Courtly Riddles Iranian Studies Series The Iranian Studies Series publishes high-quality scholarship on various aspects of Iranian civilisation, covering both contemporary and classical cultures of the Persian cultural area. The contemporary Persian-speaking area includes Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Central Asia, while classi- cal societies using Persian as a literary and cultural language were located in Anatolia, Caucasus, Central Asia and the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent. The objective of the series is to foster studies of the literary, historical, reli- gious and linguistic products in Iranian languages. In addition to research monographsandreferenceworks,theseries publishesEnglish-Persiancriti- cal text-editions of important texts. The series intends to publish resources and original research and make them accessible toa wide audience. Chief Editor: A.A. Seyed-Gohrab (Leiden University) Advisory Board ofISS: F. Abdullaeva (University of Oxford) I. Afshar (University ofTehran) G.R. van denBerg(Leiden University) J.T.P. de Bruijn (Leiden University) N.Chalisova (Russian State University ofMoscow) D.Davis(OhioState University) F.D. Lewis (University of Chicago) L.Lewisohn(University of Exeter,UK) S. McGlinn (Unaffiliated) Ch. Melville (University ofCambridge) D.Meneghini (University ofVenice) N.Pourjavady (University of Tehran) Ch. Ruymbeke (University of Cambridge) S. Sharma (Boston University) K.Talattof (University of Arizona) Z.Vesel (CNRS, Paris) R. Zipoli (University of Venice) Courtly Riddles Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry A.A. Seyed-Gohrab Leiden University Press Cover design:TarekAtrissiDesign Layout: V3-Services, Baarn ISBN 978 90 87280871 e-ISBN 978 94 00600102 NUR 630 ©A.A. Seyed-Gohrab / Leiden University Press, 2010 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,nopart ofthisbookmay bereproduced,storedinorintroduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written per- mission ofboth thecopyrightowner andthe author of thebook. vujýd-i mæ mu<ammæ>ñ-st „æfiø ki ta…qñqash fusýn ast-u fasæna Our existence is a riddle, „æfiø Its solutions are to be found in spells and myths To Miriam with love Table of Contents Acknowledgments 9 PART ONE Chapter One The Eloquent Mute Structure of the book 11 Previous Studies on Riddles 14 Chapter Two Inimitable Simplicity The development of riddle poetry 20 The riddle as defined in Persian rhetorical manuals 23 The appearance of early literary riddles 29 From description to riddling 32 Riddles and metaphors 64 PART TWO Chapter Three “Words Covered in Veils” Riddles in romances 71 Riddles in Firdowsñ’s Shæh-næma 76 Chapter Four “A Nightingale without feathers” Riddlers of the Late Ghaznavid and Early Seljuq Periods Introduction 85 Mas<ýd Sa<d Salmæn 86 Riddles on fire 90 Musical instruments 101 Amñr Mu<izzñ 113 Sanæ>ñ of Ghazna 133 Chapter Five The Virtues of the King: Riddles in Mukhtærñ’s Hunar-næma ‘Uthmæn Mukhtærñ Ghaznavñ 145 The Book of Excellence (Hunar-Næma) 146 Riddles in the Hunar-næma 158 The Pen, as a symbol of administrative power 177 Symbols of military power 182 Conclusion 200 References 203 Index 215 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks are due to several organisations, colleagues and friends, without whose support this book could not have been written. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), who presented me with a Veni-prize, enabling me to write this book. I am most thankful to the various institutions of Leiden University that made this research possible. Thanks are also due to my colleagues in the Institute of Languages and Cultures of the Middle-East who have always been supporting in more than one way. I would particularly like to thank Dr. Gabrielle van den Berg who kindly offered to take over part of my teaching tasks, and has always been ready to discuss any aspects of Persian culture. I would like to thank Drs. Marjolijn van Zutphen who meticulously read the entire manuscript, and Amin Ghodratzadeh, who made an index for this. Also I would like to extend my gratitude to Professor Hans de Bruijn for his advice. A portion of the material in part one was originally published in Edebiyæt: Journal of Middle Eastern and Comparative Literature (2001, vol. 12, pp. 15-36) under the title of “The Art of Riddling in Classical Persian Poetry.” This book would have not had the same form without the aid of my friend Sen McGlinn who generously spent many precious hours to find a right English translation of many subtle and elusive metaphors in Persian riddles. I would like to express my gratitude for his editorial assistance, but any mistake to be found in this book is all mine.