ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Salaman and Absal: an Allegory My dear Cowell, Two years ago, when we began (I for the first time) to read this Poem together, I wanted you to translate it, as something that should interest a few who are worth interesting.

You, however, did not see the way clear then, and had Aristotle pulling you by one Shoulder and Prakrit Vararuchi by the other, so as indeed to have hindered you up to this time completing a Version of Hafiz’ best Odes which you had then happily begun. So, continuing to like old Jámi more and more, I must try my hand upon him; and here is my reduced Version of a small Original.

What Scholarship it has is yours, my Master in Persian and so much beside; who are no further answerable for all than by well liking and wishing publisht what you may scarce have Leisure to find due fault with.

Had all the Poem been like Parts, it would have been all translated, and in such Prose lines as you measure Hafiz in, and such as any one should adopt who does not feel himself so much of a Poet as him he translates and some he translates for-before whom it is best to lay the raw material as genuine as may be, to work up to their own better Fancies.

But, unlike Hafiz’ best-(whose Sonnets are sometimes as close packt as Shakespeare's, which they resemble in more ways than one)-Jámi, you know, like his Countrymen generally, is very diffuse in what he tells and his way of telling it.

The very structure of the Persian Couplet-(here, like people on the Stage, I am repeating to you what you know, with an Eye to the small Audience beyond)-so often ending with the same Word, or Two Words, if but the foregoing Syllable secure a lawful Rhyme, so often makes the Second Line but a slightly varied Repetition, or Modification of the First, and gets slowly over Ground often hardly worth gaining.

This iteration is common indeed to the Hebrew Psalms and Proverbs-where, however, the Value of the Repetition is different. In your Hafiz also, not Two only, but Eight or Ten Lines perhaps are tied to the same Close of Two-or Three -words; a verbal Ingenuity as much valued in the East as better Thought.