It may not be out of place here, and before passing on to the times of the Renaissance and Modern Europe, to give one or two extracts relating to Eastern countries. The honour paid to friendship in Persia, Arabia, Syria and other Oriental lands has always been great, and the tradition of this attachment there should be especially interesting to us, as having arisen independently of classic or Christian ideals. The poets of Persia, Saadi and Jalal-ud-din Rumi (13th cent.), Hafiz (14th cent.), Jami (15th cent.), and others, have drawn much of their inspiration from this source; but unfortunately for those who cannot read the originals, their work has been scantily translated, and the translations themselves are not always very reliable. The extraordinary way in which, following the method of the Sufis, and of Plato, they identify the mortal and the divine love, and see in their beloved an image or revelation of God himself, makes their poems difficult of comprehension to the Western mind. Apostrophes to Love, Wine, and Beauty often, with them, bear a frankly twofold sense, material and spiritual. To these poets of the mid-region of the earth, the bitter antagonism between matter and spirit, which like an evil dream has haunted so long both the extreme Western and the extreme Eastern mind, scarcely exists; and even the body “which is a portion of the dust-pit” has become perfect and divine. [Sidenote: _Jalal-ud-din Rumi_] “Every form you see has its archetype in the placeless world.... From the moment you came into the world of being A ladder was placed before you that you might escape (ascend). First you were mineral, later you turned to plant, Then you became an animal: how should this be a secret to you? Afterwards you were made man, with knowledge, reason, faith; Behold the body, which is a portion of the dust-pit, how perfect it has grown! When you have travelled on from man, you will doubtless become an angel; After that you are done with earth: your station is in heaven. Pass again even from angelhood: enter that ocean, That your drop may become a sea which is a hundred seas of ‘Oman.’” _From the Divani Shamsi Tabriz of Jalal-ud-din Rumi, trans. by R. A. Nicholson._ “’Twere better that the spirit which wears not true love as a garment Had not been: its being is but shame. Be drunken in love, for love is all that exists.... Dismiss cares and be utterly clear of heart, Like the face of a mirror, without image or picture. When it becomes clear of images, all images are contained in it.” _Ibid._ “Happy the moment when we are seated in the palace, thou and I, With two forms and with two figures, but with one soul, thou and I.” _Ibid._