Note 5 — XXVII. IN MESHED.

Amongst the various great poetical compositions of Mohammedan Asia, we may boldly call the poems of Hafiz, Saadi, and Firdusi the household works of every enlightened or rather of every educated Mohammedan. As to the latter one, I have scarcely met with any Persian who was not conversant with the heroes of the great epic called the "Shah-Nameh;" and there is rarely a bath, a caravansary or any other public building, excepting mosques and colleges, which would not be adorned with primitive pictures, representing the heroic feats of Rustem, Zal and Kai Khosrau. The "Shah-Nameh" is the only popular history of the Iranian world, it is the mirror in the resplendent radiance of which the Persian and the Central Asian delight to find the glory of by-gone ages; and really, without having read the "Shah-Nameh," we shall never be able to realize the wonderful spirit of that Asiatic world which was superseded by Islam. A popularization of this masterly epic is therefore a great service done to the knowledge of the East. In Germany Rückert and Schack have tried this task; but owing to the form which they selected, their success was only a partial one, and the large public of the said country possesses but a fragmentary notion of the "Book of Kings."

Quite recently there has come out in England "The Epic of Kings" (since re-published under the title of "Heroic Tales"), stories retold from Firdusi, by Helen Zimmern (London: T. Fisher Unwin), which relates in delightfully written prose the chief and most moving stories referring to the great heroes of Iranian antiquity from the Shahs of old to the death of Rustem. Although she has written a paraphrase and not a translation, the author, by uniting a rare poetical gift with a true understanding of the East, has succeeded in rendering the great epic accessible to the large reading public, which can now taste this justly famous poetical production of the East, and which will certainly be thankful to Miss Zimmern for the rare enjoyment.