THE KNIGHT IN THE TIGER'S SKIN
by Shota Rustaveli

Rustaveli - illustration by Sergo Kobuladze

"Rustaveli"

from the series of illustrations done in 1935-7 by Sergo Kobuladze (b.1909) - one of the most prominent Georgian artists - for "The Knight in Tiger's Skin

 

The great Georgian national epic, consisting of over 1600 4-line stanzas is said to have been composed by the medieval Caucasian bard, SHOTA RUSTAVELI around the year 1200.

 

There are many legends surrounding the author of the work.
They tell of his comprehensive education, his numeruos travels in different Eastern countries, Arabia, Bizantium, Greece. Shota Rustaveli lived in XII-XII cent. in Georgia, during the reign of Queen Tamara. It was the time of political power of medieval Georgia and also the time of flourishing of its culture.

Long before Renaissance he sang about the humanistic ideals, the feelings of love and friendship, courage and fortitude

In the poem "The Knight in the Tiger's Skin", the heroes are brave, philantropic, generous. They live and act in the name of a Man; they are ready to fight with evil and to restore a fairness. Heroes of Rustaveli are not nationally restricted. There are included different countries in the poem : Arabia, China, India.

In an age of Nationalism, the manuscript was held up as proof of the the rich cultural heritage of the Georgian people, and evidence of their profound knowledge in the sphere of humanities and natural sciences.
Drawing by Kobuladze

"Entreat God for me; it may be He will deliver me from the travail of the world and from union with fire, water, earth and air. Let Him give me wings and I shall fly up, I shall attain my desire—day and night I shall gaze on the sun's rays flashing in splendor.

"The sun cannot be without thee, for thou art an atom of it; of a surety thou shalt adhere to it as its zodiac, and not as one rejected. There shall I seek thee; I shall liken thee to it, thou shalt enlighten my darkened heart. If my life was bitter, let my death be sweet!

Translation into Hebrew

During the Soviet era, Boris Gaponov, editor of the daily Leninetz, official party organ in the giant Ordzhonikidze automobile plant at Kutaisi in the Georgian Soviet Republic, translated the work into Hebrew..The Asian Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences devoted a special meeting in Leningrad to evaluation of Gaponov's translation. It was hailed as a masterpiece in its own right, far surpassing in poetic quality innumerable previous translations into many languages, including five into Russian.

In the spring of 1969, at the peak of the Soviet propaganda against Israel, "The Knight in the Tiger's Skin" was brought out in Israel by the Labor Zionist publishing house, Sifriat Poalim, in a lavish edition illustrated with colorful miniatures by 15th and 16th century Georgian artists. The book won the prestigious Tchernichovsky literary award

This unusual cultural exchange between the Georgians and the Israelis helped to cement bonds of sympathy between the Georgians and a Jewish community which has deep roots in their land. It was welcomed by Soviet Jewish intellectuals as a hopeful sign that not all the bridges between the Soviet Union and Israel had been burned yet. It proved to be an isolated incident, , best understood in the light of the Georgians' long resistance to efforts to "Russify" them.

"The Knight in the Tiger's Skin"

by Shota Rustaveli
Translated from the Georgian
by VENERA URUSHADZE

PROLOGUE
 He who created the firmament by the omnipotent might of his power,
Gave breath to all living creatures and to man spirits celestial,
Gave us the world to possess with all its unlimited varieties,
And Kings ordained by Him, each in His own image

O One God, who has created the form of every man's body,
Assist us, give us strength, to conquer the wiles of Satan;
Fill us with longing for love, endless, enduring to death!
Lighten the load of sins we must bear to the world to come!
I sing of the lion whom the use of lance, shield and sword adorns,
Of Tamar, the Queen of Queens, the ruby-cheeked and jet-haired.
How shall I dare pay tribute to her in praiseworthy verses,
Whom to look upon is to feast upon the choicest of honey
Tears of blood flow profusely as I exult our Queen Tamar
Whose praises I have uttered forth in well-chosen words.
For ink I have used a lake of jet and for pen, a pliant reed.
My words, like jagged spears, will pierce the heart of the hearer.
I was told to compose in her honour stately and sweet-sounding verses,
To laud her eyebrows and lashes, her hair, her lips and her teeth-
Badakhshan ruby and cut crystal arrayed in two even ranks.
An anvil of lead can break even the hardest stone.
Fire my mind and tongue with skill and power for utterance
Which I need, 0 Lord, for the making of majestic and praiseworthy verses;
Thus will the deeds of Tariel be remembered in eloquent language,
And of the three star-like heroes who faithfully served one another.
Come, let us sit together and weep with undrying tears for Tariel.
There never breathed a man born under the same star as his.
I, Rustaveli, whose heart is pierced through by his sorrows have threaded
Like a necklace of pearls a tale told until now as a tale.
I, who am maddened to frenzy by love, have composed these lines.
She, whom vast armies call mistress has deprived me of life and reason.
Thus sickened am I by love for which there exists no cure.
She alone can cure me, or leave me to death and the grave.
I have found this Persian tale, and have set it in Georgian verse
Until now like a peerless pearl it was rolled on the palm of the hand.
I have done this praiseworthy and disputable deed for her;
Therefore let her who has robbed me of heart and of reason judge it.
Though deprived of their light by gazing upon her yet my eyes long again
To behold her for whom with love-laden heart I roam like a madman.
Let her pray for and soothe my soul; it is enough that my body is burning.
Eloquent must my verses be, majestic, melodious and sweet.
Man, do not complain at fate. Be content and accept it.
Let the warrior always be brave, let the worker enjoy his labour;
So let the love-maddened man learn the meaning of love and know it.
Disdain not the love of another nor let him disdain yours.
Poetry is, first of all, a branch of divine wisdom,
Conceived by and known by the godly edifying to all who hear it.
It pleases the ear of the listener if he be a virtuous man.
A poem uttered with surfeit of words lacks grace and excellence.
A race on a course proves a horse's fire and mettle,
A player's skill is seen when he strikes the ball at the goal.
Even so it is with the poet who composes majestic poems:
He must call forth all his skill when utterance is hard and fails him.
Thus indeed, is the poet, and his poem is proof of his prowess.
When at a loss of words and he cannot attain perfection
He must seek for words that will not diminish the poem of its worth,
But strike the ball and score the goal like a dexterous player.
A verse or two composed by chance do not make a poet;
Let him not think himself a poet on the level of great singers.
Even though, now and then, he may write a few discordant verses;
Yet if he says, "Truly, mine is the better", he is a stubborn mule.
Then again there are poets who wish but are powerless to compose
Verses capable of penetrating deep into one's heart.
I may compare them to the bows and arrows of youthful hunters
Who cannot bring down big beasts, but kill only small game.
A third kind of poems is composed for mirth and revelry,
For the lover, the joyous and merry, for the pleasures of boon companions.
We may find some of them pleasing both to the heart and the ear,
But remember, only he who writes majestic poetry is a poet.
All the poet's endeavours must not be spent invain.
He must be devoted to one whom he considers worthy of loving,
And employ all his talents and skill In praising and glorifying her name.
For her alone must he sing in sweet melodious measures.
Hear all and know, I praise her whom I have hitherto praised!
In this I have endless glory, in this I am bold and shameless.
She, who is my life, is a beautiful merciless panther.
I shall devote my skill hereafter to exalt her name.
I speak of love's highest form-elevated, pure and heavenly,
Eloquence weakens when the tongue attempts to speak of such love.
It uplifts to heaven the soul of those who endure love's anguish.
A lover, therefore, must know how to endure and bear these afflictions.
Even a discerning mind cannot comprehend that love,
Though the tongue grow tired or the ears of the hearer weary.
I speak of the lower passions of man who when not lustfully kissing
Strives to imitate love but only faints from afar.
In the Arabic tongue a lover is called a madman
Because of non-fulfilment and futile longing for her.
Some, though exhausted, feel nearness to God as their souls soar upward.
Others, prey to low passions, fly from one fair maidan to another.
Beauty befits a lover like unto the sun on high.
He must have youth and leisure, be generous, wealthy and wise,
Patient, intelligent and eloquent, the mightiest among the mighty.
If devoid of all these qualities a lover is not a true lover.
Love is sacred and tender, hard to know or define.
It is not kindred to lust; it is something beyond it - divine.
Love is one thing, lust another; in no way do they mingle.
Between true love and lust lies an impregnable boundary.
He who loves should be constant, never lewd nor faithless.
Absence from her he loves should wring sigh upon sigh from his heart.
He must be true to her though she frown upon him in anger.
I hate the lover who seeks only bugging and lusty kissing.
A lover does not long for one today and another tomorrow.
He ?annot endure love's parting or absence from her whom he worships.
Such sport is shameful, base, more like the trifling of boys.
The lover is he who suffers the whole world's woes and sorrows.
There is a love - the noblest - which reveals not its woes but conceals them.
The lover seeks solitude for when alone he bestows all his thoughts upon love.
Thus his fainting, dying, burning, are all from afar;
He may face the wrath of his beloved, yet must he fear and revere her.
A lover must never reveal his love but keep it hidden,
Nor should he basely sigh and put his loved one to shame;
Nowhere should he show his love, nor reveal it to any man.
Enduring woes and burning in fire for her sake should be joy.
Only a madman would trust the man who noises his love abroad.
By this he makes her suffer, by this he suffers himself.
How can he glorify her if he shames her with a surfeit of words'
That would only profane the love that she cherishes for him.
It makes me wonder to think there are men who make a show of their love.
Why add pain to a heart, already wounded by love?
It they have no love for her then why do they hide their hatred?
But an evil man loves an evil word more than his soul.
Judge not severely the tears of a lover; tears are his due.
Weeping and solitude befit him and the roaming of plains and forests.
When absent from her his thoughts should be of her whom he worships,
But when among men it is better he conceal his love within him

This Icon is from the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem. It was painted in the 13th century under the direction of the great Georgian poet, Shota Rustaveli, who was responsible for overseeing the restoration of the monastery after the Latin crusaders had been driven out of Jerusalem in 1187. Shota is the tiny figure kneeling in the bottom of the icon. The inscription in ancient Georgian script reads, "Lord, remember your servant Shota, who did all this. Amen."

ARTICLE in HAARETZ - 05/07/2004
DEFACED FRESCO OF GEORGIAN HERO CLOUDS DIPLOMATIC TIES
By Lily Galili, Haaretz Correspondent

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili is due to visit Israel for the first time in about two weeks, but a diplomatic storm has cast a shadow over the visit.

The storm erupted on Saturday when historian Dr. Mzia Marsagashvilli, the wife of the Geogian ambassador to Israel, accompanied a group of doctors from her country who were on a trip here. The highlight of visits to Israel for all Georgian tourists is the Greek Orthodox monastery in the Valley of the Cross in Jerusalem. On one of the walls, built by the Georgians in the 11th century, is the sole extant portrait of the famed medieval Georgian poet, Shota Rustaveli, who wrote the epic "Knight in the Panther's Skin."

As usual, Marsagashvilli took the visitors to see the ancient wall, but their excitement quickly turned to shock: The fresco was completely defaced and several of the medieval Georgian letters that formerly adorned it had been erased.

A cleaning woman, who was the only representative of the monastery present during the visit, said she had seen and heard nothing.

The monastery is hardly ever opened to visitors. All that is known is that one week before the visit, the portrait was untouched.

It did not take long for the diplomatic storm clouds to gather. The two countries' two foreign affairs ministries became involved, as did the ambassadors in each capital. The Georgian ambassador, Prof. Revaz Gachechiladze, sent an urgent letter to Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and, although Sunday was a rest day in Georgia, the foreign minister of Georgia held a news briefing in Tbilisi on the subject.

To comprehend the depth of the shock, one must understand the special significance of Rustaveli for the Georgian people. Since the 12th century, his epos - which describes in surrealistic terms the struggle between the forces of light and darkness - has held pride of place in Georgian literature. The Georgians are especially proud of his work's universal and humanistic messages.

"We are proud indeed," the ambassador says, "proud mainly of the central message that people from different backgrounds can help each other to overcome evil."

When the fresco was uncovered below layers of paint in the Jerusalem monastery in 1960, a day of national rejoicing was proclaimed in Georgia and special poems were written in its honor. Israel recognized the unique status of Rustaveli and his universal message. At the behest of the ambassador at the time, in September 2001, Israel issued a special Rustaveli stamp while Georgia printed one with an ancient synagogue.

This week's incident was not the first in which Georgian symbols - most of them in Greek Orthodox churches and monasteries - have been damaged. Two years ago, a wall inscription in the St. Nicholas church in Jerusalem's Old City was defaced.

"It was clear then that that was an inside job, but because of our good relations with the ]Greek[ patriarch, we did not make a fuss then," says the ambassador. "We did not even go to the police. We simply restored it. We thought the story was over, but apparently someone wants to stir up trouble and violence between the churches and nations and is working hard at it."

Asked whether he believes it was the work of the representatives of the Greek Orthodox Church, Gachechiladze answers diplomatically: "I don't know. There are suspicions, but no evidence. It is the Israel police's duty to investigate and to punish. We do not demand ownership of these holy places. We separate state and church ... All we ask is that the Georgian holy places be kept in appropriate fashion."

Georgia's Deputy Foreign Minister, Lasha Zhvania, told Haaretz: "Someone does not want to leave a trace of ancient Georgia's existence in the Holy Land - and these are not the Israelis. The monastery in the Valley of the Cross was the last we lost, in 1862. Since then there have been different rulers and wars, but no one dared to touch the portrait. It is only happening now. Four years ago, the Greeks sold parts of the Georgian frescoes. But only someone stupid would think that it is possible to wipe out the connection between Georgia and Jerusalem."

The Greek Orthodox patriarchate was not available for comment.

Israeli sources who have studied the wars between the churches over the holy places believe the Georgians may be interested in proving that the Greeks are not able to take overall responsibility for the various sites, and would like to make claims of their own. The Georgians are convinced that the Greeks want to erase Georgian symbols that "threaten" their hegemony over the vast and precious holy places.

"I do not expect tension between Israel and Georgia," the ambassador says. "But Israel has responsibility for the ancient heritage in its borders and it must show responsibility."