Manuchehri facts for kids

Manuchehri Dāmghānī, whose full name was Abu Najm Ahmad ibn Qaus ibn Ahmad Manuchehri, was a famous poet from the 11th century. He lived in Persia, which is now called Iran. Manuchehri was a "court poet," meaning he wrote poems for the rulers of the Ghaznavid Empire. He is considered one of the most important poets of that time. One of his well-known poems is "The Turkish Harpist. He was active between 1031 and 1040.

The Life of Manuchehri

We don't know much about Manuchehri's life. Most of what we know comes from his own poems. Later writers tried to add more details, but many of these ideas were not true.

Manuchehri's last name, Dāmghānī, tells us he was from a city called Damghan in Iran. His poems show that he knew a lot about both Arabic and Persian poetry. He probably learned all this when he was young.

Manuchehri wrote poems to praise important people. These poems help us figure out when and where he was active. About one-third of his poems were written for Sultan Masʿūd. Many others were for important officials in Masʿūd's court.

Around 1031 to 1033, Manuchehri wrote poems for people working for Sultan Masʿūd. At that time, the Sultan was in a city called Ray. After a vizier (a high-ranking official) named Aḥmad b. Ḥasan Maymandī died in 1033, Manuchehri moved to the court in Ghazna. This court was led by Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad Shīrazī.

We don't know exactly when Manuchehri died. However, none of his poems seem to be from after his time in Masʿūd's court in Ghazna. Sultan Masʿūd himself died in 1041, after losing a battle at Dandanaqan.

Manuchehri's Poetic Works

Manuchehri created a collection of poems called a divan. This collection includes fifty-seven qaṣīdas. A qaṣīda is a long poem, often written to praise someone important.

He is also known for inventing a new style of Persian poetry called musammaṭ. These are poems made up of stanzas (sections). He wrote some of the best examples of this style, and eleven of them still exist today. He also wrote a few rubāʿīs (four-line poems) and ghazals (love poems), along with other short pieces.

A Sample of Manuchehri's Poetry

Here are the first lines of one of his most famous musammaṭ poems. This poem has 35 stanzas, and each stanza has three rhyming couplets (two lines). The rhyme pattern is like aaaaab, cccccb, and so on.

خیزید و خز آرید که هنگام خزان است

باد خنک از جانب خوارزم وزان است

آن برگ رزان بین که بر آن شاخ رزان است

گویی به مَثَلْ پیرهن رنگرزان است

دهقان به تعجب سرِ انگشت گزان است

کاندر چمن و باغ نه گُل ماند و نه گلنار

xīzīd-o xaz ārīd ke hengām-e xazān ast

bād-ē xonok 'az jāneb-e Xārazm vazān ast

ān barg-e razān bīn ke bar ān šāx-e razān ast

gū'ī be masal pīrahan-ē rang-razān ast

dehqān be ta'ajjob sar-angošt-gazān ast

k-andar čaman-ō bāq na gol mānd o na golnār

Here's what those lines mean in English:

Get up and bring fur as autumn is here

A cold wind is blowing from Khwarazm yonder

Look at that vine-leaf which is on that vine-bough!

It looks like the shirt of some dyers

The farmer is biting his finger with wonder

As in orchard and garden neither rose remains nor pomegranate flower.

In this poem, Manuchehri cleverly uses words that sound similar. For example, he uses xīz (rise), xaz (marten fur), and xazān (autumn). He also plays with razān (vines) and razān (dyeing). He also uses alliteration, which is when words close together start with the same sound. You can see this with the 'x' sound in the first two lines, and the 'r' sound in lines three and four.

Manuchehri's Lasting Influence

Manuchehri's poems even influenced later writers. A British poet named Basil Bunting adapted some of Manuchehri's poems starting in 1939. It seems that Manuchehri's way of using sounds in his poems also affected Bunting's English writing style.

See also

• The Turkish harpist (Manuchehri)
• List of Persian poets and authors