A literary history of Persia

446 THE LITERATURE OF PERSIA(including the " Circle of Sayfu'd-Dawla," Abu Firas, the Houseof Hamddn and al-Mutanabbi), Egypt, the Maghrib andMosul ;the second, in ten chapters (pp. 316), with the poets of(notably the Sahib Isma'il b. 'Abbad),Baghdad and Arabian 'Iraq who flourished under the patronageof the noble House of Buwayh the; third, in ten chapters(pp. 290), with the poets of Persia (except Khurasan), whowere patronised by the Buwayhids of Persia and their ministersand the rulers of Tabaristdn,especially the Ziydrid Qabus b. Washmgfr, a glowingencomium of whose virtues and talents concludes the volume ;and the fourth and last,also in ten chapters (pp. 332), withthe poets of Khurasan and Khwdrazm, who flourished .underthe protection of the House of Samdn.This work is a perfecttreasury of information as to the literary condition of Persia inthis period (circ. A.H. 350-403 = A.D. 961-1012), and gives usan extraordinaryidea of the extent to which the Arabiceven as far aslanguage was cultivated throughout Persia,Khwdrazm, at this time for here;we find Persian poetsaddressing their Persian patrons in excellent Arabic verse,so thatoccasionally extemporised on the spur of the moment ;it would seem that at this epoch Arabic must have been as wellunderstood in Persia by persons of education as isEnglish inWales at the present time ;and that there were eloquentPersians then who could wield the Arabic language as skilfullyand successfullyas several Welsh orators can the Englishlanguage in this our day. This is certainly a far closer analogythan that afforded by the Greek and Latin verses now producedin England by classical scholars, which, however good they maybe, are the outcome of much thought and labour, and lack, Iimagine, the quality of spontaneity. In order to ascertain theeffect produced by these Arabic verses composed by Persianpoets on one whose native language was Arabic, and who knewno Persian, though deeplylearned in his own tongue and itsliterature, I seized the occasion of a visit paidto me atCambridge two or three summers ago by Shaykh Abu'n-Nasr,