831 



PILPAT. 



PINDAR. 



- : 



the Shahnanieh of Firdusi, and by nearly every oriental writer on the 

 history of the Sassanide dynasty), Barxuyeb, an eminent physician at 

 the court of the IVnian king, Nushirwan, who reigned between A.D. 

 HI and 579, ririted India in Maroh, it it said, of a plant which bad 

 beeu reported to possess the power of restoring dead bodies to life ; 

 and on hU return to Persia, instead of that fabulous drug, imported 

 into bis country a translation into Peblvi of the collection of stories 

 now under our consideration. Some circumstances to which Baron de 

 Sacy draws our attention, render it not unlikely that Bnrzuyeh may 

 have been a Christian monk. (See the ' Mcmoire ' prefixed to De Sacy's 

 edition of ' Calilah wa Dimnah,' pp. 36, 37.) Certain it is that this 

 Pehlvi Torsion of the Indian tales, or rather the Arabic translation 

 made from it two centuries later, became the channel through which 

 tbcee fables subsequently found their way to nearly every other nation 

 of western Asia and of Europe. The author of the Arabic translation 

 was a Persian, who bad originally professed the religion of the Magi, 

 and was named Ru/beh, but on his conversion to the Mohammedan 

 frith took the name of Abdallah-ben-Mocnffi. He lived during the 

 first half of the 8th century, and was murdered by order of the 

 Abbaside kalif, Mansur, probably between the years 137 and 139 of 

 the Hegira (A.D. 754-756). His Arabic translation of these fables is in 

 the East usually called the ' Book of Calilah and Dimnah.' It is thus 

 designated in allusion to the names of two jackals which act a con- 

 spicuous part in the first story of the Arabian version, and which we 

 recognise in the Sanskrit original under the forms Carataca and 

 Damauaea, (See the beginning of the first book of the 'Pancha 

 Tantra,' where this is likewise the first story ; and the first story in 

 the second book of the ' Hitopaddsa,' p. 47, edit Schlegel.) In the 

 title of a Syriac translation mentioned by Ebcd Jesu, and attributed 

 by him to Bud Periodeuta, the same two animals arc called Calllag 

 and Damnag. Every trace of this translation is now lost; but if 

 Aasemani is correct in saying that Bud lived early in the 6th century, 

 this Syriac translation must have been made from the Pehlvi version, 

 or perhaps from the Indian original itself. 



The narrator of the stories is, in the Arabic version, called Bidpai : 

 in the Sanskrit original no name similar to this occurs, and the expla- 

 nations of it proposed by several Oriental scholars do not appear to 

 us satisfactory ; but it is certain that the name Pilpay, by which 

 the work is most generally known in Europe, is a corruption of 

 Bidpai. 



From the Arabic text of Abdallah ben Mocaffa sprung several 

 translations into the (modern) Persian. One of the earliest into verse 

 is attributed to Itu'le.'hi, a blind poet who flourished during the earlier 

 part of the 1 Oth century. It was followed by a translation into prose 

 by Nasrallah, who wrote about the year 515 of the Hegira (A.D. 1121). 

 Th most admired Persian translation is however that written about 

 the commencement of the 16th century, by Hussain Viicz CAshefi, 

 and known under the title of ' Anwar-i-Soheili ; ' though less exact 

 and complete than the later one by the celebrated vizir Abulfiizl, 

 Darned ' Ayor-i-Danish.' The Anwar-i-Soheili was, soon after its 

 appearance, translated into Turkiah, under the title 'Huniayun- 

 Natneh,' by Alt Chelebi, who dedicated his performance to the Osmon 

 sultan, Suleiman I. 



The earliest translation of the work of Abdallah ben Mociffa into a 

 European language is the Greek version by Simeon, son of Seth, who 

 flourished towards the close of the llth century. 8. 0. Stark pub- 

 li.-hfd it, from a Hamburg manuscript, in Greek and Latin, but with- 

 out the introductory chapters prefixed to the work partly by Barzuyeh 

 and partly by Ebn Mocaffa, under the title ' Specimen Snpientix 

 Indorum Veteran), &c. (Berlin, 1697, Svo.) Tho chapters wanting in 

 the Hamburg manuscript were edited, though still incomplete, from a 

 manuscript preserved at Upsala, by J. Floder. (' Prolegomena ad 

 librum STdfttWriji <tol Ix 17*07-1)1, Upsala, 1780.) It does not appear 

 that translations into other European languages flowed from the Greek 

 text of Simeon. 



The means by which the Indian stories first became known to most 

 of the nations of Europe, was a translation from the Arabic into 

 Hebrew, made by Rabbi Joel, a learned Jew, probably a native of 

 Spain, who seems to have flourished during the 1 2th century. Of his 

 Hebrew version of the book of ' Calilah and Dininab,' a tingle incom- 

 plete mantucript has been preserved in the Royal Library at Paris, of 

 wl.ii h Baron de Sacy has given an ample account in the ninth volume 

 ol the ' Notices et Kx trait des MSS. de la Bibliotbcque du Koi.' The 

 Hebrew text of Rabbi Joo'l was, in the 13th century (probably between 

 A.I). 1262 and 1278), turned into Latin by Johannes de Capua, a 

 converted Jew, who dedicated his translation to his protector, the 

 Cardinal Matthew de' Rossi (Matthaus de Rubeis). It bean the title 

 1 Directorium Humane Vite, alias Parabole Antiquorum Sapientum; ' 

 and has been printed once, without date, but probably in 1480. This 

 Latin interpretation was again translated into Spanish by Maestre 

 Fadrique Aleman do Basilea, under the title 'Excmplario contra los 

 "jfc" 7 Peligros del Mundo ' (printed at Burgos, 14!'?, fol.), and 

 into German by Count Eberhard of Wiirtomborg, under the title 

 Bdspiele drr Weiwsn von Oeschlecbt zu Qeschlechf (printed at Ulm, 

 1488). The ' Kxemplario contra los Engafioe' seems to have been 

 the source from which Agnolo Fireniuola drew the substance of hui 

 Disoorsi degli Animali : " hero, however, the scenes of the several 

 narratives are laid in various real localities, transferred to Italy. (See 



'Opore di Messer Agnolo Firenzuola,' Florence, 1768, Svo, torn i. pp. 

 5-89.) Another Italian version of these stories, in Doni's ' Filosophia 

 de' Sapienti Antichi, is little more than a translation of the Latin text 

 of Johannes de Capua. In the Royal Library at Paris there is a 

 manuscript of another Latin translation, which was made in the year 

 1813 by Raymundus de Byterris (Raiuiond de Bo'ziers), by order of 

 Queen Johanna of Navarra, the wife of Philip le BeL The author 

 says that he bad a Spanish original before htm, which is now lo*t, but 

 which was probably a translation from the Hebrew of Rabbi JouL 



Besides the Latin version from the Hebrew by Johannes de Capua, 

 there seems to have existed another Latin translation made from the 

 Arabic, which became the source of a translation into the Castilian 

 language, said to have been made about the year 12S9 at the command 

 of King Alfonso X. of Castillo. 



(See the Iff moire Jfutorique >ur le livre intiluti Calilah et JXmna, 

 prefixed to Baron de Sacy's edition of the Arabic text of the Fables of 

 Bidpai, Paris, 1816, 4 to, and the dissertations on the same subject, and 

 by the same authors, in vols, ix. and x. of the Notice* et ExtraiU de* 

 MSS. de la Bibliotheque du. Roi; H. II. Wilson's Analytical Account 

 of the Pancha Tantra, in the Transaction* of the Royal Asiatic Society, 

 vol. i. p. 155; and Kitlpafi Fabeln, au dem Aral/uchen von P. \\'<jlf, 

 2 vols. 12mo, 1887.) 



P1NCIANO, ALONZO LOPES, MEDICO CES^BEO (physician to 

 Charles V.), born about the middle of the 13th century, is known in 

 Spanish literature as having attempted the epic in his ' El IVlayo ; ' he 

 also wrote in a series of letters the ' Philosophia Autigua Poetica,' an 

 extraordinary performance for the age. It appeared at Madrid for 

 the first time in 1596. Pinciano was the first modern scholar who 

 ventured to think for himself on the subject of poetic art ; he estab- 

 lished a philosophical system, and went farther than his master 

 Aristotle. To him is due the credit of having by a careful and minute 

 study of all the writings of Aristotle, discovered that his ' Poetic ' 

 was but the first part of the work so entitled : a fact which had 

 escaped the notice of all previous commentators. Pinciano endeavoured 

 to restore dignity to poetry, and to develope its true chnractcr; he 

 treats minutely of the senses, of the affections, the faculties of the 

 understanding, and the pleasures of cultivated minds. 



PINDAR, son of Daiphantus (or, as others say, of Pagondas, or 

 Scopclinus) and Clidice, was born at Cynoscephalic, a village between 

 Thi-bes and Thespio, in OL 65, 3 (n.c. 618), according to Clinton 

 (' Fasti Helen.,' iii. p. 609), or in Ol. 64, 3 (B.C. 522), according to 

 Bockh (Pindar, torn, iii., p. 14), and died, according to the former 

 computation, in B.C. 439, according to the latter in ac. 442, having 

 completed his eightieth year. He was born at the time of tho 

 Pythian games (about the beginning of July : Arnold ; Thucyd., ii. 

 p. 418), ami he speaks himself (' Fragin. incert.,' 102) of " the festival 

 recurring at the beginning of every five j ears, at which I was first 

 laid upon the bed in swaddling clothes." His wife was Megaclea, 

 daughter of Lyaitbeus and Callina : he seems also to have beeu 

 married to a woman named Timoxena. He had a son Daiphantus, 

 and two daughters, Eumetis and Protomache, 



Pindar's family were hereditary flute-players ; their profession was 

 of great reputation at Thebes, though flute-playing did not come 

 much into fashion at Athens till after the Persian war. Accordingly, 

 he seems to have applied himself at first to that branch of poetry 

 which was peculiarly adapted to a flute accompaniment ; and his first 

 instructor was Lasos of Hermione, a celebrated dithyrambic poet, 

 whose favourite instrument was the flute. (Plutarch, ' De Mug.,' 

 c. 29.) But Thomas Mugister, in his ' Life of Pindar,' says that his 

 father began to teach him the flute, and finding that his capacity was 

 of a higher order, placed him under Lasos, who initiated him into 

 lyric poetry. It is clear however, from what we know of the style of 

 Lasos, that he could not have had much to do with the formation of 

 Pindar's style ss a lyric poet. It is more probable that Pindar, as is 

 expressly stated, profited chiefly by the advice and example of 

 Corinna, the Tanagncim poetess, whose odes were of the same 

 mythical character with those of Pindar, and who was not an imi- 

 tator of the Lesbian reboot, but a teacher of choruses, like Pindar 

 himself. Plutarch tells us ('De Glor. Athen.,' c. 4) that Coriuna 

 recommended Pindar to introduce mythical narratives into his odes, 

 for that this was the proper business of the j>oet the rhythm, music, 

 and ornamented diction being only vehicles of the subject-matter ; and 

 that when, in obedience to her suggestion, the young poet composed a 

 hymn full of Theban mythology, she remarked with a smile, that " he 

 ought to sow with the hand, and not with the whole sack." This 

 Corinna frequently contended against her pupil in the musical con- 

 tests, and gained five victories over him (I'aiisan., ix. 22; vKlian, 

 ' \ .11.,' xiiL 24), though she found fault with the poetess Myrtis for 

 doing the same thing : " I blame t)io clear-toned Myrtis, I, that she, 

 a woman bom, should enter into rivalry with Pindar." (Apollon., 

 'DysooL, 'De Pronom.,' p. C4, 1!.) He had another instructor, Aga- 

 thoclcs, or Apollodorus, of Athens, who allowed him to teach the 

 cyclic or dithyrauibio chorus there, while he was a mere boy. Piudar 

 must have commenced at a very early period his career as a pro- 

 fessional composer of choral ode* for special occasions. At the nge of 

 twenty he composed an Epinician ode in honour of Hippocles, or 

 Ilippoclcas, of Pcliuoa in Thessuly, who had won the prize at the 

 Pythinu games; and this ode, which is still extant ('Pyth.,' x., 



