The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany | Page 7

appropriate transition to the time when the
Oriental movement in Germany really began.
After the Portuguese had sailed around Africa, direct and uninterrupted
communication with the far East was established. Portuguese, Dutch,
French and English merchants appeared successively on the scene to
get their share of the rich India commerce. German merchants also
made a transitory effort. The firm of the Welsers in Augsburg sent two
representatives who accompanied the expedition of Francisco d'
Almeida in 1505 and that of Tristão da Cunha in the following year.
But conditions were not favorable and the attempt was not
renewed.[49]
Travels to India and Persia now multiplied rapidly, and accounts of
such travels became very common; so common, in fact, that already in
the sixteenth century collections of them were made, the best known
being the Novus Orbis of Grynaeus, and the works of Ramusio and
Hakluyt. Among the more famous travellers of the sixteenth century we
may mention Barthema, Federici, Barbosa, Fitch and van Linschoten
for India, and the brothers Shirley for Persia. In the seventeenth century
we may cite the names of della Valle, Baldaeus, Tavernier, Bernier and
the German Mandelslo for India, while those of Olearius and Chardin

are most famous in connection with Persia. And that books of travel
were much read in Germany is attested by the number of editions and
translations which appeared there. Thus among the earliest books
printed there we have a translation of Marco Polo (Nuremberg),
1477,[50] reprinted repeatedly, e.g. at Augsburg, 1481, in the Novus
Orbis, 1534 (Latin version), at Basle, 1534 (German translation of the
preceding), while Mandeville's memoirs were so popular as to become
finally a Volksbuch.[51]
The account of Olearius is of special interest to us. It gives an excellent
description of Persia, and above all it gives us valuable information on
the literature and language. Olearius is struck by the similarity of many
Persian words to corresponding words in German and Latin, and hints
at the kinship of these idioms, though, looking only at the vocabulary
and not at the structure, he supposes Persian to be related to Arabic.[52]
He tells us of the high esteem in which poetry was held by the Persians,
and notices that rhyme is an indispensable requisite of their poetic art.
He also mentions some of their leading poets, among them Sa'di, Hafid,
Firdausi and Nidami.[53]

But what interests us most is the translation which he made of the
Gulistan_, published in 1654, under the title of Persianischer
Rosenthal_. True, it was not the first in point of time. As early as 1634
du Ryer had published at Paris an incomplete French version, and
shortly afterwards this version was translated into German by Johann
Friedrich Ochsenbach of Tübingen, but apparently without attracting
much notice.[54] In 1644, Levin Warner of Leyden had given the
Persian text and Latin version of a number of Sa'di's maxims,[55] while
Gentius had published the whole text with a Latin translation at
Amsterdam in 1651. But it was the version of Olearius that really
introduced the Gulistan to Europe.
The edition of Olearius, from which we have cited, contains also a
translation of the Bustan_, called _Der Persianische Baumgarten,
made, however, not directly from the Persian, but from a Dutch version.
Besides this, the edition contains also the narratives of two other

travellers, Jürgen Andersen and Volquard Iversen, as well as an
account of Persia by the French missionary Sanson. Iversen, in
speaking of the Parsi religion, gives an essentially correct account of
the Zoroastrian hierarchy, of the supreme god and his seven servants,
each presiding over some special element, evidently an allusion to
Ahura Mazda and his six Amesha Spentas, with the possible addition of
Sraosha.[56] Sanson states that the Gavres have kept up the old Persian
language and that it is entirely different from modern Persian,[57] a
distinct recognition of the existence of the Avestan language. The
eighteenth century saw the discovery of the Avesta by Anquetil du
Perron, and its close found men like Jones, Revizky, de Sacy and
Hammer busily engaged in spreading a knowledge of Persian literature
in Europe.

India, as far as its literature was concerned, did not fare so well. The
struggles of European nations for the mastery of that rich empire did
little towards promoting a knowledge of its religion or its language.
Nor were the efforts of missionaries very successful. Most of their
attention was devoted to the Dravidian idioms of Southern India, not to
Sanskrit. We have the authority of Friedrich Schlegel for the statement
that before his time there were but two Germans who were known to
have gained a knowledge of the sacred language, the missionary
Heinrich Roth and the Jesuit Hanxleben.[58] Even their work was not
published and was superseded by that of Jones, Colebrooke and