n singers.[112] Unfortunately it cannot be said
that it is quite correct. For even if we ignore the mystical
interpretation which Oriental commentators give to the wine of Hafid,
we cannot possibly ignore the fact that the love of which he sings is
never the ideal love for woman, but mostly the love for a handsome
boy.[113]

With the _Divan_ Goethe inaugurated the Oriental movement in German
poetry, which Rueckert, Platen and Bodenstedt carried to its culmination.
These later Hafizian singers remembered gratefully what they owed the
sage of Weimar. Rueckert pays his tribute to him in the opening poem of
his _Oestliche Rosen_, where he hails him as lord of the East as he has
been the star of the West.[114] And Platen offers to him reverentially
his first _Ghaselen_:

Der Orient sei neu bewegt,
Soll nicht nach dir die Welt vernuechtern,
Du selbst, du hast's in uns erregt:
So nimm hier, was ein Juengling schuechtern
In eines Greisen Haende legt.[115]

The poetic spirit of the Orient had been brought into German literature;
it was reserved for Rueckert and Platen to complete the work by bringing
over also the poetic forms.

FOOTNOTES:

[86] Asia, Oder: Ausfuehrliche Beschreibung, etc. See Benfey, Orient u.
Occident, i. p. 721, note.

[87] See Duentzer, Goethes Faust, Leipz. 1882, p. 68.

[88] This information is given by Duentzer in his Goethe ed. (KDNL. vol.
82), vol. i. p. 167, note. The French ed. of Sonnerat, Paris, 1783, does
not contain the story. The German version to which Duentzer refers has
not been accessible to me.

[89] Roger, De Open-Deure, Leyden, 1651, pp. 166, 167, chap. xi.

[90] It is to be noted that in Sanskrit literature _devendra_ is an
epithet of Siva as well as of Indra.

[91] Voyage aux Indes et a la Chine, Paris, 1782, i. 244 seq.

[92] See Benfey, Goethes Gedicht Legende und dessen indisches Vorbild in
Or. u. Occ. i. 719-732. Benfey erroneously supposes the material of the
poem to have been derived from Dapper.

[93] Bombay edition; cf. also Engl. trans. of Mahabh. ed. Roy, vol. iii.
p. 358 seq.

[94] Nirn. Sag. Press ed. Bomb. 1898, p. 407 seq. Cf. also Engl. tr. in
Wealth of India ed. Dutt, Calc. 1895, pp. 62, 63.

[95] For other Sanskrit sources see Petersb. Lex. sub voce _renuka_.

[96] Nirn. Sag. Press ed., Bombay, 1889, p. 481 seq. Cf. also Engl. tr.
by Tawney, vol. ii. p. 261 seq.

[97] See for instance his discussion of Sakuntala, Gitagovinda an