150 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF FACTS. 



of Antar, The Deeds of the Warriors, and The 

 Deeds of the Heroes. Of late years several 

 eminent French and German scholars have 

 given their attention to the study of Arabic 

 literature, the best works of which are now ac- 

 cessible through their translations. 



PERSIAN LITERATURE. 



The modern literature of Persia succeeded 

 that of Arabia. After the conquests of the 

 country by the caliphs, about the middle of the 

 seventh century, the arts and sciences of the 

 Arabs, together with the religion of Mahomet, 

 were transplanted upon Persian soil, but the 

 fruits of this new culture did not appear for 

 several succeeding generations. The first Per- 

 sian books, both of poetry and history, were 

 written in the early part of the tenth century, 

 and for several centuries there vas no inter- 

 ruption in the list of renowned authors. Lit- 

 erature was encouraged and rewarded, what- 

 ever might be the political convulsions that 

 affected the empire. Persian poetry consists 

 for the most part of small lyrics, arranged in 

 divans, or collections. There are also several 

 voluminous historical, romantic, and allegor- 

 ical poems, besides legends and narratives told 

 in a mixture of prose and verse. The first 

 Persian poet is Rudegi, who nourished about 

 the year 952. Firdausi, the great epic poet of 

 Persia, died in the year 1030, at the age of 

 seventy. He wrote the Shah Nameh, or King's 

 Book, describing the deeds of the Persian rul- 

 ers, from the creation of the world to the 

 downfall of the Sassanide dynasty in 632. He 

 was thirty years in the composition of this 

 work, which contains sixty thousand verses. 

 The most celebrated portion is that recounting 

 the adventures of the hero Rustem. Nisami, 

 at the close of the twelfth century, wrote ex- 

 tensive romantic poems, the most remarkable 

 of which were Medjnoun and Leila, and Iskan- 

 der-Nameh, an epic on Alexander the Great. 

 Chakani was a celebrated writer of odes in 

 the thirteenth century. Saadi, one of the most 

 celebrated Persian authors, was born in 1175, 

 and lived till 1263. His poems are principally 

 moral and didactic, but rich with the expe- 

 rience of a fruitful life, and written in a very 

 simple and graceful style. His best works are 

 the Gulistan, or Garden of Roses, and the Bos- 

 tan, or Garden of Trees. Hafiz, the oriental 

 poet of love, was born at Schiraz in the begin- 

 ning of the fourteenth century, where he lived 

 as a dervish in willing poverty, resisting the 

 invitations of the caliphs to reside in Bagdad. 

 Tn the year 1388 he had an interview with 

 Tamerlane, by whom he was treated with much 

 honor. His poems consisted of odes and ele- 

 gies which have been collected into a Divan. 



His lyrics, devoted to the praise of love and 

 wine, are full of fire and melody. 



Djami, who died in 1492, was one of the 

 most prolific of Persian writers. His lil'e \\ as 

 spent at Herat, where, in the hall of th<- 

 rnosque, he taught the people the precepts of 

 virtue and religion. He left behind him forty 

 works, theological, poetical, and mystical 

 Seven of his principal poems were united un- 

 der the title of The Seven Stars of the l',ir. 

 His history of mysticism, entitled The Breath 

 of Man, is his greatest prose work. Among 

 the later Persian poems are the Schehinschek- 

 Nameh, a continuation of the Booh <>f Kin;/*, 

 and the George- Nanieh, an account of the con- 

 quest of India by the British. The Persian 

 is the only Mahometan literature containing 

 dramatic poetry. Its dramas strikingly resem- 

 ble the old French mysteries. Of the collec- 

 tions of tales, legends, and fairy stories, the 

 most celebrated are the Anwari sohci/i, or ].i</htx 

 of the Canopy, and the Behari danisch, orSj>ri/nf 

 of Wisdom. The historical works in the Per- 

 sian language are very numerous and valuable. 

 They embrace the history of the Mahometan 

 races from Mongolia to Barbary. The princi- 

 pal works are the Chronicle_s of ]]'<i^nf. a his- 

 tory of the successors of Genghis Khan, which 

 appeared in 1333 ; the Jfarrou: of the < 7//v/f//V/Vx. 

 by Khaswini, in 1370, and the Rauset K^nfn, 

 a great universal histoi'y, of which modern his- 

 torians have made good use. It was written 

 by Mirchond, about the year 1450. In the 

 departments of ethics, rhetoric, theology, and 

 medicine, the Persian scholars are only second 

 to the Arabic. They also excelled in transla- 

 tion, and have reproduced, in Persian, nearly 

 the entire literature of India. 



ITALIAN LITERATURE. 



The Italian language assumed a regular and 

 finished character at the Court of Roger I., 

 King of Sicily, in the twelfth century. Sev- 

 eral poets arose, who, borrowing the forms of 

 verse from the provengal troubadours, gave 

 the people songs in their native language in 

 place of the melodies of the Moors and Ara- 

 bians. The Italian soon became the court 

 language of Italy, and Malespina's History <>t' 

 Florence, which was written in the year 1280, 

 is scarcely inferior in elegance and purity of 

 style to any Italian prose works which have 

 since been produced. The first genuine poet 

 of Italy, however, was her greatest, and one 

 of the greatest of all time. Dante commenced 

 his great poem of the Divina Coinmedia in the 

 year 1304, just before his exile from Florence, 

 and completed it during his many years of 

 wandering from one court of Italy to another. 

 Out of the rude and imperfect materials within 



