The Scented Garden

Introduction 7 not necessarily the first) must rhyme with the Mat- la’. The concluding couplet is called the Matka’, or “ place of cutting short ” : which we may translate the “ Close ” ; hence the phrase, Az matla’ ta mak- ta’, “ from beginning to end.” In the Makta’, or close, the poet manages to introduce his own name, or rather his assumed or poetic name, called the Takhallus, though few of the older poets paid strict attention to this rule previous to the time of Hakim Sanayi, between A.D. 1150 and 1180. Anwari occasionally introduces his own name in his Ghazals, but it is the exception and not the rule in his case. As a general law, the Ghazal must consist of at least five couplets, and not more than fifteen ; but on this subject authors by no means agree, either with one another or with real facts. Hafiz, for example, has several Ghazals consisting of sixteen and even seventeen, coup- lets ; Hakim Sanayi has many that exceed the lat- ter number. THE MSS Being myself admitted formally (in the course of my first few readings) to the joyous company of the Sufis, (I cannot here discuss the curiously patriar- chal systems of mystic fraternity in vogue among Muslim, if only because I am a Freemason). I was enabled to use several fine MSS. for the transla- tion, a privilege of which I availed myself without scruple or diffidence : without scruple, as knowing I was well entitled to them : and without diffi- dence, because of the invariable courtesy which adepts in these mysteries exhibit to their fellow workers in the divine Arcanum. I also was permitted to order a copy to be made, which the calligraphist has still in hand.