University of Virginia Library

This allusion is familiar to every one in the slightest degree acquainted with Oriental literature.

“The nightingale, if he sees the rose, becomes intoxicated: he lets go from his hands the reins of prudence.”—

Fable of the Gardener and Nightingale.

Lady Montagu also translates a song thus:—

“The nightingale now hovers amid the flowers.
His passion is to seek roses.”

Again, from the poet Hafiz:—

“When the roses wither, and the bower loses its sweetness,
You have no longer the tale of the nightingale.”

Indeed, the rose, in Oriental poetry, is seldom mentioned without her paramour, the nightingale; which gives reason to suppose that the nightingale, in those countries where it was first celebrated, had really some natural fondness for that flower, or perhaps for some insect which took shelter in it. In Sir W. Jones's translation of the Persian fable of “The Gardener and Nightingale” is the following distich:—

“I know not what the rose says under his lips, that he brings back the helpless nightingales, with their mournful notes.

“One day the gardener, according to his established custom, went to view the roses: he saw a plaintive nightingale rubbing his head on the leaves of the roses, and tearing asunder with his sharp bill that volume adorned with gold.”

And Geláleddîn Rúzbehár:—

“While the nightingale sings thy praises with a loud voice, I am all ear, like the stalk of the rose-tree.”

Pliny, however, in his delightful description of this bird, says nothing, I believe, about the rose.

Cuba, Cafétal San Patricio, April, 1823.