Talk:Mu'izzi

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Amir Mu'izzi, the poet-layreate of Sanjar, had already established his reputation as a poet in the reign of Malikshah, from whose title Mu'izziu'd-Din ("The Glorifier of Reliegion") he derived his nom-de-guerre, as he himself relates in an anecdote contained in the Chahar Maqala and already cited in full in chapter i (pp.35-38) of this volume. He is called by the author of the work (p.55 of my translation) "one of the sweetest singers and most graceful wits in Persia, whose poetry reaches the highest level in freshness and sweetness, and excels in fluency and charm."

Awfi says that three Persian poets attained, under three different dinasties, to a consideration and wealth beyond compare, namely, Rudaki under the Samanids, Unsuri under Sultans of Ghazna, and Mu'izzi under the House of Seljuq. But Mu'izzi's end was a sad one, for he was accidentally shot by Sanjar while the latter was practising archery. Such, at least, is the ordinarily accepted story: but others say that he was only wounded, and recovered from his wound, in support of which view Rad-quli Khan cites the following verse, which, if genuine, certainly seems to bear out this view:

Миннат Худоеро, ки ба тири Худо ягон Ман банда бегунох нашудам кушта ройгон

"Thanks be to God that by the arrow of His Majesty I the innocent servant was not slain to no purpose!"

The same authority gives A>.H 542 (=A.D 1147-48) as the year of his death, and quotes a few verses in which Sana'f mourns of his loss. He adds that in the ghazal he follows the style of Farrukhi, and in the qasida of Unsuri. Here is a fairy typical fragment from one of the Mu'izzi's ghazals: -

"Her face were a moon, if o'er the moom could a cloud of musk blow free; And her stature a cypress, if cypresses bore flowers of anemone. For if to the crown of the cypress-tree could anemone-clustes cling, Perchance it might be accounted right such musk o'er the moon to fling.

For her rounded chin and her curved tress, alack! her lovers all Lend bended backs for her polo-sticks, and a heart for the polo-ball! Yet if hears should ache through the witchery of the Harut spells of her eye, her rubies twain are ever fain to offer the remedy."

When Awfi remarks that with Mu'izzi " the child of Rhetoric reached maturity," he probably means that in his verse for the first time we find in constant use all the once original and striking, but not hackneyed, similies with which every student of Persian poetry is familiar. Thus in the four couplets cited above we have the familiar comparison of a beautiful face to the moom, of a mass of black and fragrant hair to employed by Mu'izzi, and that most of them were first invented and brought into use by him.

A Literary History of Persia: (a.d. 1500-1924) By Edward Granville Browne, Browne E G