The Memoirs of Bābur 911.8.4

911.8.4

Āṣafī was another,[1137] he taking Āṣafī for his pen-name because he was a wazīr's son. His verse does not want for grace or sentiment, but has no merit through passion and ecstacy. He himself made the claim, "I have never packed up (_būlmādī_) my odes to make the oasis (_wādī_) of a collection."[1138] This was affectation, his younger brothers and his intimates having collected his odes. He wrote little else but odes. He waited on me when I went into Khurāsān (912 AH.). Banā'i was another; he was a native of Herī and took such a pen-name (Banā'i) on account of his father Ustād Muḥammad _Sabz-banā_.[1139] His odes have grace and ecstacy. One poem (_mas̤nawī_) of his on the topic of fruits, is in the _mutaqārib_ measure;[1140] it is random and not worked up. Another short poem is in the _khafīf_ measure, so also is a longer one finished towards the end of his life. He will have known nothing of music in his young days and `Alī-sher Beg seems to have taunted him about it, so one winter when the Mīrzā, taking `Alī-sher Beg with him, went to winter in Merv, Banā'i stayed behind in Herī and so applied himself to study music that before the heats he had composed several works. These he played and sang, airs with variations, when the Mīrzā came back to Herī in the heats. [Sidenote: Fol. 180.] All amazed, `Alī-sher Beg praised him. His musical compositions are perfect;