ABSTRACT
Muhammad ‘Aufi’s sonorous periods echo the chorus of extravagant adulation to which the supplanter of the Samanids complacently listened in his gorgeous palace at Ghazna. The tale
is taken up again by Daulatshah: ‘They say that in the cavalcade of Sultan Mahmud-may God illumine his proof-four hundred appointed poets were constantly in attendance. The leader and commander of this regiment of poets was Master ‘Unsuri; all acknowledged and confessed themselves to be his pupils. He enjoyed at the Sultan’s court the combined rank of companion and poet, and was continuously engaged in commemorating in verse the Sultan’s progresses and campaigns.. . . Sultan Mahmud finally invested Master ‘Unsuri with the title of laureate of his domains, ordaining that every poet and every man gifted with eloquence dwelling within his territories should submit his compositions first to Master ‘Unsuri; when the Master had separated the wheat from the chaff, only then would he offer the effusion to the royal presence.’
