viii
were all for the sake of women and directly instigated by women. As for Tariel's ill-treatment of Rostevan's men and the Cathayans, we are to presume that his madness is his excuse; like Hamlet, grief at a father's death, loss of both sovereignty and mistress, combined to produce a mania sometimes murderous in its manifestations; but as soon as he is cured, his natural kindness of heart returns, and his boyish disposition exhibits itself in frolic (1351, 1352).
Enough has been said to show the main idea of the poem, and in the Appendix will be found groups of references to particular points of interest, things abstract and concrete. It now becomes necessary to say something of the poet, though we have much less historical knowledge of him than of Shakespeare. His life seems to have lasted from 1172 to 1216. The personal name Shot'ha is said to be a form of Ashot'ha, an appellation of the idol of Armaz (Ormuzd), and is occasionally met with in the chronicles of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Rust'haveli means Rust'havian, man of Rust'havi; one place of that name was an episcopal see, but the other is evidently the poet's birthplace, for he describes himself as a Meskhian (1572); so it is from Rust'havi in the district of Akhaltzikhe (which means Newcastle) that he came; he was thus of the race of Meshech (Gen. x. 2; Ps. cxx. 5; Ezek. xxvii. 13, xxxii. 26). Tradition says he was early left an orphan in the care of an uncle who was a monk, that he was educated at the church school of Rust'havi and the monasteries of Tbeti, Gremi, and Iqalt'ho, and was then, in accordance with the custom of the period, sent to Athens,[1] Olympus, and Jerusalem. On his return he wrote Odes[2] in honour of the sainted Queen T'hamara (A.D. 1184–1212), and as a reward was appointed treasurer at the brilliant court of that great and good sovereign, whose reign saw Georgia's political power and literary culture at their highest point of achievement. We are told that his native
- ↑ ? Athos.
- ↑ Professor Marr thinks the Odes of the T'hamaran age, of which he recently published a scholarly edition (vide Bibliography), are by Rust'haveli.
