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This is the first instalment of what I hope will eventually be a complete text and translation of the Mathnawí in six volumes, of which the first, third, and fifth are to contain the Persian text, while the second, fourth, and sixth are reserved for the English translation. To look further ahead, two or three volumes of commentary will be required in order to make the text and translation fully intelligible; and there should also be an introductory volume dealing with the life and times of Jaláluʾddín Rúmi and with the linguistic, literary, historical, doctrinal and other aspects of the poem as a whole. I do not know whether I shall be able to carry out this project, but one condition of success, namely, the means to publish rapidly at regular intervals, is already ensured by the liberality of my colleagues who are Trustees of the E. J. W. Gibb Memorial. If the text and translation were finished in seven years from now, I should be well satisfied, though it is true that without the commentary a great part of the translation must remain no more than a skeleton.

The plan sketched here has long been present to my mind. I have no doubt that its originator, though he never suggested it in words, was lo mio maestro Professor E. G. Browne, who first helped me to appreciate the extraordinary qualities of the "Persian Qurʾán". The impressions then formed were strengthened by study of Jaláluʾddin's Díwán, specimens of which the Cambridge University Press published in 1898 under the title of Selected Poems from the Dĭvāni Shamsi Tabrīz. At that time what I had in view was an annotated translation, but it soon became evident that this would be of little use by itself. Before explaining the reasons which have