Among Turkish epic poets, the earliest is Ahmedi (died 1412), who wrote the Book of Alexander the Great. The first romantic song is that of Sheykhi (1426) on the loves of the maiden Shirin. The first religious epic is that of Yaziji-Oglu (1449), called the "Book of Mohammed." These, then, were the early singers. Of poets accounted of the highest rank, the earliest was Nejati (1508). Lamii was the scholar poet, a dervish or monk who delved into the older Persian literature and drew his themes perhaps from ancient Zoroastrian tales. He is usually named as the second greatest of Turkish poets. Gazali, Fuzuli, and Nabi were also noted singers of the sixteenth century, which was the great age of the Turkish Empire, both in literature and in military glory. Of the two poetesses on our list, Mihri has been called the Turkish Sappho. Yet as the life of a Turkish woman of rank is carefully secluded, no scandal ever attached to her personal life. Her poems are mere dreams of fancy. Zeyneb was equally honored, a lady of high rank and a student of the Persian and Arabic poets. All other singers, however, are accounted by the Turks inferior to the great lyric poet Baqi (1526-1600). Baqi was at first a saddler, but he studied law and rose to the highest legal position of the empire. Poetry was the avocation of the great lawyer's leisure, and it won him the admiring friendship of the four successive Sultans who reigned during his life. The very name Baqi means "that which lasts," or "the enduring," so it has been frequently punned upon. The poet himself used a seal with a Persian couplet, "Fleeting is the world, and without faith God alone endures (or, Baqi alone is god); all else is fleeting" OLD TURKISH TALES THE QUEEN OF NIGHT Once upon a time there was an old man who had three daughters. All of them were beautiful, but the youngest, whose name was Rosa, was not only more lovely, but also more amiable and more intelligent than the others. Jealous and envious exceedingly were the two sisters when they found that the fame of Rosa's beauty was greater than the fame of theirs. They, however, refused to believe that Rosa was really more lovely than they were, and they resolved to ask the Sun's opinion on the subject. So, one day at dawn, the sisters stood at their open window and cried, "Sun, shining Sun, who wanderest all over the world, say who is the most beautiful among our father's daughters?" The Sun replied, "I am beautiful, and you are both beautiful; but your youngest sister is the most beautiful of all."