The Memoirs of Bābur 911.9
The Bābur-nāma in English (A. S. Beveridge) 911.9
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911.9.1
Yūsuf the wonderful (_badī_)[1152] was another. He was from the Farghāna country; his odes are said not to be bad. Āhī was another, a good ode-writer, latterly in Ibn-i-ḥusain Mīrzā's service, and _ṣāḥib-i-dīwān_.[1153] Muḥammad _Ṣāliḥ_ was another.[1154] His odes are tasty but better-flavoured than correct. There is Turkī verse of his also, not badly written. He went to Shaibāq Khān later on and found complete favour. He wrote a Turkī poem (_mas̤nawī_), named from Shaibāq Khān, in the _raml masaddas majnūn_ measure, that is to say the metre of the _Subḥat_.[1155] It is feeble and flat; Muḥammad _Ṣāliḥ_'s reader soon ceases to believe in him.[1156] Here is one of his good couplets:— A fat man (Taṃbal) has gained the land of Farghāna, Making Farghāna the house of the fat-man (Taṃbal-khāna). Farghāna is known also as Taṃbal-khāna.[1157] I do not know whether the above couplet is found in the _mas̤nawī_ mentioned. Muḥammad _Ṣāliḥ_ was a very wicked, tyrannical and heartless person.[1158] Maulānā Shāh Ḥusain _Kāmī_[1159] was another. There are not-bad verses of his; he wrote odes, and also seems to have put a _dīwān_ together.
911.9.2
Hilālī (New-moon) was another; he is still alive.[1160] Correct and graceful though his odes are, they make little impression. There is a _dīwān_ of his;[1161] and there is also the poem (_mas̤nawī_) in the [Sidenote: Fol. 181b.] _khafīf_ measure, entitled _Shāh and Darwīsh_ of which, fair though many couplets are, the basis and purport are hollow and bad. Ancient poets when writing of love and the lover, have represented the lover as a man and the beloved as a woman; but Hilālī has made the lover a darwīsh, the beloved a king, with the result that the couplets containing the king's acts and words, set him forth as shameless and abominable. It is an extreme effrontery in Hilālī that for a poem's sake he should describe a young man and that young man a king, as resembling the shameless and immoral.[1162] It is heard-said that Hilālī had a very retentive memory, and that he had by heart 30 or 40,000 couplets, and the greater part of the Two Quintets,—all most useful for the minutiae of prosody and the art of verse. Ahlī[1163] was another; he was of the common people (_`āmī_), wrote verse not bad, even produced a _dīwān_. (_l. Artists._) Of fine pen-men there were many; the one standing-out in _nakhsh ta`līq_ was Sl. `Alī of Mashhad[1164] who copied many books for the Mīrzā and for `Alī-sher Beg, writing daily 30 couplets for the first, 20 for the second.
911.9.3
Of the painters, one was Bih-zād.[1165] His work was very dainty but he did not draw beardless faces well; he used greatly to lengthen the double chin (_ghab-ghab_); bearded faces he drew admirably. Shāh Muz̤affar was another; he painted dainty portraits, [Sidenote: Fol. 182.] representing the hair very daintily.[1166] Short life was granted him; he left the world when on his upward way to fame. Of musicians, as has been said, no-one played the dulcimer so well as Khwāja `Abdu'l-lāh _Marwārīd_. Qul-i-muḥammad the lutanist (_`aūdī_) was another; he also played the guitar (_ghichak_) beautifully and added three strings to it. For many and good preludes (_peshrau_) he had not his equal amongst composers or performers, but this is only true of his preludes. Shaikhī the flautist (_nāyī_) was another; it is said he played also the lute and the guitar, and that he had played the flute from his 12th or 13th year. He once produced a wonderful air on the flute, at one of Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's assemblies; Qul-i-muḥammad could not reproduce it on the guitar, so declared this a worthless instrument; Shaikhī _Nāyī_ at once took the guitar from Qul-i-muḥammad's hands and played the air on it, well and in perfect tune. They say he was so expert in music that having once heard an air, he was able to say, "This or that is the tune of so-and-so's or so-and-so's flute."[1167] He composed few works; one or two airs are heard of.
911.9.4
Shāh Qulī the guitar-player was another; he was of `Irāq, came into Khurāsān, practised playing, and succeeded. He composed many airs, preludes and works (_nakhsh, peshrau u aīshlār_). Ḥusain the lutanist was another; he composed and played with taste; he would twist the strings of his lute into one and play on that. His fault was affectation about playing. He [Sidenote: Fol. 182b.] made a fuss once when Shaibāq Khān ordered him to play, and not only played badly but on a worthless instrument he had brought in place of his own. The Khān saw through him at once and ordered him to be well beaten on the neck, there and then. This was the one good action Shaibāq Khān did in the world; it was well-done truly! a worse chastisement is the due of such affected mannikins! Ghulām-i-shādī (Slave of Festivity), the son of Shādī the reciter, was another of the musicians. Though he performed, he did it less well than those of the circle just described. There are excellent themes (_ṣūt_) and beautiful airs (_nakhsh_) of his; no-one in his day composed such airs and themes. In the end Shaibāq Khān sent him to the Qāzān Khān, Muḥammad Amīn; no further news has been heard of him. Mīr Azū was another composer, not a performer; he produced few works but those few were in good taste. Banā'i was also a musical composer; there are excellent airs and themes of his.
911.9.5
An unrivalled man was the wrestler Muḥammad Bū-sa`īd; he was foremost amongst the wrestlers, wrote verse too, composed themes and airs, one excellent air of his being in _chār-gāh_ (four-time),—and he was pleasant company. It is extraordinary that such accomplishments as his should be combined with wrestling.[1168] HISTORICAL NARRATIVE RESUMED. (_a. Burial of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā._) At the time Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā took his departure from the world, there were present of the Mīrzās only Badī'u'z-zamān Mīrzā and Muz̤affar-i-ḥusain Mīrzā. The latter had been his father's favourite son; his leading beg was Muḥammad Barandūq _Barlās_; his mother Khadīja Begīm had been the Mīrzā's most influential wife; and to him the Mīrzā's people had gathered. [Sidenote: Fol. 183.] For these reasons Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā had anxieties and thought of not coming,[1169] but Muz̤affar-i-ḥusain Mīrzā and Muḥammad Barandūq Beg themselves rode out, dispelled his fears and brought him in. Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā was carried into Herī and there buried in his own College with royal rites and ceremonies. (_b. A dual succession._)
911.9.6
At this crisis Ẕū'n-nūn Beg was also present. He, Muḥ. Barandūq Beg, the late Mīrzā's begs and those of the two (young) Mīrzās having assembled, decided to make the two Mīrzās joint-rulers in Herī. Ẕū'n-nūn Beg was to have control in Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's Gate, Muḥ. Barandūq Beg, in Muz̤affar-i-ḥusain Mīrzā's. Shaikh `Alī T̤aghāī was to be _dārogha_ in Herī for the first, Yūsuf-i-`alī for the second. Theirs was a strange plan! Partnership in rule is a thing unheard of; against it stand Shaikh Sa'dī's words in the Gulistān:—"Ten darwishes sleep under a blanket (_gilīm_); two kings find no room in a clime" (_aqlīm_).[1170]