Original content

English translation

Mu'izzi - may God Almighty have mercy on him. He lived in the time of the reign of Mu'izz al-Dunya wa al-Din Sanjar ibn Malik-Shah, and he was among his panegyrists, and 'Mu'izzi' is an attribution (nisba) to him.

And the loftiness of rank and elevation of station that became available to him in his time was granted to few poets. It is said that three poets in three dynasties saw such good fortunes and found such acceptance as no one else attained: Rudaki in the era of the Samanids, Unsuri in the dynasty of the Mahmudids, and Mu'izzi in the dynasty of the Sanjarids.

The cause of his death was that one day the Sultan was shooting arrows from inside the royal tent while he was standing outside the tent. Suddenly an arrow went astray and struck him; he fell and died. Among his sayings are these few verses:

Since my beloved laid a curl of hyacinth upon the jasmine, it set the brand of longing upon the hearts of the painters of China.

Every heart that out of pride laid its head upon no line, now laid its head upon the musky line beneath his tresses.

I am the slave of that musky line, as though an ant had set its musk-stained foot upon the petal of the wild rose.

And these few other verses are from a qasida he composed in the style of the Arabic-tongued poets:

O caravan-driver, make no halt save in the abode of my beloved, so that for a while I may lament over the quarter, the ruins, and the traces.

I will fill the quarter with blood from my heart, I will make the ruins a Jayhun, I will make the dust of the ruins rose-hued with the water of my own eyes.

From the face of the tent-dwelling beloved I do not see the portico empty, and from the stature of that graceful cypress I do not see the meadow void.

The place where that heart-ravisher dwelt in the garden with friends became the haunt of wolf and fox, became the home of owl and vulture.