OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
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every tongue, the dramatic art and verbal argumentation of the disciple of Socrates[1] appear to be indissolubly mingled with the grace and perfection of his Attic style. In the search of universal knowledge, Nushirvan was informed that the moral and political fables of Pilpay, an ancient Brachman, were preserved with jealous reverence among the treasures of the kings of India. The physician [Barzoe] Perozes was secretly dispatched to the banks of the Ganges, with instructions to procure, at any price, the communication of this valuable work. His dexterity obtained a transcript, his learned diligence accomplished the translation; and the fables of Pilpay[2] were read and admired in the assembly of Nushirvan and his nobles. The Indian original and the Persian copy have long since disappeared; but this venerable monument has been saved by the curiosity of the Arabian caliphs, revived in the modern Persic, the Turkish, the Syriac, the Hebrew, and the Greek idioms, and transfused through successive versions into the modern languages of Europe. In their present form the peculiar character, the manners and religion of the Hindoos, are completely obliterated; and the intrinsic merit of the fables of Pilpay is far inferior to the concise elegance of Phædrus and the native graces of La Fontaine. Fifteen moral and political sentences are illustrated in a series of apologues; but the composition is intricate, the narrative pro-
- ↑ Agathias specifies the Gorgias, Phædon, Parmenides, and Timæus. Renaudot (Fabricius, Bibliot. Græc. tom. xii. p. 246-261) does not mention this Barbaric version of Aristotle.
- ↑ Of these fables, I have seen three copies in three different languages: 1. In Greek, translated by Simeon Seth (A.D. 1100) from the Arabic, and published by Starck at Berlin in 1697, in 12mo. 2. In Latin, a version from the Greek, Sapientia Indorum, inserted by Père Poussin at the end of his edition of Pachymer (p. 547-620, edit. Roman). 3. In French, from the Turkish, dedicated, in 1540, to Sultan Soliman: Contes et Fables Indiennes de Bidpai et de Lokman, par MM. Galland et Cardonne, Paris, 1778, 3 vols, in 12mo. Mr. Wharton (History of English Poetry, vol. i. p. 129-131) takes a larger scope. [These fables formed the collection entitled the Panchatantra. They are translated from Sanskrit into German by Theodore Benfey, who in the first volume of his famous work (Pantschatantra, 1859) gives a full account of the origin and diffusion of the fables. There is no reason to doubt that they were translated into Pehlevi in Nushirvan's reign (cp. Benfey, op. cit. i. p. 6, footnote), and from this translation was made in 8th century the extant Arabic version (ed. by Silvestre de Sacy, "Calila et Dimna ou fables de Bidpai," 1816; English translation by Knatchbull, 1819). Then this Arabic version was translated into Persian (12th century) by Nasr Allah, and a free recension of this version by Husain Vaïz was done into English by Eastwick, 1854. In the Greek translation of Seth the title is not Kalilah and Dimnah, but "Stephanites and Ichnelates". It has been edited critically by V. Puntoni (1889). A Syriac version has been edited by W. Wright (1884), and translated into English by Mr. Keith Falconer (1885). See further, Benfey, op. cit.; Krumbacher, Gesch. der byz. Litt. p. 895. It may be added that Bidpai was a philosopher who appears in some of the fables; and their authorship was ascribed to him by the Arabic translator.]
