Page:The-Gathas.pdf/23



Benedictions are uttered with regard to an enimnent leader who opens the paths to temporal and eternal welfare; – the majesty of Ahura as final Judge is considered; – searching questions are asked and ennobling prayers uttered.

I place this valuable piece in this position because it seems to me to answer the purpose of a prologue or symphony, giving a certain survey of the gâthic situation. As in every section it is possible that strophes may have fallen out here and there, and some may have been inserted, not necessarily from another composer but from other compositions; or more properly, the constituent parts of this piece may have been originally composed at different times with intervals of a few years between. After certain limits however marked signs of connection are present; after the first three strophes, which are quite apart, then from the fourth and fifth on every alternate stanza has the formula 'I conceived of thee as bountiful, O Ahura Mazda'.

It would indeed present no difficulty to a successor to add these words to stanzas otherwise also imitated; but there is no particular reason why we should think of a second hand; the whole composition as it is here produced, or reproduced, beats with the life of a single personality; and even if collected from fragments of the composer's earlier works, the course of thought does not so fail in logical sequence as that it is either impossible or displeasing as a whole in a poetical composition. Strophes 1—3 are admirable as preliminary; and they may having been placed here by the composer or his successors, he, or they, having taken them from some other one of his compositions. Strophes 4—6 with their lofty descriptions of power and benevolence in the Deity prepare