Muntakhab al-tawarikh 334: CXXIII. MAHWĪ.
Muntakhabu-t-tawārīkh (Ranking, Lowe, Haig) 334
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CXXIII. MAHWĪ.
334.1
This is the poetical name of Mir Mahmud the Munshi, who was for twenty-five years chief secretary to the empire of Hindustan. His daughter married Naqib Khan. He had some poetical talent, and wrote poetry like a secretary. The following quatrain is one which he wrote at the beginning of the divan of Bairam Khan:— “Of being and of a place of existence there was in the beginning no trace, For all things came into being by virtue of the two letters of the command ‘Be.’ Since these two letters were the key of existence They have become the opening couplet of the preface to the divan of things seen.” The following is another quatrain of his, an enigma on the name ‘Qasim’:— ches of philosophy, in logic, and in metaphysics he excelled all the learned men of the age. He went from Shiraz to the glorious city of Makkah, and there studied the Traditions under Shaikh Ibn Hajar and received a teaching diploma. Thence he went to the Dakin, and from the Dakin he came to Agra, where he attained a higher position than most learned and erudite men of former or recent times. He employed himself in giving instruction in arts and sciences until, in the year H. 974 (A.D. 1566-67), as has already been said, he departed to Paradise. His body, which was at first interred near that of Mir Khusrav (God's mercy be on him), was taken to Mashhad, and Mir Muhsin Razi found the following chronogram for his death:—
334.2
“When Mir Murtaza left this world It was as though knowledge departed from the race of Adam. To give the date of his departure Muhsin Said, ‘A paragon has departed from the world.’ ” The following couplet is one of the productions of the Mir’s noble genius:— “Ease of heart is not to be obtained from material possessions. The seed of ease of the heart is in the dispersal of material possessions.” It is probable that the source of this couplet is that passage in “Whose laughing lip is a load of sugar, Whose row of teeth is a string of pearls from ‘Adan, Whose musky locks are a net of calamity. Whose narcissus-like bewitching eye is seduction’s self; Thy fawn’s eyes are hunters of men, Thy glance, drawing blood from the heart, shoots sharp arrows, Thy ringlets work naught but magic, The glances of thy eyes seek but to draw blood from the heart, The down newly sprung draws on the jasmine of thy cheek a life-giving line of musk, Of thy grace cast a glance towards Mahwi O lovely one with heart of stone and body of silver!” Shaikh Faizi also, in the days of his ignorance and while he was yet a boy, practised the same metrical trick, and wrote the following ode in four metres:—
334.3
“O thou, whose goodly figure resembles a moving cypress, Whose arched eyebrow is bent like a bow, The curl of whose locks is a snare of love’s madness, Whose dark ringlet is the desire of Paradise, Thy bewitching lip is the water of life, The lovely down on thy cheek is the Khizr of these days, Thy fawn’s eyes are calamity’s self, Even a raging tiger would fall before the eyes of such a fawn, The wretched Faizi is bound in the bonds of thy locks, All the world is smitten with thy dark ringlets.” One day, about the time when this hasty essay was being written, Shaikh Faizi saw in my hand the Tazkirah of Mir There is a capricious one the dust of whose door step is my lodging, From whom I have gained naught but cruelty and oppression When I see her face over the corner of the roof Her eye shoots the arrow of cruelty at my heart. This is a couplet of his— “Perfume not the jasmine with musk, Draw not a line of ambergris around the sun.” He wrote the following quatrain to describe a horse which had been given to him by the emperor Humayun: “O King with an army like that of Jamshid, monarch of boundless power, I have a horse which is exceedingly lean and weak, When I mount him, at every two or three steps which he takes He falls, saying, ‘Now you carry me for two or three steps.’ ” The source of this quatrain is certainly that well-known couplet, by whom I know not— “He goes one or two steps and then says, ‘Now do you carry me for an hour or so?’ ”
334.4
Following the idea expressed in the following couplet by a master of poetry, “O lovely one with heart of stone and body of silver, Whose lip is comfort and whose glance is destruction,” he wrote the following ode in two metres— “O thou whose lovely face is the envy of the jasmine, Whose comely stature is the cypress of the meadow, The following is an enigma by him on the word ruh (‘ the soul’) : — “ O thou whose wavy locks waylay souls whom thou chidest, O thou, the painful longing for whom pours balm on broken hearts, Is it the reflection of thy lip that is seen in water, Or is it a rose-petal fallen into a cup of wine ?” The following is another enigma, on the name of Husain Shah:— “ How pleasant to me is the habitation in my eyes of that moonlike beauty ! How pleasant is the acceptable aspect of her moonlike face ! Muhsin has placed his head on her feet, For her face like the sun, and yet like the moon, is pleasant.”