if she ever held this function. Most sources present her as a singer and a musician, as well as a poet of a court. Work, legacy and assessment The vast majority of poems ascribed to her are ruba'iyat (quatrains), whose themes are generally about complaint of a lovers absence, a lovers lack of attention, or a lovers cruelty. Many of these poems are part of the shahrashub (erotic) genre, where the beloved is a young craftsman. Mahsati has become well-known for her bawdy verses. A copy of the Lughat-i Furs of Asadi Tusi (died 1073) stored in the Vatican Library attributes one verse to Mahsati, but other copies consider Rudaki (died 940/41) to have been its author. The Iranologist Edward Granville Browne considered her to some extent have lesbian inclinations. Mahsati notably appears in the tazkera (collection of biographies) Riaz al-sho'ara, composed by Valeh Daghestani (died 1756) in in Delhi. By this period, Mahsati was acknowledged as the first and most prominent female poet of the Persian language. Valeh was seemingly contemplative of her poems, and saw her not just as a woman, but as an important poet. He recounts the tale of Mahsati, who "was a prostitute and the beloved of Sultan Sanjar." The latter admired her physical attractiveness, but was even more enthusiastic about her poetic ability, as demonstrated in the following excerpt from Valeh; References Sources Further reading Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown 12th-century Persian-language poets 12th-century women writers Iranian women writers Persian-language women poets Romantic poets 12th-century deaths 12th-century Iranian people Poets from the Seljuk Empire