CHAPTER I.

HISTORIC OUTLINE.

ORIGIN OF PERSIAN LITERATURE—ACCAD AND SUMER—LITERATURE OF NINEVEH— BABYLON—ĪRĀN OR PERSIA—PHYSICAL FEATURES—PERSIAN ART—MANUSCRIPTS— EARLY LITERATURE—THE ARABIAN CONQUEST—LITERATURE OF MODERN PERSIA— PERSIAN ROMANCE.

Every nation has a literature peculiarly her own, even though it may find its sources in foreign fields. As Persia was founded upon the ruins of more ancient monarchies, as she gathered into the halls of her kings the spoils of conquered nations, so also her literature was enriched by the philosophy and science, the poetry and mythology of her predecessors. The resistless horde, which poured down from the mountains and swept all of Western Asia into its current, formed the kindred tribes into a single monarchy, and this monarchy gathered unto herself, not only the wealth and military glory, but also the culture and learning of the nations she had conquered. The whole civilized world was taxed to maintain the splendors of her court; the imperial purple was found in the city of Tyre, and her fleets also came from Phœnicia, for the experience of this maritime people was indispensable to their Persian masters. Indian groves furnished the costly woods of aloe and of sandal that burned upon her altars, while Syria and the islands of the sea filled her flagons with wine.

The richest fruits were brought from the sunny shores of Malay, and even the desert sent tributes of incense and gold. Herds of camels came from Yemen, and horses of the finest Arabian blood were found in the royal stables. What wonder, then, that the nation which rifled continents to supply her magnificence should appropriate also the wealth of the world of letters that came under her sway? In the background of Persian power there lies an historic past which is replete with the literary treasures of the Orient.

ACCAD AND SUMER.

There is the far away land of ancient Babylonia, with her territory divided into Accad[1] and Sumer or Shinar. These were the northern and southern divisions of the country.

According to Prof. Sayce, “the whole of Babylonia was originally inhabited by a non-Semitic race, but the Semites established their power in Accad, or North Babylonia, at an earlier date than they did in Sumer in the south; the non-Semitic dynasties and culture lingered longer therefore in Sumer.”[2]

Their land was the home of the palm tree, and from the highlands, where their rivers found their source, down to the shores of the Persian Gulf, it presented a wealth of foliage and blossoms. Fields that were covered with ripening grain awaited the sickle of the reaper, while the fruit trees bent beneath their burdens, and the vines gleamed in the sunlight with clusters of gold and purple.

Although we know little of this primitive people, a few of their imperishable records have come down to us, and light is thus thrown upon the literary culture which prevailed from the Euphrates to the Nile long before the Exodus. We have the inscriptions[3] of Dungi, the king of “Ur of the Chaldees,” and also “king of Sumer and Accad.” We have, too, a portion of the clay tablets recounting the glory of Sargon I, who carried his conquests into the land of the Elamites, and even subdued the Hittites in northern Syria. The independent states of Babylonia also were brought under his sway, and he claimed to be “the sovereign of the four regions of the world,” while his Accadian subjects gave him the name of “the king of justice and the deviser of prosperity.” He was the patron of letters, and in the library[4] of this old Semitic king, in the city of Accad, there was written on pages of clay a work on astronomy and astrology in seventy-two books.

Long before the poets of India, of Greece or of Persia began to weave their gorgeous web of mythology, the seers of Accad and of Shinar watched beside the great loom of Nature, as she wove out the curtains of the morning and the crimson draperies of the setting sun. They listened to the battle of the elements around their mountain peaks, and dreamt of the storm-king; they heard the musical murmurs of the wind, as it whispered to the closing flowers; they felt the benediction of the night, with its voices of peace, and the divine poem of earth’s beauty found an echo in their hearts.

The bloom of Accadian poetry may be placed about four thousand years before our own times, when the primeval teachings of Nature had become the theme of the poet, and been voiced in the measures of song.

But the scientific impulse of ancient Accad remained an impulse only, the methods of science were undiscovered, and the student was led astray by his own fancies and misconceptions; still amidst all the false science of a primitive Chaldea there were germs of truth, which have been developed even in our own times. The classic writers said truly that Babylonia was the birthplace of astronomy. It was also the birthplace of mathematics; and although their figures were simple, the Chaldeans attained quite a proficiency in their calculations. The library at Larsa or Senkereh was famous for its mathematical works, and it formed a nucleus for students from various portions the country.

LITERATURE OF NINEVEH.

On the banks of the Tigris, a great city lifted her battlements and arches towards the skies, and became the home of Assyrian Kings. According to Diodorus[5] her walls were an hundred feet high, and so broad that four chariots could be driven abreast upon them, while fifteen hundred towers, apparently impregnable, arose from their massive foundations. Nineveh was the home of imperial splendor, and twenty-two kings were taxed to supply the materials for her costly palaces where the finest sculptures of the East were found. Assyrian art covered her angles with graceful curves, and built her temples with their gilded domes, while the interior walls were adorned with sculptured slabs of white alabaster. The germs of Greek art, as well as Greek mythology, were found in the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates, for here were Doric and Ionic columns; here were Corinthian capitals, with architrave, frieze and cornice, and yet the latest of these must have been carved before the earliest date which has been assigned to any work of Grecian art. Though her culture was confined to certain classes, and the great mass of her population could not discern between their right hands and their left, still, for centuries Nineveh[6] was the mistress of the East, even Babylon being subject to her power.

She reached the zenith of her glory under the rule of Assur-bani-pal (the Sardanapalus of the Greeks). He was the grand monarch of Assyria, and under his reign the treasures of the world flowed to this common centre, while the name of Nineveh was feared from the frontiers of India to the shores of the Ægean sea. Ambitious in his schemes of conquest, and luxurious in the splendors of his court, he nevertheless confided his military movements largely to the hands of his ablest generals, and devoted much attention to the accumulation of his strange library at the capital city. Here he gathered the literary treasures of the Orient, and scribes were kept busy copying and translating early works, or writing original books, either in the Assyrian or the Accadian tongue. The decaying literature of Babylonia was forwarded to Nineveh, where it was copied and edited by the Assyrians. A new text was the most valuable present that any city could send to this literary king, and it was received with the enthusiasm exhibited by a modern scholar on the reception of a rare manuscript. It is to the library of Assur-bani-pal, that we are indebted for much of our knowledge of Babylonian literature— stored away in those curious vaults, were thousands of books written upon pages of clay. There were historical and mythological works, legal records, geographical and astronomical documents, as well as poetical productions. There were lists of stones and trees, of birds and beasts, besides the official copies of treaties, petitions to the king, and the royal proclamations. Strangers came from the court of Egypt, from Lydia, and from Cyprus to this ancient seat of learning. But while the king was absorbed in his favorite pursuits, the spirit of revolution was abroad in the land,—Elam, Babylonia, Arabia, Palestine, Egypt and Lydia made a common cause against the reigning monarch, the insurrection being led by the king’s own brother, the viceroy of Babylon. This great revolt shook the very foundations of the Assyrian monarchy, and ushered in the decline of an empire which extended from the borders of India to the Nubian mountains, and from the sands of Arabia to the snowy peaks of the Caucasus.

In a few years even Nineveh was captured and utterly destroyed, while her empire was shared between Media and Babylon.

BABYLON.

This was “the golden city” that gathered unto herself the wealth of conquered kingdoms and the dominion of many tribes. The multitude of gods in her pantheon represented the ideals of the various races of men who laid their offerings at her feet.

Babylon was the “hammer of the whole earth,” and she forced the tributes of the nations into her treasury, and their legions into her armies. She was “the glory of kingdoms,” and she gathered the culture of a thousand years into a great historic result that contained the arts and science, the literature, the wealth, and the commerce of half the world. The culmination of her power was in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, who was the Augustus of the Babylonian age.

He reconstructed the fallen temples of her idols and carried the hideous images in triumphal processions to their palatial courts.

Gold, silver and precious stones made bright the altars and temples of Baal, of Merodach, of Nebo, of Molech, and of Ashtaroth.

The choicest cedars were brought from the mountains of Lebanon. “The cedar of the roofing of the walls of Nebo, with gold I overlaid.... Strong bulls of copper, and dreadful serpents standing upright on their thresholds I erected. The cell of the lord of the gods—Merodach, I made to glisten like suns the walls thereof, with large gold like rubble stone.... I had them made brilliant as the sun.” Nebuchadnezzar was the undisputed master of Western Asia, and the walls of his palace were hung with historic pictures of Chaldean thrones, and draped with the most gorgeous tapestries of the Eastern looms, while in his princely halls the cool air fell from glittering fountains, and the royal abode was filled with music, light, and costly perfume. He built the wondrous hanging gardens, where the almond trees waved their sprays of silvery blossoms, and the palms tossed their plumes in the sunlight,—there the pink fingers of the dawn opened the hearts of the roses, and white lilies nestled amid the green slopes and fragrant shades, while the breezes came up from the great river laden with the breath of lotus blossoms and the soft music of her waves. This haughty king was also the patron of letters, and his inscriptions throw a vivid light upon his pride of power, and magnificence—his constant devotion to his idols, and his never ceasing admiration of his capital city,—“this great Babylon which I have built.” His books were written largely upon stone, and stored away beyond the reach of conquering kings. The literary treasures, which may even yet lie buried beneath her soil, probably belong to the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar, and owe their existence to him. In his days, too, there flourished the family of Egebi, who were tradesmen. This Jewish family is mentioned as early as the reign of Esar-haddon, and for five successive generations they deposited their legal documents in earthen jars which served the purpose of safes. These thrifty capitalists continued in prosperity even to the end of the reign of Darius the Great, and although coined money was then unknown and the precious metals[7] were reckoned by weight, they, like the Rothschilds of our own day, loaned money to the kings of their generation, and their well kept records are of great value as a chronological index of the times[8] in which they were written. The literature of the Babylonians, like that of the Hindūs, claims a fabulous antiquity. They enumerated ten kings who lived before the flood, whose reigns occupied four hundred and thirty-two thousand years, or more than forty-three centuries each, and during this immense cycle of time, there were strange creatures, half man and half fish, who ascended from the ocean and taught the tribes of Babylonia the rudiments of civilization. There were men with the bodies of birds and the tails of fishes, and men also with the beaks and faces of birds who in other respects wore the form of humanity.

But their literature was not all fable, though they really cared very little what the condition of their country had been before the deluge, for they were engaged in recounting the conquests of their own kings, and the power and splendor of their idols. Babylon, the Queen of the East, with her arts and sciences, with her painting and sculpture, was like other Asiatic cities, a hot-bed of moral corruption; even her religion was a craze of sorcery and enchantments—of witchcraft and horrible sensuality. Her high priests were astrologers and soothsayers, while her gods were the personification of evil. “Moloch demanded the best and dearest that the worshipper could grant him, and the parent was required to offer his eldest or only son as a sacrifice, while the victim’s cries were drowned by the noise of drums and flutes. When Agathokles defeated the Carthaginians, the noblest of the citizens offered in expiation three hundred of their children to Baal-Moloch.”[9]

The worship of Ishtar[10] demanded that every female devotee should begin her womanhood by public prostitution in the temple of the goddess, and young girls were often burned upon her altars, while young men were either burned or mutilated. Abominations even more revolting than these were practiced in connection with the worship of Bel, and the nations around her drank of her wine and were maddened with the frenzy of her corruption. What wonder, then, that even before the “Lady of Kingdoms” reached the zenith of her glory, the cry of the prophets had rung out in unmeasured denunciation of her crimes? “Therefore I will execute judgment upon the graven images of Babylon ... and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her ... the treacherous dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O Elam, besiege, O Media.... Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.”[11]

Elam and Media combined their forces, and set their troops in battle array, while hundreds of banners waved in the sunlight. “Elam bare the quiver with chariots of men and horsemen,” and they marched to the “two leaved gates” of the city. Every sword in the ranks was true to the young commander, and his victory was easily won. Babylon was conquered, and the story of her decay was written upon her forehead. The seat of government was removed, the city was left in desolation, and her gates were smitten with destruction. Ruin fell upon her battlements, the owl and the bittern dwelt amidst her prostrate columns, while the wild beasts of the desert made their den in her fallen palaces.

ĪRĀN OR PERSIA.

Persia is often called Īrān, this being the name which the Persians themselves gave to their kingdom. Persepolis was for a long time the capital, but for almost twelve centuries after the fall of that beautiful city, the capital was located at Shīrāz. The oldest certain use of the name Persia is found in the prophets,[12] and the kingdom was formed by the combination of the Medians with the Persians. These hardy mountaineers were brave and merciless, their troops of horsemen, armed with lance and quiver, swept down from the highlands with irresistible force, and drew the wandering tribes of the East into one great army. Frugal in their mode of life, strong in nerve and sinew, and severe in military discipline, even their kings believed that nothing was so servile as luxury and nothing so royal as toil.

The hardy tribes of Īrān which Cyrus led to victory were trained to manly exercise; they taught their children to endure hardship, to ride, to shoot and to tell the truth. They were strangers to dissipation, and so loyal to age that parricide was inconceivable to them. The royal edict was so inflexible that “the laws of the Medes and Persians” passed into a proverb. Their loyalty to their kings degenerated into servility, even legal injustice being considered a benefit to the victim, for which he should be duly grateful. No edict was too severe to be promptly obeyed, the very cruelty of their kings being considered a mark of greatness; they buried men alive in honor of the elements, they flayed their officials for bribery, while mutilation and stoning were legal punishments.

This hardy race of soldiers, that could rush into battle, almost without rations, was a terror to the pampered Lydian and the luxurious Babylonian, for the ideal life of the Persian was continual conquest, even his symbol of Ormazd being a winged warrior with bow and threatening hand. But when the contest was over, the conquerors irrigated the plains of Babylonia so faithfully that they were able to gather three harvests a year from the fertile soil. The roads of the kingdom were supplied with post-stations, and constantly traversed by government couriers, while a great commercial intercourse was carried even to the shores of Greece. It was not an enervated people that laid the wonderful masonry in the foundations of Persepolis, and reared the marble columns that still mock the changes of more than two thousand years. But luxury crept in with continued power, and after a time, it was said that the royal table was daily spread for fifteen thousand guests, even though the king dined alone. Their nobles were clothed in purple and decorated with jewels, while the person of the king was resplendent with diamonds and rubies. In the royal treasury pearls were piled up like the sands of the sea, and diamonds glittered amidst masses of amethyst and sapphire. The royal helmet and buckler flashed with the green light of emeralds and the crimson fire of the ruby.

But still they retained traces of the primitive simplicity which belonged to the early mountain tribes, and the constructive energy of their kings went on, building and planning, and forcing into their courts the splendors of rifled cities. Darius flung the floating bridge across the Bosphorus, that afterward furnished a highway for Alexander; their summer palaces rose upon the mountains of Media, while their winter homes, with marble pillars and graceful colonnades, were placed in sunny vales where fountains gleamed through the glossy leaves and the nightingale built her nest among thickets of roses. It is said of Artaxerxes that even while he wore upon his person jewels to the value of thousands of talents, he would still lead his army on foot through mountain passes, carrying his own quiver and shield, and forcing his way up the most rugged heights.

The Persians were quick to learn, and gladly appropriated to themselves the civilization of Nineveh and Babylon; but luxury and dissipation will unnerve the strongest empire, and after a time the designing beauties of the harem became the rulers of weak and wicked princes, and though Persian magnificence lasted from Darius to the last Persian king, their final failure was due to their own corruption as much as to the forces of Alexander the Great. The Īrānian mind seemed to be the harbinger of progress, in the simplicity of its beginnings, in its striving for the noble, the manly, and the true, but the selfishness of the later Persian kings developed not only into luxury, but also into dissipation: reclining on couches with golden feet, drinking the wines[13] of Helbon and Shīrāz, they yielded to no rule except their own pleasure—there was no precept of morality that they could not violate at will, no law in their legal code that involved the recognition of the rights of other nations; and this intense self-worship prepared the way for the coming conqueror. The government of Persia became what the government of Turkey now is—a highly centralized bureaucracy, the members of which owed their offices to an irresponsible despot; the people of Persia therefore hailed Alexander as their deliverer from disintegration and decay.

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF PERSIA.

“The Land of the Lion and the Sun,” presents the strongest physical contrasts; with the king of the forest and the king of day emblazoned upon her banners, she extended her dominion over rocky steppes and barren sands, as well as fertile fields and stately forests. Persia proper was a comparatively small province, but the tide of conquest gathered many nations beneath her banners, and the dominion of Cyrus extended from the Mediterranean to the Indus, and from the snowy peaks of the Caucasus, downward to the shores of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The court of Darius was enriched by tributes from Egypt and Babylonia, from Assyria and India, from Media, Lydia, Phœnicia and many other lands.

Modern Persia occupies the larger portion of the great Īrānian plateau, which rises to the height of from four to eight thousand feet, between the valleys of the Indus and the Tigris, and covers more than a million square miles. On the northwest the Persian Empire is united to the mountains of Asia Minor by the high lands of Armenia, while on the northeast the Paropansius and the Hindū Kush connect it with the Himālayas of ancient India. The eastern and western boundaries are traced with more or less uncertainty, amidst high ranges of mountains broken here and there by deserts and valleys. The fertile lowlands are found in the forest-clad regions south of the Caspian Sea, and down toward the shore of the Persian Gulf.

Although she has of late exercised but little influence in the world’s political councils, she retains a fair position among the Asiatics, and the fact that a portion of her territory is under Russian influence, while the rest is controlled to a greater or less extent by England, would indicate that in the near future her political position may become one of great importance. She still occupies a territory which is more than twice the area of France, and her climate varies according to the contrasting features of her formation, being rough and cold in the mountain ranges, and often severe on the great table-lands where the sandstorms rage across the desert, while other portions of the empire are luxuriant with tropical foliage.

Down by the shores of the gulf the rice fields lift their dainty plumes, farther away the acres of barley lie like golden billows in the sunlight, and the cots of the peasantry are nestled under groups of flowering trees. Beyond them rises the forest of almost primeval grandeur where the great trunks of the trees are clothed with velvet mosses and encircled with floral vines. Here the green shades of the wood are relieved by the vivid scarlet of the pomegranate blossoms, and streams that leap from snowy hills come dashing through the woodlands, laden with life and rippling with music. Far away in the distance, the barren table-lands arise, and beyond these the mountain ridges press upward, dim and silent against the fields of blue, and the white clouds drop their feathery snows upon peaks which are unsoiled by the foot of man.

PERSIAN ART.

The primitive cradle of art has been found on the banks of the Tigris, and in the valley of the Euphrates. It has been shown that Greece was largely indebted to the sculptured slabs and columns of Nineveh for her first models, and perhaps also to the pictured walls of Babylon for the inspiration that glowed upon her canvas. But Asiatic art, like Oriental literature, is tropical in its luxuriance and gorgeous in its decorations. The classic taste of Greece subdued its more extravagant features, and presented the simplicity of chaste designs. The Persians, with their spirit of monopoly, appropriated the sculptured forms of fallen Nineveh, and absorbed also the love of painting, and the passion for gorgeous draperies, which were characteristic of Babylon.

But the Īrānian race had not the patience of fine detail and elaboration which is found in the old Assyrian sculptures, the military dash of the early warring tribes showed itself even in their statuary. The partial stiffness of their outlines was, however, atoned for in the spirited poise of their figures. They presented but few pictures of domestic life, but there were hunting scenes and battle fields, terrific struggles of their heroes with wild animals, and the triumphant march of their conquerors—there were gorgeous processions bearing tributes to the king, and historic pictures of his victories. Darius the Great was often represented in simple dress, but always in the attitude of heroism or tragedy, sometimes grasping a monster by the horn, while he drives the dagger into its vitals, and again, with the symbol of Ormazd hovering in a winged circle above him, he conquers the king of the forest.

In his Behistun inscriptions he is represented as the “king of kings,” standing with his right foot on the prostrate form of a conquered foe, while nine captive kings stand before him, with their hands in bonds and their heads uncrowned. The wondrous architecture of Persepolis, though laid with massive masonry, was made rich and graceful as that of a Greek temple, for the lofty marble pillars, more than sixty feet in height, were finished with capitals of sculptured animals reposing upon beds of lotus blossoms.

Their helmets and breastplates were often inlaid with silver and enameled with gold, and as the troops marched to the field of battle, the sun flashed upon shields where pictures of Zal and Rustem were inlaid with burnished gold[14] and the designs upon the royal armor were resplendent with rubies and diamonds.

Persian art has been essentially industrial, and it is claimed that what is known as Russia leather was first manufactured in Persia, while legend says, that the artisans achieved their success by carrying their work to the peak of Mount Elvend, where the lightnings imparted a peculiar value to the texture.

The arts of Nineveh, of Babylon, and of Egypt culminated in the ages past, but the rare porcelains, tiles, and mosaics—the vases and carved metals of Persia, are still the pride of Asia. Their carpets, tapestries and brocades are unrivaled in the markets of the world, while the richly embroidered shawls and portiéres of Kermān still present their delicate combinations of palm leaves with the soft coloring of the floral borders.

MANUSCRIPTS.

One of the important features of art is exhibited in their beautiful manuscripts, where the finest calligraphy is often combined with floral designs upon a golden background. The letters of their language run easily and gracefully into each other, and the Egyptian reeds with which they write, are fashioned for the finest touches of the penman.

Calligraphy is called “a golden profession,” and a small but exquisite copy of the Korān has been valued at one hundred thousand dollars, while the artistic penman, who executed a copy of a popular poem, had his mouth stuffed with pearls, in addition to the promised reward.

Less fortunate, however, was Mīr Amar, a celebrated calligraphist of the fifteenth century. Being summoned to court to prepare an elaborate copy of the Shāh Nāmah, and his progress being too slow to satisfy the royal ambition, his beautiful manuscript was torn to pieces before his eyes, and Mīr Amar was then hastened to the executioner. Yet such was the extreme beauty of his work, that after the lapse of three hundred years, short screeds from his pen are set in gold and sold at fabulous prices.

Although the printing press is invading the domain of the Persian scribe, the art of calligraphy is still cultivated, and artistic penmen are held in great repute.

EARLY LITERATURE.

It is evident that the early kings of Persia possessed royal libraries, containing historical records and official decrees, for in the book of Ezra[15] it is said that “search was made in the house of rolls,” in Babylon, for the imperial decree of Cyrus concerning the rebuilding of the temple. It was afterwards found at Ecbatana “in the palace that is in the province of the Medes,” the decree having been made in the first year of King Cyrus. But aside from some of the inscriptions, the earliest literature we now have belonging to this people is the Zend- Avesta, our present version of which was possibly derived from texts which already existed in the time of the Achæmenian kings. Although there are no facts to prove that the text of the Avesta as we now possess it was committed to writing previous to the Sassanian dynasty[16] Prof. Darmesteter thinks it possible that “Herodotus may have heard the Magi sing, in the fifth century before Christ, the very same Gāthas which are sung now a days by the Mobeds of Bombay.”[17]

As some of these early texts must have existed before the fifth century B.C. we place them chronologically before the inscriptions of Darius the Great.[18]

Historians claim that ancient Persian manuscripts were destroyed, when Alexander, in a condition of drunkenness, ordered the beautiful city of Persepolis to be set on fire, in order to please the courtesan Thais.

The modern worshippers of Alexander, however, have placed around his name all the possible glory of military achievement with a vast amount of rhetoric, concerning “the young hero” and “the thunder of his tread.” They claim, indeed, that he had very few faults, except cruelty, drunkenness, and some worse forms of dissipation. Their defense of this barbarous act is that “only the palace and its environs were burned” at this particular time, and that this was an act of requital for the pillage of Athens, and also to impress the Persians with a due sense of his own importance. Whatever may have been the motive, or physical condition, of the incendiary, it is highly probable that when the palace, and its environs were burned, the royal libraries went down in the flames, and certain it is, that from the time of the Macedonian conquest to the foundation of the Sassanian dynasty, the history of the Persian language and literature is almost a blank page. The legends of the Sassanian coins, the inscriptions of their emperors, and the translation of the Avesta, by Sassanian scholars, represent another phase of the language and literature of Īrān.

The men who, at the rising of the new national dynasty, became the reformers, teachers, and prophets of Persia, formed their language and the whole train of their ideas upon a Semitic model. The grammar of the Sassanian dialect, however, was Persian, and “this was a period of religious and metaphysical delirium, when everything became everything, when Māyā and Sophia, Mitra and Christ, Virāf and Isaiah, Belus and Kronos were mixed up in one jumbled system of inane speculation, from which at last the East was delivered by the doctrines of Mohammed, and the West by the pure Christianity of the Teutonic nations.”[19]

It was five hundred years after Alexander before Persian literature and religion were revived, and the books of the Zend-Avesta collected, either from scattered manuscripts or from oral tradition. The first collection of traditions, which finally resulted in the Shāh-Nāmah, was made also during the Sassanian dynasty. Firdusī tells us that there was a Pahlevan, of the family of the Dihkans,[20] who loved to study the traditions of antiquity. He therefore summoned from the provinces, all the old men who could remember portions of the ancient legends, and questioned them concerning the stories of the country. The Dihkan then wrote down the traditions of the kings and the changes in the empire as they had been recited to him. But this work, which was commenced under Nushirvan and finished under Yezdejird, the last of the Sassanians, was destroyed by the command of Omar, the Arabian chieftain.

The scanty literature of the Sassanian age was somewhat augmented by a notable collection of Sanskṛit fables which was brought to the court of the Persian king, Koshrou,[21] and translated into the Persian, or Pahlavī tongue. This collection comprised the fables of the Panćatantra and the Hitopadeśa, and from it the later European fables of La Fontaine probably originated.

THE MOHAMMEDAN CONQUEST.

The warring tribes of the desert massed themselves together under the banner of the crescent. They were animated by Mohammed’s doctrine of anarchy—the claim of a common right to their neighbors’ goods, and trained to dash into the very jaws of death by his promise of a sensual heaven to every man who fell upon the battle-field.

Therefore these fearless sons of the desert, stimulated by hunger and avarice, swept with irresistible force over the fair provinces around them. They raided the great cities of Central Asia, and gathered to themselves the treasures, which had been hoarded by the Aryan and the Turk. When in the seventh century they saw Persia weakened by internal dissensions and foreign wars, they gladly gathered under the standard of Omar to descend upon the wealth of her cities.

It was an old quarrel that they longed to settle with the Sassanian kings, reaching back through the history of their tribes to the time when they had raided northern Persia, and had been driven back by Ardeshir—they remembered, too, that Shapur had afterward ravaged Arabia to the very gates of Medīna, and seized their territory down to the shores of Yemen, on the southern sea. All the force of traditional hatred and revenge was therefore added to their avarice, and lust for power, when these fearless warriors sprang to the saddle and rode to the conquest of Persia. Their terrible war-cry of Allah-il-Allah, rang through rifled cities, and seemed to rise from the very dust which was spurned from the feet of Arabian horses, until Persian nationality was crushed by the invaders. Her treasures of literature were again destroyed, so far as the conquerors could complete their work of devastation, and the altar fires of the Pārsīs were quenched in the long night of Mohammedan rule, while the Korān supplanted the Avesta even upon its native soil.

LITERATURE OF MODERN PERSIA.

Modern Persian literature may be said to begin with the reconstruction of the National Epic.[22] This work marks an important era, in even the language of Persia, for it seems to close the biography of that peculiar tongue. There has been but little, of either growth or decay, in its structure since that period, although it becomes more and more encumbered with foreign words.

The Persian Epic could be reconstructed only when the national feeling began to reassert itself, and it was at this period that the patriotism of the people began to recover from the benumbing pressure of Mohammedan rule, and especially in the eastern portions of the empire, a distinctively Persian spirit was revived. It is true that Mohammedanism had taken root even in the national party, but the Arabic tongue was no longer favored by the governors of the eastern provinces. Persian again became the court language of these dignitaries, the native poets were encouraged and began to collect once more the traditions of the empire.

It is claimed that Jacob, the son of Leis,[23] the first prince of Persian blood, who declared himself independent of the Caliphs, procured fragments of the early National Epic, and had it rearranged and continued. Then followed the dynasty of the Samanians who claimed descent from the Sassanian kings, and they pursued the same popular policy. The later dynasty of the Gaznevides also encouraged the growth of the national spirit, and the great Persian Epic was written during the reign of Mahmūd the Great, who was the second king of the Gaznevide dynasty. By his command, collections of old books were made all over the empire, and men who knew the ancient poems were summoned to his court. It was from these materials that Firdusī composed his Shāh-Nāmah. “Traditions,” says the poet, “have been given me; nothing of what is worth knowing has been forgotten; all that I shall say others have said before me.”

Hence the heroes in the Shāh-Nāmah exhibit many of the traits of the Vedic deities—traits which have lived through the Zoroastrian period, the Achæmenian dynasty, the Macedonian rule, the Parthian wars, and even the Arabian conquest, to be reproduced in the poem of Firdusī.

The modern phase of their literature is emphatically an age of poetry; the Persians of these later centuries seem to have been born with a song on their lips, for their poets are numbered by thousands. Not only their books of polite literature, but their histories, ethics and science, nay, even their mathematics and grammar are written in rhyme. There are many volumes of these productions that cannot be dignified by the name of poetry, but their literature is tropical in its development and their annals bear the names of many illustrious poets. Firdusī, author of the great Epic, must always stand at the head of Persian poetry; but Sā’dī with his Būstān and Gūlistān, will ever be a favorite with his own people.

Nizāmī of the twelfth century has given us, perhaps, the best version of the beautiful Arabian tragedy of Lilī and Majnūn, and Hāfiz says of the author:

“Not all the treasured lore of ancient days Can boast the sweetness of Nizāmī’s lays.”

The clear and harmonious style of Hāfiz, who belonged to the fourteenth century, has a fascination of its own, and it is claimed that the prophet Khizer carried to the waiting lips of the poet the water from the fountain of life, and therefore his words are immortal among the sons of men.

Jāmi is entitled to a goodly rank in the world of poetry, even though his Yūsuf and Zulaikhā, which has also been versified by many other Persian poets, seems to have been written for the express purpose of showing how an unprincipled woman may pursue a good man for a series of years, marry him at last, almost against his will, and make him wish himself in heaven the next day. The Persians may well be called the Italians of Asia, for, although they are burdened with sentiment and a certain exuberance of style, which meets with little favor in our colder clime, we accord them our sympathy in the beauty of their dreams and the tenderness of their thought.

PERSIAN ROMANCE.

The Arabic and even the Turkish tongue has intruded upon the classic Persian of Firdusī, but as the English has borrowed from all nations, and yet retains its own individuality, so also the Persian tongue, while absorbing and adapting the wealth of others, still retains its personal character, modified only by the changes of time.

In borrowing from the language of her neighbors, Persia has not hesitated to adopt also portions of their literature. During the reign of the Moslem kings the choicest mental productions from India, and even from Greece, found the way to their courts. Alp Arslan, around whose throne stood twelve hundred princes, was a lover of letters, and from the banks of the Euphrates to the feet of the Himālayas a wealth of literature was called, to be wrought up by Persian scholars and poets under royal patronage. There was an active rivalry in literary culture, and much of the fire of Arabian poetry brightened the pages of Persian romance. There were the mystic lights and shadows of nomadic life, and desert voices mingled with the strains of native singers.

The terrible contrasts of life and death—the unyielding resentments and jealousies—passionate loves and hates, which are so distinctively Arabian, began to fill the pages of Īrānian romance with tragedy.

Even the vivid description of the Moslems could scarcely add to the gorgeousness of Persian fancy, where Oriental lovers wandered in the greenest of valleys, while around them floated the soft perfume of the orange blossoms. It could not add to the fabulous wealth of their nobles, where camels were burdened with the choicest of gems, and vines of gold were laden with grapes of amethyst. But it did add the element of fierce revenge and the tragedy of violent death, represented by the pitiless simoon and the shifting sand column, the hopeless wastes, the bitter waters, and the dry bones of perished caravans. It added the life-springs of the oasis, as well as the rushing whirlwind; it added the palm tree of the desert, with her feet in the burning sand and her head in the morning light—a symbol of the watch-fires of faith above the desert places of life. The best literature of Persia in our own age is largely the reproduction in various forms of her standard poets; her romances, however, still rival the Arabian Nights in their startling combinations and bewildering descriptions. The imagination of her writers is not bound by the rules of our northern clime, and there is nothing too wild or improbable to find a place in Oriental story. There are rayless caverns of sorcery in a wilderness of mystery; there are mountains of emerald[24] and hills of ruby[25]; there are enchanted valleys, rich with fabulous treasure, and rivers gushing from fairy fountains. There is always the grand uprising of the king of day and the endless cycle of the stars—for this poetic people cannot forget the teaching of the Pārsī and the Sabean. In the literature found on the banks of these southern seas there is also the restfulness of night, with its coolness and dews, to be followed by the glory of the morning and the fragrance from the hearts of the roses.

Persian literature rings with voices from ruined cities, and mingles the story of the past with the dreams of her future. Her treasures are drawn from the records of Chaldean kings; her historic pictures have caught the light of early crowns and repeated the story of their magnificence. Her annals are filled with the victories of her Cyrus, with the extended dominions of her great Darius, and the gorgeousness of her later sovereigns. Her poets have immortalized her myths as well as her heroes, and the Oriental world has contributed to the pages of her romance.

Footnote 1:

Accad is first mentioned as one of the beginnings of the kingdom of Nimrod in Genesis x, 10.

Footnote 2:

Mr. Theo. G. Pinches, in his notes on this chapter, says: “The Sumerians are generally regarded as of the same race as of the Accadians. Sumerian is a dialect of Akkadian. Sumer and Akkad both contained Semitic and non-Semitic inhabitants.”

Footnote 3:

Decouvertes en Chaldee par E. de Sarzec, Plate No. 29.

Footnote 4:

The catalogue of the astronomical works in the library of Sargon I instructs the reader to write down the number of the book that he needs, and the librarian will thereupon give him the tablet required.— _Sayce, Bab. Lit., p. 9._

Footnote 5:

Diodorus, Sec. 23.

Footnote 6:

The word Nineveh is made up of signs which mean city, coach and Nana respectively, all of which means the resting place of the chief god, Nana. (E.A. Budge.) The great commerce of Nineveh—the fact that her merchants were greatly “multiplied”—is illustrated by the large collection of contract tablets in the British Museum.

Footnote 7:

The problem of the relative value of gold and silver had been solved to a certain extent in this ancient kingdom, a silver shekel being one-tenth the value of a gold shekel, and the silver half shekel one twentieth of the value of the gold shekel. The drachma, or silver half shekel, is supposed to be the most ancient type of the English shilling, as one-twentieth of the English gold sovereign.

Footnote 8:

For the empire of Nebuchadnezzar, the records of the Egebi family are invaluable—dated deeds extending, year by year, from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar to the close of that of Darius Hystaspes.—_Sayce, An. Emp., p. 105._

Footnote 9:

Sayce—An. Emp., p. 195.

Footnote 10:

Astarte or Ashtaroth.

Footnote 11:

Jer. li, 47; Isa. xxi, 2-9.

Footnote 12:

Ezekiel xxvii, 10; xxxviii, 5.

Footnote 13:

The Persians called wine Zeher-e-kushon, or “delightful poison.”

Footnote 14:

Scarcely a century has elapsed since the burnished shields and helmets of ancient Persian royalty were laid aside for the lighter military accoutrements of modern Europe.

Footnote 15:

Ezra vi, 1.

Footnote 16:

226 A.D.

Footnote 17:

Darmesteter, Sa. Bks. of the E., Vol. IV, Int., p. 3.

Footnote 18:

These appear to have been written upon the face of the Behistun rock about 515 B.C.

Footnote 19:

Max Müller—Chips, Vol. I, p. 91.

Footnote 20:

The Dihkans were the landed nobility of Persia. They kept up a certain independence, even under the sway of the Mohammedan Khalifs.

Footnote 21:

About 570 A.D. See Quartremére.

Footnote 22:

1000 A.D.

Footnote 23:

870 A.D.

Footnote 24:

In Persian mythology the earth is surrounded by a mountain range of pure emerald.

Footnote 25:

“The Ausindom mountain is that which, being of ruby, of the substance of the sky, is in the midst of the sea Vouru-Kasha.”—_Zend-Avesta—Tir Yast, VI, 32, n._