8. PERSIAN POETS.--The first of Persian poets, the Homer of his country, is Abul Kasim Mansur, called Ferdusi or "Paradise," from the exquisite beauty of his compositions. He flourished in the reign of the Shah Mahmud (940-1020 A.D.). Mahmud commissioned him to write in his faultless verse a history of the monarchs of Persia, promising that for every thousand couplets he should receive a thousand pieces of gold. For thirty years he studied and labored on his epic poem, "the Shah Namah," or Book of Kings, and when it was completed he sent a copy of it, exquisitely written, to the sultan, who received it coldly, and treated the work of the aged poet with contempt. Disappointed at the ingratitude of the Shah, Ferdusi wrote some satirical lines, which soon reached the ear of Mahmud, who, piqued and offended at the freedom of the poet, ordered sixty thousand small pieces of money to be sent to him, instead of the gold which he had promised. Ferdusi was in the public bath when the money was given to him, and his rage and amazement exceeded all bounds when he found himself thus insulted. He distributed the paltry sum among the attendants of the bath and the slaves who brought it.
He soon after avenged himself by writing a satire full of stinging invective, which he caused to be transmitted to the favorite vizier who had instigated the sultan against him. It was carefully sealed up, with directions that it should be read to Mahmud on some occasion when his mind was perturbed with affairs of state, and his temper ruffled, as it was a poem likely to afford him entertainment. Ferdusi having thus prepared his vengeance, quitted the ungrateful court without leave-taking, and was at a safe distance when news reached him that his lines had fully answered their intended purpose. Mahmud had heard and trembled, and too late discovered that he had ruined his own reputation forever. After the satire had been read by Shah Mahmud, the poet sought shelter in the court of the caliph of Bagdad, in whose honor he added a thousand couplets to the poem of the Shah Namah, and who rewarded him with the sixty thousand gold pieces, which had been withheld by Mahmud. Meantime, Ferdusi's poem of Yussuf, and his magnificent verses on several subjects, had received the fame they deserved. Shah Mahmud's late remorse awoke. Thinking by a tardy act of liberality to repair his former meanness, he dispatched to the author of the Shah Namah the sixty thousand pieces he had promised, a robe of state, and many apologies and expressions of friendship and admiration, requesting his return, and professing great sorrow for the past. But when the message arrived, Ferdusi was dead, and his family devoted the whole sum to the benevolent purpose he had intended,--the erection of public buildings, and the general improvement of his native village, Tus. He died at the age of eighty. The Shah Namah contains the history of the kings of Persia down to the death of the last of the Sassanide race, who was deprived of his kingdom by the invasion of the Arabs during the caliphat of Omar, 636 A.D. The language of Ferdusi may be considered as the purest specimen of the ancient Parsee: Arabic words are seldom introduced. There are many episodes in the Shah Namah of great beauty, and the power and elegance of its verse are unrivaled.