384 



A brief notice of some of the 



[Oct. 



The answer of Hafiz, however, Recording to other authorities, was, 

 " Can the gifts of Hofiz ever impoverish Timoor ?" 



It appears from the works of Hafiz that he was led to expect prefer- 

 ment and reward from the king of Fezd, in which hope he was doomed 

 to hitter disappointment. He is sometimes styled Lissan-al ghaib, 

 the hidden tongue, from the mystic allusions with which his works are 

 supposed to abound. The appellation of Hafiz he obtained from his 

 perfect knowledge of the Koran — the Arabic word Hafiz, among other 

 meanings, signifying one who has the whole Koran by heart. 



Other Persian poets have had the same title — among the rest one 

 surnamed Ajim Rimi and another Halvdi, that is, the seller of sweet- 

 meats, who lived in the reign of Sultan Shah-rukh, son of Tamerlane. 



The poems of Hafiz were collected after his death into a Diwan by 

 his disciples, and chiefly by Si/ed Cassim Anwar who employed himself 

 constantly in committing them to memory. 



According to Herbelot they have been commented on by Ahmed Feri- 

 dun, who has explained the mystic allusions in the Turkish language. 

 The terms wine and love, which perpetually recur, he says, signify the 

 transports of a soul under the direction of a spiritual guide, who leads it 

 by elevated paths up to the summit of perfection. The odes in the Diwan 

 are arranged according to their Kadifa (the rhyming words of a poem), 

 which follow the order of the letters composing the Arabic alphabet. 



Hafiz lies interred at Shiraz in the Musalla or oratory. According 

 to Doulet Shah, when Sultan Baber took the city, Mahomed Mimai 

 erected a handsome chapel and monument over his remains. The tomb 

 remains to this day one of the principal lions of Shiraz — it is of white 

 marble bearing two of the odes of Hafiz beautifully cut, and is enclosed 

 in a quadrangle, called the Hafiziah planted with cypress trees, those 

 beautiful though mournful ornaments to most of the Mahomedan burial 

 grounds in India and Persia. 



Sir Wm. Ousely mentions that the Diwan of Hafiz is preserved as a 



Wahf <— C - J 3 religious property, in a chamber near the poet's grave. 

 He does not consider this volume to be the same as that described by 

 Pietro Delia Yalle, who visited the tomb in 1662. Shah Abas, then 

 king of Persia, had removed to his own library, the original autograph, 

 which had been deposited where the body lies. Sir William, however, 

 doubts whether such a book ever existed, since the poems of Hafiz 

 were not collected till after his death. This book is still celebrated 

 on account of the number of great men who have travelled to Shiraz 

 for the express purpose of consulting it for a sors. Among the rest, 

 that scourge of the east, Nadir Shah. The tomb at present, I believe, 

 is the resort of a number of idle dervises. 



Sir Wm. Jones, in his essay on the mystical poetry of the Persians 

 and Hindus, observes : " It has been made a question, whether the 



