Manuchehri

Abu Najm Aḥmad ibn Qauṣ ibn Aḥmad Manūčihrī , a.k.a. Manuchehri Dāmghānī (fl. 1031–1040), was an eleventh-century court poet in Persia and in the estimation of J. W. Clinton, 'the third and last (after ʿUnṣurī and Farrukhī) of the major panegyrists of the early Ghaznawid court'. Among his poems is "The Turkish harpist".

Life

According to J. W. Clinton, 'very little is known of his life, and that little is derived exclusively from his poetry. Later tadhkira writers have expanded and distorted this modicum of information with a few, readily refuted speculations'. as autumn is here A cold wind is blowing from Khwarazm yonder Look at that vine-leaf which is on that vine-bough! It looks like the shirt of some dyers The farmer is biting the tip of his finger with wonder As in orchard and garden neither rose remains nor pomegranate flower.

There are 35 stanzas, each of three couplets, with the rhyme scheme aaaaax, bbbbbx, cccccx, etc. The poet plays on the similar sounding words: 'rise', 'fur', 'autumn'; 'vines' and 'dyers'. In addition there is alliteration of x, x, x, x, x (lines 1–2), b, r, b, r (line 3), r, r, r (line 4), and g, g (line 5), and assonance of ā, ā, ā (line 6).

The metre is 3.3.14 in Elwell-Sutton's classification, which is one of the various metres traditionally known as hazaj. It consists of the familiar rhythm (u u – –), but with the first two syllables missing. (See Persian metres.)

Influence The British modernist poet Basil Bunting published adaptions of a number of Manuchehri's poems from 1939 onwards, and a little of Manuhehri's sound-patterning seems to have influenced Bunting's English verse.

Editions and translations Kazimirski, A. de Biberstein (1886). Manoutchehri: Poète persan du 11ème siècle de notre ère (du 5ième de l'hégire): Texte, traduction, notes, et introduction historique. Paris. Klincksieck. (Another copy, dated 1887). Dīwān, ed. Muḥammad Dabīr-Siyāḳī, 3rd edn. Tehran. 1347/1968.