warn philologists against the questionable and quicksandy nature of anecdotal etymologies. 'Umar al Khayyâm (the tent-maker) took his nom de plume from the trade which he learned from his father, and practiced whilst pursuing his astronomical studies in his native village, near Nishâpûr. But it must be remembered that bayt means tent and verse; and in Persian poetics the analogy between tent-making and verse-making is carried out to the fullest extent, and curious functional correspondences are discovered between the parts of the respective structures. The pavilion is a poem, and the simple epithet al Khayyam appeals to the Persian imagination as a suggestive equivoque.

Hafiz frequently puns on his own name. Thus he says, "Whether I am a reverend doctor or a debauchee, what is that to thee? I am the keeper (húfiz) of my own secrets and the knower of my own times." Again he alludes to it in the following self-praise: "By the Kur'ân which thou keepest in thy heart, I have never heard sweeter strains than thine, O Hafiz!" In one of the idyls he boasts that of all the Hâfizes of the earth (hûfizâni jahân) not one has equaled him in interweaving worldly wit and wisdom with the sententious truths of the Kur'ân; and he concludes one of his odes with the assertion that

'Neath the vaulted sky, no Hâfiz has obtained Such wealth of grace as I have from the Kur'ân gained."

But notwithstanding the lofty import of his name and the pride with which he alludes to it, it is evident from his poems that he drew fuller and more frequent draughts of inspiration from the kharâbật (tavern) than from the Kurân.

Native records and traditions furnish very little positive information concerning the comparatively uneventful life of Hafiz. His intense devotion to study and to literary pursuits rendered him averse to travel, or to a residence at any of the courts of them any petty and

rival dynasties which had sprung up out of the ruins of the great Mogul empire, and which, while diminishing the political power of Persia by dismembering it, favored the cultivation of poetry and polite learning through the ambition and emulation of each princedom to become the chief centre and nursery of the arts and sciences. Hafiz was held in high honor by these sovereigns, who sent him repeated invitations to visit them, and sought in vain, by splendid gifts and offers of patronage, to draw him away from the quiet and retired life of a scholar. Sultan Ahmad tried to prevail upon him to come to Baghdad; but the poet prudently declined to become the pensioner of a monarch who, although a man of elegant tastes and fine accomplishments, a connoisseur of gems and an amateur in keramics and bricabrac, was a terror to his subjects, a tyrant whose cruel and capricious temper was aggravated by an excessive use of opium. Hafiz, however, wrote him a letter of thanks and an ode which is quite as eulogistic as this sovereign's notorious character would permit.

Once, at the urgent solicitation of Mahmud Shâh Bahmanî, Hâfiz set out on a journey to the south of India; but on arriving at Hurmûz and embarking on the ship sent for his conveyance, he became so alarmed and nauseated by the sea that he made some excuse for going ashore, and returned forthwith to Shîrâz. He then addressed to the Shah an ode in which he recalled the stormy horrors of the sea, which he would not encounter for all the pearly treasures in its depths. Mahmud was much amused at this apology, and rewarded the poet for his good intentions with a purse of a thousand pieces of gold.

Very different was the treatment he received from Yahyâ, Shah of Yazd, whom he actually visited, but who does not appear to have been especially liberal in largesses. Hafiz always alludes with some bitterness to this monarch,

and ascribes his niggardliness to the envy and ill-will of courtiers, whose heads he would fain see beaten and bandied in the game of golf. In the fourth fragment he contrasts this meanness with the munificence of other princes:

"From Hurmûz's king, unsung, unseen, a hundred gifts I won;

I saw and sung the king of Yazd, but left his courts with none."

Now and then Hâfiz complains of his native land, and even expresses a desire to turn his steps towards Baghdâd; the rose of Persia puts forth no bud of joy for him; Shîrâz does not appreciate his poesy; and he takes no pleasure in envious Fârs. But these were only the passing moods of a fine-strung and sensitive nature. In reality he was strongly attached to the place of his birth, and, during his short sojourn in Yazd, experienced, like his contemporary Dante, when banished from Florence,

"sì come sa di sale

Il pane altrui, e come è duro calle
Lo scendere e'l salir per l'altrui scale."

In the sixty-eighth quatrain he paints in vivid and realistic colors the consuming pains and emaciating effects of nostalgia. His love of Shîrâz finds utterance in several odes, in one of which, written during his stay at Yazd, he vows that, on his return, he will go straight to the wine-shop, and there relate his adventures to the music of the barbiton and the merry clink of beakers.

Touching the domestic life of Hâfiz, we know only that he was married and had a son, who died December 23, 1362, as we learn from the twenty-fifth fragment, where the exact date is given according to the Muhammadan era:

"On Rabi' ul-Awwal's sixth, one Friday morn, My moon-faced darling from my heart was torn. Seven hundred sixty-four years since the Flight This hardship on me came as water light. Can sighs and plaints and tears my peace restore When now my life as empty sport is o'er ?" 1 1 By the phrase "as water light," Bicknell means "with the facility of water." This is hardly the true sense of the original: chu áb gasht bamán hall hikayati muskkil, “like water came upon

The sad event is sorrowfully recalled in a characteristic ode; and the thirtythird fragment shows how tenderly the bereaved father clung to the memory of his child:

"The days of sweet spring have come; the damask and wild roses now,

With tulips, from earth arise: oh, why in the dust then art thou?

My tears I will shed in streams, as pour from the spring clouds in rain;

These tears on thy dust shall fall, until thou art risen again."

In another ode Hâfiz deplores the decease and praises the virtues of his wife. In the first verse he says,

"The friend who made my house a home where peris well might be,

Was, peri-like, from head to foot from every blemish free."

"In her face refinement blended with the sweet endearments of love," and "she wore the richest crown in the ample realm of beauty." Hammer and Rosenzweig both assume that this ode was written on the death of an intimate friend. But the couplet above quoted seems inconsistent with such a supposition. The word yûr, here translated "friend," means literally helpmeet, and, like the French ami or amie, is used, as a term of affection, to denote spouse. In Persian, however, yâr may be either masculine or feminine, and the personal pronoun û signifies either he or she, there being only one form for both genders. This epicenity adds much to the indefiniteness and gives great latitude to the interpretation of Persian poetry, both in a natural and in a mystical sense. The line of demarcation between the literal and the allegorical, the sensual and the spiritual, is thus rendered faint and not easily definable. This vagueness possesses a peculiar charm for the Oriental, and by the opportunity it affords of juxtapositing incongruities and giving a fantastic turn to ideas fur

descending the painful tale." In other words, the news came upon him like the sudden and chilling shock of a stream of falling water.

nishes a cheap surrogate for humor. Sometimes the poet celebrates an abstract ideal, rather than a concrete embodiment of beauty. Again, the beloved object is the Divine Being, a prince, a patron, a teacher, a boon companion, or a friend.

It is highly probable that many of the odes, which are repugnant to us because they are supposed to describe a too ardent affection for men, really express a tender attachment to women. The so-called mulamma' or party-colored ode, of which every alternate line is Arabic, tends to confirm this hypothesis, since the Arabic pronoun, which has a distinct form for each gender, is here feminine. The same is true of another ode written in a medley of Arabic, pure Persian, and the dialect of Shîrâz. In his youth Hâfiz fell passionately in love with a maiden who was known by the pet-name of Shâkhi Nabât (shoot of sugar-cane, or stick of candy), and who seems to have preferred him even to his formidable rival, the Prince of Shîrâz. Later in life he became deeply and desperately enamored of a beautiful heiress surnamed 'Arûsi Jahân (bride of the world), and sought her hand in marriage; but the young lady, though admiring his genius and esteeming his character, did not return his affection, and declined a nearer union in the bonds of wedlock. In view of these tender experiences, and perhaps many others of a similar kind, it is hardly credible that Hâfiz, whose native city is still celebrated for its charming women, should have wasted all his sweet lyrics upon cup-bearers, minstrels, strolling Lûliân, musk-scented dandies with corkscrew love-locks, fruity-faced wine-bibbers, and tulip-cheeked boys.

Muhammadan law and custom, it is true, place all sorts of absurd restrictions upon the free and friendly intercourse of the sexes, and the unnatural state of society thus produced fosters unnatural vices. Strong, manly love degenerates VOL. LIII. —NO. 315.

7

into puling sentimentalism and pederastic passion, tainting erotic poetry, and destroying whatever pleasure we might otherwise take in the genial conceptions and graceful diction of the writer. Only a vitiated taste can relish the putrescent piquancy of this kind of literary haut gout.

Nevertheless, there is good reason for believing that Eastern poets have been greatly misunderstood and misrepresented on this point, and that the disgusting theme is treated by them less frequently than is usually supposed. Oriental, and especially Persian, women of the middle class enjoy far greater freedom than Europeans generally imagine. Although it would be a sin against decency and decorum for them to appear in public unveiled, except in cases where extreme ugliness or the wrinkles of old age might suffice as a mask, yet it is a mistake to suppose that they pass their lives jealously immured within the walls of a harêm. The witty and spirited satire entitled Kitâbi Kulsûm Nana (Book of Kulsûm Nana), ostensibly composed by a conclave of Persian matrons for the guidance of their sex in domestic and social affairs and in the general conduct of life, gives ample proof that the dames and damsels of Iran are quite tenacious. enough of their prescriptive rights and traditional prerogatives, and fully competent to maintain them against all marital and paternal encroachments. The manner in which they may assert their liberty and pursue their pleasure in entertaining guests, receiving and returning visits, frequenting the bath, or paying their devotions in the mosque is set forth with sufficient explicitness to satisfy the most advanced advocate of "woman's rights" in the Western world.

Despite all her apparent languor and love of luxurious ease, the Persian woman is un esprit fort in her own sphere. In habits of thought and tone of feeling she has much in common

with the French woman. Making due allowance for the generic difference between Oriental and Occidental culture, the ladies of gay Shîrâz and grave Ispâhân are strikingly akin to those of Paris in all the salient traits of character and qualities of mind. The same exquisite taste and native grace; the same tact in asserting their independence in all matters touching les petites morales; the same wit-craft and witchcraft, which Firdausi declared to be "matchless and supreme" in his countrywomen, in short, the same savoir faire and savoir vivre are peculiar to both.

Oriental convenance would hardly permit a poet to blazon in his verse the name of his lady-love, or in any way to give prominence and publicity to her personality. Indeed, the proper thing for him to do would be to disguise so far as possible the object of his attachment, and to dissemble the real source of his "thought's unrest." For this purpose, the aforementioned sexual ambiguity of the Persian language would stand him in good stead, and offer a most convenient covert under which to conceal his passion from the ordinary reader, whilst revealing it to her who, knowing his secret, could read it between the lines. Occasionally, too, he might let it peep out, as Hâfiz does in the thirtyfifth ode, where he refers to the miracle of love which has transformed his dry writing-reed into a succulent shoot of sugar-cane (Shâkhi Nabât), yielding sweetness more delicious than honey. The magic which wrought this metamorphosis, and put sap and savor into his hard and hollow kilk, was the powerful spell of the tender sentiment, which Shakespeare declares to be the hidden spring and inspiration of all lyric song:

-

"Never durst poet touch a pen to write

Until his ink were tempered with love's sighs." A reminiscence of this event and of the experiences attending it is contained in

a ghazal where the name of sugar candy is said to excite the jealous taunts of the "sweets" (shîrînân) of Shîrâz.

One of the best known and most popular of Hâfiz's odes is the eighth, which begins as follows:

"If that Shirâzian Turk would deign to take my heart within his hand,

To make his Indian mole my own I'd give Bukhârâ and Samarkand."

Bicknell and all the German translators, except Nesselmann, assume that it was addressed to some young man ; but there is really no ground whatever for this assumption. The Turk of Shîrâz evidently refers to one of those wandering Lûliân, famous for their skill in singing and dancing, and for the beauty of their maidens, who, in the third couplet, are said to embroil the town by their blandishments, and, true to the predatory habits of their tribe, prey upon and spoil the "heart's content" of the Shirâzian youth. "Turk," as we have already observed, is the synonym of capricious charmer or cruel coquette. In the fourth couplet the poet contrasts the unadorned loveliness of the Lûlî maid with the meretricious embellishments of the city ladies, who would fain enhance their fading fascinations by cosmetics and cold cream. There is a glamour of love which makes John see the golden. halo of a Madonna in the carroty hair of Mary Jane; but the poet declares his vision to be untinged by any such beneficent illusions and illuminations of personal affection, of which the fair girl is as independent as a fine complexion is of rouge or pearl powder.

"My loved one's beauty has no need of an imperfect love like mine:

By paint or powder, mole or streak, can a fair face more brightly shine?"

Persian women adorn their faces with artificial moles or beauty spots of a permanent character by tattooing themselves with a mixture of chelidonium (zard-chub, yellow wood) and charcoal. Erasible moles are made with pitch or

oxide of antimony, put on by means of a wooden pin (khati khattût). Pulverized antimony is also used to form streaks on the eyelids, and a paste of indigo to pencil the eyebrows. Such streaks or lines are called khat, which Rosenzweig incorrectly translates Flaum (down). Muhammadan scholiasts of the mystical school interpret the powder, paint, moles, and streaks symbolically, as referring to the ink, color, dots, and lines of the Kur'ân, the face of beauty being typical of the sacred page. In all the dry and dusty tomes of Christian hermeneutics it would be difficult to find absurder specimens of far-fetched, finespun, and fantastic exegesis and subtlety of scriptural exposition than are constantly met with in the writings of Musulmanic doctors and commentators on the prophet's word.

An interesting and characteristic anecdote is related in connection with this ode. When, in 1387, Timûr conquered Fars and captured Shîrâz, he summoned the aged Hâfiz into his presence, and said, "I have destroyed the mightiest kingdoms of the earth with the edge of my sword, in order to enrich and enlarge the two chief cities of my native land, Bukhârâ and Samarkand; and you presume to offer them both for a black mole on your Beloved's cheek!" "Sire," replied the poet, "it is by such acts of reckless generosity that I am reduced to the state of poverty in which you now behold me." This witty retort so pleased the Tatâr chief that he immediately relieved the hypothetical poverty so artfully hinted at, and showed the poet many marks of favor.

Hafiz died, as we have already stated, A. H. 791, corresponding to A. D. 1388. In the chronogram engraved on the alabaster slab which covers his tomb, the reader is told to seek the date in the Earth of Musallâ (Khaki Musallû); and by summing up the numerical value of the letters in this phrase, kh 600-a 1 +k 20+ m 40+ s 90 +130 +â (ye)

10=791, we ascertain the year of his decease. Bicknell englishes this chronogram very ingeniously as follows:"On spiritual men the lamp of Hâfiz gleamed; 'Mid rays from Glory's Light his brilliant taper beamed;

Musalla was his home: a mournful date to gain,

Thrice take thou from Musalla's Earth Its Richest Grain."

The numerical value of the letters contained in Musalla's Earth is M 1000+ L 50+ L 50=1100; from this sum take three times the numerical value of the letters in Its Richest Grain: 11+ I 1+C 100+I 1=103 × 3=309, and the result is 791. Medieval writers were very fond of composing eteostics, especially for inscriptions and epitaphs ; but Latin, having only seven numerical letters, did not afford them much scope for the exhibition of their skill; whereas, in Persian and Arabic, every letter of the alphabet has a numerical value. Hâfiz wrote quite a number of chronograms for the purpose of commemorating the virtues and recording the deathdate of his friends and patrons. These monumental verses have been translated by Bicknell in a most ingenious and felicitous manner. Indeed, his version is the only one in which any attempt is made to preserve the chronogrammatic character of the original; and it is in this peculiar feature that the whole point of the poem centres and consists. Nesselmann omits them entirely as untranslatable.

In consequence of Hafiz's outspoken antagonism to the popular religion, and the skeptical and scoffing tone which pervades his poems, the priests refused to give him religious burial. This big. otry naturally excited the indignation of his friends and admirers, and a serious strife arose between them and the orthodox party. After much bitter altercation, it was agreed to consult his Divân as an oracle, and to accept the result as a divine decision. The volume opened at the following couplet: