Page:The Mesnevī (Volume 1).pdf/34

 Rh the form or the meaning or both. Where A differs from C, F almost regularly agrees with A; where C and A agree, F often follows B or L; where A and B agree, F often has the reading of L or Bul.; where they differ, I sometimes follows A and sometimes B; in many cases F and Bul. are in agreement against all the MSS. It appears, then, that if we take C as the standard, F is distinctly inferior to A and even to B, but on the other hand it is far superior to L, with which as well as with the Búláq edition it shows marked affinities. In the Second Book, where D takes the place of C, the standard is lower and consequently the differences are less. It is likely, too, that fewer corruptions have found their way into the text of the Second Book, which was composed two years after the First and may have received milder treatment from copyists already familiar with the author's style. F omits over a dozen verses which occur in ABD, but some of these are translated and explained in the accompanying commentary and appear to have fallen out accidentally. Of the 22 verses which F adds to those in my text, one occurs (as a doublet), in A, two (as doublets) in D, five in B, seventeen in L, and eighteen in the Búlág edition, while there are two that are wanting in my MSS. and in Bul. These figures, together with the fact that F seldom has readings peculiar to A or D, whereas it often agrees with L or Bul. or both when they differ from AD, confirm the evidence found in Book I for the close relationship between F and the ancestors of ''L Bul. F'' is a good eclectic text; in Books I and II its independent readings of importance are comparatively few.

Next to F in merit stands the Búláq edition (A. H. 1268), which contains, besides the spurious Seventh Book, a Turkish translation in verse by Naḥífí. Professor Wilson calls this text "most excellent." I should not myself go so far as that, for though it is less adulterated than the Teheran edition (A. H. 1307) and the handsome Cawnpore edition in six volumes, many of its verses are sheer doggerel vamped up from more respectable materials which are preserved in L. The Teheran text, to which a concordance (jadwal-i abyát) is appended, bears a strong likeness to that contained in the