ABSTRACT
Quitting Persepolis, the road to Shiraz traverses the marshy lands of the Mervdasht Plain, leaving to the left a Stone Age village Professor Herzfeld has uncovered which carries the history of the locality back perhaps six thousand years. During the Middle Ages it possessed all the importance of a capital under the princes who ruled over it as tributaries to the Caliphate. The tomb of Hafiz, surrounded by an ugly iron grating, lies just off the main road leading into Shiraz from Ispahan, in the midst of a Moslem cemetery where, as is fitting, his grave is the most conspicuous. And yet, it is said to have been due only to chance that Hafiz was permitted to have a Moslem burial, so askance was he looked upon by orthodox Moslems for his lyrical praises of wine, women, and song, and sweet dalliance in the rose-petaled gardens of Shiraz.
