Whilst the Journal of the Oriental Society attests the presence of good
Semitic and Sanskrit scholars in our colleges, no translation of an
Eastern poet has yet appeared in America. Of the two hundred Persian
bards of whose genius Von Hammer Purgstall has given specimens to
Germany, we have had only some fragments collected in journals and
anthologies. There are signs that this neglect is about to be retrieved.
In the interval, while we wait for translations of our own, we welcome
the announcement of an American edition, if it be only a careful
reprint, of the "Gulistan" of Saadi,--a book which has been current in
Asia and Europe now for six hundred years. Of the "Gulistan or
Rose-Garden" there exist three respectable English translations. That of
Gladwin is to be preferred for its more simple and forcible style. Mr.
Gladwin has not thought fit to turn into rhyme the passages of verse
with which the "Gulistan" is interspersed. It is the less important,
that these verses are seldom more than a metrical repetition of the
sentiment of the preceding paragraph. Mr. Eastwick's metrical renderings
do not make us regret their omission. Mr. James Ross, in an "Essay on
the Life and Genius of Saadi," has searched the works of his author, as
well as outside history, for biographical facts or personal allusions.
The slowness to import these books into our libraries--mainly owing, no
doubt, to the forbidding difficulty of the original languages--is due
also in part to some repulsion in the genius of races. At first sight,
the Oriental rhetoric does not please our Western taste. Life in the
East wants the complexity of European and American existence; and in the
writing of the primitive nations a certain monotony betrays the poverty
of the landscape, and of social conditions. Every word in Arabic is said
to be derived from the camel, the horse, or the sheep. We fancy we are
soon familiar with all their images. Medschun and Leila, rose and
nightingale, parrots and tulips; mosques and dervishes; desert, caravan,
and robbers; peeps at the harem; bags of gold dinars; slaves, horses,
camels, sabres, shawls, pearls, amber, cohol, and henna; insane
compliments to the Sultan, borrowed from the language of prayer; Hebrew
and Gueber legends molten into Arabesque;--'tis a short inventory of
topics and tropes, which incessantly return in Persian poetry. I do not
know but at the first encounter many readers take also an impression of
tawdry rhetoric, an exaggeration, and a taste for scarlet, running to
the borders of the negro-fine,--or if not, yet a pushing of the luxury
of ear and eye where it does not belong, as the Chinese in their
mathematics employ the colors blue and red for algebraic signs, instead
of our pitiless _x_ and _y_. These blemishes disappear, or diminish, on
better acquaintance. Where there is real merit, we are soon reconciled
to differences of taste. The charge of monotony lies more against the
numerous Western imitations than against the Persians themselves, and
though the torrid, like the arctic zone, puts some limit to variety, it
is least felt in the masters. It is the privilege of genius to play its
game indifferently with few or with many pieces, as Nature draws all her
opulence out of a few elements. Saadi exhibits perpetual variety of
situation and incident, and an equal depth of experience with Cardinal
de Retz in Paris or Doctor Johnson in London. He finds room on his
narrow canvas for the extremes of lot, the play of motives, the rule of
destiny, the lessons of morals, and the portraits of great men. He has
furnished the originals of a multitude of tales and proverbs which are
current in our mouths, and attributed by us to recent writers; as, for
example, the story of "Abraham and the Fire-Worshipper," once claimed
for Doctor Franklin, and afterwards traced to Jeremy Taylor, who
probably found it in Gentius.
The superlative, so distasteful in the temperate region, has vivacity in
the Eastern speech. In his compliments to the Shah, Saadi says,--"The
incurvated back of the sky became straight with joy at thy birth." "A
tax-gatherer," he says, "fell into a place so dangerous, that, from
fear, a male lion would become a female." Of dunces he says, with a
double superlative,--"If the ass of Christ should go to Mecca, it would
come back an ass still." It is a saying from I know not what poet,--"If
the elegant verses of Dhoair Fariabi fall into thy hands, steal them,
though it were in the sacred temple of Mecca itself." But the wildness
of license appears in poetical praises of the Sultan:--"When his bow
moves, it is already the last day [for his enemies]; whom his onset
singles out, to him is life not appointed; and the ghost of the Holy
Ghost were not sure of its time."
But when once the works of these poets are made accessible, they must
draw the curiosity of good readers. It is provincial to ignore them. If,
as Mackintosh said, "whatever is popular deserves attention," much more
does that which has fame. The poet stands in strict relation to his
people: he has the over-dose of their nationality. We did not know them,
until they declared their taste by their enthusiastic welcome of his
genius. Foreign criticism might easily neglect him, unless their
applauses showed the high historic importance of his powers. In these
songs and elegies breaks into light the national mind of the Persians
and Arabians. The monotonies which we accuse, accuse our own. We pass
into a new landscape, new costume, new religion, new manners and
customs, under which humanity nestles very comfortably at Shiraz and
Mecca, with good appetite, and with moral and intellectual results that
correspond, point for point, with ours at New York and London. It needs
in every sense a free translation, just as, from geographical position,
the Persians attribute to the east wind what we say of the west.
Saadi, though he has not the lyric flights of Hafiz, has wit, practical
sense, and just moral sentiments. He has the instinct to teach, and from
every occurrence must draw the moral, like Franklin. He is the poet of
friendship, love, self-devotion, and serenity. There is a uniform force
in his page, and, conspicuously, a tone of cheerfulness, which has
almost made his name a synonyme for this grace. The word _Saadi_ means
_Fortunate_. In him the trait is no result of levity, much less of
convivial habit, but first of a happy nature, to which victory is
habitual, easily shedding mishaps, with sensibility to pleasure, and
with resources against pain. But it also results from the habitual
perception of the beneficent laws that control the world. He inspires in
the reader a good hope. What a contrast between the cynical tone of
Byron and the benevolent wisdom of Saadi!
Saadi has been longer and better known in the Western nations than any
of his countrymen. By turns, a student, a water-carrier, a traveller, a
soldier fighting against the Christians in the Crusades, a prisoner
employed to dig trenches before Tripoli, and an honored poet in his
protracted old age at home,--his varied and severe experience took away
all provincial tone, and gave him a facility of speaking to all
conditions. But the commanding reason of his wider popularity is his
deeper sense, which, in his treatment, expands the local forms and tints
to a cosmopolitan breadth. Through his Persian dialect he speaks to all
nations, and, like Homer, Shakspeare, Cervantes, and Montaigne, is
perpetually modern.
To the sprightly, but indolent Persians, conversation is a game of
skill. They wish to measure wit with you, and expect an adroit, a
brilliant, or a profound answer. Many narratives, doubtless, have
suffered in the translation, since a promising anecdote sometimes
heralds a flat speech. But Saadi's replies are seldom vulgar. His wit
answers to the heart of the question, often quite over the scope of the
inquirer. He has also that splendor of expression which alone, without
wealth of thought, sometimes constitutes a poet, and forces us to ponder
the problem of style. In his poem on his old age, he says,--"Saadi's
whole power lies in his sweet words: let this gift remain to me, I care
not what is taken."
The poet or thinker must always, in a rude nation, be the chief
authority on religion. All questions touching its truth and obligation
will come home to him, at last, for their answer. As he thinks and
speaks will intelligent men believe. Therefore a certain deference must
be shown him by the priests,--a result which conspicuously appears in
the history of Hafiz and Saadi. In common with his countrymen, Saadi
gives prominence to fatalism,--a doctrine which, in Persia, in Arabia,
and in India, has had, in all ages, a dreadful charm. "To all men," says
the Koran, "is their day of death appointed, and they cannot postpone or
advance it one hour. Wilt thou govern the world which God governs? Thy
lot is cast beforehand, and whithersoever it leads, thou must follow."
"Not one is among you," said Mahomet, "to whom is not already appointed
his seat in fire or his seat in bliss."
But the Sheik's mantle sits loosely on Saadi's shoulders, and I find in
him a pure theism. He asserts the universality of moral laws, and the
perpetual retributions. He celebrates the omnipotence of a virtuous
soul. A certain intimate and avowed piety, obviously in sympathy with
the feeling of his nation, is habitual to him. All the forms of courtesy
and of business in daily life take a religious tinge, as did those of
Europe in the Middle Age.
With the exception of a few passages, of which we need not stop to give
account, the morality of the "Gulistan" and the "Bostan" is pure, and so
little clogged with the superstition of the country that this does not
interfere with the pleasure of the modern reader: he can easily
translate their ethics into his own. Saadi praises alms, hospitality,
justice, courage, bounty, and humility; he respects the poor, and the
kings who befriend the poor. He admires the royal eminence of the
dervish or religious ascetic. "Hunger is a cloud out of which falls a
rain of eloquence and knowledge: when the belly is empty, the body
becomes spirit; when it is full, the spirit becomes body." He praises
humility. "Make thyself dust, to do anything well." "Near Casbin," he
tells us, "a man of the country of Parthia came forth to accost me,
mounted on a tiger. At this sight, such fear seized me that I could not
flee nor move. But he said,--'O Saadi, be not surprised at what thou
seest. Do thou only not withdraw thy neck from the yoke of God, and
nothing shall be able to withdraw its neck from thy yoke.'"
In a country where there are no libraries and no printing, people must
carry wisdom in sentences. Wonderful is the inconsecutiveness of the
Persian poets. European criticism finds that the unity of a beautiful
whole is everywhere wanting. Not only the story is short, but no two
sentences are joined. In looking through Von Hammer's anthology, culled
from a paradise of poets, the reader feels this painful discontinuity.
'Tis sand without lime,--as if the neighboring desert had _saharized_
the mind. It was said of Thomson's "Seasons," that the page would read
as well by omitting every alternate line. But the style of Thomson is
glue and bitumen to the loose and irrecoverable ramble of the Oriental
bards. No topic is too remote for their rapid suggestion. The Ghaselle
or Kassida is a chapter of proverbs, or proverbs unchaptered, unthreaded
beads of all colors, sizes, and values. Yet two topics are sure to
return in any and every proximity,--the mistress and the name of the
poet. Out of every ambush these leap on the unwary reader. Saadi, in the
"Gulistan," by the necessity of the narrative, corrects this arid
looseness, which appears, however, in his odes and elegies, as in Hafiz
and Dschami. As for the incessant return of the poet's name,--which
appears to be a sort of registry of copyrights,--the Persians often
relieve this heavy custom by wit and audacious sallies.
The Persians construct with great intrepidity their mythology and
legends of typical men. Jamschid, who reigned seven hundred years, and
was then driven from his throne, is their favorite example of the turns
of fortune. Karun or Corah, the alchemist, who converted all things to
gold, but perished with his treasures at the word of Moses, is their
Croesus. Lokman, the AEsop of the East, lived to an enormous age, was
the great-grandson of Noah, etc. Saadi relates, that Lokman, in his last
years, dwelt on the border of a reedy marsh, where he constructed a
cabin, and busied himself with making osier baskets. The Angel of Death
appeared to him, and said,--"Lokman, how is it, that, in three thousand
years that you have lived in the world, you have never known how to
build a house?" Lokman replied,--"O Azrael! one would be a fool, knowing
that you were always at his heels, to set himself at building a house."
Hatem Tai is their type of hospitality, who, when the Greek emperor sent
to pray him to bestow on him his incomparable horse, received the
messenger with honor, and, having no meat in his tent, killed the horse
for his banquet, before he yet knew the object of the visit. Nushirvan
the Just is their Marcus Antoninus, or Washington, to whom every wise
counsel in government is attributed. And the good behavior of rulers is
a point to which Saadi constantly returns. It is one of his maxims, that
the "_bons mots_ of kings are the kings of _bons mots_." One of these
is,--"At night thou must go in prayer a beggar, if by day thou wilt
carry thyself as a king." Again,--"A king is like a great and massive
wall: as soon as he leans from the perpendicular [of equity], he is near
his ruin." Again,--"You, O king, sit in the place of those who are gone,
and of those who are to come: how can you establish a firm abode between
two non-existences?" Dzoul Noun, of Grand Cairo, said to the Caliph,--"I
have learned that one to whom you have given power in the country treats
the subjects with severity, and permits daily wrongs and violences
there." The Caliph replied,--"There will come a day when I will severely
punish him." "Yes," returned the other, "you will wait until he has
taken all the goods of the subjects; then you will bestir yourself, and
snatch them from him, and will fill your treasury. But what good will
that do to your poor and miserable people?" The Caliph was ashamed, and
ordered the instant punishment of the offender.
It appears, from the anecdotes which Professor Graf has rendered from
the Calcutta manuscripts, that Saadi enjoyed very high respect from the
great in his own time, and from the Sultan of the Mongolian court,--and
that he used very plain dealing with this last, for the redress of
grievances which fell under his notice. These, with other passages, mark
the state of society wherein a shepherd becomes a robber, then a
conqueror, and then sultan. In a rude and religious society, a poet and
traveller is thereby a noble and the associate of princes, a teacher of
religion, a mediator between the people and the prince, and, by his
exceptional position, uses great freedom with the rulers. The growth of
cities and increase of trade rapidly block up this bold access of truth
to the courts, as the narrator of these events in Saadi's life plainly
intimates. "The Sultan, Abake Khan, found great pleasure in the verses.
Truly, at the present time, no learned men or Sheiks would dare to utter
such advice, even to a grocer or a butcher; and hence, also, is the
world in such bad plight as we see."
The Persians have been called "the French of Asia"; and their superior
intelligence, their esteem for men of learning, their welcome to Western
travellers, and their tolerance of Christian sects in their territory,
as contrasted with Turkish fanaticism, would seem to derive from the
rich culture of this great choir of poets, perpetually reinforced
through five hundred years, which again and again has enabled the
Persians to refine and civilize their conquerors, and to preserve a
national identity. To the expansion of this influence there is no limit;
and we wish that the promised republication may add to the genius of
Saadi a new audience in America.