The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Influence of India and Persia on the
Poetry of Germany, by Arthur F. J. Remy
 
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THE INFLUENCE
OF
INDIA AND PERSIA
ON THE
POETRY OF GERMANY

BY

ARTHUR F.J. REMY, A.M., Ph.D.

SOMETIME FELLOW IN COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Copyright 1901, Columbia University Press,
New York

Manufactured in the United States of America

TO
Prof. William H. Carpenter, Ph.D.
Prof. Calvin Thomas, A.M.
Prof. A.V. Williams Jackson, L.H.D., Ph.D.
OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK
IN GRATITUDE

PREFACE.

The Oriental movement which manifested itself so strikingly in German literature during the nineteenth century is familiar to every student of that literature. Although the general nature of this movement is pretty clearly understood, no systematic investigation of it, so far as I know, has ever been undertaken. In the following pages an attempt is made to trace the influence which the Indo-Iranian East—the Semitic part is not considered—exerted on German poetry. The work does not claim to be exhaustive in the sense that it gives a list of all the poets that ever came under that influence. Nor does it pretend to be anything like a complete catalogue of the sources whence the poets derived their material. The performance of such a task would have required far more time and space than were at my disposal. A selection was absolutely necessary. It is hoped that the material presented in the case of each poet is sufficient to give a clear idea of the extent to which he was subject to Oriental influence, as well as of the part that he took in the movement under discussion.

It is my pleasant duty to acknowledge the obligations under which I am to various scholars. In the first place, my sincere thanks are due to Professor Jackson, at whose suggestion this investigation was undertaken and whose encouragement and advice have never been wanting. I am also indebted for helpful suggestions to Professors Carpenter and Thomas of the Germanic department, who kindly volunteered to read the proof-sheets. Furthermore, I wish to thank Mr. Yohannan for assistance rendered in connection with the transliteration of some of the lithographic editions of Persian authors. And, finally, I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. Gray for the use of several rare volumes which otherwise would have been inaccessible to me.

Arthur F.J. Remy.

New York, May 1, 1901.

List of Works most frequently consulted.

Abbreviations.

CONTENTS.

Transcription.

[1]

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

The knowledge which mediæval Europe had of India and Persia was mostly indirect, and, as might be expected, deficient both in correctness and extent, resting, as it did, on the statements of classical and patristic writers, on hearsay and on oral communication. In the accounts of the classic writers, especially in those of Pliny, Strabo, Ptolemy, truth and fiction were already strangely blended. Still more was this the case with such compilers and encyclopædists as Solinus, Cassiodorus and Isidorus of Sevilla, on whom the mediæval scholar depended largely for information. All these writers, in so far as they speak of India, deal almost entirely with its physical description, its cities and rivers, its wealth of precious stones and metals, its spices and silks, and in particular its marvels and wonders. Of its religion we hear but little, and as to its literature we have only a few vague statements of Arrian,1 Aelian2 and Dio Chrysostomus.3 When the last mentioned author tells us that the ancient Hindus sang in their own language the poems of Homer, it shows that he had no idea of the fact that the great Sanskrit epics, to which the passage undoubtedly alludes, were independent poems. To him they appeared to be nothing more than versions of Homer. Aelian makes a similar statement, but cautiously adds εἴ τι χρὴ πιστεύειν τοις ὑπὲρ τούτων ἱστορουσιν. Philostratus represents the Hindu sage Iarchas as well acquainted with the Homeric poems, but nowhere does his hero Apollonius of Tyana show the slightest knowledge of Sanskrit literature.4

Nor do the classic authors give us any more information about the literature of Persia, though the Iranian religion [2]received some attention. Aristotle and Theopompus were more or less familiar with Zoroastrian tenets,5 and allusions to the prophet of ancient Iran are not infrequent in classic writers. But their information concerning him is very scanty and inaccurate. To them Zoroaster is simply the great Magian, more renowned for his magic art than for his religious system. Of the national Iranian legends, glimpses of which we catch in the Avesta (esp. Yt. 19), and which must have existed long before the Sassanian period and the time of Firdausī, the Greek and Roman authors have recorded nothing.

But Europe was not limited to the classic and patristic writers for information about the Orient. The points of contact between the Eastern and Western world were numerous even before the Portuguese showed the way to India. Alexandria was the seat of a lively commerce between the Roman Empire and India during the first six centuries of the Christian era; the Byzantine Empire was always in close relations, hostile or friendly, with Persia; the Arabs had settled in Spain, Southern Italy and Sicily; and the Mongols ruled for almost two centuries in Russia. All these were factors in the transmission of Oriental influence.6 And, as far as Germany is concerned, we must remember that in the tenth century, owing to the marriage of the emperor Otto II to the Greek princess Theophano, the relations between the German and Byzantine Empires were especially close. Furthermore the Hohenstaufen emperor, Frederick II, it will be remembered, was a friend and patron of the Saracens in Italy and Sicily, who in turn supported him loyally in his struggle against the papacy. Above all, the crusades, which brought the civilization of the West face to face with that of the East, were a powerful factor in bringing Oriental influence into Europe. The effect they had on the European mind is shown by the great number of French and German poems which lay their scene of action in Eastern lands, or, as will be shown presently, introduce persons and things from India and Persia.7

[3]Of course it is as a rule impossible to tell precisely how and when the Oriental influence came into Europe, but that it did come is absolutely certain. The transformation of the Buddha-legend into the Christian legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, the migration of fables and stories, and the introduction of the game of chess furnish the clearest proofs of this.

But direct information about the East was also available. A number of merchants and missionaries penetrated even as far as China, and have left accounts of their travels. Such an account of India and Ceylon was given as early as the sixth century by Cosmas, surnamed Indicopleustes. The names of Benjamin of Tudela (about 1160 A.D.) and of Marco Polo (1271-1295) are familiar to every student of historical geography. The Mongol rulers during the period of their dominion over China were in active communication with the popes and allowed Western missionaries free access to their realm. A number of these missionaries also came to India or Persia, for instance Giovanni de Montecorvino (1289-1293),8 Odorico da Pordenone (1316-1318),9 Friar Jordanus (1321-1323, and 1330)10 and Giovanni de Marignolli (1347).11 In the fifteenth century Henry III of Castile sent Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo as ambassador to Timur, and towards the end of that century several Venetian Ambassadors, Caterino Zeno (1472), Josaphat Barbaro (1473) and Ambrosio Contarini (1473), were at the Persian Court in order to bring about united action on the part of Venice and Persia against the Turks.12 These embassies attracted considerable attention in Europe, as is shown by numerous pamphlets concerning them, published in several European countries.13 In this same century Nicolo de Conti travelled in India and the account of his wanderings has been recorded by Poggio.14

[4]As we see, most of these travellers are Italians. We know of but one German, before the year 1500, who went further than the Holy Land, and that is Johann Schildberger of Munich, whose book of travel was printed in 1473. Taken prisoner while fighting in Turkish service against Timur at Angora, he remained in the East from 1395 to 1417, and got as far as Persia. His description of that country is very meagre; India, as he expressly states,15 he never visited, his statements about that land being mostly plagiarized from Mandeville.16

These accounts, however, while they give valuable information concerning the physical geography, the wealth, size, and wonderful things of the countries they describe, have little or nothing to say about the languages or literatures. All that Conti for instance has to say on this important subject is contained in a single sentence: "Loquendi idiomata sunt apud Indos plurima, atque inter se varia."17

In these accounts it was not so much truthfulness that appealed to the public, as strangeness and fancifulness. Thus Marco Polo's narrative, marvelous as it was, never became as popular as the spurious memoirs of Mandeville, who in serving up his monstrosities ransacked almost every author, classic or mediæval, on whom he could lay his hands.18 In fact a class of books arose which bore the significant name of Mirabilia Mundi and purported to treat of the whole world, and especially of India. Such are, for instance, Les Merveilles de l'Inde by Jean Vauquelin, Fenix de las maravillas del mondo by Raymundus Lullius, and similar works by Nicolaus Donis, Arnaldus de Badeto and others.19 But the great store-house of Oriental marvels on which the mediæval poets drew for material was the Alexander-romance of pseudo-Callisthenes, of which there were a number of Latin versions, the most important being the epitome made by Julius Valerius and the Historia de Preliis written by the archpresbyter Leo in the [5]tenth century. The character of the Oriental lore offered in these writings is best shown by a cursory examination of the work last mentioned.20 There we are introduced to a bewildering array of mirabilia, snakes, hippopotami, scorpions, giant-lobsters, forest-men, bats, elephants, bearded women, dog-headed people, griffins, white women with long hair and canine teeth, fire-spouting birds, trees that grow and vanish in the course of a single day, mountains of adamant, and finally sacred sun-trees and moon-trees that possess the gift of prophecy. But beyond some vague reference to asceticism not a trace of knowledge of Brahmanic life can be found. While the Brahman King Didimus is well versed in Roman and Greek mythology, he never mentions the name of any of his own gods. Of real information concerning India there is almost nothing.

From what we have seen thus far we shall not expect in mediæval literature conscious imitation or reproduction of works from Persian or Sanskrit literature. Whatever influence these literatures exerted in Europe was indirect. If a subject was transmitted from East to West it was as a rule stripped of its Oriental names and characteristics, and even its Oriental origin was often forgotten. This is the case with the greater part of the fables and stories that can be traced to Eastern sources and have found their way into such works as the Gesta Romanorum, or the writings of Boccaccio, Straparola and Lafontaine. Sometimes, however, the history of the origin is still remembered, as for instance in the famous Buch der Beispiele, where the preface begins thus: "Es ist von den alten wysen der geschlächt der welt dis buoch des ersten jn yndischer sprauch gedicht und darnach in die buochstaben der Persen verwandelt,...."21

Poems whose subjects are of Eastern origin are not frequent in the German literature of the middle ages. The most striking example of such a poem is the "Barlaam und Josaphat" of Rudolph von Ems (about 1225), the story of which, as has been conclusively proved, is nothing more or [6]less than the legend of Buddha in Christian garb.22 The well known "Herzmaere" of the same author has likewise been shown to be of Indic origin.23 Then there is a poem of the fourteenth or fifteenth century on the same subject as Rückert's parable of the man in the well, which undoubtedly goes back to Buddhistic sources.24 Besides these we mention "Vrouwenzuht" (also called "von dem Zornbraten") by a poet Sībote of the thirteenth century,25 and Hans von Bühel's "Diocletianus Leben" (about 1412), the well known story of the seven wise masters.26

The great interest which the East aroused in Europe, especially after the period of the first crusades, is shown by the great number of poems which have their scene of action in Oriental lands, especially in India or Persia, or which introduce persons and things from those countries. To indulge this fondness for Oriental scenery poets do not hesitate to violate historical truth. Thus Charlemagne and his paladins are sent to the Holy Land in the "Pèlerinage de Charlesmagne"27 and in the poem called the "Karl Meinet," a German compilation of various legends about the Frankish hero.28 Purely Germanic legends like those of Ortnit-Wolfdietrich and King Rother were orientalized in much the same manner.29 As might be expected, it is in the court-epic and minstrel-poetry (Spielmannsdichtung) where this Oriental tendency manifests itself most markedly. A typical poem of this kind is "Herzog Ernst." The hero, a purely German character, is made to go through a series of marvelous adventures in the [7]East some of which bear a striking resemblance to those of Sindbad.30 The later strophic version (14th century) and the prose-version of the Volksbuch (probably 15th century) localize some of these adventures definitely in the fernen India.31 Probably under the influence of this story the author of the incompleted "Reinfrit von Braunschweig" (about 1300) was induced to send his hero into Persia, to meet with somewhat similar experiences.32 Heinrich von Neustadt likewise lays the scene of Apollonius' adventures in the golden valley Crysia bordering on India.33 In the continuation of the Parzifal-story entitled "Der Jüngere Titurel," which was written by Albrecht von Scharffenberg (about 1280), the Holy Grail is to be removed from a sinful world and to be carried to the East to be given to Feirefiz, half brother to Parzifal.34 The meeting of Feirefiz with the knights furnishes the poet an opportunity of bringing in a learned disquisition on Prester John and his drī India die wīten, and finally this mythical monarch offers his crown to Parzifal, who henceforth is called Priester Johanni. In the poem of "Lohengrin", of unknown authorship, the knight when about to depart declares he has come from India where there is a house fairer than that at Montsalvatsch.35

Princes and princesses from India or Persia abound in the poems of the court-writers and minstrels. Thus in "Solomon und Morolf" Salme is the daughter of the King of Endian;36 in Wolfram's "Willehalm" King Alofel of Persia and King Gorhant from the Ganjes figure in the battle of Alischanz.37 In Konrad von Würzburg's "Trojanischer Krieg" the kings Panfilias of Persia and Achalmus of India are on the Trojan side.38 In the same poet's "Partenopier" the Sultan of Persia is the hero's chief rival.39 In "Der Jüngere Titurel" Gatschiloe, a princess from India, becomes bearer of the Grail; similarly in [8]a poem by Der Pleiaere, Flordibel, who comes to the Knights of the Round Table to learn courtly manners, reveals herself as a princess from India.40 According to a poem of the fourteenth century the father of St. Christopher is king of Arabia and Persia.41 Even the folk-epic "Kudrun" knows of Hilde of India, Hagen's wife.42

Again, wonderful things from India are abundant in this class of poetry. The magic lance which Wigalois receives, when he is about to do battle with a fire-spitting dragon, is from that land.43 So also is the magic ring given to Reinfrit when he sets out on his crusade.44 Wigamur's bride Dulceflur wears woven gold from the castle Gramrimort in India,45 and in the "Nibelungen" Hagen and Dancwart, when going to the Isenstein, wear precious stones from that land.46

To some poets India and Persia are a sort of Ultima Thule to denote the furthest limits of the earth, as for instance, when in the "Rolandslied" Ganelun complains that for the ambition of Roland even Persia is not too far,47 or, when in the "Willehalm" King Tybalt, whose daughter has been carried off, lets his complaint ring out as far as India.48

Examples might be multiplied. But they would all prove the same thing. India and Persia were magic names to conjure with; their languages and literatures were a book with seven seals to mediæval Europe.

[9]

CHAPTER II.

FROM THE PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES TO THE TIME OF SIR WILLIAM JONES.

Little can be said of Oriental influence on German poetry during the next three centuries after the Great Age of Discovery, and in an investigation like the one in hand, which confines itself to poetry only, this chapter might perhaps be omitted. Nevertheless a brief consideration of this influence on German literature in general during this period forms an appropriate transition to the time when the Oriental movement in Germany really began.

After the Portuguese had sailed around Africa, direct and uninterrupted communication with the far East was established. Portuguese, Dutch, French and English merchants appeared successively on the scene to get their share of the rich India commerce. German merchants also made a transitory effort. The firm of the Welsers in Augsburg sent two representatives who accompanied the expedition of Francisco d' Almeida in 1505 and that of Tristão da Cunha in the following year. But conditions were not favorable and the attempt was not renewed.49

Travels to India and Persia now multiplied rapidly, and accounts of such travels became very common; so common, in fact, that already in the sixteenth century collections of them were made, the best known being the Novus Orbis of Grynaeus, and the works of Ramusio and Hakluyt. Among the more famous travellers of the sixteenth century we may mention Barthema, Federici, Barbosa, Fitch and van Linschoten for India, and the brothers Shirley for Persia. In the seventeenth [10]century we may cite the names of della Valle, Baldaeus, Tavernier, Bernier and the German Mandelslo for India, while those of Olearius and Chardin are most famous in connection with Persia. And that books of travel were much read in Germany is attested by the number of editions and translations which appeared there. Thus among the earliest books printed there we have a translation of Marco Polo (Nuremberg), 1477,50 reprinted repeatedly, e.g. at Augsburg, 1481, in the Novus Orbis, 1534 (Latin version), at Basle, 1534 (German translation of the preceding), while Mandeville's memoirs were so popular as to become finally a Volksbuch.51

The account of Olearius is of special interest to us. It gives an excellent description of Persia, and above all it gives us valuable information on the literature and language. Olearius is struck by the similarity of many Persian words to corresponding words in German and Latin, and hints at the kinship of these idioms, though, looking only at the vocabulary and not at the structure, he supposes Persian to be related to Arabic.52 He tells us of the high esteem in which poetry was held by the Persians, and notices that rhyme is an indispensable requisite of their poetic art. He also mentions some of their leading poets, among them Saʻdī, Hāfiḍ, Firdausī and Niḍāmī.53

But what interests us most is the translation which he made of the Gulistān, published in 1654, under the title of Persianischer Rosenthal. True, it was not the first in point of time. As early as 1634 du Ryer had published at Paris an incomplete French version, and shortly afterwards this version was translated into German by Johann Friedrich Ochsenbach of Tübingen, but apparently without attracting much notice.54 In 1644, Levin Warner of Leyden had given the Persian text and Latin version of a number of Saʻdī's maxims,55 while Gentius had [11]published the whole text with a Latin translation at Amsterdam in 1651. But it was the version of Olearius that really introduced the Gulistān to Europe.

The edition of Olearius, from which we have cited, contains also a translation of the Būstān, called Der Persianische Baumgarten, made, however, not directly from the Persian, but from a Dutch version. Besides this, the edition contains also the narratives of two other travellers, Jürgen Andersen and Volquard Iversen, as well as an account of Persia by the French missionary Sanson. Iversen, in speaking of the Parsi religion, gives an essentially correct account of the Zoroastrian hierarchy, of the supreme god and his seven servants, each presiding over some special element, evidently an allusion to Ahura Mazda and his six Amesha Spentas, with the possible addition of Sraosha.56 Sanson states that the Gavres have kept up the old Persian language and that it is entirely different from modern Persian,57 a distinct recognition of the existence of the Avestan language. The eighteenth century saw the discovery of the Avesta by Anquetil du Perron, and its close found men like Jones, Revizky, de Sacy and Hammer busily engaged in spreading a knowledge of Persian literature in Europe.

India, as far as its literature was concerned, did not fare so well. The struggles of European nations for the mastery of that rich empire did little towards promoting a knowledge of its religion or its language. Nor were the efforts of missionaries very successful. Most of their attention was devoted to the Dravidian idioms of Southern India, not to Sanskrit. We have the authority of Friedrich Schlegel for the statement that before his time there were but two Germans who were known to have gained a knowledge of the sacred language, the missionary Heinrich Roth and the Jesuit Hanxleben.58 Even their work was not published and was superseded by that of Jones, Colebrooke and others. Most valuable information on Hindu religion was given by the Dutch preacher Abraham Roger in his well known book De Open-Deure tot het Verborgen Heydendom, [12]published at Leyden in 1651, two years after the author's death. This book also gave to the West the first specimen of Sanskrit literature in the shape of a Dutch version of two hundred maxims of Bhartṛhari, not a direct translation from the Sanskrit, but based on oral communication imparted by a learned Brahman Padmanaba.59 As a rule the rendering is very faithful, sometimes even literal. The maxims were translated into German by C. Arnold and were published at Nuremberg in 1663.

This, however, ended the progress of Sanskrit literature in Europe for the time being. Information came in very slowly. The Lettres Édifiantes of the Jesuits, and the accounts of travellers like Sonnerat began to shed additional light on the religious customs of India, but its sacred language remained a secret. In 1785, Herder wrote that what Europe knew of Hindu literature was only late legends, that the Sanskrit language as well as the genuine Vēda would probably for a long time remain unknown.60 Sir William Jones, however, had founded the Asiatic Society a year before and the first step towards the discovery of Sanskrit had really thus been taken.

But let us consider what bearing all this had on German poetry. In this field the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were desperately dreary. In the former century the leading thinkers of Germany were absorbed in theological controversy, while in the next the Thirty Years' War completely crushed the spirit of the nation. There is little poetry in this period that calls for even passing notice in this investigation. Paul Fleming, although he was with Olearius in Persia, has written nothing that would interest us here. Andreas Gryphius took the subject for his drama "Catharina von Georgien" (1657) from Persian history. It is the story of the cruel execution of the Georgian queen by order of Shāh ʻAbbās in 1624.61 Nor is Oriental influence in the eighteenth century more noticeable. Occasionally an Oriental touch is brought in. Pfeffel makes his "Bramine" read a lesson to bigots; Matthias Claudius in his well-known poem makes Herr Urian pay a visit to the Great Mogul; Bürger, in his salacious story [13]of the queen of Golkonde, transports the lovers to India; Lessing, in "Minna von Barnhelm" (Act i. Sc. 12) represents Werner as intending to take service with Prince Heraklius of Persia, and he chooses an Oriental setting for his "Nathan der Weise."

In the prose writings of this period Oriental influence is much more discernible. In the literature dealing with magic Zoroaster always played a prominent part. The invention of the Cabala was commonly ascribed to him.62 European writers on the black art, as for instance Bodinus, whose De Magorum Dæmonomania was translated by Fischart (Strassburg, 1591), repeat about Zoroaster all the fables found in classical or patristic writers. So the Iranian sage figures prominently also in the Faust-legend. He is the prince of magicians whose book Faust studies so diligently that he is called a second Zoroastris.63 This book passes into the hands of Faust's pupil Christoph Wagner, who uses it as diligently as his master.64

In all this folkbook-literature India is a mere name. Thus in the oldest Faust-book of 1587 the sorcerer makes a journey in the air through England, Spain, France, Sweden, Poland, Denmark, India, Africa and Persia, and finally comes to Morenland.65

Of all the prose-writings, however, the novel, which began to flourish luxuriously in the seventeenth century, showed the most marked tendency to make use of Eastern scenery and episodes, and incidentally to exhibit the author's erudition on everything Oriental. Thus Grimmelshausen transports his hero Simplicissimus into Asia through the device of Tartar captivity. Lohenstein, in his ultra-Teutonic romance of Arminius, manages to introduce an Armenian princess and a prince from Pontus. The latter, as we learn from the autobiography with which he favors us in the fifth book, has been in India. He took with him a Brahman sage, who burned himself on reaching Greece. Evidently [14]Lohenstein had read Arrian's description of the burning of Kalanos (Arrian vii. 2, 3). The Asiatische Banise of Heinrich Anselm von Ziegler-Kliphausen, perhaps the most popular German novel of the seventeenth century, was based directly on the accounts of travellers to Farther India, not on Greek or Latin writings.66 Other authors who indulged their predilection for Oriental scenery were Buchholtz in his Herkules und Valisca (1659), Happel in Der Asiatische Onogambo (Hamb. 1673), Bohse (Talander) in Die durchlauchtigste Alcestis aus Persien (Leipz. 1689) and others.67

The most striking instance of the Oriental tendency is furnished by Grimmelshausen's Joseph, first published probably in 1667.68 Here we meet the famous story of Yūsuf and Zalīχā as it is given in the Qurān or in the poems of Firdausī and Jāmī. The well-known episode of the ladies cutting their hands instead of the lemons in consequence of their confusion at the sight of Joseph's beauty is here narrated at length.69 In the preface the author states explicitly that he has drawn, not only from the Bible, but from Hebrew, Arabic and Persian writings as well.70 That he should have made use of Arabic material is credible enough, for Dutch Orientalists like Golius and Erpenius had made this accessible.71 That he had some idea of Persian poetry is shown by his allusions to the fondness of Orientals for handsome boys.72 On the other hand, what he says of Zoroaster in the Musai can all be found in Latin and Greek writers.73 Here we get the biography of Joseph's chief servant in the form of an appendix to the novel, and the author displays all the learning which fortunately his good taste had excluded from the story itself. Of the Iranian tradition concerning Zoroaster's death as given in the Pahlavī writings or the Shāh Nāmah74 Grimmelshausen knew absolutely nothing; nor can we find the slightest evidence to substantiate his assertion [15]that for the work in question he drew from Persian or Arabic sources.

In the eighteenth century the Oriental tale was extremely popular in France, and thence it spread to other countries. The translation of the Thousand and One Nights by Galland (Paris, 1704-1712) and of the Persian Tales by Pétis de La Croix called into being a host of similar French productions, which in turn found their way into German literature. The most fruitful writer in this genre was Simon Gueulette, the author of Soirées Bretonnes (1712) and Mille et un quart d'heures (1715). The latter contains the story of a prince who is punished for his presumption by having two snakes grow from his shoulders. To appease them they are fed on fresh human brain.75 Of course, we recognize at once the story of the tyrant Ẕaẖẖāk familiar from Firdausī. The material for the Soirées was drawn largely from Armeno's Peregrinaggio, which purports to be a translation from the Persian, although no original is known to scholars.76 From these Soirées Voltaire took the material for his Zadig.77 In most cases, however, all that was Oriental about such stories was the name and the costume. So popular was the Oriental costume that Montesquieu used it for satirizing the Parisians in his Lettres Persanes (1721). Through French influence the Oriental story came to Germany, and so we get such works as August Gottlob Meissner's tales of Nushirvan, Massoud, Giaffar, Sadi and others,78 or Klinger's Derwisch. Wieland used the Eastern costume in his Schach Lolo (1778) and in his politico-didactic romance of the wise Danischmende. This fondness for an Oriental atmosphere continues even into the nineteenth century and may be seen in such works as Tieck's Abdallah and Hauff's Karawane. But this brings us to the time when India and Persia were to give up their secrets, and when the influence of their literature begins to be a factor in the literature of Europe.

[16]

CHAPTER III.

HERDER.

The epoch-making work of the English Orientalists, and above all, of the illustrious Sir William Jones, at the end of the eighteenth century not only laid the foundation of Sanskrit scholarship in Europe, but also gave the first direct impulse to the Oriental movement which in the first half of the nineteenth century manifests itself so strikingly both in English as well as in German literature, especially in the work of the poets. In Germany this movement came just at the time when the idea of a universal literature had taken hold of the minds of the leading literary men, and so it was very natural that the pioneer and prophet of this great idea should also be the first to introduce into German poetry the new west-östliche Richtung.

Herder's theological studies turned his attention to the East at an early age. As is well known, he always had a fervid admiration for the Hebrew poets, but we have evidence to show, that, even before the year 1771, when Jones' Traité sur la poésie orientale appeared, he had widened the sphere of his Oriental studies and had become interested in Saʻdī.79 Rhymed paraphrases made by him of some stories from the Gulistān date from the period 1761-1764,80 and, as occasional references prove, Saʻdī continued to hold his attention until the appearance, in 1792, of the fourth Collection of the Zerstreute Blätter, which contains the bulk of Herder's translation from Persian and Sanskrit literature, and which therefore will have to occupy our attention.81

[17]Of this collection the following are of interest to us: 1°. Four books of translations, more or less free, of maxims from the Gulistān, entitled Blumen aus morgenländischen Dichtern gesammlet. 2°. Translations from the Sanskrit consisting of maxims from the Hitōpadēśa and from Bhartṛhari and passages from the Bhagavadgītā under the name of Gedanken einiger Bramanen. 3°. A number of versions from Persian, Sanskrit, Hebrew and Arabic poets given in the Suphan edition as Vermischte Stücke.

The first three books of the Blumen consist entirely of maxims from the Gulistān, the versions of Gentius, or sometimes of Olearius, being the basis, while the fourth book contains also poems from Rūmī, Hāfiḍ and others (some not Persian), taken mostly from Jones' well known Poeseos.82 For the Gedanken our poet made use of Wilkins' translation of the Hitōpadēśa (1787) and of the Bhagavadgītā (1785), together with the German version of Bhartṛhari by Arnold from Roger's Dutch rendering.

As Herder did not know either Sanskrit or Persian, his versions are translations of translations, and it is not surprising if the sense of the original is sometimes very much altered, especially when we consider that the translations on which he depended were not always accurate.83 In most cases, however, the sense is fairly well preserved, sometimes even with admirable fidelity, as in "Lob der Gottheit" (Bl. i. 1), which is a version of passages from the introduction to the Gulistān. No attention whatever is paid to the form of the originals. For the selections from Saʻdī the distich which had been used for the versions from the Greek anthology is the favorite form. Rhyme, which in Persian poetry is an indispensable requisite, is never employed.

The moralizing tendency which characterizes all of Herder's work, and which grew stronger as he advanced in years, [18]rendered him indifferent to the purely artistic side of poetry. He makes no effort in his versions to bring out what is characteristically Oriental in the original; on the contrary, he often destroys it. Thus his "Blume des Paradieses" (Bl. iv. 7 = H. 548) is addressed to a girl instead of a boy. The fourth couplet is accordingly altered to suit the sense, while the last couplet, which according to the law governing the construction of the Persian γazal contained the name of the poet, is omitted. So also in "Der heilige Wahnsinn" (Verm. 6 = Gul. v. 18, ed. Platts, p. 114) the characteristic Persian phrase

appears simply as "O ... sieh mit meinen Augen an."

This exclusive interest in the purely didactic side induced Herder also to remove the maxims from the stories which in the Gulistān or Hitōpadēśa served as their setting. So they appear simply as general sententious literature, whereas in the originals they are as a rule introduced solely to illustrate or to emphasize some particular point of the story. Then again a story may be considerably shortened, as in "Die Lüge" (Bl. ii. 28 = Gul. i. 1), "Der heilige Wahnsinn" (see above). To atone for such abridgment new lines embodying in most cases a general moral reflection are frequently added. Thus both the pieces just cited have such additions. In "Verschiedener Umgang" (Ged. 3 = Bhart. Nītiś. 67; Böhtl. 6781) the first three lines are evidently inspired by the last line of the Sanskrit proverb: prāyēṇā 'dhamamadhyamōttamaguṇaḥ saṃsargatō jāyatē "in general the lowest, the middle and the highest quality arise from association," but they are in no sense a translation.

What we have given suffices to characterize Herder as a translator or adapter of Oriental poetry. His Eastern studies have scarcely exerted any influence on his original poems beyond inspiring some fervid lines in praise of India and its dramatic art as exhibited in Śakuntalā,84 which had just then [19](1791) been translated by Forster into German from the English version of Sir William Jones. Unlike his illustrious contemporary Goethe he received from the East no impulse that stimulated him to production. His one-sided preference for the purely didactic element rendered him indifferent to the lyric beauty of Hāfiḍ and caused him to proclaim Saʻdī as the model most worthy of imitation.85 Yet it was Hāfiḍ, the prince of Persian lyric poets, the singer of wine and roses, who fired the soul of Germany's greatest poet and inspired him to write the Divan, and thus Hāfiḍ became the dominating influence and the guiding star of the west-östliche Richtung in German poetry.

[20]

CHAPTER IV.

GOETHE.

In Wahrheit und Dichtung (B. xii. vol. xxii. p. 86) Goethe tells us that he first became acquainted with Hindu fables through Dapper's book of travel,86 while pursuing his law studies at Wetzlar, in 1771. He amused his circle of literary friends by relating stories of Rāma and the monkey Hanneman (i.e. Hanuman), who speedily won the favor of the audience. The poet himself, however, could not get any lasting pleasure from monstrosities; misshapen divinities shocked his aesthetic sense.

The first time that Goethe's attention was turned seriously to Eastern literature was in 1791, when, through Herder's efforts, he made the acquaintance of Kālidāsa's dramatic masterpiece Śakuntalā, which inspired the well known epigram "Willst du die Blüte des frühen," etc., an extravagant eulogy rather than an appreciative criticism. That the impression was not merely momentary is proved by the fact that five years later the poet took the inspiration for his Faust prologue from Kālidāsa's work.87 Otherwise it cannot be said that the then just awakening Sanskrit studies exercised any considerable influence on his poetic activity. For his two ballads dealing with Indic subjects, "Der Gott und die Bajadere" and "Der Paria", the material was taken, not from works of Sanskrit literature, but from a book of travel. The former poem was completed in 1797, though the idea was taken as early as [21]1783 from a German version of Sonnerat's travels, where the story is related according to the account of Abraham Roger88 in De Open-Deure. There the account is as follows: "'t Is ghebeurt ... dat Dewendre, onder Menschelijcke ghedaente, op eenen tijdt ghekomen is by een sekere Hoere, de welcke hy heeft willen beproeven of sy oock ghetrouw was. Hy accordeert met haer, ende gaf haer een goet Hoeren loon. Na den loon onthaelde sy hem dien nacht heel wel, sonder dat sy haer tot slapen begaf. Doch 't soude in dien nacht ghebeurt zijn dat Dewendre sich geliet of hy stierf; ende storf soo sy meynde. De Hoere die wilde met hem branden, haer Vrienden en konde het haer niet afraden; de welcke haer voor-hielden dat het haer Man niet en was. Maer nadien dat sy haer niet en liet gheseggen, soo lietse het yver toestellen om daer in te springen. Op't uyterste ghekomen zijnde, ontwaeckte Dewendre, ende seyde, dat hy hem hadde ghelaten doot te zijn, alleenlijck om te ondervinden hare trouwe; ende hy seyde haer toe, tot een loon van hare ghetrouwigheyt, dat sy met hem na Dewendrelocon (dat is een der platsen der gelucksaligheyt) gaen soude. Ende ghelijck den Bramine seyde, ist alsoo gheschiet."89

It will be seen that Goethe has changed the story considerably and for the better. How infinitely nobler is his idea of uniting the maiden with her divine lover on the flaming pyre from which both ascend to heaven! It may also be observed that Goethe substitutes Mahādēva, i.e. Śiva, for Dewendre90 and assigns to him an incarnation, though such incarnations are known only of Viṣṇu.

The "Paria," a trilogy consisting of "Gebet," "Legende" and "Dank des Paria," was begun in 1816, but not finished until December, 1821. Even then it was not quite complete. The appearance of Delavigne's Le Paria and still more of Michael Beer's drama of the same name, spurred Goethe to a final effort and the poem was published in October, 1823.

[22]The direct source is the legend which Sonnerat tells of the origin of the Paria-goddess Mariatale.91 Indirectly, however, the sources are found in Sanskrit literature. Two parts may be distinguished: The story of the temptation and punishment, and the story of the interchange of heads.92 The former story is that of the ascetic Jamadagni and his wife Rēṇukā, who was slain by her son Rāma at the command of the ascetic himself, in punishment for her yielding to an impure desire on beholding the prince Citraratha. Subsequently at the intercession of Rāma she is again restored to life through Jamadagni's supernatural power. The story is in Mahābhārata iii. c. 116 seq.93 and also in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Bk. ix. c. 16,94 though here the harshness of the original version is somewhat softened.95

The second story is found in the Vētālapañcaviṃs'ati, being the sixth of the "twenty-five tales of a corpse-demon," which are also found in the twelfth book of the Kathāsaritsāgara.96 It relates how Madanasundarī, whose husband and brother-in-law had beheaded themselves in honor of Durgā, is commanded by the goddess to restore the corpses to life by joining to each its own head, and how by mistake she interchanges these heads.

The two stories were fused into one and so we get the legend in the form in which Sonnerat presents it. Goethe followed this form closely without inventing anything. He did, however, put into the poem an ethical content and a noble idea. Both the Indic ballads are a fervent plea for the innate nobility of humanity.

Here the influence of India on Goethe's work ends. The progress of Sanskrit studies could not fail to excite the interest of the poet whose boast was his cosmopolitanism,97 but [23]they did not incite him to production. For India's mythology, its religion and its abstrusest of philosophies he felt nothing but aversion. Especially hateful to him were the mythological monstrosities:

Goethe classed Indic antiquities with those of Egypt and China, and his attitude towards the question of their value is distinctly expressed in one of his prose proverbs: "Chinesische, Indische, Aegyptische Altertümer sind immer nur Curiositäten: es ist sehr wohl gethan, sich und die Welt damit bekannt zu machen; zu sittlicher und aesthetischer Bildung aber werden sie uns wenig fruchten."99

After all, Goethe's Orient did not extend beyond the Indus. It was confined mainly to Persia and Arabia, with an occasional excursion into Turkey.

To this Orient he turned at the time of Germany's deepest political degradation, when the best part of its soil was overrun by a foreign invader, and when the whole nation nerved itself for the life and death struggle that was to break its chains. The aged poet shrank from the tumult and strife about him and took refuge in the East. The opening lines of the first Divan poem express the motive of this poetical Hegire.

The history of the composition of the Divan is too well known to require repetition. It is given with great detail in the editions prepared by von Loeper and Düntzer.100 Suffice it to say that the direct impulse to the composition of the work was the appearance, in 1812, of the first complete version of Persia's greatest lyric poet Hāfiḍ, by the famous Viennese Orientalist von Hammer. The bulk of the poems were written [24]between the years 1814 and 1819,101 although in the work as we now have it a number of poems are included which arose later than 1819 and were added to the editions of 1827 and 1837.102

The idea of dividing the collection into books was suggested by the fact that two of Hāfiḍ's longer poems bear the titles مغنی نامه، ساقی نامه, i.e. "book of the cup-bearer" and "book of the minstrel," as well as by the seven-fold division which Sir William Jones had made of Oriental poetry.103 For the heroic there was no material, nor were some of the other divisions suitable for Goethe's purpose. So only the Buch der Liebe and the Buch des Unmuts (to correspond to satire) could be formed. Other books were formed in an analogous manner until they were twelve in number. The poet originally intended to make them of equal length, but this intention he never carried out, and so they are of very unequal extent, the longest being that of Suleika (53 poems) and the shortest those of Timur and of the Parsi (two poems each).

The great majority of the Divan-poems are not in any sense translations or reproductions, but entirely original compositions inspired by the poet's Oriental reading and study. The thoroughness and earnestness of these studies is attested by the explanatory notes which were added to the Divan and were published with it in 1819,104 and which show conclusively, that, although Goethe could not read Persian poetry in the original, he nevertheless succeeded admirably in entering into its spirit.

We have mentioned Hammer's translation of Hāfiḍ as the direct impulse to the composition of the Divan. It was also the principal source from which the poet drew his inspiration for the work. A single verse would often furnish a theme for a poem. Sometimes this poem would be a translation, e.g. "Eine Stelle suchte der Liebe Schmerz," p. 54 (H. 356. 8); but more often it was a very free paraphrase, e.g. the motto prefixed to Buch Hafis, a variation of the motto to Hammer's [25]version (H. 222. 9). As an example of how a single verse is developed into an original poem we may cite "Über meines Liebchens Äugeln," p. 55, where the first stanza is a version of H. 221. 1, all the others being free invention. Other Persian poets besides Hāfiḍ also furnished material. Thus the opening passage of Saʻdī's Gulistān was used for "Im Athemholen," p. 10, where the sense, however, is altered and the line "So sonderbar ist das Leben gemischt" is added. A number of poems are based on the Pand Nāmah of ʻAṭṭār, e.g. pp. 58, 60,105 and two are taken from Firdausī, namely "Firdusi spricht," p. 75 (Sh. N. i. p. 62, couplet 538; Mohl, i. 84; Fundgruben. ii. 64) and "Was machst du an der Welt?" p. 96 (Sh. N. i. p. 482, coupl. 788, 789; Red. p. 58). But it was not only the poetical works of Persia that were laid under contribution; sayings, anecdotes, descriptions, remarks of any kind in books of travel and the like were utilized as well. Thus Hammer in the preface to his version of Hāfiḍ relates the fatvā or judgment which a famous muftī of Constantinople pronounced on the poems of the great singer, and this gave Goethe the idea for his "Fetwa," p. 32.106 In the same preface107 is related the well known reply which Hāfiḍ is reported to have given to Timur, when called to account by the latter for the sentiment of the first couplet of the famous eighth ode, and this inspired the poem "Hätt' ich irgend wol Bedenken," p. 133. Similarly "Vom heutigen Tag," p. 94, is based on the words of an inscription over a caravansery at Ispahan found in Chardin's book. The story of Bahrāmgūr and Dilārām inventing rhyme108 gave rise to the poem "Behramgur, sagt man," p. 153. And so we might cite poems from other sources, Qurān, Jones' Poeseos, Diez' Buch des Kabus, etc., but the examples we have given are sufficient to show how Goethe used his material.

Throughout the Divan Persian similes and metaphors are copiously employed and help to create a genuine Oriental atmosphere. The adoration of the dust on the path of the [26]beloved, p. 23 (cf. H. 497. 10); the image of the candle that is consumed by the flame as the lover is by yearning, p. 54 (cf. H. 414. 4); the love of the nightingale for the rose, p. 125 (cf. H. 318. 1); the lover captive in the maiden's tresses, p. 46 (cf. H. 338. 1); the arrows of the eye lashes, p. 129 (cf. H. 173. 2); the verses strung together like pearls, p. 193 (cf. H. 499. 11), are some of the peculiarly Persian metaphors that occur. Allusions to the loves of Yūsuf and Zalīχā, of Laīlā and Majnūn and of other Oriental couples are repeatedly brought in. Moreover, a whole book is devoted to the sāqī so familiar to students of Hāfiḍ, and Goethe does not shrink from alluding to the subject of boy-love, p. 181.

A great many of the poems, however, do not owe their inspiration to the Orient, and many are completely unoriental. Such are, for instance, those of the Randsch Namah, expressing, as they do, Goethe's opinions on contemporary literary and aesthetic matters. Again, many are inspired by personal experiences, and, as is now well known, the whole Buch Suleika owes its origin to the poet's love for Marianne von Willemer; some of its finest poems have been proved to have been written by this gifted lady. Such poems, written under the impressions of some actual occurrence, were sometimes subsequently orientalized. Some striking illustrations of this are given by Burdach in the essay which we cited before and to which we refer.

As the Divan was an original work, though inspired by Oriental sources, Goethe did not feel the necessity of imitating the extremely artificial forms of his Oriental models. Besides, he knew of these forms only indirectly through the work of Jones. What Hammer's versions could teach him on this point was certainly very little. Perhaps he did not realize what an essential element form is in Persian poetry, that, in fact, it generally predominates over the thought, and this so much that the unity of a γazal is entirely dependent on the recurrence of the rhyme. Instead of such recurrent rhyme he employs changing rhyme and free strophes. Only twice does he attempt anything like an imitation of the γazal, but in neither case does he satisfy the technical rules of this poetic form.109

[27]From all this we see that Goethe in the Divan preserves his poetic independence. He remains a citizen of the West, though he chooses to dwell for a time in the East. As a rule he takes from there only what he finds congenial to his own nature. So we can understand his attitude towards mysticism. He has no love for it; it was utterly incompatible with his own habit of clear thinking. Speaking of Rūmī, the prince of mystics, he doubts if this poet could give a clear account of his own doctrine;110 the grades by which, according to Sūfī-doctrine, man rises to ultimate union with the Godhead he calls follies.111 Therefore to him Hāfiḍ was the singer of real love, real roses and real wine, and this conception of the great lyric poet was also adopted by all the later Hafizian singers.112 Unfortunately it cannot be said that it is quite correct. For even if we ignore the mystical interpretation which Oriental commentators give to the wine of Hāfiḍ, we cannot possibly ignore the fact that the love of which he sings is never the ideal love for woman, but mostly the love for a handsome boy.113

With the Divan Goethe inaugurated the Oriental movement in German poetry, which Rückert, Platen and Bodenstedt carried to its culmination. These later Hafizian singers remembered gratefully what they owed the sage of Weimar. Rückert pays his tribute to him in the opening poem of his Östliche Rosen, where he hails him as lord of the East as he has been the star of the West.114 And Platen offers to him reverentially his first Ghaselen:

The poetic spirit of the Orient had been brought into German literature; it was reserved for Rückert and Platen to complete the work by bringing over also the poetic forms.

[28]

CHAPTER V.

SCHILLER.

While the Orient, as we have seen, cast its spell over Germany's greatest poet and inspired the lyric genius of his later years for one of its most remarkable efforts, it remained practically without any influence on his illustrious friend and brother-poet Schiller. If Schiller had lived longer, it is not impossible that he too might have contributed to the West-Eastern literature. As it is, however, he died before the Oriental movement in Germany had really begun. At no time did he feel any particular interest in the East. Once, indeed, he mentions Śakuntalā. Goethe had drawn his attention to a German version of the Gītagōvinda and this reminded Schiller of the famous Hindu drama which he read with the idea of possibly utilizing it for the theatre.116 This idea he abandons owing to the delicacy of the piece and its lack of movement.

An attempt has been made to prove that to Kālidāsa's drama Schiller was indebted for the motive of his "Alpenjäger," but it cannot be said to have been successful.117

Though there was no direct Oriental influence on Schiller's poetry, there is one dramatic poem of his which indirectly goes back to a Persian source. It is Turandot. The direct source for this composition was Gozzi's play of the same name in the translation of August Clemens Werthes, which Schiller, however, used with such freedom that his own play may be regarded as an original production rather than a version. The Italian poet based his fiaba on the story of Prince Kalaf in the Persian tales of Pétis de La Croix.118 Now, as has [29]been pointed out by scholars,119 the name of the heroine, who gives the name to the play, is genuinely Persian, Tūrān-duχt, "the daughter of Tūrān,"120 and although the scene is laid in China, most of the proper names, both in Gozzi and Schiller, are not at all Chinese, but Persian or Arabic. The oldest known model for the story is the fourth romance of Nidāmī's Haft Paīkar, the story of Bahrāmgūr and the Russian princess, written 1197.121 Whether Schiller was aware of the ultimate origin of the legend or not, he certainly made no attempt to give Persian local color to his piece, but on the contrary he studiously tried to impart to it a Chinese atmosphere.122 It is interesting nevertheless to notice that when Turandot was given at Hamburg (July 9 to Sept. 9, 1802) its real provenence was recognized, and, accordingly Turandot was no longer the princess of China, but that of Shīrāz, her father being transformed into the Shāh of Persia and the doctors of the dīvān into Oriental Magi.123 At Dresden the same thing happened, and here even Tartaglia and Brigella, who had been allowed to retain their Italian names in Hamburg, were made to assume the Oriental names of Babouk and Osmin. The specifically Chinese riddles disappeared, and instead of Tien and Fohi, Hormuz was now invoked.124

[30]

CHAPTER VI.

THE SCHLEGELS.

We have now come to the period of the foundation of Sanskrit philology in Germany. English statesmanship had completed the material conquest of India; German scholarship now began to join in the spiritual conquest of that country. With this undertaking the names of Friedrich and August Wilhelm Schlegel are prominently identified. The chief work of these brothers lies in the field of philosophy, translation and criticism, and is therefore beyond the scope of this investigation. Suffice it to say that Friedrich's famous little book Die Weisheit der Indier, published in 1808, besides marking the beginning of Sanskrit studies and comparative grammar in Germany,125 is also of interest to us because here for the first time a German version of selections from the Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa and the Code of Manu, as well as a description of some of the most common Sanskrit metres is presented,126 and an attempt is even made to reproduce these metres in the translation. The work of August Wilhelm Schlegel as critic, translator and editor of important works from Sanskrit literature is too familiar to need more than mention.127 It is well known that to his lectures Heine owed his fondness for the lotus-flowers and gazelles on the banks of the Ganges.

On the poetry of the Schlegels their Oriental studies exercised very little influence. Friedrich translated some maxims from the Hitōpadēśa and from Bhartṛhari;128 August likewise translated from the same works, as well as from the Epics [31]and Purāṇas.129 There are only two original poems of his that have anything to do with India, and both of these were written before he had begun the study of Sanskrit. The first is "Die Bestattung des Braminen,"130 a somewhat morbid description of the burning of a corpse. It was addressed to his brother Karl August, who had joined a Hanoverian regiment in the service of the East India Company. The second of these poems is "Neoptolemus an Diokles" (ii. 13), written in 1800, and dedicated to the memory of this same brother who had died at Madras in 1789.131 As a matter of fact, there is really nothing Oriental in the spirit of the poem.

Aside from translations, the only poems that are connected with Schlegel's Sanskrit studies, are the epigrams against his illustrious contemporaries, Bopp and Rückert. Those against the former (ii. 234) are of no special interest here. With those against Rückert, however, the case is different. It is worth while noting that towards the distinguished scholar-poet Schlegel assumed a patronizing attitude. To Rückert's masterly renderings from Sanskrit literature he referred slightingly as "Sanskritpoesiemetriknachahmungen" (ii. 235). But when he hailed the younger poet as

he came much nearer to the truth than he imagined at the time. For, while it will be conceded that Rückert did not always sing with equal power, it also is indisputable that he is the leading spirit in the movement under investigation. But we shall not anticipate a discussion of this poet's work, which is reserved for a succeeding chapter.

[32]

CHAPTER VII.

PLATEN.

The first to introduce the γazal in its strict form into German literature132 was Rückert, who in 1821 published a version of a number of γazals from the dīvān of Rūmī.133 Chronologically, therefore, he ought to have the precedence in this investigation. If we, nevertheless, take up Platen first, we do so because the γazals of this poet were really the first professedly original poems of this form to appear in Germany (Rückert's claiming to be versions only), and also because they constitute almost the only portion of his poetic work that comes within the sphere of this discussion. Moreover, the remarks which we shall make concerning their content, imagery, and poetic structure, apply largely to the γazals of Rückert and also to his Östliche Rosen, if we except the structure of the latter.

Platen became interested in the East through the work of Hammer, and still more through the influence of Goethe's Divan. He at once set to work studying Persian, and his zeal was increased when, on meeting Rückert in 1820 at Ebern, and again at Nürnberg, he received encouragement and instruction from that scholarly poet. Above all, the appearance of the latter's versions from Rūmī gave him a powerful stimulus, and in 1821 the first series of his Ghaselen appeared at Erlangen. Others followed in rapid succession. The same year a second series appeared at Leipzig;134 a third series, united under the title Spiegel des Hafis, appeared at Erlangen the next year;135 and, lastly, a series called Neue Ghaselen [33]appeared in the same place in 1823. A few γazals arose later, some being published as late as 1836 and 1839.136

We shall confine our discussion to those γazals that date from the years 1821 and 1822, the last series being Persian in nothing but form.

The Ghaselen are not at all translations. Like the Divan-poems they are original creations, inspired by the reading of Hāfiḍ, and, to use the poet's own words "dem Hafis nachgefühlt und nachgedichtet."137 They follow as closely as possible the Persian metrical rules, and make use throughout of Persian images and metaphors, so much so that we can adduce direct parallels from the poems of Hāfiḍ. Thus in 13138 we read: "Schenke! Tulpen sind wie Kelche Weines," evidently a parallel to some such line as H. 541. 1:

"sāqī, come! for the tulip-like goblet is filled with wine." In 75 the words "Weil ihren goldnen Busen doch vor euch verschliesst die Rose" are an echo of H. 300. 2:

"like the rose-bud, how can its inward secret remain concealed?" (cf. also H. 23. 3). And again in 85 "Und nun ... entrinnet dem Herzen das Blut leicht, das sonst mir den Odem benahm" is to be compared with H. 11. 9:

"the sorrowful heart of Hāfiḍ, which through separation from thee is full of blood." Furthermore in 81 we read:

For the first line compare H. 102. 1:

"there is no one who has not been snared by that doubled tress," and for [34] the second line compare H. 470. 1:

"O, thou of whose beauty the sun is the mirror-holder!" In 86 the idea of the young men slain like game by the beauty of the beloved is evidently inspired by H. 358. 6:

"in every nook thine eye has a hundred slain ones fallen like me," and the following lines in the same poem 86:

remind us of H. 561. 7:

Again and again we meet with allusions to the famous image of the love of the nightingale for the rose (35, 75, etc.) so common in Persian poetry, especially in Hāfiḍ. We cite only 318. 1:

"the whole thought of the nightingale is that the rose may be his beloved; the rose has in her thought how she may show grace in her actions." In 302. 1 the nightingale is called عروس گل "the rose's bride."

Besides this, the poems teem with characteristic Persian metaphors: the moth longing for the flame (37, H. 187. 7); the tulip-bed glowing like fire (67, H. 288. 1); the tulip-cheek لاله عذار (whence Moore's Lalla Rookh), لاله رُخ (70, H. 155. 2); the musk-perfumed hair لاله مشکين (73, H. 33. 4); the garden of the face (73, H. 33. 4); the pearl of Aden درٌ عدن (77, H. 197. 10 and 651); wine as a ruby in a golden cup (82, H. 204. 8 ايا پر لعل کرده جام زرٌين "O thou, the golden cup is made full of ruby"); the eye-brows [35]like the crescent-moon (82, H. 470. 5 ابروی همچون هلال "brow like the new moon"); the dust on his love's threshold (83, H. 497. 10 خاک در يار); the sky playing ball with the moon (14, inspired by some such couplet as H. 409. 7); and the verses like pearls (43). For this compare H. 499. 11:

"like a string of lustrous pearls is thy clear verse, O Hāfiḍ." We might multiply such parallels, but those given bear out our statement in regard to the imitation of Persian rhetorical figures on the part of Platen.

In the eagerness to be genuinely Persian, the poet was not content, however, with imitating only what was striking or beautiful; he introduces even some features which, though very prominent in Eastern poetry, will never become congenial to the West. Thus the utter abjectness of the Oriental lover, who puts his face in the path of his beloved and invites her (or him) to scatter dust on his head (H. 148. 3), is presented to us with all possible extravagance in these lines of 87:

To the sāqī is assigned a part almost as prominent as that which is his in the Persian original. It was the introduction of this repulsive trait (e.g. 82) that gave to Heine the opportunity for the savage, scathing onslaught on Platen in the well known passage of the Reisebilder.140

Otherwise Platen, like Goethe, ignores the mystic side of Hāfiḍ, and infuses into his Ghaselen a thoroughly bacchanalian spirit, taking frequent occasion to declaim against hypocrisy, fanaticism and the precepts of the Qurān. The credo of these poems is the opening γazal in Spiegel des Hafis (64), where the line "Wir schwören ew'gen Leichtsinn und ew'ge Trunkenheit" may be taken to reflect the sentiment of the revelling Persian poet, who begs the sūfī not to forbid wine, since from [36]eternity it has been mingled with men's dust (H. 61. 4); who claims to have been predestined to the tavern (H. 20. 4); who asks indulgence if he turns aside from the mosque to the wine-house (H. 213. 4); who drinks his wine to the sound of the harp, feeling sure that God will forgive him (H. 292. 5); who is above the reproach of the boasters of austerity (H. 106. 3); and who, finally, asks that the cup be placed in his coffin so that he may drink from it on the day of resurrection (H. 308. 8). But when Platen flings away the Qurān he certainly is not in accord with his Persian model, for, while Hāfiḍ takes issue with the expounders of the sacred book, he discreetly refrains from assailing the book itself.

But perhaps the chief significance of these Ghaselen, as well as those of Rückert, lies in the fact that they introduced a new poetic form into German literature. It is astonishing to see how completely Platen has mastered this difficult form. The radīf or refrain, so familiar to readers of Hāfiḍ, he reproduces with complete success, as may be seen, for instance, in 8, where the words "du liebst mich nicht" are repeated at the end of each couplet, preceded successively by zerrissen, wissen, beflissen, gewissen, vermissen, Narzissen, exactly in the style of such an ode as H. 100. In those odes called Spiegel des Hafis the name Hafis is even regularly introduced into the last couplet, in accordance with the invariable rule of the Persian γazal that the author's name must appear in the final couplet.

Besides the γazal Platen has also attempted the rubāʻī or quatrain, in which form he wrote twelve poems (Werke, ii. pp. 62-64), and the qasīdah. Of this there is only one specimen, a panegyric (for such in most cases is the Persian qasīdah) on Napoleon, and, as may therefore be imagined, of purely Occidental content.141

Of Platen's translations from Hāfiḍ we need not speak here. But we must call attention to the attempt which he made to translate from Niḍāmī's Iskandar Nāmah in the original mutaqārib-metre. The first eight couplets of the invocation are thus rendered, and in spite of the great difficulty attending the use of this metre in a European language, the rendering must be pronounced fairly successful. It is also faithful, as a comparison with the original shows. We cite the first two couplets [37] from the Persian:

Of other Oriental poems, not translations, we notice "Parsenlied," dating from the year 1819, when Goethe's Divan appeared, and it is quite possible that the Parsi Nameh of that work suggested to Platen the composition of his poem.143 His best known ballad, "Harmosan," written in 1830, has a Persian warrior for its hero. The source for the poem is probably Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (chap. li.)144

[38]

CHAPTER VIII.

RÜCKERT.

When speaking of the introduction of the γazal-form into German literature mention was made of the name of the man who is unquestionably the central figure in the great Oriental movement which is occupying our attention. Combining the genius of the poet with the learning of the scholar, Rückert was preeminently fitted to be the literary mediator between the East and the West. And his East was not restricted, as Goethe's or Platen's, to Arabia and Persia, but included India and even China. He is not only a devotee to the mystic poetry of Rūmī and the joyous strain of Hāfiḍ, but he is above all the German Brahman, who by masterly translations and imitations made the treasures of Sanskrit poetry a part of the literary wealth of his own country. To his productivity as poet and translator the long list of his works bears conclusive testimony. In this investigation, however, we shall confine ourselves to those of his original poems which are Oriental in origin or subject-matter. A discussion of the numerous translations cannot be undertaken in the limited space at our disposal.

Like Goethe and Platen, Rückert also owed to Hammer the impulse to Oriental study. His meeting with the famous Orientalist at Vienna, in 1818,145 decided his future career. He at once took up the study of Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit, and with such success that in a few years he became one of the foremost Orientalists in Europe.

The first fruit of these studies were the Gaselen which appeared in the Taschenbuch für Damen, 1821, the first poems [39]of this form in German literature.146 They have been generally regarded as translations from the dīvān of Rūmī, but this is true of only a limited number; and even these were probably not taken directly from the Persian, but from the versions given by Hammer in his Redekünste.147 As a matter of fact, only twenty-eight—less than one-half of the Gaselen,—can be identified with originals in Hammer's book, and a comparison of these with their models shows with what freedom the latter were handled.148 Furthermore in the opening poem, (a version of Red. p. 187, "So lang die Sonne") the last couplet:

is original with Rückert, and clearly shows that he himself did not pretend to offer real translations. The majority of poems are simply original γazals in Rūmī's manner.

These lines, we believe, define very well the attitude which the poet of the West assumed toward his mystic brother in the East.

The series of Ghaselen signed Freimund and dated 1822 (third series in our edition) are not characteristically Persian. Hence we proceed at once to a consideration of the fourth series (p. 253 seq.), which we shall discuss together with the poems collected under the title of Östliche Rosen (p. 289 seq.) from which they differ in nothing but the form. They were, besides, a part of the Östliche Rosen as published originally at Leipzig, 1822.

These poems are free reproductions or variations of Hafizian themes and motives. The spirit of revelry and intoxication finds here a much wilder and more bacchanalian expression than in the Divan of Goethe or the Ghaselen of Platen. Carpe diem is the sum and substance of the philosophy of such poems [40]as "Einladung" (p. 287) and "Lebensgnüge" (p. 293); their note is in thorough accord with Hāfiḍ, when he exclaims (H. 525. 7):

"to me, who worship the beloved, do not mention anything else; for except for her and my cup of wine, I care for none." We are admonished to leave alone idle talk on how and why ("Im Frühlingsthau," p. 261), for as Hāfiḍ says (H. 487. 11): "Our existence is an enigma, whereof the investigation is fraud and fable." The tavern is celebrated with as much enthusiasm (e.g. "Das Weinhaus," p. 290) as the خرابات to which Hāfiḍ was destined by God (H. 492. 1). Monks and preachers are scored mercilessly (e.g. "Der Bussprediger," p. 255; "Dem Prediger," p. 295) as in H. 430. 7:

The characteristic Persian images and rhetorical figures, familiar to us from Platen, are also found here in still greater variety and number. Thus to mention some new ones, the soul is likened to a bird (p. 270, No. 29, cf. H. 427. 5: مرغ روحم); the cypress is invoked to come to the brook (p. 336, cf. H. 108. 3: که سرو سهی را مقام بر لب جوست "the place of the straight cypress is on the bank of the brook"); the rose-bush glows with the fire of Moses ("Gnosis," p. 350, cf. H. 517. 2: آتش موسی نمود گل "the rose displays the fire of Mūsā"); Hafis is an idol-worshipper (p. 305, "Liebesandacht," cf. H. 439. 6, where بت شيرين حرکات "the idol of sweet motions" is addressed). We meet also the striking Oriental conception of the dust of the dead being converted into cups and pitchers. In "Von irdischer Herrlichkeit" (p. 257) the character "der alte Wirth" is the pīr of H. 4. 10 [41]et passim, and when speaking of the fate of Jamšīd, Sulaīmān and Kāʻus Kaī, he says:

This very striking thought, as is well known, is extremely common in Persian poetry. To cite from Hāfiḍ (H. 459. 4):

Some of the poems are versions, more or less free, of Hāfiḍ—passages, e.g. "Die verloren gegangene Schöne" (p. 290, H. 268), "An die Schöne" (p. 308, H. 160, couplets 2 and 5 being omitted), "Beschwichtigter Zweifel" (p. 310, H. 430. 6), "Das harte Wort" (p. 350, H. 77. 1 and 2). Sometimes a theme is taken from Hāfiḍ and then expanded, as in "Die Busse" (p. 346), where the first verse is a version of H. 384. 1, the rest being original.

Of course, reminiscences of Hāfiḍ are bound to be frequent. We shall point out only a few instances. "Nicht solltest du so, O Rose, versäumen die Nachtigall" ("Stimme der Sehnsucht," p. 256) is inspired by a verse like H. 292. 2:

In "Zum neuen Jahr" (p. 260) the last lines:

[42] are a parallel to H. 10. 6:

The opening lines of "Schmuck der Welt" (p. 260):

are distinctly reminiscent of H. 8. 4:

Like Hāfiḍ (H. 358. 11; 518. 7 et passim) Rückert also boasts of his supremacy as a singer of love and wine ("Vom Lichte des Weines," p. 273). Finally in "Frag und Antwort" (p. 258) he employs the form of the dialogue, the lines beginning alternately Ich sprach, Sie sprach, just as Hāfiḍ does in Ode 136 or 194. The "Vierzeilen" (p. 361), while they have the rubāʻī-rhyme, are not versions. Only a few of them have an Oriental character. Completely unoriental are the "Briefe des Brahmanen" (p. 359), dealing with literary matters of contemporary interest.151

The Oriental studies which Rückert continued to pursue with unabated ardor were to him a fruitful source of poetic inspiration. They furnished the material for the great mass of narrative, descriptive and didactic poems which were collected under the titles Erbauliches und Beschauliches aus dem Morgenlande, and again Morgenländische Sagen und Geschichten, furthermore Brahmanische Erzählungen, and lastly Weisheit des Brahmanen. We shall discuss these collections in the order here given.

The first collection Erbauliches und Beschauliches (vol. vi.) consists of poems which were published between the years [43]1822 and 1837 in different periodicals. They appeared in collected form as a separate work in 1837.152 The material is drawn from Arabic and Persian sources, only one poem, "Die Schlange im Korbe," p. 80, being from the Sanskrit of Bhartṛhari (Nītiś. 85).153

With the Arabic sources, the Qurān, the chrestomathies of de Sacy and Kosegarten, and others, we are not here concerned. Among the Persian sources the one most frequently used is the Gulistān, from which are taken, to give but a few instances, "Sadi an den Fürstendiener," p. 57 (Gul. i. distich 3), "Mitgefühl," p. 52 (Gul. i. 10, Maθnavī), "Kein Mensch zu Haus," p. 52 (Gul. vii. 19, dist. 6, Platts, p. 139), "Gewahrter Anstand," p. 55 (Gul. iv. Maθ. 5, Platts, p. 96), as well as many of the proverbs and maxims, pp. 102-108. The poem "Die Kerze und die Flasche," p. 82, is a result of the poet's studies in connection with his translation of the Haft Qulzum, a fragment of Amīr Šāhī154 being combined with a passage cited from Asadī.155 "Eine Kriegsregel aus Mirchond," p. 73, is a paraphrase of a maθnavī from Mīrχvānd's Raūḍat-ussafā.156 In "Gottesdienst," p. 52, the first two lines are from Amīr Xusrau (Red. p. 229); the remaining lines were added by Rückert. The fables given on pp. 87-96 as from Jāmī are taken from the eighth chapter or "garden" of that poet's Bahāristān; they keep rather closely to the originals, only in "Die Rettung des Fuchses" the excessive naturalism of the Persian is toned down.157 One of these fables, however, "Falke und Nachtigall," p. 89, is not from Jāmī, but from the Maχsan-ul-asrār of Niḍāmī (بلبل با باز حکايت ed. Nathan. Bland, London, 1844, p. 114; translated by Hammer in Red. p. 107).

Some of the poems in this collection are actual translations from Persian literature. Thus "Ein Spruch des Hafis," p. [44]59, is a fine rendering of qiṭʻah 583 in the form of the original.158 Then a part of the introduction to Niḍāmī's Iskandar Nāmah is given on p. 65. The translation begins at the fortieth couplet:159

This is well rendered:

As will be noticed, Rückert here has not attempted to reproduce the mutaqārib, as Platen has done in his version of the first eight couplets (see p. 36).

Some of the translations in this collection were not made directly from the Persian, but from the versions of Hammer. Thus "Naturbetrachtung eines persischen Dichters," p. 62, is a free rendering of Hammer's version of the invocation prefixed to Aṭṭār's Mantiq-uṭ ṭair (Red. p. 141 seq.) and Rückert breaks off at the same point as Hammer.160 So also the extract from the Iyār-i-Dāniṣ̌ of Abū'l Faḍl (p. 68) is a paraphrase of the version in Red. p. 397.

A number of poems deal with legends concerning Rūmī, or with sayings attributed to him. Thus the legend which tells how the poet, when a boy, was transported to heaven in a vision, as told by Aflākī in the Manāqibu'l ʻĀrifīn,161 forms the subject of a poem, p. 37. A saying of Rūmī concerning music prompted the composition of the poem, p. 54 (on which see Boxberger, op. cit. p. 241), and on p. 62 the great mystic is made to give a short statement of his peculiar Sūfistic doctrine of metempsychosis.162 In "Alexanders Vermächtnis," [45]p. 61, we have the well-known legend of how the dying hero gives orders to leave one of his hands hanging out of the coffin to show the world that of all his possessions nothing accompanies him to the grave. In Niḍāmī's version, however, the hand is not left empty, but is filled with earth.163

Finally there are a few poems dealing with Oriental history, of which we may mention "Hormusan," p. 25, the subject being the same as in Platen's more famous ballad. It may be that both poets drew from the same source (see p. 37).

In the same year (1837) as the Erbauliches und Beschauliches there appeared the Morgenländische Sagen und Geschichten (vol. iv.) in seven books or divisions. In general, the contents of these divisions may be described as versified extracts from Oriental history of prevailingly legendary or anecdotal character. Their arrangement is mainly chronological. Only the fourth, fifth and seventh books call for discussion as having Persian material. The most important source is the great historical work Rauḍat us-safā of Mīrχvānd, portions of which had been edited and translated before 1837 by scholars like de Sacy,164 Wilken,165 Vullers166 and others.167

Other sources to be mentioned are d'Herbelot's Bibliothèque Orientale,168 de Sacy's version of the Tārīχ-i-Yamīnī169 and Hammer's Geschichte der schönen Redekünste Persiens.

The first poem of the fourth book goes back to the legendary period of Iran. Its hero is Guštāsp, the patron and protector [46]of Zoroaster. Rückert calls him Kischtasp. He does not give the story directly according to Firdausī (tr. Mohl, iv. 224, 278-281) but makes his hero go to Tūrān, whence he returns at the head of a hostile army. At the boundary he is met, not by his brother Zarīr, but simply by messengers who offer him Iran's crown. This he accepts and thus becomes king and protector of the realm he was about to assail.170

Most of the other poems in this book deal with legends of the Sassanian dynasty. Thus "Schapurs Ball," p. 114 (Mém. pp. 282-285); "Die Wölfe und Schakale Nuschirwans," p. 115 (Mém. p. 381); "Die abgestellte Hungersnoth," p. 116 (Mém. pp. 345, 346); "Die Heerschau," p. 117 (Mém. p. 373). The two stories about Bahrām Čubīn, pp. 119-122, are also in Mém. p. 395 and pp. 396, 397 respectively.171 "Der Mann mit einem Arme," p. 124, is in Mém. pp. 348, 349. In the last poem "Yesdegerd," p. 126, Rückert gives the story of the sad end of the last Sassanian apparently according to different accounts, and not simply according to Firdausī or Mīrχvānd.

The sixth book opens with the story of Muntasir, p. 198, (from d'Herb. vol. iii. pp. 694, 695) and then we enter the period of the Saffārid dynasty. Its founder Yaʻqūb is the subject of a poem, p. 207 (d'Herb. iv. 459). "Zu streng und zu milde" and "Schutz und Undank," both p. 210, tell of the fortunes of Prince Qābūs (Wilken, Sam. p. 181 and pp. 79-81, 91, 198-200, n. 47). "Die aufgehobene Belagerung," p. 211, brings us to the Būyids (d'Herb. ii. pp. 639, 640). The story of Saidah and Mahmūd, p. 212, is from Wilken's Buj. c. xii. pp. 87-90, but the order of the events is changed. Then we come to the history of the Ghaznavid dynasty, in connection with which the story of Alp Tagīn is told in "Lokman's Wort," p. 214, according to the account of Haidar in Wilk. Gasnevid. p. 139, n. 1, preceded by an anecdote told of Luqmān (d'Herb. ii. 488). "Die Schafschur," p. 215, gives a saying of Sabuktagīn from the Tārīχ-i-Yamīnī (on the authority of ʻUtbī, de Sacy, Notices et Extr. iv. 365). In the story of Mahmūd's famous expedition to Sōmanatha, p. 215, [47]Rückert has combined the meagre account of Mīrχvānd with that of Firišta for the story of the Brahman's offer and with that of Haidar for the sultan's reply (Wilk. Gasnevid. pp. 216, 217, n. 109). "Mahmud's Winterfeldzug," p. 216, is also from Wilken's book (pp. 166-168, n. 38); in fact Dilχak's reply is a rhymed translation of the passage in the note referred to. From the same source came also the poem on the two Dabšalīms, p. 219 (Wilken, Gasnevid. pp. 220-225). The familiar anecdote of the vizier interpreting to Mahmūd the conversation of the two owls is told in Niḍāmī's Maχsan-ul-asrār (ed. Bland, pp. 48-50), where, however, Anūširvān is the sultan. The title reads: داستان انوشروان عدل با وزير وجغد.172 "Abu Rihan" (i.e. Albīrūnī) is taken from d'Herb. I. 45 and iv. 697.

Then follow stories from the period of the Saljūks: "Des Sultan's Schlaf," p. 224 (Vullers, Gesch. der Seldsch. pp. 43, 44); "Nitham Elmulks Ehre," p. 228 (ibid. pp. 228-230); "Nitham Elmulks Fall," p. 229 (ib. pp. 123-125 and pp. 128-132); "Die unglückliche Stunde," p. 232 (ibid. pp. 153, 154). "Die unterthänigen Würfel," p. 227, is from the Haft Qulzum (Gram. u. Poet. der Perser, pp. 366, 367). The stories of Alp Arslan and Romanus, p. 225, and of Malakšāh's prayer, p. 228, are not given by Mīrχvānd, but occur in the works of Deguignes, Gibbon, Malcolm and d'Herbelot.173 The story of the death of Sultan Muhammad (in 1159 A.D.), p. 232, is in Deguignes, ii. 260, 261.

Then we get stories from the period of the Mongol invasion. "Die prophezeite Weltzerstörung," p. 237, the legend of Jingis Chān's birth, is in the Tārīχ-i-Yamīnī (Notices et Extr. iv. pp. 408, 409). The material for the poems concerning Muẖammad Xvārazm Šāh, p. 237, and his brave son Jalāl ud-dīn, pp. 240, 241, is found in the work of Deguignes (op. cit. ii. p. 274 and pp. 280-283). Finally we are carried even to India and listen to the story of the unhappy queen Raziyah, p. 255, who was murdered at Delhi by her own generals in 1239 A.D.174

[48]A few anecdotes about Persian poets are also given. Thus "Dichterkampf," p 233, gives the amusing story of the literary contest between Anvarī and Rašīd, surnamed Vaṭvaṭ "the swallow" (Hammer, Red. p. 121; David Price, Chronological Retrospect, London, 1821, ii. 391, 392), and on p. 243 we are told how Kamāl ud-dīn curses his native city Ispahān and how the curse was fulfilled. (Hammer, Red. p. 159.)

The seventh book contains two of Rückert's best known parables, the famous "Es ging ein Mann im Syrerland," p. 303,175 and "Der Sultan lässt den Mewlana rufen," p. 305 (Red. p. 338).

It will be noticed that the Oriental poems which we have thus far discussed were mainly derived from Arabic and Persian sources. We may now turn our attention to a collection in which Rückert's studies on matters connected with India are also represented.

This collection Brahmanische Erzählungen, published in the year 1839 (vol. iii.), does not, however, as its title might lead us to suppose, consist exclusively of Indic material. Some of the poems are not even Oriental; "Annikas Freier," p. 217, for example, is from the Finnic. Of others, again, the subject-matter, whether originally Oriental or not, has long ago become the common property of the world's fable-literature, as, for instance, "Weisheit aus Vogelmund," p. 239, the story of which may be found in the Gesta Romanorum, and in French, English and German, as well as in Persian, fable-books.176 Some are from Arabic sources, as from the Thousand and One Nights, e.g. "Der schwanke Ankergrund," p. 357,177 "Elephant, Nashorn und Greif," p. 367,178 "Die Kokosnüsse," p. 359.179 The poem "Rechtsanschauung in Afrika," p. 221, is a Hebrew parable from the Talmud and had been already used by Herder.180

A considerable number of the poems contain nothing but Persian material. Thus "Wettkampf," p. 197, is from the Gulistān (i. 28; K.S. tr. p. 27); and from the same source we [49]have "Rache für den Steinwurf," p. 219 (Gul. i. 22; K.S. 21), "Fluch und Segen," p. 234 (Gul. i. 1), and "Busurgimihr," p. 225 (Gul. i. 32; K.S. 31). "Die Bibliothek des Königs," p. 405, is from the Bahāristān (K.S., p. 31; Red. p. 338). Three episodes from the Iskandar Nāmah are narrated on pp. 214-217: the story of the invention of the mirror (Isk. tr. Clark, xxiii. p. 247), the battle between the two cocks (ibid., xxii. p. 234 seq.), and the message of Dara to Alexander with the latter's reply (ibid. xxiv. p. 263).181

On p. 329 Rückert offers a free, but faithful, even if abridged version of selected passages from the introductory chapters of Niḍāmī's work (Isk. tr. Clarke, canto ii, p. 18 seq. and canto vii, p. 53 seq.). In "Kiess der Reue," p. 421, he paraphrases the episode of Alexander's search for the fountain of life from the Shāh Nāmah (tr. Mohl, v. pp. 177, 178). The story of Bahrāmgūr in the same work (tr. Mohl, v, pp. 488-492) appears in "Allwo nicht Zugethan," p. 397. It is not taken from Firdausī, for it relates the story somewhat differently, and introduces a love-episode of which the epic knows nothing.182 Again, "Der in die Stadt verschlagene Kurde," p. 229, is an anecdote which Rückert had already translated in the Haft Qulzum (see his Poet. u. Rhet. der Perser, pp. 72-74), while "Glücksgüter," p. 233, may have been suggested by a story of Aṭṭār which he published afterwards (1860, ZDMG. vol. 14, p. 286). Some anecdotes of Persian princes or poets are also utilized, e.g. "Das Küchenfeldgeräthe des Fürsten Amer," p. 226 (d'Herb. iv. 459; Malcolm i. p. 155), "Der Spiegel des Königs," p. 223 (Deguignes, ii. 171), and the story of Jāmī and the mullā, p. 224 (M. Kuka, The Wit and Humour of the Persians, Bombay, 1894, pp. 165, 166). In one poem, "Ormuzd und Ahriman," p. 344, an Avestan subject is treated, the later Parsi doctrine of zrvan akarana.183

The great majority of the poems in this collection are concerned with India, its literature, mythology, religious customs, geography and history, and it will be convenient for our purpose to discuss them under these heads.

[50]In the first group, that which takes its material from Sanskrit literature, we meet with the story of the flood, p. 298, from the Mahābhārata (Vana Parva, 187) and the story of Rāma's exploits and Sītā's love, p. 268, from the Rāmāyaṇa. Also a number of fables from the Hitōpadēśa or Pañcatantra occur, e.g. that of the greedy jackal, p. 249, familiar from Lafontaine (Hit. i. 6; Pañc. ii. 3), and that of the lion, the mouse and the cat, p. 250 (Hit. ii. 3). The story of the ungrateful man and the grateful animals, p. 252, is found in the Kathāsaritsāgara (tr. Tawney, ii. pp. 103-108; cf. Pālī version in Rasavāhinī, Wollheim, Die National-Lit. sämtlicher Völker des Orients, Berl. 1873, vol. i. p. 370). "Katerstolz und Fuchses Rath," p. 243, has for its prototype the fable of the mouse changed into a girl in Pañcatantra (iv. 9; cf. the story of the ambitious Caṇḍāla maid in Kathās. tr. Tawney, ii. p. 56). King Raghu's generosity to Varatantu's pupil Kāutsa, as narrated in the Raghuvaṃśa (ch. v.), is the subject of a poem on p. 402. Two famous pieces from the Upaniṣad-literature are also offered: the story of how Jājñavalkya overcame nine contestants in debate at King Janaka's court and won the prize consisting of one thousand cows with gold-tipped horns, p. 247, from the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Up. iii. (see Deussen, Sechzig Upan. übers. Leipz. 1897, p. 428 seq.), and the story of Nacikētas' choice, p. 403, from the Kāṭhaka Upaniṣad. To this group belong also versions of Bhartṛhari, p. 337 (Nītiś. 15) and p. 338 (Nītiś. 67).

In the mythological group we have two poems telling of the history of Kṛśṇa, as given in the great Bhāgavata Purāṇa. The first one, "Die Weltliebessonne im Palast des Gottes Krischna," p. 246, gives the legend of the god's interview with the Sage Nārada (Bhāgav. Nirṇaya Sāg. Press, Bombay 1898, Lib. x. c. 69; tr. Dutt, Calcutta, 1895, pp. 298-302) with a close somewhat different from that of the Sanskrit original. The second one narrates the romance of the poor Brahman Sudāman, who pays a visit to the god and is enriched by the latter's generosity (Bhāgav. x. c. 80, 81; tr. Dutt, pp. 346-355. For the Hindostanee version in the Premsāgar, see Wollheim, op. cit. i. p. 421). In the Sanskrit the story is not so ideal as in Rückert's poem. The poor Brahman is urged [51]on to the visit, not by affection for the playmate of his youth, but rather by the prosaic appeals of his wife; yet, though the motive be different, the result is the same. Besides these, we find the legend of Kāma, the Hindu Cupid, burned to ashes by Śiva's third eye for attempting to interrupt the god's penance, p. 266 (Rāmāy. i. c. 23, Kumāras. iii. v. 70 seq.), and Rückert manages to introduce and to explain all the epithets, Kāmadēva, kandarpa, smara, manmatha, hṛcchaya, ananga, which Sanskrit authors bestow upon their Cupid. We also have legends of the cause of the eclipses of sun and moon, p. 365, of the origin of caste, p. 347 (Manu i. 87), of the fabulous mountain Mēru in Jambudvīpa, p. 285, of the quarrelsome mountains Innekonda and Bugglekonda, p. 321 (Ritter Erdkunde, iv. 2, pp. 472, 473). The winding course of the Indus is explained by a typical Hindu saint-story, p. 335, similar to that told of the Yamunā and Rāma in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa (tr. Wilson, ed. Dutt, Calc. 1894, p. 386).

Many of the poems describe religious customs practised in India. Of such customs the practice of asceticism in its different forms is one of the most striking and could not fail to engage the poet's attention. Thus the peculiar fast known as Cāndrāyaṇa, "moon-penance," is the subject of a poem, p. 278; so also "Titanische Bussandacht," p. 283, has for its theme the belief of the Hindus in the supernatural power conferred by excessive penance, as exemplified by the legend of Śakuntalā's birth. The practice of pañcatapas, "the five fires" (Manu, vi. 23. See Monier Williams, Indian Wisdom, Lond. 1876, p. 105) is the subject of the poem "Des Büssers Läuterungswahn," p. 285. The selfish greed of the Brahmans (cf. Manu, vii. 133, 144; xi. 40) is referred to in two poems on p. 287. The supposed powers of cintāmani, the Hindu wishing-stone, suggested the poem on p. 275 (cf. Bhartṛhari, Vāir. 33). Of other poems of this sort we may mention "Die Gottverehrung des Stammes Karian," p. 322 (Ritter, Erdk. iv. 1. p. 187), "Vom Genuss der Früchte nach Dschainas Lehre," p. 307 (ibid. iv. p. 749), and "Die Schuhe im Tempel Madhuras," p. 301 (ibid. iv. 2. p. 4).

Again, many poems belong to the realm of physical and descriptive geography. Their source, in most cases, was [52]undoubtedly the great geographical work of Ritter. To it may be referred the majority of the purely descriptive poems, e.g., "Das ewige Frühlingsland der Tudas," p. 301 (op. cit. iv. 1. 951), "Das Frühlingsland Kaschmir," p. 315 (ibid. ii. 1142 and 630), "Die Kokospalme," p. 304 (ibid. iv. 1. 834 seq., 838, 851, 852). The sun and moon lotuses, so famous through Heine's beautiful songs (see p. 58), are described on p. 343. Animal-life also comes in for its share, e.g. the ichneumon in "Instinctive Heilkunde der Tiere," p. 336.

Lastly, we come to the historical group, poems relating to the history of India. The poem on the burning of Keteus' wife, p. 382, is evidently inspired by the reading of Diodorus Siculus (xix. 33). On page 311 we have a poem celebrating the valor of the Rāja Pratap Singh, who held out so bravely against Akbar in the mountain fastnesses of Citor, 1567.184 The heroic queen-regent of Ahmadnagar, Chānd Bībī, and the romantic story of her struggle against Akbar, in 1596, is the subject of the poem on p. 353. Only the bright side is, however, presented; the tragic fate which overtook the unfortunate princess three years later is not referred to.185 The famous battle of Samūgarh, 1658, by which Aurangzīb gained the Mogul Empire, is narrated on p. 310, according to the account of Bernier.186 In this connection we may also mention "Das Mikroskop," p. 370, the familiar anecdote of the Brahman who refused to drink water, after the microscope had revealed to him the existence therein of countless animalcules (Ritter, Erdk. iv. 1. p. 749).

Besides the poems falling under the groups discussed above there are many of purely didactic or moralizing tendency, embodying general reflections. It would take us too far, were we to attempt to discuss them, even if their interest were sufficiently great to repay the trouble. We must, however, point out that even the Sanskrit vocabulary is impressed into service to furnish material for such poems. Thus the fact [53]that the word pāda may mean either "foot," "step," or "ray of the moon or sun," is utilized for the last lines of "Vom Monde," p. 368. The meaning of the term bakravratin, "acting like a crane," applied to a hypocrite, is used for a poem on p. 363. Similarly the threefold signification of dvipa as "brahman," "bird," and "tooth" suggests "Zweigeboren," p. 423, and more instances might be adduced. It is not to be wondered at that such poetizing should often degenerate into the most inane trifling, so that we get such rhyming efforts as that on p. 326 with its pun on the similarity of hima "winter" with hēma "gold," Himālaya and himavat with Himmel and Heimat, or that on p. 385 with its childish juxtaposition of the Vedantic term māyā, the Greek name Μαια, and the German word Magie.

If the poems discussed in the preceding pages were found to be largely didactic and gnomic in character, the great collection called Die Weisheit des Brahmanen is entirely so. The poems composing this bulky work appeared in installments during the period 1836-1839, and, while many of them, as will be shown below, are the outcome of Rückert's Oriental studies, the majority simply embody general reflections on anything and everything that happened to engage the poet's attention. "Es muss alles hinein, was ich eben lese: vor acht Wochen Spinoza, vor vierzehn Tagen Astronomie, jetzt Grimms überschwenglich gehaltreiche Deutsche Mythologie, alles unter der nachlässig vorgehaltenen Brahmanenmaske...."187 These are the author's own words and render further detailed characterization of the work superfluous. It is well known that the sources for the great didactic collection, even for that part of it which is not composed of reflections on matters of contemporary history, politics and literature, or relating to questions of family and friendship, are more Occidental than Oriental.188 In fact, the Brahmanic character of the wisdom here expounded consists mainly in the contemplative spirit of reposeful didacticism which pervades the entire collection. Nor is there anything Oriental [54]about the form of the poems,—the rhymed Alexandrine reigning supreme with wearisome monotony.

A detailed discussion of the Weisheit, therefore, even if it were possible within the limits of this dissertation, will not be attempted; the less so, as such a discussion, so far as the Oriental side, at least, is concerned, would be very much of the same nature as that given of the Brahmanische Erzählungen. A general Oriental influence, especially of the Bhagavadgītā-philosophy or of Rūmī's pantheism, is noticeable enough in many places,189 but particular instances of such influence are not hard to find. We shall adduce only a few, taken from the fifth division or Stufe, called Leben. Of these there are taken from the Hitōpadēśa Nos. 25 (Hit. i. couplet 179; tr. Hertel, 141), 26 (ib. i. 178; tr. Hertel, 140), 111 (ib. i. couplet 80; Wilkins' tr. p. 56). From the Gulistān are taken Nos. 290 (Gul. i. 13; K.S. dist. p. 42), 326 (ibid. vii. 20; K.S. dist. p. 230), 366 (ibid. vii. 20; K.S. p. 232). No. 60 was probably suggested by the fable of the ass and the camel in Jāmī's Bahāristān (tr. K.S. p. 179). No. 476 draws a moral from the fact that the Persian title mīrzā means either "scribe" or "prince," according to its position before or behind the person's name. In No. 201 we recognize a Persian proverb: بزک ممير که بهار میآيد يونجه ميخوری "little goat, do not die; spring is coming, you will eat clover." No. 364:

is also a Persian proverb and is absolutely unintelligible, unless one happens to know that the Persian word for "ostrich" is شترمرغ, literally "camel-bird."

Again, to cite from other Stufen, Firdausī's lines, already used by Goethe in his Divan (see p. 25 above), furnish the text for a moral poem, p. 487 (18). The Persian notion of the peacock being ashamed of his ugly feet (cf. Gul. ii. 8, qiṭʻah) is put to a similar use on p. 463 (162). Some poems are moralizingly descriptive of Indic customs, e.g., p. 157 (11), where reverence for the guru or "teacher" is inculcated (cf. Manu [55]ii, 71, 228) and pp. 10, 11 (18, 19), where the conditions are set forth under which the Vēdas may be read (cf. Manu iv. 101-126, or Yājñ. i. 142-151). A comparison is instituted between the famous court of Vikramāditya and his seven gems, of which Kālidāsa was one, and that of Karl August of Weimar and his poetic circle, p. 148 (39).

Trivial and empty rhyming is of course abundant in such an uncritical mass of verse, and we also meet with insipid puns, like that on the Arabic word dīn, "religion," and the German word dienen, p. 498 (48).

These examples, we believe, will suffice for our purpose. With the philosophical part of the Weisheit we are not here concerned.

A great many Oriental poems are scattered throughout the collection which bears the title of Pantheon (vol. vii.). We may mention "Die gefallenen Engel," p. 286, the legend of Hārūt and Mārūt, "Wischnu auf der Schlange," p. 286, "Die nackten Weisen," p. 287, and others. Some poems in this collection are in spirit akin to the Östliche Rosen, e.g. "Becher und Wein," p. 291, "Der Traum," p. 283, and the "Vierzeilen," pp. 481, 482. Besides this, the γazal-form occurs repeatedly, e.g. "Frühlingshymne," p. 273. So fond does Rückert seem to have been of this form, that he employs it even for a poem on such an unoriental subject as Easter, p. 189 (2).

This collection is furthermore of interest from the biographical side, as often giving us Rückert's opinions. Thus we find evidence that he was by no means onesidedly prejudiced in favor of things Oriental. Referring to the myth of fifty-three million Apsarases having sprung from the sea,190 he states (p. 24), that if he were to be the judge, these fifty-three million nymphs bedecked with jewels would have to bow before the one Aphrodite in her naked glory. And again in "Rückkehr," p. 51, the poet confesses that having wandered to the East to forget his misery and finding thorns in the rose-gardens of Persia, and demons, misshapen gods and monkeys acting the parts of heroes in India, he is glad to return to the [56]Iliad and Odyssey (cf. also "Zu den östlichen Rosen," p. 153).

Rückert was evidently aware of his tendency to overproduction. He offers an explanation in "Spruchartiges," p. 157:

And again to his own question, Musst du denn immer dichten?, p. 159, he answers:

Graf von Schack has aptly applied to Rückert's poems the famous sentence which a Spaniard pronounced about Lope de Vega, that no poet wrote so many good plays, but none also so many poor ones.191

Whatever defects it may have, Rückert's Oriental work is nevertheless indisputably of the greatest importance to German literature. More than any one else he brought over into it a new spirit and new forms; and it is due primarily to his unsurpassed technical skill that the German language is to-day the best medium for an acquaintance, not only with the literature of the West, but also with that of the East.

[57]

CHAPTER IX.

HEINE.

"Was das Sanskrit-Studium selbst betrifft, so wird über den Nutzen desselben die Zeit entscheiden. Portugiesen, Holländer und Engländer haben lange Zeit jahraus, jahrein auf ihren grossen Schiffen die Schätze Indiens nach Hause geschleppt; wir Deutsche hatten immer das Zusehen. Aber die geistigen Schätze Indiens sollen uns nicht entgehen. Schlegel, Bopp, Humboldt, Frank u. s. w. sind unsere jetzigen Ostindienfahrer; Bonn und München werden gute Faktoreien sein."

With these words Heine sent forth his "Sonettenkranz" to A.W. von Schlegel in 1821.192 These sonnets show what a deep impression the personality and lectures of the famous romanticist made on him while he was a student at Bonn, in 1819 and 1820. Schlegel had just then been appointed to the professorship of Literature at the newly created university, and to his lectures Heine owed the interest for India which manifests itself in many of his poems, and which continued even in later years when his relations to his former teacher had undergone a complete change.

He never undertook the study of Sanskrit. His interest in India was purely poetic. "Aber ich stamme aus Hindostan, und daher fühle ich mich so wohl in den breiten Sangeswäldern Valmikis, die Heldenlieder des göttlichen Ramo bewegen mein Herz wie ein bekanntes Weh, aus den Blumenliedern Kalidasas blühen mir hervor die süssesten Erinnerungen" (Ideen, vol. v. p. 115)—these words, with some allowance perhaps for the manner of the satirist, may well be taken to [58]characterize the poet's attitude towards India. Instinctively he appropriated to himself the most beautiful characteristics of Sanskrit poetry, its tender love for the objects of nature, for flowers and animals and the similes and metaphors inspired thereby, and he invests them with all the grace and charm peculiar to his muse. Some of his finest verses owe their inspiration to the lotus; and in that famous poem "Die Lotosblume ängstigt,"—so beautifully set to music by Schumann—the favorite flower of India's poets may be said to have found its aesthetic apotheosis. As is well known, there are two kinds of lotuses, the one opening its leaves to the sun (Skt. padma, paṅkaja), the other to the moon (Skt. kumuda, kāirava). Both kinds are mentioned in Śakuntalā (Act. V. Sc. 4, ed. Kale, Bombay, 1898, p. 141): kumudānyēva śaśāṅkaḥ savitā bhōdhayati paṅkajānyēva "the moon wakes only the night lotuses, the sun only the day lotuses."193 It is the former kind, the nymphaea esculenta, of which Heine sings, and his conception of the moon as its lover is distinctively Indic and constantly recurring in Sanskrit literature. Thus at the beginning of the first book of the Hitōpadēśa the moon is called the lordly bridegroom of the lotuses.194

The splendor of an Indic landscape haunts the imagination of the poet. On the wings of song he will carry his love to the banks of the Ganges (vol. i. p. 98), to that moonlit garden where the lotus-flowers await their sister, where the violets peep at the stars, the roses whisper their perfumed tales into each other's ears and the gazelles listen, while the waves of the sacred river make sweet music. And again in a series of sonnets addressed to Friederike (Neue Ged. vol. ii. p. 65) he invites her to come with him to India, to its palm-trees, its ambra-blossoms and lotus-flowers, to see the gazelles leaping on the banks of the Ganges, and the peacocks displaying their gaudy plumage, to hear Kōkila singing his impassioned lay. He sees Kāma in the features of his beloved, and [59]Vāsanta hovering on her lips; her smile moves the Gandharvas in their golden, sunny halls to song.

Allusions to episodes from Sanskrit literature are not infrequent in Heine's writings. The famous struggle between King Viśvāmitra with the sage Vasiṣṭha for example is mockingly referred to in two stanzas (vol. i. p. 146).195 His own efforts to win the favor of a certain Emma (Neue Ged. ii. 54) the poet likens to the great act of penance by which King Bhagīratha brought down the Ganges from heaven.196

Heine's prose-writings also furnish abundant proofs of his interest in and acquaintance with Sanskrit literature. In the opening chapters of the Buch Le Grand (c. 4, vol. v. p. 114) he brings before us another vision of tropical Indic splendor. In his sketches from Italy (Reiseb. ii. vol. vi. p. 137) he draws a parallel between the priesthood of Italy and that of India, which is anything but flattering to either. It is also not correct; he notices, to be sure, that in the Sanskrit drama (of which he knows only Śakuntalā and Mṛcchakaṭikā) the rôle of buffoon is assigned invariably to a Brahman, but he is ignorant of the origin of this singular custom.197 In his essay on the Romantic School, when speaking of Goethe's godlike repose, he introduces by way of illustration the well-known episode from the Nala-story where Damayantī distinguishes her lover from the gods who had assumed his form by the blinking of his eyes (vol. ix. p. 52). In the same essay (ibid. pp. 49, 50), he bestows enthusiastic praise on Goethe's Divan, and this brings us to the question of Persian influence upon Heine.

Starting as he did on his literary career at the time when Goethe's Divan and Rückert's Östliche Rosen had inaugurated the Hafizian movement in German literature, it would have been strange if he had remained entirely outside of the sphere of its influence. As a matter of fact, he took some interest in [60]Persian poetry almost from the outset of his poetical activity, as his letters clearly show. As early as 1821, he mentions Saʻdī with the epithet herrlich, calls him the Persian Goethe and cites one of his couplets (Gul. ii. 48, qiṭʻah; K.S. p. 122) in the version of Herder.198 In April, 1823, he writes from Berlin that during the preceding winter he has studied the non-Semitic part of Asia,199 and the following year in a letter to Moser200 he speaks of Persian as "die süsse, rosige, leuchtende Bulbulsprache," and goes on to imagine himself a Persian poet in exile among Germans. "O Firdusi! O Ischami! (sic for Jāmī) O Saadi! Wie elend ist euer Bruder! Ach wie sehne ich mich nach den Rosen von Schiras." Such a rose he calls in one of his Nordsee-poems "die Hafisbesungene Nachtigallbraut" ("Im Hafen," vol. i. p. 218).

Yet, judging from the familiar epigrams of Immermann, which Heine cites at the end of Norderney (Reiseb. i. vol. v. p. 101) as expressive of his own sentiments, he seems to have held but a poor opinion of the West-Eastern poetry that followed in the wake of Goethe's Divan. He certainly never attempted anything like an imitation of this poetry, and Oriental form appealed to him even less. In the famous, or rather infamous, passage of the Reisebilder (vol. vi. pp. 125-149), where he makes his savage attack on Platen, he ridicules that poet's Ghaselen and speaks derisively of their formal technique as "schaukelnde Balancierkünste" (ibid. p. 136). It is probable, however, that he judged the γazal form not so much on its own merits as on the demerits of his adversary. It is certain at any rate that he has nowhere made use of this form of versification.

Persian influence is not noticeable in his earlier poems;201 his Buch der Lieder shows no distinctive traces of it. His later poems, Neue Gedichte (1844) and Romanzero (1851), on the other hand, show it unmistakably. The Persian image of [61]the rose and the nightingale is of frequent occurrence. In a poem on Spring (Neue Ged. vol. ii. p. 26) we read:

The image recurs repeatedly in the Neue Gedichte, e.g. Neuer Frühling, Nos. 7, 9, 11, 20, 26; Verschiedene, No. 7, and in Romanzero (vol. iii.), pp. 42, 178, 253. Even in the prose-writings it is found, e.g. Florentinische Nächte (vol. iii. p. 43), Gedanken und Einfälle (vol. xii. 309).

Again, when Heine speaks of pearls that are pierced and strung on a silken thread ("Kluge Sterne," Neue Ged. vol. ii. p. 106), he is intensely Persian; still more so when he calls Jehuda ben Halevy's verses (Romanz. vol. iii. p. 136):

The Persian fancy of the moth and candle-flame seems to have been in his mind when he wrote ("Die Libelle," vol. ii. p. 288):

Still another Persian idea, familiar to us from a preceding chapter, is the peacock ashamed of his ugly feet ("Unvolkommenheit," Romanz. vol. iii. p. 103).

The Persian manner is even employed, and very cleverly, for humorous effect, for instance, in the poem "Jehuda ben Halevy," cited before. In this Heine asks Hitzig for the etymology of the name Schlemihl, but meets with nothing but evasive replies until:

and the poet begins to swear so profanely that the pious Hitzig surrenders unconditionally and hastens to supply the desired information. This image of the "trousers of pa[62]tience" reminds us strikingly of such Persian phrases as جيب مراقبه "the cowl of meditation" (Gul. ed. Platts, p. 4), فرش هوس "the carpet of desire" (ib. p. 113), etc., which are a particular ornament of the highly artificial rhymed prose, employed in works like the Gulistān and Bahāristān. In the latter, for instance, we read of a youth whose mental equilibrium had been impaired by the charms of a handsome girl: لباس دانايی بيفکند و پلاس رسوايی پوشيد "he tore the garment of prudence and put on the rags of disgrace."202

The description of a countess in words like those which Heine puts into the mouth of a Berlin chamber-musician: "Cypressenwuchs, Hyacinthenlocken, der Mund ist Ros' und Nachtigall zu gleicher Zeit," ... (Briefe aus Berlin. No. 3, vol. v. p. 205) furnishes another instance in point.

And lastly, we must mention one of the best known of Heine's poems, the trilogy "Der Dichter Firdusi," the subject of which is the famous legend of Mahmūd's ingratitude to Persia's greatest singer and his tardy repentance. We may add that scholars are not inclined to accept this legend as historical in all its parts; certainly not in its artistic and effective ending. This, of course, has nothing to do with the literary merit of the poem, which is deservedly ranked as one of Heine's happiest efforts.203

After all, however, it is clear that Heine is in no sense an orientalizing poet or a follower of the Hafizian tendency which became the vogue under the influence of Goethe, Rückert and Platen. With him the Oriental element never was more than an incidental feature, strictly subordinated to his own poetic individuality, and never dominating or effacing it, as is the case with most of the professedly "Persian" singers,—those "Perser von dem Main, der Elbe, von der Isar, von der Pleisse"—who thought, as has justly been remarked, that they had penetrated into the Persian spirit by merely mentioning guls and bulbuls. Heine had no use for such trivial superficiality. The singer of the "Loreley" sang as he felt, and in spite of so many apparently un-German sentiments [63]in his writings he had a right to say (Die Heimkehr, vol. i. p. 131):

[64]

CHAPTER X.

BODENSTEDT.

The Hāfiḍ tendency was carried to the height of popularity by Friedrich Martin Bodenstedt, whose Lieder des Mirza Schaffy met with a phenomenal success, running through one hundred and forty editions in Germany alone during the lifetime of the author, besides being translated into many foreign languages.204 These songs have had a remarkable career, which the author himself relates in an essay appended to the Nachlass.205

According to the prevailing opinion, Mirza Schaffy was a great Persian poet, a rival of Saʻdī and Hāfiḍ, and Bodenstedt was the translator of his songs. Great, therefore, was the astonishment of the European, and particularly the German public, when it was discovered that the name of this famous poet was utterly unknown in the East, even in his own native land. As early as 1860, Professor Brugsch, when in Tiflis, had searched for the singer's grave, but in vain; nobody could tell him where a certain Mirza Schaffy lay buried. At last, in 1870, the Russian counsellor Adolph Bergé gave an authentic account of the real man and his literary activity.206 Two things were clearly established: first, that such a person as Mīrzā Šafīʻ had really existed; second, that this person was no poet. On this second point the few scraps of verse which Bergé had been able to collect, and which he submitted in the essay cited above, leave absolutely no doubt. So, in 1874, when Bodenstedt published another poetic collection of Mirza Schaffy, he [65]appended an essay wherein he explained clearly the origin and the nature of the original collection bearing that name.

According to his own statements, these poems are not translations. They are entirely his own,207 and were originally not an independent collection, but part of the biographical romance Tausend und ein Tag im Orient.208 This should be kept in mind if we wish to estimate them at their true value.

Nevertheless the poems are genuinely Oriental and owe their existence to the author's stay in the East, particularly in Tiflis, during the winter 1843-44. But for this residence in the Orient, so Bodenstedt tells us,209 a large part of them would never have seen the light.

In form, however, they are Occidental—the γazal being used only a few times (e.g. ii. 135, or in the translations from Hāfiḍ in chap. 21: ii. 70=H. 8; ii. 72=H. 155, etc.) In spirit they are like Hāfiḍ. "Mein Lehrer ist Hafis, mein Bethaus ist die Schenke," so Mirza Schaffy himself proclaims (i. p. 96), and images and ideas from Hāfiḍ, familiar to us from preceding chapters, meet us everywhere. The stature like a cypress, the nightingale and the rose, the verses like pearls on a string, and others could be cited as instances. Other authors are also laid under contribution; thus the comparison of Mirza Schaffy to a bee seems to have been suggested by a maxim of Saʻdī (Gul. viii. No. 77, ed. Platts; K.S. p. 268), where a wise man without practice is called a bee without honey, and the thought in the last verse of "Die Rose auch" (vol. ii. p. 85), that the rose cannot do without dirt and the nightingale feeds on worms, is a reminiscence of a story of Niḍāmī which we had occasion to cite in the chapter on Rückert (see p. 43). In one case a poem contains a Persian proverb. Mirza Schaffy criticises the opinions of the Shāh's viziers in the words: "Ich höre das Geklapper einer Mühle, doch sehe ich kein Mehl" (i, 85), a literal rendering of

Of course the mullās and hypocrites in general are roundly [66]scored, especially in chapter 27, where the sage, angered by the reproaches which the mustahīd has made to him for his bad conduct and irreligious poetry, gives vent to his sentiments of disgust in a number of poems (vol. ii. p. 137 seq.). Bodenstedt undoubtedly had in mind the persecutions to which Hāfiḍ was subject, culminating in the refusal of the priests to give him regular burial and giving rise to the famous story of the fatvā.

The tavern and the praise of wine are, of course, bound to be prominent features. In the same credo where Mirza Schaffy proclaims Hāfiḍ as his teacher he also proclaims the tavern as his house of prayer (i. p. 96), and so he celebrates the day when he quit the mosque for the wine-house (i. p. 98; cf. H. 213. 4). The well known poem "Aus dem Feuerquell des Weines" (i. p. 106) is in sentiment exactly like a quatrain of ʻUmar Xayyām (Bodl. ed. Heron-Allen, Boston, 1898, No. 78; Whinfield, 195); the last verse is based on a couplet of Saʻdī (Gul. i. 4, last qiṭʻah, Platts, p. 18) which is cited immediately after the poem itself (i. p. 107).

A collection of Hafizian songs would scarcely be complete without a song in praise of Shīrāz. This we get in vol. ii. p. 48, where Shīrāz is compared to Tiflis; and just as the former was made famous through Hāfiḍ, so the latter will become famous through Mirza Schaffy. Little did the worthy sage of Ganja dream that this would come literally true. Yet it did. The closing lines of the poem—

are no empty boast; they simply express a fact.

None of Bodenstedt's later poetic publications ever attained the success of the Mirza Schaffy songs, and, it may be added, none of them equalled those songs in merit. In 1874 the author resolved once more to try the magic of that name and so he launched forth a collection called Aus dem Nachlasse Mirza Schaffy's, and to emphasize the Persian character of these poems the Persian translation of the title, از اشرار بازماندهً ميرزا شفيع, appeared on the title-page. In spite of all this, however, the Orientalism in these poems is more artificial [67]than natural; it is not felt as something essential without which the poems could not exist. The praise of wine, which is the main theme of the second book,—for the collection is divided into seven books,—is certainly not characteristically Persian; European, and especially German poets have also been very liberal and very proficient in bibulous verse. The maxims that make up the third and a portion of the fourth book are for the most part either plainly unoriental, or else so perfectly general, and, we may add, so hopelessly commonplace, as to fit in anywhere. Some, however, are drawn from Persian sources. Thus from the Gulistān we have in the third book, Nos. 8 (Gul. Pref. p. 7, last qiṭʻah), 9 (ibid. p. 6, first three couplets), 12 (ibid. iii. 27, maθ. p. 89) and 36 (saying of the king in Gul. i. 1, p. 13). No. 31 is from the introduction to the Hitōpadēśa (third couplet).210 "Die Cypresse," p. 103, is suggested by Gul. viii. 111 (K.S. 81).

The Oriental stories which form the contents of the fifth book are of small literary value. Some of them read like versified lessons in Eastern religion, as, for instance, "Der Sufi," p. 111, which is a rhymed exposition of a Sūfistic principle,211 and "Der Wüstenheilige," which enunciates through the lips of Zoroaster himself his doctrine that good actions are worth more than ascetic practices.212 On p. 121 Ibn Yamīn is credited with the story of the poet and the glow-worm, which is found in Saʻdī's Būstān (ed. Platts and Rogers, Lond. 1891, p. 127; tr. Barbier de Meynard, Paris, 1880, p. 163). The famous story of Yūsuf and Zalīχā, as related by Jāmī and Firdausī, is the subject of the longest poem in the book and is told in a somewhat flippant manner, p. 135 seq. The stories told of Saʻdī's reception at court and his subsequent banishment through the calumny of the courtiers, pp. 123-128, seem to be pure invention; at least there is nothing, as far as we know, in the life or writings of the Persian poet that could have furnished the material for these poems.213

[68]In 1882, still another collection of Bodenstedt's poems, entitled Aus Morgenland und Abendland, made its appearance. Like the Nachlass it also has seven divisions, of which only the second, fourth and sixth are of interest for us as containing Oriental material.214

One poem, however, in the first book, "An eine Kerze," p. 5, should be mentioned as of genuinely Persian character. The candle as symbolical of the patient, self-sacrificing lover is a familiar feature of Persian belles-lettres (cf. H. 299. 4; 301. 5; or Rückert's "Die Kerze und die Flasche," see above, p. 43). The last line reminds us of a verse of Jurjānī, cited by Jāmī in the Bahāristān (ed. Schlechta-Wssehrd, p. 111), exhorting the ruler to be like a flame, always pointing upwards.

The second book brings another contribution of sententious wisdom, most of which is neither new nor Oriental. Of Oriental sources the Gulistān is best represented. From it are taken Nos. 8 (Gul. ii. 4, last couplet), 9 (ibid. i. 1), 41 (ibid. i. 21, prose-passage before the maθ. p. 33; K.S. p. 55), 43 (ibid. i. 17, coupl. 4, p. 29; K.S. p. 49), 52 (ibid. i. 29, coupl. 2; K.S. p. 66). No. 47, which is credited to Ibn Yamīn, is from the Bahāristān (tr. K.S. p. 46; Red. p. 338). No. 49 is a very free rendering of a quatrain of ʻUmar Xayyām (Whinf. 347; Red. p. 81).215

The fourth book offers stories, all of which, except the first two, are from Persian sources. Thus from the Gulistān are "Die Berichtigung" (Gul. i. 31; K.S., p. 67) and "Der Königsring" (Gul. iii. 27, last part, p. 92; K.S. p. 157). "Nachtigall und Falk" is from Niḍāmī, as was pointed out before (see above, p. 43). "Das Paradies der Gläubigen" is from Jāmī (Red. p. 324; given there as from the Subẖat ul-abrār) and "Ein Bild der Welt" is from Ibn Yamīn (Red. p. 236).216 The longest story of the book is "Dara und Sara," which gives the legend of the discovery of wine by King Jamšīd, told by Mīrχvānd in his Rauḍat us-safā.217 Besides [69]changing the name of the king to Dara, in order to make the poem more romantic, we find that Bodenstedt has made some decided alterations and has considerably amplified the legend. Thus in his version the motive of the lady's attempt at suicide is despised love, while in the original it is only a prosaic nervous headache. In both cases, however, the sequel is the same.

Finally, the sixth book offers very free paraphrases of poems by Rūmī, Saʻdī, Amīr Muʻizzī and Anvarī, who, oddly enough, are termed "Vorläufer des Mirza Schaffy." The source for most of these poems was evidently Hammer's Geschichte der schönen Redekünste Persiens. To realize with what freedom Bodenstedt has treated his models, it is only necessary to compare some of the poems from Rūmī with Hammer's versions, e.g. "Glaube und Unglaube" (Red. p. 175), "Der Mensch und die Welt" (ibid. p. 180), "Des Lebens Kreislauf" (ibid. p. 178), "Wach' auf" (ibid. p. 181). "Die Pilger," p. 188, attributed to Jāmī, is likewise from Rūmī (Red. p. 181; cf. Rückert, Werke, vol. v. p. 220). The poems from Saʻdī can mostly be traced to the Gulistān; they are so freely rendered that they have little in common with the originals except the thought. No. 1 is Gul. ii. 18, qiṭʻah 1, to which the words of Luqmān are added; no. 2 is from Gul. iii. 10, couplet (p. 76; K.S. p. 129); no. 3 is Gul. iii. 27, maθ. (p. 89; K.S., p. 151); no. 4 is Gul. iii. 27, qiṭʻah (p. 91; K.S., p. 154) and no. 5 is Gul. i. 39, maθ. The poem "Heimat und Fremde" is taken from Amīr Muʻizzī,218 the court-poet of Malak Shāh, who in turn took it from Anvarī. It is cited in the Haft Qulzum to illustrate a kind of poetic theft.219 "Unterschied" is from Jāmī (Red. p. 315, given as from Subẖat ul-abrār), "Warum" from Ibn Yamīn (Red. p. 235); "Die Sterne" and "Die Zeit" are both from Anvarī (Red. pp. 98, 99).

So far, Bodenstedt had taken the material for his Oriental poems from Persia, but now he turned to India and in 1887 appeared Sakuntala, a romantic epic in five cantos. In the main it follows the story of Kālidāsa's famous drama, but the version [70]in the Mahābharāta is also used, and a considerable number of episodes are invented. Even where the account of the drama is followed, changes of a more or less sweeping nature are frequent. We cannot say that they strike us as so many improvements on Kālidāsa; they certainly often destroy or obliterate characteristic Indic features. Thus in the drama the failure of the king to recognize Śakuntalā is the result of a curse pronounced against the girl by the irascible saint Durvāsas, whom she has inadvertently failed to treat with due respect, and the ring is merely a means of breaking the spell. All this is highly characteristic of Hindu thought. In Bodenstedt's poem, however, remembering and forgetting are dependent on a magic quality inherent in the ring itself,—a trait that is at home in almost any literature.220

There are, besides, many minor changes. The vidūṣaka, or fun-making attendant of the king, is left out, and so the warriors express the sentiments that he utters at the beginning of Act 2. Duṣyanta does not bid farewell to his beloved in person, but leaves a letter. Again, after he has failed to recognize her, she returns to the hermitage of Kanva, whereas in the drama she is transported to that of Kaśyapa on the Hēmakūṭa mountain. So, of course, the aerial ride of the king in Indra's wagon is also done away with.

In many places, on the other hand, the poem follows the drama very closely. For instance, the passage in the first canto describing the mad elephant (pp. 14, 15)221 is a paraphrase of the warning uttered by one of the holy men in Act 1. Sc. 4 (ed. Kale, p. 40). The discourse of Śakuntalā with her friends (pp. 37, 38), the incident of the bee and Priyamvadā's playful remark (pp. 38-40) are closely modelled after the fourth scene of Act 1. Many passages of the poem are in fact nothing but translations. Thus the words which the king on leaving, writes to Śakuntalā (p. 78):

[71]are a pretty close rendering of the final words of the king's soliloquy at the end of Act 1:

A large part of the whole poem is pure invention, designed to make the story more exciting by means of a greater variety of incident. Such invented episodes, for instance, are the gory battle-scenes that take up the first part of the fourth canto, the omen of the fishes in the fifth, and the episodes in which Bharata plays the chief rôle in that canto. Some of the things told of this boy, how he knocks down the gate-keeper who refuses to admit his mother, how he strikes the queen Vasumatī who had insulted her, and how he slays the assassin whom this jealous queen had sent against him, are truly remarkable in view of the fact that the hero of all these exploits cannot be more than six years of age (see pp. 112, 113). The account in the Mahābhārata, to be sure, tells of equally fabulous exploits performed by the youth, but there we move in an atmosphere of the marvelous. In Bodenstedt's poem, however, the supernatural has been almost completely banished, and we cannot help noticing the improbability of these deeds.

[72]

CHAPTER XI.

THE MINOR ORIENTALIZING POETS.

To enumerate the names of all the German poets who affected the Oriental manner would be to give a list of the illustrious obscure. Most of them have only served to furnish another illustration of Horace's famous mediocribus esse poetis. A bare mention of such names as Löschke, Levitschnigg, Wihl, Stieglitz and von Hermannsthal will suffice.222 The last mentioned poet gives a striking illustration of the inanity of most of this kind of work. He uses the γazal form for stories about such persons as the Gracchi and Blücher,223 and, what is still more curious, for tirades against the Oriental tendency.224 A poet of different calibre is Daumer, whose Hafis (Hamb. 1846) for a long time was regarded as a translation, whereas the poems of the collection are in reality original productions in Hāfiḍ's manner, just like Rückert's Östliche Rosen.225 Their sensuous, passionate eroticism, however, is not a genuine Hāfiḍ quality, as we before have seen. The same criticism applies even much more forcibly to Schefer's Hafis in Hellas (Hamburg, 1853).226 Special mention is due to the gifted, but unfortunate, Heinrich Leuthold, whose Ghaselen deserve to be placed by the side of Platen's. Like Platen and Rückert, he too proclaims himself a reveller:

But these Ghaselen do not attempt to be so intensely Persian as to reproduce the objectionable features of Persian poetry. Thus Leuthold [73]sings:

Evidently the poet sees no necessity for retaining the sāqī, but makes the poem more acceptable to Western taste by substituting a "Schenkin" for Platen's "Schenke."

The Oriental story was cultivated by J.F. Castelli. Many of the subjects of his Orientalische Granaten (Dresden, 1852) had already been used by Rückert. Another Oriental storyteller in verse is Ludwig Bowitsch, whose Sindibad (Leipzig, 1860) contains mostly Arabic material. Friedrich von Sallet has written a poem on Zerduscht228 which gives the Iranian legend of the attempt made by the sorcerers to burn the newborn child.229 It would, however, lead us too far were we to mention single poems on Oriental subjects or of Oriental tendency.

Head and shoulders above all these less known poets towers the figure of Count von Schack, who, like Rückert, combined the poetic gift with the learning of the scholar, and who thus stands out a worthy successor of the German Brahman as a representative of the idea of the Weltlitteratur. A discussion of his work is a fitting close for this investigation.

[74]

CHAPTER XII.

VON SCHACK.

As an Orientalist, von Schack's scholarship is amply attested by his numerous and excellent translations from Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit. His Heldensagen des Firdusi, as is well known, has become a standard work of German literature. In fact, we may say that his reputation rests more upon his translations than upon his poems.

Though we have consistently refrained from discussing translations, it is felt that the Stimmen vom Ganges, which is a collection of Indic legends from various sources, especially from the Purāṇas, cannot be left entirely out of consideration.230 In many respects these poems have the charm of original work. The models moreover are used with great freedom. To cite von Schack's own words: "Für eigentliche Übertragungen können diese Dichtungen in der Gestalt, wie sie hier vorliegen, nicht gelten, da bei der Bearbeitung bald grössere bald geringere Freiheit gewaltet hat, auch manches Störende und Weitschweifige ausgeschieden wurde; doch hielt ich es für unstatthaft, am Wesentlichen des Stoffes und der Motive Änderungen vorzunehmen. In Gedanken und Ausdruck haben, wenn nicht der jedesmal vorliegende Text, so doch stets Indische Werke zu Vorbildern gedient."231

A brief comparison of any one of these poems with the Sanskrit original will show the correctness of this statement. [75]Let us take, as an illustration, the second, which gives the famous legend of Śakuntalā from the Mahābhārata (i. 69-74; Bombay ed. i. 92-100).

Schack leaves out unnecessary details and wearisome repetitions. Thus the elaborate account of the Brahmans whom the king sees on entering the hermitage of Kanva and their different occupations (Mbh. 70, 37-47) is condensed into fourteen lines, p. 36. Again, in the original, when Śakuntalā tells the story of her birth, the speech by which Indra urges Mēnakā to undertake the temptation of Viśvāmitra is given at some length (Mbh. 71, 20-26); so also the reply of the timid nymph (ibid. 71, 27-42); the story of the temptation itself is narrated with realistic detail in true Hindu fashion (ibid. 72, 1-9). All this takes up thirty-three ślōkas. Schack devotes to it barely five lines, p. 38; the speeches of Indra and Mēnakā he omits altogether. Again, when the king proposes to the fair maid, he enters into a learned disquisition on the eight kinds of marriage, explaining which ones are proper for each caste, which ones are never proper, and so forth; finally he proposes the Gandharva form (Mbh. 73, 6-14). It is needless to say that in Schack's poem the king's proposal is much less didactic and much more direct, pp. 40, 41.

On the other hand, to see how closely the poet sometimes follows his model we need but compare all that follows the words "Kaum war er gegangen," p. 42, to "Dem sind nimmerdar die Götter gnädig," p. 47, with the Sanskrit original (Mbh. 73, 24-74, 33).

Minor changes in phrases or words, advisable on aesthetic grounds, are of course frequent. Similes, for instance, appealing too exclusively to Hindu taste, were made more general. Thus in Śakuntalā's reply to the king, p. 51, the faults of others are likened in size to sand grains, and those of himself to glebes. In Sanskrit, however, the comparison is to mustard-grains and bilva-fruits respectively. A few lines further on the maid declares:

which passage in the original reads: āvayōr antaraṃ paśya mēru [76]sarśapōr iva, "behold! the difference between us is like that between a mustard-seed and Mount Mēru." In the same speech of Śakuntalā the Sanskrit introduces a striking simile which Schack omits as too specifically Indic:

We believe that these illustrations will suffice to give an idea of the relation which Schack's poems bear to the originals.

His fondness for things Oriental finds also frequent expression in his own poems. In Nächte des Orients (vol. i. p. 7 seq.),233 like Goethe before him, he undertakes a poetic Hegira to the East:

So he visits the native towns of Firdausī and Hāfiḍ and pays his respect to their memory, and then penetrates also into India, where he hears from the lips of a Buddhist monk an exposition of Nirvāṇa philosophy, which, however, is unacceptable to him (p. 111). The Oriental scenes that are brought before our mind, both in this poem as well as in "Memnon" (vol. vii. p. 5 seq.), are of course portrayed with poetic feeling as well as scholarly accuracy. The ẖājī who owns the wonderful elixir,—which, by the way, is said to come from India (p. 33),—and who interprets each vision that the poet lives through from the standpoint of the pessimistic sceptic, shows the influence of ʻUmar Xayyām. In fact he indulges sometimes in unmistakable reminiscences of [77]the quatrains of the famous astronomer-poet, as when he says:

This is very much the same thought as in the following quatrain of ʻUmar (Whinf. 310; Bodl. 108):

which stands first in Schack's own translation of the Persian poet and is thus rendered:

In his Weihgesänge (vol. ii. p. 149) Schack sends a greeting to the Orient; in another one of these songs he sings the praises of India (ibid. p. 232), and in still another he apostrophizes Zoroaster (ibid. p. 133). A division of this volume (ii.) bears the title Lotosblätter. The sight of the scholar's chamber with its Sanskrit manuscripts makes him dream of India's gorgeous scenery and inspires a poem "Das indische Gemach" (vol. x. p. 26).

Oriental stories and legends are also offered, though not frequently. "Mahmud der Gasnevide" (vol. i. p. 299) relates the story of the great sultan's stern justice.235 "Anahid" (vol. vii. p. 209) gives the famous legend of the angels Hārūt and Mārūt, who were punished for their temptation of the beautiful Zuhra, the Arabic Venus.236 Schack has substituted the old [78]Persian name of Anāhita (mod. Pers. nāhīd) for the Arabic name, and has otherwise also altered the legend considerably.

Schack never attempted to write original poems in Oriental form. The Hafizian movement did not excite his enthusiasm, and for the trifling of the average Hafizian singer he had no use whatever. In a poem by which he conveys his thanks to the sultan for a distinction which the latter had conferred on him he says:

Even for Bodenstedt's Mirza Schaffy songs he has no great admiration:

[79]

CHAPTER XIII.

CONCLUSION.

Now that we have come to the end of our investigation, it may be well to survey briefly the whole field and to summarize the results we have reached.

We have seen that to mediæval Europe India and Persia were lands of magic and enchantment; their languages and literatures were utterly unknown. Whatever influence these literatures exerted on that of Europe was indirect and not recognized. Nor did the Portuguese discoveries effect an immediate change. It was only by slow degrees that the West obtained any knowledge of Eastern thought. The Gulistān and Būstān of Saʻdī, some maxims of Bhartṛhari and a few scattered fragments were all that was known in Europe of Indic or Persian literature before the end of the eighteenth century.

Then the epoch-making discoveries of Sir William Jones aroused the attention of the Western world and laid the foundations of a new science. New ideas of world-wide significance presented themselves to the European mind. Nowhere were these ideas welcomed with more enthusiasm than in Germany, the home of philological scholarship. Herder pointed the way, and by means of translations and imitations tried to introduce the treasures of Oriental thought into German literature. That he did not meet with unqualified success was due, as we have seen, to his one-sided didactic tendency. To him, however, belongs the credit of the first impulse. Then Friedrich Schlegel founded the study of Sanskrit in Germany, while at the same time Hammer was busily at work spreading a knowledge of the Persian poets in Europe. The effect of the latter's work was instantaneous, for, as has been pointed out, it was his translation of Hāfiḍ that inspired the composition of Goethe's Divan and thus started the Oriental movement in Germany.

We have examined the share which Rückert, Platen,[80] Bodenstedt and Schack had in this movement and have touched briefly on the work of some of the minor lights. It will be noticed that the Persian tendency found a far greater number of followers than the Indic. And this is but natural. It was far more easy to sing of wine, woman and roses in the manner of Hāfiḍ, such as most of these poets conceived this manner to be, than to assimilate and reproduce the philosophic and often involved poetry of India. Add to this the charming form and the rich rhyme of Persian poetry and we can readily understand why it won favor. But we can also understand readily enough why most of the so-called Hafizian singing is of very inferior quality. Those men who did the most serious work for the West-Eastern movement in Germany, men like Rückert and Schack, were not one-sided in their studies. It was their earnest intention to offer to their countrymen what was best in the literatures of both India and Persia, and that they have carried out this intention nobly no one who has followed this investigation will be disposed to deny.

It only remains to say a few words on the question of the value of this Oriental movement to German literature. We are not inclined to put too high an estimate on the poetry that arose under its influence. In fact, we do not think that it has produced what may be called really great poetry. It is significant that the fame of most of the poets considered in this investigation does not rest on that part of their work which was inspired by Oriental influence. We cannot possibly agree with the view that would place Goethe's Divan side by side with the master's best productions. We do not believe that he ever would have become famous through that. Platen's Ghaselen have neither the merit nor the reputation of his sonnets or his ballads. Even among the Ghaselen and Östliche Rosen of Rückert, the finest poems, such as "Sei mir gegrüsst" and "Du bist die Ruh," both immortalized by the genius of Schubert, are precisely those that are least Oriental, and we think it is safe to say that the Liebesfrühling exceeds in fame any one of Rückert's Oriental collections, including the Weisheit des Brahmanen. The exception to the rule is Bodenstedt. His reputation rests almost solely on the Mirza Schaffy songs; but it will scarcely be pretended that this is great poetry.

[81]From what has been said it may be inferred that the chief value of the Oriental movement does not consist in its original contributions to German literature, but rather in the reproductions and translations it inspired. For it was through these that the treasures of Eastern thought were made the literary heritage, not of Germany alone, but of Europe. As far as the literature of Germany itself is concerned, this movement was of the greatest significance, in that it introduced the Oriental element and thereby helped powerfully to impart to German letters the spirit of cosmopolitanism for which men like Herder and Goethe had so earnestly striven. The great writers of ancient Greece and Rome had long since been familiar to the German people; Shakespere, Dante and Calderon had likewise won a place by the side of the German classics through the masterly work of the Romanticists; and now the spirit and form of a new literature—light from the East—was brought in by the movement which has been the subject of this investigation and assumed its place as a recognized element in the literature of Germany. The fond dream of a Weltlitteratur thus became a reality, and the German language became the medium of acquaintance with all that is best in the literature of the world. The Oriental movement is the clearest proof of that spirit of universality, which is at once the noblest trait and the proudest boast of German genius.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany, by Arthur F. J. Remy

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