597

ACQUISITIONS OF 1980-7 (Or. 18.155, cont.)

Cod.Or. 12.428, above). The title, partly erased, occurs on f. la. Only one other copy of the work is documented, which is kept in the Topkapi Sarayi Library (cf. Karatay 2058, where the work is ascribed to Hafiz Ahmed Nadlde, who wrote it in 1176/1762-3). The commentary is preceded by an introduction (lb-3a) and a preface (mukaddime) on the principles of prosody (3a-9b). In the introduction, the author explains that one day when he had a conversation with Ebübekir Aga, the son of a chief accountant named Ahmed Efendi of Kesrfye (modem Kastoria, Greece), on the Persian language, the latter said to him that the ‘poem of §ahidf (manzüme-i $ahidi)\ "that sweet boy {$ahid-i§mn)\ needed clarification in a few places and he suggested that it would also be a good thing if the author could give the Arabic equivalents for the Persian words occurring in it. The latter accepted the task and offered the work to the agha during "a banquet of excellent arrangement (cf. the quotation below). (Ahmed Efendi, later Pa§a, the son of a ‘notable’ (a‘ydn) of Kesrfye was tax collector and accountant (ruznameci) in various places of the Ottoman Empire; he ended his career as governor of Mara§ and died in 1162/1748; one of his sons was Ebübekir Bey, cf. SO 2 1, p. 199). The main work consists of a verse-by-verse commentary, sometimes of considerable length, on the lexical and prosodical elements found in the poem. It ends with an ebced table . a chronogram with the year 921 (1515-6), and the concluding distich, all found in the original work (211a). A colophon (5 lines), preceded by the title haga Tuhfet §ahidi §arh, has been erased on f. 31 la. Some marginal additions and references to (works by) HalfmT, Kemal Pa§azade, SürürT and LamiT. (For another copy of the same work, see Cod.Or. 1449.) Bound in gold-embossed dark red leather; glazed white paper without watermarks; (1)+212+(1) folios, with original numbers in red; 177x120 mm and 131x89 mm; 15 lines; catchwords; irregular nesih; quotations from the original work, headings, rubrics, lines in red; multiple borders in gold within black lines; a headpiece with floral motifs in gold, red, pink, blue, purple and green (lb); without a date or name of a copyist. Acquired from the Antiquarian bookseller Tjerk de Boei, Utrecht, July 1986.

Begins (after a besmele, lb): LllS a U}_>S 3 tiLu^l LLuJI L *Uoil j^U L From the introduction (2a-b):