234 



Fourteenth Meeting — May 19, 1851. 



J. B. YATES, Esq., in the Chair. 



The following donations were announced : — 



Philosojah^ of Geographical Barnes, by the llev. Dr. 



Hunie : from the Author. [Read before the Society, 



November 26, 1849.] 

 Annual Report (V&o\) of the Liverpool Architectural 



Society. 



Mr. Heniiy Behrend read a paper, entitled. Specimens of 

 the Persiac Odes, illustrated with metrical translations. 



The author commenced by an allusion to the high claims 

 oriental literature has on our attention from the religious 

 associations of the east, and its connexion with the birth and 

 progress of civilization. Its literature embraces every subject, 

 from the deepest philosophy to the most trivial songs. The 

 Persiac metres present some curious features, admitting of 

 almost every variety, especially in the odes, in which the same 

 rhyme not unfrequently extends through four syllables, or 

 even more, and this is sustained throughout the entire poem — 

 the accent falling on the penultimate or antipenultimate : the 

 heroic poems usually consist of the Trochaic verse of eleven 

 syllables, the lyrics of one short syllable, followed by three 

 long ones. The power of imagery is carried to its greatest 

 extent in Persiac poetry, and is as admirably sustained as it is 

 boldly conceived. Of this several specimens were given. 



The gems of Persiac poetry are the love songs, or ghazuls, 

 in which Hafiz chiefly excelled. Some of the German orien- 

 talists have noticed the extraordinary similarity they bear to 

 the fragments of the Greek odes of 'Anacreon, Sappho, and 



