i.e.
“Tamara, the mild, the pleasing, the sweetly speaking, the kindly smiling,
The sunlike shining one, the majestic, the gently moving, like a full river.”
Shavteli was even more highly prized than Rustaveli, but his greatest work is lost. Khoneli and Tmokveli, the former in “Daredjaniani,” the latter in “Visramiani” and “Dilariani,” have left us romances of chivalry and adventure which are still much admired, and are well worthy of comparison with the best European literature of the same class. About the same time the national chronicle, called “Kartlis tzkhovreba,” i.e. Georgia’s Life, was written.
This period of literary activity was brought to an abrupt close by the terrible invasion of Genghis Khan, and for about four centuries the incessant wars in which the country was engaged gave plenty of opportunity for acting romances, but little time for writing them.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century Prince Sulkhan Orbeliani described his “Journey through Europe,” and wrote a collection of fables and folk-tales, lately published in Russian. Orbeliani had lived at the court of Louis XIV., and was very friendly with La Fontaine, who is indebted to the Georgian prince for some of his fables. His greatest service to his country was, however, the compilation of a dictionary, containing 25,000 words, which has formed the basis for all later lexicographical works.
In 1712 King Vakhtang VI. opened a printing office in Tiflis, and issued the chief poems and romances of the Tamarian period at such a price as to make them attainable by all his subjects. Irakli II., of glorious memory, continued to act as the Augustus of Georgian literature, and in the Catholicos Antoni it found a Mæcenas or Pollio. The chief writers of the eighteenth century were Prince Vakhusht, son of Vakhtang VI., who compiled a “History of Georgia” and a “Geography of Georgia,” and the Catholicos Antoni, who published many educational and religious works. Guramoshvili and Savatnava sang the triumphs of Irakli in powerful lyrics which are still familiar to every peasant.
The following serenade belongs to this period; it was copied down by Pushkin in 1829, and he says of it, “There is in it a certain Oriental inconsequence which is not altogether devoid of poetical worth.”
“Soul newly born in Paradise!
Soul made for my delight!