1837.] 



Persian poets. 



127 



in the 7th century of the Hejira. His forte was satire. In answer to 

 some reproaches cast upon him by Sddi, he wrote a Terji* of which 

 the first couplet is given b.y Al Cazvini ; it runs as follows, and has a 

 mystic meaning : 



Beit. 



I am a drunkard and a debauchee I allow ; but what matters it ? 

 Such is my habit and constant practice. 



Jelal Diwdnij 



Styled the second Aristotle. Notwithstanding Diwani 's skill in 

 rhetoric and his enlightened expositions of abstruse subjects, his Per- 

 sian historian declares him to have been mad ; i. e. a poet. His works 

 abound with metaphysical subtleties. He died A. H. 908 aged 70. 



Jelal uddin Meilla i Rum, 



f>4 fa c^JV 



Author of^the celebrated Masnavi bearing his name, and which com- 

 prises upwards of 30,000 couplets, was born at Balkh towards the com- 

 mencement of the 7th century of the Hejira : he died A. H. 672, on the 

 fifth day of the month J T emadi al Akhir ; at sunset. He is called by 

 some, Bin Mahomed al Balkhi ar Rumi. J ami relates that from his 

 fifth year this high priest of the Sufis was accustomed to discern spiri- 

 tual apparitions; and forms from the other world, of beings usually 

 veiled from human gaze — the recording angel— good genii — and the 

 select spirits of mankind who are concealed under domes of glory — all 

 became visible and assumed a definite shape. 



The Mouldna, as he is often styled, like a pious Mussulman per- 

 formed the Haj or pilgrimage to Mecca. On his travels he fell into 

 the society of Shaikh Ferid uddin Attar at Nishapore, who gave him 

 his Asrar-Nameh, or book of secrets: this the Mouldna always kept 

 by him. 



Seraj uddin Kounawi was one of the most learned men of the time, 

 but as his ideas and those of our poet on theological subjects did not 

 agree, sought every opportunity of mortifying him. Some persons re- 

 ported to him that the Mouldna had been heard to say that he agreed 

 with all the opinions entertained by the seventy-three sects into which 



* A Tcrji is a kind of stanza, in which one line recurs at fixed intervals. 



