Page:The Mesnevī (Volume 2).pdf/15

xiv satisfy any one who wants to understand the text and know what sense or senses it is capable of bearing. Therefore a complete version of the Mathnawí means, for scientific purposes, a faithful translation supplemented by a full commentary; and considering the scarcity of competent Persian scholars in Europe, no one need wonder that the double task has not yet been accomplished. The most important European translations are enumerated in the following list, which shows incidentally that the greater part of the work already done stands to the credit of this country.

Being written in rhymed verse, this excellent version of about a third of Book (. 1–1371 in my edition) does not preserve the literal form of the original, but as a rule the meaning is given correctly even where misunderstanding would have been pardonable, while the explanatory notes keep the reader in touch with the mystical background of the poem. The translator has left out a good deal—and in verse-translations of Oriental poetry this is a merit rather than a fault. His book, which was reprinted in 1913 with an introduction by his son, Dr F. Rosen, should help to quicken the growing interest of Germany in Persian literature.

Sir James Redhouse's translation of Book is much less accurate than Rosen's. Its peculiarities cause us to speculate why this eminent Turkish scholar, who was not quite at home in Persian mysticism, should have embarked upon a task so formidable; or how, with the sagacity to perceive and the candour to confess his lack of skill in versifying, he allowed himself to be misled by the idea that any kind of verse is superior to prose as a medium for the translation of poetry. The excerpts from Aflákí's Manáqibu ʾl-ʿÁrifín, though legendary in character, supply valuable information concerning the poet and the circle of Ṣúfís in which he lived.

All students of the Mathnawí owe gratitude to Whinfield, who was the first to analyse its contents and illustrate their rich quality by his prose translation of selected passages from the six Books,