COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

408 COSM08-
poetry have perished. It was not until the country had been
subjugated by the Arabs, and had lost its
original character-
istics, that it again acquired a national literature amongst the
Samanides, Gaznevides, and Seldschukes. The flourishing-
from Firdusi to Hafiz and
period of their poetry extending
Dschami, scarcely lasted more than four or five hundred years,
and hardly reaches to the time of the voyage of Vasco de
Gama. We must not forget in seeking to trace the love of
nature evinced by the Indians and Persians, that these
nations, if we judge according to the amount of cultivation
by which they are respectively characterised, appear to be
separated alike by time and space. Persian literature belongs
as for instance where Visvamitra is described as leading his pupil to the
shores of the Sona. (S isupaladha, ed. Calc. pp. 298 and 372; compare
Schiitz, op. cit. s. 25-28; Naischada-tsckarita, ed. Calc. P. 1, v. 77-129:
and Ramayana, ed. Schlegel, lib. 1, cap. 35, v. 15-18.) Kalidasa, the
celebrated author of Sakuntala, has a masterly manner of representing
the influence which the aspect of nature exercises on the minds and
feelings of lovers. The forest scene which he has pourtrayed
in the
drama of Vikrama and Urvasi may rank amongst the finest poetic
creations of any period. (Vikramorvasi, ed. Calc. 1830, p. 71; see the
translation in Wilson's Select Specimen* of the Theatre of the Hindus,
Calc. 1827, vol. ii. p. 63.) Particular reference should be made in the
poem of The Seasons, to the passages referring to the rainy season and to
spring. (Ritusanhdra, ed. Bohlen, 1840, pp. 11-18 and 37-45, and
s. 80--88, 107-114 of Bohlen's translation.) In the Messenger of Clouds,
likewise the work of Kalidasa, the influence of external nature on the
feelings of men is also the leading subject of the composition. This
poem (the Meghaduta, or Messenger of Clouds, which has been edited by
Gildemeister and Wilson, and translated both by Wilson and by Chezy)
describes the grief of an exile on the mountain Ramagiri. In his longing
for the presence of his beloved, from whom he is separated, he entreats a
passing cloud to convey to her tidings of his sorrows, and describes to
the cloud the path which it must pursue, depicting the landscape as
it would be reflected in a mind agitated with deep emotion. Among
the treasures which the Indian poetry of the third period owes to the
influence of nature on the national mind, the highest praise must be
awarded to the Gitagovinda of Dschayadeva. (Ruckert, in the Zeit-
achrfft fiir die Kunde des Morgenlandes, bd. i. 1837, s. 129-173;
Gitayovi-nda Jayadevce 2ioetce indici drama lyricum, ed. Chr. Lasscn,
1836.) We possess a masterly rythmical translation of this poem by
.Kiickcrt, which is one of the most pleasing, and at the same time one of
the most difficult in the whole literature of the Indians. The spirit of
the original is rendered with admirable fidelity, whilst a vivid concep-
tion of nature animates every part of this great composition.