221 



SAADI. 



SAADI. 



222 



quently termed by Oriental writers) even attended Mohammed in tho 

 Hungarian campaign of 1596; and the victory of Keresztea is ascribed 

 in a great measure to his exhortations, which prevented the sultan 

 from abandoning the field at the moment of extreme peril. He how- 

 ever incurred a temporary disgrace immediately afterwards by his 

 advocacy of the cause of the fallen vizir Cicala ; but he was speedily 

 restored to favour, and on the death of the Mufti Bbstan-Zadah, March 

 1598, was raised to the highest ecclesiastical dignity by the sultan, in 

 spite of the opposition of the Grand-Vizir Hassan, who proposed the 

 elevation of the celebrated poet Baki. He did not however long survive 

 his exaltation, dying suddenly in the mosque of St. Sophia, as he was 

 preparing for prayers on the anniversary of the birthday of the 

 prophet, October 2, 1599 (not 1600, as stated inthe'Biog. Univ.'), 

 A.H. 1008, and was interred in the cemetery of the mosque of Ayub, 

 whither his remains were borne by his four sons, two of whom at 

 subsequent periods also held the dignity of mufti. 



The great historical work of Saad-ed-deen, composed by order of 

 Mourad III. (who created for the author tho new office of Shahna- 

 mehdji, or imperial historiographer), is entitled ' Tadj-al-Towarikh,' or 

 the crown of histories, and gives a full and copious narrative of the 

 history of the empire, from its foundation in 1299 by Othman, to the 

 death of Selim I. in 1520; the materials are principally drawn from 

 the previous works of Neshri, Moulana-Edris, and Kemal-pasha-Zadah ; 

 but its chief merit, in the estimation of the Turks, consists in the 

 florid and elaborate beauty of the diction, in which the author is 

 certainly unrivalled by all other Turkish historians. Sir W. Jones has 

 pronounced that "for the beauty of its composition and the richness 

 of its matter, it may be compared with the finest historical pieces in 

 the languages of Europe ;" but the meaning is too often concealed by 

 a cloud of rhetorical tropes, and it is impossible to forget in the perusal 

 of the wo'rk that it is the production of a courtier. It is singular that 

 this valuable work has never yet been printed at the imperial press of 

 Constantinople ; but manuscript copies are frequent in European 

 libraries, and an Italian version was published by the Ragusan Vin- 

 cenzo Bratutti (4to, part i., Vienna, 1646 ; part ii., Madrid, 1652), 

 under the title 'Cronaca dell' Origine e Progress! degli Ottomani, 

 composta da Saidino Turco, e tradotta in Italiano ; ' small portions 

 have also been translated by Kollar, and by Grangenet de la Grange. 

 A Turkish abridgement of the work, with a continuation, was pub- 

 lished in_1696 (A.H. 1108), with a dedication to Sultan Mustapha II., 

 by Saadi-Eflendi of Larissa ; and the resemblance of name has often 

 led to this work (which served as the basis for the inaccurate compi- 

 lation of Cantemir) being confounded with the great history of Saad- 

 ed-deen. (See Von Hammer, in 'Journal Asiatique,' January 1824.) 

 Besides this great work, Saad-ed-deen was the author of the ' Selim- 

 Nameh,' a history of Selim I., or rather a collection of anecdotes of 

 that prince, related to him by his father Hassan-Jan ; this compilation, 

 which is divided into fourteen sections, is valuable for its authenticity. 

 His descendants appear to have flourished for several generations, and 

 to have inherited the talents of their ancestor ; two of his sons, as 

 already noticed, Mohammed-Effendi and Assaad-Effendi, attained the 

 rank of mufti; and a grandson or great-grandson of the latter, Mollah- 

 Fayez, is mentioned as an eminent legist by Sheikhi, who notices his 

 death in 1724. 



(Von Hammer, Histoire de V Empire Ottomann; D'Herbelot; Bio- 

 graphic Universelle ; Journal Asiatique.) 



SAADI, or (as his name is written in full in Arabic or Persian) 

 SHEIKH MOSLIH EDDIN SAADI ALSHIBAZI, the first part of the name 

 being a title of honour, the two next words his epithet, and the last 

 expressive of his being a native of the city of Shiraz, where he was 

 born in the year of the Hegira 571 (A.D. 1175-76). He is probably 

 better known by name to the European reader than any other poet or 

 writer of the east except Mohammed ; and while this European 

 reputation may be in some measure attributed to his renown amongst 

 his own countrymen, a circumstance which would naturally recom- 

 mend his work for perusal and translation to the few Persian students 

 of two hundred years back, it may be also in a great degree ascribed 

 to the simplicity and elegance of his style, so like that of the best 

 periods of Christian literature, and so unlike that of the great mass of 

 Persian writers. Saadi led the life of a dervish, or wandering monk, 

 and passed most of his early years in travelling from one country to 

 another. In the course of these journeys he was taken by the 

 Crusaders and put to labour on the fortifications of Tripoli. He was 

 redeemed from this slavery by a rich merchant, who afterwards gave 

 him his daughter in marriage, with a dowry of an hundred pieces of 

 gold. This is alluded to in the ' Gulistan ' (tale xxxi. of ch. ii., p. 99 

 of Gladwin's translation, London, 1808). The lady sorely exercised 

 the poet's patience. " Once," says he, " she reproached me, saying, 

 Art thou not he whom my father redeemed from captivity amongst 

 the Franks for ten dinars ? I answered, Yes, he ransomed me for ten 

 dinars, and put me into your hands for a hundred." A story of a 

 livelier character is told of his meeting with a brother poet, Hema"m 

 of Tabriz, who, ignorant of the name, and knowing only the birthplace 

 of his companion, held out to him the bottom of a cup (the Shirazians 

 were noted for their early baldness), and asked, " Why are the heads 

 of the Shirazians like this ? " The dervish turned the hollow of the 

 cup to Hema"m, and asked, " Why are the heads of the Tabrizians like 

 Hema"m asked his companion if he knew any of the verses of 



this ? ' 



Saadi, and the dervish repeated some of the most beautiful. He then 

 inquired, ' Do they make much esteem there of the poems of 



Hemdin ? " Saadi elegantly quoted a couplet of his companion's : 



" Between the object of my love, Hemam, and me, a veil is drawn, 

 But it is time the veil should be drawn back, and we enjoy the sight of one 

 another : " 



and thus the illustrious poets were made acquainted. 



Another anecdote shows, in the fanciful language of Persian imagina- 

 tion, the high esteem in which the writings of Saadi were held even 

 during his lifetime. Indeed he was fortunate enough to add a large 

 share of this enjoyment of fame to the renown which 600 years have 

 not diminished. A holy man of Shiraz, says the story, dreamed that 

 he heard all the angels of heaven singing a verse which he could not 

 understand, but which he was told was a couplet of Saadi's and that it 

 would be sung in heaven for a year to come. In the morning he 

 went to the cell of the now recluse poet, and found him repeating the 

 distich : 



" On the green trees the clear eye of the wise beholdcth 

 In every leaf a book of the wisdom of God." 



Saadi died in 1291, at the age of 116 years, having spent, it is said, 

 thirty years in travelling and in military service, during which, his 

 wanderings reached as far as India on one side, and Asia Minor, or 

 perhaps Eastern Europe, on the other ; thirty years in religious soli- 

 tude, digesting the results of his life of observation ; and the twelve 

 last years of his life in putting into a permanent form the fruits of 

 the preceding sixl y. During this long life he performed the pilgrimage 

 to Mecca fifteen times ; the first time in the company of his teacher, 

 Abdolkadir GhililnL He lived under the patronage of the Atabeg 

 princes, Saad Ben Zenghi, and his successor, Abubekir Ben Saad. 

 From the former of these princes, his father, who was in the royal 

 service, gave his son the name of Saadi : this hi the East is a not 

 unusual mode of naming both men and books, and the name is often 

 so contrived as to form a sort of ' jeu de mots.' 



The works of Saadi, collected by Ahmed Nasik Ben Sesa"n, consist 

 of the Gulistan, Bostan, Gazels (or odes), Kasaid (or elegies), Mokataat 

 (fragments), Bubayat (quatrains), and essays of various kinds in prose. 

 Of all these the best known are the Gulistan and the Bostan. The 

 former is a collection of stories, in prose, but intermixed with verses 

 of the author's own composition, or borrowed from the writings of 

 others, a mode of writing which the Eastern imaginative writings much 

 affect. The Gulistan is divided into eight chapters : on the morals of 

 kings ; on the morals of dervishes ; on the excellency of contentment ; 

 on the advantages of taciturnity ; on love and youth ; on imbecility 

 and old age ; on the effects of education ; and rules for conduct in life. 

 The first seven chapters consist chiefly of moral stories, some of them 

 apparently from real history, others fables, each in some degree 

 bearing upon the subject of the chapter, and having its moral inter- 

 woven in its texture. The last chapter is rather a collection of 

 apophthegms, though a part of this also is narrative. These stories are 

 not connected by a general thread of narrative, as is the case with 

 most oriental collections (the reader will remember the general and 

 subordinate stories which connect the histories of the Arabian Nights 

 and the Fables of Pilpay); they follow one another without any link, 

 except that of their allusion to a common subject. Of this book there 

 have been many translations : into French by Du Ryer, who was 

 French consul at Alexandria, Paris, 1634; by Du Ryer, from the original 

 by Gaudin, 1789; and by Semelet, Paris, 1834 ; into German by Olea- 

 rius, who, in his preface, acknowledges the assistance of an old Persian 

 literator named Hakwird, and mentions an earlier German translation 

 made from the French of Du Ryer, and soon after the appearance of 

 the latter. The translation is spirited, and so are the copper-plates. 

 This version was published at Sleswig in 1654, and a Dutch transla- 

 tion from the German appeared at Amsterdam in the same year. 

 Olearius also translated the Bostan (a somewhat similar collection to 

 the Gulistan, but all in verse) into German. A recent German version 

 is that of K. H. Graf, Leipzig, 1846; who also made a translation of 

 the Bostan (Lustgarten), 2 vols. 1850. The Gulistan was translated 

 into English by Gladwin, London, 1808; by Ross for the Asiatic 

 Society ; and by Eastwick, in prose and verse, Hertford, 1852. This 

 is an excellent translation, and a beautiful specimen of typography. 



The whole works of Saadi, in the original Persian and Arabic, were 

 printed at Calcutta, in 2 vols., small folio, edited by Harrington (1791). 

 The text of the Gulistan appeared first in the edition of Gentius, 

 Amsterdam, accompanied by a Latin translation and notes. Gladwin 

 published the text at Calcutta in 1806, which was reprinted in London 

 in 1809. The text, with the translation in parallel columns (by Jas. 

 Dumoulin), was printed at Calcutta in 1807, and there have since been 

 more than one lithographed edition, one of which, we believe, has the 

 Bostan on the margin a form in which the two works often appear 

 in manuscripts. Professor Falconer has given the Persian student an 

 elegant selection from the Bostan, lithographed, containing about one- 

 third of the whole work, and has also inserted in the 'Asiatic Journal' 

 several excellent versions of detached stories, accompanied by the text, 

 as collated from several copies, and by critical notes. Dr. A. Sprenger 

 published an edition with punctuation and vowel marks at Calcutta, 

 1851; and Mr. Eastwick printed an edition collated with several 

 original manuscripts, and accompanied with a vocabulary, Hertford, 



