1836.] 



Persian poets. 



3S3 



of Hafiz' s lively wit extracted from Doulet Shah, is found in a short 

 account of his life contained in the Asiatic Journal for November 1829. 



" The emir, Timoor Koorkan, having made himself master of the 

 province of Fars, in the year 795 (A. D. 1392-3), caused Shah Mansoor 

 to be put to death.* Hafiz was then alive. Timoor desired him to be 

 sent for ; and when he arrived in the presence, Timoor said to him : 

 " I have subjected with this sword the greatest part of the earth ; I 

 have depopulated a vast number of cities and provinces in order to 

 increase the glory and wealth of Samarcand and Bokhara, the ordinary 

 places of my residence and the seat of my empire ; yet thou, an insig- 

 nificant individual, hast pretended to give away both Samarcand and 

 Bokhara, as the price of a little black spot, setting off the features of 

 a pretty face ; for thou hast said in one of thy verses : 



" If that fair maiden of Shiraz would accept my love, 



I would give, for the dark mole which adorns her cheek, 

 Samarcand and Bokhara, f 



" Hafiz bowed to the ground before Timoor, and said to him : 

 " Alas ! O prince, it is this prodigality which is the cause of the mi- 

 sery in which you see me." This repartee delighted Timoor so much, 

 that instead of finding fault with him, he treated him with kindness." 



* " There can be .no doubt," observes M. de Sacy, in a note upon this passage, " that 

 the second expedition of Tamerlane, into the province of Fars, is here referred to, since it 

 was in that war that Shah Mansoor perished : wherefore I prefer the reading of one of 

 the MSS. 795 ; the other copies bear different dates. 



" Sherefeddin Ali places this expedition and the death of Shah Mansoor in the year 795, 

 But if Hafiz died, as Doulet Shah tells us, in 794, what he relates above must have taken 

 place at the first conquest of Shiraz. The prince who possessed that city having fled, it 

 surrendered to Timoor, who entered it, according to Sherefeddin, A. HE. 789. One of the 

 MSS. of Doulet Shah has the date 790, which is near enough. Probably the author con- 

 founded together the two expeditions of Timoor." 



•t " Sir Wm, Jones has exquisitely paraphrased the entire ode from whence this verse 

 is taken. The lines above quoted are thus rendered by him, Avithout allusion to the 

 mole : 



Sweet maid, if thou would'st charm my sight, 



And bid these arms thy neck infold ; 



That rosy cheek, that lily hand, 



"Would give thy poet more delight 



Than all Bokhara's vaunted gold, 



Than all the gems of Samarcand." 



The verse in the original is as follows : 



