No VII. Notice of the Life of Sádee-His Termagant Wife— Anagram on the Year of his Death-Nakhshebi's Tooti Nameh, or "Tales of a Parrot"-Specimen of a Story-teller's Manner-Effect of his Exhibition on the Audience-Commencement of the Rabbi's Intercourse with the Rajpoot-Story of Cassem the Miser of Bagdad-Fable of the Miser and Magpie -Anecdote of the Khalif Hesham. THE celebrated Persian poet, Sheikh Musluhuddeen Sâdee Sheerazee, most erudite Wilfred, as you will observe is implied in his last cognomen, was born at Sheeraz, the birthplace also of HAFIZ, about the end of the fifth century of the Hejira. He travelled a good deal into other countries for the sake of acquiring knowledge, and had the misfortune to be made captive by the Crusaders, who set him to work upon the fortifications of Tripoli. He was ransomed from this degrading situation by a merchant, whose daughter he married; but with her he appears not to have enjoyed so much happiness as might have been wished, as he pathetically mentions his hard case in some parts of his works, for the consolation of henpecked husbands in general. "Let the galled jade wince, most courteous Wilfred, I think your Honour and I are free." Poets, as well as other great men, have not unfrequently been unfortunate in this respect; but the celebrated Hafiz is thought to have been an exception. It is said that he was at some time married, most probably in the early part of life, to a very amiable woman, whose death he tenderly regrets in many of his verses. An ode of his on this subject has the following passage:-" Blest with such a wife, it was my desire to pass my latest days with her; but our wishes do not always keep pace with our power of accomplishing them. Worthy of a happier state than to live with me, she fled to that society of celestial beings from whom she derived her origin.” Very different, however, is poor Sâdee's account of his helpmate, as may be gathered from the following narrative, which I have translated out of the Persian, as it occurs in the second section of his "Goolistan." "HAVING once become tired of the society of my friends at Damascus, I set my head into the desert of the Holy Land, and took up my companionship with the wild animals, till a time when I was taken in captivity by the Franks. They put me in the ditch of Trablus,* to labour in the clay along with the Jews. One of the merchants of Haleb,† who had a preceding intimacy with me, happened to pass by, and, having recognised me, said, 'What kind of condition is this you are in, and what kind of accident has happened you?" I said A FRAGMENT.‡ "I fled from men to the mountains and the desert, "For from God there was not to me accomplish ment in any other way: * Tripoli. † Aleppo. In every sort of literary composition, even in dry chronicles, frigid annals, &c., it is very rare that the Oriental writers do not gratify their taste by quoting fragments of poetry, sometimes long and sometimes short, which serve either as authorities for facts, as ornaments of style, or as a relaxation to their readers.-ED. "You may lay it down as a rule, that whatever my state at this moment is, "When I am in bondage with those who are no men, it was necessary for me so to do. A COUPLET. 'One's feet in fetters in the presence of friends, He "He took pity on my condition, and having, for ten dinars,* procured my release from the captivity of the Franks, he took me with him to Haleb. had a daughter. He brought me into the bond of matrimony with her, with a marriage-portion of a hundred dinars. When some time had passed the daughter became ill-dispositioned, and began to use a contentious countenance, and a disobedient long tongue, and to hold my life in thraldom, according as they have said POETRY. A bad woman in the habitation of a good man, Beware, O! beware of connexion with the bad! Yea do thou O our Lord! keep us from the torment of the fire. * Ar. l, a gold coin, in value about nine shillings. Hence, Spanish Dinero money.-ED. 201881B "One time, having made long her malicious tongue, she said to me, Thou art only such a thing that my father, for ten dinars, purchased thee back from the captivity of the Franks.'-" Yes,” said I, "for ten dinars he purchased me back, and for a hundred dinars he put me into thraldom in thy hand POETRY. I have heard that a great man once set free At night he applied the knife to its throat: The spirit of the sheep complained against him thus,— 'How is it that thou hast ravished me from the claws of the wolf, When I see in the end that thou art a wolf to me thyself ?'" Sâdee died at a very advanced age, and was buried at Sheeraz, in the year of the Hejira 692 ;* which date is expressed in the following Arabic |