Volume 2

A literary history of Persia / by Edward G. Browne.

  • Edward Granville Browne
Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A literary history of Persia / by Edward G. Browne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    47/596 (page 23)
    the mathnawi or double-rhyme, the tarj'd-band or <c return-tie,” the tarkib-band or “ composite-tie,” the mustazad or u comple¬ mented,” and the musammat ; to which may be added the murabba4 or a foursome,” the mukhammas or “ fivesome,” &c., up to the midashshar or cc tensome,” the “ foursome,” u five- some,” and u sixsome ” being by far the commonest. There is also the muwashshah, which was very popular amongst the Moors of Spain and the Maghrib, but is rarely met with in Persian. The mulammac, u patch-work,” or “ macaronic ” poem, composed in alternate lines or couplets in two or more different languages, has no separate form, and will be more suitably considered when we come to speak of Verse-subjects, or the classification of poems according to matter. The classification adopted in the Haft Qulzum (and also by Gladwin) is neither clear nor satisfactory. The tashbib, for instance, is merely that part of a qaslda which describes, to quote Gladwin, “the season of youth (shabdb) and beauty, being a description of one’s own feelings in love ; but in common use it implies that praise which is bestowed on any¬ thing [other than the person whose praises it is the c purpose ’ or object of the poet to celebrate, to which praises the tashbib merely serves as an introduction], and the relation of circum¬ stances, whether in celebration of love or any other subject.” The fard unit” or hemistich) and the qitja (“ fragment ”), as well as the bayt (or couplet, consisting of two hemistichs), have also no right to be reckoned as separate verse-forms, since the first and last are the elements of which every poem con¬ sists, and the a fragment ” is merely a piece of a qaslda, though it may be that no more of the qaslda was ever written, and, indeed, the productions of some few poets, notably Ibn Yamin (died a.d. 1344-45), consist entirely of such “fragments.” Again, the two forms of band, or poem in strophes separated either by a recurrent verse, or by verses which, though differ¬ ent, rhyme with one another and not with the verses of the preceding or succeeding band, may well be classed together ; as