Muntakhab al-tawarikh 341.1

341.1

His name was Mirza Quli. He left a divan and was a master of poetical style. His taste in poetry was such that if he had lived till now most of the raw poetasters of to-day would have grown sick of trafficking in verse, and from the time in which he flourished until now none of our later versifiers can be mentioned beside him. He was for many years in the service of Naurang Khan, and wrote several brilliant encomiastic odes on him. It is said that on account of some suspicion against him something was at last, by order of Naurang Khan, put into his cup, and that he was thus sent from the world. His death took place in Malwa. The following verses are by him : — qasidahs, as the Salman of the age, but this is a great mistake, for his conceits suffer, to an extraordinary degree, from two defects common to the poets of Transoxiana, and are all frigid. He came twice to Hindustan and left the country again. The following are some of his most pointed verses:—
Since all the cash that Majnun had to show for his life was his grief for his beloved, May God pardon him in consideration of this cash, for he loved much!
“For loving I have found myself much blamed, I thought love an easy matter, but it proved to be difficult.”
“Since the meadow each night alight in the garden the lamp of the rose The tulip’s petal has burst into flame and both the petal and the black scar on it have been consumed.”