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124*,
tfoTES ON THE SECOND DISCOURSE
in trust, and which we in turn should transmit to our descendants
untampered with and unaltered. For should it be allowed that from
onc^
the Ume of Pirdawsi until now, a period of nearly a thousand years*
everyone should emend the verses of the Shdh-ndma in accordance with
his own whims and fancies, no trace or sign would now remain of
this Royal Treasure, this Mine of Jewels a-m" Coral, which constitutes
. the greatest literary glory of Persia, arid is the guarantee of the per-
petuation of our national tongue.
" I actually heard a certain Persian scholar in Paris say :
'
My Fate
father, besides having no rival in all sciences and accomplishments,
possessed a special talent* wherein no one could equal him. This fyas
that any 'manuscript work of an ancient writer, from the beginning, end
or middle of which some leaves had be^n lost, used to be given to
my father, who, in the course of one or two nights, would supply the
missing portion with a composition of his own in the same style and cast
as the rest of the book, and would add it to the original and it so
;
closely resembled! the other chapters and sections of the book that no
scholar or savant cguld decide whether these leaves formed part of the
book or were an addition to it.'
original
"
May God guide us into the Way
c
of Rectitude !
Note XX. Azraqi (Anecdote XVII).
(Text, p. 43 ; Persian notes, pp. 174-178.)
Abu" Bakr Zaynu'd-Dm ibn Isma'il al-Warraq (" the book-seller ") of
Herat, poetically surnamed Azraqi, would appear from a verse in tfneof
his poems (p. 174 of the Persian notes) to have borne the proper name of
Ja'far. His father Isma'il was the contemporary of Firdawsi, who, when
he fled from Sultan Mahmtid's wrath, was for six months in hiding in
his house at Herat.
t Most of Azraqi's panegyrics are in praise of two Saljuq princes',
Tughanshah ibn Alp Arslan, mentioned in the last note, and Amiranshah
ibn Qawurd. This Qawurd was the first of the Saljuq rulers of Kirman,
but, as his son Amiranshah did not ascend the throne, the date of his
death is not recorded, though he predeceased his Brother Sultanshah,
9 who died A.H. 476 (A.D. 1083-4).
Taqiyyu'd-Din of Kashan gives A.H. 527 (A.D. 1132-3) as the date
of Azraqi's death, which, however, must have taken place at least forty
years earlier. For in the first place 'Awfi says that " he was antecedent
to Mu'izzi," and secondly he makes no mention in his poems of Malikshah
or Sanjar or their nobles and ministers, which omission v/ould be almost
inconceivable if he lived in their time. Thirdly, Azraqi's father was the
contemporary of Firdawsi, who died sometime before A.H. 421 (A.D. 1030),
and it is evidently extremely improbable that he could have had a son
who was still living a century later. It is probable that Azraqi died before
A.H. 465 (A.D. 1072-3).
lRashidu'd-Dfn Watwat in his Had&iqrfs-Sihr ("Gardens of Magic")
criticizes Azraqi for his far-fetched and fantastic comparisons, and
especially comparisons to non-existent things, so that, for example, he
compares burning charcoal to a sea of musk with golden waves.
"
,
'
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