The Literature of Persia

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The Literature of Persia:
A Lecture delivered to the Persia Society

by E. G. Browne

pages 9-12, 33-34
London: Persia Society, 1912-04-26

1. Text

The CHAIRMAN said: Ladies and Gentlemen, in opening these proceedings my task is as pleasant as it is simple, for on such occasions the duty of the one who has the pleasure and the honour as I have on this occasion — of taking the Chair, is to introduce the Lecturer. But does Professor Browne need introduction? Those who are in any way connected with Persia, and who know Persia, know Professor Browne well, and know his works (hear, hear, and applause) but even those who know Persia only from books of geography and from newspapers, to them even the name of Professor Browne is most familiar. If you talk of Persia, you think of professor Browne (hear, hear); if you hear the name of Persia, you think again of Professor Browne. He has spent almost all his life in the study and in the work relating to Persia. When he was a student, when he was studying medicine, he devoted most of his leisure time to the study of our language and of our country, and spent most of his time among Persians. Then he travelled in Persia, where he spent his time in various interesting

[p. 10]

literatures of Persia. I must now pass to that comparatively modern post-Muhammadan literature which is generally referred to when we speak of Persian literature, and which to-day forms the main topic of my discourse. This literature and the language in which it is written arose gradually after the Arab conquest, but was in full being, at any rate, by the middle or end of the ninth century of our era, so that it covers a period of a thousand years down to the present day. During this long period the language has hardly changed at all, and the verses of poets who lived nine hundred or a thousand years ago, though they present some archaic words, forms and constructions, are generally more easily intelligible to the Persian of today than are the writings of Shakespeare to the modern Englishman. The Persian language, in short, presents that same quality or stability which has been already noticed as one of the most remarkable attributes of the Persian national character.

One of the oldest verses of this later Persian literature which can be certainly dated as anterior to the year A.D. 875 is cited in a very interesting work, entitled the Chahar Maqala or Four Discourses," composed about the middle of the twelfth century by Nizami al-Aruzi of Samarqand, a Court-poet of the Kings of Ghur.* These "Four Discourses" treat of our classes of men deemed by the writer indispensable to kings, viz., secretaries, poets, astrologers, and physicians, and each discourse, after describing the qualifications necessary to the class of which it treats, is illustrated by a number of anecdotes drawn for the most part from the author's recollections. It is a very valuable book, since amongst much interesting matter it contains the oldest accounts which we possess of Firdawsi, the great epic poet, and `Umar Khayyam, the

Note: I published a translation of this book in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1899, and the reprint is still obtainable from that Society and Messrs. Luzac, 46, Great Russel Street, W.C. The text was published with critical notes in Persian, by my learned friend Mirza Muhammad in the Gibb Memorial Series (vol. xi), 1910.

[p. 11]

author of the celebrated Quatrains; and it is written in a charming and simple style which might well serve as a model of Persian prose. Now I would like to quote this author's definition of poetry, because it is very characteristic and very interesting psychologically. He says (p. 42 of the reprint):

"Poetry is that art whereby the poet arranges imaginary propositions and adapts the deductions, with the result that he can make a little thing appear great and a great thing small, or cause good to appear in the garb of evil and evil in the garb of good. By acting on the imagination he excites the faculties of anger and concupiscence in such a way that by his suggestion men's temperaments become affected with exultation or depression; whereby he conduces to the accomplishment of great things in the order of the world."
This definition, which could only have been framed for a people unusually susceptible to eloquence and the power of rhetoric, is illustrated by the verse in question; which is by an old poet named Hanzala of Badghis, and of which the text and translation are as follows:

Mihtari gar bi-kam-i-shir-dar-ast,
Sham, khatar kun. zi kam-i-shir bi juy
Ya buzurgi u naz u ni mai u jah.
Ya, vhu mardan'i, marg-i-vu ya ruy.

This verse was read by a certain Ahmad al-Khujistani, who, being at the time only an ass-herd, was, as he himself related, so affected by it that he sold his asses, bought a horse, became a soldier, and finally succeded in making himself the ruler of Nishapur and the neighbouring parts of Khurasan. He died in or before A.D. 881, after a reign of six years, so that the verse which first prompted his ambition was certainly current as literature in A.D. 875 or earlier.

To the Persian, poetry is a real incentive to action (p. 12) or endurance and innumerable instances of this might be given. Many are to be found in the well known manuals of Persian literature, and I have only time to mention a few instances from modern times where Persians have confronted death with verses on their tongues. Two well-known instances are afforded by the Babis, that remarkable sect which, arising in A.D. 1844, caused so great a turmoil in Persia during the later days of Muhammad Shah, and the earlier days of Nasiru'd-Din Shah, especially in the years 1849-1852, when many of them endured the most cruel martyrdoms. Mirza Qurban-'Ali, one of those known as "the Seven Martyrs" recited the following verse when the executioner, missing his neck, hurled his turban on the ground:

"Khusha an `ashiq i sar mazt ki dar pa-yi-Habib
Sar u dastar na danad ki kudam andazad."

Another Babi martyr, Sulayman Khan, one of those who suffered an agonising death in the great martyrdom of 1852, was lead to the scaffold with burning wicks inserted into his body. "Why do you not dance?" cried his tormentors, mocking his agonies. "Not for fear of death and not for lack of joy," he replied, and began to recite a well-known ode by the great mystic Shams-i Tabriz, in which occurs the verse:

"Yak dast jam-i-bada, wa vah dast zuft-i-yar
Raqzi chunin mayana-i-maydan am arzust."

The two other instances which occurred me belong to the history of the recent revolution, and were communicated to me by Persian friends. The great ...

Note: See my translation of the New History of the Bab (Cambridge, 1893), p. 255

[p. 33]

Some very fine modern poetry of a much more lofty order has been produced by the Babis and Bahá'ís, of whom so much has lately been heard in circles interested in religious innovations. Of the early Babis few were more remarkable than the beautiful and talented Qurratu'l-`Ayn ("Coolness of the Eyes"), the heroine and poetess who was put to death at Tihran with so many of her fellow-believers in the summer of 1852. Amongst the few poems generally ascribed to her is one beginning with the following verse, of which the first half is Arabic, the second Persian:

Jazaba shazqika azjamat bi salasili' i-gham wa'l-bata

Of this I published, in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1889, the following verse-translation which I think, fairly reproduces not only the sense but also the rhythm and form of the original:

[p. 34]

There is another fine poem by Nabil in praise of Bahá'u'lláh, to whom, some time subsequently to the Bab's death, most of his followers transferred their allegiance. The first five verses of this poem (which is still unpublished) are as follows, and in my translation of them I have again endeavoured to preserve the metre, rhyme, and rhythm as far as possible.

Shab-i-hijr archi tazril shud chu siyah mu-l, Baha, Baha,

Fa-laka'l-aqa, ki taman shud bi buruq i rul, Baha, Baha!

Bi-dilam shud az ta isharati ki dikam bi-khalq bashdrati

Ki bi-sar rawand, chu guy-ha, kamagi bi-ku-i, Baha, Baha!

Zi basharat-am zi chahar sa dil u jan bi-sil-yi tu kard ru;

Bi-kujd rawad da u jan agar na dawad bi-su-i, Baha, Baha!

Hama ari Khuld-i-varin skuda, chu bihizht-i-ru yi Zamin shuda,

Chu ti-nay wazida nasimi az nasimat i-khu-i, Baha, Baha!

Tu'l an Karim ki iz-hazar du jakan diht-sh bi-yah nazar

Shawad ar bi-shutr-i-tu murtafi an haf-i=adut, Baha, Baha"