Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/429

 Reviews. 403

quand meme. Life is a passing illusion, brief and untrustworthy, in itself nothing but a silly tale ; we are gazers through a cloudy, distorting glass ; our deeds are mere childish sports making for soul-fitness. The one way of escape from illusion is in the exercise of that essential part of ourselves which unites us with the choir of the heavenly hosts ; love lifts us out of the mundane marsh ; brother must act brotherly ; we must loyally serve our chosen friends, those with whom we have formed a bond stronger than the ties of blood : for such we must die, if need be. The poem is a glorification of friendship, and the story is of the mutual aid of three starlike heroes wont to serve one another. . . . That women have their share in such friendship is shown by the fraternity between Asmat'h and Tariel, and it is a proof of the deep culture of the people that such bonds still exist ; there is probably no country where men have so many pure ties with women, where they are bound by affection to so many with whom the idea of marriage is never permitted to present itself."

Rust'haveli's poem is unknown in Europe, yet, as Mr. Wardrop observes, "it has been in a unique manner the book of a nation for 700 years ; down to our own days the young people learned it by heart ; every woman was expected to know every word of it, and on her marriage to carry a copy of it to her new home." The one writer who was familiar with it, and closely imitated in parts its story and language, was the Italian, Ariosto, in his Orlatido Fiirioso. Well may his j^atron. Cardinal Ippolito of Este, have asked him the question, — " Where did you find so many stories. Master Ludovico ? " Ariosto must have gained access to it through one of the Vatican missionaries, who began to frequent Tifiis as early as the thirteenth century in the hope of persuading the Georgians to recognise the Pope of Rome.

But it is not known whence Rust'haveli derived his story, though the statement in stanza 16 that it was "a Persian tale, done into Georgian " indicates that it came from Persia. The poet continues thus : it "has hitherto been like a pearl of great price cast in play from hand to hand ; now I have found it and mounted it in a setting of verse." Such an avowal no more detracts from the poet's claim to originality than does the fact that Shakespeare took the stories of his plays from printed sources detract from his. In