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must be regarded either as a fortuitous coincidence in style between two literatures that never really touched, or the effect, however remote, of the one upon the other ? Before setting out what appears to me to be something of the kind desiderated, I will make two preliminary re. marks. In the first place there is of course no question here of such a complete conquest by one literature of another, or rather complete trang, ference of one and the same breath of letters from one country to another as is presented in the familiar instance of Greece and Rome. Vyasa did not put together the Mahâbhârata because he had learned to know and admire the Iliad and Odyssey. Kadambari is not modelled on anything in Greek literature as the odes of Horace are modelled on the strains of Sappho or Alcæus. The influence was partial and indirect, not direct and all-absorbing: and analogies to the Sanskrit romance are to be looked for not in the plays of Æschylus and Euripides, but in the Greek that was spoken and read and was popular, in the years that immediately preceded the final expulsion of the Greeks as a political power from the peninsula.
In the second place, wherein does the difference lie between Kadambari regarded as a work of art, and the tale which we have seen good reason to believe is in one sense the source of the work. The one is a tale pure and simple, such as are to be found in all languages, existing only for itself, deriving all its interest from the rapid but at last extremely monotonous array of more or less extraordinary incidents. In our book these incidents, or such of them as did not seem unsuitable, are made the mere framework of a representation of human passion which for us is all that animates the superstructure on which it is based. These dry bones live; but it is because breath has entered into them, sinews and flesh have been laid upon them, and they have been covered up with skin. It is hard to put the difference in words: but if the reader will turn from the description in our book of Kâdambari's love to the lines in which that subject is disposed of in the Kathâ-sarit-sågara, he will, I doubt not, feel it for himself.
With this preface I proceed to select and translate from the popular Greek literature of the fourth and fifth centuries after Christ passages for whose resemblance in general tone, and sometimes even in expression to our book I ask the consideration of my fellow scholars. Let it be only further premised that if a resemblance which cannot be regarded as a mere coincidence is established, it does not appear to be open to argument that Greece is the debtor and not the creditor. The whole page of Greek literature from Homer to the Byzantine
influence affected other branches of the literature as well, even though we may be unable at present to trace it directly elsewhere."-Weber's Indian Literature, p. 251.
