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Jamaleddin Abu Mohammad Elyas ebn Yusef ebn Zaki ebn Moayed Nizami Ganjavi
Great Romantic Poet of Iran
1140-1230 AD
Nizami spent 30 years, composing his "Khamseh" (Five Treasures), of which best-known in "Khosro" and "Shirin".
He, also, composed moral poems.
He dedicated his poems to various rulers, but avoided court life.
Works exhibit extravagant imagination are highly ornamented.
The first epic of Nizami was "Khosro and Shirin", which relates the love story of King of Persia and beautiful Princess Shirin. Farhad was an eminent sculptor, whose passionate love for the same maiden gave the monarch vexation. To remove him from his court, King required him to hew a channel for a river through the lofty mountain, Bisotoun, and to decorate it with sculpture. He promised also that if Farhad would accomplish this stupendous task, he would receive as his bride the object of his love. The enamored artist accepted the work on his condition. It is related that as he struck the rock, he constantly invoked the name of Shirin.
Farhad, the Sculptor
On lofty Bisotoun the lingering sun
Looks down on ceaseless labors, long begun;
Mountain trembles to the echoing sound
Of falling rocks that from her sides rebound.
Each day, all respite, all repose, denied,
Without a pause the thundering strokes are piled;
The mist of night around summit coils,
But still Farhad, the lover-artist, toils.
And still, the flashes of his axe between,
A hundred arms are weak one block to move
Of thousands molded by the hand of love
Into fantastic shapes and forms of grace,
That crowd each nook of that majestic place.
The piles give way, rocky peaks divide,
The stream comes gushing on, a foaming tide,-
A mighty work for ages to remain,
The token of his passion and his pain.
As flows the milky flood from God's throne,
Rushes the torrent from the yielding stone.
And, sculptured there, amazed, stern Khosro stands,
And frowning seas obeyed his harsh commands:
While she, the fair beloved, with being rife,
Awakes from glowing marble into life.
O hapless youth? O toil repaid by woe!
A king thy rival, and the world thy foe.
Will she wealth, splendor, pomp, for thee resign,
And only genius, truth, and passion thine?
Around the pair, lo! chiseled courtiers wait,
And slaves and pages grouped in solemn state;
From columns imaged wreaths their garlands throw,
And fretted roofs with stars appear to glow:
Fresh leaves and blossoms seem around to spring,
And feathered throngs their loves seem murmuring.
Hands of Peris might have wrought these stems
where dew-drops hang their fragile diadems,
And strings of pearl and sharp-cut diamonds shine,
New from the wave, or recent from the mine.
"Alas, Shirin!" at every stroke he cries,
A every stroke fresh miracles arise.
"For thee my life one ceaseless toil has been;
Inspire my soul anew, alas, Shirin!"
The Eye of Charity
One Evening Jesus lingered in market-place,
Teaching the people parables of truth and grace,
When in the square remote a crowd was seen to ride,
And stop with loathing gestures and abhorring cries.
Master and his meek disciples went to see
What cause this commotion and disgust could be,
And found a poor dead dog beside the gutter laid:
Revolting sight! at which each face its hate betrayed.
One held his nose, one shut his eyes, one turned away:
And all among themselves began aloud to say,
"Detested creature! he pollutes the earth and the air!"
"His eyes are blear!", "His ears are foul!", "His ribs are bare!"
"In his torn hide there's not a decent shoe-string left!"
"No doubt the execrable cur was hung for theft!"
Then Jesus spoke, and dropped on him this saving wreath,
"Even pearls are dark before the whiteness of his teeth!"
The pelting crowd grew silent and ashamed, like one
Rebuked by sight of wisdom higher than his own;
And one exclaimed, "No creature so accursed can be,
But some good thing in him a loving eye will see."
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