ADDITIONAL NOTES.

‘WAMIK AND ASRA,’ p. 289.

This is the title of an ancient Persian poem, composed in the reign of Nushirvan, A.D. 531-579, of which some fragments only now remain, incorporated with an Arabian poem.  In 1833, Von Hammer published a German translation, at Vienna:  Wamik und Asra; das ist, Gluehende und die Bluehende.  Das aelteste Persische romantische Gedicht.  Jun fuenftelsaft abgezogen, von Joseph von Hammer (Wamik and Asra; that is, the Glowing and the Blowing.  The most ancient Persian Romantic Poem.  Transfer the Fifth, etc.) The hero and heroine, namely, Wamik and Asra, are personifications of the two great principles of heat and vegetation, the vivifying energy of heaven and the correspondent productiveness of earth.—­This noble poem is the subject of a very interesting article in the Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. xviii, 1836-7, giving some of the more striking passages in English verse, of which the following may serve as a specimen: 

  ‘The Blowing One’ Asra was justly named,
      For she, in mind and form, a blossom stood;
  Of beauty, youth, and grace divinely framed,
      Of holiest spirit, filled with heavenly good. 
  The Spring, when warm, in fullest splendour showing,
      Breathing gay wishes to the inmost core
  Of youthful hearts, and fondest influence throwing,
      Yet veiled its bloom, her beauty’s bloom before;
      For her the devotee his very creed forswore. 
  Her hair was bright as hyacinthine dyes;
    Her cheek was blushing, sheen as Eden’s rose;
  The soft narcissus tinged her sleeping eyes,
    And white her forehead, as the lotus shows
  ’Gainst Summer’s earliest sunbeams shimmering fair.

A curious story is related by Dawlat Shah regarding this poem, which bears a close resemblance to the story of the destruction of the Alexandrian Library, by order of the fanatical khalif ’Umar:  One day when Amir Abdullah Tahir, governor of Khurasan under the Abbasside khalifs, was giving audience, a person laid before him a book, as a rare and valuable present.  He asked:  “What book is this?” The man replied:  “It is the story of Wamik and Asra.”  The Amir observed:  “We are the readers of the Kuran, and we read nothing except that sacred volume, and the traditions of the Prophet, and such accounts as relate to him, and we have therefore no use for books of this kind.  They are besides compositions of infidels, and the productions of worshippers of fire, and are therefore to be rejected and contemned by us.”  He then ordered the book to be thrown into the water, and issued his command that whatever books could be found in the kingdom which were the composition of the Persian infidels should be immediately burnt.

ANOTHER FAMOUS ARABIAN LOVER.