HAFIZ. During
the golden age of Persian poetry there was no
poet more popular than Hafiz, the greatest lyric writer of The exact dates of his birth and death are Persia.
unknown, but he was born
in his
beloved city of Shiraz,
and
in the first part of the fourteenth century,
died, accord-
ing to the inscription or chronogram on his tomb, in 1388 1 a.d. His biographers say that he did not live later than 1
39 1, thus making him an exact contemporary of Chaucer. Hafiz, from the Arabic word for memory, was his poeti-
name and signified that he knew by heart the Koran, real name being Shams-ud-Din Mohammad, which means Son of Faith. There is very little accurate knowl-
cal
his
edge of his early or domestic life, but there is a tradition was the son of a baker in Shiraz at all events he seems to have lived a life of self-imposed poverty, for he regarded it as necessary to genius. In the following story we find the first evidence of his^ gift for song. His uncle began a poem on Sufism and Hafiz, during his could not get beyond the first line. uncle's absence, finished the verse, and when this was discovered, his uncle, although annoyed, ordered Hafiz to finish the poem, at the same time cursing him and his that he
;
works, exclaiming, " They shall bring the curse of insanity on all who read them " and some people believe that this Indeed, he has curse actually clings round his verses. !
been compared to Anacreon "with his maddening spell, and even is said to have quaffed the cup of immortality.
1 '
The legend
is
this 1
:
Sir
—
Gore Ouseley's statement.
339