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- Herausgeber: Skyline
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
The History of Literature, as a separate branch of the history of civilization, is of comparatively recent origin; the first work on the subject in any language dating no further back than the sixteenth century, and being little more than a crude catalogue of authors and their books. Yet who can deny the great importance of such history? When studied in connection with illustrative extracts from the masterpieces of which it treats, it furnishes a key to the intellectual development of our race, introduces us to the great minds that stand as beacon lights in successive ages, and with their wisdom widens the scope of knowledge, while it refines the taste and disciplines the judgment. Lord Bacon said but the truth, when he remarked that the history of the world without the history of letters would be as incomplete as a statue of Polyphemus deprived of his single eye.
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John Duncan Quackenbos
Table of contents
THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY OF LANGUAGES.
PREFACE.
INTRODUCTION.
PART I. ANCIENT ORIENTAL LITERATURES.
CHAPTER I. HINDOO LITERATURE.
CHAPTER II. PERSIAN LITERATURE.
CHAPTER III. CHINESE LITERATURE.
CHAPTER IV. HEBREW LITERATURE.
CHAPTER V. CHALDEAN, ASSYRIAN, ARABIC, AND PHŒNICIAN LITERATURES.
CHAPTER VI. EGYPTIAN LITERATURE.
PART II. GRECIAN LITERATURE.
CHAPTER I. BIRTH OF GRECIAN LITERATURE.
CHAPTER II. AGE OF EPIC POETRY.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV. RISE OF GREEK PROSE.
CHAPTER V. GOLDEN AGE OF GRECIAN LITERATURE.
CHAPTER VI. THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD.
CHAPTER VII. LATER GREEK LITERATURE.
PART III. ROMAN LITERATURE.
CHAPTER I. LATIN AND ITS OLDEST MONUMENTS.
CHAPTER II. DAWN OF ROMAN LITERATURE.
CHAPTER III. GOLDEN AGE OF ROMAN LITERATURE.
CHAPTER IV. AGE OF DECLINE.
FOOTNOTES:
THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY OF LANGUAGES.
PREFACE.
INTRODUCTION.
PART I. ANCIENT ORIENTAL LITERATURES.
CHAPTER I. HINDOO LITERATURE.
THE SANSCRIT LANGUAGE.
Characteristics.—Oldest of all the Indo-European tongues, and most closely resembling the common parent that is lost, is Sanscrit—the language spoken by those fair-skinned Aryans who more than thirty centuries ago, swarming through the Hindoo Koosh passes, made the sunny plains of Hindostan their own (page 16). Sanscrit spread over most of the peninsula; and the meaning of the word, perfected, is significant of the flexibility, refinement, regularity, and philosophical system of grammar, by which the language was distinguished. In luxuriance of inflection it was unequalled. Its nouns were varied according to eight cases, and three numbers (singular, dual, and plural); and its verbs, which assumed causal, desiderative, and frequentative forms, were carried in conjugation through three voices, the active, middle, and passive. Its chief fault—a result of its very richness—lay in the frequent use of long compounds, particularly adjectives, presenting what seems to us a confused combination of ideas, sometimes ludicrously lengthened out; as in the expressions, “always-to-be-remembered-with-reverence patriot,” “water-play-delighted
maidenn-bathing-fragrant river-breezes” (that is, river-breezes made fragrant by the bathing of maidens delighted with sporting in the water). (Consult Dr. Perry’s “Sanscrit Primer.”)
Brahman Priest.
Neither the parallelism of Hebrew poetry (page 89) nor the rhyme of modern times finds a place in Sanscrit verse; it is distinguished from prose, like Greek poetry, simply by a metrical arrangement of long and short syllables. The measured cadence gave great delight to the cultivated ear of the Hindoos. “There are two excellent things in the world,” says one of their writers—“the friendship of the good, and the beauties of poetry.”
Sanscrit is now a dead language. About three hundred years before the Christian era, dialects similarly derived took its place among the people, and it has since been kept alive only in the conversation and writings of the learned, as the sacred language of the Brahmans, or priestly caste.
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Yet so extensive is its literature that it costs a Brahman half his life to master a portion of its sacred books alone.
Sanscrit Alphabet.—As to the origin of the Sanscrit alphabet, consisting of fifty letters, history is silent. It is believed that the entire early literature was preserved for centuries by
oral repetition. When their polished tongue was first expressed in written characters—derived from the Phœnicians or independently invented—so perfectly did these answer the purpose that the Hindoos styled their alphabet “the writing of the gods.” The Sanscrit letters are still preserved in the written language of the pure Hindoos, but in that of the Mohammedan population have been replaced with the Arabic characters.
History of Sanscrit Researches.—Arabian translations of Sanscrit works were made as early as the reign of the Caliph Haroun’-al-Raschid, at Bagdad (800 A.D.), and appeared from time to time in the succeeding centuries. Europeans first knew of the existence of Sanscrit and its literature during the reign of Au’rungzebe (1658-1707), in whose time the French and English obtained a foothold in Hindostan. Before this, the Jesuit Nobili (no’be-le) had gone to India to study the sacred books with a view to the conversion of the Hindoos, and, having mastered them, boldly preached a new Veda; but he died on the scene of his labors, and Europe profited nothing by his researches. It was left for the Asiatic Society, organized at Calcutta in 1784 by Sir William Jones, to open the eyes of Europe to the importance and magnitude of Brahman literature, of which the translation of Sakoon’talâ (page 50) by this great orientalist gave a most favorable specimen.
Following in the footsteps of the English scholar just mentioned, the German critic Schlegel, in his “Language and Wisdom of the Indians” (1808) laid the permanent foundations of Comparative Philology, a science of recent birth but one that has been of incalculable service to history, establishing the kinship of the Hindoos and Persians with the old Greeks and Romans, as well as the modern nations of the west, by striking resemblances in their respective tongues. Eminent scholars have since prosecuted the work with enthusiasm—especially Bopp, Humboldt, Pott, and Grimm among the Ger
mans, the French savant Bournouf, Max Müller in England, and the American Whitney. Sanscrit is no longer a sealed volume. The leading European universities have their professors of that tongue, who lecture also on comparative grammar. (See Whitney’s article on Philology, Enc. Brit. V. xviii.)
SACRED LITERATURE OF THE HINDOOS.
The Veda.—The language of the ancient Indo-Aryans survives in the Ve’da, the oldest work of Indo-European literature, dating back to the prehistoric era of the Aryan race. The Veda, while rich in striking imagery, is marked by a beautiful simplicity of diction. In its language, we behold the most ancient form of our own tongue; in the hymns of its poets, those germs of Aryan intellectual development that no long time after bloomed in epic and idyl through the fertile valleys of India, bore immortal fruit on the soil of Greece and Rome, and have been brought to perfection in the grand productions of modern genius. (The student is referred to Max Müller’s “Rig-Veda-Sanhita,” and Dr. Arrowsmith’s Translation of Prof. Kaegi’s “Rig-Veda.”)
The word Veda means knowledge. The Mantra, or “song” portion of the Veda, is divided into four parts: the Rig-Veda (knowledge of the stanzas), or Veda of hymns; the Sâma-Veda, of tunes or chants, and the Yajur-Veda, of sacrificial rites (prayers)—both purely ritualistic; and the Artharva-Veda, in the main a collection of incantations and spells: Each of the last-named Vedas is a medley of extracts from the Rig-Veda, with additions from outside sources. Thus it will be seen that the Hindoos were believers in the efficacy of sacrifices, some of which were prolonged for months and even years, as well as of talismans, charms, and incantations to ward off disease, bring riches, and inspire love.
To the metrical parts of the Vedas are attached the Brâhmanas, which abound in tedious descriptions of rites, and
were written long after in prose to explain the hymns. There are also collections of rules for worship and sacrifice; and speculations on philosophy and religion, which display no little acuteness, for the Hindoo mind seems to have been prone to metaphysical investigation and ingenious in reasoning even to the verge of sophistry. Supplements to the Vedas contain abundant commentaries on their grammar and language, as well as astronomical facts—the latter mainly borrowed from other nations and not based on original researches or discoveries. Finally, the Upave’das (oo-pă-vā’dăz—appended) treat of diseases and their cure, devotional music, the use of weapons, and the arts; while the Purânas (poo-rah’năz), of more recent birth, believed to have been revealed from heaven like the Vedas, present in verse the mythology of India and the history of its legendary age.
Religion of the Veda.—The Supreme Being first acknowledged by the Aryans was gradually lost sight of, and a worship of Nature arose. In the 1,028 hymns of the Rig-Veda (by several hundred authors, and comprising 10,580 verses), “thrice eleven” gods are invoked as intelligent beings, the principal of whom are Varuna (vur’oo-nah)—god of waters, the sun, the moon, the day, fire, the storm (Indra), the dawn, and the earth; and to “the three and thirty,” offerings were made of cakes, wine, and grain. They were immortal; clothed with power to answer prayer, and punish those who offended them. But as each great god is recognized as supreme in different hymns, it is with good reason thought that, under various names, one omnipotent Being is worshipped, called in the Veda “God above all gods,” “that One alone who has upheld the spheres.” “Wise poets,” says the Rig-Veda, “make the Beautiful-winged, though he is one, manifold by words.”
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In the following hymn to Varuna is apparent the belief that evil-doing is hateful to the Almighty, that man is by nature prone to sin, and that God stands ready to exercise forgiveness.
HYMN TO VARUNA.
(We have given Max Müller’s literal translation a dress of verse, the better to bring out the effect of the refrain.)
O Varuna, let me not yet enter the house of clay:
Mercy, Almighty one, thy mercy I pray!
If, like a cloud the sport of winds, I trembling go astray—
Mercy, Almighty one, thy mercy I pray!
Through want of strength, thou strong bright God, I’ve wandered from the way:
Mercy, Almighty one, thy mercy I pray!
Thirst comes upon the worshipper, though round the waters play:
Mercy, Almighty one, thy mercy I pray!
When we do wrong through thoughtlessness, thy hand of vengeance stay:
Transgressors of thy righteous law, thy mercy, God, we pray!
But of all the conceptions of the Vedic writers, that of the Dawn Goddess was the most poetical. Watching for the first flush in the eastern sky, her ancient worshippers, with their hands devoutly placed upon their foreheads, opened their hearts in strains of praise to the gloom-dispelling Dawn, the golden-hued Daughter of Heaven, leading on the sun with her modest smile, “like a radiant bride adorned by her mother for the bridegroom.”
The sun is represented as a glorious prince, hastening after the Dawn-maiden and trying to discover her by a tiny slipper which she has dropped, and which is too small for another to wear; but the prince never overtakes the flying maid. This beautiful myth is the origin of the tale of Cinderella.
The Veda contains no allusions to those corrupt practices which afterward became the distinguishing marks of Brahmanism. At this early period there was no belief in the transmigration of the souls of men into inferior animals; on the contrary, the Vedic Aryans looked for “excellent treasures in the sky.” To caste, they were also strangers; idols were unknown; and suttee, the burning of the widow at her husband’s funeral, was an unheard-of barbarity.
Social Life of the Vedic People.—The hymns of the Rig-Veda picture the manners and customs of an intellectual people, far advanced in the arts. Princely palaces are described, fortified cities, monarchs possessed of fabulous riches, ladies elegantly attired. There were poor as well as rich, workers in the various handicrafts; shipbuilding was practised, and naval expeditions were undertaken. Even at this remote day literary meetings were held.
Nor were the crimes and vices of later times unknown. Liars are denounced; thieves, robbers, and intoxicating drinks, are mentioned; while in one hymn, a gambler laments his ruin by “the tumbling dice,” and warns others not to play, but rather to practise husbandry. (On the lessons of the Veda, see Max Müller’s “India: What can It Teach Us?” p. 141.)
The following extract from one of the secular hymns which are interspersed with those of a religious character, shows some knowledge of human nature:—
EVERY ONE TO HIS TASTE.
“ Men’s tastes and trades are multifarious,
And so their ends and aims are various.
The smith seeks something cracked to mend;
The doctor would have sick to tend.
The priest desires a devotee
From whom he may extract his fee.
Each craftsman makes and vends his ware,
And hopes the rich man’s gold to share.
My sire’s a doctor; I, a bard;
Corn grinds my mother, toiling hard.
All craving wealth, we each pursue,
By different means, the end in view,
Like people running after cows,
Which too far off have strayed to browse
The draught-horse seeks an easy yoke,
The merry dearly like a joke,
Of lovers youthful belles are fond,
And thirsty frogs desire a pond.”—Muir.
LAW-BOOKS OF THE HINDOOS.
Laws of Manu.—Of the many Indian treatises on the moral law still extant, the most important is the Institutes of Manu (mun’oo). Early texts transmit the idea of this venerable lawgiver, sprung from Brahma in the Vedic period. That the code now bearing his name embodies the precepts of so ancient a sage, is doubtful. The laws are written in verse. Four distinct castes are recognized, ascending through the successive grades of laborers, farmers, warriors, and princes, to the highest, which consisted of the priests of Brahma, “the soul of the universe, whom eye, tongue, mind, cannot reach,” from whose substance all men proceed and to whom all must return through various states of existence. The childlike religion of the Veda has disappeared.
The word brahma often occurs in the Vedas with the signification of worship, or hymn, the vehicle of worship. In the later Vedic poems it came to mean the universal but impersonal spiritual principle, all-pervading and self-existent. In Manu’s Ordinances, Brahma is endowed with personality, and a definite place is assigned him in the national religious system, as the creative spirit who made the universe before undiscerned discernible in the beginning. He, as the Creator, is united with the three-eyed thousand-named Siva (se’vah) the Destroyer, and Vishnu the Preserver, in the Hindoo triad. Vishnu was the first-begotten of Brahma, a benevolent being who, to overcome the malignant agents of evil, submitted to various embodiments in human or animal form, known as
Av’atars. Nine avatars, which the Hindoos believed to have taken place, were favorite themes of Sanscrit poetry; the tenth, still future, would result in the overthrow of the present state of things and the ushering in of a new and better era. (Read Hopkins’s “The Ordinances of Manu.”)
Moral Precepts.—The Institutes of Manu regulated the moral and social life of the people, prescribing certain rules for the government of society and the punishment of crimes. Purity of life was enjoined on all. One of the chief duties was to honor father and mother—the mother a thousand times the most—and the Brahman more than either. Widows are forbidden to remarry, and the duties of a wife are thus described:—
“ The wife must always be in a cheerful temper, devoting herself to the good management of the household, taking great care of the furniture, and keeping down all expenses with a frugal hand. The husband to whom her father has given her, she must obsequiously honor while he lives and never neglect him when he dies. The husband gives bliss continually to his wife here below, and he will give her happiness in the next world. He must be constantly revered as a god by a virtuous wife, even if he does not observe approved usages, or is devoid of good qualities. A faithful wife, who wishes to attain heaven and dwell there with her husband, must never do anything unkind toward him, whether he be living or dead.”
The following was the punishment for killing a cow, an animal treated with the honors due to a deity:—
“ All day he must wait on a herd of cows, and stand quaffing the dust raised by their hoofs.
Free from passion, he must stand when they stand, follow when they move, lie down near them when they lie down.
By thus waiting on a herd for three months, he who has killed a cow atones for his guilt.”
OTHER EXTRACTS FROM MANU.
“ Greatness is not conferred by years nor by gray hairs, by wealth nor powerful kindred. Whoever has read the Veda, he always is great.
A Brahman beginning or ending a lecture on the Veda must always pronounce to himself the syllable OM
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; for unless the syllable
OM precede his learning will slip away from him, and unless it follow nothing will be long retained.
When one among all the organs sins, by that single failure all knowledge of God passes away; as the water flows through one hole in a leathern bottle.
The names of women should be agreeable, soft, clear, captivating the fancy, auspicious, ending in long vowels, resembling words of benediction.”
EPIC POETRY.
Indian literature boasts of two grand epic poems—gems that would shine in the crown of a Homer or a Milton—the Râmâyana (rah-mah’yă-nă—Adventures of Râma) and the Mahâbhârata (mă-hah’bah’ră-tă—Great War of Bhârata), “the Iliad and Odyssey of Sanscrit poetry.” The date of these epics is uncertain. Both contain ancient Vedic traditions, but mingled with these is much that is more recent. It is probable that the old songs and stories were current among the people ages before they were arrayed in their present dress by later poets, who gave them a different religious coloring to suit the Brahmanical doctrines. Their language is an improvement on that of the Veda in polish and softness; improvement would naturally result from oral repetition. (See Monier Williams’s “Indian Wisdom.”)
The Râmâyana, by the poet Vâlmiki (vahl’me-ke), relates the achievements of Râma (the name assumed by Vishnu in his seventh avatar, or incarnation), who descended to earth that he might destroy a demon-prince in Ceylon. Râma becomes the first-born of the monarch of Oude and heir-apparent to the throne, marries a lovely princess, Sîtâ (se’tah), whose hand others had vainly sought, and daily increases in popularity. But Râma’s mother was not the only queen; a younger and more beautiful rival prevails on the old king to appoint her son his successor instead of Râma, and to banish the latter for fourteen years.
Loyal to his father, though he might have seized the crown by force, as his mother in her first disappointment bade him
do, Râma set out for the wilderness, accompanied by his bride, who refused to remain behind in the luxurious capital. Soon after his father died of grief; whereupon the younger brother rejected the crown, and, seeking the exile in the jungle, saluted him as king. Râma, however, declined the honor, and, proceeding to fulfil his mission, slew the demon and conquered Ceylon. Then with his faithful wife he returned to Oude, to reign jointly with his brother and usher in a golden age.
The Râmâyana, in this fiction, is supposed to refer to the conquest of southern India and Ceylon by the Aryans. It so delighted the Hindoos that it was said, “He who sings and hears this epic continually has attained to the highest enjoyment, and will finally be equal to the gods.”
FROM THE RÂMÂYANA.
Sîtâ, informed by her husband of his banishment, thus tenderly pleads to be the companion of his exile:—
“ I will not be a charge to thee: the wood will give me roots,
The spring will yield me water, and the branch provide me fruits.
In hermit’s humble mantle clad, and guarded by my lord,
I long to wander through the wood, the rivulet to ford,
To climb the rock, and gaze upon the lake that looks so cool;
And oh! the pleasant bathing in the clear and shaded pool,
With waters freshly running from the sweet perennial springs,
All lovely with the lotuses and wild swans’ silver wings.
I would not live in heaven itself, and thou, my love, away;
A thousand years with thee, my love, would seem one blissful day.
Then take me with thee to the wood, nor leave me here alone:
I will not be a burthen sore to thee, mine own! mine own!”
But Râma seeks to dissuade her:—
“ The forest life has fears and woes too many to be told:
Thirst, hunger, burning heat by day, by night the bitter cold.
Each moment on some deadly thing the heedless step may fall,
Where serpents with their venomed fangs and poisonous scorpions crawl;
There thro’ the day the tiger roams, the panther and the boar,
And thro’ the night the caverned hills echo the lion’s roar;
There many a river deep and wide will bar thine onward way,
Where fearful crocodiles amid the foaming waters play.
The forest paths, my Sîtâ dear, are rough and hard to pass,
Tangled with knotted creeping plants, and thorns, and matted grass.
O’er many a league the wild woods stretch, and savage beasts abound;
No fruit or flower may there be seen, and water scarce is found;
No bed is there to rest the limbs, but stretched upon a heap
Of fallen leaves and gathered grass the homeless wretch must sleep.
No, such a life is not for thee; cast thou the thought away;
Here in the palace of the king in peace and safety stay.
Though far away from thee I go, and thou remainest here,
Still shalt thou live within the heart to which thou art so dear.”
Yet Sîtâ still refuses to be parted from her husband, and with tearful eyes exclaims:—
“ And death to me were sweeter far, with thine arms round me thrown,
Than life in thy father’s palaces, in safety, but alone.
The wife’s eternal duty is, as holy priests declare,
To follow where her husband goes, his weal and woe to share;
And for the true and loving wife remains the endless bliss
Of sharing all this life with him, and the life that follows this.”
But, Râma being still inexorable, Sîtâ bursts forth in anger, upbraids him for his cruelty in deserting her, and finally, overcome by emotion, falls weeping at his feet. Then Râma raises her in his arms, and pours these soothing accents in her ear:—
“ Oh! what is heaven without thee, love? With thee I’ll live and die;
Never will Râma stoop to fear, though Brahma’s self come nigh.
Obedience to my father’s will now sends me to the wood;
For paramount of duties this is counted by the good.
Only to try thy mind, my love, thy prayer I first denied:
I never dreamed that aught could harm the lady by my side;
But yet I feared to suffer thee, so delicate and fair,
The troubles of a forest life and all its woes to share.
Now, as the glory of his life the saint can ne’er resign,
Thou too, devoted, brave, and true, shalt follow and be mine.”
Griffith.
As a favorable specimen of the florid description in which Hindoo imagination excels, we quote from the same epic,
THE DESCENT OF THE GANGES.
“ From the high heaven burst Ganges forth, first on Siva’s lofty crown;
Headlong then, and prone to earth, thundering rushed the cataract down.
Swarms of bright-hued fish came dashing; turtles, dolphins, and in their mirth,
Fallen, or falling, glancing, flashing, to the many-gleaming earth;
And all the host of heaven came down, sprites and genii in amaze,
And each forsook his heavenly throne, upon that glorious scene to gaze.
On cars, like high-towered cities, seen, with elephants and coursers rode.
Or on soft-swinging palanquin lay wondering, each observant god.
As met in bright divan each god, and flashed their jewelled vestures’ rays,
The coruscating ether glowed, as with a hundred suns ablaze.
And in ten thousand sparkles bright went flashing up the cloudy spray,
The snowy-flocking swans less white, within its glittering mists at play.
And headlong now poured down the flood, and now in silver circlets wound;
Then lake-like spread, all bright and broad, then gently, gently flowed around;
Then ’neath the caverned earth descending, then spouted up the boiling tide;
Then stream with stream, harmonious blending, swell bubbling up or smooth subside.
By that heaven-welling water’s breast, the genii and the sages stood;
Its sanctifying dews they blest, and plunged within the lustral flood.”—Milman.
The Mahâbhârata is a vast collection of miscellaneous poetry, attributed to Vyâsa (ve-ah’să), “the arranger,” containing over 200,000 lines, and relating the history of a struggle between two branches of an ancient royal family. Jealousy led to the separation of the rival parties, one of which, the Pândavas (pahn’dă-văz), cleared the jungle and founded the city of Delhi (del’le). But their enemies, the Kurus (Koo’rooz), resolving to dispossess them, challenged the Pândavas to a gambling match; the latter accepted, but were cheated out
of all their possessions by the use of loaded dice, and driven into the wilderness. A savage war ensued, resulting in the triumph of the Pândavas, and their elevation over the neighboring rajahs. (See Arnold’s “Indian Idylls.”)
The great Hindoo epics are both enlivened by charming episodes. The most beautiful of those interwoven in the Mahâbhârata are called “the Five Precious Gems.” Of these, the magnificent philosophical poem entitled The Divine Song withdraws the reader for a while from the tumult of war, and introduces him to a profound theological dialogue between a disguised god and one of the principal combatants. It inculcates the existence of one Immutable, Eternal Being, and teems with grand thoughts not unlike those we should expect from a Christian teacher. The immortality of the soul is thus sublimely set forth by the deity, on the eve of a decisive battle, for the purpose of removing the scruples of the chief, while the latter humanely hesitates to precipitate the conflict in view of the slaughter that would ensue:—
“ Ne’er was the time when I was not, nor thou, nor yonder kings of earth:
Hereafter, ne’er shall be the time, when one of us shall cease to be.
The soul, within its mortal frame, glides on thro’ childhood, youth, and age;
Then in another form renewed, renews its stated course again.
All indestructible is He that spread the living universe;
And who is he that shall destroy the work of the Indestructible?
Corruptible these bodies are that wrap the everlasting soul—
The eternal, unimaginable soul. Whence on to battle, Bhârata!
For he that thinks to slay the soul, or he that thinks the soul is slain,
Are fondly both alike deceived: it is not slain—it slayeth not;
It is not born—it doth not die; past, present, future knows it not;
Ancient, eternal, and unchanged, it dies not with the dying frame.
Who knows it incorruptible, and everlasting, and unborn,
What heeds he whether he may slay, or fall himself in battle slain?
As their old garments men cast off, anon new raiment to assume,
So casts the soul its worn-out frame, and takes at once another form.
The weapon cannot pierce it through, nor wastes it the consuming fire;
The liquid waters melt it not, nor dries it up the parching wind:
Impenetrable and unburned; impermeable and undried;
Perpetual, ever-wandering, firm, indissoluble, permanent,
Invisible, unspeakable.”—Milman.
But of all the episodes, that of Nala (nul’ă) and Damayanti is unsurpassed for pathos and tenderness of sentiment. King Nala, enamored of the “softly-smiling” Damayanti, “pearl among women,” finds his love returned, and is accepted by her in preference to many other princes and even four of the gods. A jealous demon, however, possesses him, and causes him to lose at play everything except his bride, whom he cannot be prevailed upon to stake. Yet at last, in his madness, he deserts her in the forest, and Damayanti, after many strange adventures, reaches her father’s court in safety. There she adopts the device of inviting suitors a second time to propose for her hand, in the hope of bringing her lost husband to her side if he should hear that there was danger of his losing her forever.
Nala, meanwhile, disguised as a charioteer, had entered the service of another king, who now sets forth to offer himself to the beauteous princess, driven by her husband. When they arrive Damayanti penetrates the disguise of the charioteer, and to prove the correctness of her suspicions, puts him to the severest test. She contrives to have his children brought before him. The father’s heart is touched at once; he clasps them in his arms, and bursts into tears.
“ Soon as he young Indrasena and her little brother saw,
Up he sprang, his arms wound round them, to his bosom folding both.
When he gazed upon the children, like the children of the gods,
All his heart o’erflowed with pity, and unwilling tears brake forth.”
Not wishing, however, to reveal himself to a wife whom he thought false, he added by way of apology for his conduct,
“ Oh! so like my own twin children was yon lovely infant pair,
Seeing them thus unexpected, have I broken out in tears.”
Finally Nala makes himself known to Damayanti, and, convinced of her faithfulness, is reunited to her and regains his crown.
Such are the Sanscrit epics and their episodes. They are still recited in the temples of India to vast throngs of appreciative listeners; the reading of the Mahâbhârata is said to occupy from three to six months. (On the epics, consult Muir’s “Metrical Translations from Sanscrit Writers.”)
LYRIC AND DIDACTIC POETRY.
Kâlidâsa.—In lyric poetry, embracing idyls and amatory pieces, Sanscrit is no less rich than in epic, whether quantity or quality be considered. Foremost in this department is Kâlidâsa (kah’le-dah’să), about whose life, and even his exact period, nothing is certainly known, but whose works have crowned him with immortality. He is the author of many charming verses; and his poem, “the Seasons,” which draws fascinating pictures of the luxuriant landscapes of India, displaying on every page the poet’s ardent love for the beauties of nature, has the honor of being the first book ever printed in Sanscrit.
AUTUMN.
FROM KÂLIDÂSA’S SEASONS.
“ Welcome Autumn, lovely bride,
Full of beauty, full of pride!
Hear her anklets’ silver ring:
’ Tis the swans that round her sing.
Mark the glory of her face:
’ Tis the lotus lends its grace.
See the garb around her thrown;
Look and wonder at her zone.
Robes of maize her limbs enfold,
Girt with rice like shining gold.
