Excerpt from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: Translated From the Lucknow Edition

There is, of course, much repetition, but though this greatly increases the difficulty of any attempt to render into verse without constant repetition of the same phrases, I think that, on the whole, translation repays the effort. There is generally something new to be found.

Several quatrains are probably not genuine. For instance, No. 7 is found in El Maghrabi, who is probably the real author, but I have taken the work as I found it.

I have departed from the ten-syllable line in many in stances, and have even exceeded the limits of the Rubai, but I can only urge in extenuation that I have found the endeavour to turn 76% quatrains of Persian into 762 qua trains of English a task of great difficulty, and I hope for the indulgence of those who may care to read.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.