It is a difficult, almost impossible task to furnish an exact account of those from whom we learned this or that during the course of our life and our studies, as well as of how we were encouraged not solely by friends and comrades but also by adversaries and foes. Even so, I feel impelled to name several men to whom I owe particular gratitude.
This man’s merits are so renowned around the world and so thoroughly celebrated in more than one place that nothing remains for me but to acknowledge generally that I have striven to draw every possible benefit from his endeavours. Nevertheless, I do want to indicate one aspect which seems especially remarkable to me.
In keeping with the true English way of education, grounded in Greek and Latin literature to such an extent that he was not only capable of appreciating them justly but could work in them as well, and also fully conversant with European literature, once having strayed into Oriental literatures, he enjoyed the fine twofold gift of being able to esteem each nation on its own most characteristic merits while at the same time discovering everywhere that beauty and goodness which each necessarily shared with the other.
He had considerable difficulty in communicating his insights, even so. The predilection of his countrymen for old classical literature stood principally in his way. To observe him closely is easily to become aware that, clever man that he was, he sought to link the unknown with the known, and that which deserved to be appreciated with that which already was appreciated. He concealed his partiality for Oriental poetic art and with nimble modesty, gave mostly such examples as he could set beside the most admired Latin and Greek poems; he employed the ancient rhythmic forms to make the tender audacities of the Orient accessible to Classicists. Nevertheless, he must have experienced considerable vexation not only from Classical philologists but from patriots; the contempt for Oriental poetry pained him; this glimmers clearly forth from his half-ironical essay, merely two pages long, ‘Arabs, sive de Poësi Anglorum Dialogus’, at the conclusion of his work on the Asiatic art of poetry.160 Here, with manifest bitterness, he shows us how ridiculous Milton and Pope would look in Oriental garb; from which it follows that, as we have said more than once, every poet has to be viewed, known and assessed in his own language and in the distinctive circumstances of his time and customs.
With delighted recognition I note that in my current labours I am still using the same copy of his edition of Jones’s Works with which this much esteemed man honoured me some forty-two years ago, when we still had him here among us and received so much that was beneficial and instructive from his mouth. I followed his course of instruction the whole time in silence and in the final days I was immensely pleased to receive, complete and from his own hand, the extremely important work, which elucidates the Prophets162 and their circumstances for us. For what is more delightful, for the man of calm understanding as well as for the excitable poet, than to see how those God-possessed men regarded their agitated milieu and signalled the wondrous-solemn thing that went forth castigating, warning, comforting and exalting hearts on high.
With these few remarks may my grateful and lifelong esteem for this worthy man be faithfully expressed.
To call the doughty Lorsbach to mind is also an obligation here. He was older when he came into our circle where he in no way found any congenial place; even so, he willingly gave me sound information on everything about which I asked him, just as long as it lay within the sphere of his expertise, which he frequently circumscribed too sharply.
Initially it struck me as wondrous to discover in him no particular friend of Oriental poetry; and yet, the same thing could happen to anyone who lovingly and enthusiastically spends his time and effort on an enterprise and only at the end fails to find the expected gain. Then too, old age is the time in which a man’s pleasure in things dwindles just when he needs it most. His understanding and his integrity were equally gladsome and I always recall the hours which I spent with him with pleasure.
The prelate von Diez164 had a significant influence on my studies which I gratefully acknowledge. At the time when I was occupying myself more closely with Oriental literature, the Book of Kabus fell into my hands and seemed so important to me that I devoted a great deal of time to it and urged several friends to take notice of it. Through a traveller I offered this estimable man, to whom I owe so much instruction, a courteous greeting. In return he was friendly enough to send me his little book on tulips. I arranged to have a small area on silken paper adorned with a splendid golden flower border and there I wrote:
How one strolls with prudence on the earth,
Whether up mountains or descending from the throne,
And how one handles people as one handles horses –
All this is what the king teaches his son.
We know this now through You who bestowed it on us;
Now you join the tulip’s blossom to it,
And if the golden frame didn’t limit me
Where would all you’ve done for us conclude?
And so an epistolary conversation began which this eminent man continued faithfully, in an almost illegible handwriting, amid all his pains and sufferings, to the end.
Since I had been until then familiar with the manners and history of the Orient only in a general fashion, and utterly unfamiliar with its languages, such a friendship was of the greatest importance to me. Since a prescribed and methodical approach for the sake of mere momentary comprehension would have demanded an expenditure of time and energy searching in books, I turned to him in puzzling instances and always got satisfactory and helpful replies to my questions. These letters of his certainly deserve to be published on account of their contents and displayed as a memorial to his learning and benevolence. Since I knew of his strict and idiosyncratic nature, I restrained myself from approaching him from a certain angle; even so, when I expressed a desire to get to know the character of Nasreddin Hoja, the merry travel and camp companion of Timur the World-Conqueror, he was obliging enough – quite against his own inclination – to translate some anecdotes for me. From these it emerged, however, that many a lively tale, which Westerners treat after their own fashion, derives from the Orient, even though the authentic tint, the true and actual tone, have been largely lost in the transmission.
Since the manuscript of this book is now in the Royal Library in Berlin, it would be extremely desirable for a master of this discipline to give us a translation. It might be best if this were to be done in the Latin language so that scholars could get a good grasp of it first of all. Then a nice abridged version might be prepared for the German public.
That I shared and derived benefit from my friend’s other writings, such as the Denkwürdigkeiten des Orients,165 and the rest, the present book bears witness; it’s a bit trickier to admit that his quarrelsomeness, which wasn’t always commendable, was very helpful to me as well. Nevertheless, one has only to call his university years to mind, when he raced to the duelling ground whenever two masters or seniors essayed skill and dexterity against one another, nor can anyone deny that on such occasions, he witnessed strengths and weaknesses which perhaps would have remained hidden forever from a student.
The author of the book Kabus, Kay-Ka’us, king of the Daylamites who inhabited the mountainous land of Gilan, which ends to the south of the Caspian Sea, will become doubly dear to us as we get to know him better.166 As a crown prince carefully reared for the freest and most active sort of life, he left his homeland both to form his character and to prove himself in the far-flung East.
Shortly after the death of Mahmud, whose many praise-worthy deeds we have mentioned, he came to Ghazna, was warmly welcomed by Mahmud’s son Mas‘ud and as a result of many services in both war and peace, married one of his sisters. At a court where not long before Firdowsi had written the Shah-nameh, where a large assemblage of poets and talented men still flourished, and where the new ruler, bold and bellicose as his father, appreciated scintillating society, Kay-Ka’us was able to find the most valuable scope for further self-improvement on his wanderings.
But we must first speak of his education. His father had handed him over to an excellent teacher to push his physical development to the utmost. This teacher brought the son home skilled in all knightly exercises: shooting, riding, shooting while riding, spear-throwing, swinging the mallet and striking the ball most effectively. After all of this was successfully accomplished and the king seemed to be satisfied, even praising the teacher to the skies, he added: ‘I have just one thing to remind you of. You’ve instructed my son in everything for which he requires some external device; without a horse he cannot ride, without a bow he cannot shoot, what good is his arm when he has no lance, and what good is a game without a mallet and ball? You haven’t taught him the one thing for which he needs only himself and which is the most necessary and which no one else can help him to do.’ The teacher stood ashamed; he realised that the prince was unable to swim. Despite some reluctance on the prince’s part, this too was imparted, and it saved his life when he went on pilgrimage to Mecca with a great crowd of pilgrims and was one of a few to escape when they were wrecked on the Euphrates.
That he had been educated to the same high level in intellectual matters is attested by the good reception he enjoyed at the court of Ghazna; such that he was named one of the prince’s companions – a high honour at the time – because he must have been accomplished, as well as genial and intelligent enough, to give a good account of himself on all occasions.
On account of powerful neighbours, greedy for conquest, the succession in Gilan was uncertain; uncertain too was the very control of the kingdom. Finally, after the death of his royal father, himself once deposed then reinstated, Kay-Ka’us acceded to the throne in the fullness of his wisdom and with steely resignation to the possible consequences of his action; in his old age, foreseeing that his son Gilan Shah would have an even more dangerous situation than his own, he wrote this remarkable book in which he addresses his son ‘so that he might inform him in the arts and the sciences on a twofold basis, either to gain his livelihood through an art should he find himself reduced to need by fate, or in the event that he may not need an art to gain his livelihood, that he may at least be well instructed in the fundamentals of every matter, should he remain in majesty.’
Had such a book come in our day and age into the hands of those noble émigrés who often, with exemplary resignation, sustain themselves with the work of their own hands, how comforting it would have been to them!
That such an excellent, indeed invaluable, book is no longer known may have as its cause that the author published it at his own expense and the firm of Nicolai took it on only on commission; whereby even for such a work in a bookshop a lag can occur. Nevertheless, so that the father-land may know what riches await it, we list the contents of the chapters here and we ask such reliable daily papers as the Morgenblatt and the Gesellschafter to make the anecdotes and stories – as edifying as they are delightful – along with the great, incomparable maxims which this work contains, widely known in the interim.
Contents of the Kabus Nameh by Chapter167
Knowledge of God
Praise of the Prophets
God is to be praised
Worship of God in full is both necessary and useful
Responsibilities towards one’s father and mother
Raising one’s station through virtue
According to what rules one must speak
Nushirvan’s last rules
Circumstances of old age and youth
Proper manners at table
Comportment when drinking wine
How to invite and accommodate guests
How jokes are to be made; how backgammon and chess
must be played
The conduct of lovers
Advantages and disadvantages of cohabitation
How one must wash and bathe
The state of sleep and of rest
Procedures in hunting
How to play polo
How to confront the enemy
Ways of increasing wealth
How to preserve property in trust and how to return it
Purchase of slaves and slave-girls
Where one must buy real estate
Horse-trading and characteristics of the best horses
How one ought to take a wife
The procedure in educating children
Advantages in making and choosing friends
Precautions against the onslaughts of enemies
It is meritorious to forgive
How one must seek out knowledge
Business dealings
Rules for physicians; how one must live
Principles of astrology
Qualities of poets and the art of poetry
Rules for musicians
How to serve emperors
Status of the emperor’s confidants and companions
Protocols of the chancery
The vizier’s office
Protocols for a general
Protocols for an emperor
Rules for farmers and cultivators
The merits of virtue
Just as a book with such contents can unquestionably offer one an extensive knowledge of Oriental conditions, there’s no doubt as well that one will find numerous points of comparison to his own European situation to provide both edification and occasion for comment.
In conclusion, a brief chronological recapitulation. King Kay-Ka’us acceded to his rule in approximately 450 ah (1058 ad), reigned until 473 ah (1080 ad), married a daughter of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna. His son Gilan Shah, for whom he wrote this work, was despoiled of his territories. Little is known of his life, and nothing of his death.168 See Diez’s translation (Berlin, 1811).
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The bookshop which has taken over this previously announced work in press or on commission is requested to make itself known. A low price will ease its diffusion, which is highly desirable.
My little book makes plain in all its parts how indebted I am to this estimable man. I’d been aware of Hafiz and his poetry for a long time but whatever literature, travel reports, journalism and the like brought before me gave me no conception, no glimpse, of the worth and merit of this extraordinary man. But when at last, in the spring of 1813, the complete translation of all his works reached me, I grasped his innermost nature with particular affection and sought to position myself in relation to him through my own work. This amiable occupation helped me through some difficult times and allowed me to taste the fruits of hard-won peace in the most delightful of ways.
For several years I’d been generally aware of the flourishing enterprise of the Fundgruben170 but now came the time when I might profit from it. Over numerous pages this work interpreted and simultaneously aroused and satisfied the needs of the time; for me the experience showed how true it is that in every field we are supported by our contemporaries in a most excellent fashion so long as one avails himself of their merits with gratitude and affection. Learned men teach us about the past, they provide the vantage point on which the actions of a moment transpire, they point out the next way forward which we must tread. Happily the aforementioned splendid work is still being continued with the same zeal; and even if one comes from behind in his investigations in this field, one always comes back with pleasure and renewed interest to what has been offered to us here in fresh and useful form on so many pages.
Nevertheless, I have to admit that this important collection would have helped me more expeditiously if the editor (who, to be sure, works and contributes only for accomplished scholars) had paid some attention to lay readers and amateurs as well and prefaced, if not all, yet several of the essays with a brief introduction to the conditions of past epochs, the personalities, and the locales. Certainly those eager to learn would have been thereby spared a great deal of tedious and distracted rummaging about.
Still, everything which formerly remained a mere desideratum has now become ours in ample measure through this inestimable work which transmits the history of Persian poetry to us. For I gladly acknowledge that in 1814, when the Göttinger Anzeige made the first preliminary announcement of its contents, I immediately organised and rearranged my studies in accord with the rubrics that were given, and in this way gained a considerable advantage. But when the impatiently awaited work finally appeared in its entirety, one landed all at once in a world that was familiar, the conditions of which could be clearly discerned and considered in individual detail, where otherwise things would have been glimpsed only in the most general outlines through shifting layers of fog.
May my use of this work find some measure of favour, as well as my intention of also luring those who might have set this accumulated treasure off to one side over the course of their lives.
Certainly we now possess a foundation upon which Persian literature can be splendidly and visibly established; and by its example, other literatures may win status and support. It remains extremely desirable, nevertheless, that the chronological arrangement be preserved rather than making an attempt at a systematic presentation according to the various genres. For the Oriental poets everything is too mixed up together to enable anyone to single out the individual aspect; only the character of the period and that of the poet in his period are instructive and have a quickening effect on everyone; as the discussion has transpired here may it ever remain.
May the merits of the radiant Shirin and of the darling and gravely edifying clover-leaf, which brings us delight at the very end of our work, be acknowledged everywhere.171