y
himself proclaims (i. p. 96), and images and ideas from Hafid, familiar
to us from preceding chapters, meet us everywhere. The stature like a
cypress, the nightingale and the rose, the verses like pearls on a
string, and others could be cited as instances. Other authors are also
laid under contribution; thus the comparison of Mirza Schaffy to a bee
seems to have been suggested by a maxim of Sa'di (_Gul._ viii. No. 77,
ed. Platts; K.S. p. 268), where a wise man without practice is called a
bee without honey, and the thought in the last verse of "Die Rose auch"
(vol. ii. p. 85), that the rose cannot do without dirt and the
nightingale feeds on worms, is a reminiscence of a story of Nidami which
we had occasion to cite in the chapter on Rueckert (see p. 43). In one
case a poem contains a Persian proverb. Mirza Schaffy criticises the
opinions of the Shah's viziers in the words: "Ich hoere das Geklapper
einer Muehle, doch sehe ich kein Mehl" (i, 85), a literal rendering of

[Arabic]

Of course the _mullas_ and hypocrites in general are roundly scored,
especially in chapter 27, where the sage, angered by the reproaches
which the _mustahid_ has made to him for his bad conduct and irreligious
poetry, gives vent to his sentiments of disgust in a number of poems
(vol. ii. p. 137 seq.). Bodenstedt undoubtedly had in mind the
persecutions to which Hafid was subject, culminating in the refusal of
the priests to give him regular burial and giving rise to the famous
story of the _fatva_.

The tavern and the praise of wine are, of course, bound to be prominent
features. In the same _credo_ where Mirza Schaffy proclaims Hafid as
his teacher he also proclaims the tavern as his house of prayer (i. p.
96), and so he celebrates the day when he quit the mosque for the
wine-house (i. p. 98; cf. H. 213. 4). The well known poem "Aus dem
Feuerquell des Weines" (i. p. 106) is in sentiment exactly like a
quatrain of 'Umar Xayyam (Bodl. ed. Heron-Allen, Boston, 1898, No. 78;
Whinfield, 195); the last verse is based on a couplet of Sa'di (_Gul._
i. 4, last _qit'ah_, Platts, p. 18) which is cited immediately after the
poem itself (i. p. 107).

A collection of Hafizian songs would scarcely be complete without a song
in praise of Shiraz. This we get in vol. ii. p. 48, where Shiraz is
compared to Tiflis; and just as the former was made famous through
Hafid, so the latter will become famous through Mirza Schaffy. Little
did the worthy sage of