[194] Atha kadacid avasannayam ratrav astacalacudavalambini bhagavati kumudininayake candramasi.... (ed.  Bomb. 1891, p. 7).  “Once upon a time when the night was spent and the moon, the lordly lover of the lotuses, was reclining on the crest of the western mountain....”  Of other allusions to this lotus we may cite Vikramorvasi, Act 3. ed.  Parab and Telang, Bomb. 1888, p. 79; Sak.  Act iii. ed.  Kale, p. 81, and Act iv. ib. p. 96.

[195] The episode occurs in Ramay. i. 51-56.  It had been translated as early as 1816 by Bopp in his Conjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache.

[196] Mahabh. iii. 108, 109; Ramay. i. 42, 43; Markandeya Pur. and other works.  Heine’s acquaintance was due undoubtedly to Schlegel’s translation in Indische Bibliothek, 1820. (Aug.  Schlegel, Werke, iii. 20-44.)

[197] See article on this subject by M. Schuyler, Jr., in JAOS. vol. xx. 2. p. 338 seq.

[198] Letter to Friedr.  Steinmann, Saemmtl.  Werke, Hamb. 1876, vol. xix.  No. 7, p. 43.

[199] Ibid.  No. 15, p. 80.

[200] Ibid.  No. 38, pp. 200, 201.

[201] One poem of his earliest period, Die Lehre (vol. iii. p. 276), published in Hamburgs Waechter, 1817 (Strodtmann, op. cit. i. 54), does seem to show it.  In this the young bee, heedless of motherly advice, does not beware of the candle-flame and so “Flamme gab Flammentod.”  We at once recognize a familiar Persian thought, and are reminded of Goethe’s fine line, “Das Lebend’ge will ich preisen das nach Flammentod sich sehnet.” (Selige Sehnsucht, ed.  Loeper, iv. 26.)

[202] O.M. v.  Schlechta-Wssehrd, Der Fruehlingsgarten von Mewlana Abdurrahman Dschami, Wien, 1846.  Persian text, p. 38.

[203] For a discussion of the legend see Noeldeke in Grdr. iran.  Phil. vol. ii. pp. 154, 155, 158.

CHAPTER X.

BODENSTEDT.

      Lieder des Mirza Schaffy—­Are Original Poems—­Nachlass—­Aus
      Morgenland und Abendland—­Sakuntala, a Narrative Poem.

The Hafid tendency was carried to the height of popularity by Friedrich Martin Bodenstedt, whose Lieder des Mirza Schaffy met with a phenomenal success, running through one hundred and forty editions in Germany alone during the lifetime of the author, besides being translated into many foreign languages.[204] These songs have had a remarkable career, which the author himself relates in an essay appended to the Nachlass.[205]

According to the prevailing opinion, Mirza Schaffy was a great Persian poet, a rival of Sa’di and Hafid, and Bodenstedt was the translator of his songs.  Great, therefore, was the astonishment of the European, and particularly the German public, when it was discovered that the name of this famous poet was utterly unknown in the East, even in his own native land.  As early as 1860, Professor Brugsch, when in Tiflis, had searched for the singer’s grave, but in vain;