Written in delicate well-readable nastaʿliq script. Paper, 16 x 10 cm, [1 bl.]-187-[1 bl.] ff., 15 ll. a page, custodes throughout the ms.

Lacquer binding (rebacked?) decorated both on the outside and the inside. On the outside with a golden frame, a scalloped medallion in the middle, and smaller ones above and underneath, on a black background. On the inside with a golden floral motif on a red background.

Fine manuscript of the complete Diwân (= lyrical works), of the most famous Persian poet, Hâfez Shirâzi (1325 - 1390). Dated Shaʿbân 1061 AH (= July-August 1651 AD) on f. 178a, and again 1061 on f. 187a. A longer colophon on that latter folio has been erased.
The ms. contains, first of all, ff. 1b-163 b, the ghazals (love poems no longer than some twelve verses) on which Hâfez’s fame is based, in alphabetical order according to their rhyme, the first one beginning “Ho, cupbearer, circulate the cup and offer it!/Love seemed easy at first, but then difficulties arose!” Ff. 163b-167b, the moqattaʿât (fragments). Ff. 167b-169b and ff. 169b-171a, two different kinds of strophic poems (a “tarjiʿ-band” and a “mokhammas”) which are ascribed to the poet, but not considered genuine. Ff. 171a-178a, a poem in rhymed couplets (mathnawī) belonging to the genre sāqī-nāma (book of the cupbearer) in which “a speaker, seeking relief from his hardships, losses, and disappointments, repeatedly summons the sāqi or cupbearer to bring him wine and the moḡanni or singer to provide a song” (see Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. Sāqī-nāma). Whereas in the critical edition by Parwiz Nâtel Khânlari (Tehran 1980-83) of Hâfez’s Diwân this is a thirty-verse poem, here it has 208 verses. The ms. ends, 178a-187a, with a series of quatrains (robāʿīyāt).
Illustration: Opening page (f. 1b) with a beautiful illuminated frontispiece (a s.c. ʿonwân) in gold, red and blue; ff. 1b and 2a decorated with wavy, crenulated lines (s.c. dandân-mushi, “mouse teeth”) in gold surrounding each verse. Half lines of the poems in two columns separated by two fine golden lines and encircled by a double golden frame (s.c. jadwal), the final line of each poem centred and set in a single such frame.
The ms. has five miniatures (ff. 27a, 57b, 97a, 127b and 158b), which - although of a good quality, and depicting convivial gatherings with song, dance and wine, themes matching the content of the poems - were added later, painting out part of the poems. Indeed, on these pages, for instance a ghazal’s first verse, with its rhyming couplet, or a ghazal’s last verse, with includes the poet’s “takhallos” (pen name) are missing.
Prov. A flyleaf at the end has a note in pencil: "Poete Hafiz/ses oeuvres/ mss persan; and the - wrong - dates 1027 and 1927. - On the inside of the back cover bookpl. Ex bibliotheca J.W. Six. In all probability, Jan Willem Six van Vromade (’s Graveland 1872-Parijs 1936), the owner of an important personal library.