516 Has Sa y dy of Shyraz written Rtkhtah verses ? [No. 6. 



Shorish says : 



" Sa'dy, his name is not known, he was of the Deccan, this verse is 

 by him : I have given thee my heart, &c." The specimens contained in 

 the three Tadzkirahs appear to be the disjecta membra of one Ghazal. 



I leave it for the Reader to judge whether the assertion is borne 

 out that Sa'dy Shyrazy has written Rekhtah poetry. I must however 

 make two remarks ; first, that on comparing the Tadzkirahs of Qayim 

 and Gurdezy, it does not appear that the former knew the labour of 

 the latter, though Gurdezy wrote three years sooner. Qayim distinctly 

 denies every knowledge of Gurdezy's Tadzkirah, saying that no 

 Tadzkirah of Rekhtah poets had ever been written ; secondly, that 

 we have only the rough, incomplete copy of Qayim's Tadzkirah (it 

 is preserved in Moty MaAall library at Lucnow) and there is much 

 reason to believe that he never completed it or made a fair copy and 

 published it. Should he have given up the work on finding that 

 Gurdezy had already written a Tadzkirah ? At all events it cannot 

 be said that Qayim intended to contradict the statement of his prede- 

 cessor ; nor can a book on which the author has not bestowed the 

 last cares, be considered as high an authority as if he had done so. 



I take this opportunity of adding some specimens of early Rekhtah 

 poetry. Qayim says that Amyr Khosraw has written Rekhtah verses, 

 and that he is the author of Rekhtah logogriphs. He quotes two 

 verses and no riddles. I give one of the verses quoted by Qayim and 

 the whole Ghazal, from which the other verse is taken and some 

 specimens of riddles, though it is certain that nine-tenths of the rid- 

 dles ascribed to him are of much more recent date. 



9 



*) { W ^s^ J*# ^s'tp J^ ^Co ^x^« J±j 



