The Memoirs of Bābur 911.5.5

911.5.5

For as long as verse has been written in the Turkī tongue, no-one has written so much or so well as he. He wrote six books of poems (mas̤nawī), five of them answering to the Quintet (_Khamsah_),[1068] the sixth, entitled the _Lisānu'ṯ-ṯair_ (Tongue of the birds), was in the same metre as the _Manṯiqu'ṯ-ṯair_ (Speech of the birds).[1069] He put together four _dīwāns_ (collections) of odes, bearing the names, _Curiosities of Childhood_, _Marvels of Youth_, _Wonders of Manhood_ and _Advantages of Age_.[1070] There are good quatrains of his also. Some others of his compositions rank below those [Sidenote: Fol. 171.] mentioned; amongst them is a collection of his letters, imitating that of Maulānā `Abdu'r-raḥmān _Jāmī_ and aiming at gathering together every letter on any topic he had ever written to any person. He wrote also the _Mīzānu'l-aūzān_ (Measure of measures) on prosody; it is very worthless; he has made mistake in it about the metres of four out of twenty-four quatrains, while about other measures he has made mistake such as any-one who has given attention to prosody, will understand. He put a Persian _dīwān_ together also, Fānī (transitory) being his pen-name for Persian verse.[1071] Some couplets in it are not bad but for the most part it is flat and poor. In music also he composed good things (_nīma_), some excellent airs and preludes (_nakhsh u peshrau_).