1837-] Essay on the Metrical Compositions of the Persians. 113 



XI. — Essay on the Metrical Compositions of the Persians. — By Lieut. 

 T. J. Newbold, Aid-de-Camp to Brigadier General Wilson, c. b. 

 Member of the Asiatic Societies of Bengal and Madras. 



With the view of affording the general reader as concise and plain an 

 outline of the art of versification among the Persians, as it will admit 

 of, preparatory to a future more extended analysis, I will preface this 

 paper with a few remarks on the structure of their metrical composi- 

 tions, digested from several of the most approved Persian treatises 

 on the subject, and divested as much as possible of those technicalities 

 and over refined subtleties, with which their authors love to obscure 

 and mystify the theme under discussion. 



Poetry they define as a discourse that has been weighed, Kalam-i- 

 Mouzun. The balance by which the due proportion of its component 

 parts is ascertained is prosody. It must be composed in one of the 

 fixed Bahur or measures, and must rhyme. 



The Arkdn (J&j* or poetical feet. 

 The Arkdn form the poizes against which the words forming a 

 metrical line are weighed. They are eight in number, and are com- 

 posed of long and short syllables according to their vowels. By vari- 

 ety of arrangement and repetition they form, 



The Bahur 



The Bahur are the fix^d measures in which all Persian and Arabic 

 poems are written. The original measures are nineteen in number. 

 From these have sprung various others, minutely specified by the 

 Persian grammarians : with an enumeration of these varieties I will not 

 here fatigue the reader. 



The subjoined note (a) will shew the names and order of the 19 



(a.) The 19 original measures — Bahur-i-Nuazdah 

 1 Tawil 



2 Madid 



3 Basit. 



4 Wafir 



5 Kamil 



6 Hazaj 



7 Rijz. 



8 Ramal 



9 Munsurij 

 10 Muzaria 





11 Makzab 



jo \« 



12 Mohtabis 





13 Sari 



A 



14 Jadid 



15 Khafif 





16 Karib 



17 Mushakil 



18 Mukarib 





19 Matadarik 







The 13th 14th and 15th of these measures are peculiar to the Persians 

 and the five first to the Arabs. 



