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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JULY, 1903.
incentive to deeds of valour, little occasion for eruption and invasion, the people would yield themselves in their undisturbed prosperity to their predilection for speculation or philosophy.
Iran, on the contrary, is, as we said before, in comparison to India, an indigent country, fertilized by no great rivers, having an arid soil, and a frequently unfriendly and very unequal climate. He who would enjoy there the sweets of life must work in the sweat of his brow and extort scanty produce from a reluctant soil. Protected by nature only in the east, and but partially in the west, its northern frontier is entirely exposed to the incursion of wild hordes, who, famishing in a still more sterile region, inundate the land in serried masses as often as they can reckon on a successful foray. Along its western marches it was abandoned to the ambition and ferocity of the Babylonian and Assyrian monarchies. A people who took up their abode in such a clime must be perpetually on their guard and under arms, else, as it happened not rarely, it was ravaged by a merciless enemy; and the moment the authority of the invaders declined, there followed the inevitable inroads on their side to avenge the discomfiture. Such latitudes breed no anchorites or ascetics, ner speculative thinkers either, but men of action who conceive life as a constant struggle against the powers of darkness and evil. Vigilance and energetic activity, the grand commandments of the Zarathushtrian daena, were laws which nature imposed on the land long before they stood inscribed in the Avesta.
(To be continued.).
SUBHASHITAMALIKA.
Translated from German Poets.
BY PROFESSOR C. CAPPELLER, PH.D., JENA.
Work. 1
Wem wohl das Glück die schönste Palme beut ? Wer freudig that, sich des Gethanen freut.
तस्योपैति नरस्याङ्कं लक्ष्मीरधिकदुर्लभा । यः करोति सुखी कर्म कृतकार्यश्च तुष्यति ।।
tasyöpaiti narasyânkam lakshmir adhikadurlabha yah karoti sukhi karma kritakaryas cha tushyati II
Cf. Hitop. Introd. 30.
2
Arbeit macht das Leben süss, Macht es nie zur Last; Der nur hat Bekümmerniss, Der die Arbeit hasst.
लपयत्युद्यमी भारा जीवनं प्रीणयत्यपि । स एवार्तिसमापन्न उद्यमाची जुगुप्सते || laghayaty udyamo bhârâñ jivanam pripayaty api sa Avârtisamapanna ndyamad yo jugupsats ||
Cf. Bhartri. II. 74.
GOETHE.
BURMANN.
