Gar viel bedeutet's nicht, mich dünkt! Dem nur, was Rückert längst schon besser machte Und Platen, bist du keuchend nachgehinkt. (Vol. x. p. 47.)
[230] Stimmen vom Ganges. Eine Sammlung Indischer Sagen, 2 Auflage, Stuttgart, 1877. The first edition appeared in 1857. There the eleventh story was Yadu's Meerfahrt (from Harivaṃśa). In the second edition this was omitted and an imitation of the Nalōdaya substituted as an appendix. The sources for each poem are given by the author himself in Nachwort, p. 215, note.
[232] See Lanman, The Milk-drinking Haṅsas of Sanskrit Poetry, JAOS. vol. 19. 2, pp. 151-158. Goose would be a better translation of the word _haṃsa_ than swan.
[233] We cite from the edition mentioned on p. vii.
[234] Strophen des Omar Chijam, Stuttg. 1878. The translation itself dates from an earlier period than the year of publication. The author, speaking of the delay in bringing it before the public, states that Horace's nonumque prematur in annum could be applied in threefold measure to this work (p. 118). Hence the translation was made about 1850, or a little later.
[235] Herder, Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität, x, ed. Suphan, vol. 18, p. 259; Deguignes, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 172; Francis Gladwin, The Persian Moonshee, Calcutta, 1801, Pers. and Engl. pt. ii. p. 3.
[236] See Hammer, Fundgruben, vol. i. pp. 7, 8.
Now that we have come to the end of our investigation, it may be well to survey briefly the whole field and to summarize the results we have reached.
We have seen that to mediæval Europe India and Persia were lands of magic and enchantment; their languages and literatures were utterly unknown. Whatever influence these literatures exerted on that of Europe was indirect and not recognized. Nor did the Portuguese discoveries effect an immediate change. It was only by slow degrees that the West obtained any knowledge of Eastern thought. The _Gulistān_ and _Būstān_ of Saʻdī, some maxims of Bhartṛhari and a few scattered fragments were all that was known in Europe of Indic or Persian literature before the end of the eighteenth century.
Then the epoch-making discoveries of Sir William Jones aroused the attention of the Western world and laid the foundations of a new science. New ideas of world-wide significance presented themselves to the European mind. Nowhere were these ideas welcomed with more enthusiasm than in Germany, the home of philological scholarship. Herder pointed the way, and by means of translations and imitations tried to introduce the treasures of Oriental thought into German literature. That he did not meet with unqualified success was due, as we have seen, to his one-sided didactic tendency. To him, however, belongs the credit of the first impulse. Then Friedrich Schlegel founded the study of Sanskrit in Germany, while at the same time Hammer was busily at work spreading a knowledge of the Persian poets in Europe. The effect of the latter's work was instantaneous, for, as has been pointed out, it was his translation of H̱āfiḍ that inspired the composition of Goethe's _Divan_ and thus started the Oriental movement in Germany.