FIRDUS1, ABUL CASIM MANSUR, a celebrated Persian poet, was born at the village of Shadab, in the district of Tus, in tho province of Khorassan. The Persian biographers differ considerably in the date of his birth, some placing it in the beginning and others in the middle of the 10th century ; but as Firdusi himself mentions in the last chapter of the Shah Nameh' that ho completed that work ..u. 100 (am. 1009), and that ho was then nearly eighty, he must have been born about a.u. 319 (A.D. 931).
His father was a gardener, and is said to have bad the management of a beautiful estate called Firdus (that is, paradise), whence the poet obtained the name of Firdusi, though, according to another account, this name was given to him by Mahmud in consequeuco of the excellence of his verses.
Firdusi appears to have spent the first fifty years of his life in his native village; till attracted by the encouragement which Mahmud gave to learning and the fine arts, he repaired to his court at Ghazni, where his talents procured him an honourable reception. Soon after his arrival, Mahmud commanded him to write a history of the kings of Persia in verse, and promised to reward him with a thousand piece., of gold for every thousand couplets. The poet however pre ferred waiting for his reward till he had finished the work, which was completed, after a labour of thirty years, in 60,000 couplets. But instead of receiving the great SUM he had anticipated, he was doomed to a cruel disappointment. It appears that he had offended some favourite courtiers, who prejudiced the mind of Mahmud against him, and accused him of having insulted the religion of the prophet by the praises which ho had bestowed upon Zerdusht (Zoroaster) in his great poem. Instigated by these calumnies, Mahmud only sent him 60,000 silver dirhems. It is related that Firdnsi was in the bath when money was brought, and that disappointed and enraged at the meanness of the sultau, he distributed the whole sum among the attendants of the bath and the slave who brought it, adding, "The sultan shall know that I did not bestow the labour of thirty years on a work to be rewarded with dirhems." In consequence of this insult, he was sentenced to be trod to death by an elephant, and with great difficulty obtained a revocation of the sentence. Feeling that he was no longer safe at Ghazni, he left tho city, after having written a bitter satire on Mahmud, which he gave to one of the courtiers, telling him that it was a panegyric on the sultan, which he must not present to his master till several days had elapsed. A
translation of this satire is given by Sir William Jones, accompanied with the original Persian, in his 'Poiiseses Asiaticm (' Works,' 8vo, edition, voL vi., pp. 308-313), and also without the Persian in his ' Trait6 snr la Poilsie Orientale,' vol. xii., pp. 242-215.
The accounts given in the Persian biographies of Firdusi after his departure from Ghent are vague and unsatisfactory. The remainder of his life was spent in wandering from one kingdom to another, pursued by the emissaries of Mahmud, whose power was too much dreaded by the various monarchs of the East to allow them to harbour for any length of time the proscribed poet. He first took refuge with the governor of Mazanderan (Hyrcania), and afterwards fled to Baghdad, where he was hospitably received by the kalif, Kadir Billah, who gave him the 60,000 pieces of gold which Mahmud had promised. While at Baghdad he is said to have added 1000 couplets to the ' Shah Nameh,' iu praise of the kalif, and also to have written a panegyric ou him in Arabic ; but this statement is in all probability incorrect, since all trace of the latter is lost, and none of tho copies of the ' Shah Nameh,' collated by Mr. Turner Macao, contain the former. During his residence in this city he is also said to have written the poem called 'Joseph,' which consists of 9000 couplets, in the same measure and style as the 'Shah Nameh,' copies of which are now rarely met with even in the East. But even in the capital of the Abassido kalif he was not secure from the power of Mahmud : the feeble Kadir Billah dared not disobey the commands of the sultan, and the unfortunate poet was obliged to seek in countries still morn remote a safer retreat It is uncertain at what court he next took refuge ; but it appears clear from all accounts that his friends pro cured his pardon shortly after he loft Bighdad, and that ho eventually returned to his native town, where he died A.U. 411 (A.D. 1020), in the eighty.ninth year of his age. Wo know little of his family : tho death of his son at the age of thirty-seveu is pathetically alluded to in the Shah Nameh; and his daughter is said to have refused the 60,000 pieces of gold, which were offered to her by the tardy justice of the sultan.