and the story-teller one is obliged to be interesting. For there the audience is
either spellbound, or quickly fades away and leaves the poet to realize that he
must attempt better things.
We think that these folk-stories have, indeed, a common origin, but that it is in
the human heart. We do not look for a Sigurd or Siegfried on every page.
Imagine a nation springing from an ignorant couple on a sea-girt isle, in a few
generations they would have evolved their Sleeping Beauty and their Prince
Charming, their enchanted castles, and their Djinns and fairies. These are as
indigenous to the human heart as the cradle-song or the battle-cry. We do not
find ourselves siding with those who would trace everything to a first exemplar.
Children have played, and men have loved, and poets have sung from the
beginning, and we need not run to Asia for the source of everything. Universal
human nature has a certain spontaneity.
The translator has tried to reproduce the faithfulness and, in some measure, to
indicate the graceful phrases of the original poem. The author of Bidasari is
unknown, and the date of the poem is a matter of the utmost uncertainty. Some
have attributed to it a Javanese origin, but upon very slight evidence. The best
authorities place its scene in the country of Palembang, and its time after the
arrival of the Europeans in the Indian archipelago, but suggest that the legend
must be much older than the poem.
The "Makota Radja-Radja" is one of the most remarkable books of oriental
literature. According to M. Aristide Marre, who translated it into French, its date
is 1603. Its author was Bokhari, and he lived at Djohore. It contains extracts
from more than fifty Arab and Persian authors. It treats of the duties of man to
God, to himself and to society, and of the obligations of sovereigns, subjects,
ministers, and officers. Examples are taken from the lives of kings in Asia. The
author has not the worst opinion of his work, saying distinctly that it is a
complete guide to happiness in this world and the next. He is particularly
copious in his warnings to copyists and translators, cautioning them against the
slightest negligence or inaccuracy, and promising them for faithfulness a
passport to the glories of heaven. This shows that the author at least took the
work seriously. That there is not a trace of humor in the book would doubtless
recommend it to the dignified and lethargic orientals for whom it was written.
Bokhari seemed to consider himself prophet, priest, and poet-laureate in one.
The work has a high position in the Malayan Peninsula, where it is read by
young and old. The "Crown of Kings" is written in the court language of