he reader will be struck with the apparent want of unity in many of the
Odes. The Orientals compare each couplet to a single pearl and the
entire "Ghazal," or Ode, to a string of pearls. It is the rhyme, not
necessarily the sense, which links them together. Hence the single
pearls or couplets may often be arranged in various orders without
injury to the general effect; and it would probably be impossible to
find two manuscripts either containing the same number of Odes, or
having the same couplets following each other in the same order.

INTRODUCTION

We are told in the Persian histories that when Tamerlane, on his
victorious progress through the East, had reached Shiraz, he halted
before the gates of the city and sent two of his followers to search in
the bazar for a certain dervish Muhammad Shams-ad-din, better known to
the world by the name of Hafiz. And when this man of religion, wearing
the simple woollen garment of a Sufi, was brought into the presence of
the great conqueror, he was nothing abashed at the blaze of silks and
jewelry which decorated the pavilion where Tamerlane sat in state. And
Tamerlane, meeting the poet with a frown of anger, said, "Art not thou
the insolent verse-monger who didst offer my two great cities Samarkand
and Bokhara for the black mole upon thy lady's cheek?" "It is true,"
replied Hafiz calmly, smiling, "and indeed my munificence has been so
great throughout my life, that it has left me destitute, so that I shall
be hereafter dependent upon thy generosity for a livelihood." The reply
of the poet, as well as his imperturbable self-possession, pleased the
Asiatic Alexander, and he dismissed Hafiz with a liberal present.

This story, we are told, cannot be true, for Tamerlane did not reach
Shiraz until after the death of the greatest of Persian lyric poets; but
if it is not true in fact, it is true in spirit, and gives the real key
to the character of Hafiz. For we must look upon Hafiz as one of the few
poets in the world who utters an unbroken strain of joy and contentment.
His poverty was to him a constant fountain of satisfaction, and he
frankly took the natural joys of life as they came, supported under
every vicissitude by his religious sense of the goodness and kindliness
of the One God, manifested in everything in the world that was sweet and
genial, and beautiful to behold. It is strange that we have to go to the
literature of Persia to find a poet whose deep religious convic