

She’d bound the water with her curling hair;

As frenzied ’twas and furious of spright,

She’d bound it, nay, had chained it, fettered tight.⁵

When o’er her crystal⁶ frame was sprent the spray:

‘The moonlight through a pearl-gemmed veil,’ thou’dst say.⁷

   When shone that Moon before the Prince’s gaze,

The Prince became the sun — with fire ablaze.

The tears like rain pour down from both his eyne;

For lo, behold the Moon in Watery Sign!

Astound, he might not leave nor yet might stay,

He might not come more nigh nor turn away.

For chase or pastime all his force was o’er,

He bit upon his finger, wildered sore.¹

   Unwitting of that gaze the Jasmine-breast,²

For o’er her narcisse did her jacinth rest,³

When passed the musky cloud⁴ from her sun-face,

That beauty looked and saw there full of grace

A Humá⁵ set an eagle-wing upon,⁶

A Cypress become flagstaff for the sun.⁷

That Fount of radiance⁸ for her shame and fright

Did tremble like the moon on water bright.

Nor other help could find that Moon most fair

Than round her she should cast her flowing hair.

She wrapped her in her loosened hair straightway,

She veiléd with the darksome night the day.¹

From the Khusrev u Shírín. [51]

Khusrev-i Pervíz and Shírín visit the River Aras.

   One day the Monarch fair and happy-starred,

To wit, Khusrev, the Heaven-resplendent lord,

Went forth the regions round about to sight,

And with him rode that Queen of beauties bright.

(Whoe’er hath by his side his lovesome Queen, —

In every spot hath he a winsome scene.)

   They pass flom stage to stage o’er hill and plain,

And joy in field and meadow free and fain.

They reach the stream that men call Aras, where

The soil is musky, balmy is the air.

They see a limpid river clear and pure,

Enow the sorrows of the heart to cure.

’Twas filled with lotus-blooms and lilies bright;

Its banks with meads and gardens fair were dight;

The narcisse cast upon the rose its eye;

And hand in hand the flowers in ranks stood by;

Its ruby lip the tulip offered prone,

The dew its pearly teeth had struck thereon.²

   The royal pair were fain of this fair site,

And gave the word that there the tents be pight.

They reared the throne, and Pervíz sat thereon;

And all the gear of mirth³ was ready soon;

And by his side the Venus-visaged fair, —

(The Sun and shining Moon thou’dst deemed them there.)

As unto happy fortune won had they,

They raised one throne in place of two that day.

And youths and houris stood on either hand,

As ’twere Rizwán in Paradisal land.

A-singing to his lute Bárbud sat there;

Nigísá, music-thrilled, made answer e’er.

   For Shírín’s lip that stream as Kevser shone,

As sugar-canes the reeds that grew thereon.¹

The Queen’s fair face, reflected there did seem

A ruby of Badakhshán² in tne stream;

The while that ruby’s taste it pictured still

Its mouth did water and with sugar fill;³

It swallows ’fore that julep-lip its spawl,

As thirsting hearts before the sea, withal.⁴

   To voice such plight as this that held the King

Began the lutist this ghazel to sing: —

     Ghazel.  

For yonder coral-lip my soul’s athirst,

As parchéd frame for life to ensoul’s athirst.

   My vitals, for this yearning, black are burnt,

Like scorchéd grass for rain that tholes athirst.

   Have pity, life it yields, O Khizr of coolth;

Iskender for Life’s Fountain’s roll’s athirst.

   Although the world with water sweet were filled,

Oh deem not slaked his drought whose soul’s athirst.

From the Khusrev u Shírín. [52]

The Death of Ferhád.

That hag blear-eyed as vulture foul of show,

That hag ill-voiced as blackest corbie-crow,

When she received the word, set out forthright,

And gained Mount Bí-Sitún in doleful plight.

She came and sat her down hard by Ferhád,

And beat her breast a while and moaned full sad.

   Then she, ‘Unhappy one, for whom this toil?

‘For whom dost night and day thus strain and moil?’

   And he, ‘My heart’s athirst her lip to drain,

And so I rive the rocks and hills atwain.

‘Who brings from thorn the bloom, from rock the stream,

‘Hath shown me mid this Mount His Beauty’s beam.’¹

   Then she of bitter deed full deeply sighed: —

‘Ah! Ferhád doth not know Shírín hath died!

‘Alas! where is that sweetest Cypress now!

‘Before the blast of Death laid stark and low!

‘Ah! where that winsome one, that gracious fere!

‘What villainy hath wrought the tyrant Sphere!²

‘They’ve laved her frame with many a bitter tear,

‘They’ve plied the ambergris and the ῾abír;³

‘They’ve laid that radious Pearl within the clay;

‘’Tis souls, not robes, they’ve rent: ah, wel-a-way!’

   She ceased, and sighed and dreary moan did make;

Her tongue showered venom even as a snake.

How comes it, when this evil thing she sware,

She fell not, burnt to ashes then and there?

How when that mole, those dusky locks she named,

She was not stricken dumb, black-visaged, shamed?

   When into Ferhád’s ears those words had sunk,

Thou’dst deemed he had of mortal poison drunk.

Away he dashed, as one whose bonds are broke,

And hurled him headlong from the topmost rock.

Adown the mount like a great rock he went,

A-wailing for his bitter dreariment.

He struck the ground and cried, ‘Where? Shírín! Where?’

And yielded up his soul in anguish there.

His bird was weary of this narrow nest,¹

And fled in highest Heaven’s fields to rest.

He learned the body is the spirit’s veil;

The veil is rent, and cast aside the bale.

¹ Hajji Beyrám is a celebrated saint and the Pír or spiritual chief of the Beyrámí dervish-order. He was born at a village near Angora, in which city he spent most part of his life, dying there in 833 (1429-30). He used, we are told, to supply his needs by the labour of his own hands, giving away in charity whatever was offered to him hy the rich. Certain traducers having misrepresented him to Murád II, he was summoned to Adrianople, where the Sultan then was, when his gentle and holy demeanour so won the heart of the monarch that he implored his blessing. His tomb in Angora is still a place of pious visitation.

¹ This expression represents both the literal and figurative senses of the analogous Turkish phrase used in the original: khalqiñ gözlerini boyardi, ‘he was painting the eyes of the folk,’ i. e. cheating them.

¹ The ‘four humours’ (akhlát-i erba῾a) of the early physicians were choler i. e. bile (safra), phlegm (balgham), blood (dem) and melancholy (sevdá). The last of these, which was sometimes called ‘atrabile’ or ‘black bile,’ was an imaginary thick black fluid, supposed when in excess to be the cause of the feeling of depression which is still named from it ‘melancholy.’ Food was supposed to be converted into these four humours by a process of ‘cooking’ that went on in the liver. What answered to the froth on a pot of soup boiling on the fire, was changed into choler or bile; what corresponded to the half-cooked rice or vegetables floating on the surface, became phlegm; what represented the good wholesome soup itself, became blood; while what took the place of the sediment at the bottom of the pot, was turned into melancholy. Health was regarded as the result of the proper relationship of those humours to one another; and when this relationship was disturbed, disease ensued. By their relative proportions, moreover, a person’s physical and mental qualities were held to be determined. This system, which is as old as Hippocrates, was maintained, even in the West, until the beginning of the eighteenth century. By the ‘denser humours’ the blood and the melancholy are meant.

² Some of the biographers call this village Doquzlu.

¹ In a MS. of Sheykhí’s Khusrev u Shírín transcribed in 919 (1513-4), in my collection, the rubric to the epilogue runs :    ‘Touching the Dying of the Author of the Book, Sheykhí (upon whom be mercy!), and the Completing of the Book by Báyezíd the son of Mustafa the son of Sheykh Ahmed the Interpreter of Aq-Shehr.’

Kátib Chelebi says that the Khusrev and Shirín was finished by Jemálí, Sheykhí’s brother. It is possible that Báyezíd may have been the personal name and Jemálí the pen-name of the same individual.

The biographers are at one in declaring Sheykhí to have been a man of great learning. According to Latífí he was deeply versed alike in exoteric and esoteric lore, and most notably in the mystic philosophy; for although he never gave himself out as a teacher of Súfíism, he attained that lofty ‘Station’ on the mystic Journey where the saint, in ecstatic union with God, contemplates the Divine Essence free from any attribute conceived by thought. And should any doubt this assertion, Latífí refers him to the opening and closing cantos of the Khusrev and Shírín where the poet discourses on the Degrees in the Perception of the Unity² and on the Classes of the Epiphanies. Of the medical knowledge with which, as we have seen, the biographers credit Sheykhí, there is no evidence in his poem. Unlike Ahmedí, once he is fairly launched upon his story, he confines himself pretty closely to it. Apart from the opening cantos, which professedly deal with mystic matters, in one place only does the author make any display of his knowledge of science. This is in the very last pages that he lived to write; here the sage Buzurg-Umíd is made, in answer to the inquiries of the King, to give an account of the creation through the medium of the Primal Intelligence, and to describe the work of the successive Emanations in ruling the planetary sphetes, the elements and so on. In fact, this portion of the poem is practically a treatise on the theoretic philosophy of those days, a philosophy which, as we have seen, was accepted by most of the learned of the time, and held concurrently with Súfíism or with orthodox Islam, or, most usually, with a combination of both.

² ῾Ilm-i Tevhíd, see p. 166, n. 6.

¹ See p. 109.

² The Khusrev u Shírín has not yet been published, but a few extracts from it will be found in the third volume of the Kharábát. The British Museum possesses three complete MSS. (Add. 7906: Or. 2708: Or. 3294.), and one imperfect (Add. 19, 451). There is a perfect copy in my collection.

¹ These poets all belong to the Second Period, and will claim our attention in due course.

¹ See p. 107.

² We have seen that in the episode of Gul-Sháh in the Iskender-Náme a number of ghazels are introduced into the mesneví; and this is one of the considerations which have inclined us to regard that episode as an interpolation.

¹ The circumstance that the Jámesb-Náme, a contemporary romantic mesneví, contains, as we shall see in a later chapter, a number of ghazels similarly introduced, tells against the likelihood of Sheykhí’s being the originator of this development.

² Taberí, who wrote in Arabic a very famous universal history, was born in the old Persian province of Taberistán in 224 (838-9), and died in Baghdad in 310 (922-3).

¹ Sheykhí distinctly says that Nizamí who tells the story (of Khusrev and Shírín) does not inform us of the events which led up to this revolt, but that he, having found them in history books, will give them in detail.

² Kátib Chelebi cites further two poets whom he calls respectively Khalífa and Mu῾ídí-záde as having composed mesnevís on this subject. I am unable to identify the first; the second is probably the Mu῾ídí mentioned by Latífí as a contemporary of his own and as having written a ‘Response’ to Nizámí’s Quintet.

¹ Both Ἅshiq and Ἅlí say that Sheykhí began his Khusrev and Shírín during Murád’s reign; Hasan says it was undertaken at that monarch’s command.

² Von Hammer says that this story is told also by Sehí.

¹ 

The beasts in a caravan wear bells, and thus the caravan may sometimes be heard passing even when it is out of sight.

The idea in the verse is that reason is powerless to tell aught concerning the Godhead, and that even the soul is aware of Its existence only through the phenomena of which it is conscious.

¹ Khusrev-i Pervíz (Chosroes II) was the son of Hurmuz IV (Hormisdas IV) and grandson of the great Núshírewán (Chosroes I). Having in A. D. 591 defeated the rebel Behrám-i Chúbín (Varanes VI) who had usurped the throne on the death of Hurmuz in 590, he reigned over the Persian Empire till A. D. 628, when he was murdered by his son Shírúya (Siroes).

¹ Shebdíz, i. e. ‘Night-hued,’ Khusrev’s coal-black charger is the Horse Bayard of Eastern romance.

² The name Shírín, which means ‘Sweet,’ might be translated as ‘Dulcinea.’

³ Sheykhí always writes Sháwúr, but Shápúr (Sapor) is the more usual form.

⁴ This name is so pointed in the MS, but it ought perhaps to be Míhín.

¹ Mushkú or Mushkúy, the private palace of Khusrev, perhaps represents that of Dastagherd, though the poets place the former within the city of Medá᾽in, while the latter was some seventy miles north of Ctesiphon.

¹ This castle, Qasr-i Shírín or ‘Castle-Shírín,’ gives its name to a little town which in all probability occupies the traditional site of the famous beauty’s residence; it is within the limits of modern Persia, about twenty miles across the Turkish frontier on the way to Kermánsháh.

² Gulgún, or ‘Rose-hued’ (i. e. Bay), is almost as famous as Shebdíz himself. The legend runs that both these horses were the offspring of a mare by the enchanted figure of a stallion sculptured out of a black rock in a certain cave in a mountain in Armenia.

¹ Behrám-i Chúbín, i. e. ‘Behrám the Stick-like,’ so called because of his leanness and his withered up appearance, is the Varanes VI of the Byzantines.

¹ Kúh-i Bí-Sitún, i. e. ‘Mount Pierless,’ is a huge rock about twenty miles north of Kermánsháh; in one place it is cut to a smooth perpendicular surface and projects over the road like a canopy, whence the name Bí-Sitún, literally, ‘Without Columns.’ This is said to be the remains of Ferhád’s work, and it has earned for him the sobriquet of Kúh-ken, or ‘Mountain-hewer,’ by which the poets often allude to him.

² The Táq-i Bustán or ‘Garden Arch,’ represents this work of Ferhád’s. It is an archway or grotto cut out in a rock near Kermánsháh, on the brink of a clear pool. In the spandrels are beautifully executed figures of flying angels holding the Sasanian diadem. Within the recess, the two sides and the farther end are decorated with bas-reliefs; those at the sides represent Khusrev hunting, while those at the end, in two lines, one above the other, show, above, Khusrev between two figures, one male (Ferhád) and one female (Shírín), and below, the King in full armour mounted on Shebdíz; this last figure, as well as one of the angels, has been much damaged.

¹ Maqsad-i Aqsa, ‘the Utmost (or Farthest) Goal,’ is a favourite Súfí phrase

² When the perception of the Unity is attained, not through reason, but through intuition. Zevq, ‘Taste,’ is the term applied by the Súfís to the intuitive faculty which enables the mystic to discern between true and false without his having recourse to books or other external sources of information.

³ When the perception of the Unity is attained, not through intuition, but through reason.

⁴ Even the Súfí Path cannot lead the mystic to that last degree in the perception of the Unity, which is called the Truth; for this is accessible to the One alone.

⁵ It is related that Sheddád, an ancient Arab King of the tribe of Ἅd, laid out in the desert of ῾Aden a terrestrial paradise in rivalry of the celestial. Of this magnificent garden of palaces, which is called Irem, many stories are told, such as that it contained 300,000 pavilions each adorned with 1,000 pillars of jasper bound with gold. But Sheddád never enjoyed his splendid work; for as he was about to enter the glorious garden-city, he and all his host were struck dead by a cry from Heaven. The terrestrial paradise disappeared from sight; but it still stands invisibie in the desert of ῾Aden where from time to time God permits a traveller to see it. Sir Richard Burton says that he once met an Arab who declared that he had seen this city on the borders of a waste of deep sands called Al-Ahkáf to the west of Hadramaut. Sir R. Burton believes that what the man really saw was the mirage. Irem is mentioned in the Koran, 1xxxix, 6, where it is called ‘Irem the Many-Columned,’ whence probably the tale of the jasper pillars. It is often alluded to by the poets as the type sometimes of a magnificent garden, sometimes of a splendid palace.

¹ The nearer it approaches to the Godhead, the more is the eye of the understanding dazzled, and so the less it can see. The effulgence of the Godhead may thus be described as a veil concealing it from sight. See p. 66.

² ‘They of the Unveilment (Keshf),’ i. e. the prophets and saints from before whose souls the veil woven by the senses is from time to time withdrawn. See pp. 58-9.

³ The mystics who deny the real existence of relativity say that the perception of the Unity is accomplished through rejecting all conceptions of relationship, such as creator and created, cause and effect, possessor and possessed, etc. When one has discovered all relationship to be illusion, one perceives the Unity.

⁴ Things are known through their opposites (see p. 17); thus it is through the phenomenal we gain the conception of the eternal.

⁵ i. e. the ordinary non-mystic, non-philosophic person who draws a hard and fast line between the spiritual and the material, the creator and the created, the eternal and the phenomenal, and so on.

⁶ Such an one says: After all your arguments, the only rational conclusion is that the Creator is outside and separate from the phenomena which He creates.

¹ This division of the perception of the Unity into three degrees (῾Ilm-i Tevhíd, ῾Ayn-i Tevhíd, Haqq-i Tevhíd) is copied from the well-known three-fold division of Certainty or Certain Knowledge, i. e. (I) ‘the Knowledge of Certainty’ (῾Ilm-i Yaqín); (2) ‘the Eye of Certainty’ (῾Ayn-i Yaqín); (3) ‘the Truth of Certainty’ (Haqq-i Yaqín). These three degrees of certain knowledge are thus illustrated: — the knowledge which each man has concerning death is the Knowledge of Certainty;. when the man sees the Angel of Death approach, this knowledge becomes the Eye of Certainty; and when he actually tastes of death, it becomes the Truth of Certainty.

² ‘Yon Moon’ i. e. Shírín. ‘Moon’ is a constant term for a beauty in Eastern poetry.

³ The astrologers divided the Signs of the Zodiac into four ‘Triplicities’ (Musellesát): (I) Aries, Leo and Sagittary were fiery, hot, dry, male and day signs; (2) Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn were earthy, cold, dry, female and night signs; (3) Gemini, Libra and Aquarius were airy, hot, moist, male and day signs; (4) Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces were watery, cold, moist, female and night signs.

Each of the Zodiacal Signs was said to be the ‘house’ (beyt) of one or other of the Seven Planets (see p. 43). Each planet, except the Sun and Moon which had only one apiece, had two of such ‘houses.’ The sign opposite a planet’s ‘house’ was called its ‘fall’ (vebál). Each planet had further what was known as its ‘exaltation’ or ‘honour’ (sheref) in another sign; and its ‘dejection’ (hubút) in that opposite. When in its own ‘house,’ a planet was supposed to possess more than usual influence; when in its ‘exaltation,’ it was in the position of its greatest power. The following table shows the ‘houses,’ ‘falls,’ ‘exaltation,’ and ‘dejection’ of each planet,

Sign of the Zodiac:	House of:	Fall of:	Exaltation of:	Dejection of:
Aries.	Mars.	Venus.	Sun.	Saturn.
Taurus.	Venus.	Mars.	Moon.
Gemini.	Mercury.	Jupiter.
Cancer.	Moon.	Saturn.	Jupiter.	Mars.
Leo.	Sun.	Saturn.
Virgo.	Mercury.	Jupiter.	Jupiter.	Venus.
Libra.	Venus.	Mars.	Saturn.	Sun.
Scorpio.	Mars.	Venus.		Moon.
Sagittary.	Jupiter.	Mercury.
Capricorn.	Saturn.	Moon.	Mars.	Jupiter.
Aquarius.	Saturn.	Sun.
Pisces.	Jupiter.	Mercury.	Venus.	Mercury.

The idea in Sheykhí’s verse is that the effect produced on the beholder by the sight of the Moon-like (i. e. beautiful) Shírín in the water was baleful as the influence of the Moon when in its ‘dejection,’ the Watery Sign, Scorpio.

¹ The violets and the hyacinths are the lady’s tresses, the rose is her face She was sitting in the water combing her hair, — like the mermaid in old prints.

² Her body being the jewel or treasure, and the pond the casket which contained it.

³ Like snakes. The widely spread myth of a snake or dragon guarding a treasure is as familiar to the East as to the West, and has given the poets occasion for countless conceits and fancies, the most favourite of which is perhaps the comparison thereto of a beauty’s curls hanging about her fair face.

⁴ She pushes aside the long locks floating about her, — which suggests to the poet that her body is like a structure guarded against snakes by some talisman similar to that which Alexander set up in his capital to keep it free from such creatures (p. 278).

⁵ The comparison of the curling locks of a beauty to chains (generally to bind her lover’s heart) is very common.

In these two couplets the rushing water is conceived as having gone mad through love of her, and so as having been chained as madmen often are in the East.

⁶ A clear white skin is often described as ‘crystal.’

⁷ In this couplet the lady is supposed to be throwing handfuls of water over her body, when her white and shining skin, seen between the drops of water thus thrown, is conceived as the bright moonlight seen through the interstices of one of those Eastern curtains formed of rows of reeds with beads (here pearls) at the joints, the pearls being of couroe the draps of water.

¹ ‘Biting upon the finger,’ i. e. raising the finger to the lips, is a conventional expression with the Eastern writers to indicate that the person whom they describe as so doing is filled with bewilderment or admiration.

² ‘Jasmine-breast’ i. e. white sweet-scented breast, another term for a beauty.

³ i. e. her hair had fallen over her eyes.

⁴ The ‘musky choud’ is her dark sweet-scented hair.

⁵ The Humá is the bird of paradise. In old times it was held to be of the happiest augury, anyone whose head it overshadowed in its flight being certain of good fortune. It was said never to alight on the ground, and to live entirely on bones, hurting no living creature.

⁶ i. e. Sbírín saw the Prince auspicious as the Humá mounted on his steed fleet as an eagle.

⁷ The ‘cypress,’ the stock image for a tall, slight, graceful figure, here stands for the figure of the Prince, while the ‘sun’ is his face. The imagery in this line is curious and unusual. The only similar instance that I can recall occurs in the Arabian Nights, where in the Twenty-second Night and again in the Conclusion we read: — 

which is thus rendered in Sir Richard Burton’s translation: —

‘A sun on wand in knoll of sand she showed

‘Clad in her cramoisy-hued chemisette.’

On page 250 of the ninth volume the translator thus explains the first line: ‘A sun (face) on wand (neck) in knoll of sand (hips) she showed.’ But the ‘flagstaff,’ which replaces the ‘wand’ in the Turkish verse, stands for the ‘cypress,’ and so represents not the neck, but the figure, of the Prince.

⁸ The ‘Fount of radiance’ is Shírín who is pictured as trembling in the pond, as the reflection of the beautiful moon trembles on rippling water.

¹ The ‘night’ is her hair; the ‘day,’ her face or her body.

² The dew is conceived as amorously biting the lip of the tulip.

³ ‘The gear of mirth,’ i. e. all things needful for a carouse, wine, musical instruments, etc.

¹ i. e. the sweet presence of Shírín made all things sweet.

² Badakhshán in Central Asia was supposed to yield the finest rubies; hence ‘Badakhshán rubies’ became a stock phrase with the poets, something like our ‘Orient pearls.’

³ This is an example of the rhetorical figure Husn-i Ta῾líl or ÆEtiology (see p. 113). The stream is of course full of running water, but the poet conceives that this is its mouth watering at the thought of how sweet must be the taste (i. e. the kiss) of Shírín’s lip.

⁴ This couplet contains another example of the same figure.

¹ Made manifest through Shírín who had visited him there.

² See p. 44, n. 3.

³ ῾Abír is an unguent made of various perfumes. After a corpse is washed and shrouded, perfumes are burned beside it and sprinkled over it.

¹ His ‘bird’ is his soul; the ‘nest,’ the body, or perhaps, the world.