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 PERSIA (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE) 327 A poet more to our mind, and who has done more than any other for the fame of Persian poetry in the West, is Saadi. He belongs to the same period with the authors last named, having died in 1291, at the age of upward of 100 years. He is said to have spent the sec- ond 30 years of his life in travelling, and the third in meditating upon and digesting his acquisitions and experiences, and only the last part of it in the actual composition of his im- mortal works. If skeptical as to the literal truth of this systematic division of his life, we need not question that he travelled and saw much, and wrote his most esteemed produc- tions at an advanced age. We know that he lay for some time in Christian captivity, taken prisoner in battle with the crusaders. In both these circumstances has been sought an ex- planation of the cooler fancy, the purer taste, the more practical morality, which distinguish- ed Saadi among oriental authors. He is most eminent as a moral and didactic poet ; his two best works, the "Fruit Garden" (Bostari) and "Flower Garden" (Gkilistan), are collections of brief tales and apologues, interspersed with aphorisms and lessons of morality, in prose and verse ; both have been translated into nearly all the languages of Europe. By his countrymen Saadi is equally esteemed as a lyric poet. But the greatest of Persian lyrists is Hafiz, of Shiraz, who lived a century later (he died about 1390) ; in him Persian poetry is regarded as having at- tained its very highest flight. Though a der- vish, deriving his name (Hafiz, retainer) from his knowing by heart the whole Koran, and though living always in contempt of wealth and splendor, he was a thorough free-thinker and indifferentist in matters of religion, and his inspiration is solely that of the most en- thusiastic and intoxicated sensual enjoyment ; the unvarying themes of his song are love and wine, the rose and the nightingale. A mysti- cal explanation has been given to the outbursts of his passion, and the same poems which are sung as erotic and drinking odes by the young debauchee, are pored over by the aged devotee as containing the essence of holy ecstasy ; but the interpretation is forced and false, and main- ly a device to save the pride of Persian litera- ture from condemnation as an infidel and sen- sualist. Persian poetry has but one other great name to boast after Hafiz ; it is that of Jami, who died in 1492, at an advanced age. He is a poet of the most varied genius, and, though not accounted as the very first in any depart- ment, he is excelled only by the very first in each ; thus, in panegyric he is esteemed as sec- ond only to Enveri, in romance to Nizami, in mystic poetry to Jelal ed-Din, in moral and didactic to Saadi, in lyric to Hafiz ; these five, with Firdusi and himself, being admired as the seven most brilliant stars in the firmament of Persian poetry. Jami is perhaps most highly esteemed as a romantic poet, though prose works of high merit also came from his pen, including a history of the Sufis, and a collec- tion of letters as models of epistolary style, a branch of elegant literature much cultiva- ted by the Persians in later times, and in which Jami is unexcelled. With the 15th cen- tury closes the proper history of Persian poe- try ; since that time, although much increased in extent, it has grown little in value. We have hitherto spoken only of the poetry of Persia, because that is by far the most impor- tant and valuable department of the national literature. Next to it in consequence is the department of history. For the older tradi- tional history of Persia itself, Firdusi has con- tinued the chief and almost sole authority; later writers have added little to what is re- corded in the Shah Nameh. The Mujmil et- tevarikh, a historical work by an unknown au- thor, a portion of which has been translated by Mohl in the Journal asiatique (1841), is also important. The Persian extract from a large historical treatise written by the celebra- ted Moslem Abu Jafar Mohammed ben Jerir ben Yezid, called Tabari, made by Belami in 963, which has recently been translated into French (Chronique de Tdbari, traduite sur la version persane par H. Zoteriberg, Paris, 1867 -'9), is specially valuable. The supplemen- tary works written by the successors of Fir- dusi are not yet fully known, and several of them, the Gershasp Nameh, Sam Nameh,. Barzu Nameh, Jehangir Nameh, JSanu Sushasp Na- meh, and Bahman Nameh, have been only part- ly examined. A host of later historians, be- ginning from rather a recent period, about the middle of the 13th century, have treated of the later Persian history, especially of that of Genghis Khan and his descendants and succes- sors, and of the remarkable overturnings of Asiatic power of which Iran has been a prin- cipal scene; and their works are important sources of knowledge respecting the events of the period. Among the chief names here are Reshid ed-Din (born 1247), Wassaf (of the same epoch), whose elaborate and excessively ornate style makes him one of the most difficult of Persian authors, and Sherif ed-Din, the histo- rian of Tamerlane. Of later authors, Mirkhond (died in 1498), a writer of universal history, and his son Khondemir, are most distinguished. An important branch of Persian history, too, has India for its native place and its theme. In entertaining or amusing literature, such as fa- bles, tales, anecdotes, legendary and supernat- ural stories, and the like, Persia is very rich, and it is supposed to be the source whence much of the European literature of this class, dating from the middle ages, was derived. The Anvari soheili, which constitute a Persian par- aphrase of the fables of Bidpay, Tuvaini's Na- garistan or " Picture Gallery " (1360), the Bakh- tiyar Nameh, and the Tuti Nameh, deserve spe- cial mention. In the 18th century Ferid Gha- fer Khan paraphrased the legends of Hatim ben Ubaid ben Said, which, with those of the bandit and minstrel Kurroglu, form one of the richest collections of oriental fairy stories.