All three lived in the famed city of Shiraz, a provincial capital of south-central Iran, and all three drew support from arts-loving rulers during a time better known for its violence than its creative brilliance. Here Dick Davis, an award-winning poet widely considered 'our finest translator of Persian poetry' (The Times Literary Supplement), presents a diverse selection of some of the best poems by these world-renowned authors and shows us the spiritual and secular aspects of love, in varieties embracing every aspect of the human heart.A Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title for 2013Dick Davis is a translator, a poet, and a scholar of Persian literature who has published more than twenty books. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has taught at the University of California at Santa Barbara and Ohio State University. He lives in Columbus, Ohio.

    His interpretation of love’s musings is frivolous, fanciful, and lovely proving that love and poetry walk hand in hand --- always have and always will.Heartfelt, playful and idealistic, the translator Shaida whips the current of romance to timeless bliss and swirls the tides in our favor. He recreates a world we all wish to embrace, one of accord, decency and love. Hurray to his mission, for without his English translations of great Persian and Urdu poets, such as Khusro, Hafiz, Ghalib, and Faiz, the literary world of English poetry would surely be poorer.Born in Delhi, India, the translator, Khalid Hameed Shaida, MD was educated in Pakistan. He practiced medicine in both Canada and United States and upon his retirement in 2000 became interested in poetry and translated and published collections of Persian odes of the great masters, Khusro, Hafiz, Ghalib and Iqbal in his mother tongue of Urdu. Eight years later at the age of seventy eight, he developed interest in English poetry and has since translated and published the Persian and Urdu odes of Khusro, Hafiz, Ghalib, and Faiz in English. His two books of the English translation of Hafiz have become two of the most popular books of English Poetry in the world. Currently, he and his wife live quiet life in Friendswood, Texas.

    These women were consorts and dowagers for overlapping periods, creating a continuous transition from one queen to the next. It thus provides a unique perspective on normative queenly behaviour and political culture, formulating valuable insights into gender, status; the concept of the crown, and power and authority.