the king and court lent their presence to autos da fé and organized public penances, initiating a reign offanaticisms and sadness, there was no place for poetry. Sá de Miranda could only deplore in private the misfortunes of his country and 'devote himself to polishing his verses and educating his children. His life’s work was done, for the year 1550 saw Camoens writing his admirable sonnets, canzons and elegies, and the Italian school had definitely triumphed. The last eight years of Sá de Miranda’s life produced a cycle of beautiful poems evoked by the personality of Prince John, the heir-apparent, who loved letters and especially poetry, and whose precocity of talent made him the hope of all patriots. In 1550 and 1551, after the prince’s visit to the university of Coimbra, he honoured the master by asking for a collection of his poems, and on three occasions we find the latter dispatching portions of his song-book to Lisbon accompanied by dedicatory sonnets. Moreover, he had the further gratification of receiving verses from Antonio Ferreira, jorge de Montemayor, Diogo Bernardes, and André Falcao de Resende, which were So many proofs of the vitality of his school. Three misfortunes, however, came on him in quick succession. He lost his eldest son in 1553, Prince John died in 1554, and in 1555 his Wife died. His friend King John III. passed away in 1557, and on the 15th of March 1558 Sá de Miranda followed him to the grave.
He was not a great writer and never entered into the hearts of his countrymen, remaining the poet of the cultured, who could understand him and pardon his metrical imperfections. He led the way, however, in a revolution in literature, and especially in poetry, which under his influence became higher in aim, purer in tone and broader in sympathy. He is obviously not at ease in the new forms which he had introduced, and his verse is, as a rule, austere, inharmonious and often difficult of understanding, but these remarks, do not, of course, apply to his redondilhas. Some of his sonnets are, however, admirable, and display a grave tenderness of feeling, a refinement of thought, and a simplicity' of expression which give them a high value. As examples it is only necessary to mention the one beginning “O sol he grande . . ., ” and the lines he composed on the death of his wife. Sá de Miranda wrote much and successfully in Castilian, several of his best eclogues being in that language. The charm of these compositions lies in their convincing descriptions of natural scenery and county life, which he loved and comprehended to perfection.
Sá de Miranda's works were first published in 1595, but the admirable critical edition of Madame Michäelis de Vasconcellos (Halle, 1885), containing life, notes and glossary, supersedes all others so far as the poems are concerned. His plays can best be read in the 1784 edition of the collected works. No modern or critical edition is available. See also Oswald Crawford, Portugal Old and New (London, 1880); Dr Sbusa Viterbo, Estudos sobre Sá de Miranda (3 parts, Coimbra, (1895–1896); Decio Carneiro, Sá de Miranda e a sua obra (Lisbon, 1895); and Dr The0philo. Braga, Sá de Miranda (Oporto, 1896). (E. Pr.)
SADHU, a Hindu ascetic, corresponding to the Mahommedan
fakir (q.v.). The Sadhus, who are known also as Sanyasis,
Gosains and Bairagis, are of various sects, hold peculiar opinions,
indulge in strange practices, and subject themselves in many
cases to cruel hardships and fantastic disciplines. They range
in moral standing from the peripatetic philosopher to the idle
vagabond. Some lead the life of contemplation, which Hindus
consider especially holy; others pose as alchemists, physicians,
fortune-tellers, palmists or acrobats; while others yet again
practise voluntary tortures, such as holding one arm upright
until it withers, or lying continually upon a bed of spikes. Some
go about almost naked, or smeared all over with ashes; but the
usual garment of an ascetic is stained an orange red with Ochre.
Hence was derived the colour of the Mahrattal flag. Alone
among Hindus their dead are buried instead of being burned,
usually in a sitting posture, and often in salt. During the
disturbed period of Indian history, before British rule was
firmly established, armed bodies of Sanyasis or Gosains attached
themselves to the Mahratta armies, and also ravaged Northern
Bengal in the time of Warren Hastings.
SAʽDĪ (c. 1184–1292). Muṣliḥ-uddīn, or more correctly
Musharrif-uddīn b. Muṣliḥ-uddīn, the greatest didactic
poet and the most popular writer of Persia, was born about
1184 (A.H. 580) in Shiraz. After the premature death of his
father he was taken under the protection of Sa‘d b. Zengī, the
atābeg of Fars, who sent him to pursue his studies in the famous
medresseh of Baghdād, the Nizāmiyya, where he remained
about thirty years (1196–1224). About 1210 (A.H. 606) his
literary fame had spread as far as Kashgar in Turkistan, which
the young poet (who in honour of his patron had assumed the
name of Saʽdī) visited in his twenty-sixth or twenty-seventh
year. After mastering all the dogmatic disciplines of the
Islamitic faith he turned his attention first to practical philosophy,
and later on to the more ideal tenets of Sufic pantheism,
under the spiritual guidance of the famous sheikh Shihāb-uddīn
Umar Suhrawardī (died 1234; A.H. 632). Between 1220 and
1225 he paid a visit to a friend in Isfahan, went from there to
Damascus, and returned to Isfahan just at the time of the
inroads of the Mongols, when the atābeg Saʽd had been deposed
by the victorious Khwarizm ruler of Ghiyāss-uddīn (1226).
Sadly grieved by the misfortune of his patron and disgusted
with the miserable condition of Persia, Saʽdī quitted Shīrāz and
entered upon the second period of his life—that of his wanderings
(1226–1256). He proceeded via Balkh, Ghaznī and the Punjab
to Gujarāt, on the western coast of which he visited the famous
shrine of Sīva in Somnath. After a prolonged stay in Delhi,
where he learnt Hindūstānī, he sailed for Yemen. Overcome
with grief at the loss of a beloved child (when he had married
is not known), he undertook an expedition into Abyssinia and
a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. Thence he directed his
steps towards Syria and lived as a renowned sheikh for a considerable
time in Damascus, which he had once already visited.
There and in Baalbek he added to his literary renown that of a
first-rate pulpit orator. Specimens of his spiritual addresses
are preserved in the five homilies (on the fugitiveness of human
life, on faith and fear of God, on love towards God, on rest in God
and on the search for God). At last, weary of Damascus, he
withdrew into the desert near Jerusalem and led a solitary
wandering life, till one day he was taken captive by a troop of
Frankish soldiers, brought to Tripoli, and condemned to forced
labour in the trenches of the fortress. After enduring countless
hardships, he was eventually rescued by a rich friend in Aleppo,
who paid his ransom, and gave him his daughter in marriage.
But Saʽdī, unable to live with his quarrelsome wife, set out on
fresh travels, first to North Africa and then through the length
and breadth of Asia Minor and the adjoining countries. Not
until he had passed his seventieth year did he return to Shiraz
(about 1256; A.H. 653). Finding the place of his birth tranquil
and prosperous under the wise rule of Abūbakr b. Saʽd, the son
of his old patron (1226–1260; A.H. 623–658), the aged poet took
up his permanent abode, interrupted only by repeated pilgrimages
to Mecca, and devoted the remainder of his life to Ṩūfic
contemplation and poetical composition. He died at Shīrāz in
1292 (A.H. 691) according to Ḥamdallāh Mustaufī (who wrote
only forty years later), or in December 1291 (A.H. 690), at the
age of 110 lunar years.
The experience of the world gained during his travels, his intimate acquaintance with the various countries he had visited, his insight into human character, together with an inborn loftiness of thought and the purest moral standard, made it easy for Saʽdī to compose in the short space of three years his two masterpieces, which have immortalized his name, the Būstān or “Fruit-garden” (1257) and the Gulistān or “Rose-garden” (1258), both dedicated to the reigning atābeg Abū Bekr. The former, also called Saʽdīnāma, is a kind of didactic epopee in ten chapters and double-rhymed verses, which passes in review the highest philosophical and religious questions, not seldom in the very spirit of Christianity, and abounds with sound ethical maxims and matchless gems, of transcendental speculation. The latter is a prose work of a similar tendency in eight chapters, interspersed with numerous verses and illustrated, like the Būstān, by a rich store of clever tales and charming anecdotes; it discusses more or less the same topics as the larger work, but has acquired a much greater popularity in both the East and the West, owing to its easier and more varied style, its attractive
