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When he wrote his poem, Rust'haveli had evidently no violent prejudice for one religion more than another, but was of a critical and eclectic turn of mind, and formed for himself a working philosophy of life, showing Persian and Arabian tendencies, but with so much of Christianity and Neo-Platonism as to bring it near to Occidental minds. "The Georgians in the tenth and eleventh centuries interested themselves in the domain of philosophy in those same questions which occupied the leading minds of the Christian world of that period both in the East and the West, with this distinction from the others—e.g., Europeans—that in those days the Georgians responded earlier than others to the newest tendencies of philosophic thought, and worked in a panoply, exemplary for its time, of textual criticism directly on the Greek originals."[1]
There is throughout the poem manifest joy in life and action: God createth not evil (1468, 1485); ill is fleeting (1387); since there is gladness in the world, why should any be sad? (687); it is after all a good world, fair to look upon despite its horrid deserts, a world to sing in either because one is happy or because one wishes to be so (946); there are flowers to gaze on, good wine to drink, fair apparel and rich jewels to wear, beasts worth hunting, games worth playing, foes to be fought, and friends to be loved and helped. There are grievous troubles, but they are to be battled against; it is a law with men that they should struggle and suffer (776); for them is endeavour, and victory lies with God (883); however black the outlook, there must be no shirking, for the one deed especially Satan's is suicide (728, 768, 815, 854, 1169); the game must be played to the end manfully, and God is generous though the world be hard (911, 1338); He will make all right in the end (1365), and sorrow alone shows a man's mettle (945). The keynote is optimism quand même. Life is a passing illusion (1572), brief and untrustworthy (1575), in itself nothing but a silly tale (697); we are gazers through a cloudy, distorting glass (110, 656, 707, 1431); our deeds are mere
- ↑ Marr, Ioann Petritzki, St. Petersburg, 1902, p. 61.
