{"collection":"asia","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/asia/mps/index.htm","path":"asia/mps/index.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/asia/mps/index.htm","text":"Georgia is a central Asian region which is situated in the\nmountains between the Black and Caspian seas.\nThis, the 'Man in the Panther Skin' (also known as 'the Knight in the\nPanther Skin') is a 12th century medieval epic poem.\nIt is considered one of the masterpieces of Georgian literature, and\nhas been called the Georgian national epic.\nThe author, Prince Shota Rustaveli, was a noble in the court of Queen Tamar,\nand served as her treasurer.\nHe was also a painter who created frescoes in the Georgian monastery of\nthe Holy Cross in Jerusalem.\nWe do not know specific birth and death dates for Rustaveli.\nThe poem was first printed in 1712 in Tblisi.\nThis translation is, thankfully, into clearly written prose,\nunlike some of the awful 19th century attempts to\nversify translated poetry.\nWardrop's translation, which she modestly called an attempt, makes\nenjoyable reading.\nThe poem, strangely enough, is not set in Georgia, but in fictionalized\nversions of Arabia, Persia, India and fairy-tale lands set in the environs\nof the Indian Ocean.\n(However the characters are at one point described as speaking fluent Georgian!)\nThere are two chief male protagonists, Avt'handil and Tariel.\nTariel, the eponymous 'Knight in the Panther's Skin' is made heir to\nall India, but tragically falls in love with his adoptive sister, Nestan.\nDriven mad by this love, he ends up killing the man she is to marry\nand fleeing India.\nNestan is also spirited away to parts unknown.\nThe search for Nestan, described as radiant as the sun,\nso beautiful that everyone she meets\nfalls in love with her, is the central thread of the story.\nAvt'handil, the suitor of the Queen of Arabia T'hinat'hin, sees Tariel\nwandering disconsolate one day and goes in quest of this mysterious knight.\nEventually they meet up and after a long quest end up finding Nestan.\nNestan and Tariel marry, and Avt'handil marries T'hinat'hin.\nI have appended a short synopis of the story\nto this etext, based on my reading notes.\nThe narrative and characterizations are remarkable for a work of this period.\nRustaveli had great psychological insight, providing backstory and motivations\nfor his cast.\nThe women characters are well written and memorable (particularly the\nmerchant P'hatman).\nRustaveli's female characters are not just props\nas in some of the medieval romances.\nEmotional relationships between characters of the same sex\n(both male and female), like the Biblical David and Jonathan,\nare portrayed as tender and sensual, shedding light on how our conventional\nsex roles are modern cultural constructs.\nFor technical reasons, I had to omit most of the footnotes from the body of\nthe text.\nHowever, I did type in some of these footnotes by hand where they clear\nup obscure passages.\nSince a facsimile of this particular translation is in print and the\nfootnotes are mostly of interest to scholars, this should not present a problem.","title":"The Man in the Panther's Skin Index","type":"page"}