The Man in the Panther Skin (Shota Rustaveli, The Man in the Panther Skin, Text and Versions, Edited by Akaki Shanidze and Alexandre Baramidze, Tbilisi, 1966)

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Author	Shota Rustaveli
Epoch	XII-XIII
Work	The Man in the Panther Skin (Shota Rustaveli, The Man in the Panther Skin, Text and Versions, Edited by Akaki Shanidze and Alexandre Baramidze, Tbilisi, 1966)
Type	Poetry
Quote	“I would speak of a love [which is] the first and genus of the supreme forms – Hardly to be described or by the tongue expressed – It is heavenly and exalting, Whoever will make an effort must have endurance of many griefs. Far is that love beyond the understanding of thinkers, It makes the [poet’s] tongue weary and brings fatigue to the ears of the listeners, My theme is rather the earthly passions that visit human beings, These passions imitate that love, when there is nothing wanton in them, [only] falling into a swoon from afar. In the speech of the Arabs our lover means ‘madman’, Mad from the pangs of love beyond attain, Some seek nearness to God but are wearied from exaltation, To others it is natural to fly here below - from one fair maiden to another.” (Stanzas 20-22) […] “Love is tender, a thing hard to be known, Love is something apart from a wanton lechery, and cannot be likened thereto, It is one thing; lechery is quite another thing, and between them lies a broad boundary, Let them not be mingled! Do you hear my saying? The lover must be constant, not lewd, impure and faithless, When he is far from his beloved he should forever be sighing, His heart must yearn for one and one only from whom he endures wrath or sorrow, I hate heartless love – embracing, kissing, noisy bussing.” (Stanzas 24-25)
Term	imitate ( "emulate", "resemble", - Aristotle, “Nicomachean Ethics” ) Rustaveli’s Theory of Love ( Aristotle, “Nicomachean Ethics” )

Nike. Vani. II-I BC, Bronze, 22 x19 cm. The Georgian National Museum.

Comment	I think, that recent studies on Rustaveli, correctly sharpens attention to the fact, that “unlike other stanzas (20-22, 24-25, - see above) depicting Rustaveli’s Theory of Love, in the 23^rd Stanza, Rustaveli does not formulate the code of love […], but represents a portrait of a lover, as of an ideal person: he lists the ethical and physical qualities necessary for him” (E. Khintibidze, 2009, pg. 513-514). Taking into account the above mentioned, I find it appropriate to consider separately - in the present encyclopedia - the question of the relation of the 23^rd Stanza with the classical tradition (see Leisure). Without taking into consideration the Classical Tradition, I think, it would be impossible to understand and correctly perceive the Theory of Love formulated by Rustaveli. Namely, it would be impossible to understand: 1. What does “the love - the first and genus of the supreme forms” mean (stanza 20, 1)? 2. In what sense does Rustaveli use the word “imitate” (stanza 21, 4)? 3. In stanzas 20-22 Rustaveli depicts two types of love. How can we explain the indisputable fact arising from the realities of the poem, that “Rustaveli idealized the second type of love and not the first one; although, in the poet's view, the first type of love is supernal and heavenly, i.e., so-called Divine, while the second only its imitation?” (ibid. pg. 395). Indeed, in the prologue - in addition to the realities of the rest of the poem - Rustaveli clearly demonstrates his artistic choice to idealize the second type of love instead of the first one: “My theme is rather the earthly passions that visit human beings, / These passions imitate that [divine] love, when there is nothing wanton in them, [only] falling into a swoon from afar” (stanzas 21, 3-4). Since the 1970s, in fact, a consensus was reached in Rustaveli studies, that genus (Rustavelian word: “tomi” – in the contemporary Georgian it means: “tribe”) and forms (Rustavelian word: “gvari” – in the contemporary Georgian it means: “family name”, “patronymic”, “clan”) of line 20, 1 (”the love [which is] the first and genus of the supreme forms”) are the Medieval Georgian philosophical terms, as they are found in Ioane Petritsi’s (or Joane Petrizi’s, - Georgian philosopher of 11^th-12^th centuries) works: both with Petritsi and Rustaveli “gvari” (i.e. “family name”, etc.) means - if we use the contemporary Georgian scientific terminology - universals, while “tomi” (i.e. “tribe”) – means genus. Rustavelian “gvari” (“family name”) is the term denoting the specific concepts and with Petritsi it corresponds to the ancient Greek “eidos”, while “tomi” (i.e. “tribe”) has a meaning of a general (i.e. generalizing) concept and is equivalent of the ancient Greek “genos” (ibid. pg. 398-399, 618-619, with bibliography; cf. N. Natadze, 2006, pg. 467). It must also be mentioned, that the existence of “gvari” and “tomi” in 20, 1 should be considered as one specific example of reception (i.e. reflection) of the classical tradition in “The Man in the Panther Skin”, as eidos and genos, though with various meanings, are still found with Plato, Aristotle, as well as Neoplatonists. In contrast to the above, the consensus among the researchers of “The Man in the Panther Skin” has not been reached due to the following issue: by means of logical-philosophical terms - “gvari” and “tomi” within or through which teaching did Rustaveli define the concept of love (stanzas 20-22)? That is why to this day researchers have different answers to the question posed above. For instance, according to some viewpoints, in the prologue, in the process of defining love Rustaveli uses Plato’s Theory of Ideas , i.e. Forms or the teaching of Neoplatonists based on it, or simultaneously uses both of these doctrines related to each other. Among such viewpoints, it seems to me, the most successively grounded is the one, which is expressed in the works of N. Natadze, according to whom Rustaveli’s concept of love is based on Plato’s Theory of Ideas (see: N.Natadze, 1963; 1965, pg. 130-135, 140-142; 1974, pg. 142; 2006, pg. 467). However, the study conducted in the above direction leads to the following conclusion: “either […] Rustaveli places the Love - not the Good - on top of the world of Ideas, or […] The Love is one of the superlative Ideas among other celestial Ideas” (see N. Natadze, 2006, pg. 467). The inadmissibility of the second assumption, in my view, it is clear even without a special discussion: in 20, 1 Rustaveli does not claim that the love is one of the “tomi”, i.e. one of the supreme universals (or Ideas, concepts) among the other celestial “gvari”, i.e. among the other celestial universals (or Ideas, concepts); the poet says, that the love is the first and “tomi” (genus), i.e. the love is the first and generalizing (i.e. overall, all-embracing) universal (or Idea, concept) among the other celestial universals (or Ideas, concepts). What can we say about the first and main assumption of the researcher: if we disregard obvious irrelevance, that, in Rustaveli's view, it is not Platonic or Neoplatonic Idea of Goodness that exceeds other celestial Ideas, but the Idea of Love and together with the researcher we will assume, that 20, 1 reveals “the unusual artistic transformation" in the "hierarchy of Platonic Ideas" (ibid.) and thus, we will interpret Rustavelian Theory of Love through the doctrine of Plato and the Neoplatonists, in this case we must also assume that human and earthly love, that is, the love stories of Avtandili and Tinatini, on the one hand, and Tarieli and Nestani, on the other, which are depicted in the poem, these are only colorless distorted shadows of the celestial Idea of love (?!); or we have to assume that in the prologue within theoretical discussion, Rustaveli claims one thing, but the poem itself is based on a completely different philosophy (?!). (Cf. E. Khintibidze, 2009, pg. 396-398). If we take into account the fact that the similarities between the doctrines of Plato and the Neoplatonists, on the one hand, and Christian asceticism and mysticism, on the other, is much greater than the difference between them, than we can say that the interpretation of N. Natadze, which was discussed above, is not fundamentally different from the other point of view, which dates back to King Vakhtang VI (see Vakhtang VI, 1712), and since the seventies of the last century is still quite popular among some scholars. According to these scholars, "The Man in the Panther Skin" is an allegorical poem, and so they try to interpret it in terms of mysticism. In particular, according to Z. Gamsakhurdia, like Solomon's "Song of Songs", "The Man in the Panther Skin" praises the divine love “in the guise” of earthly love and accordingly, the poem "reflects the ratio of the human soul to God" (see Z. Gamsakhurdia, 1972, pg. 99-100). As is known, the Georgian Orthodox Church - Archbishop Timote Gabashvili, Catholicos Anton and others - did not follow the mystical and allegorical perception of "The Man in the Panther Skin" suggested by King Vakhtang VI (for details see E. Khintibidze, op. cit., pg. 405-408, 627). Taking into account the purpose of this encyclopedia, I would like to draw attention only to the fact that the mystical and allegorical interpretations of the poem, which were discussed above, revealed no traces of reflection of the classical tradition in Rustaveli’s Theory of Love. Finally, a third point of view was expressed in scientific research relating to "The Man in the Panther Skin", authored by E. Khintibidze. In his view, Rustaveli’s Theory of love combines simultaneously the best features of a Christian faith and ancient thought, namely, Plato's interpretation of love and the ethical conception of Aristotle. In particular, according to E. Khintibidze’s conception, which contradicts the opinion of N. Marr (see N. Marr, 1910, pp 49-50; for criticism of N. Marr’s view, see E. Khintibidze, 1975, p 223-236): Rustaveli’s Theory of Love does not oppose an earthly love - that is, the friendship and mutual love between people, which includes a sincere love between young man and his unmarried young lady – to the Divine Love, which is the love of man to God (see E. Khintibidze, 2009, pp 618-. 620, 652); Nevertheless, the earthly love, then again, is not a colorless shadow of the Divine Love (see above Plato’s Theory of Ideas); And nor its allegory (see above mystical and allegorical interpretations; also ibid. pg. 621-633) On the other hand, earthly love is not completely separated from the Divine, that is, despite its fleshly nature, earthly love all the same stands apart from lechery (actually, the opposite view stems from the standpoint of T. Chiladze on this issue, - see T. Chiladze, 1984, pg. 93, 95, 100, for the criticism of which see E. Khintibidze, 2009, pg. 583-585); Both Divine Love and earthly love, when the latter is a sincere feeling, are characterized by sublimation (Rustaveli's interpretation that the earthly love is exalting, perhaps, demonstrates poet’s awareness of Plato's “The Symposium”. Albeit, it is clear that the friendship and mutual love of the knights of “The Man in the Panther Skin” and on the other, the type of earthly love that Plato praises in his “The Symposium”, are two completely different phenomena; cf. Ibid. pg. 639-640, 654, with bibliography). The sublime human love, which was considered by Rustaveli as Divine, like Love in the case of Francesco Petrarch and unlike the case of Giovanni Boccaccio, is not yet depicted in "The Man in the Panther Skin" entirely lifelike, that is, naturally (cf. Ibid. pg. 645-646); Thus, the earthly, human love, is the terrestrial manifestation of Divine Love (cf. Matthew 22: 37. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38. This is the first and great commandment. 39. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets (KJV, - see bibliography, infra); Mark 12, 30-31; Luke 10, 27; 1 John 4, 8): according to the poetic perception of Rustaveli, the Divine and earthly love it is the two manifestations of the one idea of love, the latter resembles and imitates the former, is derived from it, i.e. is part of it (for details, ibid. pg.620, 647-652). In this respect, one of the main guides for Rustaveli, after the Bible, is Plato’s “The Symposium”, according to which, when a man falls in love with this very moment he begins to comprehend the heavenly beauty and essence (ibid. pg. 639). And finally: as mentioned above, taking into account the concept of love in the Gospel, Rustaveli reinvents the notion of Love. One of his main postulates, that earthly love is Divine love, doubtlessly corresponds to the nature of thought of the Renaissance. This is evidenced by the general similarity between this postulate of Rustaveli and the interpretations of Dante and Petrarch about love, which are based on the so called Platonic conception of love introduced in the middle of the Late Middle Ages (cf. Ibid. pg. 638-639) and which, except for the name, no longer has anything in common with the doctrine of Plato, because it originates from the troubadour poetry in the 11^th century and acquires its final shape in the works of Platonists of the Renaissance; this explains its name - Platonic conception of love: Love will reach divinity without denying its human nature, even while retaining its fleshly essence (cf. Ibid. pg. 648). “Rustaveli's Theory of Love bears some resemblance to the artistic understanding of Love in the poetry of Renaissance age. This may be due not only to the tendencies of the era of Rustaveli, but can be explained primarily through a personal creative genius of the poet and thinker, as is the case in the works of Dante Alighieri” (ibid. pg. 640). However, Rustaveli comes to a novel understanding of love typical of Renaissance artistic thought one, or even one and a half, centuries earlier than Dante Alighieri and Francesco Petrarch. During this process of creative search the basic guideline for the poet was the national Georgian and Christian consciousness, according to which the highest form of human earthly love is that which culminates in marriage. This is quite untypical of the oriental, namely, Arab-Persian mysticism or Sufism, the courtly love in Medieval Europe, troubadour poetry (apart from minor exceptions) and the works of Dante; however, it is characteristic, except Plato, for ancient Greek ethic in general and especially for Aristotle ("Nicomachean Ethics"), which considers marriage as a natural attraction of people to each other, as well as one of the highest expressions of friendship (ibid. pg. 635-638, with bibliography). This fact - artistic idealization of marriage is one of the necessary conditions, because of which “the Love in “The Man in the Panther Skin” is already the earthly and human feeling and it does not need a symbolic and transcendent rethinking of one type or another. Furthermore, according to Rustaveli’s conception, without its symbolic rethinking, the earthly human love is in itself already the Divine Love” (ibid. pg. 640-641; for details see 640-646). At the same time, it should be noted that "this new trend, which is characteristic of the aesthetics of the Renaissance, is coordinated by Rustaveli with the medieval artistic realities of his poem so harmoniously that they do not in any way contradict each other". The above-said is due to the circumstances that the "theoretical and philosophical background for the poet was medieval, and the base of his poem was theological. This is the interpretation of the traditional concept of the Love of the Gospel, which Rustaveli offers to us in the prologue of his poem” (see stanzas under consideration, in particular stanzas 20-22; ibid. pg. 646 and for details 646-648, with bibliography). Thus, the Love of "The Man in the Panther Skin" is the love of human existence, the whole of humanity, which does not reject the traditional medieval ideals, that is, hope and faith in a good, merciful God, but along with them it sets a new ideal, the ideal of the Renaissance; it is earthly, human love (ibid. pg.655). In addition to the above, special attention should be drawn to the circumstance that in the prologue Rustaveli tells not only of the two manifestations of love, that is, divine and earthly, in other words, fleshly of which in his poem he describes the latter, because, according to the humanistic tendencies of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, due to the transcendental nature of the Divine love its perception is impossible and, unlike the earthly fleshly love, it cannot be the subject of literary and aesthetic depiction (ibid. pg. 619-620, with bibliography); the poet speaks about the third manifestation of love, too, that is, lechery, to the definition of which he devotes the whole two stanzas (24^th and 25^th) from the six (stanzas 20-25). It is understood that the above fact can only be explained by the circumstance that the poet did not unreasonably feel, and the following centuries have confirmed this (according to some Georgian clerics, “Rustaveli tried in vain”, etc.), that the earthly fleshly love, which he praised in his poem, could be perceived by the public as lechery, rather than sublime human feeling, as Divine love (cf. Ibid. pg. 403). It should be interesting to note that in this regard, the situation is similar in the works of Petrarch, who in his treatise - “My Secret Book" thoroughly justifies the view that the relationship with a prostitute should be condemned (cf. Ibid. pg. 642, 652). Thus, in the prologue to “The Man in the Panther Skin” Rustaveli talks about the three types of love, only one of which he prefers and then praises in his poem. It is human, fleshly, but at the same time, sincere, sublime love: “My theme is rather the earthly passions that visit human beings” (21, 3). The other two types of love are Divine Love (also sincere and sublime manifestation of this feeling) and lechery (also the earthly and fleshly expression of love, but in its most unacceptable form). For the poet these two types are the extremes with regard to the third type (first-mentioned above), which he considers the best, the most perfect type of love: “Some seek nearness to God but are wearied from exaltation, / To others it is natural to fly here below - from one fair maiden to another” (22, 3-4). But the poet is strongly opposed to lechery - “Love is tender, a thing hard to be known, / Love is something apart from a wanton lechery, and cannot be likened thereto, / […] I hate heartless love – embracing, kissing, noisy bussing” (24-25); On the other hand, he firmly indicates the similarity or even identity of the human and divine manifestations of love: “My theme is rather the earthly passions that visit human beings, / These passions imitate that [Divine] love, when there is nothing wanton in them, [only] falling into a swoon from afar” (21, 3-4). We can say without a doubt that in his above reasoning Rustaveli takes into account and is based on Aristotle’s well-known ethical principle for determining the virtuous mean, which can also be traced in many other parts of "The Man in the Panther Skin" (ibid. pg. 392-395, 409-417): according to Aristotle (“Nicomachean Ethics”, II, 9, 3-5), “Hence the first rule in aiming at the mean is to avoid that extreme which is the more opposed to the mean, […] [f]or of the two extremes one is a more serious error than the other. Hence, inasmuch as to hit the mean extremely well is difficult, the second best way […] is to take the least of the evils; […] The second rule is to notice what are the errors to which we are ourselves most prone […] then we must drag ourselves away in the opposite direction, for by steering wide of our besetting error we shall make a middle course […] (translated by H. Rackham, see bibliography, infra)” (ibid. pg. 403-404, for details, see pg. 398-405). Within the viewpoint of E. Khintibidze, as it seems to me, the essence of Rustavelian Theory of Love is revealed in full, and thus, also discovered are the typological parallels of Rustaveli's poem with the troubadour poetry, the works of Dante and Petrarch, and at the same time this viewpoint identifies the main literary and philosophical sources of the poem: Georgian national traditional identity, Christian faith, Oriental Sufism and finally, (what is more significant from the standpoint of the objective of the present encyclopedia) the Classical Tradition - Aristotle’s ethics (“Nicomachean Ethics”) and Plato’s philosophy of love (“The Symposium”). Bibliography (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics) Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 19, translated by H. Rackham, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934 (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abekker%20page%3D1). T. Chiladze (1984) Sign of the Blossoming Rose, Tbilisi. (In Georgian) Z. Gamsakhurdia (1972) “The Man in the Panther Skin” in English, Herald, Series of Language and Literature, 2, pg. 33-56; 4, pg. 89-108. (In Georgian) E. Khintibidze (1975) World Outlook Issues in “The Man in the Panther Skin”, Tbilisi. (In Georgian) E. Khintibidze (2009) The World View of Rustaveli’s “Vepkhistqaosani” (“The Man in the Panther Skin”), Tbilisi. (In Georgian) (KJV) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2022&version=KJV, King James Version by Public Domain, Matthew 22. N. Marr (1910) The opening and final stanzas of Shota Rustaveli’s “The Man in the Panther Skin”, Armenian and Georgian Philological Texts and Surveys, vol. 12, St. Petersburg. (In Russian) N. Natadze (1963) Towards the commentary on the Prologue of “The Man in the Panther Skin”, The Herald of the Department of Social Sciences of the Georgian Academy of Sciences, 2, pg. 163-177. (In Georgian) N. Natadze (1965) Rustavelian Love and the Renaissance, Tbilisi. (In Georgian) N. Natadze (1974) At the Turn of the Times, Tbilisi. (In Georgian) N. Natadze (2006) Shota Rustaveli, “The Man in the Panther Skin”, School Edition with Introduction, Literary Review, Dictionary and Commentary, Edited by N. Natadze, Tbilisi. (In Georgian) Vakhtang VI (1712) The First Explanation of the Book of “The Man in the Panther Skin”, in the book: Shota Rustaveli, “The Man in the Panther Skin”, Tpilisi. (In Georgian). [Z.Kh.]

Comment

I think, that recent studies on Rustaveli, correctly sharpens attention to the fact, that “unlike other stanzas (20-22, 24-25, - see above) depicting Rustaveli’s Theory of Love, in the 23^rd Stanza, Rustaveli does not formulate the code of love […], but represents a portrait of a lover, as of an ideal person: he lists the ethical and physical qualities necessary for him” (E. Khintibidze, 2009, pg. 513-514). Taking into account the above mentioned, I find it appropriate to consider separately - in the present encyclopedia - the question of the relation of the 23^rd Stanza with the classical tradition (see Leisure).

Without taking into consideration the Classical Tradition, I think, it would be impossible to understand and correctly perceive the Theory of Love formulated by Rustaveli. Namely, it would be impossible to understand:

1. What does “the love - the first and genus of the supreme forms” mean (stanza 20, 1)?

2. In what sense does Rustaveli use the word “imitate” (stanza 21, 4)?

3. In stanzas 20-22 Rustaveli depicts two types of love. How can we explain the indisputable fact arising from the realities of the poem, that “Rustaveli idealized the second type of love and not the first one; although, in the poet's view, the first type of love is supernal and heavenly, i.e., so-called Divine, while the second only its imitation?” (ibid. pg. 395). Indeed, in the prologue - in addition to the realities of the rest of the poem - Rustaveli clearly demonstrates his artistic choice to idealize the second type of love instead of the first one: “My theme is rather the earthly passions that visit human beings, / These passions imitate that [divine] love, when there is nothing wanton in them, [only] falling into a swoon from afar” (stanzas 21, 3-4).

Since the 1970s, in fact, a consensus was reached in Rustaveli studies, that genus (Rustavelian word: “tomi” – in the contemporary Georgian it means: “tribe”) and forms (Rustavelian word: “gvari” – in the contemporary Georgian it means: “family name”, “patronymic”, “clan”) of line 20, 1 (”the love [which is] the first and genus of the supreme forms”) are the Medieval Georgian philosophical terms, as they are found in Ioane Petritsi’s (or Joane Petrizi’s, - Georgian philosopher of 11^th-12^th centuries) works: both with Petritsi and Rustaveli “gvari” (i.e. “family name”, etc.) means - if we use the contemporary Georgian scientific terminology - universals, while “tomi” (i.e. “tribe”) – means genus. Rustavelian “gvari” (“family name”) is the term denoting the specific concepts and with Petritsi it corresponds to the ancient Greek “eidos”, while “tomi” (i.e. “tribe”) has a meaning of a general (i.e. generalizing) concept and is equivalent of the ancient Greek “genos” (ibid. pg. 398-399, 618-619, with bibliography; cf. N. Natadze, 2006, pg. 467). It must also be mentioned, that the existence of “gvari” and “tomi” in 20, 1 should be considered as one specific example of reception (i.e. reflection) of the classical tradition in “The Man in the Panther Skin”, as eidos and genos, though with various meanings, are still found with Plato, Aristotle, as well as Neoplatonists.

In contrast to the above, the consensus among the researchers of “The Man in the Panther Skin” has not been reached due to the following issue: by means of logical-philosophical terms - “gvari” and “tomi” within or through which teaching did Rustaveli define the concept of love (stanzas 20-22)? That is why to this day researchers have different answers to the question posed above.

For instance, according to some viewpoints, in the prologue, in the process of defining love Rustaveli uses Plato’s Theory of Ideas , i.e. Forms or the teaching of Neoplatonists based on it, or simultaneously uses both of these doctrines related to each other. Among such viewpoints, it seems to me, the most successively grounded is the one, which is expressed in the works of N. Natadze, according to whom Rustaveli’s concept of love is based on Plato’s Theory of Ideas (see: N.Natadze, 1963; 1965, pg. 130-135, 140-142; 1974, pg. 142; 2006, pg. 467). However, the study conducted in the above direction leads to the following conclusion: “either […] Rustaveli places the Love - not the Good - on top of the world of Ideas, or […] The Love is one of the superlative Ideas among other celestial Ideas” (see N. Natadze, 2006, pg. 467). The inadmissibility of the second assumption, in my view, it is clear even without a special discussion: in 20, 1 Rustaveli does not claim that the love is one of the “tomi”, i.e. one of the supreme universals (or Ideas, concepts) among the other celestial “gvari”, i.e. among the other celestial universals (or Ideas, concepts); the poet says, that the love is the first and “tomi” (genus), i.e. the love is the first and generalizing (i.e. overall, all-embracing) universal (or Idea, concept) among the other celestial universals (or Ideas, concepts). What can we say about the first and main assumption of the researcher: if we disregard obvious irrelevance, that, in Rustaveli's view, it is not Platonic or Neoplatonic Idea of Goodness that exceeds other celestial Ideas, but the Idea of Love and together with the researcher we will assume, that 20, 1 reveals “the unusual artistic transformation" in the "hierarchy of Platonic Ideas" (ibid.) and thus, we will interpret Rustavelian Theory of Love through the doctrine of Plato and the Neoplatonists, in this case we must also assume that human and earthly love, that is, the love stories of Avtandili and Tinatini, on the one hand, and Tarieli and Nestani, on the other, which are depicted in the poem, these are only colorless distorted shadows of the celestial Idea of love (?!); or we have to assume that in the prologue within theoretical discussion, Rustaveli claims one thing, but the poem itself is based on a completely different philosophy (?!). (Cf. E. Khintibidze, 2009, pg. 396-398).

If we take into account the fact that the similarities between the doctrines of Plato and the Neoplatonists, on the one hand, and Christian asceticism and mysticism, on the other, is much greater than the difference between them, than we can say that the interpretation of N. Natadze, which was discussed above, is not fundamentally different from the other point of view, which dates back to King Vakhtang VI (see Vakhtang VI, 1712), and since the seventies of the last century is still quite popular among some scholars. According to these scholars, "The Man in the Panther Skin" is an allegorical poem, and so they try to interpret it in terms of mysticism. In particular, according to Z. Gamsakhurdia, like Solomon's "Song of Songs", "The Man in the Panther Skin" praises the divine love “in the guise” of earthly love and accordingly, the poem "reflects the ratio of the human soul to God" (see Z. Gamsakhurdia, 1972, pg. 99-100). As is known, the Georgian Orthodox Church - Archbishop Timote Gabashvili, Catholicos Anton and others - did not follow the mystical and allegorical perception of "The Man in the Panther Skin" suggested by King Vakhtang VI (for details see E. Khintibidze, op. cit., pg. 405-408, 627). Taking into account the purpose of this encyclopedia, I would like to draw attention only to the fact that the mystical and allegorical interpretations of the poem, which were discussed above, revealed no traces of reflection of the classical tradition in Rustaveli’s Theory of Love.

Finally, a third point of view was expressed in scientific research relating to "The Man in the Panther Skin", authored by E. Khintibidze. In his view, Rustaveli’s Theory of love combines simultaneously the best features of a Christian faith and ancient thought, namely, Plato's interpretation of love and the ethical conception of Aristotle. In particular, according to E. Khintibidze’s conception, which contradicts the opinion of N. Marr (see N. Marr, 1910, pp 49-50; for criticism of N. Marr’s view, see E. Khintibidze, 1975, p 223-236):

Rustaveli’s Theory of Love does not oppose an earthly love - that is, the friendship and mutual love between people, which includes a sincere love between young man and his unmarried young lady – to the Divine Love, which is the love of man to God (see E. Khintibidze, 2009, pp 618-. 620, 652);

Nevertheless, the earthly love, then again, is not a colorless shadow of the Divine Love (see above Plato’s Theory of Ideas);

And nor its allegory (see above mystical and allegorical interpretations; also ibid. pg. 621-633)

On the other hand, earthly love is not completely separated from the Divine, that is, despite its fleshly nature, earthly love all the same stands apart from lechery (actually, the opposite view stems from the standpoint of T. Chiladze on this issue, - see T. Chiladze, 1984, pg. 93, 95, 100, for the criticism of which see E. Khintibidze, 2009, pg. 583-585);

Both Divine Love and earthly love, when the latter is a sincere feeling, are characterized by sublimation (Rustaveli's interpretation that the earthly love is exalting, perhaps, demonstrates poet’s awareness of Plato's “The Symposium”. Albeit, it is clear that the friendship and mutual love of the knights of “The Man in the Panther Skin” and on the other, the type of earthly love that Plato praises in his “The Symposium”, are two completely different phenomena; cf. Ibid. pg. 639-640, 654, with bibliography).

The sublime human love, which was considered by Rustaveli as Divine, like Love in the case of Francesco Petrarch and unlike the case of Giovanni Boccaccio, is not yet depicted in "The Man in the Panther Skin" entirely lifelike, that is, naturally (cf. Ibid. pg. 645-646);

Thus, the earthly, human love, is the terrestrial manifestation of Divine Love (cf. Matthew 22: 37. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38. This is the first and great commandment. 39. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets (KJV, - see bibliography, infra); Mark 12, 30-31; Luke 10, 27; 1 John 4, 8): according to the poetic perception of Rustaveli, the Divine and earthly love it is the two manifestations of the one idea of love, the latter resembles and imitates the former, is derived from it, i.e. is part of it (for details, ibid. pg.620, 647-652). In this respect, one of the main guides for Rustaveli, after the Bible, is Plato’s “The Symposium”, according to which, when a man falls in love with this very moment he begins to comprehend the heavenly beauty and essence (ibid. pg. 639).

And finally: as mentioned above, taking into account the concept of love in the Gospel, Rustaveli reinvents the notion of Love. One of his main postulates, that earthly love is Divine love, doubtlessly corresponds to the nature of thought of the Renaissance. This is evidenced by the general similarity between this postulate of Rustaveli and the interpretations of Dante and Petrarch about love, which are based on the so called Platonic conception of love introduced in the middle of the Late Middle Ages (cf. Ibid. pg. 638-639) and which, except for the name, no longer has anything in common with the doctrine of Plato, because it originates from the troubadour poetry in the 11^th century and acquires its final shape in the works of Platonists of the Renaissance; this explains its name - Platonic conception of love: Love will reach divinity without denying its human nature, even while retaining its fleshly essence (cf. Ibid. pg. 648).

“Rustaveli's Theory of Love bears some resemblance to the artistic understanding of Love in the poetry of Renaissance age. This may be due not only to the tendencies of the era of Rustaveli, but can be explained primarily through a personal creative genius of the poet and thinker, as is the case in the works of Dante Alighieri” (ibid. pg. 640). However, Rustaveli comes to a novel understanding of love typical of Renaissance artistic thought one, or even one and a half, centuries earlier than Dante Alighieri and Francesco Petrarch. During this process of creative search the basic guideline for the poet was the national Georgian and Christian consciousness, according to which the highest form of human earthly love is that which culminates in marriage. This is quite untypical of the oriental, namely, Arab-Persian mysticism or Sufism, the courtly love in Medieval Europe, troubadour poetry (apart from minor exceptions) and the works of Dante; however, it is characteristic, except Plato, for ancient Greek ethic in general and especially for Aristotle ("Nicomachean Ethics"), which considers marriage as a natural attraction of people to each other, as well as one of the highest expressions of friendship (ibid. pg. 635-638, with bibliography). This fact - artistic idealization of marriage is one of the necessary conditions, because of which “the Love in “The Man in the Panther Skin” is already the earthly and human feeling and it does not need a symbolic and transcendent rethinking of one type or another. Furthermore, according to Rustaveli’s conception, without its symbolic rethinking, the earthly human love is in itself already the Divine Love” (ibid. pg. 640-641; for details see 640-646). At the same time, it should be noted that "this new trend, which is characteristic of the aesthetics of the Renaissance, is coordinated by Rustaveli with the medieval artistic realities of his poem so harmoniously that they do not in any way contradict each other". The above-said is due to the circumstances that the "theoretical and philosophical background for the poet was medieval, and the base of his poem was theological. This is the interpretation of the traditional concept of the Love of the Gospel, which Rustaveli offers to us in the prologue of his poem” (see stanzas under consideration, in particular stanzas 20-22; ibid. pg. 646 and for details 646-648, with bibliography). Thus, the Love of "The Man in the Panther Skin" is the love of human existence, the whole of humanity, which does not reject the traditional medieval ideals, that is, hope and faith in a good, merciful God, but along with them it sets a new ideal, the ideal of the Renaissance; it is earthly, human love (ibid. pg.655).

In addition to the above, special attention should be drawn to the circumstance that in the prologue Rustaveli tells not only of the two manifestations of love, that is, divine and earthly, in other words, fleshly of which in his poem he describes the latter, because, according to the humanistic tendencies of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, due to the transcendental nature of the Divine love its perception is impossible and, unlike the earthly fleshly love, it cannot be the subject of literary and aesthetic depiction (ibid. pg. 619-620, with bibliography); the poet speaks about the third manifestation of love, too, that is, lechery, to the definition of which he devotes the whole two stanzas (24^th and 25^th) from the six (stanzas 20-25). It is understood that the above fact can only be explained by the circumstance that the poet did not unreasonably feel, and the following centuries have confirmed this (according to some Georgian clerics, “Rustaveli tried in vain”, etc.), that the earthly fleshly love, which he praised in his poem, could be perceived by the public as lechery, rather than sublime human feeling, as Divine love (cf. Ibid. pg. 403). It should be interesting to note that in this regard, the situation is similar in the works of Petrarch, who in his treatise - “My Secret Book" thoroughly justifies the view that the relationship with a prostitute should be condemned (cf. Ibid. pg. 642, 652).

Thus, in the prologue to “The Man in the Panther Skin” Rustaveli talks about the three types of love, only one of which he prefers and then praises in his poem. It is human, fleshly, but at the same time, sincere, sublime love: “My theme is rather the earthly passions that visit human beings” (21, 3). The other two types of love are Divine Love (also sincere and sublime manifestation of this feeling) and lechery (also the earthly and fleshly expression of love, but in its most unacceptable form). For the poet these two types are the extremes with regard to the third type (first-mentioned above), which he considers the best, the most perfect type of love: “Some seek nearness to God but are wearied from exaltation, / To others it is natural to fly here below - from one fair maiden to another” (22, 3-4). But the poet is strongly opposed to lechery - “Love is tender, a thing hard to be known, / Love is something apart from a wanton lechery, and cannot be likened thereto, / […] I hate heartless love – embracing, kissing, noisy bussing” (24-25); On the other hand, he firmly indicates the similarity or even identity of the human and divine manifestations of love: “My theme is rather the earthly passions that visit human beings, / These passions imitate that [Divine] love, when there is nothing wanton in them, [only] falling into a swoon from afar” (21, 3-4). We can say without a doubt that in his above reasoning Rustaveli takes into account and is based on Aristotle’s well-known ethical principle for determining the virtuous mean, which can also be traced in many other parts of "The Man in the Panther Skin" (ibid. pg. 392-395, 409-417): according to Aristotle (“Nicomachean Ethics”, II, 9, 3-5), “Hence the first rule in aiming at the mean is to avoid that extreme which is the more opposed to the mean, […] [f]or of the two extremes one is a more serious error than the other. Hence, inasmuch as to hit the mean extremely well is difficult, the second best way […] is to take the least of the evils; […] The second rule is to notice what are the errors to which we are ourselves most prone […] then we must drag ourselves away in the opposite direction, for by steering wide of our besetting error we shall make a middle course […] (translated by H. Rackham, see bibliography, infra)” (ibid. pg. 403-404, for details, see pg. 398-405).

Within the viewpoint of E. Khintibidze, as it seems to me, the essence of Rustavelian Theory of Love is revealed in full, and thus, also discovered are the typological parallels of Rustaveli's poem with the troubadour poetry, the works of Dante and Petrarch, and at the same time this viewpoint identifies the main literary and philosophical sources of the poem: Georgian national traditional identity, Christian faith, Oriental Sufism and finally, (what is more significant from the standpoint of the objective of the present encyclopedia) the Classical Tradition - Aristotle’s ethics (“Nicomachean Ethics”) and Plato’s philosophy of love (“The Symposium”).

Bibliography

(Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics) Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 19, translated by H. Rackham, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934 (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abekker%20page%3D1).

T. Chiladze (1984) Sign of the Blossoming Rose, Tbilisi. (In Georgian)

Z. Gamsakhurdia (1972) “The Man in the Panther Skin” in English, Herald, Series of Language and Literature, 2, pg. 33-56; 4, pg. 89-108. (In Georgian)

E. Khintibidze (1975) World Outlook Issues in “The Man in the Panther Skin”, Tbilisi. (In Georgian)

E. Khintibidze (2009) The World View of Rustaveli’s “Vepkhistqaosani” (“The Man in the Panther Skin”), Tbilisi. (In Georgian)

(KJV) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2022&version=KJV, King James Version by Public Domain, Matthew 22.

N. Marr (1910) The opening and final stanzas of Shota Rustaveli’s “The Man in the Panther Skin”, Armenian and Georgian Philological Texts and Surveys, vol. 12, St. Petersburg. (In Russian)

N. Natadze (1963) Towards the commentary on the Prologue of “The Man in the Panther Skin”, The Herald of the Department of Social Sciences of the Georgian Academy of Sciences, 2, pg. 163-177. (In Georgian)

N. Natadze (1965) Rustavelian Love and the Renaissance, Tbilisi. (In Georgian)

N. Natadze (1974) At the Turn of the Times, Tbilisi. (In Georgian)

N. Natadze (2006) Shota Rustaveli, “The Man in the Panther Skin”, School Edition with Introduction, Literary Review, Dictionary and Commentary, Edited by N. Natadze, Tbilisi. (In Georgian)

Vakhtang VI (1712) The First Explanation of the Book of “The Man in the Panther Skin”, in the book: Shota Rustaveli, “The Man in the Panther Skin”, Tpilisi. (In Georgian). [Z.Kh.]

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