Humayun Isfarayini
Biography
Humayun Isfarayini (Amir) (d. 1497), a poet born in Isfarayin in the northeastern province of Khurasan. Receiving the standard eduation of the day in his hometown, he traveled to Tabriz and found his way to the court of Sultan Ya'qub, son of Uzun Hasan (1440-1490), chief of the White Sheep Turcomans, and fell in love with a young man by the name of Shaykh Wali Bayg in Sultan Ya'qub’s entourage. When a prominent courtier Qazi 'Isa was executed and learned men were dispersed from the court, he followed his beloved to a village in the vicinity of Qum, where he resided for three years before he died in 1497. His Divan runs to 2,000 couplets. The following lines are by him:
The one who’s never had a happy moment is I,
The one who’s never found fulfilment is I.
The one who ‘s been wracked with pricks of a hundred thorns
And yet not strayed from the lane of loyalty is I.
The one who, but a withered bud in this plot,
Has a heart unbrushed by the breeze of joy is I.
The nightingale whose feet are cruelly slashed
By every rose in the garden is I.
The one who has rushed headlong toward union with You,
Yet gotten nowhere in the end, is I.
Lughat-nama-yi Dihkhuda (2, 2307).
