The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany Part 13

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 Vasumati who had insulted her, and how he slays the a.s.sa.s.sin 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 _Mahabharata_, 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[204] Hebrew by Jos. Choczner, Breslau, 1868; Dutch by van Krieken, Amst. 1875; English by E. d'Esterre, Hamb. 1880; Italian by Giuseppe Rossi, 1884; Polish by Dzialoszye, Warsaw, 1888. See list in G. Schenk, Friedr. Bodenstedt, Ein Dichterleben in seinen Briefen, Berl. 1893, pp.

246-248.

[205] Aus dem Nachla.s.se Mirza Schaffys, Berl. 1874, pp. 191-223.

[206] In ZDMG. vol. xxiv. pp. 425-432.

[207] With few exceptions, pointed out by Bodenstedt himself, e.g.

"Mullah rein ist der Wein" is from the Tartaric. Nachla.s.s, p. 208.

[208] Friedr. Bodenstedts Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin, 1865, 12 vols.

Vols. i and ii. All references to the Lieder des M.S. are to this edition.

[209] Nachla.s.s, p. 193.

[210] Or else a saying of Muhammad exactly like it, cited by Prof.

Brugsch in Aus dem Morgenlande, Lpz. Recl. Univ. Bibl. 3151-2, p. 57.

[211] Cf. Bodenstedt's remarks on S_ufism in Nachtrag, p. 198 seq.

[212] See my article on Religion of Ancient Persia in Progress, vol.

iii. No. 5, p. 290.

[213] A complete history of Sa?di's life, drawn from his own writings as well as other sources, is given by W. Bacher, Sa?di's Aphorismen und Sinngedichte, Stra.s.sb. 1879. On the relation of the poet to the rulers of his time, see esp. p. x.x.xv seq.

[214] We cite from the third edition, 1887.

[215] Translated more closely by Bodenstedt in Die Lieder und Spruche des Omar Chajjam, Breslau, 1881, p. 29.

[216] Schlechta-Wssehrd, Ibn Jemins Bruchstucke. Wien, 1852, pp. 138, 139.

[217] Tr. David Shea, Hist. of the Early Kings of Persia, Lond. 1832, pp. 102-104; Malcolm. i. p. 10, note b.

[218] Ethe in Grdr. iran. Phil. ii. p. 260; Pizzi, Storia, vol. i. pp.

88, 215.

[219] Ruckert, Gram. Poet. u. Rhet. der Perser, p. 363.

[220] Cf. the story of Charlemagne and the magic stone given to him by a grateful serpent. Grimm, Deutsche Sagen, 1. 130.

[221] We cite from an edition publ. at Leipzig, no date.

CHAPTER XI.

THE MINOR ORIENTALIZING POETS.

SOME LESS KNOWN POETS WHO ATTEMPTED THE ORIENTAL MANNER.

To enumerate the names of all the German poets who affected the Oriental manner would be to give a list of the ill.u.s.trious obscure. Most of them have only served to furnish another ill.u.s.tration of Horace's famous _mediocribus esse poetis_. A bare mention of such names as Loschke, Levitschnigg, Wihl, Stieglitz and von Hermannsthal will suffice.[222]

The last mentioned poet gives a striking ill.u.s.tration of the inanity of most of this kind of work. He uses the _?azal_ form for stories about such persons as the Gracchi and Blucher,[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 H_afi?'s manner, just like Ruckert's _ostliche Rosen_.[225] Their sensuous, pa.s.sionate eroticism, however, is not a genuine H_afi? quality, as we before have seen. The same criticism applies even much more forcibly to Schefer's _Hafis in h.e.l.las_ (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 Ruckert, he too proclaims himself a reveller:

Zur Gottheit ward die Schonheit mir Und mein Gebet wird zum Ghasel.--

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

Vor allem ein Lebehoch dem Hafis, dem Patriarchen der Zunft!-- D'rum bringe die liebliche Schenkin das Gold gefullter Becher hinein![227]

Evidently the poet sees no necessity for retaining the _saqi_, but makes the poem more acceptable to Western taste by subst.i.tuting 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 Ruckert. Another Oriental storyteller in verse is Ludwig Bowitsch, whose _Sindibad_ (Leipzig, 1860) contains mostly Arabic material. Friedrich von Sallet has written a poem on _Zerduscht_[228] 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 Ruckert, 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[222] On these see Paul Horn, Was verdanken Wir Persien, in Nord u. Sud, Heft 282, p. 386 seq.

[223] Ghaselen, Leipz. Recl. Univ. Bibl. No. 371, pp. 96, 99.

[224] Ibid. pp. 49-54. An einen Freund.

[225] See von Schack, Strophen des Omar Chijam, p. 117.

[226] Horn in article cited, p. 389; Emil Brenning, Leopold Schefer, Bremen, 1884, p. 135.

[227] Gedichte, Frauenfeld, 1879, p. 144 (xvi).

[228] Gesammelte Gedichte, Leipz. Reclam. Nos. 551-3, p. 128.

[229] See Jackson, Zoroaster, p. 29.

CHAPTER XII.