Introduction
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Who the song would understand,
Needs must seek the song's own land.
Who the minstrel understand,
Needs must seek the minstrel's land.
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THE Poems comprised in this collection are written in the
Persian style, and are greatly admired by Oriental scholars, for
the truthfulness with which the Eastern spirit of poetry is
reproduced by the Western minstrel. They were chiefly composed
between the years 1814 and 1819, and first given to the world in
the latter year. Of the twelve books into which they are divided,
that of Suleika will probably be considered the best, from the
many graceful love-songs which it contains. The following is
Hanoi's account of the Divan, and may well serve as a substitute
for anything I could say respecting it:--
It contains opinions and sentiments on the East, expressed in a
series of rich cantos and stanzas full of sweetness and spirit,
and all this as enchanting as a harem emitting the most delicious
and rare perfumes, and blooming with exquisitely-lovely nymphs
with eyebrows painted black, eyes piercing as those of the
antelope, arms white as alabaster, and of the most graceful and
perfectly-formed shapes, while the heart of the reader beats and
grows faint, as did that of the happy Gaspard Debaran, the clown,
who, when on the highest step of his ladder, was enabled to peep
into the Seraglio of Constantinople--that recess concealed from
the inspection of man. Sometimes also the reader may imagine
himself indolently stretched on a carpet of Persian softness,
luxuriously smoking the yellow tobacco of Turkistan through a
long tube of jessamine and amber, while a black slave fans him
with a fan of peacock's feathers, and a little boy presents him
with a cup of genuine Mocha. Goethe has put these enchanting and
voluptuous customs into poetry, and his verses are so perfect, so
harmonious, so tasteful, so soft, that it seems really surprising
that he should ever have been able to have brought the German
language to this state of suppleness. The charm of the book is
inexplicable; it is a votive nosegay sent from the West to the
East, composed of the most precious and curious plants: red
roses, hortensias like the breast of a spotless maiden, purple
digitalis like the long finger of a man, fantastically formed
ranunculi, and in the midst of all, silent and tastefully
concealed, a tuft of German violets. This nosegay signifies that
the West is tired of thin and icy-cold spirituality, and seeks
warmth in the strong and healthy bosom of the East."
Content of Introduction [Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's poem collection: West-Eastern Divan]