A literary history of Persia

132 THE SASANIAN PERIODBt-guflam, 'Man nishasta dar Madd' in,Husayn andar Madina hast sdktn:1Muhdl-ast in sukhun!' Farmiid Zahrd,'Hasan dyad bi-sarddri dar injd ;'Tu mi-gardi asir, ay bi-qarina ;'Barand-at az Madd 'in dar Madina;1Bi-farzandam Husayn paywand sdzi,'Mara az nasl-i-khud khursand sdzi..'Zi nasl-at null Imam dyad bi-dawrdnlKi na-b'wad mislashdn dar ddr-i-dawrdn!" Born of the race of Yazdigird the KingFrom Nushirwan my origin I trace.What time kind Fortune naught but joy did bringIn Ray's proud city was my home and place.There in my father's palace once at nightIn sleep to me came Fatima ' the Bright ' ;'O Shahr-banu' thus the vision cried'I give thee to Husayn to be his bride I*'Said I, Behold Mada'in is my home,And how shall I to far Madina roam? 1''Impossible But Fatima !cried, Nay,Hasan shall hither come in war's array,And bear thee hence, a prisoner of war,From this Mada'in to Madina far,Where, joined in wedlock with Husayn, my boy,Thou shalt bear children who will be my joy.For nine Imams to thee shall owe their birth,' "The like of whom hath not been seen on earth !A few lines further on occurs a passage so characteristic of1Madina in Arabia means " the city," and Mada'in is its plural. Theancient Yathrib, when honoured by the flight thither of the Prophet"Muhammad, was called Madina tu'n-Nabi, the City of the Prophet," orsimply al-Madina, " the City." By Mada'in Ctesiphon, the ancient Sasaniancapital in Chaldaea, is meant. It is said by the Arabian geographers tohave been so called because it was formed by the fusion and coalescenceof seven cities (madd'in). See Barbier de Meynard's Did. de la Perse,p. 519. The confusion between Ray (the ancient Rhagae, near the modernTihran) and Ctesiphon is merely one indication of the essentially popularand unscientific character of these ta'ziyas, which makes their testimonyto the national feeling the more significant. The sentiments embodied bythem are not those of pedants, but of the nation.