The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany

l Poems-Nachlass-Aus Morgenland und

al success, running through one hundred and forty editions in Germany alone during the lifetime of the author, besides being translated into

fessor 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 ?afī? had really existed; second, that th

nd were originally not an independent collection, but part of the biographical romance Tausend und

in the East, particularly in Tiflis, during the winter 1843-44. But for this residence in t

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 Sa?dī (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 a

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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 m

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 ?Umar X

Shīrāz is compared to Tiflis; and just as the former was made famous through Hāfi?, so the latter will become famous through Mirz

Tiflis dur

is zum Rhei

ast; they simpl

Orientalism in these poems is more artificial 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 plai

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 Sa?dī'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 bo

ndland, made its appearance. Like the Nachlass it also has seven divisions, of which onl

acrificing 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

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

l?ubigen" is from Jāmī (Red. p. 324; given there as from the Sub?at 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 Jam?īd, told by Mīrχvānd in his Rau?at us-safā.217 Besides changing the name of the king to D

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 Sa?dī 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, qi??ah 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.

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 ?akuntalā is the result of a curse pronounced against the girl by the irascibl

nning of Act 2. Du?yanta 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 Ka

ing uttered by one of the holy men in Act 1. Sc. 4 (ed. Kale, p. 40). The discourse of ?akuntalā with her friends (pp. 37, 38), the incident of the bee and Priyamvadā's playful remark (pp. 38-

z wird stets

nde Fahne an

lem Wind en

f the final words of the king'

? dhāvati pa?cād asa?

prativātam

g with it flies backward like the silken st

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

TNO

sterre, Hamb. 1880; Italian by Giuseppe Rossi, 1884; Polish by Dzialoszye, Warsaw, 1888. See li

e Mirza Schaffys, Be

vol. xxiv.

enstedt himself, e.g. "Mullah rein ist der

erlin, 1865, 12 vols. Vols. i and ii. All refer

hlass,

e it, cited by Prof. Brugsch in Aus dem Morg

remarks on Sūfism in

on of Ancient Persia in Prog

her sources, is given by W. Bacher, Sa?dī's Aphorismen und Sinngedichte, Strassb.

rom the third

nstedt in Die Lieder und Sprüche de

bn Jemins Bruchstücke. W

rly Kings of Persia, Lond. 1832, pp

hil. ii. p. 260; Pizzi, S

. Poet. u. Rhet.

e magic stone given to him by a gratefu

n edition publ. at