luxuriously in the seventeenth century, showed the most marked tendency
to make use of Eastern scenery and episodes, and incidentally to exhibit
the author's erudition on everything Oriental. Thus Grimmelshausen
transports his hero Simplicissimus into Asia through the device of
Tartar captivity. Lohenstein, in his ultra-Teutonic romance of Arminius,
manages to introduce an Armenian princess and a prince from Pontus. The
latter, as we learn from the autobiography with which he favors us in
the fifth book, has been in India. He took with him a Brahman sage, who
burned himself on reaching Greece. Evidently Lohenstein had read
Arrian's description of the burning of Kalanos (Arrian vii. 2, 3). The
_Asiatische Banise_ of Heinrich Anselm von Ziegler-Kliphausen, perhaps
the most popular German novel of the seventeenth century, was based
directly on the accounts of travellers to Farther India, not on Greek or
Latin writings.[66] Other authors who indulged their predilection for
Oriental scenery were Buchholtz in his _Herkules und Valisca_ (1659),
Happel in _Der Asiatische Onogambo_ (Hamb. 1673), Bohse (Talander) in
_Die durchlauchtigste Alcestis aus Persien_ (Leipz. 1689) and
others.[67]

The most striking instance of the Oriental tendency is furnished by
Grimmelshausen's _Joseph_, first published probably in 1667.[68] Here we
meet the famous story of Yūsuf and Zalīχā as it is given in the _Qurān_
or in the poems of Firdausī and Jāmī. The well-known episode of the
ladies cutting their hands instead of the lemons in consequence of their
confusion at the sight of Joseph's beauty is here narrated at
length.[69] In the preface the author states explicitly that he has
drawn, not only from the Bible, but from Hebrew, Arabic and Persian
writings as well.[70] That he should have made use of Arabic material is
credible enough, for Dutch Orientalists like Golius and Erpenius had
made this accessible.[71] That he had some idea of Persian poetry is