Muntakhab al-tawarikh 303: XCIII. ‘INAYATU-’LLAH THE SCRIBE.

303

He is a Shirazi, and is now employed in the imperial library as a librarian. He has a merry and nimble wit and occasionally writes poetry. The following verses are his:— “I am fallen, like a helpless bird, into the cage. My broken heart is like a soundless bell. Though I am more contemptible than an ant or a fly, I am suffocated by the straitness of the two worlds.” his works copied and illuminated, and nobody asks for them, the only copy for which he has had any sale being the solitary one which he himself sent abroad.
‘The power of pleasing and grace of diction are gifts of God.’
‘Urfi has a diwan of his collected poems, and a masnavi in the metre of the Makhzan-i-Asrar which is known throughout the world. The following few verses are quoted as a memorial of ‘Urfi: —
A quatrain.
“On the morrow, when the workers of every craft shall be summoned, When the good acts of Shaikh and Brahman shall be investigated, There shall be taken from thee not a grain that thou hast reaped, But for everything that thou hast not sown a harvest shall be required.”
The following couplets are by him: —
“He who thirsts for the blandishments of thy lip knows That the frown on thy forehead is a wave of the water of life.”
“Nobody has been born who can bear the pain of love; Every afflicted one has betrayed himself by changing colour as he told his story.”
“As I sing of love I weep bitterly, I am but an ignorant child and this is my first lesson.” with pride and conceit that he lost the regard of all, and he never reached old age. When he first came from his country to Fathpur he attached himself to Shaikh Faizi above all others, and in truth, the Shaikh treated him well, and in this last journey he lived in the Shaikh’s tents until the camp reached Atak, and was supplied with all the necessaries of life by the Shaikh; but at length, in accordance with the long-standing habit of the Shaikh, who is friendly with everybody for a week, a coolness sprang up between them, and ‘Urfi attached himself to Hakim Abu-'l-Fath, and afterwards, by means of a recommendation which he received from the Hakim, to the Khankhanan, with whom both his poetry and the esteem in which he was held made great progress daily. One day he went to Shaikh Faizi’s house and found him fondling a puppy. ‘Urfi asked, “What is the name of this child of my lord’s?” The Shaikh replied, “His name is well-known (‘Urfi),” and ‘Urfi replied at once, “May it be auspicious!” The Shaikh was very angry, but to no purpose.
Both ‘Urfi and Husain Sana’i have wonderful good fortune with their poetry, for there is no street or market in which the booksellers do not stand at the roadside selling copies of the divans of these two poets, and both Persians and Indians buy them as auspicious possessions, while it is quite otherwise with Shaikh Faizi, who has spent large sums from his jagirs in having