حبیب السیر 17.3

17.3

Firdusi was another one of the poets contemporary with Sultan Mahmud : his history is well known. It is written in the books of learned authors, that during his first years Firdusi took great pleasure in versification. It happened that at one time he received ill-treatment from somebody, upon which he set out for Ghaznin, which was the royal residence of the Sultan Mahmud, with the intention of lodging his complaint. When he arrived near that city, he saw in a certain garden three persons who were sitting together, and seemed to be very intimate. He conjectured that they were the servants of the Sultan, and said within himself, " I will go to them, and tell them some of my business ; perhaps I shall gain some advantage by it." When he came near the resting-place where 'Unsuri, 'Asjudi, and Farrukhi were sitting, those individuals were astonished at him and said, " He will spoil our quiet converse." They communed with one another, and agreed to tell this person that they were the poets of the Sultan, and that they held no intercourse with any one who was not a poet ; that they would recite three verses, to which it would be difficult to add a fourth, and that they would say that whoever would make a fourth verse would be admitted into their society, and unless he could do so he would be excluded.