CHAPTER I.

Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations

in hyphenation have been standardised but all other spelling and

punctuation remains unchanged.

Italics are represented thus _italic_, bold thus =bold= and

superscripts thus y^{en}.

Symbols that are not available are marked {symbol}.

There are several variations between the Table of Contents and the

headings within the text. These remain.

[Illustration: THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY OF LANGUAGES.]

[Illustration: Linguistic Map OF EUROPE]

ILLUSTRATED HISTORY

OF

ANCIENT LITERATURE

ORIENTAL AND CLASSICAL

BY

JOHN D. QUACKENBOS, A.M., M.D.

ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND

LITERATURE, COLUMBIA COLLEGE

ACCOMPANIED WITH

_ENGRAVINGS AND COLORED MAPS_

NEW EDITION

_REVISED AND CORRECTED_

NEW YORK

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS

1890

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by

JOHN D. QUACKENBOS,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

Copyright, 1889, by JOHN D. QUACKENBOS.

PREFACE.

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.

Nor is this study without results of a direct practical bearing.

Certainly all must appreciate the importance of understanding current

allusions to the writers and literary works of other ages and

countries, and must admit that some acquaintance at least with such

writers and works is essential to a well-grounded knowledge of one’s

own language and a correct estimate of its literature. But when is

such an acquaintance to be obtained, if not during a school or college

course? The engrossing duties of after-life leave little time for

the pursuit of liberal studies. And how is such an acquaintance to

be obtained? All are not linguists, and the greater part must get it

second-hand—must avail themselves of the labors of others who have

delved in these unfamiliar fields.

It is to facilitate and popularize this study of general literature by

furnishing a complete and carefully condensed text-book on the subject,

unencumbered by obscure names and wearisome details, that the volume

now offered to the public has been prepared. It presents a full account

of the literatures of ancient nations, and, treating of the origin

and relationships of their respective languages, incidentally brings

forward some of the most interesting facts of Comparative Philology.

While the writings of Greece and Rome receive due attention, a new,

and, it is believed, peculiarly valuable feature of the book will be

found in its treatment of ancient Oriental literature—particularly

the Sanscrit and Persian. The labors of European scholars during the

last quarter-century have thrown a chain of living interest around the

subject, and awakened on this side of the Atlantic as well a thirst

for further knowledge, which it is here attempted to satisfy. The

principles of Egyptian writing are also explained; and the literary

treasures recently unearthed amid the ruins of the Nile Valley and

elsewhere are described and illustrated.

In treating the subject the author has aimed, while giving a clear

outline of each literature as a whole, to make its great writers stand

out in bold relief, and to associate them in the pupil’s mind with the

works that have made them immortal. With this view brief biographies,

not fragmentary or isolated, but grafted on the narrative where they

naturally belong, are accompanied with short specimens, carefully

selected to give the best idea of each author’s style and genius.

In the critical views as well as the historical facts presented,

the latest authorities have been followed, and the aid of maps and

illustrations has been freely resorted to for the better elucidation of

points on which they could throw light.

The present volume has grown out of the author’s experience in the

lecture-room; and in the belief that it is of a scope and grade

that will meet the popular want, he now offers it to high-schools,

academies, and colleges. From such institutions he feels that no class

should graduate in ignorance either of the Greek and Roman classics

which have inspired the modern poet and philosopher, or of those

precious remains of once great Oriental literatures that patient

scholars of the nineteenth century have brought to light—that helped to

shape the Greek mind itself in the morning of the world. He trusts that

it may foster in the young admiration of the brilliant thoughts that

sparkle in the pages of ancient lore, a love of literature, and a taste

for philological investigations.

COLUMBIA COLLEGE, _June, 1878_.

In order that the friends of this popular work on Ancient Literature

may be advised of the progress made in philological study during the

present decade, the author has thoroughly revised the text, diagrams,

and maps. The value of the revision is enhanced by the introduction

of a carefully selected bibliography; frequent references to standard

monographs—not made to supply omissions, but as guides to those who

may desire a full and authoritative course of collateral reading—are

incorporated in the narrative. Attention is especially directed to

the chapter on Egyptian writing and literature, for which the author

is extensively indebted to F. C. H. Wendel, Ph.D. (Strasburg). The

results of the vast amount of labor expended in this most interesting

and important field during the ten years that have elapsed since the

issue of this text-book, are here for the first time given to English

readers. Other specialists have materially aided the author in his work

of revision. Acknowledgment is due to Dr. H. T. Peck, Professor of the

Latin Language and Literature, and Dr. R. J. H. Gottheil, Professor of

Syriac and Rabbinical Literature, Columbia College; to Drs. E. D. Perry

and A. V. W. Jackson, instructors respectively in Sanscrit and Avesta,

Columbia College; and to Dr. Chas. E. Moldehnke, the Egyptologist.

COLUMBIA COLLEGE, _May 1, 1889_.

CONTENTS.

_INTRODUCTION._

(Pages 11-30.)

Definition and Divisions of Literature, page 11.—Origin and Relationship

of Languages, 12.—The Aryans, 13.—Aryan Languages, 16.—Semitic Languages,

16.—Turanian Languages, 17.—Written Language, 18.—Ideographic Writing,

18.—Phonetic Writing, 19.—Modes of Writing and Pointing, 20.—Ancient

Writing Materials, 21.—General View of Ancient Literature, 25.

PART I.

_ANCIENT ORIENTAL LITERATURES._

CHAPTER I.—HINDOO LITERATURE.

(Pages 31-60.)

Sanscrit Language, 31.—Sanscrit Alphabet, 32.—Sanscrit Researches,

33.—The Veda, 34.—The Upavedas, 35.—The Purânas, 35.—Social Life

of the Vedic People, 37.—Code of Manu, 38.—Epic Poetry, 40.—The

Râmâyana, 40.—The Mahâbhârata, 43.—Lyric and Didactic Poetry,

46.—Kalidâsa, 46.—Jayadeva, 48.—Gitagovinda, 49.—The Sanscrit

Shakespeare, 50.—Sakoontalâ, 50.—The Hindoo Drama, 54.—Tales and

Fables, 56.—History and Grammar, 57.—Buddhist Literature, 58.—Writing

Materials of the Hindoos, 60.

CHAPTER II.—PERSIAN LITERATURE.

(Pages 60-67.)

Avesta Tongue, 60.—Zoroaster, 61.—The Avesta, 62.—Avesta Philosophy,

63.—Persian Inscriptions, 65.—Rock of Behistun, 65.—The Royal Library,

67.

CHAPTER III.—CHINESE LITERATURE.

(Pages 67-83.)

Chinese Language, 67.—Chinese Writing, 68.—Antiquity of Chinese

Literature, 69.—Confucius, 70.—The Chinese Classics, 73.—The Four

Shoo, 77.—The Confucian Analects, 77.—Mencius, 79.—Spirit of the

Chinese Classics, 80.—Lao-Tse, 82.

CHAPTER IV.—HEBREW LITERATURE.

(Pages 83-104.)

The Semitic Languages and their Distribution, 84.—The Ancient Hebrew,

85.—Hebrew Alphabet, 86.—Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, 88.—Parallelism,

89.—Dawn of Hebrew Literature, 90.—The Books of Moses, 90.—The

Historical Books, 92.—The Book of Job, 93.—Golden Age of Hebrew

Poetry, 93.—The Psalms, 93.—Elegiac Poetry, 94.—Didactic Poetry,

95.—Prophetic Poetry, 96.—Silver Age, 97.—The Apocrypha, 99.—The

Talmud, 100.

CHAPTER V.—CHALDEAN, ASSYRIAN, ARABIC, AND PHŒNICIAN LITERATURES.

(Pages 104-117.)

Cuneiform Letters, 104.—Assyrio-Babylonian Writing Materials,

106.—Golden Age of Babylonian Literature, 107.—Deluge Tablets,

112.—Arabic Literature, 114.—Himyaritic Inscriptions, 114.—Phœnician

Literature, 115.—Carthaginian Relics, 116.

CHAPTER VI.—EGYPTIAN LITERATURE.

(Pages 117-131.)

Egyptian Language, 118.—The Rosetta Stone, 119.—Hieroglyphic Writing,

120, 121.—Archaic Age of Egyptian Literature, 122.—Classical Age,

123.—Memoirs of Saneha, 124.—Tale of Snake Island, 125.—Minstrel’s

Song, 126.—Golden Age, 126.—Book of the Dead, 126,127.—Hymns,

128.—Epic Poetry, 129.—Authorship, 130.

PART II.

_GRECIAN LITERATURE._

CHAPTER I.—BIRTH OF GRECIAN LITERATURE.

(Pages 133-138.)

Early Settlement of Greece, 133.—Pelasgi and Hellenes, 134.—The Greek

Language, 135.—Earliest Forms of Poetry, 137.—Legendary Poets, 138.

CHAPTER II.—AGE OF EPIC POETRY.

(Pages 139-156.)

Homer, 139.—The Iliad, 141.—The Odyssey, 147.—Minor Poems of Homer,

150.—Cyclic Poets, 152.—Hesiod and his Works, 152.—Poets of the Epic

Cycle, 156.

CHAPTER III.—LYRIC POETRY.

(Pages 157-178.)

Rise and Varieties of Lyric Poetry, 157.—Callinus, 159.—Tyrtæus,

160.—Archilochus, 161.—Æolic and Doric Schools, 163.—Alcæus, 164.—The

Lesbian Poetesses, 164.—Sappho, 165.—Sappho’s Pupils, 171.—Anacreon,

172.—Simonides, 174.—Minor Lyric Poets, 177.

CHAPTER IV.—RISE OF GREEK PROSE.

(Pages 178-184.)

Earliest Prose Writings, 178.—The Seven Sages, 179.—Solon,

179.—Thales, 180.—Æsop, 181.—Progress of Greek Prose, 182.—Early

Philosophers and Historians, 183.

CHAPTER V.—GOLDEN AGE OF GRECIAN LITERATURE.

(Pages 184-262.)

The Attic Period, 184.—Pindar, 185.—Antimachus, 192.—Dramatic

Poetry, 192.—Æschylus, 194.—“Prometheus Chained,” 196.—Sophocles,

200.—“King Œdipus,” 202.—Euripides, 207.—“Medea,” 209.—Greek Comedy,

212.—Aristophanes, 213.—“The Clouds,” 214.—“The Birds,” 219.—History,

221.—Herodotus, 222.—Thucydides, 225.—Xenophon, 229.—Ctesias and

Theopompus, 233.—Philosophy, 234.—The Ionic and Italic Schools,

234.—Pythagoras, 235.—Empedocles, 236.—Xenophanes, 237.—Democritus,

237.—School of Epicurus, 238.—Pyrrho, the Skeptic, 238.—The

Socratic School, 239.—Plato and the Academic School, 241.—“Phædo,”

244.—Aristotle and the Peripatetic School, 247.—Aristotle’s

Writings, 248.—Theophrastus, 252.—The Stoic School, 253.—The Cynics,

254.—Oratory, 255.—Demosthenes, 256.—The Speech “On the Crown,”

257.—Æschines, 260.

CHAPTER VI.—THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD.

(Pages 262-280.)

Decline of Letters, 262.—The New Comedy, 263.—Menander, 264.—Philemon,

265.—Pastoral Poetry, 266.—Theocritus, 266.—Bion and Moschus, 269.—The

Museum, 272.—The Alexandrian Library, 273.—Poetry at Alexandria,

274.—Callimachus, 274.—Apollonius Rhodius, 275.—Writers on Science,

276.—Critics and Grammarians, 277.—History, 277.—Polybius, 278.—The

Septuagint, 279.

CHAPTER VII.—LATER GREEK LITERATURE.

(Pages 230-302.)

Decay of Greek Genius, 280.—Writers of the First Century B.C.,

281.—Writers of the First Three Christian Centuries, 284.—Plutarch,

285.—Lucian, 288.—Pausanias, 292.—Origen, 293.—Neo-Platonism,

293.—Longinus, 294.—Athanasius and Chrysostom, 294.—Novel writers,

295.—Hierocles, 295.—Byzantine Literature, 297.—The Greek Anthology,

297.—Gems of Greek Thought, 300.

PART III.

_ROMAN LITERATURE._

CHAPTER I.—LATIN AND ITS OLDEST MONUMENTS.

(Pages 303-307.)

Italy Peopled, 303.—The Latin Language, 304.—Ancient Latin Relics, 305.

CHAPTER II.—DAWN OF ROMAN LITERATURE.

(Pages 307-329.)

Indebtedness of Rome to Greek Authors, 307.—The Roman Drama,

308.—Livius Andronicus, 309.—Cneius Nævius, 310.—Ennius, 311.—Plautus,

312.—“The Captives,” 313.—Terence, 315.—“The Self-Tormentor,”

317.—Decline of the Drama, 319.—Epic Poetry, 320.—Nævius and Ennius

as Epic Poets, 320.—Satiric Poetry, 322.—Lucilius, 323.—Early Latin

Prose, 324.—Cato the Censor, 324.—Lælius, Scipio, and the Gracchi,

326.—Antonius, Crassus, and Hortensius, 327.—Minor Historians and

Orators, 328.

CHAPTER III.—GOLDEN AGE OF ROMAN LITERATURE.

(Pages 329-388.)

Periods of the Golden Age, 329.—Cicero, 330.—Varro, 337.—Julius Cæsar,

339.—Sallust, 343.—Cornelius Nepos, 347.—Poets of the Ciceronian

Period, 348.—Lucretius, 348.—Catullus, 352.—Poetry of the Augustan

Age, 354.—Virgil, 355.—Virgil’s Eclogues, 359.—Georgics, 360.—Æneid,

362.—Horace, 369.—Varius, 375.—Tibullus, 375.—Propertius, 377.—Ovid,

379.—Prose Writers of the Augustan Age, 382.—Livy, 382.

CHAPTER IV.—AGE OF DECLINE.

(Pages 388-428.)

Silver Age of Roman Letters, 388.—Velleius Paterculus, 389.—Valerius

Maximus, 389.—Celsus, 390.—Phædrus, 390.—Persius, 392.—Seneca,

394.—Lucan, 397.—Pliny the Elder, 401.—Martial, 404.—Statius,

405.—Sulpitia, 406.—Quintilian, 407.—Juvenal, 408.—Tacitus,

412.—Suetonius, 415.—Pliny the Younger. 418.—Apuleius, 420.—Latin

Fathers, 421.—Specimens of Later Latin Poetry, 423.—Gems of Latin

Thought, 425.

HISTORY OF ANCIENT LITERATURE.

INTRODUCTION.

Literature, in its broadest sense, comprises the written productions

of all nations in all ages. It is the permanent expression of the

intellectual power of man, and reflects the popular manners, the

political condition, the moral and religious status. In its literary

productions, a nation bequeaths to posterity an ever-speaking record of

its inner life.

The history of literature traces the progress of the human mind from

age to age, by landmarks erected by the mind itself. It represents

the development of different phases of thought in written language,

and shows their influence in moulding the public taste and morals.

It investigates the connection between the literatures of different

countries, considers the causes of their growth and their decay, and

critically examines the works of individual authors.

Literature may be divided into two parts, Ancient and Modern. The

former, to which this volume is devoted, includes the literatures

of the ancient Oriental nations, the Greeks, and the Romans. To the

second division belong the literatures of modern Europe, of the modern

Oriental nations, and of America.

After considering the origin and relationship of languages, we shall

give a brief summary of the history of ancient literature as a whole,

without national divisions; so that the reader, having previously

followed the progress of letters from age to age and people to people,

may be enabled to study more intelligently the separate literatures of

the different countries.

ORIGIN AND RELATIONSHIP OF LANGUAGES.

=The Dawn of History.=—When the mist that envelops the early history of

the world first rises, it discovers to our view, in parts of western

Asia, communities more or less advanced in knowledge and the arts,

gathered about certain centres of civilization; and others, of less

culture, leading a wandering life, spent mostly, we may conjecture,

in the chase, in predatory excursions, and the tending of herds. We

find at this time a thrifty race, called Aryans (_är’yanz_), settled

in the district between the Hindoo Koosh Mountains and the upper

course of the Amoo—the ancient Bactria (part of what is now Turkestan

and Afghanistan; see Map, p. 15). The region watered by the rivers

Euphrates and Tigris was occupied by the forefathers of the Chaldeans

and Assyrians, the Jews and Arabians; while over the plains of Tartary,

known as Turan, wandering tribes were spread—whence their name,

Turanians, _swift horsemen_. Corresponding with these three divisions

of the human race are three distinct families of languages,—the ARYAN

or INDO-EUROPEAN, the SEMITIC, and the TURANIAN,—embracing more

than one hundred and fifty tongues. (_See Rawlinson’s “The Origin of

Nations.”_)

In Africa, also, civilization was a plant of early growth, Egypt

ranking among the most ancient monarchies. Europe, however, in these

primeval ages, was either a tenantless wilderness or the home of rude

adventurers like the Lapps and Finns, of whom the Basques in the

Pyrenees are perhaps the only remnants in the west.

THE ARYANS.

=The Aryans= have left no account of themselves sculptured on rocks or

the walls of crumbling temples; but by careful study of the languages

of Aryan origin we obtain, after the lapse of four thousand years, a

glimpse of the social condition of those who spoke the mother-tongue

among the mountains of Bactria. We infer that nouns similar in the

various derived languages,—as father (_protector_), brother (_helper_),

house, door, walls, boat, grain, etc.,—are the names of objects or

notions familiar to the original family.[1] Thus utilizing language

as a key to what would otherwise be locked up in the unknown past,

we learn that the inhabitants of the fertile Bactrian valleys were

devoted to agricultural pursuits. Tilling the ground was an honorable

employment, the very name _Aryan_ signifying _high-born_, _noble_. We

have pictured to us law-abiding communities, grouped together in towns,

ruled by chiefs and a king, recognizing family ties, entertaining

exalted conceptions of woman, and a solemn regard for the marriage

bond—the latter always a mark of high civilization.

Language also tells us that this interesting people preferred the arts

of peace to war. With the dog for his companion, the shepherd folded

his flocks of sheep; with the horse and ox for his servants, the

landholder broke the soil with a plough of bronze. Pigs and fowls were

raised; cattle formed the chief wealth; and the cows were milked by the

_daughter_ of the household—this name meaning _milk-maid_.

The Aryan drove from village to village in his wheeled carriage, over

well-constructed roads; worked the metals; plied the loom; moulded

clay into pottery; and even navigated the neighboring waters in boats

propelled by oars. He gave names to numbers as far as one hundred, was

familiar with the principles of decimals, and took the moon for his

guide in dividing the year into months.

A Supreme Being was worshipped in Bactria, the Great Unseen, the

Creator and Governor of the world. In the reference to him of

controversies that were difficult to settle, we trace the origin of the

later trial by ordeal. Even some of our commonest stories are derived

from fables current at least two thousand years B.C. in ancient Arya.

=Aryan Migrations.=—Few in number at first, the Aryans long lived

peaceably together. But as the population grew denser, great bodies,

either compelled to search for food in other lands or moved by a thirst

for exploration, broke away at different periods from the cradle of

their race, in quest of new abodes.

Among these emigrants were Teutonic, Lithuanian, and Slavonian

hordes, who pushed to the northwest, and became the ancestors of the

Scandinavian and German nations, the Letts, Russians, and Poles. The

Celts and Græco-Italic tribes, probably passing between the Caspian

Sea and the Black, made their way by different routes into the fertile

regions of southern and southwestern Europe. The Slavs, Teutons, and

Celts, appear to have dispossessed an indigenous population of supposed

Turanian origin.[2] Of the Aryans who migrated to the northwest, Max

Müller says that they “have been the prominent actors in the great

drama of history, and have carried to their fullest growth all the

elements of active life with which our nature is endowed. They have

perfected society and morals. They have become, after struggles with

Semitic and Turanian races, the rulers of history; and it seems to be

their mission to link all parts of the world together by the chains of

civilization, commerce, and religion.”

[Illustration: ORIGINAL HOME of the ARYAN TRIBES with their ROUTES OF

MIGRATION.]

After the last emigration of Aryans to the west, the parent community

extended its settlements southward into the Tableland of Iran (_érahn_)

(modern Persia, Afghanistan, and Beloochistan; see Map), and finally,

in consequence of a religious difference, separated into two great

branches. One remained on the Iranian plateau, and was ultimately known

in history as the Medes and Persians. The other made its way through

the mountain-passes, crossed the upper Indus (at some uncertain date,

between 2000 and 1400 B.C.), and in time effected the conquest of the

rich peninsula of Hindostan. The invaders were the “fair-complexioned”

Indo-Aryans, who spoke the polished Sanscrit, and among whom sprung up

the institution of caste and many gross superstitions.

=Aryan Languages.=—Similarity in the words and grammatical structure of

their languages proves that the Hindoos, the Persians, the Greeks and

Romans, the Celtic races, the Slavonian and Teutonic nations,—all had

a common origin; that the frozen Icelander and Indian fire-worshipper,

the outcast Gypsy and the plaided Highlander, the English master and

his Cooley servant, are brothers of the same stock. Their tongues have

been derived from the same parent—a language full of poetic grandeur,

older than Greek or Sanscrit, and containing the germs of both—a

language which has perished.

Spoken as we have seen from India to the west of Europe, these tongues

have been called INDO-EUROPEAN. They embrace the dialects of India and

Persia; the Welsh, and the Celtic of Scotland and Ireland; the Latin

and its derivatives, the Romance languages, viz., Italian, Spanish,

French, etc.; Greek; Russian and Polish; English, German, Danish, and

Swedish (see diagram preceding the title-page).

Some philologists hold that the primitive home of the Indo-European

race cannot be determined, and incline to the opinion that the

Asiatic representatives of the family emigrated from Europe into

Asia. (_Consult Brugman’s “Elements of the Comparative Grammar of the

Indo-Germanic Languages,” p. 2._)

THE SEMITES.

=The Semitic Languages=, in like manner, may all be traced to a common

source. To this group belong the Syriac, the Hebrew, the Arabic, the

Ethiopic, the ancient Phœnician, and the Carthaginian; while the

cuneiform inscriptions of Babylonia and Assyria are the written

characters of a Semitic tongue common to those countries. (See Chart,

p. 85.)

Philology has not followed the Semites to a home as limited as that of

the Aryans; though tradition points to Armenia as their early domicile,

ethnological science to Arabia or Africa. It declares, however, the

Semitic and the Aryan to be distinct forms of speech, perhaps branches

of a common stem, but neither derivable from the other.

THE TURANIANS.

=Turanian Dialects.=—Here there is slighter evidence of relationship.

The Turanian languages, though they seem to be members of the same

original family, differ widely; for those who spoke them were nomads,

wanderers over the globe, whose customs, laws, and dialects were

modified with every change of habitation and condition. To this

sporadic group belong the Mongolian tongues, the Turkish, Finnic, and

Hungarian, together with certain Polynesian dialects; but the Chinese,

Japanese, Australian, North American Indian, South African, and many

others of the nine hundred languages spoken on the earth, bear hardly

enough resemblance to these to be classed in the same family.

SYSTEMS OF WRITING.

=Language= is either spoken or written. Spoken language we find to have

been used as a medium of communication between men in the earliest

periods to which history carries us back. It is the expression of

reason, and as such constitutes a line of demarcation between man and

the lower animals. Without it, indeed, the brute can, to a certain

extent, make known his emotions and desires. The house-dog, by the

distinctive character of his bark, welcomes his master or threatens

the intrusive stranger. The hen warns her chicks of danger by one set

of signals, and calls them to feed by another. The ant, discovering

an inviting grain too heavy for itself alone, bears the intelligence

to its fellows and promptly returns with aid. But such limited means

of communication fall infinitely short of the perfect system which is

exclusively man’s birthright—which uses articulate sounds to represent

ideas, and combines them so as to express every shade of thought.

=Written Language.=—Spoken Language lives only for the moment; words

uttered to-day die and are forgotten to-morrow. To give permanency

to his passing thoughts, when advancing civilization showed such

permanency to be desirable, man devised Writing, the art of

representing ideas by visible characters. Written Language is the

vehicle of literature—the material in which the thinker embodies

his conceptions for future generations, just as the sculptor gives

permanent forms to his ideals in marble, or the painter on the glowing

canvas.

Writing is either Ideographic or Phonetic. The Ideographic System

represents material objects _directly_, by pictures or symbols. The

Phonetic System uses certain characters to express the articulate

sounds by which such objects or notions are denoted, and thus

_indirectly_, through the two media of sounds and characters, indicates

the objects or notions themselves.

IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING.—It has long been contended that the earliest

method of conveying ideas was by means of pictorial images, and there

is no reason for disputing such a theory. But this is not _written_

language; it is mere thought-painting, or the representation of objects

and actions by pictures, and may satisfy the wants of primitive races

in conveying a limited amount of information. Thus the American

Indians informed one another of the presence and movements of troops,

or of engagements that had taken place, by means of pictures. The

emblems employed were generally understood among the different tribes:

_e.g._, a tree with human legs stood for a botanist; and the figure

of a man with two bars on the stomach and four across the legs, was

a prescription ordering abstinence from food for two days, and rest

for four. The original characters of the Egyptians and Chinese, of

the cuneiform systems, and of the Aztecs, were, in like manner, _mere

pictures_, and nothing more.

The test of a written language is its ability to express abstract

thoughts by single signs or combinations of signs; in this direction,

rude symbols are found utterly wanting. It may be that picture-drawing

gave the first impulse to the invention of phonetic writing; yet the

origin of such writing, with its gradual development, is as hidden from

us as that of language itself. We are justified, however, in assuming

that wherever we have history, we have also written language.

PHONETIC WRITING.—There are two systems of phonetic writing, the

Syllabic and the Alphabetic. The characters of the former are used

to represent _syllables_, or combinations of sounds (either words or

parts of words) uttered by distinct impulses of the voice; those of the

latter represent the elements of which these syllables are composed, or

_letters_. History indicates that written language is always phonetic.

In Egypt it is both syllabic and alphabetic; in Babylon, syllabic alone.

The characters by which the elementary sounds of any language are

denoted, arranged in order, constitute its Alphabet. A perfect alphabet

would be one in which every letter represented but one simple sound,

and every simple sound was represented by but one letter—a perfection

never yet attained.

It is to the Egyptians that the world is indebted for Alphabetic

Writing. Their hieroglyphics were partly alphabetic, partly syllabic,

and partly determinative, the latter, in the course of centuries,

becoming word-signs or ideograms (see p. 120). From a modification

of their alphabet employed by them in transliterating Semitic

words and names, the Phœnician alphabet was derived. This modified

alphabet, including several syllabic signs, consisted of about thirty

characters. It has been conjectured that Phœnicians, dwelling or

trading in Egypt, saw the advantage of written language, and employed

this transliteration alphabet to write their own tongue. All the

modifications introduced by them are graphic in nature, and designed to

simplify the original characters. It is further important to note that

the Phœnician alphabet is not derived from the hieroglyphics, but from

the second form of the hieratic (see p. 122, and table, p. 87, where

the theory is illustrated). The Hittite hieroglyphics (p. 114) may be

derived from the Egyptian; but other ancient Oriental alphabets, as

the Babylonian, the Chinese, and perhaps the Sanscrit, were possibly

independently invented and developed.

Such is the most probable account of the origin of letters. Tradition

variously ascribes their invention to Thoth, an Egyptian god, to Cadmus

of Phœnicia, to Odin the supreme deity of the Scandinavians, and to

others. Of the varied exports of the Phœnicians, their alphabet was

the most precious. Wherever their sails were spread, their letters

were made known, and all nations sooner or later profited by this

great Semitic invention. In the table on page 87 may be traced a

decided resemblance between several of the Phœnician characters and the

hieroglyphics in which they originated; also the successive changes

by which they were modified in the earlier and later Greek and Latin

letters—whence most of our English capitals. (_See Taylor’s “The

Alphabet.”_)

=Modes of Writing and Pointing.=—As regards the direction in which

their writing ran, ancient nations differed. In the Egyptian

hieroglyphics there was no established order; but the figures of men

and animals, facing the beginning of the lines, often gave a clue to

the direction in which they were meant to be read. As a general rule,

the Indo-Europeans wrote from left to right, the Semites from right to

left. The Laws of Solon and other Greek writings of that period (about

600 B.C.) appeared in lines running alternately from right to left

and from left to right, as an ox walks in ploughing; this “ox-turning

system” (_boustrophedon_), however, was soon followed by our present

method. The Chinese, Japanese, and Mongols, wrote in columns, which

were read from the top of the page, and from right to left. In the

ancient Mexican pictographs, similar columns were read from the bottom.

The ancients did not separate sentences, or their subdivisions,

with points; but wrote their words together, leaving the meaning

to be deciphered from the context. Rings, ovals, or squares, were

sometimes drawn around proper names, and words were occasionally

separated by some device—a diagonal bar or wedge {symbol}, as in

ancient Persian inscriptions; or a letter placed on its side, as

between the following words: CONJUGI{Sideways T}KARISSIMAE. In a Roman

inscription found near Bath, England, a small _v_ occurs after every

word: JULIUSvVITALISvFABRI. A peculiar sign was used, in some cases,

immediately before the name of a god or of a person.

In the third century B.C., a system of punctuation, devised by

Aristophanes, a grammarian of Alexandria, became known to the Greeks.

It employed a dot (.), which had the force of our period, colon, or

comma, according as it was placed after the top, middle, or bottom of

the final word. The better system of modern times was not invented till

the sixteenth century.

ANCIENT WRITING MATERIALS.

=Stylus and Tablets.=—The first writing was done on rocks with

sharp-pointed instruments of iron or bronze, to record great events.

Next came tracings on bricks of soft clay, afterward sun-dried or

baked; and then writing with a metal or ivory _stylus_ on sheets of

lead or layers of wax, from which erasures could be made, if needful,

with the flattened end of the instrument.

Pliny speaks of leaden sheets, thus inscribed, rolled up in a

cylindrical form when not in use. But under provocation the metallic

stylus could be employed as a dagger; and when a Roman schoolmaster

was killed by his pupils with their styles and heavy table-books, the

dangerous instrument was banished, and superseded by a similar one of

horn. The early shepherds, we are told, imitated this mode of writing,

making thorns or awls do duty as styles, and scratching their songs on

leather straps which they wound round their crooks.

Wooden tablets, glazed to receive coloring matter, were used by

the Jews and early Egyptians, and the former wrote also with a

diamond-tipped stylus on stone or metallic tables. The Greeks and

Romans sometimes wired their tablets of citron-wood, beech, or fir,

together at the back, so as to allow them to open like a modern book.

=Calamus, or Reed.=—A great advance was made when the stylus gave way

to camel’s hair brushes or reeds (_calami_) sharpened and split like

our pens, and the tablets were replaced with papyrus and parchment. The

reeds in common use came from Egypt, but persons of fortune often wrote

with a silver calamus. The ink employed was thicker and more lasting

than ours; sometimes prepared from the black fluid of the cuttle-fish,

but generally from lampblack and glue, or from soot, rosin, and

pitch.—Chalk pencils were at one time manufactured by the Egyptians and

Greeks.

With the reed and ink, bark came into use as a cheap writing material;

hence the Latin word for bark, _liber_, meant also book. Leaves, too,

were employed for this purpose, particularly those of the palm—whence,

perhaps, the _leaf_ of a book was so called. But for manuscripts

designed for permanent preservation, papyrus had the decided preference.

=Papyrus=, or the _paper_-plant, the bulrush of Scripture, grew in

the marshes and pools of Egypt. Its branchless stem rose from five to

ten feet above the water, and was surmounted by a cluster of long,

spike-shaped, drooping leaves. This plant was woven into sandals, mats,

clothing, and even boats; was eaten, raw and boiled; was manufactured

into furniture; and was burned for fuel and light; when prepared for

writing purposes, it was invaluable. The part under the water was

selected, the outer bark removed, and the delicate white layers found

beneath were pressed together into sheets and dried. These were written

on with red and black ink, and some of them were elaborately ornamented

with many-colored figures.

[Illustration: EGYPTIAN PAPYRUS.]

The finest papyrus was reserved for the priests, and never exported

till they had used it. But the Romans, having invented a process for

removing what was first written on it, imported it in large quantities;

they also attempted its cultivation in the marshes of the Tiber, but

without success. The Greeks did not use it extensively until the era of

the Ptolemies.

=Parchment= was prepared from the skins of sheep and goats by polishing

them with pumice-stone and then rubbing in fragrant oil. Its name, in

Latin _pergamena_, would seem to indicate Pergamus in western Asia

as the place of its origin; but centuries before that little kingdom

became celebrated for its library of parchment volumes, this material,

or something very like it, was known. Herodotus mentions its use in

his time; and the Jews, as a pastoral people familiar with the art of

dressing skins, wrote their first books on a kind of leather.

[Illustration: READING A VOLUMEN, OR ROLL.]

But if parchment was not invented at Pergamus, Eu’menes, king of that

country, was certainly the first to make extensive use of it (175

B.C.). He had founded a splendid library, which he determined should

eclipse that of Alexandria. In the reign of Ptolemy Epiph’anes, king

of Egypt, it was sought to prevent the transcription of books for the

rival library by prohibiting the exportation of papyrus. This obliged

Eumenes to resort to parchment as a substitute. From Pergamus it spread

to Europe, finally superseding all other materials, and continuing in

demand until the art of making paper cheaply from rags was invented

toward the close of the Middle Ages.

Ancient manuscripts were put up in the form of rolls

(_volu’mina_—whence _volumes_), made of sheets fastened together in a

continuous strip, sometimes forty or fifty yards in length. This was

wound round wooden cylinders, the ends of which were often set with

jewels, or ornamented with knobs of ivory, silver, or gold. Titles

were either suspended from these books like tags, or glued upon them

as labels. An outside cover of parchment protected the scrolls, which,

enclosed in cylindrical cases and placed horizontally on shelves ranged

about a room, constituted an ancient library.

The Chinese, after writing for centuries, in common with their

neighbors of India, on bark and dried palm-leaves, are believed to have

discovered a process of preparing a pulp from cotton or bamboo, and to

have manufactured it into paper as early as the commencement of our

era. Perhaps, as observation of the silkworm spinning her cocoons led

them to devise the art of weaving silk, they in like manner borrowed

his cunning from the paper-making wasp, and thus early perfected an

invention which has been of incalculable service to literature.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT LITERATURE.

A comprehensive glance over the entire field whose treasures we are

about to examine in detail, will enable us the better to appreciate and

remember their relative age and value. Beginning, then, with the most

distant periods, we find a literature developed in Mesopota’mia, Egypt,

Iran, and China, even before 2000 B.C. At that date, the valley of the

Euphrates and Tigris was the seat of a civilized Turanian people, the

inventors of the complex system of cuneiform writing, thought by some

to be the oldest in the world. These Turanian Chaldees, mingled with a

Semitic race, were then beginning to enjoy their golden age of letters;

at the same time, the ancient Persians and Hindoos were composing

hymns; the sages of China were busy on their sacred books; and Egypt

had made considerable advance in both poetry and prose.

To trace the progress of literature in these remote times from century

to century is impossible. Five hundred years, however, bring us to

the Augustan era of romance and satire, epic and devotional poetry,

in Egypt: they introduce us to Zoroas’ter, the founder or reformer of

the ancient Persian religion, whose teachings are set forth in the

Aves’ta; to the Ve’da, or Brahman Bible; to Moses and the Pentateuch;

and to Phœnician theology, science, and poetry. Meanwhile Chaldean

literature declines, and Assyrian letters come into view. During the

next five centuries, poetry and science continue to flourish in Egypt,

though not perhaps with their pristine vigor; Phœnicia maintains her

literary reputation; the Veda grows; and Persian priests are occupied

in enlarging and modifying their sacred texts.

1000 B.C. was the era of great epics. The epic, or narrative poem,

based on some important event (in Greek, επος) or chain of events,

though first appearing in Egypt, was brought to perfection, about

this time, by the Greeks, and some say by the Hindoos also, Aryan

nations holding no intercourse with each other. Homer’s Iliad and

Odyssey were paralleled by two stupendous Indian poems, the Râmâyana

(_rah-mah’-yă-nă_) and the Mahâbhârata (_mă-hah’bah’ră-tă_).[3] To

these, all dazzling with Oriental splendor, the epics of the Greek bard

may yield in luxuriance of fancy and gorgeous imagery; but in power

of description, sublimity of thought, and attractive simplicity of

expression, Homer was without an equal.

While, then, the Semitic nations as a rule employed prose as the

vehicle of their earliest records of events, Greece and India, types of

the Aryan stock, transmitted their legends to posterity in epic verse.

Later times have not failed to perpetuate the taste, and measurably

the ability; epic poetry has been cultivated by all the Indo-European

nations, and to them it has been confined.—Contemporaneously with

Homer, native poets were inditing ballads and pastorals in China, and

the Hebrews enjoyed their golden age of secular and religious poetry;

Egypt had entered on her literary, as well as her political, decline.

Henceforth our interest centres principally in Greece. Until 800

B.C., the poems of Homer and of Hesiod, his contemporary or immediate

successor, constituted the bulk of Hellenic literature. Then began

a transition to a poetry more natural—a poetry of the emotions—on

themes that kindled love, anger, hatred, grief, hope; and for three

centuries _lyrics_ in different forms echoed throughout the land.

Archil’ochus poured forth his caustic satires; Tyrtæus, his inspiriting

war-songs; Sappho, her passionate strains; Anacreon, the joys of the

winecup; Simon’ides breathed his touching laments; and Pindar stirred

the soul with his grand odes, as with the sound of the trumpet. Prose

also received attention, and Ionian authors took the initiative in

systematic historical composition. Rude religious festivals suggested

dramatic representations; and the pioneers in tragedy and comedy rode

about the country, exhibiting their novel art on carts which carried

the performers and their machinery.—Meanwhile in the East, Assyrian

literature reached its highest development at Nineveh, to be buried

beneath the ruins of that city, 625 B.C. Letters then revived at

Babylon, and for nearly a century flourished there; Jewish poetry

declined; and Confucius, the philosopher of transcendent wisdom,

appeared in China.

Early in the 5th century, Greece plunged into a struggle for life

or death with the Persian Empire—a struggle from which she emerged

covered with glory, united and free. Her triumph is straightway sung in

immortal verse, and historians arise to record her exploits. Athens,

who faced the enemy at Marathon, Salamis, and Platæa, and drove him

back crippled and disgraced to Asia, now becomes the leader of grateful

Hellas, and the centre of literature and refinement. Blossom after

blossom unfolds in her genial clime. She makes ample amends for her

barrenness in the past by unprecedented fruitfulness, and gives to

the nations a drama, lustrous with the names of Æschylus, Sophocles,

Euripides (_es’ke-lus_, _sof’o-kleez_, _eu-rip’e-deez_)—the great

tragic trio of antiquity. Comedy also, as represented by Aristophanes,

is perfected in her theatre.

Then come the Peloponnesian War and the consequent humiliation of

Athens; the overthrow of her democratic government, and the partial

decline of literature, particularly poetry, with the fall of free

institutions. Still, writers of genius are not wanting. The graphic

pens of Thucydides and Xenophon lend additional graces to the history

of Greece; Plato and Aristotle make her name immortal in philosophy;

and the world’s greatest orators electrify her assemblies with their

eloquence. Demosthenes, prince of them all, stands forth as the

champion of Grecian liberty, and thunders his Philippics at the wily

Macedonian who would enthrall his country. But the star of Macedon was

in the ascendant. Chærone’a decided the fate of Greece; and she who had

withstood the legions of Xerxes, gave way before the invincible phalanx

of Philip and Alexander.

A sad period of decadence followed. Alexandria, in Egypt, founded

by the conqueror whose name it bore (332 B.C.), became the centre

of learning as well as commerce; and Athens yielded to her fate,

wasting her time in empty philosophical discussions and the pursuit

of pleasure. Poetry languished, yet flashed out occasionally in epic

or didactic form, bringing to mind the glories of the past. It is

true that in the idyls of Theocritus (_little pictures of domestic

life_) pastoral verse now bloomed for the first time on European soil,

and with fine effect; but it was in far-off Syracuse, not in classic

Greece. Here the deepening twilight was fatal to literary growth; and

when Egypt fell beneath the power of Rome in the first century B.C.,

Greek letters sought a new asylum in the city of Romulus.

Turning to Rome, we find that she had long displayed an appreciation

of Grecian genius as well as a striking talent for imitation. About

the middle of the third century B.C., with little or no literature of

her own, she gladly appropriated the foreign treasures held up before

her admiring eyes by Liv’ius Androni’cus, a Tarentine Greek, whom the

fortunes of war had made the slave of a Roman master. This most ancient

of Latin poets put upon the stage versions of the Greek dramas, and

with his translation of the Odyssey took his captors captive. Nævius

and Ennius, following in the path thus opened, gave Italy its first

epics; Ter’ence and Plautus made the people familiar with the humors of

comedy; and Cato imparted dignity to Latin prose.

Oratory, for which the Romans had a natural aptitude, culminated in the

speeches of Cicero, who ushered in the golden age. In his writings,

as well as in the histories of Cæsar, Sallust, and Livy, prose now

attracted with its finished periods. Nor was poetry less notably

represented. Catullus, vehement and pathetic by turns, transplanted

the ode and epigram to Italy; Lucre’tius threw into verse his ideal

of philosophy; Tibullus excelled in simplicity and tenderness; while

Virgil and Horace rivalled, as they doubtless imitated, the first poets

of Greece.

Virgil’s epic, the Æne’id, as remarkable for beauty as Homer’s is for

grandeur, secured to its author the first place among Latin poets; and

next to him stands Horace, with his faultless mastery of metre and keen

observation of men and manners. Their genius shed on the court of the

first emperor, Augustus, a peculiar lustre, still recognized in our

application of the epithet _Augustan_ to the most brilliant period of a

nation’s literature.

It is not strange that under the tyranny of the Cæsars literary

decay set in; yet Rome’s silver age was kept bright by the labors of

Persius and Juvenal, the unsparing satirists; Lucan, author of the

epic Pharsalia; the grave and accurate historian Tacitus; the two

Plinies; and Quintilian, the rhetorician. Taste, however, had sadly

deteriorated; genius died with patriotism; and despots sought in vain

to restore for their own corrupt purposes the ancient spirit which they

had crushed out. At length the degenerate Latin writers laid aside

their own manly tongue for Greek; and the list of the monuments of

Roman genius was complete.

Such has been, in general, the course of every literature. We trace

successively the birth of poetry; the gradual perfecting of prose; the

ripening of simplicity into elegance; the perversion of elegance into

affectation; the language and literature, losing the vigor of manhood,

affected with the feebleness of age, and either succumbing at once to

some great civil convulsion or perishing by a slow but no less certain

living death. As with political, so with literary history:—

“This is the moral of all human tales;

’Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,—

First freedom, and then glory; when that fails,

Wealth, vice, corruption, barbarism at last;

And History, with all its volumes vast,

Hath but one page.”

BYRON.

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.”_)

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.[4] Yet so extensive is its literature that it costs a

Brahman half his life to master a portion of its sacred books alone.

[Illustration: BRAHMAN PRIEST.]

=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 Germans, 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.”[5]

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[6]; 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.

Streams are white with silver wings

Of the swans that autumn brings.

Lakes are sweet with opening flowers;

Gardens, gay with jasmine bowers;

While the woods, to charm the sight,

Show their bloom of purest white.

Vainly might the fairest try

With the charms around to vie.

How can India’s graceful daughter

Match that swan upon the water?

Fair her arching brow above,

Swimming eyes that melt with love:

But that charming brow can never

Beat that ripple on the river;

And those eyes must still confess

Lilies’ rarer loveliness.

Perfect are those rounded arms,

Aided by the bracelets’ charms:

Fairer still those branches are,

And those creepers, better far,

Ring them round with many a fold,

Lovelier than gems and gold.

Now no more doth Indra’s Bow

In the evening sunlight glow,

Nor his flag, the lightning’s glare,

Flash across the murky air.

Beauty too has left the trees,

Which but now were wont to please;

Other darlings claim her care,

And she pours her blossoms there.

Now beneath the moonlight sweet,

Many troops of maidens meet.

Many a pleasant tale they tell

Of the youths that love them well;

Of the word, the flush, the glance,

The kiss, the sigh, the dalliance.

Not a youth can wander when

Jasmine blossoms scent the glen,

While the notes of many a bird

From the garden shades are heard,

But his melting soul must feel

Sweetest longing o’er it steal.

Not a maid can brush away

Morning dew-drops from the spray,

But she feels a sweet unrest

Wooingly disturb her breast.

As the breezes fresh and cool

From the lilies on the pool,

Sweet with all the fragrance there,

Play, like lovers, with her hair.”

GRIFFITH.

Surpassing “the Seasons” in dignity and elegance, “the Cloud

Messenger,” by the same author, contains some fine flights of fancy.

It tells how an inferior god, banished for twelve months to a sacred

forest and thus separated from a wife whom he fondly loves, commits to

a passing cloud a message for his goddess. He directs its imaginary

journey through the sky, over forests and hills, to the city of the

gods. There it will easily distinguish his wife, whom he paints to

the cloud in glowing colors as the “first, best work of the Creator’s

hand,” mourning over their separation.

“And sad and silent shalt thou find my wife,

Half of my soul and partner of my life;

Nipped by chill sorrow, as the flowers enfold

Their shrinking petals from the withering cold.

I view her now! Long weeping swells her eyes,

And those dear lips are dried by parching sighs.

Sad on her hand her pallid cheek declines,

And half unseen through veiling tresses shines;

As when a darkling night the moon enshrouds,

A few faint rays break straggling through the clouds.”

He then intrusts the cloud with the tender words that he would breathe;

bids it tell his beloved how he sees her in the rippling brooks, how

“O’er the rude stone her pictured beauties rise;”

and finally he charges his messenger to console her afflicted heart

with assurances of his unabated love, and to hasten back with tidings

that may relieve his soul of its anxiety. The cloud obeys; but

meanwhile the supreme deity learns of the message, repents of his

severity, restores the exile to his wife, and blesses the pair with

ceaseless joy.

Kâlidâsa also wrote three epics of a romantic character, one of them on

the adventures of Nala and his devoted Damayanti. Well does he merit

the title conferred on him by his admiring countrymen,—“the Bridegroom

of Poesy.”

=Jayadeva= (_jī-ă-dā’vă_), a poet probably of more recent times, if

not equal to Kâlidâsa, yet has given us in Gîtagovinda one of the most

enchanting idyls ever written. In this Song of the Shepherd Govinda,

the form assumed by the god Krishna, are set forth in voluptuous colors

the adventures of the deity and nine shepherdesses, his beautiful

attendants. The whole is supposed to be a mystical allegory.

The high estimation in which Jayadeva is held, may be inferred from

the following eulogy by an Oriental critic: “Whatever is delightful in

the modes of music, whatever is exquisite in the sweet art of love,

whatever is graceful in the strains of poetry—all that let the happy

and wise learn from the songs of Jayadeva.” (_See Arnold’s “Indian

Poetry,” p. 86._)

* * * * *

Whittier has furnished us the following spirited version of a Hindoo

lyric by a poet who flourished in the third century of our era, and

who, if we may judge by his writings, had conceptions of God and duty

not unworthy of a Christian bard.

GIVING AND TAKING.

“Who gives and hides the giving hand,

Nor counts on favor, fame, or praise,

Shall find his smallest gift outweighs

The burden of the sea and land.

Who gives to whom hath naught been given,

His gift in need, though small indeed,

As is the grass-blade’s wind-blown seed,

Is large as earth, and rich as heaven.

Forget it not, O man, to whom

A gift shall fall while yet on earth;

Yea, even to thy sevenfold birth

Recall it in the lives to come.

Who dares to curse the hands that bless,

Shall know of sin the deadliest cost;

The patience of the heaven is lost

Beholding man’s unthankfulness.

For he who breaks all laws may still

In Siva’s mercy be forgiven;

But none can save, in earth or heaven,

The wretch who answers good with ill.”

THE DRAMA.

=The Sanscrit Shakespeare.=—Not the least valuable of Sanscrit

treasures is its dramatic poetry. Here, as in lyric verse, Kâlidâsa

stands prëeminent, the Shakespeare of India. His title to this

distinction rests mainly on his drama of Sakoon’talâ, or the Lost Ring,

which portrays the simple life and unsophisticated manners of his

countrymen with all his characteristic tenderness of expression and

rich imagination.

PLOT OF SAKOONTALÂ.—In early summer—the fitting season, sacred as it

was to the god of love—the play of Sakoontalâ was wont to be acted

in ancient India. The heroine, whose name the drama bears, was the

daughter of a nymph, and dwelt at a hermitage in the jungle. Led to

her retreat by chance in his pursuit of a deer, a neighboring rajah

espies the “slender-waisted” forest maid, with two lovely companions,

watering the shrubbery. Concealing himself among the trees, he plays

eaves-dropper, and as he watches the trio he cannot restrain his

admiration; “the woodland plants,” he cries, “outshine the garden

flowers.” His heart is lost forthwith. Ordering his camp to be pitched

near by, he wooes and finally weds Sakoontalâ, with the assurance that

she shall “reign without a rival in his heart.” Then leaving his bride

a marriage-ring, engraved with his name, as a token of their union, the

rajah goes back to his palace, promising that Sakoontalâ shall soon

share his throne.

“Repeat each day one letter of the name

Engraven on this gem; ere thou hast reckoned

The tale of syllables, my minister

Shall come to lead thee to thy husband’s palace.”

Not long after his departure, a sage whose anger she has incurred

pronounces a curse upon the pair,—“that he of whom she thought should

think of her no more,” should even forget her image, and that the

spell should cease only at sight of the marriage-ring. This token

of remembrance, however, was secured on her finger; and at length

Sakoontalâ, re-assured by a favorable omen, leaves the sorrowing

companions of her girlhood, and the venerable hermit, her reputed

father, to seek her husband in his capital.

Arrived in safety, she gains access to the royal presence; but the

king, laboring under the curse, fails to recognize her. Sakoontalâ is

unveiled, and stands before him in all her beauty—a beauty that stirs

him to exclaim:—

“What charms are here revealed before mine eyes!

Truly no blemish mars the symmetry

Of that fair form; yet can I ne’er believe

She is my wedded wife; and like a bee

That circles round the flower whose nectared cup

Teems with the dew of morning, I must pause

Ere eagerly I taste the proffered sweetness.”

Then Sakoontalâ seeks her ring, but alas! it is not on her finger; she

must have dropped it in the Ganges. In the midst of her confusion a

nymph appears, and carries her off to a sacred retreat, where she gives

birth to a son.

Meanwhile a fish is caught, in which is found the fatal ring, stamped

with the rajah’s name. It is restored to its owner, and at once the

recollection of his long-forgotten Sakoontalâ flashes upon his mind.

Overwhelmed with poignant regret for her loss, he abandons himself

to melancholy for a time, calling on her beloved name, or trying to

beguile his grief by tracing with his pencil her features now but too

well remembered. At length ambition and piety unite to wake him from

his lethargy. He embarks in a campaign against the giants, enemies of

the gods; is victorious; and finds the consummation of happiness at

last in a union with his long-lost wife, and with his son, whose name,

Bhârata, becomes the most distinguished in the mythology of India.

English readers are enabled to enjoy the beauties of Sakoontalâ through

the metrical version of Prof. Williams.

EXTRACTS FROM SAKOONTALÂ.

PARTING WORDS OF THE SAGE TO HIS ADOPTED DAUGHTER.

“This day my loved one leaves me, and my heart

Is heavy with its grief: the streams of sorrow,

Choked at the source, repress my faltering voice.

I have no words to speak; mine eyes are dimmed

By the dark shadows of the thoughts that rise

Within my soul. If such the force of grief

In an old hermit parted from his nursling,

What anguish must the stricken parent feel,

Bereft forever of an only daughter!

Weep not, my daughter, check the gathering tear

That lurks beneath thine eyelid, ere it flow

And weaken thy resolve; be firm and true—

True to thyself and me; the path of life

Will lead o’er hill and plain, o’er rough and smooth,

And all must feel the steepness of the way;

Tho’ rugged be thy course, press boldly on.

Honor thy betters; ever be respectful

To those above thee. Should thy wedded lord

Treat thee with harshness, thou must never be

Harsh in return, but patient and submissive.

Be to thy menials courteous, and to all

Placed under thee considerate and kind:

Be never self-indulgent, but avoid

Excess in pleasure; and, when fortune smiles,

Be not puffed up. Thus to thy husband’s house

Wilt thou a blessing prove, and not a curse.

How, O my child! shall my bereaved heart

Forget its bitterness, when, day by day,

Full in my sight shall grow the tender plants

Reared by thy care, or sprung from hallowed grain

Which thy loved hands have strewn around the door—

A frequent offering to our household gods.”

THE KING AND SAKOONTALÂ’S PORTRAIT.

“My finger, burning with the glow of love,

Has left its impress on the painted tablet;

While here and there, alas! a scalding tear

Has fallen on the cheek and dimmed its brightness.

Go fetch the brush that I may finish it.

A sweet Sirisha blossom should be twined

Behind her ear, its perfumed crest depending

Toward her cheek; and resting on her bosom,

A lotus-fibre necklace, soft and bright

As an autumnal moonbeam, should be traced.”

While gazing on the picture, the king in his infatuation mistakes for

reality a bee which he has himself painted in the act of settling on

the rosy lips of his love, and after attempting to drive it off is

apprised of his error by an attendant, whom he thus addresses:—

“While all entranced I gazed upon her picture,

My loved one seemed to live before my eyes,

Till every fibre of my being thrilled

With rapturous emotion. Oh! ’twas cruel

To dissipate the day-dream, and transform

The blissful vision to a lifeless image.

Vain is the hope of meeting her in dreams,

For slumber, night by night, forsakes my couch.

And now that I would fain assuage my grief

By gazing on her portrait, here before me,

Tears of despairing love obscure my sight.”

MONIER WILLIAMS.

Sakoontalâ may justly be called the pearl of Eastern dramatic poetry.

It has been translated into every European tongue, and has elicited the

admiration of all civilized nations. In the language of Goethe:—

“Would’st thou the young year’s blossom and the fruits of its

decline,

And all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted, fed—

Would’st thou the earth and heaven itself in one sole name combine?

I name thee, O Sakoontalâ! and all at once is said.”

From the author of this drama we have two other pieces worthy of his

fame, “the Hero and the Nymph” and a popular comedy. His era was the

golden age of the Hindoo theatre.

Other noted plays, a few out of many, are “the Toy Cart,” a domestic

drama with a public underplot; “the Signet of the Minister,” which had

a political bearing; “the Stolen Marriage;” and an allegorical play,

“the Moonrise of Science.”

=The Hindoo Drama=, the invention of which was ascribed to an ancient

sage inspired by Brahma himself, consisted at first of music, dancing,

and pantomime. An outcome of the prevailing mythology, it was made a

feature of the Indian festivals, and from very early rude beginnings of

which we have no remains gradually progressed to the perfection with

which Kâlidâsa invested it. Unfolding the inner life of the people and

illustrating their peculiar institutions, it is at once interesting and

valuable, original, and in its delineations of character strikingly

true to nature. Love is its principal subject; and, what is markedly

characteristic, its denouements are always happy. Tragedy is foreign to

the Hindoo stage.

The Indian plays began and closed with a benediction or prayer; in many

cases there was a preliminary account of the author, or a colloquy

between the manager and one of the actors, leading the way to the

play itself. The heroes were generally kings or deities. As foils to

these, it was usual to introduce mountebanks or buffoons, and as such

Brahmans were made to figure. The Hindoo dramatists did not hesitate to

set forth their priests in a ridiculous light; a remarkable fact, when

we remember that the drama in India was a semi-religious institution,

and that the managers of companies were usually themselves Brahmans.

The playwright who in Greece should have taken such liberties with his

religious superiors would have run the risk of being driven from the

stage, if indeed he were not more seriously handled by an indignant

audience.

The consistency observed in managing the dialogue is noteworthy.

The parts spoken by divinities and heroes, rulers and priests, are

always in ancient Sanscrit; while the inferior personages and the

female characters use the later and more familiar dialect. Want of

acquaintance with the sacred language, which thus formed the staple

of the classical plays, no doubt prevented the common people from

fully understanding and enjoying dramatic representations; and hence

the latter never attained that popularity which they had in other

countries. They were the entertainment of the cultured class rather

than the masses.

Another curious feature of the Hindoo drama was the absence of scenery,

the plays being mostly represented in the open air, the courts of

palaces, etc. The great advantage which the modern performer derives

from fine scenic effects was entirely wanting. Changes of scene could

be indicated only in the text, by minute descriptions of the new

locality, thrown into the mouths of the speakers and left for the

audience to fill out and remember. No shifting of scenes, for instance,

as with us, would denote the entrance of one of the characters from

out-doors into a drawing-room; but the personage entering, either in

a soliloquy or in colloquy with some other, would immediately call

attention to every little point—the threshold, the floor, the ceiling,

the walls, the doors, the windows, the furniture—and the glowing fancy

of his hearers would at once picture the scene as vividly as if it

stood before them in reality.

The proprieties were strictly observed. To represent a death scene

would have been intolerable; nor only so, but in the earlier and

purer days no dramatist would introduce before his audience a scene

of violence, eating, sleeping, or the performance of the marriage

ceremony. A charming love-scene in the Sakoontalâ breaks off just at

the critical moment when the hero and heroine are about to interchange

a token of affection; yet the embrace does not appear always to have

been repugnant to the Hindoo ideas of delicacy.

As to the date of the dramas that have been mentioned, they are

supposed to have been written during the first ten centuries of the

Christian Era; but here, as in the case of the epics and lyrics, we

are left to conjecture. Could we know more certainly what times they

reflect, our pleasure in perusing them would be complete.

TALES AND FABLES.

India has long enjoyed the reputation, and not without reason, of

having been the favorite home of fairy-tale and fable. From her

storehouse of fictions, many waifs have crept into the literatures of

both Europe and Asia, and striking the popular taste have attained

wide currency. Tongues have changed, dynasties have fallen; but these

stories by unknown hands still live in the nursery, influencing the

pliant minds of the children of to-day as they have done those of the

last twenty centuries.

The Sanscrit has two great collections of fables,—the Pankatantra,

_Five Stories_ (more properly _Five Sections_); and the Hitopadesa,

_Friendly Advice_, a charming compilation from the former. The

Hitopadesa, translated into many languages, has almost rivalled in

circulation the Bible itself. In the following fable, selected from

“the Friendly Advice,” will be seen the germ of La Fontaine’s charming

imitation, “the Milkmaid and the Pitcher of Milk;” both point the same

moral as our own cautionary proverb, “Don’t count your chickens before

they are hatched.”

THE STUPID BRAHMAN.

“In the town of Devikotta there lived a Brahman of the name of

Devasarman. At the feast of the great equinox he received a plateful

of rice. He took it, went into a potter’s shop, which was full of

crockery, and, overcome by the heat, he lay down in a corner and began

to doze. In order to protect his plate of rice, he kept a stick in

his hand; and he began to think:‘Now if I sell this plate of rice,

I shall receive ten cowries. I shall then, on the spot, buy pots and

plates, and after having increased my capital again and again I shall

buy and sell betel nuts and dresses till I grow enormously rich. Then

I shall marry four wives, and the youngest and prettiest of the four I

shall make a great pet of. Then the other wives will be so angry and

begin to quarrel. But I shall be in a great rage, and take a stick,

and give them a good flogging.’

While he said this, suiting the action to the thought, he laid about

him with his stick; the plate of rice was smashed to pieces, and many

of the pots in the shop were broken. The potter, hearing the noise,

ran in; and when he saw his pots broken, gave the Brahman a good

scolding and drove him out of the shop.

Therefore I say,‘He who rejoices over plans for the future will come

to grief, like the Brahman who broke the pots.’”—MAX MÜLLER.

Of the numerous collections of tales and romances, the best known is

“the Ocean of the Rivers of Narratives,” the original of that more

familiar compilation, the Arabian Nights.

HISTORY, GRAMMAR, ETC.

Sanscrit is also worthily represented in other departments of

literature; on the fine arts we have nothing worthy of notice, but

science has not been neglected, while historical, grammatical, and

philosophical works, complete the category of its productions. Its

chronicles, however, obscured as they are by myths without number, are

comparatively valueless; but one deserves the name of history, the

Chronicle of Cashmere, or the Stream of the Kings, extending from the

fabulous ages to the reign of Akbar, who reduced that province in the

16th century.

But in grammar we must certainly award to Sanscrit the very first

place. Commentaries on the constructions of the Veda, dating perhaps

from 750 B.C., embody the earliest attempts at grammatical and critical

investigation with which we are acquainted; and in the digest of Pânini

(_pah’ne-ne_) (500 B.C.?) we have the first systematic grammar that the

world ever produced—a book remarkable for its completeness, declared by

Max Müller to be “the perfection of an empirical analysis of language,

unsurpassed—nay, even unapproached, by anything in the grammatical

literature of other nations.”

In connection with the literature of India, we may also mention

inscriptions on monuments, in temples and grottoes, and on plates of

marble and copper. These are worthy of study mainly in view of the

historical information they may afford.

Such is a history, in outline, of the ancient Sanscrit, of which Prof.

Müller has written: “The study of it will open before you large layers

of literature as yet almost unknown and unexplored, and allow you an

insight into strata of thought rich in lessons that appeal to the

deepest sympathies of the human heart.”

The reader is further referred to _Sayce’s “Introduction to

Comparative Philology;”_ for an exposition of the religious ideas, to

_Cox’s “Mythology of the Aryan Nations,” vol. I._, and _Perry’s “Indra

in the Rig-Veda;”_ for the literature and general history, to _Max

Müller’s “Hibbert Lectures,”_ 1878, and _Mrs. Manning’s “Ancient and

Mediæval India.”_

BUDDHIST LITERATURE.

About 500 B.C., a new and purer religion was preached in India by a

monk of royal birth, afterward called Buddha (_the Enlightened_). It

met with a hearty reception from the people, for it taught men to

live in charity with their neighbors, to reverence their parents, to

practise truth and morality; above all, it overthrew the institution

of caste, and abolished the foolish system of Brahman sacrifices. The

riches and fleeting pleasures of this world, Buddha proclaimed unworthy

of pursuit, representing life itself as a burden, and promising his

followers a paradise of eternal rest[7] beyond the grave. No wonder

that thousands declared in favor of the new faith, which during a

struggle of many centuries disputed with Brahmanism for the supremacy

of India. Pushing out to the northeast, it made its way into Thibet,

China, and Japan; and at the present day has more followers than any

other religious system, their number being estimated at 450,000,000.

(_Consult Hardy’s “Manual of Buddhism.”_)

The sacred books of the Buddhists are called the Tripitaka (_three

baskets_); one is metaphysical, another disciplinary, and the third

contains the discourses of Buddha. They are written in a dialect of

Sanscrit, and are made up of 600,000 stanzas, containing five times

as much matter as our Bible. (_See Monier Williams’s “Buddhism in its

Contrast with Christianity.”_)

EXTRACTS FROM THE BUDDHIST SCRIPTURES.

“The succoring of mother and father, the cherishing of child and wife,

and the following of a lawful calling,—this is the greatest blessing.

The giving of alms, the abstaining from sins, the eschewing of

intoxicating drink, diligence in good deeds, reverence and humility,

contentment and gratitude,—this is the greatest blessing.

He who lives for pleasure only, his senses uncontrolled, idle and

weak, the tempter will certainly overcome him as the wind throws down

a weak tree.

Like a beautiful flower, full of color but without scent, are the fine

but fruitless words of him who does not act accordingly.

As the bee collects nectar, and departs without injuring the flower,

or its color and scent, so let the sage dwell on earth.

Let no man think lightly of evil, saying in his heart,‘It will not

come near unto me.’ Even by the falling of water-drops a water-pot is

filled; the fool becomes full of evil, even if he gathers it little by

little.

Let us live happily then, though we call nothing our own; not hating

those who hate us, free from greed among the greedy. We shall then be

like the bright gods, feeding on happiness.”

NOTES ON HINDOO LITERATURE, ETC.

The literature of India incalculably vast, and its individual works

voluminous. The Mahâbhârata six times as long as the Iliad, Odyssey,

and Æneid united; the Râmâyana half this size. The eighteen Purânas

contain 1,600,000 lines. The library of one of the kings said to

have numbered so many books that a hundred Brahmans were employed in

taking care of it, and a thousand dromedaries were required to convey

it from place to place; twenty years were consumed in condensing

its contents, by the royal command, into an encyclopædia of 12,000

volumes. Sir William Jones computed that the longest life would not

suffice for the perusal of all the Sanscrit writings.—First century

B.C. believed to have been an Augustan age of Indian literature.

Writing apparently unknown to the ancient Hindoos before the time

of Pânini. No mention anywhere made, in the early works, of writing

materials, pen or brush, paper, bark, or skin. The Vedic hymns sung

or repeated probably for a thousand years before they were committed

to writing. The use of the alphabet long regarded as impious. First

letters appear in Buddhist inscriptions of the 3d century B.C. Later

Indian manuscripts, beautifully inscribed on palm leaves. The letters

of the Sanscrit alphabet thought to be the oldest forms of our Arabic

figures, which came originally from India, as did also our decimal

system.

Chess one of the earliest inventions of the Hindoos—called chess

(_king_) from the principal piece. The Brahman inventor, so the

story goes, asked of the reigning emperor as his reward, a single

grain of wheat for the first square of the chess-board, two for the

second, four for the third, and so on to the sixty-fourth; apparently

a modest price, but one that it would have taken years to pay with

the wheat crop of the whole world. Elephants, horses, foot-soldiers,

and chariots, the original chess-men. From India, the game found its

way into China, Japan, and Persia, and finally into Europe.—Throwing

dice, also, a favorite pastime; the “Game of Four Crowns,” with

playing-cards, early known to the Hindoos.

Square copper money coined in the 3d century B.C., and stamped with

inscriptions in a Sanscrit dialect.

CHAPTER II.

_PERSIAN LITERATURE._

=Avesta.=—Sprung from the same ancient Aryan tongue as the Sanscrit of

India, and distinguished by the same richness of inflection, is Avesta,

the earliest language of Persia, still preserved to us in the Persian

Scriptures known as _the_ Avesta. The Veda and the Avesta have been

described as “two rivers flowing from one fountain-head;” and beyond a

doubt the Vedic Aryans and the Avesta-speaking Persians were originally

one community, conversing in a common tongue.

The Avesta was first made known to Europeans by a French orientalist;

Anquetil Duperron (_on^{g}k-teel’ deu-pa-ron^{g}’_), who went to India

for the express purpose of discovering the sacred books of the

Parsees. With great difficulty he at length possessed himself of the

much-desired Avesta manuscripts, and in 1771, after long and patient

effort, he gave his countrymen men the first translation of the Avesta

into a European tongue. The language has since been carefully studied,

and in our own day has at last been mastered. Time wrought many changes

in it; the Persian of Xerxes’ reign differed much more from the Avesta

of antiquity than our present language does from the English of

Chaucer. Further modifications and the introduction of Arabic elements

have made modern Persian still more unlike the ancient vernacular.

The sacred writings of Persia just referred to are among the oldest

and most important in the whole range of Indo-European literature.

They contain the doctrines of Zoroaster, or Zarathushtra, the Bactrian

sage who reformed the religious system of his country. (_See Jackson’s

Avesta Series, Part I._)

=Zoroaster= is believed to have flourished about 1400 B.C. Nothing

is known of his life or history. Yet, through more than thirty

centuries his influence has been felt; and to-day, though they have

dwindled to perhaps 150,000 souls, his followers constitute a thrifty

and intelligent population in India and Persia. These Parsees, or

Fire-worshippers (called by the Mohammedans _Guebres_, or infidels),

still burn the eternal fire, kindled as they believe from heaven, not

for idolatrous worship, but as an emblem of Ormazd, the Almighty source

of light. They are descendants of those Zoroastrians whom Darius and

Xerxes launched against Europe in the mightiest armies ever raised by

man, threatening to plant their purer faith amid the ruined shrines of

Greece. (_Read Haug’s “Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and

Religion of the Parsis.”_)

At a later date, when the Caliph Omar converted Persia to Mohammedanism

with the sword (641 A.D.), their forefathers clung to the ancient

faith, and found an asylum across the Indus or in the deserts of their

native land.

=The Avesta= (_sacred text_) contains the only existing monuments

of a once extensive literature. It is divided into distinct parts,

made up of separate pieces and fragments, which, repeated orally

from generation to generation, were probably collected and reduced

to writing in their present form many centuries after the period

of Zoroaster. The compositions in question are chiefly professed

revelations and instructions to mankind, confessions, prayers to

the Supreme Being and various inferior deities, and metrical hymns

(_Gâthâs_), simple and some of them so grand as to be deemed the

productions of Zoroaster himself.

Zoroaster is represented in the Avesta as conversing with Ormazd,

who, in answer to the inquiries of the sage, reveals his will, and

prescribes the moral and ceremonial law. Thus, in the following

passage, Zoroaster questions Ormazd:—

“O Ormazd (Ahura Mazda), most holy spirit, creator of existent worlds,

righteous One! What, O Ormazd, was the Word (more correctly, Ahuna

Vairya, the name of a sacred verse) which you pronounced for me before

the heaven, before the water, before the cow, before the tree, before

the fire, before the righteous man, before the demons and noxious

creatures?”

Then Ormazd replies: “I will tell thee, most holy Zoroaster, what was

the Creative Word I pronounced for thee before the heaven, before the

water, before the cow, before the tree, before the fire, before the

righteous man, before the demons and noxious creatures, before all the

universe. Such is the whole of the Creative Word, which, even when

unpronounced and unrecited, outweighs a thousand breathed prayers,

which are not pronounced, nor recited, nor sung. And he who in this

world, O most holy Zoroaster, remembers the whole of the Creative

Word, or utters it, or sings it, I will lead his soul thrice across

the bridge of the better world, to the better existence, to the better

truth, to the better days. I pronounced this Speech which contains the

Word and its working, before the creation of this heaven, and before

the creation of the earth.

“He is a holy man,” says Ormazd elsewhere, “who constructs upon the

earth a habitation in which he maintains fire, cattle, his wife,

his children, and flocks and herds. He who makes the earth produce

grain, who cultivates the fruits of the fields, he maintains purity;

he promotes the law of Ormazd as much as if he offered a hundred

sacrifices.”

=Avesta Philosophy.=—The Avesta seems to recognize one eternal Supreme

Being, infinite and omnipotent. This was Ormazd (_Spiritual Wise One_),

whom Zoroaster invokes as the source of light and purity, “true, lucid,

shining,” all-perfect, all-powerful, all-beautiful, all-wise.” Opposed

to Ormazd was a principle of darkness and evil, called Ah’riman (Angra

Mainyu, _Sinful-minded_). The theory of evolution finds no support in

the Avesta, which contains an account of the creation of the universe

strikingly like that of Moses. Traditions of the fall of man through

the falsehood of Ahriman, and of a universal deluge, are also handed

down. (On the Avesta, _see Müller’s “Sacred Books of the East,” vols.

iv., xxiii., xxxi._)

Zoroaster’s mission was to exhort men to follow the right and forsake

the wrong. “Choose one of these two spirits, the Good or the Evil,” he

said; “you cannot serve both.”

“Of these two Spirits, the Wicked One chose to do evil; the Holy

Spirit, whose garment is the immovable sky, chose what is right, as

they also do who faithfully please Ormazd by good works.

“And between these two Spirits, the demons chose not aright. Madness

came upon them, so that they chose the Worst Mind, and they went over

to the side of wrath to destroy the life of mankind.

“Now then, may we be those who make this life perfect; and may Ormazd

and Asha (Righteousness) grant their aid, that he whose faith is

altered may become of believing heart.

“For at the final reckoning, the blow of annihilation will come upon

falsehood; but they who enjoy a good report will see their hopes

fulfilled in the blessed abode of the Good Mind.

“If, O men, ye mark these doctrines which Mazda instituted for your

well-being, and that torment will come to the wicked and blessing to

the righteous, through these will be your salvation.”—_Geldner._

Like Buddha, the Persian reformer raised his voice against the

priesthood, and the corruptions which had crept into the national

religion. Devil-worship, which had come into vogue as a means of

averting the evil supposed to be wrought by wicked spirits, he

specially denounced, recognizing in sin the cause of all human

sorrow, and urging men to wage uncompromising warfare with the powers

of darkness, relying for aid on the Good Spirit. “Give offering and

praise,” says the Avesta, “to that Lord who made men greater than all

earthly beings, and through the gift of speech created them to rule the

creatures, _as warriors against the evil spirits_.” Fire was invoked

as the symbol of Divinity, and the sun as “the eye of Ormazd;” but

idolatry Zoroaster and his disciples abhorred.

Ormazd was the rewarder of the good, the punisher of the bad. Those

who obeyed him, and were “pure in thoughts, pure in words, pure in

actions,” were admitted at death into _Paradise_, “the House of the

Angels’ Hymns,” where all was brightness: the wicked were consigned to

a region of everlasting darkness, “the House of the Fiend Deceit.” Of

all the religions of human origin, Zoroaster’s, though not free from

superstition and cumbrous rites, approaches nearest to the truth. It

was gladly accepted by the people, and did much to elevate them and

improve their condition. We have thrown into verse the following

HYMN TO ORMAZD.

Praise to Ormazd, great Creator,

He it was the cattle made;

Lord of purity and goodness,

Trees and water, sun and shade.

Unto him belongs the kingdom,

Unto him the might belongs;

Unto him, as first of beings,

Light-creator, float our songs.

Him we praise, Ahurian Mazda,

With our life and bodies praise;

Purer than the purest, fairest,

Bright through never-ending days.

What is good and what is brilliant,

That we reverence in thee—

Thy good spirit, thy good kingdom,

Wisdom, law, and equity.

=Persian Inscriptions.=—In a flower-clad plain of southwestern

Persia, shut in from the outer world by lofty hills, and now dotted

with pleasant villages, once stood the great palace of Persep’olis,

the wonder of the world for its magnificence—which Alexander, in a

fit of drunken fury, reduced to a heap of ruins with his wanton torch

(331 B.C.). Yet, though silent and deserted, “the piles of fallen

Persepolis” speak to us, not only with their strange sculptures, but

also through the inscriptions carved upon them in cuneiform letters,

originally adorned with gold.

[Illustration: THE ROCK OF BEHISTUN.

MOUNTAIN RECORD OF DARIUS.]

Not far from these ruins is the famous rock of Behistun, 1,700

feet high, and inscribed with the same arrow-headed, wedge-shaped

characters. Some of these, protected from the weather by a varnish of

flint, have been wonderfully preserved to the present time.

This mountain-record was set up by Darius I. (516-515 B.C.), who, in

the shadow of the palace-walls of Persepolis, was wont to sit upon a

throne of gold, canopied by a vine of the same precious metal bearing

clusters of priceless gems. It is his triumphal tablet, graven with

figures of himself and several conquered princes. It records his

victories, asserts his hereditary right to the throne, and enumerates

the provinces of his vast empire, in nearly a thousand lines of

cuneiform characters—in three different languages, the Persian,

Scythian, and Babylonian—that it might be understood by all his

subjects.

Here the Persian monarch announces his dignity, while he attributes the

glory of it all to the God Supreme:—

“I am Darius, the Great King, the King of Kings, the King of Persia,

the King of the dependent provinces, the son of Hystaspes.

By the grace of Ormazd I am King. Ormazd has granted me my empire. The

countries which have fallen into my hands, by the grace of Ormazd I

have become king of them.

Within these countries, whoever was good, him have I cherished and

protected; whoever was evil, him have I utterly destroyed. By the

grace of Ormazd, these countries have obeyed my laws. By the grace of

Ormazd, I hold this empire.”

Other inscriptions were cut by order of Xerxes, whose royal name and

title they formally declare; but there are none of any later date.

Cuneiform letters were also employed by other nations, as will be

hereafter seen (page 105). Most of the ancient Persian literature was

lost during the struggle with Alexander the Great, and subsequent wars

and convulsions. (On the cuneiform monuments, _see Johnson’s “Oriental

Religions: Persia.”_)

NOTES ON PERSIAN LITERATURE, ETC.

Ancient Persian records made on leather; parchment the favorite

writing material, the high price of papyrus preventing its adoption.

Bricks seldom used for inscriptions. A running hand, different

from the cuneiform, probably in use among the people for ordinary

purposes, as every educated person could undoubtedly write: no trace

of this left.

The kings of Persia founders of a library consisting of historical

records, state archives, and royal ordinances. “The house of the

rolls” at Babylon is mentioned in the book of Ezra as being searched,

during the reign of Darius, for a certain volume supposed to contain

a decree of Cyrus, providing for the rebuilding of the Temple at

Jerusalem.

The old priestly order of Media and Persia, known as Ma’gi; devoted

to scientific studies, in which they attained such eminence that they

were believed to possess supernatural powers—whence our word _magic_.

The “wise men” of the New Testament by some supposed to be Persian

Magi.

The Zoroastrian religion, which was on the wane, restored and

maintained in the third century after Christ by the Sassan’idæ, who

measured swords successfully with the Roman emperors, and extended

the power of Persia. The Avesta translated into Pahlavi, a mixture

of Semitic with Iranian elements, in which are preserved most of the

details of the traditions, ceremonies, and customs of the ancient

faith. The combined text and Pahlavi translation known as Avesta-Zend,

or _revelation_ and _commentary_. (_See “Sacred Books of the East,”

vol. v._)

CHAPTER III.

_CHINESE LITERATURE._

=Chinese Language.=—From the Persian Gâthâs and Vedic hymns, let us now

turn to the prose writings of the Chinese philosophers, plain, grave,

and moral in their tone. The language in which their tenets have been

preserved differs materially from the musical Sanscrit and its sister

Avesta.

Modern Chinese, which has changed but little from the ancient tongue

and is the least developed of all existing languages, is monosyllabic;

i. e. each syllable conveys a complete idea, all its words are

expressed by single separate sounds. Of these elements, or _roots_,

it contains 450; changes of emphasis and intonation, accompanied with

corresponding changes in meaning, increase this number to 1,263.

Chinese may be called a language without grammar, as it dispenses

with inflection and conjugation, and leaves the relations of words and

their functions as different parts of speech to be determined by the

arrangement. Thus _sin_ means _honor_, _honorable_, _honorably_, or _to

be honorable_, according to its position in the sentence. Plurality

and gender are generally indicated by adding roots with a modifying

signification. Son in Chinese is _man-child_; daughter, _woman-child_;

a mare is called a _mother-horse_; people is the word _surnames_ with

_a hundred_ prefixed. This grouping together of roots is carried to

great lengths. Writing materials is expressed by two words denoting

_four precious objects_ (paper, brush, ink, and palette); a trader is

_a buying-selling-man_; a knife is a _sword’s-son_; while difference of

opinion is expressed by four words meaning _I east, thou west_.

=Characters used in Writing.=—The written characters of the Chinese

were originally outline pictures of visible objects; specimens are

presented below. A crescent (1) stood for the moon; three peaks (2),

for a mountain; (3) is a tortoise, (4) a fish, (5) a field. Pictographs

were frequently combined to represent a single idea. The notion of

song, for instance, was conveyed by a mouth and a bird (6); that of

tears, by the symbols for eye and water; beauty and goodness, by the

representation of a virgin and an infant.

[Illustration: Pictographs as above]

One or more of these hieroglyphic symbols (_determinatives_) enter

into the composition of every modern Chinese character—which has also

a phonetic element, like the characters of the Egyptian (p. 120) and

Assyrian (p. 106) systems. The ideographic element is indispensable:

the one sound _tschoo_, for example, means ape, whirlpool, island,

silk, deep, a wine, a kind of plant, to enclose, to help, to quarrel,

to walk, to answer. It would be next to impossible to interpret the

written symbol correctly, were not a separate ideogram adopted for

each idea. This necessary device, however, involved the wholesale

multiplication of characters. Over 40,000 are contained in the fullest

dictionaries; but three-fourths of this number are almost wholly

unknown, and only about 5,000 are in common use.

It is interesting to notice how, in the course of ages, the old

hieroglyphics have been transformed into the present characters. The

symbol representing the verb to listen, two folding-doors and an ear

between them {symbol} is now written {symbol}. Two shells exactly alike

originally stood for two friends {symbol}; this symbol has been changed

to {symbol}. A mountain is now {symbol}; a field {symbol}. The most

complicated modern character is made by fifty-two strokes of the pen.

=Antiquity of Chinese Literature.=—China prides herself on her

antiquity, and her literature carries us back to the remotest past.

From those early days to the present the chain is almost unbroken,

notwithstanding the irreparable loss sustained when the ruthless Ching

Wang destroyed the great bulk of Chinese literature (220-205 B.C.).

This emperor is noted for his erection of the Great Wall, and notorious

for his contempt of learning. Thinking to reconcile the masses to his

despotism by keeping them in ignorance, and to deceive posterity with

the belief that he had founded the empire, he ordered all books, except

those on husbandry, divination, and medicine, to be burned. Any person

found with a book in his possession was condemned to labor four years

on the Great Wall, and several hundred scholars who resisted the royal

decree were buried alive.

The dynasty of “the book-burner,” however, was not long after

overthrown; and among the succeeding princes was found a “restorer of

literature,” who collected and preserved for future generations the

writings which, concealed by the people in the walls of their houses

or buried beneath the beds of streams, had escaped destruction. To

his praiseworthy efforts we are indebted for all that remains of the

ancient literature,—the Sacred Books of China, edited by Confu’cius her

admirable philosopher, as well as for the works of Confucius himself

and his disciples.

=Confucius=, to whom we are thus introduced, the _reverend master_,

the beloved teacher of his countrymen, stands out in bold relief as

the most distinguished personage in Chinese history. His birth, which

took place 551 B.C., was mysteriously predicted, as legend tells us,

on a precious stone found in his father’s garden: “A child is about

to be born, pure as the crystal wave; he shall be a king, but without

territorial dominion.” Wonderfully has this prophecy been fulfilled;

the child, as we shall see, became a king whose subjects were numbered

by hundreds of millions.

Born in an evil age, when corruption had undermined the government, and

misrule and violence were everywhere rife, Confucius early dedicated

himself to the cause of social and political reform. At twenty-two he

entered upon his work as a teacher, thoroughly fitted for the high

vocation, for he had been so eager after knowledge as to feel no toil

in its pursuit, and sometimes even to forget his food. His merits

were recognized; and when at last he was raised to the position of

prime-minister, he labored in season and out of season for the welfare

of his people—and with the best results. But then, as now, princes were

ungrateful, and the neglect of his sovereign led to his resignation.

Henceforth the mission of Confucius, no less useful if humbler than

before, was simply to disseminate his precepts, wandering from state

to state among the fifteen millions who constituted the population of

what was then China. Occupied thus and with the study of the Sacred

Books, he finally found rest in his native state, and there passed his

declining years in the midst of loving disciples, “unconscious,” as

he tells us, “that he had reached old age.” He died at seventy-three,

lamenting that, despite his prolonged efforts, so little had been

accomplished toward elevating the moral standard of the nation.

[Illustration: CONFUCIAN PRIEST.]

Yet after his death, his influence was destined far to exceed his most

sanguine longings; it has been greater than that of any other human

teacher. No other has ever spoken to so many millions, or received such

honors from posterity. For more than twenty centuries, his precepts

have been taught in the schools of China (and each little village has

its common school); at stated times, every scholar, on entering in the

morning, still bows in adoration before a tablet sacred to Confucius.

The learned can repeat page after page from his classical books; and

scores of his maxims are familiar to the masses, who have positively

no other moral law to guide them. His tomb, approached by an avenue of

cypresses through a gate of exquisite workmanship, is inscribed with

the words, “The most sagely ancient Teacher; the all-accomplished,

all-informed King.” About the spot are imperial tablets “with glowing

tributes to the one man whom China delights to honor;” and in the

city near by live 50,000 of his descendants, constituting a distinct

class—the head of the family holding large estates as “Duke by

imperial appointment and hereditary right, continuator of the sage.”

There is a temple of Confucius in every city, and Confucian priests

superintend various ceremonies for both mandarins and common people.

=Tenets of Confucius.=—Confucius claimed no divine inspiration; he

founded no new religion. To him the Almighty was “the Unknown God,”

and there was no Paul to declare him to the philosopher. He avoided

referring to a personal Supreme Being, and thought that the study of

themselves should suffice for men. As to death and a future state,

he was equally reticent. “While you do not know life,” he said to an

inquiring disciple, “what can you know about death?” With polygamy,

then an institution of his country, he found no fault; and for women as

such he appears to have had no kindly word, or very elevated regard.

The aim of Confucius was to inculcate certain lofty principles of

conduct, to govern men in their relations to each other and to the

ruling powers. Respect for learning, filial piety,[8] and veneration

for the men and institutions of ancient days, were corner-stones of

his system, and are still deeply impressed on the Chinese mind. His

golden rule “What you do not like when done to yourself, do not to

others”—expressed in written language by a single ideogram—was the _one

word_ he specially commended as embodying the sum and substance of duty.

[Illustration: Ancestral tablet referred to in footnote 8.]

The practical workings of this rule, as enforced by the authority of

the great master, were recently exemplified in the case of an American

traveller. As he and his companion were passing through a Chinese town,

their strange faces and unusual costumes attracted a crowd, and hooting

seemed likely to be followed by serious violence. With admirable

presence of mind, one of the strangers faced the throng, and amid a

shower of mud and stones exclaimed: “Is this the way, O people! that

you obey the precepts of your philosophers, to treat strangers within

your walls tenderly? Have you forgotten the saying of your great master

Confucius,—“That which I wish another not to do to me, I must not do

to him?” The effect was electric. In a moment every hand was lowered,

and the recent assailants sought as best they could to make amends for

their rudeness.

=The Chinese Classics= comprise the Sacred Books already alluded to,

viz., the Five King; also the Four Shoo, or Books of the Philosophers

(Confucius and the writers of his school). _King_ is the equivalent

of our word _text_, and the Five Sacred Texts are the YIH King, Book

of Changes; the SHOO King, Book of History; the SHE King, Book of

Poetry; the _Le Ke_ King, Book of Rites; and the Spring and Autumn, an

historical record of events in the native state of Confucius, from 721

to 480 B.C. It was written by that philosopher himself, who so entitled

it because “its commendations were life-giving like spring, and its

censures life-withering like autumn.” The first four King, which rank

with the most ancient creations of the human mind, were compiled and

published by Confucius; the Book of Rites, originally drawn up by the

ruler of Chow in the twelfth century B.C., received additions from

subsequent writers. (_See Johnson’s “Oriental Religions: China.”_)

Little is known of the true nature of the mysterious Book of Changes;

it apparently relates to divination. The Shoo King gives us the

history of China from the earliest periods to about 720 B.C., and

contains, besides, discourses on music, astronomy, and the principles

of government. Part of it was dictated from memory by a blind man after

the destruction of the original tablets.

In the She King, we have a collection of 305 odes and hymns. Many

of them, more than three thousand years old, were written while the

Chinese Empire was as yet a mere bundle of feudal states; here, as in

all other lands, the first grand thoughts of the people were cast in

the mould of poetry. The odes are in rhyme, and mirror the every-day

life and simple manners of antiquity—often in a highly metaphorical

style, but with a dignity and attractiveness which the later poetry

fails to exhibit. They paint pleasing pictures of rural quiet, contain

delicate touches of nature, and in some few cases display a high

appreciation of woman’s worth; on the whole, however, the status

assigned to the gentler sex is low. Extracts from the Book of Poetry

follow.

FESTAL ODE.

(Celebrating a feast given by an ancient king.)

“See how the rushes spring

Thickly along the way!

Ye browsing herds, no foot

Upon those rushes lay!

Grown to their height ere long,

They soft and rich shall shine;

Close as the rushes grow,

Should brethren all combine.

Let all at feast appear,

None absent, none thought mean.

Mats for the young be spread!

On stools let elders lean!

Lo! double mats are spread,

And stools are featly set.

Servants in waiting stand;

See! host and guests are met.

He pledges them; they him;

He drinks, again they fill.

Sauces and pickles come,

Roast meat, and broiled; and still

Palates and tripe are brought.

Then lutes and drums appear,

Singers fine concord make—

The joyous feasters hear.

The feasting o’er, from bow,

Lacquered and strong and bright,

Four well-poised shafts each sends,

That in the target light.

The guests are ranged as they

The mark have nearest hit.

They shoot again; the shafts

Are fairly lodged in it.

Their bearing then is judged;

Each takes his final place,

As mild propriety

Has round him thrown its grace.

The long-descended king

Presides and ends the feast.

With spirits sweet and strong

From vase he cheers each guest.

And for the old he prays,

While all with rapture glow,

That they the wrinkled back

And whitening hair may show;

Striving with mutual help

In virtue’s onward ways,

That brightest happiness

May crown their latest days.”

LEGGE.

PASTORAL ODE.

(An industrious wife wakens her husband at early dawn.)

“‘Get up, husband, here’s the day!’

‘Not yet, wife, the dawn’s still gray.’

‘Get up, sir, and on the right,

See the morning-star shines bright.

Shake off slumber, and prepare

Ducks and geese to shoot and snare.

All your darts and line may kill,

I will dress for you with skill.

Thus a blithesome hour we’ll pass,

Brightened by a cheerful glass;

While your lute its aid imparts,

To gratify and soothe our hearts.’”

LEGGE.

ODE TO A BRIDE.

“Gay child of Spring, the garden’s Queen

Yon peach-tree charms the roving sight;

Its fragrant leaves, how richly green!

Its blossoms, how divinely bright!

So softly smiles the blooming bride,

By love and conscious virtue led,

O’er her new mansion to preside,

And placid joys around her spread.”

SIR WILLIAM JONES.

The Book of Rites prescribes rules of conduct for all occasions, from

the most important down to a mere interchange of greetings. With

Chinamen ceremonial is everything, and the influence which this book

has exerted on manners and society for three thousand years cannot be

estimated. It is still the standard of etiquette, a governing board at

Pekin being charged with the duty of enforcing its rigid observance.

Spring and Autumn, professedly written in the interests of morality

and good order, to inspire wicked officials and undutiful sons with

wholesome terror, disappoints us in the reading. It is made up of

short, unconnected sentences, stating isolated facts (some of them

quite insignificant) in the baldest manner, without any attempt at

rhetorical excellence or any expression of condemnation or praise.

Whether a temple is struck by lightning, or a father is murdered by his

son, or locusts appear, or some glorious exploit is performed, or the

ruler goes on a journey, or the sun is eclipsed—it is just stated in so

many words—nothing more. The historical style of Confucius is certainly

not striking, and we fail to see why the guilty should have “quaked

with fear” when his annals appeared.

=The Four Shoo= are constituted as follows: 1. The Confucian Analects

(literary fragments). 2. The Great Learning. 3. The Doctrine of the

Mean (as opposed to extremes—the Moderate). 4. The works of Mencius, or

the philosopher Meng, a disciple of Confucius, and second only to his

master among the sages of China.

The Analects consist of the sayings of Confucius, as they occur in

conversations with his followers. Sententious, simple, and sometimes

signally beautiful, they contain the very marrow of wisdom based upon

observation and experience. They shine among the laconics of the world.

A few specimens are subjoined.

EXTRACTS FROM THE ANALECTS.

“The Master said:‘In the Book of Poetry are three hundred pieces, but

the design of all may be embraced in one sentence—Have no depraved

thoughts.’

There are cases in which the blade springs, but the plant does not

go on to flower. There are cases where it flowers, but no fruit is

subsequently produced.

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is

perilous.

Worship as if the Deity were present.

Good government obtains when those who are near are made happy, and

those who are far off are attracted.

Three friendships are advantageous,—friendship with the upright,

friendship with the sincere, and friendship with the man of

observation. Three are injurious,—friendship with the man of specious

airs, friendship with the insinuatingly soft, and friendship with the

glib-tongued.

To see what is right and not to do it, is want of courage.

The cautious seldom err.

If I am building a mountain, and stop before the last basketful of

earth is placed on the summit, I have failed of my work. But if I have

placed but one basketful on the plain and go on, I am really building

a mountain.

Shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to hold

that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to confess your

ignorance—is knowledge.

Extravagance leads to insubordination, and parsimony to meanness. It

is better to be mean than insubordinate.

Learn the past, and you will know the future.

A poor man who flatters not and a rich man who is not proud, are

passable characters; but they are not equal to the poor who are yet

cheerful, and the rich who yet love the rules of propriety.

When you transgress, fear not to return.

Were I to say that the departed were possessed of consciousness, pious

sons might dissipate their fortunes in festivals of the dead; and

were I to deny their consciousness, heartless sons might leave their

fathers unburied.

With coarse rice to eat, water to drink, and my bended arm for a

pillow—I have still happiness even with these; but riches and honors

acquired by unrighteousness are to me as a floating cloud.

What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is

in others.”

The Great Learning, based on the teachings of Confucius, and ascribed

to one or more of his followers, evinces political sagacity in its

suggestions for the perfecting of government, insisting that the

welfare of the people should be the single aim, and scouting the idea

of any divine right in kings to rule except in accordance with the

principles of justice and virtue.

EXTRACTS FROM THE GREAT LEARNING.

“The ancients who wished to establish illustrious virtue throughout

the empire, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order

well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to

regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing

to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts.

From the loving example of one family, a whole state becomes loving;

and from its courtesies, the whole state becomes courteous: while from

the ambition and perverseness of one man, the whole state may be led

to rebellious disorder: such is the nature of influence. This verifies

the saying:‘Affairs may be ruined by a single sentence; a kingdom may

be settled by its one man.’

It is not possible for one to teach others, while he cannot teach his

own family. There is filial piety, there is fraternal submission,

there is kindness. Therefore the ruler, without going beyond his

family, completes the lessons for the state.

Never has there been a case of the sovereign loving benevolence, and

the people not loving righteousness. Never has there been a case where

the people loved righteousness, and the affairs of the sovereign have

not been carried to completion.

What a man dislikes in his superiors, let him not display in the

treatment of his inferiors; what he dislikes in inferiors, let him not

display in the service of his superiors. What he hates in those who

are before him, let him not therewith precede those who are behind

him. What he is unwilling to receive on the right, let him not bestow

on the left. This is what is called‘The principle with which, as with

a measuring-square, to regulate one’s conduct.’”

The Doctrine of the Mean was written by the grandson of Confucius,

who in his boyhood listened to the wise instructions of the sage, and

professed himself ready to carry “the bundle of firewood his grandsire

had gathered and prepared,” thus leading Confucius to exclaim with

delight: “My undertakings will not come to naught; they will be carried

on, and flourish.” The philosophy of this work is obscure; for while it

presents examples of filial piety, and draws an ideal of the perfect

man, “possessed of all sagely qualities,” who alone is able to “accord

with the course of the Mean,” its language with reference to that Mean

is decidedly mystical. Thus:—

“While there are no stirrings of pleasure, anger, sorrow, or joy, the

mind may be said to be in a state of EQUILIBRIUM. When those feelings

have been stirred and act in their due degree, there ensues what may

be called the state of HARMONY. This equilibrium is the great root

from which grow all the human actings in the world, and this harmony

is the universal path which they all should pursue.

Let the states of equilibrium and harmony exist in perfection, and a

happy order will prevail throughout heaven and earth, and all things

will flourish.

The Master said:—’Perfect is the virtue which is according to the

Mean. Rare have they long been among the people, who could practice

it! I know how it is that the path of the Mean is not walked in: the

knowing go beyond it, and the stupid do not come up to it.’”

=Mencius=, author of the fourth Shoo, lived in a degenerate age, but

without fear or favor threw himself into the arena to wrestle with

wickedness. In the society around him he found many fitting marks for

his shafts of humor and satire. Purification of heart was his remedy

for evil; the sinlessness of childhood, his standard of moral purity.

“The great man,” said Mencius, “is he who does not lose his child’s

heart.” Virtue and benevolence are insisted on in the voluminous works

of this philosopher—the Plato of Chinese literature as Confucius was

its Socrates[9]—a benevolence that should not only provide for the

physical wants of the people, but also secure their education and moral

advancement. We glean the following pointed sentences from the

SAYINGS OF MENCIUS.

“I like life and I also like righteousness. If I cannot keep the two

together, I will let life go and choose righteousness.

When one by force subdues men, they do not submit to him in heart, but

because their strength is not adequate to resist. When one subdues

men by virtue, in their heart’s core they are pleased, and sincerely

submit, as was the case with the seventy disciples in their submission

to Confucius.

The noblest thing in the world is the people. To them the spirits of

the earth and the fruits of the earth are inferior. The prince is

least important of all.

Benevolence brings glory, its opposite brings disgrace.

That whereby man differs from the animals is small. Superior men

preserve it, while the mass of men cast it away.

There is a way to get the kingdom; get the people, and the kingdom

is got. There is a way to get the people; get their hearts, and the

people are got. The people turn to a benevolent rule as water flows

downward.

Mencius said:‘The richest fruit of benevolence is the service of

one’s parents; of righteousness, the service of one’s elder brother;

of wisdom, the knowing those two things and not departing from them.’”

=Spirit of the Chinese Classics.=—One prevailing spirit breathes

through the nine classical books of the Chinese—a spirit of

conservatism. Confucius nowhere encourages men to take independent

flights into the realms of original thought. He ignores the future, and

exalts the past. His motto was not _Go up higher_, but _Walk in the

trodden paths_. He sought to reclaim from sin and folly, but only by

winning to the purer practices of that venerable antiquity which he so

blindly admired. Beyond the old landmarks, he cared not even to point

the way. (_See Gray’s “China,” p. 75._)

[Illustration: WORSHIPPING THE ANCESTRAL TABLET (p. 72).]

It is hardly strange that under such leadership the nation became

wedded to formalism, wrapped itself in a complacent aversion to novelty

or progress, eschewed dealings with the outer world, and in a word came

to an intellectual standstill for four and twenty centuries.

=Other Works.=—There are numerous commentaries on the old classics,

some themselves quite ancient; but they are mere reproductions or

servile imitations of the original texts.

Different, however, are the works of Lao-Tse, who was contemporary with

Confucius, and whose writings are so mystical that the matter-of-fact

Confucius declared himself unable to comprehend them. He made something

which he calls Tao the mainspring of the universe, the source and

ultimate destination of all things. Many of his followers, to whom

he recommended self-denial and retirement, became recluses; their

philosophy was perpetuated, and Taoism is still professed to some

extent in China.

Having little imagination for works of fiction and no genius for the

higher departments of poetry, the ancient Chinese produced nothing of

special note—nothing, at least, that has come down to us—except what

has been mentioned. We have indeed numerous chronicles of the various

dynasties, industriously and no doubt accurately compiled; but they

lack the graces of style, and possess little interest for the general

European reader. The Bamboo Annals, found in a royal tomb 284 A.D., is

the oldest of these chronicles that have thus far come to light.

We are also told that before the Christian Era numerous treatises

were written on philosophy, mathematics, medicine, military affairs,

husbandry, law, and geography; but many of these perished in the

convulsions which afterward shook the empire. (On the religious books

of China, _consult Max Müller’s “Sacred Books of the East,” vols. xvi.,

xxvii._)

* * * * *

With the languages of Siam, Burmah, and Thibet—all monosyllabic like

the Chinese—are also connected literatures of considerable antiquity.

In both Burmah and Siam the drama, often licentious, has always been

popular, its exhibitions being sometimes prolonged for days. Burmah

has records that purport to carry back its history almost to the

Christian Era. The best writings of the Siamese are imitations of

Hindoo fictions, while the literature of Thibet is largely made up of

commentaries on the Tripitaka.

NOTES ON CHINESE LITERATURE, ETC.

Bamboo tablets and the stylus, the ancient writing implements; these

in the reign of Ching Wang, the book-burner, superseded by the brush,

and paper made of closely woven silk. Silk paper, found too expensive,

replaced in turn by paper made of the inner bark of trees, old rags,

and worn-out fishing-nets. Books multiply in consequence. At the

Christian Era, the imperial library contained 11,332 sections filled

with books on all subjects, but no great productions of genius. The

old classics still in the front rank.

Printing practised in China 600 A.D., nearly 900 years before its

invention in Europe. Movable types invented by a blacksmith between

1000 and 1100 A.D. The types, made of clay hardened in the fire,

reduced to an exact level by a smooth board, and then cemented to an

iron plate with a mixture of resin and wax. The production of books

thus greatly facilitated. Chinese books at the present day not printed

from movable types, but from wooden blocks of the size of the page, on

which the characters are cut in relief.

Bronze pieces called _cash_, worth one-tenth of a cent, coined as

early as the 12th century B.C.; strung on cords through holes with

which they are pierced; in later times worn as amulets.

[Illustration: SPECIMEN CASH.]

The golden age of China’s later ancient literature, the period of the

Tang dynasty (620-907 A.D.), when the imperial armies penetrated to

Samarcand and Bokhara in Turkestan. Le Taipih, the Chinese Anacreon,

the greatest poet of this period; but even he seldom rises above

mediocrity.

CHAPTER IV.

_HEBREW LITERATURE._

=The Semitic Languages=, enumerated on page 16, have certain

peculiarities in common:—

They are triliteral, i. e. three consonants enter into the composition

of every root. Consonants only are represented by letters; vowels,

indicated by points and lines, play a subordinate part. The latter vary

according to the relation to be expressed; while the consonant root,

which conveys the leading idea, remains for the most part unchanged.

Thus, in Arabic, the notion of bloodshed is expressed by the triple

root _q_ _t_ _l_; _quatl_ is murder; _quitl_, enemy; _uqtul_ means to

kill; _quatala_, he kills. The picturesque compounds, so convenient in

the Indo-European languages, are here wanting.

The Semitic verb is deficient in mood-forms, and has in general only

two tenses, which represent action completed and action continuing.

Case, in the later developments of the different languages, is left

undistinguished. Brevity is gained, but at the expense of precision.

=Distribution of the Semitic Tongues.=—The great divisions of the

Semitic family of languages are designated as Northern and Southern

Semitic. They include the Arama’ic, Hebræo-Phœnician, and Arabic, which

are much more alike than the Aryan tongues. Assyrio-Babylonian occupies

a peculiar position between the Northern and Southern Semitic groups.

Aramaic (from the Hebrew Arâm—_highlands_) was spoken in northern

Syria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia. A dialect of it, the Jews gradually

adopted after their return from captivity at Babylon (536 B.C.),

retaining the Hebrew as their sacred language, but speaking and writing

in Aramaic somewhat modified by Greek. Aramaic, therefore, was the

tongue in which our Lord and his disciples conversed.

The Hebræo-Phœnician was spread over Palestine, and included the

dialects of the Ammonites, Moabites, and Philis’tines. Samaritan was a

development of the Western Aramaic, corrupted by the speech of foreign

settlers introduced into the land of Israel by the Assyrians, to

replace the Ten Tribes whom they had transplanted beyond the Euphrates.

The softer Arabic, musical by reason of its preponderance of vowel

sounds, was carried from Arabia into Africa, where it was long the

language of the cultivated Ethiopians, and where it still survives in

its Abyssinian derivatives, the Amharic, etc.

=The Ancient Hebrew= shares the imperfections of the Semitic group

to which it belongs. It is one of the oldest members of this family,

and was long thought to have been the original language of the human

race. Its name is derived by some from Heber, ancestor of Abraham and

consequently of the people who spoke the classical tongue of the Old

Testament; while by many it is believed to mean _belonging to the other

side_, that is, of the Jordan—an epithet applicable to the Chosen

People as coming from beyond that river to dispossess the Canaanitish

tribes.

[Illustration: THE SEMITIC FAMILY OF LANGUAGES.]

In the days of the patriarch Abraham, whose father dwelt in “Ur of the

Chaldees” (see Map, p. 105), about 2000 B.C., the Semitic dialects

differed slightly, if at all. Recently separated from the primitive

stock, they possessed the same roots, the same grammatical forms and

inflections, and conspicuously agreed in regard to rules of order and

construction.

The meagre vocabulary and other defects of the Hebrew are

counterbalanced by its euphony, simplicity, and power of poetical

expression. Conciseness is its crowning merit. A single sonorous word

often conveys an idea that would require a clause of four or five words

in English. The whole range of literature in other fields affords

no such examples of majestic thought, grand imagery, and impetuous,

heart-warming outpourings of soul, as the poetry of that sublime Hebrew

tongue which was developed by a simple race of shepherds beneath the

mild skies of western Asia.

=The Hebrew Alphabet.=—The Hebrews early profited by the invention

of their Phœnician kinsmen, borrowing from them an alphabet which,

as may be seen on the opposite page, they changed little from the

original. After the Captivity (588-536 B.C.), the more elegant _square_

characters from the Aramaic took the place of the ancient letters;

the latter, however, for reasons political as well as religious,

were reproduced on the shekels coined during the period of Jewish

independence under the Maccabees (168-37 B.C.), by which time the

written language was universally expressed in Aramaic characters. (_See

Land’s “Hebrew Grammar.”_)

[Illustration: HEBREW SHEKEL.]

The oldest Hebrew alphabet (see Table) contained no more than

ten or twelve letters; the number was afterward increased to

twenty-two—consonants all. These were qualified by vowel sounds,

denoted by vowel-points {symbols} placed over or under the consonants

to which they belonged. Capitals there were none.—While some have held

that the names of the letters were given them arbitrarily, merely

to facilitate the memorizing of the alphabet, others believe that a

connection existed between their names and their forms: that, for

example, A, called _Aleph_ (ox), was originally a rough picture of an

ox’s head; that B was the representation of a house or tent, such being

the meaning of its name _Beth_, etc.

[Illo: ANCIENT ALPHABETS.]

┌──────────┬───────────┬────────────┬───┬───┬───┬───┬──────┬───┬──────

│ Hebrew │ Meaning in│ English │ A │ B │ C │ D │ Later│ E │Later

│ Letters. │ English │Equivalent. │ │ │ │ │ Greek│ │Latin

├──────────┼───────────┼────────────┼───────────────┼──────┼───┼──────

│ Aleph │ Ox │ A │ │ Α │ │ A

│ Beth │ House │ B │ │ Β │ │ B

│ Gimel │ Camel │ G │ │ Γ │ │ C

│ Daleth │ Door │ D │ │ Δ │ │ D

│ He │ Window │ H, E │ │ E │ │ E

│ Vau │ Hook │ V │ │ │ │ F

│ Zayin │ Weapon │ Z │ │ Ζ │ │ Z

│ Cheth │ Fence │ Ch │ │ Η │ │ H

│ Teth │ Snake │ Th │ │ Θ │ │

│ Yod │ Hand │ Y, I, J │ │ Ι │ │ I

│ Kaph │ Bent Hand │ C, Ch │ │ K │ │ K

│ Lamed │ Ox-goad │ L │ │ Λ │ │ L

│ Mem │ Water │ M │ │ M │ │ M

│ Nun │ Fish │ N │ │ N │ │ N

│ Samekh │ Post │ S │ │ Σ │ │

│ Ayin │ Eye │ O │ │ O │ │ O

│ Pe │ Mouth │ P, Ph │ │ Π │ │ P

│ Tsade │ Javelin? │ Ts │ │ │ │

│ Koph │ Knot? │ K, Q │ │ │ │ Q

│ Resh │ Head │ R │ │ Ρ │ │ R

│ Shin │ Tooth │ Sh │ │ Σ │ │ S

│ Tau │Sign (Cross)│ T, Th │ │ T │ │ T

└──────────┴───────────┴────────────┴───────────────┴──────┴───┴──────

Transcriber’s Note

The six blank columns show equivalent symbols for:

A Egyptian (transliteration). Hieroglyphic & Hieratic.

B Ancient Phœnician.

C Old Hebrew.

D Square Hebrew.

E Old Greek

F Old Latin

=Spirit of Hebrew Poetry.=—The most ancient Semitic poetry is found in

the pure musical Hebrew of the oldest books of the Bible. Nearly one

half of the Old Testament was in verse, mainly lyrical, ranging from

the simplest song or dirge to the sublimest strains of prophecy; yet

didactic poetry has also a place, for in it were embodied the proverbs

of Israel’s wise men.

Other literatures boast of their epics and dramas; but the Hebrew,

without either, has exerted a far more exalted influence on the human

mind than any other. In vain do we search the Veda and the Avesta for

conceptions as grand as those in the Scriptures. God is apprehended in

all his majesty by the Hebrew bards, and speaks through them to nations

that are yet to be. The Bible poets wrote not merely for the purpose

of pleasing; as teachers and prophets, they had a divine mission and

a loftier aim. The graces of rhetoric were employed to present their

impressive subjects in the strongest and clearest light. Frequent

metaphors embellished their style, and striking personifications

endowed it with life and energy. Imagery drawn from the picturesque

scenes about them,—the hills, the streams, the plains of Palestine,—or

from their every-day employments as tillers and herdsmen, they used

without stint; while _parallelism_, whether it consisted in the

repetition of the same sentiment or in a contrasting of opposite ideas,

was a peculiar beauty of their poetry.

Their language significant and striking, their thoughts lofty and

solemn, their tone severely moral, their themes of the deepest interest

to man, what wonder that the Hebrew poets tower above the sublimest

writers of other times and countries? “Whatever in our literature,”

says Taylor, “possesses most of simple majesty and force, whatever is

most fully fraught with feeling, whatever draws away the soul from

its cleaving to the dust and lifts the thoughts toward a brighter

sphere—all such elements we owe directly or indirectly to the Hebrew

Scriptures, especially to those parts that are in spirit and form

poetic.”

=Parallelism= has been mentioned as a distinctive feature of Hebrew

poetry. This is defined by Bishop Lowth as “a certain equality,

resemblance, or relationship between the members of a period, so that

things shall answer to things and words to words, as if fitted to each

other by a kind of rule or measure.”

Parallelism may be either cumulative, antithetical, or constructive. In

the first, a proposition, after having been once stated, is repeated in

equivalent words of similar construction, as in Isaiah, lv., 6, 7:—

“Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found;

Call ye upon him, while he is near.

Let the wicked forsake his way,

And the unrighteous man his thoughts:

And let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him;

And to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

Antithetical parallelism is similar, except that the two periods

correspond with each other by an opposition of sentiments and terms; as

in Proverbs, xxvii., 6:—

“Faithful are the wounds of a friend;

But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.”

In the third kind of parallelism, there is neither correspondence nor

opposition in the sentiment, but simply a similarity of construction in

the two periods, as in Psalm xix., 8, 9:—

“The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;

The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever;

The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

DAWN OF HEBREW LITERATURE.

There is good reason for believing that the ancient Hebrews had an

extensive literature; but out of their “multitude of books,” all that

have descended to us are those of the Old Testament. Their secular

poetical and prose works are wholly lost.

=The Books of Moses.=—The earliest Hebrew writer of whom we have

positive knowledge was Moses, author of the greater part of the

Pentateuch[10] (_five volumes_—the first five books of the Bible), or,

as it was called by the Jews, the Book of the Law.

The first book of the Pentateuch, Genesis (_the generation_), tells

us all that we know of the Creation, the Deluge, the Confusion of

languages, the Dispersion, and the lives of the patriarchs, whose

history it sketches till the death of Joseph in Egypt, keeping

everywhere prominent the relation of Jehovah to the chosen race.

Exodus (_the going out_) continues the story of the Hebrews from the

death of Joseph, relates their oppression under the Pharaoh Ram’eses

the Great, their miraculous escape from the land of bondage in the

reign of his successor, and the promulgation of the commandments on

Mount Sinai. It is in this book that we catch an early glimpse of

Hebrew poetry in the Song of Moses and his sister Miriam—a magnificent

triumphal ode, the most ancient in any language. The rescued host

pour forth in unison their joy and gratitude; while in response the

exulting prophetess, timbrel in hand, leads the women of Israel, on the

shore of that sea which had engulfed their enemies, to celebrate their

deliverance with sacred dance and rapturous verse. (See Exodus, chapter

xv.)

Leviticus (the book _pertaining to the Levites_) consists of

regulations relative to worship and sacrifice, together with historical

items touching the consecration of Aaron, his first offering, and the

destruction of two of his sons for their impiety. Here is developed the

theocratic system that lay at the base of Hebrew society.

Numbers takes its name from the _numbering_ of the Israelites in the

wilderness of Sinai; it gives an account of this census, and continues

their history during thirty-seven years of subsequent wandering, up to

their arrival on the borders of the Promised Land. In this book there

are several brief specimens of poetry, commemorative of victory, of the

digging of a well in the wilderness, etc.

In Deuteronomy (_the second law_) the law is repeated and explained

by Moses in three fervid discourses, just before the entrance of

the Hebrews into Canaan. The Pentateuch closes with a simple but

inexpressibly grand outburst of the Hebrew legislator in song (chapter

xxxii.), the blessings he pronounces upon the twelve tribes, and an

account of his death.

Of the facts presented in these first five books of the Old Testament,

some are confirmed by hieroglyphic inscriptions and the traditions

of different nations; but of the greater part we should have had no

knowledge without the inspired narrative. Aside, therefore, from its

religious bearing, the Pentateuch is invaluable as an historical record

of primeval ages; while its clear, concise, dignified style, rich with

noble thoughts expressed in the venerable manner of antiquity, is

worthy of its sublime subjects.

=The Historical Books.=—The Pentateuch is followed by the historical

books of Scripture, which, though extending into the silver age, will

for convenience’ sake be here considered together. With the Pentateuch

they form a complete summary of national history, in which are

interwoven religious matters that explain and illustrate it. We may

glance briefly at their authorship and contents.

The Book of Joshua, classed with the Pentateuch (the Torah, or Law)

under the name of Hexateuch, covers a period of twenty-five years

(about 1425 B.C.); it relates to the conquest of Canaan and the

partition of that promised land among the twelve tribes, closing

with the farewell exhortation and death of the great leader. Judges,

ascribed to the Prophet Samuel, continues the history of the nation

to about 1100 B.C.; it tells how the Jews, as a punishment for their

apostasy, were at different times reduced to servitude by their heathen

enemies, and on their repentance delivered by heroes who became their

Judges. Ruth, regarded by the ancient Jews as belonging to the Book of

Judges, is of unknown date and authorship, though attributed by some to

Samuel. It is an exquisite idyl of domestic life, designed to show the

origin of King David. (_See Chapman’s “Hebrew Idyls.”_)

The Books of Samuel, the first portion of which Samuel probably

composed himself, give an account of the magistracy of that prophet and

the reigns of Saul and David. The Books of the Kings dwell upon the

glorious reign of Solomon, and then take us through the divided lines

of Israel and Judah, till both were finally overthrown and carried

into captivity; Jewish tradition points to Jeremiah as the author of

these books. Ezra seems to have written most of the Chronicles, which

is supplementary to the Kings; he was also the author of the book that

bears his name. This and Nehemiah describe the return of the Jews from

their captivity in Babylon, and the restoration of the temple worship

at Jerusalem. The Book of Esther is devoted to a touching episode of

the reign of Ahasuerus, king of Persia, supposed to be identical with

Xerxes, the son of Darius Hystaspis.

=The Book of Job= is worthy of special mention, as the most artistic

specimen of Hebrew genius. Whether this unique poem was the work of Job

himself in his later days, or of some other whose name is lost, its

author was evidently proficient in all the scientific knowledge of his

time. The hero, a native of northern Arabia, whose name has become a

synonym for patient suffering, is reduced to the very depths by family

bereavements, bodily anguish, and the well-meant reproaches of his

friends; yet his faith in God is unshaken, and in the end that faith

is amply vindicated and rewarded. (_See Dr. Rossiter W. Raymond’s “The

Book of Job.”_)

Bold imagery, vividness of description, life-like delineations

of lofty passion as well as the gentler emotions, combined with

master-touches of dramatic art, stamp this poem as the greatest in

Oriental literature. Its passages relating to the war-horse, behemoth,

and leviathan (chapters xxxix., xl., xli.), are cited by writers on

the sublime as among the grandest illustrations of their subject; and

its descriptions of the Deity, as manifested in his works, exhibit the

noblest conceptions of the Infinite that man’s finite intellect is

capable of forming.

GOLDEN AGE OF HEBREW POETRY.

=The Psalms.=—The flourishing period of David (1085-1015 B.C.) ushers

in the Augustan age of Hebrew poetry. The Lyric was then carried to

perfection by the poet-king himself and his contemporaries in their

Psalms,—“those delicate, fragrant, and lovely flowers,” as Luther

calls them, “springing up out of all manner of beautiful joyous

thoughts toward God and his goodness.” The strains of “Israel’s sweet

psalmist,” who began as a shepherd-lad to cultivate the arts of music

and poetry, breathe a spirit of plaintive tenderness that distinguishes

them from the statelier productions of other contributors to Hebrew

psalmody.

A utopian theory of the great Plato, but one that he declared could

be carried out only by “a god or some divine one,” was the training

of the Grecian youth in odes like the Psalms: and this—the religious

instruction of the people—was the very object of the Hebrew lyrics. The

plan of the Greek philosopher had been put in practice centuries before

his day in Palestine, and on a far grander scale than ever he imagined.

In the royal city of Jerusalem, four thousand musicians appointed by

David chanted hymns of triumph and praise, to the accompaniment of harp

and flute; while in the gorgeous temple of David’s son, the sublime

worship of Jehovah challenges description.

For three thousand years, these Hebrew anthems, unapproached by the

religious songs of any other age or people, have been the glory of the

Jewish and the Christian Church, eloquently testifying that “there

has been one people among the nations—one among the millions of the

worshippers of stocks—taught of God.”

Many of the Psalms date from David’s time; one (Psalm xc.) carries us

as far back as Moses, and others were as late as the Captivity. They

were probably arranged as we now have them in the fifth century B.C.;

though certain critics refer some of them to the Maccabean period

(second century B.C.).

=Elegiac Poetry.=—King David was also a writer of elegy, that kind of

song in which the Hebrew poets and prophets poured out their grief in

the unaffected language of nature. Some of his Psalms are beautiful

specimens of this species of poetry, especially Psalm xlii., “As the

hart panteth after the water-brooks,” composed during his exile among

the mountains of Lebanon. Another exquisite and pathetic elegy of this

poet, rendered below in English verse by Lowth, is the

LAMENTATION FOR SAUL AND JONATHAN.

“Thy glory, Israel, droops its languid head,

On Gilboa’s heights thy rising beauty dies;

In sordid piles there sleep the illustrious dead,

The mighty victor fall’n and vanquished lies.

Yet dumb be Grief; hushed be her clam’rous voice!

Tell not in Gath the tidings of our shame!

Lest proud Philistia in our woes rejoice,

And rude barbarians blast fair Israel’s fame.

The sword of Saul ne’er spent its force in air;

The shaft of Jonathan brought low the brave;

In life united equal fates they share,

In death united share one common grave.

Daughters of Judah! mourn the fatal day,

In sable grief attend your monarch’s urn;

To solemn notes attune the pensive lay,

And weep those joys that never shall return.

With various wealth he made your tents o’erflow,

In princely pride your charms profusely dressed;

Bade the rich robe with ardent purple glow,

And sparkling gems adorn the tissued vest.

On Gilboa’s heights the mighty vanquished lies,

The son of Saul, the generous and the just;

Let streaming sorrow ever fill these eyes,

Let sacred tears bedew a brother’s dust.

Thy firm regard revered thy David’s name,

And kindest thoughts in kindest acts expressed;

Not brighter glows the pure and generous flame

That lives within the tender virgin’s breast.

But vain the tear and vain the bursting sigh,

Though Sion’s echoes with our grief resound;

The mighty victors fall’n and vanquished lie,

And war’s refulgent weapons strew the ground.”

=Didactic Poetry.=—In the golden age, didactic poetry also reached the

acme of perfection. The Proverbs that then flowed from the inspired

pen of SOLOMON, prince of didactic writers as his father was of

lyric poets, are too well known, with all their richness of practical

wisdom, to require more than a passing mention. Expressed concisely in

energetic words, according to the different forms of parallelism, these

moral precepts are indeed “like apples of gold in baskets of silver.”

Of the same general scope as the Proverbs, and by the same author,

is Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher. In this book is shown the vanity

of earthly pleasures; and the whole duty of man is summed up in

the sentence, “Fear God and keep his commandments.” The Book of

Ecclesiastes has been attributed to Solomon’s latter days; the

Proverbs, to his prime; while that sweet pastoral, the Song of

Songs—singularly beautiful, whether taken literally as an exponent

of happy wedded love, or allegorically as delineating the mutual

attachment of God and his people—was the joyous outburst of his youth.

Solomon was also the author of a thousand canticles and various works

on miscellaneous subjects; books of making which, he tells us, there

was no end.

=Prophetic Poetry of the Golden Age.=—The writings of the earlier

prophets, florid with high-wrought imagery, revived for a time the

waning glories of the golden age. Foremost of this class in eloquence

of diction, sublimity of thought, and versatility of genius, stands

ISAIAH. Majesty united with elaborate finish; a harmony that delights

the soul; a variety that imparts freshness without detracting from

dignity; simplicity and unvarying purity of language,—conspire to make

the lyric verse of “the Evangelical Prophet” the most appropriate

embodiment of the awful messages of God to the Jews, the promise of a

Messiah and universal peace.

After a career of nearly seventy years, Isaiah sealed his great work

with his blood in the reign of the idolatrous Manasseh (698-643 B.C.).

His mind has been pronounced “one of the most sublime and variously

gifted instruments which the Spirit of God has ever employed to pour

forth its Voice upon the world.”

Even the minor prophets, if we except Jonah the oldest, exhibit in

their compositions unwonted grandeur and elegance: Hosea, with his

sententious style; Amos, “the herdman and gatherer of sycamore fruit;”

Joel and Micah; Habakkuk, whose fervent prayer to the Almighty is

graced with the loftiest embellishments, and Nahum, perhaps the boldest

and most ardent of all.

And so the Golden Age of Hebrew Literature ends. We know only its

sacred poetry, and much indeed of this has disappeared.[11] The harvest

and vintage songs which wakened the echoes amid the vales of Palestine,

the pastorals that accompanied the shepherd’s pipe on the hill-sides

of Ephraim, all are lost forever; “the voice of mirth and the voice of

gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the bride,” were forgotten

in the streets of Jerusalem, when the land was desolate under the

Babylonian and “the daughters of music were brought low.”

SILVER AGE.

=The Prophets.=—The names of three great prophets—Jeremiah, Ezekiel,

and Daniel—illuminate the first page in the history of the decline of

Hebrew literature. But in their writings, and notably so in those of

the later minor prophets, poetry was evidently on the wane. They lived

in a degenerate day. About half of the prophecy of Jeremiah, denouncing

the judgment of Heaven on the disobedient people, is poetry; he lacks

the pomp and majesty of Isaiah, but excels in stirring the gentler

emotions.

His Lamentations are beautiful elegies on the fall of his country and

the desecration of the temple; every letter seems “written with a

tear and every word the sound of a broken heart.” The verses of the

several chapters in the original begin with consecutive letters of

the alphabet, that they may be the more easily memorized, for it was

intended that the sins and sufferings of the Jewish nation should never

be forgotten. Can anything be more touching than the personification of

Jerusalem, sitting as a solitary widow on the ground and mourning for

her children?

“Is this nothing to all you who pass along the way? behold and see

If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is inflicted on me;

Which Jehovah inflicted on me in the day of the violence of his wrath.

For these things I weep, my eyes stream with water,

Because the comforter is far away that should tranquillize my soul.

My children are desolate, because the enemy was strong.”

Ezekiel and Daniel were carried captives to Babylon, where they made

known their prophetic visions. The former wrote partly in poetry,

characterized by a rough vehemence peculiar to himself. The Book of

Daniel, in which history is combined with prophecy, is in prose, and a

portion of it in the Aramaic language. (_Consult Keith’s “Evidence of

Prophecy.”_)

[Illustration: THE TOMB OF EZRA.]

Another writer of distinguished merit, belonging to this age, was the

scribe and priest Ezra (already mentioned), who was permitted to

return from Babylon to Jerusalem with a company of his people, 458 B.C.

He settled the canon of Scripture, restoring and editing the whole of

the Old Testament.

=The Apocrypha= (_secret writings_) consist chiefly of the stories

of To’bit and Judith, the first and second books of Esdras and of

the Maccabees, Ba’ruch, the Wisdom of Solomon, and Ecclesiasticus or

the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach. Composed during the three centuries

immediately preceding the Christian Era, they bear internal evidence,

in their lack of the ancient poetical power, of belonging to an age of

literary decline. They were mostly included in the canon of Scripture

by the Council of Trent in 1545, but are rejected by Protestants as

uninspired.

Ecclesiasticus, best of the Apocryphal books, is full of moral,

political, and religious precepts, its object being to teach true

wisdom and its style resembling the didactic poetry of Solomon. The

following fine passage, versified by Lowth, personifies

WISDOM.

“Wisdom shall raise her loud exulting voice,

And midst her people glory and rejoice;

Oft the Almighty’s awful presence near,

Her dulcet sounds angelic choirs shall hear.

Me before time itself He gave to-day,

Nor shall my spirit faint or feel decay;

I bowed before Him in His hallowed shrine,

And Sion’s pride and Sion’s strength was mine.

Did I not tall as those fair cedars grow,

Which grace our Lebanon’s exalted brow?

Did I not lofty as the cypress rise,

Which seems from Hermon’s heights to meet the skies?

Fresh as Engaddi’s palm that scents the air,

Like rose of Jericho, so sweet, so fair;

Green as the verdant olive of the groves,

Straight as the plane-tree which the streamlet loves,

Richer than vineyards rise my sacred bowers,

Sweeter than roses bloom my vernal flowers;

Fair love is mine, and hope, and gentle fear;

Me science hallows, as a parent dear.

Come, who aspire beneath my shade to live;

Come, all my fragrance, all my fruits receive!

Sweeter than honey are the strains I sing,

Sweeter than honey-comb the dower I bring;

Me, taste who will, shall feel increased desire,

Who drinks shall still my flowing cups require;

He whose firm heart my precepts still obeys,

With safety walks through life’s perplexing maze;

Who cautious follows where my footsteps lead,

No cares shall feel, no mighty terrors dread.

Small was my stream when first I rolled along,

In clear meanders Eden’s vales among;

With fresh’ning draughts each tender plant I fed,

And bade each flow’ret raise its blushing head;

But soon my torrent o’er its margin rose,

Where late a brook, behold an ocean flows!

For Wisdom’s blessings shall o’er earth extend,

Blessings that know no bound, that know no end.”

=The Talmud.=—Our treatise would be incomplete without some notice

of the mysterious book whose name heads this paragraph,—the Talmud.

Comparatively unknown except in name for centuries, it was repeatedly

suppressed in the Dark Ages by popes and kings, as likely to be

dangerous to Christianity. (_See Dr. Jastrow’s “Dictionary of the

Talmud.”_)

Talmud means _learning_. It is essentially a digest of law, civil and

criminal, and a collection of traditions orally preserved. It consists

of two parts, viz., the Mishna, or earlier text; and the Gemara

(_ghe-mah’ră_), a commentary on the Mishna. The age that gave birth

to the Talmud was the period after the Captivity, when a passionate

love for their sacred and national writings animated the Jews restored

to their country and its institutions. Hundreds of learned men, all

great in their day, who treasured in their memories the traditions of a

thousand years, contributed to its pages.

The Talmud was a cyclopædia treating of every subject, even down to

gardening and the manual arts; it depicts incidentally the social life

of the people, not of the Jews alone, but of other nations also. It is

enlivened by parables, jests, and fairy-tales, ethical sayings, and

proverbs; the style is now poetical, anon sublime; and there may be

gathered amid its wilderness of themes “some of the richest and most

precious fruits of human thought and fancy.”

After two unsuccessful attempts, the Talmud was finally systemized in a

code by the Saint Jehuda (about 200 A.D.). A remarkable correspondence

exists between it and the Gospel writings, explained by the fact that

both reflect in a measure the same times. (_Read Sekles’s “Poetry of

the Talmud.”_)

EXTRACTS FROM THE TALMUD.

“Turn the Bible and turn it again, for everything is in it.

Bless God for the evil as well as the good. When you hear of a death,

say‘Blessed is the righteous Judge.’

Even when the gates of heaven are shut to prayer, they are open to

tears.

When the righteous die, it is the earth that loses. The lost jewel

will always be a jewel, but the possessor who has lost it—well may he

weep.

Life is a passing shadow, says the Scripture. Is it the shadow of a

tower, of a tree? A shadow that prevails for a while? No, it is the

shadow of a bird in his flight; away flies the bird, and there is

neither bird nor shadow.

Teach thy tongue to say,‘I do not know.’

If a word spoken in its time is worth one piece of money, silence in

its time is worth two.

The ass complains of the cold even in July.

Four shall not enter Paradise: the scoffer, the liar, the hypocrite,

and the slanderer. To slander is to murder.

The camel wanted to have horns, and they took away his ears.

Thy friend has a friend, and thy friend’s friend has a friend: be

discreet.

The soldiers fight, and the kings are heroes.

Love your wife like yourself, honor her more than yourself. Whoso

lives unmarried, lives without joy, without comfort, without blessing.

He who forsakes the love of his youth, God’s altar weeps for him. It

is woman alone through whom God’s blessings are vouchsafed to a house.

She teaches the children, speeds the husband to the place of worship,

welcomes him when he returns, keeps the house godly and pure, and

God’s blessings rest upon all these things. He who marries for money,

his children shall be a curse to him.

Men should be careful lest they cause women to weep, for God counts

their tears. The world is saved by the breath of school-children.

When the thief has no opportunity of stealing, he considers himself an

honest man. The thief invokes God while he breaks into the house.

Get your living by skinning carcasses in the street, if you cannot

otherwise; and do not say,‘I am a great man, this work would not

befit my dignity.’ Not the place honors the man, but the man the place.

Youth is a garland of roses; age is a crown of thorns.

The day is short and the work is great. It is not incumbent upon thee

to complete the work: but thou must not therefore cease from it. If

thou hast worked much, great shall be thy reward; for the Master who

employed thee is faithful in his payment. But know that the true

reward is not of this world.”—DEUTSCH.

RETURNING THE JEWELS.

“Rabbi Meir, the great teacher, was sitting on the Sabbath-day and

instructing the people in the Synagogue. In the meantime, his two sons

died; they were both fine of growth and enlightened in the law. His

wife carried them into the attic, laid them on the bed, and spread a

white cloth over their dead bodies.

In the evening, Rabbi Meir came home.‘Where are my sons,’ inquired

he,‘that I may give them my blessing?’—‘They went to the Synagogue,’

was the reply.—‘I looked round,’ returned he,‘and did not perceive

them.’

She reached him a cup; he praised the Lord at the close of the

Sabbath, drank, and asked again,‘Where are my sons, that they also

may drink of the wine of blessing?’—‘They cannot be far off,’ said

she, and set before him something to eat. When he had given thanks

after the repast, she said:‘Rabbi, grant me a request.’—‘Speak, my

love!’ answered he.

‘A few days ago, a person gave me some jewels to take care of, and

now he asks for them again; shall I give them back to him?’—‘This my

wife should not need to ask,’ said Rabbi Meir.‘Wouldst thou hesitate

to return every one his own?’—‘Oh! no,’ replied she,‘but I would not

return them without thy knowledge.’

Soon after she led him to the attic, approached, and took the cloth

off the dead bodies.‘Oh! my sons!’ exclaimed the father sorrowfully,

‘My sons!’ She turned away and wept.

At length she took his hand, and said:‘Rabbi, hast thou not taught me

that we must not refuse to return that which hath been intrusted to

our care? Behold, the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; praised

be the name of the Lord.’

‘The name of the Lord be praised!’ rejoined Rabbi Meir.‘It is well

said: He who hath a virtuous wife hath a greater treasure than costly

pearls. She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the

law of kindness.’”

THE PAINTED FLOWERS.

“The power of Solomon had spread his wisdom to the remotest parts

of the known world. Queen Sheba, attracted by the splendor of his

reputation, visited this poetical king at his own court. There, one

day, to exercise the sagacity of the monarch, Sheba presented herself

at the foot of the throne: in each hand she held a wreath; the one

was composed of natural, and the other of artificial flowers. Art, in

constructing the mimetic wreath, had exquisitely emulated the lively

hues of nature; so that, at the distance it was held by the queen

for the inspection of the king, it was deemed impossible for him to

decide, as her question required, which wreath was the production of

nature, and which the work of art.

The sagacious Solomon seemed perplexed; yet to be vanquished, though

in a trifle, by a trifling woman, irritated his pride. The son of

David, he who had written treatises on the vegetable productions‘from

the cedar to the hyssop,’ to acknowledge himself outwitted by a woman,

with shreds of paper and glazed paintings! The honor of the monarch’s

reputation for divine sagacity seemed diminished, and the whole Jewish

court looked solemn and melancholy.

At length an expedient presented itself to the king; and one, it must

be confessed, worthy of the naturalist. Observing a cluster of bees

hovering about a window, he commanded that it should be opened. It

was opened; the bees rushed into the court, and alighted immediately

on one of the wreaths, while not a single one fixed on the other. The

baffled Sheba had one more reason to be astonished at the wisdom of

Solomon.”—D’ISRAELI.

NOTES ON WRITING, EDUCATION, ETC., AMONG THE HEBREWS.

The art of writing practised by the Hebrews at a very remote period.

In primitive times, records of important events cut in stone; the

letters sometimes filled with plaster or melted lead. Engraving also

practised with the stylus on rough tablets of boxwood, earthenware,

or bone. Leather early employed; the Law written on skins (of “clean

animals or birds”) in golden characters. The skins rolled round one or

two wooden cylinders, the scroll then tied with a thread and sealed.

Parchment written on with reed pens, which, together with a knife for

sharpening them and an ink of lampblack dissolved in gall-juice, were

carried in an inkhorn suspended from the girdle. Letter-writing in

vogue from the time of David.

Many ancient Jewish cities far advanced in art and literature.

Reading and writing from the first not confined to the learned, for

the people were required to write precepts of the Law upon their

door-posts, and on crossing the Jordan were commanded to place certain

inscriptions on great stones very plainly, that they might be read

by all. _Scribes_ in readiness to serve those who could not write.

Schools established in different localities in the prophetical age,

in which “the sons of the prophets” lived a kind of monastic life,

studying their laws and institutions along with poetry and music.

After the Captivity, education recognized as all-important, and

at length made compulsory. The Jews in consequence soon noted for

learning and scholarship. $2,500,000 paid by Ptolemy Philadelphus (260

B.C.) to seventy Jewish doctors for translating the Old Testament

into Greek, at Alexandria; hence the _Septuagint_, as it is called,

or version of the _Seventy_. By 80 B.C., Palestine filled with

flourishing schools. _Jerusalem was destroyed because the instruction

of the young was neglected—Revere a teacher even more than your

father—A scholar is greater than a prophet_—common sayings among

the Jews. Colleges maintained where lectures were delivered, and

the Socratic method of debate was pursued. Every student trained

to some trade, the ripest scholars working with their own hands

as tent-makers, weavers, carpenters, bakers, cooks, etc. A large

library at Jerusalem composed of volumes in history, royal letters,

and various works of the prophets. The most learned of the later

Platonists the Jew Phi’lo (20 B.C.-50 A.D.), who tried to reconcile

the Platonic philosophy with the teachings of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Riddles, enigmas, and play upon words, the chief sources of amusement

among the Hebrews. Dice mentioned in the Talmud. Public games unknown.

Fishing with nets and hooks, favorite sports. Dancing practised as a

religious rite; the stage on which it was performed in the temples

styled the _choir_: each Psalm perhaps accompanied by a suitable dance.

CHAPTER V.

_CHALDEAN, ASSYRIAN, ARABIC, AND PHŒNICIAN LITERATURES._

=Cuneiform Letters.=—North of the Persian Gulf, and drained by the

rivers Euphrates and Tigris, lay Chalde’a, or Babylonia, the “Land of

Shi’nar” (_country of the two rivers_). Here arose the earliest cities,

amid a population principally Turanian and Semitic, with a limited

intermixture of the Aryan element. A Semitic dialect prevailed among

the people at large; but the Turanian (Non-Semitic or Ural-Altaic)

Chaldees, to whom Babylonia was indebted for its aboriginal

civilization, through the centuries of their ascendency, political and

intellectual, not only kept alive their native tongue in conversation

with each other, but, inscribing it on imperishable monuments, caused

it to endure through all time.

[Illustration: ASSYRIA and the ADJACENT COUNTRIES]

To these Turanians the honor of having invented cuneiform letters

must be conceded; an honor, indeed, when we remember that theirs was

possibly the most ancient device for embodying human thought. The

characters, called wedge-formed or arrow-headed, they appear to have

brought with them into the Euphrates valley from the more northerly

country which they previously occupied; and their Semitic co-residents

in Babylonia were not slow in adopting the ingenious system which they

had elaborated. (_Consult Budge’s “Babylonian Life,” By-Paths of Bible

Knowledge Series, p. 100._)

The cuneiform characters, like the hieroglyphics, were at first rude

representations of objects, but in most cases the resemblance to the

original was soon lost. In some archaic forms, however, it may be

readily detected; as in the character for fish, {symbol}. The common

signs eventually acquired phonetic values. The Assyrian writing is made

up of ideograms, phonograms, and determinatives.

When by the victory of Alexander at Arbe’la (331 B.C.) the great

Persian Empire fell, cuneiform writing ceased to be practised, and

cuneiform literature was buried in the mounds of Assyria and Babylonia

for two thousand years. During the present century it has been

disinterred by inquisitive scholars, whose labors have resulted in the

restoration of a forgotten history, through the wonderful literature of

a people long known only in name. (_See Sayce’s “Hibbert Lectures.”_)

ASSYRIO-BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.

=Writing Materials.=—The cuneiform letters heretofore spoken of as

in use among the Persians at a later date (p. 66) were doubtless

originally intended to be cut on rocks with chisels, and hence were

angular instead of round. But the ancient Babylonians preferred bricks

and tablets of clay, on which, when moist and soft, they traced their

legends, annals, and scientific items, with an ivory or bronze stylus,

hardening the surface thus inscribed by drying in the sun. The tablets,

from one inch in length upward, are pillow-shaped and covered with

characters so minute as to be almost illegible without a glass. After

drying, to insure their preservation, they were often enclosed in cases

of clay, and on these the inscriptions were duplicated. Such are known

as “case-tablets.”

The Assyrians used similar kiln-baked tablets, and, besides, carved

their records exquisitely on the stone panels of their palaces, and

on colossal human-headed bulls. The tablets above described, together

with terra-cotta cylinders, formed the books of this inventive nation,

who also engraved with wonderful delicacy glass, metals, the amethyst,

jasper, and onyx.

Stone slabs were generally reserved for royal inscriptions; the

literary classes of Assyria preferred the cheaper clay, on which they

could write more rapidly and quite as legibly with their triangular

instruments. Something like paper or parchment seems to have been used

to a very limited extent; but if so, it has entirely disappeared. It is

also thought that the Chaldeans may have practised a simple method of

printing, as wedge-like types of stone have been found among the ruins

of their cities.

=Golden Age of Babylonian Literature= (2000-1550 B.C.).—Not a little

of the Assyrio-Babylonian literature has been recovered; but a mine

of literary wealth in the valley of the Euphrates still awaits the

persevering student, for before 2000 B.C. important works were

written in Chaldea. In the twentieth century, a golden age dawned

on this ancient land; its great cities became centres of literary

refinement, as well as of commerce and art, and a lofty poetical style

characterized the writings of the time. Standard texts on religion,

science, and history were then and shortly thereafter produced, the

copying of which appears to have satisfied the ambition of subsequent

generations.

In 1887, numerous Babylonian tablets, dating from the 15th century

B.C., were found at Tell-Amarna, Egypt. They contain letters addressed

by Asiatic kings to the third and fourth Amenophis (a portion of the

correspondence relating to the marriage of an Egyptian monarch with the

princess of Mitanni), and imply that the cuneiform writing of Babylonia

was in that day the vehicle of correspondence, as was the Aramaic in

the time of Persian supremacy.

Among early specimens of Chaldean writing is a set of bricks,

discovered near the site of E’rech. They are thought to have been

made about 2008 B.C. As these bricks illustrate the most ancient

cuneiform character, two of them are here presented, accompanied with a

translation.

[Illustration: “Beltis, his lady, has caused Urukh, the pious chief and

king of Ur, king of the land of Accad, to build a temple to her.”

CHALDEAN BRICKS.]

FROM A TABLET OF BABYLONIAN LAWS.

“A certain man’s brother-in-law hired workmen, and on his foundation

built an enclosure. From the house the judge expelled him.

His father and his mother a man shall not deny.

A decision. A son says to his mother:‘Thou art not my mother.’ His

hair is cut off; in the city they exclude him from earth and water,

and in the house imprison him.

A decision. A mother says to her son:‘Thou art not my son.’ They

imprison her.

A decision. A woman says to her husband:‘Thou art not my husband.’

Into the river they throw her.

A decision. A husband says to his wife:‘Thou art not my wife.’ Haifa

ma’neh (thirty ounces) of silver he weighs out in payment.

A decision. A master kills his slaves, cuts them to pieces, injures

their offspring, drives them from the land. His hand every day a half

measure of corn measures out.”

Babylonian literature was rich in the departments of law, mathematics,

astrology, grammar, and history. Nor was fiction wanting; fables, in

which the lower animals carried on spirited dialogues, were favorites

with the people. At a very early date, the inscribed tablets and

cylinders were collected, and the chief cities were made the seats of

libraries.

From a volume of Chaldean hymns, somewhat similar to the Rig-Veda, are

taken the following verses to the Babylonian Venus:—

PRAYER OF THE HEART TO ISTAR.

“Light of heaven, who like the fire dawnest on the world, art

thou!

Goddess in the earth, who dawnest like the earth, art thou!

To the house of men in thy descending thou goest: prosperity

approaches thee.

Day is thy servant, heaven thy canopy.

Princess of the four cities, head of the sea, heaven is thy canopy.

Exalted of the Sun-god, heaven is thy canopy!

For my father the Moon-god, revolver of the seasons, sanctuaries I

build, a temple I build.

For my brother the Sun-god, revolver of the seasons, sanctuaries I

build, a temple I build.

In the beginning the goddess spoke thus to men:

The Lady of Heaven, the divinity of the zenith, am I!

The Lady of Heaven, the divinity of the dawn, am I!

The Queen of Heaven, the opener of the locks of the high heaven, my

begetter.

O Istar! Lady of Heaven! may thy heart rest.

O Lady, Queen of Heaven! may thy liver be magnified.

O Lady, Queen of the land of the four rivers of Erech! may thy

heart rest.

O Lady, Queen of Babylon! may thy liver be magnified!

O Lady, Queen of the Temple of the Resting-place of the World!

may thy heart rest.”—A. H. SAYCE.

The Babylonians believed in omens. They gathered auguries from dreams,

inspection of the hand, the time of birth, and various phenomena,

establishing a national system of divination not without its amusing

features. For instance, we have the following

OMENS CONNECTED WITH DOGS.

“If a blue dog enters into a palace, that palace is burned.

If a yellow dog enters into the palace, exit from that palace will be

baleful.

If a spotted dog enters into the palace, that palace its peace to the

enemy gives.

If a dog to the palace goes and on a bed lies down, that palace none

with his hand takes.

If a dog to the palace goes and on the royal parasol lies down, that

palace its peace to the enemy gives.

If a white dog into a temple enters, the foundation of that temple is

not stable. If a yellow dog into a temple enters, that temple sees

plenty.

If a spotted dog into a temple enters, that temple do its gods love.”

Many charms and exorcisms appear in the ancient language of Babylonia,

disease being attributed to possession by evil spirits. Specimens

follow.

BABYLONIAN EXORCISMS.

“Wasting, want of health, the evil spirit of the ulcer, spreading

quinsy of the throat, the violent and noxious ulcer. Spirit of Heaven!

remember; Spirit of Earth! remember.

Sickness of the stomach, sickness of the heart, palpitation of the

heart, sickness of the head, noxious colic, the agitation of terror,

lingering sickness, nightmare. Spirit of Heaven! remember; Spirit of

Earth! remember.

Poisonous spittle of the mouth which is noxious to the voice, phlegm

which is destructive, tubercles of the lungs. Spirit of Heaven!

remember; Spirit of Earth! remember.”

A belief in a future life is expressed in the Poem on the Descent

of Istar, the moon-god’s daughter, to Hades, “the land whence none

return,” where “the dead outnumber the living;” and further in the

so-called Nimrod-Epic, the most ancient approach to epic poetry known

to exist, embodying the Babylonian story of Izdubar (identified with

Nimrod)—his rejection of the suit of the goddess Istar, and his

victory over the human-headed bull sent to revenge the slight. Nimrod

is ferried across the waters of the dead to the shores of the regions

of the blessed, where he recognizes his ancestor, Samas-napistim, and

exclaims:

“Thy appearance is not changed; like me art thou.

And thou thyself art not changed; like me art thou.”

=Chambers of Records at Nineveh.=—The Semites who, as the sacred

historian informs us, left the land of Shinar to found Nineveh and the

neighboring cities, carried with them the civilization and literary

culture of the Chaldeans. The earliest permanent seat of letters was

Ca’lah (see Map, p. 105), where, during the reign of Shalmane’ser

II. (860-824 B.C.) many clay tablets borrowed from the Babylonians

were copied by Assyrian scribes. This same king erected at Calah an

obelisk of black marble—one of the few Assyrian monuments of its kind

commemorative of national triumphs.

The library thus begun at Calah was enlarged under succeeding kings.

Removed at length to Nineveh, it there attained vast proportions

through the efforts of that munificent patron of letters, Sardanapa’lus

(Assur-bani-pal), (668-626 B.C.). The number of engraved tablets

reached ten thousand.

Here were grammars[12] and lexicons, law-books and scientific

treatises, histories, astronomical and arithmetical works, songs,

prayers, hymns sometimes approaching the Hebrew sacred lyrics in

sublimity, books of charms and omens, natural histories, botanies, and

geographies—a complete encyclopædia of ancient literature. The books

of this curious collection were carefully arranged according to their

subjects, numbered, catalogued, and placed in charge of librarians.

They were public property, intended for the instruction of the people.

Such was the library of Sardanapalus—principally copied from Babylonian

texts; such, it was buried beneath the ruins of the palace when “the

gates of the rivers were opened and Nineveh became a desolation;” such,

it lay amid the débris for centuries, “while the cormorant and the

bittern lodged in the upper lintels.”

But the mounds that so long covered the site of Nineveh have recently

surrendered their treasures. Clouds that environed the history of

the past have been dissipated; ancient nations, for ages wrapped

in obscurity, we no longer “see through a glass, darkly;” and the

narrative of the inspired writers of the Bible has been in many places

confirmed by the inscriptions disentombed in the East. Among the most

interesting fragments found scattered through the ruined “Chambers

of Records” of the Assyrian palace are the tablets relating to the

Creation, the Fall of Man, and the Deluge, copied from Babylonian

records hundreds of years older than the Pentateuch.

FROM THE CHALDEAN ACCOUNT OF THE DELUGE.

(Compiled originally about 2000 B.C.)

“The flood reached to heaven: the bright earth to a waste was turned.

It destroyed all life from the face of the earth, the strong deluge

over the people. Brother saw not brother, they did not know the

people. In heaven, the gods feared the tempest and sought refuge: they

ascended to the heaven of the King of angels and spirits.

Six days and nights passed; the wind, deluge, and storm, overwhelmed.

On the seventh day, in its course, was calmed the storm; and all the

deluge, which had destroyed like an earthquake, quieted. The sea he

caused to dry, and the wind and deluge ended.

I perceived the sea making a tossing; and the whole of mankind turned

to corruption; like reeds the corpses floated. I opened the window,

and the light broke over my face; it passed. I sat down and wept; over

my face flowed my tears. I perceived the shore at the boundary of the

sea. To the country of Nizir went the ship. The mountain of Nizir

stopped the ship; and to pass over, it was not able. The first day,

and the second day, the mountain of Nizir the same. The third day, and

the fourth day, the mountain of Nizir the same. The fifth and sixth,

the mountain of Nizir the same. On the seventh day, in the course of

it, I sent forth a dove, and it left. The dove went and turned, and a

resting-place it did not find, and it returned.

I sent forth a swallow, and it left. The swallow went and turned, and

a resting-place it did not find, and it returned.

I sent forth a raven, and it left. The raven went, and the decrease of

the water it saw, and it did eat, it swam, and wandered away, and did

not return.

I sent the animals forth to the four winds. I poured out a libation. I

built an altar on the peak of the mountain.”—GEORGE SMITH.

SPECIMENS OF ASSYRIAN SACRED POETRY.

A PRAYER FOR THE KING.

“Length of days,

Long, lasting years,

A strong sword,

A long life,

Extended years of glory,

Preëminence among kings,

Grant ye to the King my Lord,

Who has given such gifts

To his gods.

The bounds vast and wide of his empire,

And of his rule,

May he enlarge and may he complete,

May he attain to gray hairs and old age.

And after the life of these days,

In the feasts of the Silver Mountain, the heavenly courts,

The abode of blessedness:

And in the Light

Of the Happy Fields,

May he dwell a life

Eternal, holy,

In the presence of the gods

Who inhabit Assyria.”—H. F. TALBOT.

Here is undoubtedly expressed a belief in the soul’s immortality, which

also appears in the following prayer for the spirit of a dying man:—

“Like a bird may it fly to a lofty place!

To the holy hands of its god may it ascend!”

A PENITENTIAL PSALM.

“O my Lord! my sins are many, my trespasses are great; and the wrath

of the gods has plagued me with disease, and with sickness and sorrow.

I fainted: but no one stretched forth his hand!

I groaned: but no one drew nigh!

I cried aloud: but no one heard!

O Lord! do not abandon thy servant!

In the waters of the great storm, seize his hand!

The sins which he has committed, turn thou to righteousness.”—H. F.

TALBOT.

HITTITE INSCRIPTIONS.

=Altaic Hieroglyphs.=—Inscriptions on stones and various objects, in

an unknown system of hieroglyphics, have been found near Damascus and

elsewhere in the East. They have been ascribed to the Hittites (the

_Khita_ of the Egyptian monuments, the _Khittim_ of Scripture), a

powerful race of northern Syria, who were constantly at war with the

Babylonians, successfully opposed both Assyria and Egypt, and in the

thirteenth century B.C. extended their power as far west as the Ægean

Sea. It is claimed that the symbols are “the prototypes whence the

cuneiform system was developed,” and that the language is an Altaic

(Turanian or Accadian) dialect. The date assigned is 1400 B.C. (See

opposite engraving of an inscribed stone from Jerabis.) Scholars

are now engaged in an attempt to decipher these inscriptions. (The

reader is referred to _Sayce’s “The Hittites: the Story of a Forgotten

Empire.”_)

[Illustration: The inscribed stone described.]

ARABIC LITERATURE.

=Himyaritic Inscriptions.=—The high-spirited war-loving tribes that

roved over the tablelands of Arabia, as well as the more refined

inhabitants of her ports on the Red Sea, doubtless cultivated letters.

We may suppose the former to have given their florid fancies vent in

pastorals, rude songs for the desert bivouac, or triumphal odes. More

finished species of poetry would have been congenial to the courtly

residents of the cities, whose knowledge of the world was extended by

trading expeditions to India, and along the African coast as far as the

Mozambique Channel.

Yet of this probable literature we possess little that is older than

the era of Mohammed (600 A.D.), at which time the Arabians awoke to a

new life, for centuries leading the van of the nations in the march

of literature and science. But the little that we have is not without

interest.

At least eighteen hundred years before the Christian Era, descendants

of Joktan, called Sabæans and afterward Himyarites, established

themselves in southwestern Arabia; but not until about 800 B.C. do they

appear to have gained permanent dominion over the neighboring tribes.

Inscriptions in their language, the Sabæan, a Semitic tongue closely

related to the Arabic, if not sufficiently like it to be called by the

same name, have been found in the lower part of the Arabian peninsula

on walls, tombs, dikes, and bronze tablets.

These are the oldest known Arabic writings, and are believed by

scholars to date between the 8th century B.C. and the 4th century A.D.

Gems have also been discovered, inscribed with these same characters.

PHŒNICIAN LITERATURE.

=Its Lost Treasures.=—In the most ancient records, the narrow strip

of coast between the Lib’anus Mountains and the Mediterranean was

recognized as an important centre of civilization. Its cities were

seats of art and commerce; Africa, Sicily, and Spain, were dotted

with its colonies and trading-stations; the sails of its merchantmen

sparkled on every sea; its language was known throughout the ancient

world.

It cannot be that a nation so advanced in knowledge was without a

literature; and if works on their philosophy and religion, on history,

geography, navigation, and agriculture, didactic poems and love-songs,

constitute a literature, vast indeed was that of the Phœnicians. No

department of science or belles-lettres appears to have been overlooked

by their authors.

The famous “Book City,” Kir´jath-Se´pher, which, during the conquest

of Canaan, was taken by Othniel the future Judge, is thought to have

been a Phœnician town. Its name implies that it was a repository of

books, probably public records and works on law—perhaps an Athens

to the nations of Canaan, whither their youth flocked to consult

its libraries and receive instruction at its academies. Its valuable

collection of manuscripts was doubtless committed to the flames by the

Hebrew conqueror.

In like manner, the whole constellation of Phœnician hymns, and lyrics,

and prose pieces, has become extinct, except a lonely star left here

and there in the works of foreign authors; or a faint light glimmering

on some coin or tablet, gem or tombstone.

The only important Phœnician writer known to us is Sanchoni´athon.

Fragments of his History, written perhaps in the fourteenth century

B.C., have survived through a Greek translation. In accounting for the

origin of the universe, Sanchoniathon taught the theory of evolution,

that “from certain animals not having sensation, intelligent animals

were produced.”

=Phœnician Carthage= also developed an extensive literature. The

records of the city were kept by native historians; and we know that

Ma’go’s great work on agriculture, in twenty-eight parts, was highly

appreciated at Rome, and there rendered into Latin. When the city of

Hannibal fell before her more powerful rival, her vast library was

scattered among the African allies of the Romans, and lost to history.

An interesting relic of Carthaginian literature is the Circumnavigation

of Hanno, the history of a voyage undertaken in the sixth century B.C.

to the coasts of Libya—the oldest history of a voyage existing. This

work of Hanno, which used to hang in a temple at Carthage, describes a

savage people called _Gorillas_, whose bodies were covered with hair

and who defended themselves with stones. The narrator says: “Three

women were taken, but they attacked their conductors with their teeth

and hands, and could not be prevailed on to accompany us. Having killed

them, we flayed them, and brought their skins with us to Carthage.”

NOTES ON ASSYRIO-BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.

Oldest Semitic cuneiform text written before 3000 B.C. The golden age,

2000-1850 B.C.; oral traditions collected and committed to writing;

tile-libraries in all the principal Chaldean cities. Decline begins

about 1550 B.C. The term _Chaldean_ long synonymous with _man of

learning_.

Rise of Assyrian literature, 1500 B.C.; confined to archives and

records for a number of centuries. Renaissance under Sardanapalus

I. and his son Shalmane´ser II. (885-824 B.C.). Enlargement of the

national library in the reign of Tig´lath-Pile´ser II. (745-727 B.C.)

and of Sargon (722-705 B.C.), followed by a revival of the study of

ancient literature. Copies made of the masterpieces of antiquity.

Reign of Sardanapalus II. (668-626 B.C.), the golden age of Assyrian

letters. Fall of Nineveh, 625 B.C.

Babylon succeeds as the seat of power and the centre of literature in

western Asia; attains the height of its glory under Nebuchadnezzar

(604-561 B.C.). Great revival of ancient learning: “the Lady of

Kingdoms” soon boasts of a library emulating in extent and variety

that of her former rival Nineveh. Little of this later Babylonian

literature recovered: its restoration left for future laborers in the

field of philology.

During these centuries, a wild poetry probably flourished on the

highland wastes of Arabia, and Phœnician cities attained literary

greatness.—Coins made of British tin, the money of Phœnician commerce.

CHAPTER VI.

_EGYPTIAN LITERATURE._

=The Egyptian Language.=—There yet remains one field of Oriental

literature for us to visit, and it is specially interesting on account

of the valuable treasures it long concealed. These have recently been

brought to light in the writings of that people who settled the fertile

valley of the Nile in prehistoric times, and adorned the land of Egypt

with monuments inscribed with their mysterious characters.

Thousands of inscriptions—some on the walls of vast temples, or of

memorial chapels attached to the tombs of private citizens; others

hewn in the living rock, or carefully cut on obelisks of granite with

chisels of bronze and steel—have endured to our day; and thousands of

papyri have come down to us; some of the rolls many feet in length,

and covered with figures of men, birds, insects, and reptiles, in

profile, often illuminated with high colors and gold wrought in

artistic vignettes. The ingenuity of modern science has wrung from

these their secrets, and disclosed a wealth of knowledge in connection

with the history, literature, civilization, and religion of the ancient

Egyptians.

The Egyptian language is undoubtedly Semitic, and, in its oldest form,

perhaps represents the primitive Semitic stock. It contains, however,

certain elements that are not Semitic, but that seem to have been

derived from a tongue of distinct origin, spoken in the country before

its conquest by a Semitic race. The language has therefore been called

Egypto-Semitic.

EGYPTIAN WRITING.

=Decipherment of the Hieroglyphics.=—The decipherment of the Egyptian

hieroglyphics will always be regarded as one of the greatest triumphs

of the present century. As early as 1652, Kircher (_kěěr´ker_), a

learned German Jesuit, attempted to translate the monumental writing;

but, by reason of his absurd renderings, only cast discredit on the

science of Egyptology. Scholars of the period preferred the study

of Coptic, the language of Egyptian Christianity; it was through

their labors in this field that the way was prepared for the final

interpretation of the older speech.

=The Rosetta Stone.=—The finding of the Rosetta Stone, in 1799,

led to the brilliant discoveries of the French savant, Champollion

(_sham-pol´le-on_). A French officer, while erecting works at Rosetta,

in the delta of the Nile, during Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign,

unearthed a piece of black basalt, which contained, in equivalent

inscriptions in hieroglyphics, Greek, and _demotic_ (popular hand),

a decree conferring divine honors on Ptolemy V., a monarch of the

second century B.C. The meaning of the Greek text being known, the

hieroglyphics through it were translated. Thomas Young, an English

mathematician, and the French scholar, independently, and almost

simultaneously, succeeded in finding a true solution of the problem.

Young determined correctly the value of some of the characters; but the

result of Champollion’s labors were vastly more important. He not only

gave the correct rendering of long inscriptions and of numerous papyri,

but prepared an Egyptian grammar and a hieroglyphic dictionary that

for years were unrivalled as authorities.

[Illustration: THE ROSETTA STONE.

The famous stone rests on a block of red porphyry in the Egyptian

gallery of the British Museum. Dimensions: 3 ft., 1 in. high; 2

ft., 5 in. broad; 6 to 12 in. thick. (_Read the “Report of the

Committee appointed by the Philomathean Society of the University of

Pennsylvania to translate the Inscription on the Rosetta Stone.”_)]

Champollion’s work was carried on by other scholars after his death.

In 1867, Lepsius discovered in the ruins of Tanis a second trilingual

inscription, the so-called decree of Cano’pus, the study of which fully

confirmed the theories previously advanced. The work of Lepsius gave

a new impulse to Egyptian study. His immediate successor in this line

of exploration was Mariette, who built up the museum of Boulaq. Many

others in France, England, Germany, and America, have devoted their

lives to the study of Egypt and her systems of writing. The problem

that baffled alike Greeks, Romans, and all subsequent nations, has

been solved at last; and the door has been opened to “a library of

stones and papyri in myriads of volumes,” in which every branch of

literature is represented. The crumbling walls scattered throughout

“the Monumental Land” now utter intelligible words; the very implements

and toys have their stories to tell; and many a tomb has yielded up its

brittle treasure of papyrus, its eulogy or legend, its history or hymn.

=System of Writing.=—From the earliest times the Egyptians possessed

a phonetic system of writing. They had an alphabet of twenty-two

characters, consisting of consonants only, which became the basis of

the Phœnician, and through it of every ancient and modern European

alphabet. Besides these consonants, there were in use numerous syllabic

signs, in which two or three consonant sounds, or a consonant and a

vowel sound, were represented by one character. Owing to the absence

of vowel signs, it was often next to impossible to discriminate

between words composed of the same consonants, but having different

significations (as it would be in English, if, for instance, we should

write _s t r_ for _star, store, stair_, or _straw_, and leave the

signification of the three consonants to be determined by the context).

To obviate this difficulty, the Egyptians early invented a simple

system of _determinatives_. A determinative is a picture of the object

described by the word in question, and was placed after the name. Thus

the word _rômet_, signifying _man_, was followed by the picture of a

kneeling man, {hieroglyph} as was also every word signifying a male

human being or his occupation. After the word _himet_, signifying

_woman_, after the names of goddesses, the proper names of women, and

all words denoting female human beings, was placed the picture of a

woman sitting. {hieroglyph} After the names of gods occurred a typical

representation of a god. In like manner, to the names of Egyptian

cities was attached the representation of a plan of a city, while the

picture of a range of hills distinguished foreign localities (mountains

being unknown in the Nile Valley).

Some of these determinatives in time came to be used instead of

the words they originally determined; and thus arose word-signs

(_ideograms_), which, though at first comparatively few, soon

increased in number. In this way, the picture of the city’s plan,

originally a mere determinative, was eventually used as the written

sign of the word city itself. The Egyptian system of writing is

thus extremely complicated, consisting, as it does, of an alphabet,

syllabic signs, and word-signs (_ideograms_), supplemented by a system

of determinatives. The whole number of signs exceeds 2000. (_See

Moldehnke’s “Language of the Ancient Egyptians.”_)

=Hieroglyphics.=—The oldest form of Egyptian writing is called

hieroglyphic;[13] its characters are well-drawn pictures of natural

objects; but these pictures had no ideographic values. They were

originally, as above stated, partly determinative in their nature.

The oldest hieroglyphical texts that have come down to us have been

referred to the II. Dynasty (now estimated at about 4000 B.C.). The

youngest texts date from the period of the Roman Empire.

The inconvenience experienced in writing the hieroglyphics early

led to the invention of abbreviated forms. These were of two kinds,

viz., the _linear hieroglyphics_, and a derivative therefrom, the

cursive _hieratic character_, suitable for rapid writing. On some of

the stone blocks in the Pyramid of Cheops (_ke’ops_), the monarch’s

name is inscribed in hieratic characters; while the oldest texts of

the so-called Book of the Dead are in linear hieroglyphics, which

remained the favorite form for this religious work, as well as for

most funeral papyri. There are two kinds of hieratic—one closely

resembling the old linear hieroglyphics, and in common use during the

Middle Empire (2100-1700 B.C.); the other, a simplified and abbreviated

form, introduced early in the period styled the New Empire (about 1530

B.C.). From this second form of hieratic, the Phœnicians derived their

alphabet (see p. 20, and plate p. 87). In the seventh century B.C.,

the hieratic gave place to the still simpler _demotic_, which has not

inaptly been called Egyptian short-hand.

LITERARY REMAINS.

Egyptian literature, like other ancient literatures, passed through

periods of development and decay. It had its dawn or archaic period,

its classical and Augustan era, and its age of decline.

=The Archaic Age of Egyptian Literature= was the epoch of the Old

Empire (3800-2400 B.C.) From this remote period there have come down

to us mainly inscriptions carved on the walls of private tombs and

royal pyramids. The earliest religious writings, comprising the oldest

portions of the Book of the Dead, date also from this time; and a few

popular songs remain, but they are difficult of interpretation. There

is further a compilation of maxims, attributed to Prince Ptahhôtep,

who lived about 2500 B.C. The style of the archaic period is simple,

clear, and forcible; the writings are, in the main, intelligible. As

specimens, we present the entire text of one inscription, with extracts

from another:

INSCRIPTION ON THE SARCOPHAGUS OF KING MENKAURÂ (3700 B.C.)

“O Osiris, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Menkaurâ,[14] immortal one!

Thy father is the heaven, thy mother is Nut (goddess of the heavens),

thou art of the family of Qeb (god of the earth). Thy mother Nut bends

over thee in the shape of her divine secret. She enables thee to be

a god; no longer hast thou enemies hereafter, thou immortal king of

Upper and Lower Egypt!”

FROM THE INSCRIPTION OF UNA,

A GENERAL OF THE VI. DYNASTY (2400 B.C.).

“This army went in safety; it devastated the land of the Bedouins.

This army went in safety; it destroyed their fortifications. This army

went in safety; it cut down their fig-trees and grape-vines. This

army went in safety; it killed their troops there by many thousands.

This army went in safety; it took very many prisoners alive. His

majesty praised me for this above everything. His majesty sent out

this army five times to devastate the land of the Bedouins, every

time they rebelled. I acted so that his majesty praised me above

everything.”—_Wendel._

The first extract is of interest as being a translation of the oldest

religious text yet found. (On the monuments, _consult “Records of the

Past,”_ 1874-1889; _and Maspero’s “Les Contes Populaires de l’Egypte.”_)

=Classical Age of Egyptian Literature.=—After the Archaic period there

is a great blank in Egyptian history; but about 2100 B.C. we begin

again with trustworthy accounts. It would appear that Egypt had been

subjected, at the close of Dynasty VI., by foreign invaders, who were

expelled by the Theban princes of Dynasty XI. The final regeneration

of the empire, however, was accomplished by Amenemhât I., the founder

of Dynasty XII., which, with the following, covers the period commonly

called the Middle Empire (2100-1800 B.C.), at the close of which Egypt

fell a prey to the Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings.

This epoch was regarded by later native writers as the classical age of

their literature. It is represented by large numbers of inscriptions,

and some remarkable papyri. Among the latter are the so-called Prisse

papyrus,[15] a collection of ill understood moral maxims attributed

to Prince Ptahhôtep; and the memoirs of Prince Saneha, a noble of the

time, who was forced to fly from Egypt, and for many years lived among

the Bedouins of Asia. Other works of the period are “The Instructions

of Amenemhât I. to his son Usertesen I.,” the oldest version of the

famous “Minstrel’s Song” (sometimes called the “Festal Dirge”), and

several fairy stories, notably the “Tale of Snake Island.” The style

of the literature is obscure. Much of it was unintelligible even to

scholars of the succeeding periods.

Under the Hyksos, phenomenal encouragement appears to have been given

to the study of science. A mathematical hand-book of considerable

merit reflects the tendencies of the time, as does more markedly

the interesting “Papyrus Ebers,”[16] the oldest medical work in the

world—both dating from the 17th century B.C.

Selections from two prose works, and a poem entire, follow, in

illustration of the style of the Classical Age:

FROM THE MEMOIRS OF PRINCE SANEHA.

This noble, who held a high command in the army, having been

implicated in a conspiracy against King Amenemhât I., was compelled

to fly the country, and lived for many years in Syria, among the

Bedouins. The Memoirs contain interesting details of his Arab

life. He tells us that on reaching the eastern boundary of Egypt,

he encountered a line of forts stretching across the isthmus as a

protection against the Bedouins. “Then I hid in the bushes for fear

the sentinels on the wall would see me. In the night I went on, and

reached the land of Peten by daybreak. As I approached Lake Qemwer,

thirst came upon me, and my throat was parched; so I said,‘this is a

foretaste of death.’ Suddenly my heart took new courage, and I arose—I

had heard the lowing of a herd. I saw a Bedouin. He gave me water, and

cooked milk for me.”

Then Saneha proceeds to relate how he found his way into Syria, and

was cared for by the king, who gave the fugitive the hand of his

daughter in marriage; for the prince had heard who Saneha was, and

“all his prowess,” from Egyptians dwelling at the court. “He let me

choose a tract from the finest lands on the border of another country.

This was the beautiful district of Aaa; there grow in it figs and

grapes; it has much wine, and is rich in honey; abundant are its

olives, and all kinds of fruits grow on its trees. Wheat and barley

mature there, and herds unnumbered find pasturage. And yet greater

grace he showed me in making me sheik of a tribe. Every people against

which I went, I conquered and drove away from its pastures and wells.

I stampeded its herds, enslaved its children, plundered its stores,

and killed the people with my sword, my bow, and my wise plans.”—After

living in Syria for some years, Saneha was pardoned by his king, and

returned to Egypt.

THE TALE OF SNAKE ISLAND.

This charming tale relates how a treasury official is wrecked on an

island in the Red Sea, while on his way to the mines of Sinai. The

island is ruled by a great serpent, and inhabited only by snakes. The

official remains for some time the guest of the prince, and is then

dismissed loaded with presents.

“I was travelling to the mines of the king, and had gone to sea on

a ship 150 yards long and 40 yards broad (compare with the size of

modern vessels), that was manned by 150 of the best Egyptian sailors,

who knew heaven and earth, and whose hearts were wiser than those of

the lions. When we were at sea, a storm arose; and as we approached

land the wind grew stronger, and the waves were eight yards high (only

in most violent storms are waves observed whose height from crest to

trough is 40 feet). I alone caught hold of a piece of timber; all the

others that were on the ship perished. A wave cast me on an island.

There I found figs and grapes, melons, fish, and birds. I ate, and of

what I had taken too much I laid aside. Then I lighted a fire, and

sacrificed to the gods.”

THE MINSTREL’S SONG (2150 B.C.).

“Song which is in the house of the late king Antef, and which is

before the minstrel. It is a wise decree of that Good Lord, a perfect

fate, that while one body passes away others remain, ever since the

time of our ancestors! The gods that once lived (the dead kings) now

repose in their tombs The mummies are buried. When houses are built,

there is no room for them. What has become of them? I have heard

the sayings of Imhotep and Hardedef (two sages), which are sung in

numerous lays:‘What are now their places? Their walls are fallen;

they are no more, even as if they had never been.’ No one chants their

good qualities or their deeds; no one decides that our hearts shall go

where they have gone.

“Thou art in good health; thy heart revolts against the funeral rites.

Follow thy heart while thou livest. Put perfumes on thy hair, don fine

linen! Anoint thyself with the finest of the salves of the gods! Do

more than thou hast hitherto done! Let not thy heart grow sore! Follow

thy desire and thy happiness while thou dwellest on the earth, until

that day comes for thee when men will pray, and the god whose heart

no longer beats (Osiris) hears not those who pray! The lamentations

will not rejoice the dead. Have a good time! Assuredly none take

their possessions with them! Assuredly no one that hath gone hath yet

returned!”—_Wendel._

=Golden Age of Egyptian Literature.=—With the expulsion of the Hyksos

by Theban kings (1530 B.C.), the New Empire began; it continued

until about 1080 B.C., and was contemporaneous with the Golden Age

of Egyptian letters. Under the New Empire, the Egyptian dominion was

extended eastward into Asia, and far to the south in Ethiopia. Foreign

successes kindled the native imagination; hence the general tone of

gayety which pervades the literature of the period. Religious works

naturally occupy the first place. They comprise commentaries on the

older theological writings embodied in the Book of the Dead,[17] long

rituals and liturgies, and numerous sublime hymns to the gods.

[Illustration: PAPYRUS, FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL

SOCIETY.]

The secular literature is peculiarly brilliant. Magnificent hymns to

the kings, legendary accounts of historical events like “The Taking

of Joppe” and “The Expulsion of the Hyksos,” charmingly told fairy

tales, accounts of travel and adventure, and spirited lyrics—give us an

exalted opinion of the literary ability of Egyptian writers. Even an

epic is not wanting, if we may so call the poetic description of the

battle of Rameses II. with the Hittites. The inscriptions are of great

value, for it is from them we have derived our knowledge of the history

of the period. Both kings and private citizens have left coherent

accounts. Nor was science neglected. Several medical papyri have been

found, and in certain tombs have been preserved veritable treatises

on astronomy and long astronomical tables. The style is attractive,

clear, and vigorous, owing to the fact that the grammatical forms have

increased in number, thus permitting a more easy and varied expression.

(_See Erman’s “Ægypten,” vol. ii., p. 442_). Literary specimens follow:

HYMN TO THE SUN GOD RÂ.

(FROM THE BOOK OF THE DEAD.)

“Hail to thee who art Râ when thou risest, and Atum when thou settest!

Thou risest, risest and glowest, glowest crowned as king of the gods!

Thou art Lord of heaven and earth, creator of stars and men! Thou art

the sole god who hath existed from the beginning, who hath made the

lands and created men, who hath made the heavens and created the Nile,

who hath made the waters and endowed with life all that therein is!

Thou who hath built the hills and created men and the beasts of the

field!”—_Wendel._

The genius of the poets of the Golden Age may be estimated from the

following verses discovered on a monumental tablet among the ruins of

Thebes. They are represented as addressed by Amen-Râ (_ah’men rah_),

the supreme god of that city, to Thothmes III., under whom (15th

century B.C.) Egypt rose to the zenith of her military greatness, and,

according to a popular saying of the day, “placed her frontier where it

pleased herself.” The hymn is peculiarly beautiful in the original, by

reason of the harmonious cadence of its periods, and that parallelism

or “balance of clauses and ideas” which is largely characteristic of

Oriental poetry.[18]

HYMN TO THOTHMES III.

“I am come—to give thee power to destroy the princes of Djah:[19]

I cast them beneath thy feet that follow with their peoples.

Like to the Lord of Light, I make them see thy glory.

Thou glowest as my image!

I am come—to give thee power to destroy the people of Asia;

Captive now thou dost lead the Syrian Bedouin chieftains;

Adornèd in thy majesty, I make them see thy glory,

Glittering in thine arms and fighting high in thy war-car.

I am come—to give thee power to trample on western nations;

Cyprus and Phœnicia are lying at thy mercy.

Like a bold young bull, I make them see thy glory,

Strong with piercing horns, whom none approach.

I am come—to give thee power to trample on those in their harbors;

Tremble for fear of thee the distant islands of Metjen.[20]

Like the dreaded crocodile, I make them see thy glory,

Lord of fear in the waters, whom none approach.”

It was by Thothmes III. that the obelisk conveyed from Alexandria to

the United States and erected in Central Park, New York (1880), was

inscribed with hieroglyphics and set up among “the images of On.”

Rameses II. subsequently added to the inscription of Thothmes. (_Read

Dr. Moldehnke’s “The New York Obelisk.”_)

AN EGYPTIAN EPIC.

Among the relics of this age of literary culture are several copies of

an epic celebrating the prowess of Rameses the Great in a war with the

Hittites—the only representative of its class in all the literature

that has been recovered. It has been compared to the Iliad, but

lacks many of the qualities which have rendered that poem immortal.

The grand central scene, vividly portrayed by the hand of a master

artist, discloses the king, forsaken by his cowardly troops in the

heat of battle, calling on Amen for aid, and with the god’s assistance

discomfiting single-handed the hostile multitude.

“How is this, father Amen? Doth the father forget his son? Naught have

I done without thee. Did I not march at thy word? What would these

Asiatics before Amen? Miserable he who knoweth not the god. Have I

not reared to thee unnumbered monuments and filled them with booty?

Shame on him who would scorn thy will! Hail to him who knoweth thee,

Amen! I call on thee, my father.

I am in the midst of many peoples! I am alone, my infantry and

charioteers have left me! When I called upon them, no one heard me.

When I called upon them, I found that Amen was better for me than

millions of foot-soldiers and thousands of charioteers, of brothers

and sons united. Vain are the works of men; Amen is mightier. He is

coming to me! He giveth me his hand! I take courage again! I shoot

right and left. I am as a pestilence over them!”

THE TALE OF THE TWO BROTHERS.

One of the most beautiful of the old fairy tales is that bearing the

title above. It sets forth the rustic life of two devoted brothers;

the false accusation of one by the wife of the other; the flight of

the accused after a warning given him by his faithful cattle; his

pursuit by the elder brother, and his miraculous escape; the reunion

of the brothers; many strange adventures, terminating in the elevation

of the younger brother to the throne of Egypt, and of the elder to the

proud position of hereditary prince.

It is a curious fact that, with few exceptions, we are left in

ignorance of the names of the Egyptian authors. The papyri generally

conclude with a remark to the effect that they have been copied at the

instance of the royal scribes.

=The Period of Decline= began about 1080 B.C. Demotic literature

contains but two noteworthy works—“The Romance of Setna,” a weird

tale of magic, and a half-legendary history known as the “Demotic

Chronicles.” Demotic fables, in which animals are represented as

conversing, appear to have been imitations of Greek originals. The

writings of this period are in the main religious.

Such is the literature which the sands of Egypt have yielded to modern

research—a literature which, itself of greater antiquity, furnished

models even to the nations that we call ancient. While these later

nations, judging from the remains that have thus far come to our

knowledge, certainly improved on their masters in artistic finish

and grandeur of conception, it must be remembered that we have not

yet fully sounded the depths of Egyptian literature. We know not

what masterpieces may still lie hid beneath the sand, or bear the

mummy company in some undiscovered tomb. We are, indeed, justified

in expecting greater works from the land that was the fount of Greek

inspiration—the dayspring of knowledge to the Chosen People; whose

religion bears in many points a strange analogy to ours; whose lasting

structures are emblematic of the soul’s immortality; and whose

lotus-blossoms, reopening every morning, symbolize the resurrection

from the night of death.

NOTES ON EGYPTIAN EDUCATION, ETC.

Egyptian education in the hands of state officials, who gave

instruction in the duties of their several offices. In ancient times,

boys born on the same day with a prince educated with him. Those that

were to become scribes, sent to school at a very early age; the same

advantages enjoyed by poorer pupils as by their richer fellows. No

castes. After the children had learned to write, they were given old

texts to copy in the form of letters, moral treatises, tales, hymns,

etc. Thus they mastered the grammar of their language, and at the

same time became acquainted with its literature. Schools dismissed at

noon; boys employed during the afternoon in the practical work of the

department. Corporal punishment in great repute. Students of theology

afterward entered at temple schools. No mention made of the education

of girls.

Particular attention bestowed on astronomy and elementary mathematics.

Arithmetic and geometry taught; possibly the rudiments of algebra.

Considerable progress made in medical science; Egyptian physicians

versed in materia medica and physiology, and thoroughly familiar with

anatomy. They were adepts in surgery, and practised specialties.

Mummies found with gold fillings in their teeth, and bandaged as

skilfully as by an expert of to-day.

The ancient Egyptians excelled all other nations in their fondness for

recording. The chisel or reed ever busy. Red and black ink employed in

inscribing papyri, the former marking the openings of paragraphs. Inks

and colors kept in pots fitted in depressions in the oblong palettes.

Dancing, gymnastics, games of ball and draughts, fishing in preserves,

or in the swamps of the Delta with hooks, nets, and spears,

spearing the hippopotamus from canoes, and hunting wild fowl in the

marshes—favorite pastimes. Ladies present at the sports and sumptuous

banquets. A keen eye for humor manifested in the fondness of the

Egyptians for caricature, from which even their representations of

funeral ceremonies were not exempt.

[Illustration: ANCIENT GREECE with the COAST OF ASIA MINOR

_Russell & Struthers, N.Y._]

PART II.

GRECIAN LITERATURE.

CHAPTER I.

_BIRTH OF GRECIAN LITERATURE._

=Early Settlement of Greece.=—While Chaldea and Assyria were rising to

greatness, while Phœnicia was winning for herself maritime supremacy,

and wonders in art and science were spreading the renown of Egypt

throughout the earth, a simple agricultural people was quietly moving

westward toward Greece and Italy. In very early times, Aryan tribes

known as _Pelasgic_ quitted their habitations in southwestern Bactria

(Map, p. 15), and made their way through Persia and Mesopotamia into

Asia Minor. Here, on rich tablelands irrigated by the head-waters of

streams flowing into the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, presumably

among the gold-bearing mountains and vine-grown valleys of Phrygia (see

Map), they cultivated their grain, pastured their sheep, made permanent

settlements, and rapidly grew into a great nation. These Pelasgic

tribes were the ancestors of the Greeks and Romans.

The same general causes that led to emigration from the mother-country

crowded toward the coast communities of this Phrygian people, and

ultimately obliged them to seek new homes in the west. Perhaps,

paddling from island to island in rude galleys, some crossed the

Æge’an; perhaps, passing the Hellespont, some picked their way through

Thrace and Macedonia, entered the defiles of the northern mountains,

and spread over Greece; while others, more adventurous, pushed their

course still farther, and peopled the Italian peninsula.

The Pelasgic tribes were probably the first occupants of Greece and

Italy. Earlier emigrants from Asia appear to have found all they

desired in the accessible districts of central Europe, and not to have

climbed the steep ranges that hemmed in those regions on the south. The

Greeks themselves claimed with pride to have sprung from the earth; and

a golden grasshopper, worn in the hair as an ornament by the Athenians,

pointed to this belief in their _autochthony_.

=The Hellenes.=—Fresh bodies of Pelasgians continued to arrive from

Asia Minor, until all Greece was populated with a thrifty race of

husbandmen and shepherds. Upon this primitive Pelasgian stock was

afterward engrafted a branch called Hellenic, identical with it in

origin, but forced to a higher state of development in the garden of

Asiatic culture, and ready to burst into blossom on the soil of Greece.

The new-comers were the Helle’nes, a people of greater vigor, physical

and intellectual. Mingling with their Pelasgian kinsmen in the Grecian

peninsula, they formed a new nation, endowed with fresh life; and the

Pelasgic dialect, modified and energized by their more cultivated

tongue, was converted into GREEK.

The Greeks had a popular proverb, _do nothing too much_, which they

applied in writing as in acting. Pruning away too great exuberance and

repressing the Oriental tendency to exaggerate, they reduced everything

to the standard of a rigid but elegant correctness. More artistic

than the Hindoos, less luxuriant in imagination but with a chaster

and severer taste, they established a literature richly furnished in

every department, whose influence can be traced in the works of genius

that stand out in every age and country. As Professor Jebb says, “the

thoughts of the great Greek thinkers have been bearing fruit in the

world ever since they were first uttered.” (_See Dr. Curtius’s “History

of Greece.”_)

Thus in Greece, Aryan energy, freed from the trammels of Oriental

despotism, seems first to have found its true development. The

facilities which this country enjoyed for intercourse with Egypt and

Phœnicia, enabled it to draw from the learning of one, to copy the

enterprise and adopt the inventions of the other. This accounts for its

having been the seat of the earliest European civilization.

At a later period, we find the Hellenes separated into three great

families—the Æolians, occupying generally the north of Greece; the

Ionians, distributed over the central portions; and the Dorians,

settled in the south (the Peloponnesus, _island of Pelops_). Connected

with these three divisions were as many dialects—Æolic, Ionic, and

Doric Greek—of which, Ionic was the softest and most polished. This

Ionic, refined and perfected, became what is known as Attic Greek; it

was the language of Athens in the golden age of her art and poetry, and

for centuries was understood by the educated classes throughout a great

part of the civilized world.

These Hellenic dialects were also spoken on the islands of the Ægean

and the coast of Asia Minor; for the tide of emigration set back again

toward the Asiatic shores, and Æolians, Ionians, and Dorians, returned

in great colonies to the neighborhood of their early home.

=Ancient Greek= is the most musical language of the Indo-European

group. Sanscrit indeed excels it in regularity, but offends the ear

with its sameness, the constant recurrence of a sounds wearying the

European reader. No such monotonous repetition mars the harmony of

Greek, which, on the other hand, presents a pleasing variety in its

vowel sounds, its numerous diphthongs, and consonant combinations.

Nor is this variety to be wondered at, for tribes differing in their

habits and intellectual traits, mingling on the shores of the Ægean,

contributed different elements to the common language. Above all, the

Greeks were gifted with a delicate ear, which led them, in the oral

transmission of their earliest poetry, to soften all harshness in their

tongue and make it melody itself.

In common with Sanscrit, Greek was well adapted to the formation of

compound words by the combining of primitives; but this facility for

combination was turned to account only so far as was consistent with

clearness and taste; the unwieldy polysyllabic compounds of Sanscrit

were wanting. The Greek rivals its Indian sister in luxuriance of

inflection also, having five cases, three numbers, and three voices

for the verb. Accents were used in later days to denote the peculiar

key or tone of voice; for the Greeks appreciated the subtle difference

between _tone_ (accent) and _quantity_ in pronunciation, a distinction

unrecognized in modern languages.

Greek is universally admired for its dignity, versatility, and

precision; its blending of strength and elegance, unity and variety.

It is suited to all departments of composition; to the effective

expression of the various emotions; to stately prose or simple verse.

Its perfection at so early a period, particularly in view of the social

condition of the people who spoke it, is a phenomenon which we vainly

seek to explain.

=The Greek Alphabet.=—The Phœnician letters were adopted by the Greeks,

legend ascribing their introduction to Cadmus, the storied founder of

Thebes (1500 B.C.). Some changes were made in these; new characters

were added by the Ionians; and about 400 B.C. the resulting alphabet,

consisting of twenty-four letters, was officially adopted at Athens.

The resemblance between the Greek and the Phœnician alphabet is

obvious; see Table, p. 87.

That there was Pelasgian picture-writing in Greece before the Phœnician

alphabet reached that country, is by no means improbable.

=The Beginnings of Greek Poetry= are found in the sacred ode, the

metrical response of the oracle, the festal song, and the ballad

immortalizing the deeds of heroes during the mythical ages. The art of

poetry was coeval with the first settlement of the peninsula; but its

higher development followed the transfusion of Hellenic genius into the

older Pelasgian race.

The earliest forms of poetry were hymns to the deities. The religion

of the Greeks was a worship of Nature. Imagination peopled every nook

of their picturesque land with supernatural beings; and each was

propitiated with song, from the wood-nymph supposed to reside in the

spreading oak to the sun-god Apollo, who, with the Nine Muses, the

goddesses of poetry, abode on snow-crowned Parnassus.

To Mother Earth (Deme’ter) were poured forth strains of glowing

gratitude for her bounty; the Mother of the Gods (Cyb’ele) was

worshipped with wilder verse, accompanied with the sound of cymbals

and riotous dances; the god of wine (Diony’sus or Bacchus) was hymned

with lively lays in praise of revelry; and so the burden of sacred

song varied with the character of the divinity. When spring clothed

the earth with beauty, the hymns were joyous; in autumn they breathed

a spirit of sadness, and at the grape-harvest was sung a plaintive

ditty, the Li’nus, as a coranach for the death of Nature. The perishing

of vegetation before the blighting breath of approaching winter was

symbolized by the fate of the beauteous youth Linus torn and devoured

by furious dogs. Of similar allegorical significance were many of the

hymns.

The delights and sorrows of domestic life also found utterance in

verse; when the bride was escorted to her new home the nuptial song was

sung, and for the dead the funeral dirge was chanted. At first this

was no doubt done with solemn pomp, as a religious ceremony; but the

tendency in Greece was to popularize song, and both dirge and bridal

hymn in time lost their mere ritual complexion, and became changed in

the mouths of the people into free outpourings of emotion.

The bard now aimed at entertaining his listeners; he filled an

important place at banquets and festivals, where, in short poems, he

chanted to the accompaniment of flute or lyre the adventures of heroes,

or so transformed old traditions that he was looked upon as their

maker (_poie’tes_, _poet_). All Greece honored him, regardless of his

nationality. Whether Æolian, Dorian, or Ionian, he contributed equally

to Hellenic fame, and was entitled to the sympathy and support of all

Hellenes. Indeed, he was invested with a sacred character, for he was

regarded as divinely inspired.

Thus was laid the foundation of Greek letters. From such rude

beginnings, the Greek imagination, by strides unparalleled in history,

mounted to the grandest heights ever attained in poetry. Moreover,

to original Greek genius we owe the different varieties of literary

composition,—epic, lyric, and dramatic poetry, history, criticism, and

oratory. Without the Grecian models, nowhere has marked superiority

been attained; the originals themselves have never been surpassed.

Tradition has given us the names of many poets belonging to the

fabulous age. (On the gods and men of the Heroic Period, _read

Gladstone’s “Juventus Mundi.”_)

LEGENDARY POETS OF GREECE.

ORPHEUS, the Thracian minstrel, inventor of religious poetry.

THAM’YRIS, deprived of his sight and poetical talent for challenging

the Muses to a trial of skill on the lyre.

EUMOLPUS, a Thracian priest; reputed founder of the Eleusinian

Mysteries.

O’LEN, earliest prophet of Apollo.

CHRYSOTH’EMIS, the Cretan.

MUSÆUS (_inspired by the Muses_), a son or disciple of Orpheus.

AMPHI’ON, taught of the god Mercury; raised stones into the walls of

Thebes by the strains of his lyre.

PHILAMMON, son of Apollo, and inventor of choral music.

PAMPHOS, author of the first Linus.

OLYMPUS, introducer of the flute.

PHEMON’OE, first priestess at the Delphic shrine, inventor of

hexameters.