In Servia one discovers ancient epic songs celebrating the great feats of national heroes and heroines, and relating particularly to the country’s prolonged struggle for independence.  After translating the main works of Tasso from the Italian for the benefit of his countrymen, one of their poets—­Gundulitch—­composed a twenty-canto epic entitled Osman, wherein he described the war between the Poles and Turks in 1621.  The Servian dramatist Palmotitch later composed the Christiad, or life of Christ, and in the nineteenth century Milutinovitch wrote a Servian epic, while Mazuranie and Bogovitch penned similar poems in Croatian.  As for the Bulgarians they do not seem to have any epic of note.

Turkish literature having been successively under Persian, Arabic, and French influence, has no characteristic epics, although it possesses wonderful cycles of fairy and folk-tales,—­material from which excellent epics could be evolved were it handled by a poet of genius.  The Asiatic part of Turkey being occupied mainly by Arabians, who profess the Mohammedan religion, it is natural that the sayings and doings of Mohammed should form no small part of their literature.  The most important of these collections in regard to the Prophet were made by Al-Bukhari, Muslem, and Al-Tirmidhi.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 37:  See the author’s “Legends of Switzerland.”]

HEBREW AND EARLY CHRISTIAN EPICS

JOB

The Book of Job ranks as “one of that group of five or six world poems that stand as universal expressions of the human spirit.”  For that reason it is considered the representative Hebrew epic, and, as it depicts the conflicts of a human soul, it has also been termed the “epic of the inner life.”

Written after the exile,—­probably in the latter part of the fourth century B.C.,—­it incorporates various older poems, for the theme is thought to antedate the Exodus.  In the prologue we have a description of Job, a model sheik of the land of Uz, whose righteousness wins such complete approval from God that the Almighty proudly quotes his servant before his assembled council as a perfect man.  “The Adversary,” Satan, now dramatically presents himself, and, when taunted by God with Job’s virtues, sarcastically retorts it is easy to be good when favored with continual prosperity.

Thus challenged, and feeling sure of his subject, God allows Satan to do his worst and thus test the real worth of Job.  In quick succession we now behold a once happy and prosperous man deprived of children, wealth, and health,—­misfortunes so swift and dire that his friends in lengthy speeches insist he has offended God, for such trials as his can only be sent in punishment for grievous sins.  The exhortations of Job’s three argumentative friends, as well as of a later-comer, and of his wife, extend over a period of seven days, and cover three whole cycles; but, in spite of all they say, Job steadfastly refuses to curse God as they advise.