Iranian Poetry
 
Roudaki  
To present a true picture of the birth of Iranian poetry, we must refer to Abu Abdullah Jafar ibne Mohammad Rudaki who preceded Ferdowsi and is considered as the first great Iranian poet. Rudaki was born blind in a village near Samarqand in the Ninth Century A.D. Rudaki translated "Kelileh-o-Demneh" from Arabic into Persian. It is the story of animals. Kelileh and Demneh are the names of two foxes who are the main characters of the story. It is a book of allegory. This great masterpiece had originally been brought to Iran from India by the order of Anu Shirvan. Adding some beautiful pieces of prose to it, it had been translated into Pahlavi language. It had then been translated into Arabic from Pahlavi by Ibn Moghafa. It had also been rewritten in prose by Abol-Ma'ali. Rudaki was not only a graceful poet but also a sweet singer who played the harp and lute skillfully and was much favored by the Samanid Amir Nasr ibne Ahmad. His most remarkable achievement, which made him known to the Samanid kings during the Ninth Century A.D., was composing and reciting the famous ballad " Juye Mulliyan" that persuaded the prince to abandon the siege of Herat, Afghanistan and return to his native Bukhara.* When Rudaki recited this verse the Amir grew so excited that he descended from his throne in Herat, presented 10 thousand dinars to Rudaki, mounted the nearest horse and rode to Bukhara

A sample of Rudaki's poems:

* "The Juye Mulliyan we call to mind,
We long for those dear friends long left behind.
The sands of Oxus, toilsome though they be, Beneath my feet were soft as silk to me.
Glad at the friends' return, the Oxus deep
Up to our girths in laughing waves shall leap.
Long live Bukhara! Be thou of good cheer!
Joyous towards thee hasteth our Amir!
The moon is the prince, Bukhara is the sky;
O sky, the moon shall light thee by and by! Bukhara is the meadow,
the cypress he; Receive at last,
o meadow, the cypress-tree!

  
Rudaki, who was born blind, was a ballad singer poet, and a minstrel whose tasnifs, or topical ballads, have mostly been used in composing songs and can be heard today at Persian feasts. Bal'ami, the prime minister of Ismail ibne Ahmad, the Samanid Emir who was himself a poet, considered Rudaki "peerless among both Persians and Arabs." Rudaki enjoys a high reputation among his successors, too. Mar'rufi of Balkh called him, "the king of poets". Even Onsori, the poet laureate of Sultan Mahmood of Ghazna, admitted that he could not rival Rudaki in the composition of lyrics, or odes. Towards the end of his life, Rudaki fell from favor with the Samanid kings, because he professed a different religious belief than that of the monarchs and he lived in poverty. But in the heyday of his fame he was pretty well off and he is said to have possessed two hundred slaves. A hundred camels were also needed to carry his baggage. As he is the very first poet in the Persian literary history, we can consider him the pioneer in Persian poetry. He is considered the master of the Persian Poetry and the King of the Poets.
 

"Bring me yon wine which you might'st call a melted ruby in its cup,
Or like a scimitar unsheathed, in the sun's noontide light held up.
"Tis the rose-water, though might'st say, yea thence distilled for purity;
Its sweetness falls, as somnolence's own balm steals over the vigil-wearied eye.
Thou might'st call the cup the cloud, the wine the raindrop from it cast,
Or say the joy that fills the heart whose prayer long looked-for comes at last.
Were there no wine all hearts would be a desert waste, forlorn and black,
But were our last life-breath extinct, the sight of wine would bring it back.
O if an eagle would but swoop, and bear the wine up to the sky,
For out of reach of all the base, who would not shout, "well done!" as I"?

He died in 941 A.H. (Edward Browne Vol. 1, p16-17) According to Awfi, his verses filled a hundred volumes; while in his Baharestan Abdolrahman Jami says that they amounted to one million and three hundred couplets. Of these only a very small number has survived. Out of some 242 couplets that were collected by Dr. Ethe and translated into German, we will produce the following fragment translated into English by professor Cowell: