The Parthian G?s?n and Iranian Minstrel Tradition

The Parthian "Gsn" and Iranian Minstrel Tradition
Author(s): Mary Boyce

Source: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, No. 1/2 (Apr.,
1957), pp. 10-45
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25201987 .
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THE PARTHIAN G?S?N AND IRANIAN

MINSTREL TRADITION
By Mary
(i) Tho
Parthian
professional
g?s?n
minstrelsy
(ii) Professional
; (iv) Tho
(i) The
Boyce
at other epochs
minstrelsy
loss of Iranian minstrel-poetry.
Parthian
; (iii) Non
g?s?n
word
literature.
g?s?n is known to occur twice in Persian
is in the poem Vis u R??nln, now shown to be of Parthian
origin.1 Here, while the king M?bad is feasting with his wife and his
brother Ram?n, a g?s?n-i nav?gar sings to them. His song is of a
earth.
Beneath
it is a sparkling
lofty tree, shading the whole
The
One passage
A bull of G?l?n grazes by it,

spring, with sand in its sweet water.
"
drinking the water and eating the blossoms at its brink.
May
"
this tree continue to cast its shade," ends the g?s?n,
the water
" 2
ever flowing from the spring, the bull of G?l?n ever
grazing at it !
His pretty song was well calculated, however, to frustrate this pious
wish ; for it was in fact a dangerous
and provocative
allegory,
the tree representing M?bad himself, the spring his wife V?s, and
the bull his brother R?m?n, the queen's lover. This meaning
the
divined
but
his
not
the
;
rage flared up,
king instantly
against
g?s?n, but against his brother, on whom he sprang to kill him.
The word g?s?n occurs twice in this passage,
the second time
with
the epithet nau-a*?n?

On the internal evidence
it could be
a
as
noun
or
a
common
as
either
proper name.
interpreted
4 took
as
Patkanow
the
former, explaining
it, undoubtedly
correctly,
"
it as a word, meaning
in classical
obsolete
musician",
perhaps
from
which
had
He read
been
derived.
Armenian
Persian,
gusan
as
von
instead
it
Jcusan ; but
suggested
Stackelberg5
reading
"
1 See V.
a Parthian
xi (1946),
Vis u R?m?n,
romance,"
i, BSOAS.,
Minorsky,
xii (1947), pp. 20-5
741-764
ibid,
; W. B.
; iii, ibid, xvi (1954), pp. 91-2
;
ii,
pp.
"
and Inscriptions
Asia Major,
The Monuments
of Tang-i
n.s.,
Sarvak,"
Henning,
ii (1952), p. 178, n. 2.
2
od. Mujtaba
V?s u li?m?n,
Minovi,
Tehran,
pp. 29315-45.
1314/1935,
3
of W. Nassau
Lees
Minovi,
p. 29312?16 ; in the edition
(Calcutta,
1865), the
word occurs a third time (p. 21910).
'
"
4 See R. von
aus W?s o R?m?n
48
Lexicalischcs
'," ZDMQ.,
Stackelborg,
(1894), p. 495.
6 loc.
Armenische
Grammatik
H?bschmann,
cit., pp. 495-6.
(1897), p. 131,
it therefore
from Armenian
in reading
the word with k, and in separating
persisted
gusan.

THE PARTHIAN G?S?N AND IRANIAN MINSTREL TRADITION

g?s?n, and pointed
derived from it.
out
that Georgian
mgosani
was
probably
11
also
H. W. Bailey x brought to light another occurrence

Subsequently
:
of the word in the following passage of the Mujmal
at-Tav?rlx
"
ever
and
state
of
of
the
the
world,
(Bahr?m G?r) inquired
found none with any pain or distress, except that men used to drink
their wine without minstrels
Therefore he bade write
(rami?gar).
to the king of the Indians, and asked of him g?s?n ; and in the
'
'
Pahlavi
minstrel
Then there
language g?s?n means
(xuny?gar).
came from India 12,000 singers (mutrib), men and women.
The
L?r?s of to-day are their descendants.
And he (Bahr?m) gave them
goods and animals, that they might without charge make minstrelsy
2
(r?miel kunand) for the poor."
This passage not only provides a definition
of g?s?n, according
well with Patkanow's
surmise.
It also indicates
the Parthian
origin of the word ; for, since huniy?gar (> Persian xuny?gar), with
which it is glossed, is a well-attested
Middle Persian term,3 it is likely
that pahlavi is used here in its original meaning.
The etymology
of
of its initial
remains?obscure
; but the ambiguity
g?s?n was?and
letter in Arabic script led to attempts to connect it with Persian k?s
''
" 4
a text from two small
drum
; but recently, by reconstructing
a
new
B.
has
W.
instance of the word,
fragments,
Henning
provided
in unglossed Parthian and the clear Manicheean
script, showing it to
have initial g. The passage is as follows 6 :
ywd
oufgwn gws'n ky hsyng'n ?hrd'r'n *wd kufn hwnr wyfr'syd
"
wxd iywyc ny kryd.
Like a g?s?n, who proclaims the worthiness
of
6 and himself achieves
and
of
old
at
heroes
all."
kings
nothing
The text cannot be closely dated, but being in good Parthian
can hardly be later than the fourth or fifth centuries.
"
1 H. W.
Iranica II," JRAS.,
1934, pp. 514-15
(where von Stackelberg's
Bailey,
remarks on the word g?s?n have been slightly misinterpreted).
2
ed. Malik
a?-Su<ar? Bah?r,
at-Tav?r?x,
Tehran,
Muj7nal
p. 69 ;
1318/1939,
"
text with French
J. Mohl,
Extraits
du Modjmel
relatifs
translation,
al-Tewarikh,
? l'histoire do la Perse," JA.,

534.
1841, ii, pp. 515-16,
3 On Mid. Pers.
see further below, p. 20 and n. 5.
huniy?gar
"
4 See H. W.
loe. cit., p. 515 ; Ariana,"
Donum Natalicium
H. S. Nyberg
Bailey,
n.
6.
1954, p. 9,
Oblatum, Uppsala,
6 The
is being prepared
for publication,
is given here in standardized
text, which
I am indebted
to Professor
for his kind permission
to quote
orthography.
Henning
it in advance.
"
"
c The
use of kitfn for
regular Maniehamn
giants, heroes
(see W. B. Henning,
"
The Book of the Giants,"
an
xi
to seeing in
is
obstacle
BSOAS.,
(1943), pp. 53-4),
this instance of the word a specific referonco
to the Kayanian
legends.

12
This
reference is of peculiar interest.

In the first place, it estab
lishes g?s?n as a Parthian word.
In the second, it provides
the
first piece of direct evidence for the telling of tales relating to the
thus providing
past by Parthian minstrels,
support for the indirect
evidence that the Parthians played an important part in preserving
the Iranian "national"
the passage belongs
tradition.1
Further,
in all likelihood to the Sasanian period itself?to
the time when,
were
the old legends
collected from these same Parthian
presumably,
minstrels,
It has
and for the first time written

an inference that this
been
and
down.2
old minstrel
unsupported
by writing,
The
appear to bear it out.
and
the minstrel-entertainers
extemporized,
sound
like men
of books.
tradition
was
the two Persian references to g?s?n

is apparently
song in Vis u R?rmn
from
Yet
the verb wifr?sdoes not necessarily
India
"teach,
hardly
tell",
passage,
imply to speak
are therefore driven to seek more
information
most
Parthian
Armenia.
from adjacent
lands, provided
richly by
we may
in Armenia,
cultural
influence having been so strong
suppose that the Parthian g?s?n had his effect on the
reasonably
The Armenian
art as well as the name of his Armenian
counterpart.
sources can therefore be justifiably drawn on in evidence.
used
without
The
in the Parthian
text.
We
best-known
occurrence
of
in Armenian
gusan
this is also the clearest
the word
and
that in Moses of Xoren,
is probably
on the point of an oral tradition
; for Moses speaks of information
"
the
about ancient Aram,
lacking in books, being derived from
and popular songs of certain obscure gusans ".3 This state
an passage,
Manich
accords admirably with the Parthian
in that it shows that some at least of the Armenian gusan's tales too
chants
ment
"
Some
2nd ed., pp. 7-9 ; Boyco,
Das iranische National&pos,
?SeoTh. N?ideko,
on the transmission
heroic cycle/* Serta Cantabrigiensia
of the Kayanian
remarks
1954), pp. 49-51.
(Mainz,
"
"
2 See
Pro
xvii
Zariadrcs
and Zar?r
(1955), pp. 471-7).
{BSOAS.,
Boyco,
1
to
me that in this article I gave insufficient
convinced
weight
can only,
which
for that of Bardiya,
of the name Sfendadates
had become
fame of the Kayanian
that the fighting
he insists, mean
Spentod?ta
of this
B.c.
about
400
Persia
in Achajmenian
well-known
Recognition
by
evidence
that the available
invalidate
fact docs not, however,
my main
argument,
the
for preserving
who were mainly
that it was the Parthians
responsible
suggests
has
fessor Henning
substitution
Ctesias'
ancestors.
The fame of his son was a part of church-history
;
legends of VistSspa's
with the faith, and the detailed
but his pagan forbears had only a lineal connection
to havo
of Zoroastrianism,
of their exploits
celebration
seems, in tho early centuries
remained
largely local and secular.
3 Mos.
I, xiv.
Xor.,

13
Moses further establishes

that these tales
to the past.
were
were
not
were in verse,
written down.1
sung, and
This last fact probably goes far by itself to explain the contempt
themselves
in which
the gusan was held by Armenian
writers,
referred
men
of letters, who must have nurtured the general?if

scorn of the literate for the illiterate.2 Further, these
all churchmen, and in their case this natural scorn was
reinforced by the hostility of Christians for men who,
ill-founded?
were
writers
presumably
if not them
selves pagan, evidently drew on a pagan past for a part of their

references present
the bulk of the Armenian
material.
Moreover,
we
as
an
entertainer
the gusan
; and
have, therefore, to allow also
for the story-teller?
felt by the serious-minded
for the antagonism
"
himself achieves nothing at all ". Manichsean
for the man who
homilist and Christian divine were evidently on this point as one.
references to gusans which are neutral
Among the few Armenian
in tone are those in the translation of the Bible, namely, Ecclesiastes
and
and women,"
ii, 8 : "I got me gusans and singers, men
"
2 Samuel xix, 35 : Can I hear any more the voice of singing-men
" 3
? To these references, with their connotation
(gusan) and women
of pleasant revelry, may be added two more from Faustus' history.4
was permitted
to wait
in a.d. 368, the eunuch Drastamat
When,
in
him
from
he
freed
Arsak
old
his
master, King
II,
prison,
upon
set
and
in
him
his chains, bathed him, clothed
precious raiment,
"
a
him
and
consoled
And he encouraged
before him
royal repast.
5 Gusans are associated with
and made him glad with gusans."
of King Pap (a.d. 374),
royal occasion at the assassination
took place at a banquet given in his honour, in Armenia,
by
was
down
to
struck
the general Trajanus.
Faustus,
Pap
According
"
included
various groups of gusans ", which
while looking at the
another
which
1 It
that the art of the later asuy was oral, and it would
is, of course, well known
ono ;
an older written
if an oral tradition
had come to displace
romarkable
to confino
to the Armenian
consideration
but hero I propose
gusan
strictly
so-called.
2 Darmesteter
of this in his Chants populaires
des
example
gives an excellent
bo
ex ci, where
of tho deep scorn of the literate
he speaks
suHr
(hun.
often highly
trained,
as 2 Kings
35. For this in
this verso appears
Bible
xix,
of Armenian
the translation
other generous
and much
formation,
help,
including
of my colleague,
to tho kindness
Dr. Charles Dowsett.
I am indebted
passages,
4The references
are given by von Stackelberg,
loo. cit., p. 495, n. 3.
5 Faustus
of Byzantium,
V 7 (ed. Venice,
1933, p. 212, II. 11 IT.).
Afghans,
for the
3 In
in tro.,
p.
but
illiterate,
the Armenian

14
Ammianus Marcellinus
drummers, pipers, lyrists, and trumpeters.1
"the great building
while
took
records that the assassination
place
".2
rang with the music of strings, songs, and wind-instruments
In another passage, Faustus tells how the two sons of the patriarch
(fl. c. 341-7), having refused to succeed their father, gave
themselves
up to vice, and were struck down by an angel of the
"
and dancing-girls
with prostitutes
Lord while drinking wine
in tone of the
and gusans ".3 This is much more characteristic
Yusik
of references
majority
clearly
reverberates.
to the gusans, through which clerical thunder

"
dissolute
and
An early writer
speaks of
gusan-m&d drunkards, who

" 4
; and it is said
lechery
the art of the gusan, and
The gusan was connected
and
give themselves up to debauchery
"
of Cain invented
the grandsons
that
the granddaughters
rouge and kohl ".5
this
with
the theatre, although what
In the
somewhat
obscure.6
in early Armenia
appears
signified
to render Greek
translation-literature
gusan is used, derogatively,
as having
been a
is represented
; and St. Porphyrius
fjL?fjLo?
in
the
theatre
"diabolical
(gusan ergecHlc diwaJcan)
smgev-gusan"
before his conversion.7
was also directed
the gusan as
Church disapproval
against
a
mourner.
as
and
of
elegy, he had
singer
panegyric
Presumably,
a part in pagan rites frowned upon by ecclesiastics.
In a canon
of 488 it is laid down : "Of those who mourn for the dead, let the
head of the household
and the gusans be found and taken to the
king's court and punished
; and let not their families dare to lament
afterwards."
1
Ibid., V 32 (cd. Venice,
p. 236, 11. 9 ?T.).
2
Amm. Marcoll.
1, 18 (Loeb, iii, p. 304).
XXX,
3
Faustus
III 19 (ed. Venice,
p. 56, 11. 5-6).
4 Yovhann?s
and the
xiii (fifth century).
?arkc Xratakankc
This,
Mandakuni,
those given
after them, are from among
references with the initials N.B.
following
Lezui
Nor Bargirk*
in tho dictionary
gusan,
(Venice,
1836), under
Haykazean
and have been translated
by Dr. Dowsett.
6 Vardan
on Genesis
(N.B. under gusanuViwn).
Commentary
Vardapet,
6 In G.
of tho Armenian
teatra (" 2000 years
let armyanskogo
2000
Goyan's
to the gusans, appear
of vol. i, devoted
theatro "), Moskow
1952, tho early sections
to be almost
entirely
speculative.
7
5th November
(N.B.).
Yaysmawurk*,
"
estab
The canons of Vacagan,
8Movses Kalankatuacci,
i, 26,
king of Albania,
no. 12.
from
and translation
held at Ahien,"
lished at tho council
(Reference
Dr. Dowsett
; see also von Stackelberg,
op.
a series of Armonian
ritual
lamentations,
M.
Abotean,
1940,
pp.
(Jusanakan
?olovrdahm
Taler
cites
cit., p. 495, n. 3.) Dr. Dowsett
from written
collected
sources,
by
Erovan,
ycv Antuniner,
Hayrcnner
249-270.

15
and hostility,
the godly
despite such expressed
contempt
at
to
to
succumb
the
continued
times
evidently
gusaris art. An
"
extant canon enjoins : Let not priests, abandoning
pious songs,
" 1
receive gusans [into their houses]
; and as late as the twelfth
"
I have sinned by
prayer contains the words
century a penitential
Yet,
I have sinned by entertaining

comedies,
gusans ".2
(attending)
A scurrilous or puerile form of entertainment
could hardly have
attraction
such persistent
exercised
; and it seems, therefore,
that the art of the gusan must
churchmen
have had more
virtue
in it than the
allowed.
commonly
This
receives support from the Georgian

evidence,
supposition
for Georgia borrowed the word g?s?n, presumably through Armenian,
as mgosani.3
laid less stern hold on intellectual
and
Christianity
a
in
written romance-literature
literary activity
Georgia, and there
This evidently has its roots
flourished from the twelfth century.
in an older oral literature, from which it inherited a stock of epithets
and situations
; and in one of these conventional
situations, namely
that of feasting and revelry at court, the mgosanni figure regularly.4
are from the twelfth-century
The following
Amiran
examples
:
sun
the
"In
when
the
had
put forth
Darejaniani?
morning,
its light, the King seated himself in the same place as before, ranged
his barons round about him, and held a feast. Mgosanni
sang
6 "When
and tumblers performed."
day had broken, the Khan
king took his seat, ranged his barons round' ' about him, and held
a feast. But the mgosanni did not sing now !
(The king's champion
1 N.B.
"
. . . entertain
lot not priest?
gusans ",
The
is reminiscent
of a
[CD.].
injunction
being ambiguous
:
to an eighth-century
letter
of Northumbria
passage
bishop
"
...
...
to listen to a reader, not to a
it is fitting
When
priests dine together
"
not tho poems
of the heathens
to the discourses
of the Fathers,
(Mon.
harpist,
see
124
and
H.
M.
N.
K.
The
Growth
Germ. Hist.,
;
Carol.,
ii,
Chadwick,
of
Epist.
the word
An
alternative
translation
is
gusanamut
in Alcuin's
an element
in common,
The situations
have presumably
i, p. 573).
a
a
tho
seduction
of
church
of
literate
tho
pagan
against
illiteracy.
struggle
namely
2
1114), Book of Prayers
(d. a.d.
for Penitents
(N.B.).
Grigor of Maskuor
3 ?See von
is the word used to trans
48, p. 495 ; mgosani
ZDMG.,
Stackelberg,
Visramiani
late Persian g?s?n in the Georgian
translation,
p. 205
(see 0. Wardrop's
1934, p. 514).
JRAS.,
Bailey,
4 References
are fairly general
in minstrel-poetry
to tho minstrels
themselves
Literature,
in Anglo-Saxon
Growth of Literature,
for instances
poetry see Chadwick,
5 For these references
of Mr. Robert
to the kindness
I am indebted
on a new edition of the text, with English
who is engaged
translation.
rcferences,
G
p. 21.
supplied
by him,
are to tho Tiflis
edition,
ed. Z. Dchidchinadze,

i, pp. 596-7.
Stevenson,
The pago
1896.
;
;
16
"
The next day we went to feast
had been killed in tournament.)l
in another hall . . .Within
mgosanni stood in a circle and sang."2
"
"
of Rust'aveli
In the later Man in the Panther-Skin
the mgosanni
as
and in the seventeenth
entertainers3;
appear with acrobats
"
are
the
Vard-Bulbuliani
musicians,
among
story
century
they
"
who sing the praises of the rose and nightingale.4
tellers and rhetors
A pr?ciser reference to eulogy by mgosanni occurs in an appendix
of uncertain
date.
to the Amiran-Darejaniani,
unfortunately
a ravaging beast, and "mgosanni
chanted
the praises of Jimser, and how he had delivered
(the land) from the
beast ",5 In the Abdulmesia,
itself a work of eulogy, traditionally
and hence to the twelfth century, mgosanni
ascribed to Shavt'eli,
are represented as singing the praises of their patron.6
The
hero JimSer
kills
oldest Georgian reference occurs, not in the romance-litera

:
in the ninth-century
version of the gospel of St. Matthew
but
ture,
dead.
Jesus came to a noble house, where a girl lay seemingly
"
. . . saw the
and the crowd
And when
Jesus
flute-players,
*
:
for the damsel is not dead,
making a tumult, 'he said Give place
'
is rendered by
but sleepeth \7
(rov?
Flute-players
avXrjr?s)
is
to
tell
how far the
It
impossible
Georgian mgosanni.
plainly
context
in
considered
translator
the
choosing this equiva
Georgian
is
and mourning
lent ; but a connection
the mgosanni
between
'
:
53
the
Chronicle
i,
mgosanni glovisani,'
supported by
Georgian
8
g?s?ns of lamentation."
of
The Georgian mgosanni
appear thus as close counterparts
The
entertainers,
gusans : minstrels,
eulogists,
singers
are almost always spoken of in the plural, as
of laments.
They
and Georgian evidence alike
forming a group ; and the Armenian
the Armenian
3 See 0.
1
2
translation,
p. 20, v. 119.
p. 53.
p. 125.
Wardrop's
4 Text
in A. Shanidze,
Ancient
and Literature,
9th ed. (Tiflis,
Georgian Language
to my colleague Dr. D. M. Lang.)
for this reference
(I am indebted
1947), p. 127,1.1.
6
op. cit., p. 284.
6 See
from
Marr, Drevnegruzinskie
44, 4, 1 ; 101, 2, 3 (reference
Odopistsy,
Mr. Stevenson).
7 Matt,
ix, 24'; see R. P. Blake, The Old Georgian Version of the Gospel ofMatthew
1933 (Patrolog?a Orientalis,
p. 50.
xxiv/i),
from the Adysh Gospels, Paris,
8 Cited
have further kindly
Dr. Lang and Mr. Gugusvili
brought
by Cubinov.
some interesting
on ritual lamentations
to my attention
material
for the dead in
in Masalebi
die
later Georgia,
Sak*art<-velos
(Materialen
El(nograpciisatcvis
f?r
A recognized
form of lamentation
vol. iii, Tiflis,
1940.
Georgiens),
Ethnographie
verses describing
to have been tho singing
of extemporized
tho life and
appears
com
deeds of the dead man,
of his ancestors.
Successful
together with mention
wero
to generation
from generation
learnt by heart and passed
(intro.,
positions
pp.
xii-xiii).

17
as
suggests that the term could include players of instruments
well as singers. In the Georgian records there is no trace of contempt
or hostility
for the mgosanni, who clearly had their accepted place
in life and literature.
as
Parthian
g?s?n has further been traced by W. B. Henning
a loan-word
are known, brought
in Mandacan.
Two occurrences
is as follows :
One, in the Asfar Malwa??,
together by Lidzbarski.1
"
When Aquarius
iswith her parents, then will she exalt her father
and humble her mother,
and her father will become gwsW, or
This passage, Lidzbarski
out, suggests
points
district-judge."
The other passage,
that the g?s?n? was a person of some position.
in the Book of John, implies the opposite.
In it R?h? offers gold
"
"
and pearls to Hibil Z?w? to sing her
the voice of Life
; but he
"
am no
I
and
of
her
those
Namrus,
rejects
saying
pleadings,
man
am
a
of
who
I
makes
humble
music
before
gwsyn\
people.
the other world, a boot of iron am I, whose words and songs are
clubs and blows for the wicked R?h?".2
Here the g?s?n appears
and singer of songs.
entertainer, a musician
clearly as a professional
"
"
The reference to
humble people
;
suggests a wandering minstrel
on
and Lidzbarski,
also
in
the
native
dictionaries,
part
relying
Syriac
"
as
he
translated
itself might,
gypsy ". The word
accordingly
now
be
of
Iranian
The
forbids
evidence
gypsy origin.
suggested,
this interpretation.
the reference in the Asfar Malw?se
Moreover,
ans used the word for a calling
itself suggests
that the Mand
for an ethnic group : one could become a g?s?n without
to it. The two passages together show, in fact, that the
born
being
Mandeans
in its original
borrowed the word from the Parthians
and not
sense
"
of
The
siderable
down
".3
minstrel-poet
suggests that the g?s?n played a con

life of the Parthians
and their neighbours,
:
in the Sasanian
entertainer
of king and
epoch
cumulative
part
to late
evidence
in the
1 See M.
2
Das Joliannesbuch
der Mand?er,
Ibid., pp. 166-7.
Lidzbarski,
p. 164.
3 That
there was a genuine
and at least
resemblance
between
these minstrels
"
"
one group of
in the Mujmal
is shown by tho use of the word g?s?n,
gypsies
for Indian entertainers.
If these Indians were from the (lombha caste
at-Tav?rlx,
of musician-minstrels,
then it is their kindred
for centuries
who have
provided
one would
for tho Afghans
in a way,
and Baluchis,
imagine,
closely
that of tho g?s?n
Chants
des Afghans,
(see Darmesteter,
])opulaires
resembling
intro., pp. exci, exciii ; M. Longworth
Dames,
Popular
Poetry
of the Baloches,
in Sogdian Buddhist
Dombha-musicians
intro., pp. xvi-xvii).
translations,
appear
minstrelsy
for E. Benvenisto
(Textes
sogdiens,
2, 042,
783) has
identified
the word
rnp-.

in Sogdian
18

at
privileged
the graveside
court
and
with
the
people ;
; eulogist,
satirist,
and com
; recorder of past achievements,
story-teller, musician
mentator
of his own times. Indeed, the very range of his activities
makes
the precise status and nature of his calling at first sight
commoner,
present at
and
at
popular
the feast
an object of emulation,
sometimes
sometimes
and
;
bawdy-houses
frequenter
one of a group,
and sometimes
singer and musician,
or
on
a
The explanation
of
instruments.
singing
performing
variety
of such diversity
is presumably
that for the Parthians music and
that a man could not be a pro
poetry were so closely entwined,
skilled in instrumental
fessional poet without being also a musician,
as well as vocal music.
seems
it
probable, though hardly
Conversely,
susceptible of proof, that instrumental music was in general closely
perplexing.
a
despised
a solitary
He
is sometimes
of taverns
in Parthian
associated
As poet-musicians,
with vocal.
society
as in any other, the g?s?ns presumably
and
enjoyed reputation
esteem in proportion to their individual talents. Some were evidently
alone before kings ; others
the laureates of their age, performing
provided together choir or orchestra at court or great man's table ;
and yet others, it is plain, won a humble livelihood and local fame
among peasants and in public places.
no evidence has survived of the g?s?ris training ;
Unfortunately
as well as an
of traditional material,
but clearly, as a transmitter
he must have been required to commit many themes
extemporizer,
of composition
to acquiring
techniques
and
of
his
survived
has
little
works,
Pathetically
a
%
Middle
in
:
that little only indirectly
the Y?dg?r
Zarer?n,
a
the
of
Pahlavi
Persian
and
the
script ;
corruptions
rendering
removes
large part of the Book of Kings, at an unknown number of
an
u
also
recast
and
Vis
from the Parthian
R?m?n,
originals ;
unknown number of times before reaching the form in which we
know it.1 A nobility and richness of treatment is, however, apparent
have a
even in the mutilated
Y?dg?r : and the other two works
of
in their sheer length and ramification
further
impressiveness
detail. They are clearly the products of an established and exacting
to
tradition.
Lest some of our sources tempt us, nevertheless,
to memory,
and recital.
in addition
think too readily of the g?s?n*s art in terms of simple lays and rough
let us consider what a neighbouring
barbarism,
society demanded
1 The
Draxt
l As?r?g
is considered
separately
; seo below,

p. 31.
19
of its leading minstrels.

The following passage is from the thirteenth
x :
century Sanskrit text, the Sangltaratn?kara
Text is called m?tu, melody dMtu. He who makes both words and
melody is called v?ggeyaJc?raka.
all the rules of the words, being versed in discourse,
Knowing
knowing the different varieties of metres, being skilled in applying
ornamentation.
Knowing
one's
way
about
in emotions
and
emotional
states,
being
dextrous in the local styles, being a past master in all the languages
and skilled in all the works of sthetics.
Being equally knowledgeable in all the three divisions of the triad,2
being well-endowed with beauty of body and heart, knowing tempo,
time and time divisions, and being a master of expressions.
Gifted with enjoyment of being a fountain of many ideas, singing
being acquainted with the local traditions of ragas,
beautifully,
and eloquent when victorious in contest.
Being able to get rid of all the blemishes in the execution of ragas,
knowing the etiquette, being full of emotional power, intent on pure
enunciation to fresh melodies.
Perception of the other's mind, boldness in all the divisions of a
composition, being clever at bringing out the shades of the words
even in a melody in a quick tempo.
Being rich in fioritura in the three registers alike, and versatile
in all kinds of ?l?pas? being full of devotion : by these virtues the
best
v?ggeyak?raka
is made.
at Other Epochs
Minstrelsy
(ii) Professional
There is evidence that professional minstrelsy
existed
in Iran
before tho Arsacid epoch. The Avestan
people had clearly a narra
tive literature of entertainment,
it is reasonable to suppose
which
was in sung verse ; and its
surviving fragments are still sufficiently
in their ramifications
detailed
to suggest that this literature was
cultivated.
So
the Saka tales of
professionally
probably were
Rustam, which came to be so closely interwoven with the Kayanian
material.
In the west, Athenams
states that the "barbarians",
"
like the Greeks, used song worthily
to
celebrate the acts of heroes
''
and the praise of the gods
; and he tells, on the authority of Dinon,
"
of the Median minstrel
the most distinguished
of the
Aligares,
was
who
a
invited
to
feast
held
and
singers,"
by King Astyages,
of
how
"a
who, after "customary
beast
sang
songs",
mighty
liad been let loose in the swamp, bolder than a wild boar ; which
1
iii, 2-9
Sangitaratn?kara,
Sfu?gadova,
ed., Poona,
1896,
(?nand?siama
I am greatly
to Dr. Arnold Bake for his kindness
indebted
in bringing
pp. 243-5).
this passago
to my attention,
and for furnishing mo with a translation
of its highly
2 i.e. vocal
technical
contents.
music
and dance
instrumental
music,
(A.B.).
3 i.e. (ho
of tho ruga being sung (A.B.).
introductory
expositions

20
THE PARTHIAN G?S?N AND IRANIANMINSTREL TRADITION
of the regions round it, would soon

if it got the mastery
beast,
a
multitude
without difficulty. And when Astyages
contend against
"
"
This
asked
he replied
What
beast?"
Cyrus the Persian".1
a
the
utterance
of
apparently
singer
leaving
political
allegory,
daring
unscathed, makes an interesting link with the g?s?n of Vis u R?m?n.
a skilful
as among the Parthians,
among the Medes,
Evidently
minstrel was a privileged person.
is implied
That minstrelsy
flourished
under the Ach menians
in Xenophon's
that Cyrus was celebrated down to his
statement
"
" 2
in story and in song
; and it has been shown that these
day
a
of
stories, part presumably
tradition, had a shaping
still-living
i Arda??r*
It is probable that
influence on the Sasanian K?rn?mak
the Median
Achaemenian
tale of Zariadres
minstrel
and Odatis was also preserved
through
tradition.4
a
period there is abundant evidence of flourishing
a
of the g?s?n
in Persia proper, apart from
continuance
minstrelsy
"
"
in the north.
tradition
The Middle Persian terms for minstrel
5 and huniw?z.6 The former survives
appear to have been huniy?gar
For the Sasanian
1 Athen
who brought
F. Windischmann,
us, xiv, 633 (Loeb, vi, pp. 417, 419).
infused
to light (see his Zoroastrische
this passage
1863, pp. 276-7),
Studien,
Berlin,
"
. . . enth?lt
:
eine den Zend
das Lied
it with a religious
flavour by remarking
eines
texten
in der Gestalt
welche
den Sieg
(Verethragna)
Vorstellung,
gel?ufige
. . .
Ebers
E. Benveniste
and L. Renou
(Vrtra et
personificirt."
gewaltigen
here with Vrflragna
also found a connection
;
1934, pp. 68-9)
Paris,
VrOraqna,
see no good
into what
but I can myself
for reading a religious
implication
grounds
a perfectly
a wild
a bravo and dangerous

between
straightforward
comparison
hunted
that
in a society which
boar, a natural
comparison
it also a symbol of the God of Victory
That the boar's fighting energy made
is surely in this connection
accidental.
2
3 A. v.
Kleine
I, ii, i.
iii, pp. 138 f.
Gutschmid,
Cyropaedia
Schriften,
4
der griechischen
Die Fragmente
Athenams,
xiii, 35, p. 575 ; see F. Jacoby,
a wide
Chares* final words
Historiker,
?b, pp. 660-1.
(ibid., p. 66127"32) suggest
of the story.
spread oral transmission
6 This
is the Pahlavi
term.
in the Ninth
H. W. Bailoy
Problems
(Zoroastrian
"
in
meant
"entertainer
that huniy?gar
p. 113, n. 1) has argued
Century Books,
was
to
came
restricted
it
to
be
and
that
Pcrs.
which
xuny?gar
general,
only
"
on the meaning
of
minstrel
". This he bases partly
(which he demonstrates)
"
"
and his Page,
; partly on Xusrau
? 62 (J. Asana, Pahlavi
adj. huniy?g
delightful
as
the term huniy?gar
to include
such entertainers
Texts,
p. 32) where
appears
to this one passage,
W. B. Henning
rope-walkers.
regards this usago as particular
are certainly
not
and due to interpolation.
Such general
entertainers
however,
in tho corresponding
of tho text as preserved
mentioned
section
by Thac?lib?,
from this
mul?ki-'l
akhb?ri
ed. Zotenberg,
Ghuraru
pp. 709-10.
Apart
furs,
for
to be used,
like Pers. xuny?gar,
dobateable
Pahl.
passage,
appears
huniy?gar
"
minstrel
".
0 This
as a hapax
to be tho Manichamn
Persian
Middle
term, occurring
appears
**
*S7>.
Ein manichiiisches
; seo W. B. Honning,
P.A.W.,
Hcnochbuch,"
lcgomcnon
1934, p. 28, n. 7.
appears
enemy
animal.
and

21
in classical Persian xuny?gar, but is largely replaced, in texts referring

to Sasanian minstrels,
by nav?gar and, more commonly,
r?misgar.
The word c?me-g? also appears.
In Arabic texts mutrib, muyann?
and s?Hr are used interchangeably,
the Middle Persian term being
"
"
"
thus rendered indifferently as musician
",
poet ".
singer ", or
"
"
It is a striking fact that Persian has no native word for
poet
"
as distinct from minstrel
". Presumably Arabic S?Hr was adopted
"
"
for
when
the
poet
conception of separate, literary composition
came to
after
the
conquest.1 As the texts cited below show,
develop
like Parthian g?s?n, was used to embrace both
huniy?gar,
instrumentalist
and singer.
In one account of Sasanian society, given in the Letter of Tansar,
are mentioned
as forming part of the third estate of the
minstrels
In this estate were numbered
realm, as established
by Ardas?r.
minstrels
that
scribes, physicians,
(Sudara) and astronomers?men,
of
in
and
life.2
of
secular
author
The
the
is,
learning
Letter,
ability
who emphasizes
the need for a stable society, stresses
throughout
the near-impossibility
of moving
from one estate to the other ;
M.Pers.
but
implies that
third estate,
a man
of exceptional
to
gifts could be admitted
the
fourth
estate
of
manual
presumably,
workers.3
his em
(The journeyman pearl-borer who entertained
a
all
seems
the
lute
candidate
ployer
day by playing
possible
for such transfer.4)
In the Kitab at-T?j it is said, however,
that
"
for the
and
musicians"
to
attached
the
Sasanian
story-tellers
court questions of origin were of no importance.5
royal
Presumably
minstrels were subject to the same broad restrictions as
royal jesters
or jugglers, who had to be free from
or gross
physical blemishes,
the
1 See
from,
The
distinction
has been maintained
thoso
pp. 32-7.
among
such as tho Afghans
and
tho Kurds,
who
have
cultivated
peoples,
down to our own times.
The literate poet is named S?*ir, whereas
tho
minstrelsy
oral poet, who
a singer and musician
is always
too, bears a local namo
(dum,
dengbez, etc.).
2
The Letter of Tansar,
ed. M. Minovi, Tehran,
1932, p. 12. It is perhaps a pleasant
of Persian
traditionalism
that it is precisely
these four callings which
are
example
"
cArud? as furnishing
the servants
essential
to
grouped
by Niz?m?-i
" together
Gibb Mem. Series,
kings
(Chah?r Maq?le,
text, p. 11). The sudara are omitted
by
ed. A. Zeki Pasha,
J?hiz, Kit?b
Cairo,
1914, p. 25 ; transi. Ch. Pellat,
at-T?j,
Paris,
1954, p. 53.
3
sous les Sassanides,
Viran
2nd ed., p. 98, n. 3.
Letter, p. 14 ; see A. Christensen,
"
4 See
W. B. Henning,
xi (1945), pp. 465-9.
Sogdian Tales," BSOAS.,
Henning
considers
this Sogdian
story to be quite
likely of Persian
(ibid., p. 466).
origin
6 Cairo
138
; transi., p. 158.
ed., p.
below,
Iranian

22
x but
of character or parentage
;
clearly, despite the rigidity
was a calling
Sasanian
in
the
Letter
suggested
minstrelsy
of Tansar,
and not a matter of class or inheritance.
defects
of the division of society into seven orders

to Ardas?r), one order is said to have comprised
(also attributed
and musicians.2
minstrels
(mutrib?na),
singers
(muyanniy?na),
of rank ; and a court
Within
this order there were distinctions
In another
account
musician
of the second rank was entitled to refuse to accompany
a
of
the first, even at the order of the king.3 These distinc
singer
tions appear to have rested on merit ; but possibly this merit was
it is
tests of accomplishment.
Otherwise
assessed by professional
the disapproval
expressed for Bahr?m G?r,
the first and second ranks,
who, according to Mas'?d?, amalgamated
in order to elevate a singer of the second rank who had delighted
raised to the first
him.4 According
to the Kit?b at-T?j, Bahr?m
difficult
to understand
rank all who pleased him, and degraded to the second all who failed
to do so. The old system is said to have been restored by Xusrau
to
and singers of the first rank belonged
An?sarw?n.5
Musicians
the highest class of courtiers, comprising nobles and princes of the
royal, and were placed on a footing of equality with the
of them.6
The court-minstrels
appear to have been in
greatest
where they
constant
in the king's audience-chamber,
attendance
were called on at the discretion of the xurramb?e7 ; and also at state
8 and
; and yearly they presented
upon special occasions9
banquets
as
at
of Mihrg?n
to
the festivals
the king
poems
(si'r)
offerings
blood
and
Naur?z.10
1
do Meynard,
ed. Barbier
ii, pp. 153-4.
al-Dh?hab,
Mur?j
ii, pp. 156-7.
Mas'?d?,
3 Kit?b
loc. cit.,
Cairo ed., pp. 26-7
; transi.,
pp. 54-5 ; Christensen,
at-T?j,
pp. 402-3.
4
ranks
established
is said to have
Harun
ar-Ras?d
157-8.
Mas'?d?,
ii, pp.
on tho Sasanian
Cairo ed., pp. 37-8 ;
his singers,
model
among
(Kit?b at-T?j,
of tho second rank at his court,
transi., p. 65) ; and thero is a story that a musician
a singer
who had delighted
the Caliph by his playing,
flatly refused to accompany
to his demand
of tho first, unless elevated
Tho Caliph acceded
in rank himself.
to the same
p. 69), thus apparently
yielding
(ibid., Cairo ed., p. 41 ; transi.,
as Bahrain
G?r.
temptation
6
Kit?b
at-T?j, Cairo ed., p. 28 ; transi., pp. 55-6.
6
Ibid., Cairo ed., p. 25 ; transi., p. 53.
7
Mas'?d?,
ii, pp. 158-9.
8 Kit?b
p. 191.
at-T?j, Cairo ed., p. 174 ; transi.,
9 In Tabar?
the
with
are mentioned,
together
p. 306), musicians
(N?ldeke,
of a dam
to
celebrate
the
as
Parw?z
Xusrau
finishing
marzb?ns,
accompanying
10 Kit?b
166.
across the Tigris.
at-T?j, Cairo ed., p. 148 ; transi., p.
2
Mas'ud?,

23
is said to
One of the later Sasanian monarchs, Xusrau Parw?z,
his day
have divided
into four, the second part being spent
"
"
In the Pahlavi
(be s?dl u r?misgar?n).1
joyously, with minstrels
text Xusrau and his Page this same king is represented as questioning
"
"
. . .
his page about
the sweetest and best minstrel
(huniy?gar ?
xwastar
ud w?h).2 The page mentions

the players of various instru
as
and
flute and horn), but
and
lute
barbiton,
(such
harp
to a lovely harpist in the eabest?n,
awards the palm of excellence
ments
a clear, sweet voice (?angsr?y-e n?wak ? n?wak?k

peut
;
sabest?n, kan?zak ? ?ang-sray w?h, ka-s w?ng t?z ud xwas-?w?z)3
or to a
a
xwaran
at
feast
?
great
wazarg).4.
lute-player
(v?n-sray-(?)
The version preserved by Tha'alib? is rather diff?rent, for there the
"
that produced by a stringed
page declares the sweetest music to be
gifted
with
is like a song, and that of a song whose

modulation
resembles the sound of the instrument ".5 Both answers
the
value set on a blending
of vocal and instrumental
suggest
instrument
whose
sound
music.
and a
possessed not only a love of minstrelsy
was
also
He
the
of
Barbad, traditionally
discerning page.
patron
the greatest Sasanian
court-minstrel.
Legend
represents Barbad
himself as singer and player both, an original poet and an original
Xusrau
Parw?z
musician.6
therefore, although the functions of singer
Presumably,
and accompanist
could be divided, the v?ggeyak?raka was regarded
in Iran, as in India, as the finest exponent of his profession.
The
7 that
runs
one
source
a
to
of
native
B?rbad,
story
according
was
one
to
ambitious
of
become
Xusrau
Parwez's
Marv,8
minstrels,
but was thwarted by the jealousy of the reigning chief minstrel,
1
43, 3262-3.
S?hn?me,
2 J.
Asana, Pahl. Texts, p. 3211 (? 60).
3
Ibid., p. 331"2.
4
Ibid., p. 333.
5
Tha'?lib?,
Zotenberg, " p. 709.
"
"
0 On Barbad
as a
seo E. G. Browne,
The
Sources
of
ballad-singor
...
an
excursus
with
on
B?rbad
and R?dag?,"
Dawlatshah,
1899,
JRAS.,
i (1929), pp. 14-18 ; on Barbad
as a musician
; Literary History
pp. 54-61
of Persia,
"
see A. Christensen,
on Persian
Some Notes
of the Sasanian
Melody-Names
Dastur
Mem.
sous
Period,"
; Viran
Vol., Bombay,
1918, pp. 368-377
Hoshaiig
les Sassanides,
2nd ed., pp. 484-6.
On tho forms of Barbad's
namo see Browne,
1899, p. 55, n. 1 ; Lit. Hist.,
JRAS.,
i, p. 15 ; Christensen,
Viran,
p. 484, n. 2 ;
Nat.
Noldeke,
epos, 2nd ed., p. 42, n. 2.
7 See
S?hn?me,
43, 3724 If. ; Thac?lib?,
pp. 694-8.
Zotonberg,
8
a native of
tradition makes Barbad
Tha'?lib?,
p. 694 ; but another
Zotonberg,
Ears (see Browne,
JRAS.,
1899, p. 61).

24
was driven, therefore, to hide in a tree in the

royal
from
which he caught the king's ear by three exquisite
gardens,
songs, sung to his lute among the leaves. The king was enchanted,
"
and lavished
became king of the
jewels on him, and Barbad
a
man
minstrels
of fame among the great".2
As
(r?misgar?n),
"
a musician
It was said that
he was held peerless.
he had for the
one of which he used to sing each
banquets of Parw?z 360 melodies,
Sargis.1
He
of music
day ; and his words are a final appeal for the masters
his
have
titles
of
airs"
been
The
",3
(ust?d?n-i mus?q?)
"thirty
on
been
and
and
have
late
doubtful
listed,
authority,4
analysed by
Christensen.5
The only songs of Barbad's whose substance has come down to
us are occasional ones. One, whereby he saved the life of the king's
Master of Horse, was composed to tell Parw?z of the death of his
Another
he sang, at the workmen's
charger, Sabd?z.0
to
after seven long years,
tell
Parw?z
of
the
pleading,
completion,
of the great gardens at Qasr-i S?r?n7 ; and after this he sang again
a splendid castle, and in this way
at S?r?n's request, describing
Parw?z
of
his
reminding
promise to build such a castle for his queen.
For this service S?r?n gave B?rbad a farm near Isfahan, on which he
favourite
settled his family.8 The legends of these songs give a vivid sense of
On the one hand, they
B?rbad's
power over his royal master.
a
and
the nameless
link
bold
with
the
g?s?n of
forge
Angares,
serve
on
to
Vis u R?mln
the
;
other, they
explain why, a little
the minstrel
had numbered
earlier, Mazdak
(r?miSgar) with the
m?bad?n m?bad, herbad?n herbad and the sp?hbad as one of the
It was clearly not only under
four chief servants of the king.9
Parw?z
1 Named
that the minstrel

Sarkas
by
Firdausi
influenced
; by
the throne.
Thacalib?,
Sarjis
; by Niz?m?
(Xusrau
Sir?n), Nak?s?.
2
43, 3791.
S?hn?me,
3
T?r?kh-i
Gibb Mem.
Series,
Qazw?n?,
Guz?de,
p. 1223""5; Browne,
JRAS.,
1899, p. 07.
4 Seo BurJuln-i
u Sir?n, ed. V. Dastagirdi,
Q?pic, under s? lohn ; Niz?m?, Xusrau
"
seven royal modes
For the names
of the
", and
Tohran,
pp. 190-4.
1313/1934,
see Mas'ud?,
of Sasanian
musical
instruments,
viii, p. 90.
5 In Dastur
Vol., pp. 368-377.
Hoshang Mem.
6
ed. F. W?stenfeld,
; Browne,
Bil?d,
Qazw?n?, ?th?ru-l
pp. 230-1
Zakariy?
; Lit. Hist.,
1899, pp. 58-9
i, pp. 17-18.
JllAS.,
7
cd. W?stonfold,
iv, pp.
Dictionary,
Geographical
Y?q?t,
de Meynard,
Barbier
pp. 448-9.
8 Ibid.
; Zakariy?
JRAS.,
Qazw?n?,
op. cit., p. 296 ; Browne,
9
cd. Cureton,
p. 19312"13 ; transi. Th. Haarbr?ckor,
Sahrast?n?,

112-13
transi.
p. 60.
i, p. 292.
1899,
25
supplanted by his art the former chief minstrel,

at court, and Parw?z
is said to have had his
in hearing the two sing in alternation.1
In the
keenest delight
to one tradition, B?rbad
died by poison at his
end, according
rival's hand ; and for all his joy in B?rbad, Parw?z pardoned the
murderer, rather than lose both his matchless minstrels at one blow.2
was not confined to courts in the
That professional minstrelsy
Although B?rbad
his rival remained
in Pahlavi
period is shown by references to huniy?gar?n
as
a
matter
texts.
it is enjoined,
of general
In the S?r Saxvan
a
after
to
the
minstrels3
that
thanks
should
be
feast
;
given
etiquette,
and tradition has it that, from Bahr?m G?r's reign onwards, the
Sasanian
number
at poor men's
g?s?ns ".4
can be accounted,
of minstrels
"
influx of Indian
The Sahn?me
tables was
increased
by
the
as a
of its details,
in many
numerous
; and it contains
of the Sasanian
period
to minstrels,
Many
usually under the term r?misgar?n.
to their presence at feasts, as in the
of these are stock-references
case of the Georgian mgosanni.b
A number of pr?ciser cases occur,
from the story of Kai K??s, may well
however.
The following,
document
references
A minstrel-demon
(ramisgar? d?v) seeks
embody an old tradition.
"
I am a sweet singer from among the
audience of the king, saying
"
minstrels
of M?zandar?n
(?un?n guft k-az sahr-i m?zandar?n,
yak?
xvas-nav?z-am
zi
r?misgar?n).
At
the
king's
command
he
is swiftly admitted,
He tunes
and seated before the musicians.
own
a
his
barbiton, and sings
song of the beauties of M?zandar?n,
so inflaming K??s with his description
that he resolves instantly
to conquer
that land.0
1
u S?r?ti (Tehran ed., pp. 359-378),
Thac?lib?,
p. 704 ; in his Xusrati
Zotenberg,
verses
to a series of songs sung in turn, to stringed
instru
Niz?m?
devotes many
2
and Nak?s?.
ments,
Thac?lib?,
pp. 704-5.
by Barbad
"
3 See J. C.
: a Dinner-Speech
in Middle
Sur Saxvan
Persian,"
Tavadia,
Journal
the
No. 29 (1935), p. 35, ? 186, and pp. 74-5.
K.R.
Cama
Oriental
Institute,
of
4 See
356, 862 ff. ; Tha'tilib?,
above,
p. 11 ; and cf. S?hn?me,
Zotenborg,
In Tha'?libfs
Guz?de, Gibb Mem. Series, p. 11210-13.
Qazw?n?, T?rikh-i
pp. 566-7;
as in the Mujmal
of a royally
and the S?hn?me,
version
there is no suggestion,
arc themselves
to employ
the singers,
have
subsidized
The peoplo
minstrelsy.
from them, and reward them justly.
pleasure
5 A number
on feasting
in the S?hn?me
have been
of passages
and minstrelsy
"
see his
in tho Iranian National
F.
and Feasts
collected
On Wine
;
by
Rosenberg
Journal
Cama
from tho Russian
of the K.R.
Epic ", translated
by L. Bogdanov,
occur in Vis u R?m?n.
Oriental Institute, No. 19 (1931), pp. 13-44. Similar passages
6
is
incident
; see also Thac?lib?,
12, 22-39
p. 156. Tho
S?hn?me,
Zotenberg,
of Amir Nasr
bin Ahmad.
reminiscent
of R?daki's
enticing
jiiAS.
AriiiL
1957

26
are generally
not as wanderers,
but as
represented,
in the legendary part of the poem,
of the court. When,
Sohr?b hears of the death of 2ande Razm,
he hastens from the
and
minstrels
feast, accompanied
(xuny?
by attendants,
lights,
see
It is possible to think here of the news
the body.1
gar?n), to
eager for copy ; and there is probably a resemblance.
paper-reporter,
Minstrels
members
and com
too, appears ever ready with description
in
the
Per?z
after
of
death
the
484, despite
Thus,
general
"
Suf?r? ",2
grief, singers (c?me-g?) at the feast praise the general
"
and sing to the barbiton the war with
Turan ".3 Here is a heroic
The minstrel,
ment.
is that the minstrels went

lay at its inception, and the implication
to the wars, composing their songs close upon the event.4
themselves
Their presence
in a Sasanian
army can also be inferred from a
how men
describes
Persian
Middle
parable, which
"
a
a
with
defenders
distract
its
fortress
spectacle
by
attacking
"
ud
while
themselves
much song and music
I
was),
(sr?d
niw?g
they
storm it from the rear.5
was evidently
both delight and
to heroic minstrelsy
Listening
Manichsean
In legendary days, Z?l is represented as telling Rustam

inspiration.
that he is still too young to fight, and that he should content himself
to heroic
and listening
with
song (pahlav?ni
sur?d).?
feasting
Later
in the poem, when Bahr?m
Oub?n feels his spirit flag on
the eve of battle, he summons a minstrel
(r?misgar) to sing a heroic
and his exploits at the
song of the Seven Stages of Isfandiy?r,
This incident, if authentic, provides an interesting
Brazen Hold.7
heroic lays by a professional
of Kayanian
example of the cultivation
in the later Sasanian
minstrel
period.
for the Sasanian
huniy?gar shows that the range
the same as that of the Parthian
of his activities was very much
From this later period the names of two famous court
g?s?n.
The
evidence
S?hn?mc,
12c, 688.
(This
is tho solo occurrence
of tho word
xuny?gar
poem.)
2 i.e. tho K?ren
S?xr?
; cf. N?ldeko,
Tabar?,
pp. 130-2.
3
S?hn?mc,
39, 180-2.
"
4
era was not a
heroic ago ", tho inherited
tho Sasanian
Although
were
maintained
literature
of heroic
it, and survived
during
evidently
to influence Firdausi.
6
= M 2 V II 7-14.
Mir. Man.,
ii, p. 305
Andreas-Kenning,
6
S?hn?me,
10, 64.
7
Ibid., 42, 1710.

in tho
conventions
long enough
27
to have
survived,1
rival?happen
a
is
in
sunk
but
period
deeper obscurity;
the minstrelsy
of both epochs is evidently
of the same general
The huniy?gar,
like the g?s?n, clearly inherited a body
character.
as called
on which he could extemporize
of traditional material,
minstrels?B?rbad
whereas
and
his
the Parthian
upon ; and he also contributed

poems
varied character, sung to an instrumental
of his
own
invention,
of
accompaniment.
Minstrelsy
(iii) Non-Professional
was
is good evidence
that in ancient
Iran minstrelsy
not
but
Strabo
cultivated,
only by professionals,
generally.
speaks
of the use of narrative
song in education
during the Parthian
"
rehearse both with song and
period, saying that the teachers
There
song the deeds both of the gods and of the noblest men ".2
can be linked with a Persian
This statement
legend preserved
centuries later by Grigor Magistros.
of
trees,
Writing
Grigor says :
"
But I will mention
the Rostom
is said, they
from
it
tree,
which,
without
used to cut branches
and make
in the hands
placed
any trouble,
branches
into small
them
of youths,
who
learned
just as (the Greeks)
used
to make
when,
as
chorus,
they
sang
the
lyres, which they

(to play) without
them from laurel
Homeric
3
poems."
This
that the Iranians,

indicates
like the Greeks, used poetry
In the late Sasanian
sung to the lyre in educating their children.
period, Xusrau Parw?z' page, a boy of noble birth, claims skill
4 : " In
in music and song as a part of his accomplishments
harp5
and lute and barbiton
and guitar and cithara, and in all songs
and chants,
and also in composing
and in making
responses6
1 Browne
of al-Bayhaq?,
tho names
i, p. 18) gives, on tho authority
(Lit. Hist.,
other
Sasanian
minstrels
; but
Xusraw?n?,
M?dliar?st?n?)
(?farin,
Christensen
(Dastur Hoshang Mem.
Vol., p. 371, n. 2), is probably
right in thinking
that these are really misunderstood
terms.
musical
2
xv, 3, 18 (Loeb, vii, p. 179).
Strabo,
"
3 Letter
xii ; see Grigor
iranischer
bei
Chalathiantz,
Fragmente
Sagen
x
221
German
WZKM.,
Grigor Magistros,"
(text with
(1896), p.
translation).
The English
translation
given here is Dr. Dowsett's.
4
J. Asana, Paid. Texts, p. 28, ? 13.
6
with Henning,
The
translations
of cig?mag
and
eng for cygion.
Reading,
kardan are also Henning's.
padw?z?g
6 In some
Parthian Manicha?an
a marginal
letter p, held to represent
manuscripts
is written
to mark
the antiphon.
verses,
padwaz,
by alternate
seemingly
Applied
to minstrel-singing,
indicates
the alternation
of songs in rivalry?
pwlw?zag
perhaps
a mutual
as represented
of achievement,
between
Barbad
and Sargis?
capping
rather than singing
in duet.
of
three
JRAS.
APRIL
1957
3*


"
I am an expert
word-plays,
(pad ?ang ud v?n ud barbut ud tamb?r
ud kinn?r, ud Jiarw sr?d [ud] eig?mag, ud padi? padw?zag guftan
28
[ud] padwaz?g kar dan, ust?d-mard h?m).

There are occasional
references to the composing of sung poetry
men
of
noble
In the Y?dg?r ? Zarer?n the young prince
birth.
by
a short, deeply-moving
utters
Bastwar
lament on the battle
field over his dead father.1 In the S?hn?me Isfandiy?r on his Fourth
Course, resting in the wilderness
by a spring, takes his guitar and
ever to wander and to
sings a lament for his hard lot, condemned
His
attracts
the
witch
whom
he must
overcome,
fight.2
singing
and it is likely, therefore, that the account of it is as old as the
in the Fourth Course of
story. The incident is closely reproduced
Rustam.3
at the birth of
is
mentioned
Joyous
improvisation
"
Rustam
drank to the sound
himself, when all Sam's entourage
of the lyre, each joyfully uttered songs ".4 Love-songs,
presumably
in a Manichsean Middle
sung by a man of birth, are mentioned
Persian parable, in which a girl, immured in a castle, loses her heart
"
"
to a false lover who woos her with
sweet song
(niw?g ? ??r?n)
from the foot of its walls.6
These few instances
suggest that the use of song by princes
and grown men of rank was largely spontaneous
and personal, an
or
or
of other emotions
love, and doubtless
expression of grief
joy
as well.
This general, private practice
must have
of minstrelsy
led to a discriminating
patronage of its public forms. Minstrelsy
was
for entertainment
not only by pro
cultivated,
evidently
and by women?by
fessionals, but also by pages, such as Xusrau's,
those, in fact, whose allotted function in life was to serve and please.
There are a number of references to women's minstrelsy.
As we
have seen, Xusrau's
one of the finest
considered
page himself
forms of minstrelsy
to be that provided by a lovely harpist with a
sweet, clear voice ; and tales of minstrelsy
by girls in various
walks of life have come down in some abundance
in the story of
G?r, a king famed both
love of women.
In his youth
Bahr?m
his
1 J.
Paid.
Asana,
iranischen Mundarten,
for his
love of minstrelsy
is said to have
Bahr?m
and
asked
Zur Kenntnis
der mittel
Texts,
p. 12 ; see C. Bartholomae,
"
Le Memorial
de Zarer," JA.,
iv, p. 22 ; E. Benveniste,
It is an inference
that Bastwar's
lament was sung.
1932, i, pp. 280-2.

2
; Tha'?lib?,
16, 1735-1744
S?hn?me,
pp. 312-14.
Zotenberg,
3
12, 426-433.
S?hn?me,
4
Ibid., 7, 1780.
5
=
Mir. Man.,
ii, p. 3061-4 ( M 2 VII22-9).
Andreas-Henning,

29
of the
and to have passed his

indulgent Mundhir
singing-girls,
in
their
with
music
and
company,
days
hunting and sports.1 Later
his Persian
when
visited
subjects,
by him, were ever ready to
not
with
the
present him,
customary magnificent
charger, but
or
a
with
dancer.2 Under his genial rule, his subjects
singing-girl
are represented as abandoning
themselves wholly to pleasure and to
himself was forced to regulate
listening to songs, until Bahrain
these delights.3
The account of his reign in the S?hn?me abounds
as was his
in instances of his pleasure
in song. Once, wandering
a
comes
at dusk, with the
custom, he
upon
pleasant village-scene
"
a
round
and
the
fire,
songs
people gathered"
girls singing in turn
of royal wars
razm-i
these
songs praises
xusrau).* Among
(c?me-yi
are uttered of Bahrain himself.
un
When
the king approaches,
four girls go hand-in-hand
to meet him and welcome
recognized,
him with songs,5 so delighting him that he demands all four of their
father, a miller, and bears them off. Later, the king lodges at a
poor man's hut, and in the evening the woman brings him food
"
"
an ancient tale
and a lute,6 and he asks her to beguile him with
is entertained by a wealthy
while he eats. Soon after this Bahr?m
are each gifted?one
to dance, one
vassal, whose three daughters
to play the harp, and one to sing.7 The singer and harpist together,
at their father's bidding,
improvise a song in praise of Bahrain's
so
sweetly that he takes both them and their
beauty and prowess,8
Yet again, the king is guided by the
into his household.
The harpist
of a harp to the house of a wealthy
jeweller.
a
The king, once more unrecognized,
is his daughter.
demands
"
"
after
of
and
first
the
her
call
;
song
(xur??-i
playing
Magians'
she sings a eulogy, first of her father and then of their
muy?n),9
guest. The next morning Bahr?m asks for more songs, of hunting
sister
sound
; and these she sings, following them with a eulogy

of the king.11 This lady too finds her way to Bahrain's
palace ;
and it is small wonder that when at last he returns there himself,
"
the earth
he is greeted tumultuously
with song and harp, so that
and of battle10
saluted
the sky ",12
1
Tha'?lib?,
p. 541.
Zotonberg,
2 Kit?b
ed. Cairo, p. 159 ; transi.,
at-T?j,
3
Tha<?lib?, Zotenberg,
p. 565.
6
4
Ibid., 477.
35,461.
??hn?me,
7
8
846.
Ibid., 844-854.
Ibid.,
10
"
1105.
1126-1130.
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
p.
177.
6
9
?
Ibid.,
718
Ibid.,
1011.
Ibid.,
35,

(reading
1427.
with
C).
30
at
in the S?hn?me
is mentioned
Singing by groups of harpists
"
:
to
used
each day yen-faced
the court of Kai Xusrau
harpists
he
in
and
when
held
the
court,
day
gather joyfully
palace. Night
1 Massed
he used to require wine, and song from the lips of a Turk."
are shown in the carvings at T?q-i Bust?n,2 where
women-harpists
Xusrau Parw?z, hunting the boar through swamps, is represented
as attended by two boats, one filled with women-harpists,
the other
In his own boat, as
with women singing and clapping their hands.
well as a woman handing him arrows, is another woman-harpist.
of music at the chase recalls yet another legend
representation
of Bahr?m G?r, telling how, as a young prince, he used to ride
a favourite
seated harp in
singing-girl
hunting on a camel, with
hand behind him.3 Dr. Bake has suggested that in these instances
was possibly
of minstrelsy
during the chase, the music
designed,
For a
not only to delight the hunter, but also to lure the game.
of music for wild animals he cites the con
belief in the attraction
This
India, represented
ception of the tod? ragin? in North
pictorially
as a slender girl with
the woodland
deer to her
lute, charming
feet.4
Apart
minstrelsy
rejoicing
"
ancient
from
this perhaps
practical
in the fields
is thus attested
; in love-songs,
wars
".
It
and
appears,
purpose,
of eulogy,
of hunting,
songs
therefore,
to
cover
non-professional
and
lamentation,
of battle and of
much
the
same
the amateur evidently

Moreover,
ground as professional minstrelsy.
a transmitter,
in being, not merely
the professional
resembled
his songs in
but a creative artist, in that he (or she) extemporized
or
own
some
or stimulus.
to
to
his
external
demand
mood,
response
was
also
is
that
to
used
It
clear
instruct. In addition
sung poetry
to his statement
that song was used
in teaching,
Strabo
records that
Ibid.,
13g, 1115-16.
2 Seo A.
Survey
Popo,
of Persian
Art,
iv, Plates
163A
and
; Christensen,
7//mn,pp.470,471.
3 See
; Qazw?n?, T?r?kh-i
34, 166 if. ; Tha<?lib?,
S?hn?me,
pp. 541-3
Guz?de,
ed. V. Dastagirdi,
Tehran
p. 112 ; Niz?m?, Haft Paikar,
pp. 108 if.
1315/1936,
4 See O. C.
i (Bombay,
Ragas and R?gixits,
1935), Platos vi, ix (pp. 72,
Gangoly,
Northern
Indian Music,
ii (London,
120) ; A. Dani?iou,
1954), p. 47. Dr. Bake
from Sir William
further cites a passage
Modes
Jones, On theMusical
of the Hindus,
Mohun
Hindu
various Authors,
Miisic
i,
Tagorc,
(reprinted " in Sourindro
from
I have been assured by a credible eye-witness,
that two wild antelopes
p. 127) :
to come from their woods
a more
used often
to the place where
beast,
savage
Juddaulah
entertained
himself with concerts*
(Siraju-d Daula),
listened to the strains with an appearance
of pleasure,
till the monster
there was no music,
shot one of them to display
his archery."
Sira

and
that
in whose
they
soul
31
"
there is said to be a Persian

360
song wherein are enumerated
uses of the palm-tree
>i.1This remark has been cited by E. Benveniste
text Draxt %As?rig,
in connection with
the Pahlavi
shown by
a
to have had
Bartholomae
Parthian
original,2 and by Benveniste
himself to be in verse.3
This stray survivor of a characteristic
to a wisdom-literature,
oral poetry
belongs
evidently
or
rather
than by minstrels.4
cultivated
sages
probably
by priests
use
in
The
of sung religious poetry
Iran, amply attested both
class
of
and
texts,
surviving
not come within
however,
minstrel
in
in references
the scope
a cross-fertilization
does
by classical historians,
of this article.
there
was,
Evidently
down the centuries of priestly and
since heroic stories entered

texts,
traditions,
liturgical
and ancient gods appear as heroes in the secular epic. As well as
the old Avestan hymns, we now have several Zoroastrian poems of
visionary or didactic character, from the Sasanian or post-Sasanian

6 and the Manich
an church in Iran has left a wealth of
;
period
texts
in verse from the same epoch. While
and
hymns
liturgical
own
use
full
of
their
churches
sung poetry, the Sasanian
making
warned their followers against the seduction of secular minstrelsy.
A Zoroastrian
mouth
from
text
the eye from women,

the
enjoins restraining
food, the tongue from folly, and the ear
The Manichsean
(huniy?gih).6
parable mentioned
a girl dies of grief for a false lover who has wooed
delicious
from minstrelsy
above, in which
"
her with
sweet
song ", is told to illustrate the need to guard the

of
hearing. The Christian bishop Afraates demanded of the
faculty
"
western
in
Sasanian
from
faithful,
lands, abstention
song, and
vain
and
the
the dazzling of sweet
precepts of. vessels of iniquity,
words
".7 Moralists
being
seldom
inclined to admonish
where
there
Strabo,
xvi, i, 14 (Loeb, vii, p. 215).
2 Bartholomae.
Millcliran.
iv, pp. 23 if.
Mundarten,
"
3
Le texte du Draxt
et la versification
As?r?k
Benveniste,
JA.,
pehlevie,"
1930, ii, pp. 193-225.
4 On the cultivation
see Chadwick,
of wisdom-literature
Growth of Literature,
iii, p. 883.
"
5 See E.
: le Z?m?sp
Uno
Rev.
Benveniste,
N?mak,"
apocalypso
pehlevie
"
de I*hist, des religions,
106 (1932), pp. 337-380
A Didactic
Poem
; J. C. Tavadia,
"
in Zoroastrian
i (1950), pp. 86-95
Indo-Iranian
A Rhymed
;
Pahlavi,"
Studies,
"
Ballad
in Pahlavi,"
A Pahlavi
;W. B. Henning,
JRAS.,
1955, pp. 29-30
Poem,"
xiii (1950), pp. 641-8.
BSOAS.,
6
cd. Madan,
; see Bailey, Zor. Problems,
Denkart,
pp. loO^-l?l1
p. 113, n. 1.
"
7 (1.
aus dem syrischen
des persischen
Weisen
Bert,
llomilicn,
Aphnihat's
liomilio
Texte und Untersuchungen
?bersetzt,"
i, p. 19, in Gebhardt-Harnaek,
zur Geschichte
iii (1888).
der altchristlichen
Literatur,

32
is no temptation,
the churchmen may be held to have
to the charm and persuasiveness
of Sasanian minstrelsy.
The
(iv) The Loss of Iranian

evidence, scattered and varied
testified
Minstrel-Poetry
the
though it is, establishes
Iran of "un vaste courante po?tique",1
in pre-Islamic
flowing from Median times down to the end of the Sasanian period.
The Arabic conquest can hardly have served to cut this current
existence
into
Persians
the poetry-loving
off, or to have plunged
abruptly
silence for some 300 years.
Yet during this dark period the old
so completely
its
that thereafter
poetry seems to have vanished
came
to
in
this
existence
be
doubt.
For
there
very
vanishing
appear to be two main causes.
In the first place,
it seems that Iranian poetry remained oral
All our sources suggest that the huniy?gar,
down to the conquest.
his
like the Parthian
g?s?n, was a true minstrel,
extemporizing
verses to music without help of writing.
Barbad, a perfect example
of a minstrel-poet,
was
If minstrelsy
to be
during
The
flourished during the last great Sasanian reign.

still honoured at the court of Parw?z,
it is hardly
was
it
that
literate
composition
supposed
superseded
by
the few short and troubled reigns which followed.
use of writing,
continuous
from Achsemenian
evidently
is of course abundantly
for the Sasanian
attested
period.
days,
The body of trained scribes (dibir?n) fulfilled important functions
in society, being responsible,
among other things, for administra
and communications.
tion, records,
accountancy
legal matters,
of writing
Nor was a knowledge
limited to these professionals
;
royal slaves existed capable on occasion of recording their master's
at least,
words 2 ; and a knowledge
of writing was, sometimes
a
of
education.
to
the
K?m?mak,
part
gentleman's
According
court3 ;
himself learnt scribesmanship
(dib?r?h) at P?pak's
as
and Bahrain G?r is said to have acquired the same attainment
a child.4 It is not surprising, therefore, to find Xusrau's all-proficient
"
is such
page claiming skill in the art5 : And my scribesmanship
that I am a good penman
and a swift penman, with accurate
Ardas?r
1 E.
Benveniste,
1930, ii, p. 224.
JA.,
Kit?b at-T?j, Cairo ed., p. 27 ; transi.,
3
K?rn?mak,
i, 23.
4
34,110-11.
S?hn?me,
6 J.
Asana, Pahl. Texts, p. 27, ? 10.
2
p. 54.

33
and learned in language"

and skilful fingers,
(urn
knowledge
dib?r?h ay?n ku xub-nib?g ud rag-nib?g,1 bar?k-daniSn, k?mak-k?r
that the page's
hem). It is noticeable
angust2 [ud] fraz?nak-saxvan
no
claim is to technical proficiency,
with
achievement
easy
clearly
From dib?r?h he goes on to speak of horsemanship
and
of arms, before coming to music and the composition
the manage
of poetry
(sr?d ud cig?mag), which he links together as a single
Pahlavi.
accomplishment.
The separation
and
of dib?r?h from poetry
appears general,
no text exists, to my knowledge,
from pre-Islamic
Iran connecting
down
secular poetry with writing.
poetry was written
Religious
if not earlier ; but it is significant
period,
from this epoch appear to be
verse-texts
those of the Manicheean
influences were
religion, in which Semitic
within
the Sasanian
that
the oldest written
laid especial
and whose prophet, brought up in Babylonia,
on
the
of
The
native
Zoroastrian
effect
emphasis
stabilizing
writing.3
strong,
religious books do not appear to have been

in the period.
If religion lagged in this matter
is hardly surprising
were even slower
an
oral
set down
until
late
behind the state, it

lacking any spur of rivalry or expedience,
to writing
in adapting
their long tradition
of
if poets,
art.
A number
of native
prose-works, written down before the Arabic

; and these are almost
conquest,
directly or in translation
or
a
a
all characterized
factual
basis,
pseudo-factual
by having
and by being composed,
for some practical
purpose,
seemingly,
either as propaganda
for the reigning house, or a record, or an
survive
to the virtuous behaviour desirable

in a good church
inducement
man and citizen.
chronicles,4
treatises,
They comprise
political
works on rank and etiquette, moral discourses
and testaments
;
as official writings,
and can fairly be described
from
emanating
court or state-church.
They fall into two main groups.
Firstly,
1
Zor. Problems,
with Bailey,
p.
Reading
; k?mak-k?r-*hudast,
Henning's
reading
3 See
Mir. Man.,
ii, pp.
Andreas-Henning,
4
Les gestes des rois dans
Christensen,
that the Achamienian
pp. 116-17,
argued
"
sorte une litt?rature
d'amusements
rather
2
loc. cit.
Bailey,
295-6
(= T II D 126 I R, I V).
les traditions
de Viran
1936,
antique,
were already
chronicles
"en
quelque
than a factual
This he based
record.
from this verse seems hazardous,
however.
on Esther,
vi i. Christensen's
deduction
There
is no reason why
the king of kings,
turn in sleeplessness
to an objective
record
the case
undone,
160.
is suggested
tho
namoly
zealous
in affairs
of state,
should not
; and that this was actually
served to remind him of a task
of events
by tho fact that tho roading

of Mordecai.
rewarding

34
there are the original prose-writings

of the Sasanian
era, such
as the Testament
or
%
%
Ardasir
the
Andarz
Xusrau
Kaw?d?n.
of
These are characterized
there are
by a dry didacticism.
Secondly,
as
or the
derivative
such
the Xwad?y
N?mak
works,
partly
%
Karn?mak
Arda?lr, which contain much older material of imagina
tive quality, almost certainly drawn from minstrel
tradition.
The
as
has
literature
been
characterized
pre-Islamic
recently
having
"
vivid imagination, controlled by a logical and somewhat utilitarian
outlook, with a pronounced
religious leaning 'V and the impression
of oddly juxtaposed
it leaves on us appears due
qualities which
to the fact that our knowledge of it is largely limited to its religious
verse and official prose, in which
latter there exist, for the most
transmuted
elements
of the lost secular poetry.
part unrecognized,
there existed native prose works written for entertain
Evidently
of collections
of short stories.2
The only one to
ment,
consisting
survive
Haz?r
the
the kernel for the
indirectly,
Afs?n,
provided
and One Nights.
Stray short stories are also to be found
of the Manichaean
church.3
In general, however,
seems
to
like
have
been
carried on without
story-telling,
poetry,
Thousand
in the parables
books.
The professional
(muhaddith) had his place at
story-teller
and
of
the
richness
his
court,4
repertoire is implied by the fact that
ever to repeat himself,
he was forbidden
unless at the king's
a
as good as the pro
command.5
he required
memory
Evidently
fessional poet's.
appears also as a general diversion,
Story-telling
as one would expect.
In the S?hn?me
IV
the blinded Hormuzd
as
is represented
men
for
two
to
weariness
the
asking
help pass
of his days.6 One is to be a scribe {diblr),1 a wise old man (d?nande
kulian), who will read to him of the deeds of kings from a book
who
(nabiste yakl daftar) ; the other a battle-scarred
nobleman,
will tell of wars and the chase. Here a distinction
is clearly implied
between the written factual chronicle, providing matter
for reflec
mard-i
1 See
Literature,"
the
admirable
"
of the subject
Iranian
survey
by I. Gershevitch,
an
the
E.
B.
Ceadel, London,
East,
of
Appreciation
(ed.
this characterization,
had also in mind
the
Gershevitch
short
in Literatures
In making
1953), p. 71.
Avestan
and the Ossetic Nart Saga.
hymns
2
See Ibn an-Nad?m,
ed. Fl?gel,
Fihrist,
p. 304.
"
3
Manich?ische
Le Musion,
See, e.g. W. Bang,
Erz?hler,"
"
W. B. Henning,
xi (1945), pp.
BSOAS.t
Sogdian Tales,"
4 Kit?b
ed. Cairo, p. 24 ; transi., p. 52.
at-T?j,
6
Ibid., ed. Cairo, p. 113 ; transi., p. 137.
6
S?hn?mc,
43, 56-9.
7 He is so
called,
ibid., 43, 69.
xliv (1931),
465-487.

pp.
1-36
35
for diversion.
It seems unlikely,
however,
story-telling
even when professional,
rose
in Sasanian
times story-telling,
above the level of anecdote and short story, or that it could rank
as a serious narrative
was plainly
The story-teller
literature.
tion,
that
and
less honoured
than
the poet,
and had
to seek novelty
to hold
attention.
The only prose works of entertainment,

apart from Haz?r Afs?n,
to have a sustained narrative
interest, or elaborate frame
work, are of foreign origin, and were apparently rendered into Pahlavi
romance
late in the period.
There is, for example, the Hellenistic
known
of W?miq wa cAdhr?, coming probably

through Syriac, and said
to have been dedicated to Xusrau An?sarw?n.1
From India came,
same
as
Kal?la wa Dimna,
time, such works
evidently at about the
the Tut? Name and the Sindb?d Name.
Even in these latter works
so that
of entertainment,
the stories are mixed with edification,
either for this reason, or because they were written down, to study
them could be regarded as a sign of moral worth.
Thus it is said
"
with approval of Bahr?m Oub?n that
he follows none but royal
ways, he reads ever the whole Book of Dimna ".2 In view of this
remark,
and of the scantiness
of written
native works
of entertain
to suppose that written prose, representing

it is tempting
and
remained
connected with serious and practical
effort,
study
matters down to the end of the Sasanian period, and that its limited
use for stories was belated, and inspired
of foreign
by translations
works, introducing a new fashion into Persia.3
Be this as itmay, it seems that there existed in Persia down to the
ment,
Arabic conquest a twofold literary culture. On the one hand, there

was a written prose, of foreign inception and official
adoption, which
was used largely for practical purposes and was slow to extend its
range. This written prose was enshrined in a difficult script. On
the other hand, there was a native, unwritten
poetry, generally
and covering a wide field.
cultivated
This appears to have been
largely imaginative and evocative, and to have been linked invariably
1
Daulats?h,
reconstruction
ed. Browne,
cUnsur?'s
to be derived
from a partial
p. 30. On the material
"
see M. Shafi,
wa cAdhr?,"
?Unsur?'s W?miq
version,
I liter national
Proceedings
Congress
of the XXIIIrd
of Orientalists
(ed. D. Sinor,
1954), pp. 160-61.
Cambridge,
2
43, 97.
S?hn?me,
3 It is
to seo how this fashion was exploited
of the
interesting
by the sugaring
a fine
Machiavellian
Letter of Tansar,
of didactic
with
specimen
court-treatise,
fables of Indian origin
n.s., v (1955), pp. 50-8).
(see Asia Major,
of

36
is possibly
this link which served to keep it so
from
the
prose. The sixth century saw evidently
sharply
a considerable
of
the application
of writing,
and it is
widening
clear
that her own
intellectual
with
development,
together
influences from abroad, were at this time thrusting Persia towards
a more embracing
literacy. The introduction of the Arabic alphabet
with music.
It
distinct
this process;
plainly hastened
In the eighth century a number of Middle Persian works were
translated
into Arabic ; and the total absence of verse-texts
among
them is even more striking than the preponderance
of prose-texts
in the ninth-century
At that time there existed
Pahlavi
books.
so
or
little written Arabic verse
that one can hardly attribute
prose,
to the alien culture any influence over the choice of which
to
a
translate.
It is a fair assumption,
therefore, that in translating
but none in verse, Ibnu'l
large and varied selection of prose-works,
were
and
his
fellows
their native
Muqaffa*
simply continuing
was
were
in which prose alone
written.1
tradition,
They
evidently
scholars, men of books ; and it is quite possible that the unwritten
Persian
poetry
consideration.
did not
even
enter
their
purview
as matter
for
scholars was plainly not

Disregard
by the early post-conquest
in
to
The resemblance
itself
kill
old
the
enough
minstrel-poetry.
has been remarked between Barbad and the blind Samanid poet,
in the old extem
still in the tenth century composed
to a stringed
instrument.
resemblances
pore tradition,
Stylistic
and the S?hn?me
the Y?dg?r
? Zarer?n
that
between
suggest
were
of
known
in
old
the
down
the
north-east
specimens
epic poetry
R?dak?,2
who
to Firdausi's
in unbroken
oral
there probably
day, surviving
came
some
old
to
be
of
the
Further,
continuity.
minstrel-poems
or
written down, probably during the late eighth
ninth centuries?
after
the work
of the early translators,

that is, and during th?
of the great collections
texts.
of Zoroastrian
Pahlavi
were
like
the
in
the
interests
Some,
Y?dg?r itself,
evidently preserved
seem likely
of the Zoroastrian
church ; others, like Vis u Ramm,
formation
to have
owed
their recording
to secular patronage.
In the preface
"
1 See F.
xiii (1931-2),
USO.,
Gabrieli,
pp. 197-247.
L'op?ra di Ibn al Muqaffa?,"
"
a
himself
to note
Ab?n
is interesting
that the innovator
poet ",
al-L?Uiq?,
into Arabic verso
went no further than rendering
Persian
prose works
(see Ibn an
It
Fihrist,
Nad?m,
2 See
Browne,
od. Fl?gel,
p. 119).
JRAS.,
1899, pp. 61-9
; Lit. Hist.,
i, pp.
15-17,

455-8.
37
of this poem, Gurgan? states that the story was

and loved in the land (dar ?n ki?var l?ame kas
generally
d?radae d?st),1 and was familiar to him from a compilation made by
ses mard-i d?n? >st).2 This compila
six wise men (zi gird-?varde-yi
was
tion
in Pahlavi
(pahlav? b?sad zab?nas),* and was presumably
to his version
known
some considerable
time before Gurgan?'s own day, since he
"
"
of yore
refers to the compilers as being
(p???ri).* In the eleventh
was
of
Pahlavi
it
used
for
the
(dar ?n iql?m an daftar
century
study
inter
An obvious
be-xv?nand bed?n t? pahlavi az vai be-d?nand).5
of
written
the
of
statements
the
version
these
is
that
pretation
was
an
at
put together by scholars
story
early date, perhaps a
made
time, from the

couple of hundred years or so before Gurgan?'s
This would account for the wide
recitations of various minstrels.
popular currency of the poem (presumably not wholly dependent,
even in the eleventh
the part
version),
century, on the written
a
in
and
of
its
the
scholars,
group
preservation by
played
anonymity
of its authorship, which is a characteristic
of oral poems containing
traditional matter,
of singers.6
recreated by successive generations
It seems likely that it was as a minstrel-poem
that V?s u R?m?n
was known to Abu Nuw?s
in the eighth century.7
came to be recorded
The very fact that some minstrel-poems
a
further
At
this same time?the
about
sets, however,
problem.
late eighth and early ninth centuries?a
of
the old Arab oral
part
was written
down, to serve as a quarry for historian and

and to remain as one of the most treasured sections of
grammarian,
Arabic
literature.
it was this activity,
even, which
Possibly
the
of
Persian
oral
But once
prompted
poems.
parallel recording
some of the latter had been set down,
did
unlike
the
why
they,
Arabic poems, vanish away again ? Difficulties
of script, or the
poetry
1 Vis u
ed. Minovi,
R?min,
p. 264.
3
4
Ibid., p. 26*.
Ibid., p. 267.
Ibid., p. 27?.
6
2613.
xi
has interpreted
Ibid., p.
(BSOAS.,
(1946), pp. 743-4)
Minorsky
use of the word f?rs?
in
that his source was
Gurg?n?'s
puzzling
(p. 277) to mean
Persian
to round
; and he dates this therefore,
(i.e. in Arabic
script)
tentatively,
a.d. 950.
about
It is difficult
to see, however,
can be
how this interpretation
2
reconciled
with Gurg?n?'s
clear statements
that his original was in Pahlavi.
6 On the
of tho anonymity
see C. M. Bowra,
of oral poetry
Heroic
question
those minstrels
have tho best chance
(London,
Poetry
1952), pp. 404-9.
Clearly
to bo remembered
like Barbad,
towards
tho end of an oral
by name who flourish,
or who, like Angares,
have their names recorded by a foreign observer.
tradition,
7 See M.
Yaki az F?rsiyy?t-i
Abu Nuuxis,
Revue de la Facult? des Lettres,
Minovi,
Univ.
de Teheran,
i, 3 (1954),
pp.
76-7.

38
seem only partial explanations

; and
superior prestige of Arabic,
the true cause appears rather to lie in the development
of Persian
poetry, and in the drastic change in literary taste which took place
after the conquest.
on his Pahlavi
In this connection Gurg?n?'s further comments
source
are of considerable
This text was,

interest.
have lost much
well
which
may
scholarly compilation,
as
fire and vigour ; but it was recorded apparently
verse Gurg?n? judges it and finds it sadly wanting.
admittedly,
of its minstrel
verse, and as
The story he
considers charming, however much obscured by its Pahlavi dress x ;
"
moves
but its versification
that
then
him to declare
poetry
"
was not a profession
na
?a'irl
b?d
ast).2 Would,
(ke ?ng?h
p??e
"
he says, that the six men were still alive, that they might see how
is elucidated, and how metre
sj:>eech is now produced, how meaning
"
and rhymes are imposed upon it
(Iceakn?n ml suxan c?n ?firinand,
? vazn u qavaf? ?un nih?dand)?
bar
Mac?nl-r?
bar
cig?ne
guS?dand,
"
He repeats this criticism by implication more than once.
When
is
when
has
metre
and
it
is
better
than
it
arranged
speech
rhymes,
(suxan-r? ?un buvad vazn u qav?fl, nik?tar zanke
"
and sweet the story,
however delightful
; and
paim?de guz?fi)4
metre
and
it becomes new-adorned
(fas?ne garce
through
rhyme"
b?sad nayz u slrln, be vazn u q?fiyegardad nau-?^n).6 The substance
of his criticism of the old poem is, in short, that it was unmetrical
and lacked rhyme.
about a
Very similar criticisms were made
not
he
does
how
later
cAufi
of
B?rbad's
work,
preserved
century
by
haphazardly"
: "In
the royal songs

of Parw?z,
were
Barbad
; but they
many
composed by
(nav?-yi xusrav?ni)
are remote from verse-metre,
of poetical
and
observance
the
rhyme,
to
for which reason we have not concerned ourselves
congruities,
is reflected in an entry in
discuss them." 6 This harsh judgment
"
: xusrav?ni
is the name of a
the Burh?n-i Q?li* under xusrav?ni
it is in prose,
and
those
(lahnl) among
composed by Barbad,
melody
of
the king,
and
invocation
prose comprising
eulogy
rhythmical
it was through the
and verse is not used in it at all." Presumably
state.
Of
accumulation
it he says
of such
the time
judgments,
and the neglect
2
1 Vis u
Ibid., p. 2610.
R?m?n, p. 266~7.
for printed
1. 15 (with variant
Ibid.,
paim?dan,
paim?de,
Minovi).
by Professor
6
Ibid., 1.17.
0
cd. Browno,
JRAS.,
i, p. 20 ; seo Browne,
Lub?buH-Alb?b,
of time,
3

Ibid.,
that
p. 2611-12.
supplied
1899, pp.
verbally
55-6.
it

came about
39
in the fifteenth
eager to estab
century Daulats?h,
of pre-Islamic
Persian
could find no
poetry,
a
on
case.
to
material
which
build
serious
surviving
a cause which
That pre-conquest
poetry existed is nevertheless
x
has not lacked modern
either by
; but some, moved
champions
or by the
the critical judgments of these early Persian writers,
lish the
that
existence
corrupt state of the few Middle Persian poems identified in Pahlavi

script, have been led to form a very low opinion of its quality.
Edward Browne, writing at the end of the last century,2 esteemed
as
B?rbad's
poems on the level of popular ballads, as evanescent
the doggerel
tasn?fs of a later day ; and more recently the late
J. C. Tavadia, who himself contributed
to our knowledge
notably
of Sasanian
poetry, held that its growth had been stunted by
the attitude
of the Zoroastrian
church,3 and that it had never
a
been able to develop
and primitive"
"rude
stage.4
beyond
Such beliefs are plainly
the wide
however, with
incompatible,
of minstrelsy
its achieve
before the conquest,
spread popularity
ments
in creating and transmitting
and
the power of the
poetry,
over the king. The Sasanian court was hardly a place
court-minstrel
where
crude
and
hasty
would
improvisation
win
honour
and
influence.
The key to the problem has been put into our hands
of Middle
verse-texts
Persian
by the discovery
Manichaean
material
this century
the
among
of these were
from Central Asia.

The oldest
are
and
period,
preserved in a clear script
scribal tradition.
Various
such as
devices,
in the Sasanian
composed
and by an excellent
regular
punctuation,
an
elaborate
use
of
abecedarian
acrostics,
and
even
serve
the setting out of the text in verse-lines,
occasionally
to mark the poetic structure ; and though much remains to explore
in the versification,
certain general characteristics
have by now
been
1A
established.5
These
substantiate,
broadly
notable
speaking,
the
is J. Darme3toter
(see his Les origines de la po?sie persane,
example
of Middle
before any of tho discoveries
Persian
1887, pp. 1-3), who wroto
2 See his
in this century.
article, JRAS.,
1899, p. 61.
See his Indo-Iranian
I (Bombay,
Studies,
1950), pp. 45-6.
"
4
in Pahlavi
See ibid., p. 88 ; and cf. his
Ballad
A Rhymed
1955,
", JRAS.,
"
Tho House
of Gotarzes
p. 29. J. G. Coyajeo
", JASB.,
(in
1932), also speaks
of pre-Islamic
ballads
and ballad-mongers
(see pp. 208, 209, 224).
repeatedly
"
6 Sco
W.
B. Henning,
Tho Disintegration
of tho Avestic
Trans.
Studies,"
xiii (1950),
; "A Pahlavi
1942, pp. 51-6
Poem,"
BSOAS.,
Philological
Society,
an Hymn-Cycles
in Parthian
The Manich
pp. 641-8;
(Oxford,
Boyce,
1954),
Paris,
verso
3
pp.
45-59.

40
of cAuf? and Gurgan?.

Middle Persian verse, as repre
in these texts, although embracing a subtle variety of metres,
classical Persian verse
appears in comparison with the quantitative
to be uniformly
is
and
It
governed
rough
irregular.
evidently
criticisms
sented
by stress, without regard for quantity, and the number of unstressed

syllables varies from line to line. And there is no rhyme. Written
its accompanying
music,1 this poetry is apt to
down, and without
seem considerably more
like rhythmic prose than like verse.
of these Manichaoan texts has enabled a new examina
Knowledge
tion of the Middle Persian texts in Pahlavi
script, and these prove
to have the same underlying metrical principles.
Since they include
the heroic fragment Y?dg?r l Zarer?n, and the riddle-poem Draxt I
it is safe to assume that the secular as well as the sacred
As?rlg,
verse of the Sasanian period was composed
in this convention.
is plainly the second main cause for the loss of the
in a convention
old minstrel-poetry,
namely that it was composed
under
of new types of versification
which, with the development
After the
out of favour.
Arabic
influence, came to fall wholly
in Arabic,2
to compose
poets came gradually
conquest Persian
and eventually
to reshape their native metres on the new models.
Here
then
for
taste developed
the sophisticated
quickly
among
Probably
the sweetness and elegance of the new verse ; and the old poetry
least
those
in circulation
must
have continued
among
longest
the
alien
culture?the
touched
stubbornly
patriotic,
by the
of the community?suffering,
poorer members
and most
it came to be neglected
by the wealthiest
an inevitable
loss of talent.
decline
influential patrons,
through
or
as
as
twelfth
late
the
eleventh
centuries, a
Nevertheless,
early
as
on a level with R?dak?,
Persian poet was able to set B?rbad
3 :
had
he
served
to
house
the
bringing undying fame
"
of Sasan and of
From all the treasures hoarded by the Houses
our
in
Saman,
days
is left save
survives except the song of Barbad,4 nothing
Nothing
sweet lays."
R?dag?'s
Zoroastrian,
as soon as
1 For
the
based
some remarks on this vanished
music,
largely
"
sco A. Machaboy,
La cantillation
manich?enne,"
texts,
No. 227 (Paris, 1955), pp. 5-20.
2 Seo
474-7.
Lit. Hist.,
i, pp. 446-7,
Browne,
3 See Niz?m?-i
Gibb Mem.
Series,
cAr?d?, Chah?r Maq?le,
p. 29.
4
u das tun.
nava-y i barbad m?ndast
on cantilatod
Turfan
Revue Musicale,
La
text,

p. 27 ; transi.,
41
was admired for generations

after the
minstrel-poetry
as
as
was
for
it
sung, and not
conquest,
possibly
long
worthily
or
from
recited
read
books.1
it
fell gradually
lamely
Equally plainly
into neglect.
What was. not written?and
that must have been
the bulk?was
; what was written
forgotten
perished, or, in the
Plainly
case of Vis u R??mn, was refashioned

The
to suit a later taste.
result in all cases was the same : the minstrel-poems
disappeared.
A close parallel to this development
exists in England, where the
old unrhymed
verse was abandoned,
after
irregular Anglo-Saxon
the Norman conquest,
in favour of rhymed French metres, with the
loss of almost all the old secular poetry, which, with a
consequent
few exceptions,
appears to have remained oral in England
an intermediate
that date.
In both countries, moreover,
ment
shows
itself,
in which
the old
stress-metres
too until
develop
were modified
by the use of rhyme.

Persia two Zoroastrian
In
In England we have Layamon's
Brut.
one
them
of
have
been
identified,
poems
both of which have simple end-rhyme
post-conquest,2
indisputably
wedded to lines with
and a varying number of syllables.

This hybrid versification
in Persia ;
has no literary descendants
but many
as
as
have
late
been
the
nineteenth
noticed,
examples
and early twentieth centuries, of local and dialect
poetry, circulating
stress-metre
on R?dak?'s
Daulats?h's
comment
famous poem on the J?-yi M?liy?n,
sung
by him to the harp (see his Tadhkiratu-'?Sudara, ed. Browne,
p. 32) is so pertinent
seems
that it
to quote it again here.
I use Browne's
translation
justifiable
(JRAS.,
. . . and if in these days
the verses are extremely
1899-, pp. C8-9) : "...
simple
such a poem
in the presence
of kings or nobles,
it would
anyone were to produce
meet
with
the reprobation
of all. It is, however,
that as Master Rudagi
probable
tho completest
of harmony
he
in that country,
and music
possessed
knowledge
some tune or air, and produced
this poem of his in the form
may have composed
of a song with musical
and that it was in this way that it obtained
accompaniment,
so favourable
a reception.
In short, we must
not lightly esteem Master
Rudagi
on account
of this poem,
of
in all manner
for assuredly
he was expert
merely
. . .
arts and accomplishments,
and has produced
of
kinds
several
good poetry
for ho was a man of great distinction,
and admired
by high and low."
2 See
W. B. Henning,
"A Pahlavi
xiii (1950), pp. 041-8;
BSOAS.,
Poom,"
"
J. C. Tavadia,
A Rhymed
in Pahlavi,"
Tho
Ballad
1955, pp. 29-30.
JRAS.,
"
a reference
latter poem contains
to the Arabic
also
traces of N.Pers.
conquest,
"
in tho vocabulary,
and oven somo Arabic words
Tho
usago
(Tavadia,
p. 29).
ante quern of tho former appears

to bo a.d. 950 (Henning,
p. 048, n. 2);
is nothing
in the contents
to date
it more
but Henning
closely,
(p. 048)
"
out that
tho rhythm would
if one put more modern
points
perhaps
improve,
forms into tho text,
in placo of tho conventional
Middle
Persian
heavy-vowolled
"
forms ". Professor
has now kindly drawn my attention
also to the
Henning
Song
of Kark?y
but not quantitative,
in the T?r?x-i
ed.
", rhymed
S?st?n,
preserved
Malik
as-Sucar?
Tehran,
Bah?r,
p. 37.
1314/1935,
terminus
there

42
of it.1
orally and linked with music, which appear to be developments
In this late poetry the lines.have
tended to become more approxi
mately
regular, so that observers have sometimes been tempted to
attribute
the fluctuation
in the number,
of syllables
to clumsiness
rather than to convention.

surviving schools of oral poetry appear, at the time when
were
recorded, to have reached various stages of impoverish
they
ment.
of Sabzawar,
In the thinly populated
and arid district
2
whose
Ivanow
found many sung poems in circulation,
authorship
was generally unknown.
There seems to have been no evidence
These
of composition,
but the technique
minstrel-poets,
and
standard
recurring conven
metaphors
epithets,
traces
of one long
in
Ivanow
is
found
the
minstrel-tradition.
tions,
once
in verse ;
known
to
have
which
been
narrative,
appeared
was
of
current
almost purely
but the
poetry
lyrical, consisting
a
love-songs and elegies, with the songs of the camelmen forming
special group. Fights, feuds and warfare had no place in the lives
or poetry of the somewhat
timid peasantry
; but topical songs,
some
were
on
common.
New poems were
comment
event,
providing
or
for
important festivals, notably?
weddings,
generally composed
as in Sasanian times?for
the festival of Naur?z
; and also, in the
more old-fashioned
at
evening assemblies, where regular
villages,
contests
in poetry would sometimes
take place, usually among the
of professional
with its fixed
The usual verse-form was the quatrain, called the carbayt?.

young.
"
have no general
Other forms in use, Ivanow
says,
apparently
As they are rare,
term by which they are known to everybody.
each one is known after the first line, by the name of the hero, or
The poems
after the contents "?in
the Middle Persian manner.
were
always sung, and in the" singing

masked
in the lines was
syllables
the variation
".
The
in the number of
varied, a few
tunes
but most monotonous.

really beautiful,
also Lorimer 3 appears to have found no
the Baxtiari
Among
them poetry had a wider range, reflecting
professional poets. With
seeming
to Ivanow
1 To the list of works

cited by E. Benveniste,
1932, ii, p. 292, with nn. 2-7,
JA.,
can now be added R. Lescot,
Textes kurdes, ii (Beyrouth,
1942) ; D. L. R. Lorimer,
xvi
of S.W. Persia,"
"The
Verse
of the Bakhtiari
BSOAS.,
(1954),
Popular
(1955), pp. 92-110.
"
of Khorasan,"
in the Dialect
n.s.,
Rustic
JASB.,
Ivanow,
Poetry
xxi
(1925), pp. 233-313.
3
Die
in 1914);
cf. also O. Mann,
See op. cit. (based on material
gathered
Persien
im s?d-westlichen
der Lur-St?mme
Mundarten
1910), pp. 74-96.
(Berlin,
pp.
542-5
; ii, xvii
See W.


a bolder
43
and more
varied way of life. Lorimer noted historical

to
tribal fights and feuds), laments, love-poems,
pieces (referring
satires, wedding and funeral songs and lullabies. As in the Sabzawari
songs, fixed epithets appeared and recurring phrases ; and also
In spite of a
archaic words no longer to be found in daily speech.
and thought, many of the songs were highly
simplicity of matter
even to their reciters ; to Lorimer
obscure
and
their
allusive,
so
poor that he hesitated to give them the name of
quality appeared
verse seems in fact to have born
The Baxtiari
poetry.
already,
in the second decade of this century, the stamp of a degenerate and
dying tradition.
1 had found a
At the end of the nineteenth
century Darmesteter
minstrel
tradition
among the Afghans.
There,
better-preserved
was
and any man might
widespread,
although amateur minstrelsy
take his reb?b and sing, there existed also professional minstrels'
schools, where the ust?d instructed his disciples, teaching them his
own and traditional poems, and taking them with him to assemblies
to master the techniques of their calling. These professional
poets
were mostly,
drawn from the ?wm-caste.
but not exclusively,
The
types of Afghan poetry included love-poems, religious and historical
Darmesteter
found the poems
political comment.
in
and
but
ideas
with a force and
limited
interests,
simple, vigorous,
freshness of their own. The oral poetry of the Baluchis,
collected
at the beginning of this century by M. Longworth-Dames,
appears
ballads,
legends,
; but there is a striking diff?rence

very similar to that of the Afghans
were not them
in its cultivation,
in that the d?ms of Baluchistan
selves poets, but sang only the compositions
of others.
The poets
were almost all Baluchis,
too proud to be public performers.
Their
names are preserved with their songs.2
3 found at the
Among the Kurds Mann
beginning of this century
an organized
to
of
the Afghans, with schools
similar
that
minstrelsy
over
w?st?
the
whom
from
his disciples
learnt
presided
(ust?d)
by
orally. A diligent pupil would sometimes attach himself to several
teachers in succession, thus acquiring a large repertoire of poems ;
and Mann comments on the wonderful
of some
powers of memory
of these men, which
1 Chants
appeared
to be wholly
linked with
song, and apt
des Afghans
pp. cxci-ccxv.
(Paris, 1888-1890),
2
1907), pp. xvi-xxxviii.
Poetry
(London,
Popular
of the Balochcs
3 See 0.
der Mukri-Kurden
Mann, Die Mundart
(Berlin,
1906), pp. xxvii-xxx
"
and cf. also Bagrat
Kurdische
d. Vereins
Chalathianz,
Zeitschrift
Sagen,"
xv (1905), pp. 322-330;
xvi (1906), pp. 35-46,
402-414.
Volkskunde,
populaires

;
f.
44
to fail under
the artificial
conditions
of dictation.
The minstrels
of the khans, and also among the

practised
towns
their repertoire included songs
in
and
the
little
and
;
villages
all
of
their
nomadic
Less
life, as with the Baxtiari.
way
covering
no
than half a century
trace
of
Lescotx
found
later, however,
or of a true professional minstrelsy.
The
Kurdish minstrel-schools
their art in the houses
poet attached to the khan's house was a figure of the past, a victim,
no doubt, of gramophone
and wireless
; and Lescot worked with
a fragmentary
amateurs
coffee-house
and
with
entertainers
verses
of
Maine
Alan
from some
repertoire, gathering
piecemeal
twenty
None
singers.
of these late minstrel-traditions
appears to preserve material

of any great antiquity,
their poems can, of course, be
although
dated only from external evidence.
Some of the oldest Baluchi
historical
ballads date from the sixteenth
the Afghan
century,2
from the eighteenth.3
is probably older
The Kurdish Mam? Alan
by several centuries, allusions having been traced in it to persons
of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.4 No date has been assigned
to the Baxtiari
historical verses.
S?hn?mc stories circulate among
and
Kurds
but these are evidently derived from written
Baxtiaris,
sources.
is relatively modern,
their content
these local
Although
6 can boast a
schools of minstrelsy
long literary lineage, coining as
2 Seo
1
op. cit.
op. cit., pp. xxxvi-xxxviii.
Longworth-Dames,
3 Seo
Darmcstetor,
op. cit., pp. 1-5.
4 Seo
It is, of course, possible
that parts of the story
Lcscot,
op. cit., pp. vi-vii.
Lescot's
of it with
tho tale of
tentative
identification
go back to an earlier dato.
seems hardly
and Odatis
Zariadres
however.
(pp. xiv-xvii)
convincing,
6 The
not strictly
to a considera
relevant
songs of tho Armenian
a?uy, although
are yet of interest as
tion of Iranian minstrelsy,
of
the development
representing
on David
of
tho Armenian
Tho principal
gusan tradition.
cycle of stories, centring
is held to go back to tho eighth-tenth
to tho struggle
of Christian
Sassun,
centuries,
with the Arabs.
It is interesting,
Armenia
in the light of tho fusion of Kayanian
to seo how this material
and Arsacid
tends to borrow
elements
from
legends,
"
Persian
On this cycle of stories see Artasches
Das armenische
legend.
Abeghian,
"
an der Universit?t
Mitteil.
d. Ausland-Hochschule
(Sonderabdruck,
Volksepos
"
Die armenische
; Bagrat
1940, pp. 225-238
Berlin,
Chalathianz,
xlii), Berlin,
d.
xii
Vereins
204-271,
Heldensage,"
Zeitschrift
(1902), pp. 138-144,
f. Volkskunde,
see Archag
Chants
391-402
minstrol-tradition
; on tho professional
Tchobanian,
2nd ed., Paris,
lxxx-lxxxii
; B. Chalathianz,
arm?niens,
1903, pp.
populaires
loc. cit., pp. 139-140, with somo interesting
remarks on amateur
recitation
among
to preserve
traces of the old, unrhymed
(ibid., pp. 141-2), which
appear
peasants
uneven
Armenian
of syllables,
to the old
number
which was similar
verso, with
"
Iranian metres
Les m?tres
; see tho examples
gathered
by L. H. Gray,
pa?ens do
Revue des ?tudes arm?niennes,
vi (1920), pp. 159-107
; and also the
l'Arm?nie,"
on which
see P. N?ve, Les hymnes fun?bres de V?glise arm?ni
old Armenian
hymns,
enne traduites sur le texte arm?nien du charagan, Louvain,
1855 (extrait de la Revue
x (ao?t-d?c,
1855).
catholique,

45
over two and a half

they do at the end of a tradition attested
case
millennia.
among poor communities,
They have survived in each
a
or mountainous
and with
arid
in
isolated
country,
dwelling
and artistic life. However
restricted
intellectual
interesting their
as
cannot
be
taken
is
that
it
any
providing
products,
they
plain
measure
created
old
Iranian
for
the
by
minstrel-poetry,
adequate
minstrels
among them the finest poets and musicians
numbering
in a rich and flourishing
of its princes.
JRAS.
APRIL
land, who
served with honour
1957

in the courts

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