Gitanjali

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Title: Gitanjali
Author: Rabindranath Tagore
Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7164]
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Edition: 10
Language: English
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GITANJALI
***
Originally scanned at sacred-texts.com by John B. Hare.
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Literature
The Gitanjali or 'song offerings' by Rabindranath Tagore

(1861--1941), Nobel prize for literature 1913, with an
introduction by
William B. Yeats (1865--1939), Nobel prize for literature 1923. First
published in 1913.
This work is in public domain according to the Berne
convention
since January 1st 1992.
RABINDRANATH TAGORE
GITANJALI
Song Offerings
A collection of prose translations
made by the author from
the
original Bengali
With an introduction by
W. B. YEATS
to WILLIAM
ROTHENSTEIN
INTRODUCTION
A few days ago I said to a distinguished Bengali doctor of
medicine,
'I know no German, yet if a translation of a German poet had moved
me, I would go to the British Museum and find books in English that
would tell me something of his life, and of the history of his thought.
But though these prose translations from Rabindranath Tagore have
stirred my blood as nothing has for years, I shall not know anything of
his life, and of the
movements of thought that have made them
possible, if some Indian traveller will not tell me.' It seemed to him
natural that I should be moved, for he said, 'I read Rabindranath every

day, to read one line of his is to forget all the troubles of the world.' I
said, 'An Englishman living in London in the reign of Richard the
Second had he been shown translations from Petrarch or from Dante,
would have found no books to answer his questions, but would have
questioned some Florentine banker or Lombard merchant as I question
you. For all I know, so abundant and simple is this poetry, the new
renaissance has been born in your country and I shall never know of it
except by hearsay.' He answered, 'We have other poets, but none that
are his equal; we call this the epoch of Rabindranath. No poet seems to
me as famous in Europe as he is among us. He is as great in music as in
poetry, and his songs are sung from the west of India into Burma
wherever Bengali is spoken. He was already famous at nineteen when
he wrote his first novel; and plays when he was but little older, are still
played in Calcutta. I so much admire the completeness of his life; when
he was very young he wrote much of natural objects, he would sit all
day in his garden; from his twenty-fifth year or so to his thirty-fifth
perhaps, when he had a great sorrow, he wrote the most beautiful love
poetry in our language'; and then he said with deep emotion, 'words can
never express what I owed at seventeen to his love poetry. After that
his art grew deeper, it became religious and philosophical; all the

inspiration of mankind are in his hymns. He is the first among our
saints who has not refused to live, but has spoken out of Life itself, and
that is why we give him our love.' I may have changed his well-chosen
words in my memory but not his thought. 'A little while ago he was to
read divine service in one of our churches--we of the Brahma Samaj
use your word 'church' in
English--it was the largest in Calcutta and
not only was it crowded, but the streets were all but impassable because
of the people.'
Other Indians came to see me and their reverence for this man sounded
strange in our world, where we hide great and little things under the
same veil of obvious comedy and half-serious depreciation. When we