Early New Persian versification

There is very little evidence of Iranian poetry during the two centuries after the downfall of the Sasanian Empire. Nevertheless, some poems have been documented in the works of certain historians.⁴² Among these poems are a handful that are similar to Arabic poetry in that their primary metrical constituent is the quantity of syllables. This lack of documented Iranian poetry is because Arab and many Iranian scholars at that time considered only the poems based on the quantity of syllables to be real poetry. Poems not based on the quantity of syllables were not taken into account or documented (compare with Khāleqī Mutlaq 2010). In a work by the Persian historian, ʕUfī (1171-1242), entitled Lubāb ul-Albāb (written about 1228, reproduced in a famous Iranian Anthology, edited by Nafīsī, 1957), it is claimed that Bahrām-e Gur, the fifteenth Sasanian king, was one of the first to compose poetry in Persian, even though he ruled from AD 420 to 438. In another historical work, Tārīx-e Sīstān (edited by Bahār 2002:209-210; which was written and edited over a period from about AD 1053 to 1325) it is stated that Vasīf, who was the secretary of Yaʕqub-e Lais-e Safārī (AD 840-879) (the founder of Safārīd dynasty in Sīstān), was the first New Persian poet. The metrical system of his poems is similar to later official Persian poetry in that the meter is based on the quantity of syllables. This is shown by the following scansion⁴³ of the first couplet:⁴⁴⁴⁵

42 Some of these historical works are discussed by the following modern sources: Khāleqī Mutlaq (2010), Qazvini (1954:34-45), Lazard (1982), and in the article by Rempis (1951) entitled ―Die ältesten Dichtungen in Neupersisch‖. Of these historical works, I have not had the opportunity to personally study the following: Tārīx-e Tabarī by Tabarī (839-923 AD); Kitāb ul-Aghānī by Abulfaraj Esfahānī (897-967 AD); Al-Masālik w al- Mamālik by Ibn-e Khurdādbēh; and Lubāb ul-Albāb (written around 1228 by ʕUfi, who lived from 1171 to 1242; this is an ancient Iranian anthology, the modern publication was edited by Nafīsī, 1957). The two historical works that I have studied are Tārīx-e Sīstān (composed before 1460, perhaps in the 1300s, by one or more unknown authors) and Al-Muʕajjam fī Maʕāyīr Ašʕār al-ʕAjam (composed 1232-33) by Qays Rāzī.

43 A short syllable has the structure of CV (that is, a consonant followed by a short vowel). A long syllable has the structure of either CV (a consonant followed by a long vowel) or (C)VC(C), that is, any syllable ending in one or more consonants, thus: VC, CVC, or CVCC (where the vowel may be short or long).

44 This poem is quoted and transcribed as well by Christian Rempis in the article ―Die ältesten Dichtungen in Neupersisch‖ (1951). Rempis gives 867-870 as the date of the composition of this poem.

45 Compare with Shamissa (2004: āšnāyi ba ʕaruz u qāfye ‗An introduction to prosody‘, pp. 29-37 and 49-64.

(7) ماع ّ َصاخ ىاِج ىاسیها َک یسیها یا

ei, amīr ī, ki amīrān-e ǰahān, xāṣṣa u ʕām O, you, the Amir, who (is over) all the Amirs of the world, (over) lords and common men - u - - / u u - - / u u - - / u u -⁴⁶

ملاغ ّ دٌثکس ّ یلاْه ّ سکاچ ّ ٍدٌت

bande uδ čākar u mowlā-y u sakband⁴⁷ u ġulām

slaves and labourers, majesties and royal servants and other servants

- u - - / u u - - / u u - - / u u -

We know that the Iranian poets‘ practice of imitating the Arabic metrical system could not have been introduced before Al-Khalīl (who died around AD 786 or 791) who developed al-Arud, which was a way of describing the prosody and metrical system of Arabic poetry.

Moreover, we assume that Iranian poets adopted the Arabic metrical system as a gradual process that took several centuries. As Khāleqī Mutlaq (1990:48-63) notes, by the second and third centuries after Hijra (that is by AD 815 or 915) Iranian poets were prepared to adopt the Arabic metrical system. He further explains that the completion of this process probably took another two or three centuries, and that, most likely, the first poets to compose poems based on the Arabic metrical system were Iranian poets who knew Arabic poetry well. According to Qazvīnī (1953:36), a poem credited to Abul Abbās Marvazī could not have been the first New Persian poem, since Al-Khalīl died around AD 791, and Marvazī would have composed his poem eighteen years after the death of Al-Khalīl. So, according to Qazvīnī the form of Arabic poetry could not have spread so quickly after the death of Al-Khalīl.

Unfortunately, there are very few documented poems that are not based on the metrical system of Arabic described in the historical works. There are, in fact, only three such short poems that most modern scholars count as examples of early New Persian poetry after the arrival of Islam.

46 In traditional prosodic terminology, the scholar used a derivative form of the root of the verb faʕala (to do) to describe the rhythm of a particular rokn (see Thiesen 1982:13). According to the traditional meter, the meter of this poem is: faʕelāton faʕelāton, faʕelāton, faʕelāt. However, it is also possible for the first syllable to be long instead of short. Thus, the poet has the choice of using fāʕelāton instead of faʕelāton at the beginning of the line.

47 The term sakband refers to a muzzle that binds the mouth of a dog. But during this period in Persia, the term referred to a close servant of the king.

As mentioned before, ʕUfī (1171-1242) in Lubāb ul-Albāb identifies Bahrām-e Gur as one of the first persons to compose poetry in Persian; but since Bahrām-e Gur was the fifteenth Sasanian king who ruled from 420 to 438, he cannot be counted as a New Persian poet. Khāleqī Mutlaq writes that the poem of Bahrām-e Gur must instead be accepted as the oldest Darig poem of the Sasanian dynasty. According to Khāleqī Mutlaq, Darig was the oral language of the Sasanian dynasty (AD 224 to 651). However, ʕUfī claimed that he had read the Divan of Bahrām-e Gur in the library named Sarpol in the Bokhārā Bazaar. He gave us only one couplet by Bahrām-e Gur:

(8) manam ān šīr-e gale, manam ān pīl-e yale I am that lion of that shepherd, I am that strong elephant

U - - - U U U, U - - - U U U '- - - '- / - - '- // '- - - '- / - - - (9) َلثجْت نتیٌک ،زْگ ماسِت يه ماً

nām-e man bahrām-e gur, konyatam bujebele My name is Bahram Gur, (and) the name of my father is Bujebele

- U - - - U -, - U - - U U U '- - '- / - '- / - '- // - '-/ - - '- / - -

In the above two lines, we have illustrated the metrical structure by means of two types of scansion: one for quantity (short versus long) and one for accent (stressed versus unstressed).

The above scansion based on quantity does not reveal a regular system. But the scansion based on accent, which also marks the position of caesura (marked as // appear after the seventh syllable), reveals some degree of regularity.

Ibn-e Mofarigh was another poet who is considered to be one of the pioneers of Persian poetry in the early Islamic period. In Tārīx-e Sīstān, there is a long report about him, which is given in a poem. The poem is like a duet in that it has two parts. In one part, some children ask:⁴⁸

48 I have chosen to cite the emended text by Christian Rempis.

(10) تسیش يیا تسیش يیا⁴⁹تسیش

šīst⁵⁰ īn šīst īn šīst What is (this)? What is this? What is this?

- U - - U - -U

In the other part, Ibn-e Mufaragh replies:

(11) تسا ةیتش تازاصع ّ

uδ ʕusārāt-ē zabīb ast and (it is) the syrup of dried fruits U U - - - U - U -

تسا یثسّز نُ َیوس ّ

uδ sumiyya ham rōspī(k) ast and Somaye is a prostitute U U U - - -

تسا ریثً ّ تستآ ...

… āb ast uδ nabīδ ast (it) is water and honey - - - U - U - U

تسا یپ ّ َتسف َثًد ّ

uδ dumbak-ē farbih uδ pī(w) ast and (its) tail is large and fat U - U - - - U - - U

In both of the above poems, the quantity of syllables, as shown by the scansion, does not reveal any regularity and therefore it has no metrical value. Instead, it seems that their meter is based on patterns of stressed syllables (which we will not try to show here because none of my sources offers a scansion).

Ibn-e Khurdād Beh (AD 820-912), in Kitāb al-Masālik w‟al-Mamālik (composed around AD 844-848), documented two couplets from Abu al-Yanbaxī ʕabbas ibn-e Tarxān (who died sometime before AD 846). The couplets read as follows (as quoted in Khāleqī Mutlaq 2010):

49 Qazvīnī and Khāleqī have quoted this word as čīst.

50 The quantity of the syllable šīst is counted as extra-long and is represented by -U.

(12) دٌهدٌگ دٌقسوس

samarqand gandmand O, ruined (city of) Samarqand!

U - - U - - U رت ی تٌ

ک ی دٌگفا

be dīnat kī afgand Who did this to you?

- - - - U - U

ِت ًَ شاش شا ی

؟

az šāš na behī?` You are … (?) U - U U U -

ِف ،َت َشیوُ

!ی

hamīše beh, fahī Be always well, bravo!

U - U - U -

The above scansion based on syllable quantity does not reveal any regularity. Instead, it may be that the number of syllables and probably also the position of the caesura are the metrical constituents.

To summarize our discussion so far, early New Persian versification, as illustrated by the above examples (which are not examples of official Persian poetry according to Khāleqī Mutlaq 2010), appears to be more similar to Pre-Islamic poetry than to Arabic-style official Persian poetry. The meter of Arabic-style official Persian poetry is based on the number and quantity of syllables, while these examples of New Persian poetry seem more like later forms of Persian folk poetry, where instead stress patterns count as the main metrical constituent (compare with Tabibzadeh 2004). Therefore, we assume that the Pre-Islamic poetic form was not continued in official Persian poetry but in folk Persian poetry. In subsequent sections in this dissertation, we shall show that, this type of meter (where stress and probably also caesura are primary constituents), was continued in a variety of folkloric genres, including in fahlavīāt as well as in Kurdish and Gūrānī folk poetic forms.

And finally, we can offer the summary observation that the metrical system of many Iranian languages, including the system found in Gūrānī poetry, is based on the prosody of Iranian languages. In contrast, a metrical system based on the quantity of syllables is

something that has been borrowed from other languages, especially Arabic. Although some Iranian poetry, such as official Persian poetry and classical Kurdish poetry, have followed this foreign system, others poetic traditions, including those of folk Persian, folk Kurdish as well as folk and classical Gūrānī, did not follow this system.