The Mathnawi of Jalaluddin Rumi

Dedeh—and in my opinion the circumstantial evidence is quite enough to convict him—or some learned man who was no poet, however good he may have been at rhyming. This volume of the translation, like those which have preceded it, gives a literal rendering of the text in English or, where necessary, in Latin. While revising it, I have noted a few errors and misprints that should be added to the List of Errata, Vol. v, pp. xxi–xxiv.

Book v, v. 588. Delete the idáfat grammatical linking particle of ma‘shúq beloved.
,, v. 1171, Heading, l. 4. Read yanhá forbids.
,, v. 2214. Read tá maní until egoism.
,, v. 2976. Read án-ke that one who.
,, v. 3124. Read rúy-e zard yellow face.
,, v. 3339. Read yek sitáre one star.
,, v. 3518. Read waqt time/moment, with idáfat.
,, v. 3918. Read qarn-e hamla the generation of the attack.
Book vi, v. 521. Read kághadh-há raqam papers recorded.
,, v. 1615. Read ‘áshiqán lovers.
,, v. 3362. Read ba-káh to the straw/chaff.
,, v. 3469. Read khashm-e shahna anger of the police officer.
,, v. 4445. Read hamchú dilwat like a bucket.

No version of a work so idiomatic and ambiguous can be free from faults, but those which I may have committed are at any rate not due to the method of loose paraphrase adopted by some of my predecessors—a method full of pitfalls for the student. Doubts and difficulties will be considered in their proper place; also questions of wider interest. Any one who reads the poem attentively will observe that its structure is far from being so casual as it looks. To say that “the stories follow each other in no order” is entirely wrong: they are bound together by subtle links and transitions arising from the poet's development of his theme; and each Book forms an artistic whole. The subject cannot be discussed here, but I may refer to an excellent analysis and illustration of these technicalities by Dr Gustav Richter which has been published recently.

Familiarity does not always breed disillusion. To-day the words I applied to the author of the Mathnawí thirty-five years ago, “the greatest mystical poet of any age,” seem to me no more than just. Where else shall we find such a panorama of universal existence unrolling itself through Time into Eternity? And, apart from the supreme mystical quality of the poem, what a wealth of satire, humour and pathos! What masterly pictures drawn by a hand that touches nothing without revealing its essential character! In the Díwán Jalálu’ddín soars higher; yet we must read the Mathnawí in order to appreciate all the range and variety of his genius.

CAMBRIDGE,
April 19, 1933