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Vintages of the Sāqī-nāma: Fermenting and Blending the Cupbearer's Song in the Sixteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Paul Losensky
Paul Losensky*
Affiliation:
Central Eurasian Studies and Comparative Literature at Indiana University, Bloomington
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Abstract

Drawing on a rich tradition of anacreontic poetry and taking inspiration from works by Nizāmī and Hāfiz, the sāqī-nāma or “cupbearer's song” emerged as an independent genre in the early sixteenth century and flourished throughout the Persian literary world for the next 250 years. Looking back on the development of the genre, the early seventeenth-century literary historians ‘Abd al-Nabī Qazvīnī and Awhadī Balyānī give contrasting accounts of its formation, but both agree on the significance of the work of Hakīm Partuvī Shīrāzī (d. 928/1520–21). An examination of his sāqī-nāma, together with two other early representatives of the genre by Sidqī Astarābādī (d. 952/1545) and Sharaf Jahān Qazvīnī (d. 968/1561), shows how closely this new genre was tied to the politics and ideology of the new Safavid state and reveals profound structural similarities to the preeminent panegyric genre of the Islamicate world, the qasīda. But once the basic components of the sāqī-nāmā were distilled and taken up by poets outside this socio-political environment, the genre proved to be as protean as the wine symbolism at its core. Cupbearer songs from the end of the century, particularly those of Muhammad Sūfī Māzandarānī (d. 1035/1625–26) and Sanjar Kāshānī (d. 1021/1612), show how the basic elements of the genre could be reconfigured to serve a variety of more personal interests.

Type
Special Section: Wine in Pre-Modern Persian Literature
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , January 2014 , pp. 131 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2014

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References

1 “Hikāyat dar sabīl-i tamthīl”: Sanjar Kāshānī, Mīr Muhammad Hāshim, Dīvān, ed. ‘Ātifī, H. and ‘Bihniyā, A. (Tehran, 2009), 431Google Scholar; see also al-Zamānī Qazvīnī, Mullā ‘Abd al-Nabī Fakhr, Tadhkira-yi Maykhāna, ed. Gulchīn-Ma‘ānī, A., rev. ed. (Tehran, 1988), 329Google Scholar.

2 Ganjavī, Nizāmī, Khusraw va Shīrīn, ed. Tharvatiyān, B. (Tehran, 1987), 457–75Google Scholar.

3 See Kennedy, Phillip F., The Wine Song in Classical Arabic Poetry: Abū Nuwās and the Literary Tradition (Oxford, 1997), 26–36Google Scholar.

4 Samarqandī, Rūdakī, Guzīda-yi ash‘ār-i Rūdakī, ed. Shu‘ār, J. and Anvarī, H. (Tehran, 1986), 77–89Google Scholar.

5 Dāmghānī, Manūchihrī, Dīvān, ed. Dabīr-Siyāqī, Muhammad, 4th ed. (Tehran, 1977), 147–56Google Scholar. For a detailed account of the formation of the myth of the sacrifice of the grape, see Dominic Parviz Brookshaw's article in this issue.

6 Kennedy (The Wine Song in Classical Arabic Poetry) shows how Abū Nuwās's khamriyāt blend wine with the lyric nasīb and ghazal, with homily, with satire and invective, and poems of repentance and fakhr.

7 See Sharma, S., “Hāfiz's Sāqināmeh: The Genesis and Transformation of a Classical Poetic Genre,” Persica 18 (2002): 75–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This article does not discuss the panegyric verses associated with the poem. For a survey of the background and development of the genre, see also Encyclopedia Iranica, s.v. “Sāqi-nāma” (P. Losensky), http://www.iranica.com/saqi-nama-book (accessed June 7, 2011).

8 Shīrāzī, Hāfiz, Dīvān, ed. Nātil Khānlarī, P. (Tehran, 1983), 2: 1050–2Google Scholar.

9 Ibid., 2: 1056: ki tamkīn-i awrang-i shāhī az ū-st / tan-āsānī-yi murgh u māhī az ū-st.

10 Daqāqī Balyānī, Taqī al-Dīn Muhammad Awhadī, Tadhkira-yi ‘Arafāt al-‘āshiqīn va ‘arasāt al-‘ārifīn, ed. Nasrābādī, S.M. Nājī (Tehran, 1388/2009), 2: 750Google Scholar.

11 Qazvīnī, Maykhāna, 124.

12 For the biography of Awhadī, see Gulchīn-Ma‘ānī, A., Tārīkh-i tadhkira-hā-yi Fārsī, 2nd ed. (Tehran, 1984), 2: 12–24Google Scholar; for ‘Abd al-Nabī, see Qazvīnī, Maykhāna, x–xxiv.

13 See Losensky, P., “Welcoming Fighānī”: Imitation and Poetic Individuality in the Safavid-Mughal Ghazal (Costa Mesa, CA, 1998), 34–43Google Scholar, for Awhadī's implicit opposition between the progressive poetics of the Aqquyünlü and early Safavid courts and the conservative leanings of the circle of Jāmī in Timurid Herat.

14 See Quinn, Sholeh, Historical Writing during the Reign of Shah ‘Abbas: Ideology, Imitation, and Legitimacy in Safavid Chronicles (Salt Lake City, 2000), 91Google Scholar; and Roxburgh, David J., Prefacing the Image: The Writing of Art History in Sixteenth-Century Iran (Leiden, 2001), 38–42Google Scholar.

15 Earlier, Nizāmī had concluded his introduction to Laylī va Majnūn with a section entitled “Describing the speaker's state and in memory of the departed,” which is punctuated every few verses by invocations of the sāqī and short descriptions of wine; see Ganjavī, Nizāmī, Laylī va Majnūn, ed. Tharvatiyān, B. (Tehran, 1985), 74–82Google Scholar. This passage would have its own influence on strophic versions of the sāqī-nāma exemplified by the work of Vahshī Bāfqī.

16 See Qazvīnī, Maykhāna, 15.

17 Qazvīnī, Maykhāna, 128–9 (vv. 6–7, 18–19, 21). Here and below, verse numbers refer to the position of the line in the poem.

18 I hope to offer a full translation of this and other sāqī-nāmas in a future publication.

19 Ibid., 130–1 (vv. 47–54).

20 Lifton, R.J., The Broken Connection: On Death and the Continuity of Life (Washington, DC, 1979), 25Google Scholar. Lifton draws on the work of authors as diverse as William James, Mircea Eliade, and Marghanita Laski.

21 Ibid., 138 (vv. 221–4).

22 Nīshāpūrī, Farīd al-Dīn ‘Attār, Mantiq al-tayr, ed. Shafī‘ī-Kadkanī, M.-R. (Tehran, 2005), 253Google Scholar (v. 267).

23 This, in brief, is the interpretation of the qasīda that S.P. Stetkevych, drawing on the work of Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner, has developed in the course of a series of publications over the last two decades. For the fullest statement of her theory, see The Mute Immortals Speak: Pre-Islamic Poetry and the Poetics of Ritual (Ithaca, NY, 1993).

24 Lifton, Broken Connection, 17–18.

25 Qazvīnī, Maykhāna, 127 (v. 2): bi-mastī chu gul chāk zan pīrahan / ki na-tvān zadan dast u pā dar kafan.

26 Ibid., 137 (vv. 209–12, 214).

27 Lifton, Broken Connection, 20.

28 Shīrāzī, Ahlī (d. 946/1539–40), for example, writes a series of 101 rubā‘ıs (Kulliyāt-i ash‘ār, ed. Rabbānī, Hāmid [Tehran, 1965], 653–67)Google Scholar; Bāfqī, Vahshī (d. 991/1580), a strophic tarjī‘-band (Dīvān, ed. Nakh‘ī, Husayn [Tehran, 1960], 331–7)Google Scholar; and Baghdādī, Fuzūlī (d. 976/1568–69), an Ottoman çengname in Persian guise (Dīvān, ed. Mazioğlu, Hasibe [Ankara, 1962], 674–709)Google Scholar.

29 For Lisānī, see Gulchīn-Ma‘ānī, A., Tadhkira-yi Paymāna: sāqī-nāma-hā va sāqī-nāma-sarāyān (Tehran, 1989), 452–9Google Scholar; Umīd's poem immediately follows Partuvī's in Qazvīnī, Maykhāna, 141–50.

30 Though rarely analyzed in detail, the proliferation of Shi'ite devotional poetry has long been recognized by scholars; see, for example, Browne, E.G., A Literary History of Persia (Cambridge, 1924), 4: 172–7Google Scholar. I have discussed other aspects of the literary culture of this period in Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. “Mādda tārik” (P. Losensky), http://www.iranica.com/articles/madda-tarikh-chronogram (accessed July 7, 2011); “The Palace of Praise and the Melons of Time: Descriptive Patterns in ‘Abdī Šīrāzī's Garden of Eden,” Eurasian Studies 2 (2003): 1–29; and “Poetics and Eros in Early Modern Persia: The Lovers’ Confection and The Glorious Epistle on Jalāl by Muhtasham Kāshānī,” Iranian Studies 42 (2009): 745–64.

31 Safavī, Sām Mīrzā, Tadhkira-yi Tuhfa-yi Sāmī, ed. Farrukh, R.H. (Tehran, 2005), 80–1Google Scholar.

32 Gulchīn-Ma‘ānī, , Tadhkira-yi Paymāna, 264 (vv. 1–2)Google Scholar.

33 Ibid., 267 (vv. 86–90).

34 For A.J. Newman, the “myriad of discourses,” both religious and political, that the Safavids utilized to legitimate their rule was one reason for the strength and longevity of the dynasty; see Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire (London, 2006), 7–12.

35 Gulchīn-Ma‘ānī, , Tadhkira-yi Paymāna, 270–1Google Scholar (vv. 161–2, 165–6, 177–8).

36 Ibid., 273 (vv. 226–9).

37 Ibid., 276 (vv. 317–20). The appearance of the word farzand, “scion, offspring,” in the final verse of this passage, suggests that the poem is addressed to Tahmāsp and meant perhaps to counter Ismā‘īl's perceived withdrawal from public life after his defeat at Chaldiran.

38 See Safā, Z., Tārīkh-i adabīyāt dar Īrān, 5 vols. in 8 (Tehran, 1953–92), 5.2: 679–87Google Scholar; Gulchīn-Ma‘ānī, A., Maktab-i vuqū‘ dar shi‘r-i Fārsī, 2nd ed. (Mashhad, 1995), 233–40Google Scholar.

39 Qazvīnī, , Maykhāna, 163–4 (vv. 12–13, 22–4)Google Scholar. Two versions of this poem are included in Sharaf Jahān Qazvīnī, Dīvān, ed. N. Afshārī (Qazvin, 2004), 234–42 and 243–53.

40 Ibid., 166 (vv. 62–4).

41 Building on the work of Paul Connerton, S. Stetkevych explores the etymology of the word ‘īd as a cyclical “return” to archetypal history in The Poetics of Islamic Legitimacy: Myth, Gender, and Ceremony in the Classical Arabic Ode (Bloomington, 2002), 243–9.

42 Ibid., 167 (vv. 86–8, including v. in n. (1)).

43 Ibid., 168 (vv. 106–8, including v. in n. (1)).

44 See Canby, S.R., “Shah Tahmasp, 1524–50,” in Hunt for Paradise: Court Arts of Safavid Iran 1501–1576, ed. Thompson, J. and Canby, S.R. (Milan, 2003), 9–14Google Scholar.

45 Qazvīnī, , Maykhāna, 168 (vv. 109–11)Google Scholar. Though one of the verses Sharaf quotes appears to be spurious, the other can be found in Sa‘dī, Būstān, ed. G.-H. Yūsufī (Tehran, 1980), 201 (v. 3945).

46 These correspond to Lifton's categories of the theological, biological, and creative. For Lifton, the biological continuity assured by reproduction “can be extended outward from family to tribe, organization, subculture, people, nation, or even species” (The Broken Connection, 19).

47 Qazvīnī, Maykhāna, 476.

48 Awhadī, ‘Arafāt, 6: 3602.

49 On this work, see Storey, C. and de Blois, F., Persian Literature: a Bio-bibliographic Survey (London, 1970), 1: 806–8Google Scholar; for a list of the poets included, see Schau, E. and Ethé, H., Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindustani and Pushtu Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, 1889), 1: cols. 196–203Google Scholar.

50 Qazvīnī, Maykhāna, 476.

51 Māzandarānī, Muhammad Sūfī, Dīvān, ed. Shahāb, Tāhirī (Tehran, 1968), 78–9 (vv. 116–17, 120–1, 127, 129)Google Scholar. See also Qazvīnī, Maykhāna, 487–8.

52 Sūfī, Muhammad, Dīvān, 79 (vv. 134–6, 138–40)Google Scholar; Qazvīnī, Maykhāna, 488.

53 Sūfī, Muhammad, Dīvān, 80 (vv. 159–63)Google Scholar; Qazvīnī, Maykhāna, 488. Indicating the popularity of Muhammad Sūfī's sāqī-nāma, four of these five verses are inscribed on a copper wine bowl cast about thirty years after the poem was written; see Melikian-Chirvani, A.S., Islamic Metalwork from the Iranian World 8th–18th Centuries: Victoria and Albert Museum Catalogue (London, 1982), 329–30Google Scholar. My thanks go to Sussan Babaie for this reference.

54 Sūfī, Muhammad, Dīvān, 81 (vv. 180, 182–6)Google Scholar; Qazvīnī, Maykhāna, 489. An early version of this story can again be found in ‘Attār, Mantiq al-tayr, 256 (vv. 546–9).

55 Sūfī, Muhammad, Dīvān, 83 (vv. 214–20)Google Scholar; Qazvīnī, Maykhāna, 492.

56 Lifton, Broken Connection, 21–2.

57 Sūfī, Muhammad, Dīvān, 85 (vv. 269–74)Google Scholar; Qazvīnī, Maykhāna, 493, n. 1 (cont. 494).

58 “Know that when this lustrous pearl was strung, it was / one thousand years from the date of the hijra”: Muhammad Sūfī, Dīvān, 86.

59 Qazvīnī, Maykhāna, 476.

60 Biographical accounts of Sanjar's life can be found in: Qazvīnī, Maykhāna, 321–5, and Gulchīn-Ma‘ānī, A., Kārvān-i Hind (Tehran, 1990), 1: 583–8Google Scholar.

61 Full texts of the poem can be found in Qazvīnī, Maykhāna, 325–48, and Sanjar, Dīvān, 427–51.

62 The section is entitled “Dar nasīhat-i farzand mī-farmāyad.” The son is named explicitly as Afsar, who was a minor poet of whom almost nothing further is known; see Gulchīn-Ma‘ānī, , Kārvān, 1: 80–1Google Scholar.

63 “Avvalīn pāya-yi qudrat” and “nāyib-i vahy-i payghambarī”: Qazvīnī, Maykhāna, 338.

64 Ibid., 338–9 (vv. 281, 283, 285–6, 290).

65 Ibid., 330 (vv. 101–2).

66 Ibid., 336–7: Agarcha havā-yi vatan dilkash ast / valī pukhtagīhā-yi ghurbat khvash ast.

67 See, for example, Matthee, R., The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500–1900 (Washington, DC, 2005), chapters 2 and 3Google Scholar.

68 Qavīnī, Maykhāna, 323–4.