mūrkhō hi jalpatāṃ puṃsāṃ śrutvā vācaḥ śubhāśubhāḥ
aśubhaṃ vākyam ādattē purīṣam iva sūkaraḥ
prājñas tu jalpatāṃ puṃsāṃ śrutvā vācaḥ śubhāśubhāḥ
guṇavad vākyam ādattē haṃsaḥ kṣīram ivāṃbhasaḥ
(Mbh. 74. 90, 91.)
"The fool having heard men's speeches containing good and evil chooses the evil just as a hog dirt; but the wise man having heard men's speeches containing good and evil chooses the worthy, just as a swan (separates) milk from water."[232]
We believe that these illustrations will suffice to give an idea of the relation which Schack's poems bear to the originals.
His fondness for things Oriental finds also frequent expression in his own poems. In Nächte des Orients (vol. i. p. 7 seq.),[233] like Goethe before him, he undertakes a poetic Hegira to the East:
Entfliehen lasst mich, fliehn aus den Gewirren
Des Occidents zum heitern Morgenland!
So he visits the native towns of Firdausī and Hāfiḍ and pays his respect to their memory, and then penetrates also into India, where he hears from the lips of a Buddhist monk an exposition of Nirvāṇa philosophy, which, however, is unacceptable to him (p. 111). The Oriental scenes that are brought before our mind, both in this poem as well as in "Memnon" (vol. vii. p. 5 seq.), are of course portrayed with poetic feeling as well as scholarly accuracy. The ẖājī who owns the wonderful elixir,—which, by the way, is said to come from India (p. 33),—and who interprets each vision that the poet lives through from the standpoint of the pessimistic sceptic, shows the influence of ʻUmar Xayyām. In fact he indulges sometimes in unmistakable reminiscences of the quatrains of the famous astronomer-poet, as when he says:
Wie Schattenbilder, die an der Laterne,
Wenn sie der Gaukler schiebt, vorübergleiten,
So zieht die blöde, willenlose Herde,
Die Menschheit mein' ich, über diese Erde. (p. 55.)
This is very much the same thought as in the following quatrain of ʻUmar (Whinf. 310; Bodl. 108):
اين چرخ فلک که ما درو حيرانيم
فانوس خيال ازو مثالی دانيم
خورشيد چراغ دان و عالم فانوس
ما چون صوريم کاندر و گردانيم