[RCL]

Digging into my 37-year old notes for a project on Georgia (in 1977 laying groundwork for seceding from the USSR), I decided to re-read the poem that is their cultural foundation.

These are part of the introductory quatrains of Shota Rust’haveli’s Man in the Panther’s Skin (12th century), a reprint of the original edition of Marjorie Wardrop’s translation of 1912. It is a clear reading text from kindle (cheap), but the original hard copy has a lengthy contextual introduction and the quatrains have numerous notes to variants for scholars and translators. Wiki has general information. Here's a text with the introduction and notes online:

http://archive.org/stream/publicatio...euoft_djvu.txt

I copied out what amounts to his ars poetica. It's likely to be a boost to writers of long poems rather than lyrics. He has epic ambitions in his 1,576 quatrains that Georgians consider it their national epic.

I have a handful of versions and some say Knight, Wardrop's says Man; corrected above.


19 Minstrelsy is, first of all, a branch of wisdom; divinely intelligible to the godlike, very wholesome to them that hearken; it is pleasant, too, if the listener be a worthy man; in few words he utters a long discourse: herein lies the excellence of poetry.

20 Like a horse running a great race on a long course, like a ball-player in the lists striking the ball fairly and aiming adroitly at the mark , even so it is with the poet who composes and indites long poems, when utterance is hard for him and verse begins to fail.

21 Then, indeed, behold the poet, and his poesy will be manifest. When he is at a loss for Georgian (words), and verse begins to fail, he will not weaken Georgian, nor will he let it grow poor in words. Let him strike the ball cunningly; he will show great virtue.

22 He who utters, somewhere, one or two verses cannot be called a poet; let him not think himself equal to great singers. Even if they compose a few discrepant verses from time to time, yet if they say, "Mine are of the best!" they are stiff-necked mules.

23 Secondly, lyrics which are but a small part of poetry and cannot command heart-piercing words--I may liken them to the bad bows of young hunters who cannot kill big game; they are able only to slay the small.

24 Thirdly, lyrics are fit for the festive, the joyous, the amorous, the merry, for pleasantries of comrades; they please us when they are rightly sung. Those are not called poets who cannot compose a long work.

25 The poet must not spend his toil in vain. One should seem to him worthy of love; he must be devoted to one, he must employ all his art for her, he must praise her, he must set forth the glory of his beloved; he must wish for nought else, for her alone must his tongue be tuneful.

[Julie Steiner]

Thanks, Ralph! I enjoyed that.

[Ann Drysdale]

I read the title. My mind went from Georgian (UK historical period), via Georgian (UK literary movement) and Georgian (US interstate difficulty), hovering for a moment in the modern States to wonder who, down South, is producing cult fiction...?

And then I found what the post was really about. I am enthralled. Thank you, Ralph for showing me something entirely new to me.

(Our nearest metropolis is "twinned" with Kutaisi, as it happens. So possibly the library will have things...)

[John Whitworth]

The remarkable thing about Georgia is how few Georgians live there. There are more Scots in Scotland. Plenty of elbow room then. Interesting stuff. I taught English to a Georgian doctor once. A delightful man, full of exuberance and charm who rubbed salt round the rim of his beer glass, a Georgian custom, he assured us. And we were quite wrong about Uncle Joe. Quite unRussian, though they can have charm too.