Anonymous

“ It would be indeed absurd for an English writer to attempt to conform, in an English version, to the vagaries of Persian idiom, or even to attempt a literal rendering of the Persian trope. The manner of a poet can never be faithfully reproduced in a translation, but all that is really valuable, really affecting, in an epic poem will survive transfusion into the frank and natural idiom of another tongue. ”

“ The fantastic crowd of demons, peris, and necromancers that appear as the supernatural machinery of the Sháh Námeh, such grotesque fancies as the serpents that grew from the shoulders of King Zohák, or the ladder of Zerdusht, on which he mounted from earth to heaven—all these and a hundred other fancies compare unfavorably with the reserve of Homer, in his use of such a personage as Circe, and the human grace and dignity which he lends to that genial circle on Olympus, whose inextinguishable laughter is called forth by the halting wine-bearer a god like themselves. ”

“ It embalms the genuine spirit and life of an Oriental poem in the simple yet tasteful form of English narrative. The blending of verse and prose is a happy expedient. If we may use the metaphor of Horace, we should say, that Mr. Atkinson alternately trudges along on foot, and rises on the wings of verse into the upper air. The reader follows with pleasure both his march and his flight, and reaches the end of the volume with the distinct impression that he has been reading a Persian poem, and all the while forgotten that it was written in the English language. ”