When Sir John Lubbock, in the list of a hundred books which he
published, in the year 1886, as containing the best hundred worth
reading, mentioned the "Sháh Námeh" or "Book of Kings," written by the
Persian poet Firdusi, it is doubtful whether many of his readers had
even heard of such a poem or of its author. Yet Firdusi, "The Poet of
Paradise" (for such is the meaning of this pen-name), is as much the
national poet of Persia as Dante is of Italy or Shakespeare of England.
Abul Kasim Mansur is indeed a genuine epic poet, and for this reason his
work is of genuine interest to the lovers of Homer, Vergil, and Dante.
The qualities that go to make up an epic poem are all to be found in
this work of the Persian bard. In the first place, the "Sháh Námeh" is
written by an enthusiastic patriot, who glorifies his country, and by
that means has become recognized as the national poet of Persia. In the
second place, the poem presents us with a complete view of a certain
definite phase, and complete era of civilization; in other words, it is
a transcript from the life; a portrait-gallery of distinct and unique
individuals; a description of what was once an actual society. We find
in it delineated the Persia of the heroic age, an age of chivalry,
eclipsing, in romantic emotion, deeds of daring, scenes of love and
violence, even the mediaeval chivalry of France and Spain. Again, this
poem deals principally with the adventures of one man. For all other
parts of the work are but accessories to the single figure of Rustem,
the heroic personage whose superhuman strength, dignity, and beauty make
him to be a veritable Persian Achilles. But when we regard the details
of this work we see how deeply the literary posterity of Homer are
indebted to the Father of European Poetry. 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. While
we read the "Sháh Námeh" with keen interest, because from its study the
mind is enlarged and stimulated by new scenes, new ideas and
unprecedented situations, we feel grateful that the battle of Salamis
stopped the Persian invasion of Europe, which would doubtless have
resulted in changing the current of literature from that orderly and
stately course which it had taken from its fountain in a Greek
Parnassus, and diverted it into the thousand brawling rills of Persian
fancy and exaggeration.
It is a hundred years ago that a certain physician in the employment of
the East India Company, who then represented British supremacy in Bengal
and Calcutta, published the "Story of Sohrab," a poem in heroic
couplets, being a translation of the most pathetic episode in the "Sháh
Námeh." If we compare this English poem with Jules Mohl's literal
translation of the Persian epic into French, we find that James Atkinson
stands very much in the same relation to Firdusi as Pope does to Homer.
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. We say
epic poem, because one of the distinguishing features in this form of
literary expression is that its action hinges on those fundamental
passions of humanity, that "touch which makes the whole world kin,"
whose alphabet is the same in every latitude. The publication of
"Sohrab" was nevertheless the revelation of a new world to London
coteries, and the influence of Mr. Atkinson's work can be traced as well
in the Persian pastorals of Collins as in the oriental poems of Southey
and Moore. This metrical version of "Sohrab" is the only complete
episode of the Sháh Námeh contained in the present collection. When we
consider that the Persian original consists of some one hundred and
twenty thousand lines, it will easily be understood that a literal
rendering of the whole would make a volume whose bulk would put it far
out of reach to the general reader. Atkinson has very wisely furnished
us with a masterly _résumé_ of the chief episodes, each of which he
outlines in prose, occasionally flashing out into passages of sparkling
verse, which run through the narrative like golden threads woven into
the tissue of some storied tapestry. The literary style of the
translator is admirable. Sometimes, as when he describes the tent of
Maníjeh, he becomes as simple and direct as Homer in depicting the
palace of Alcinous. The language of his Sohrab recalls the pathos of
Vergil's Nisus and Euryalus, and the paternal love and despair of
Dante's Ugolino. But in Rustem the tears of anguish and sorrow seem to
vanish like morning dew, in the excitement of fresh adventure, and human
feeling, as depicted by Firdusi, lacks not only the refined gradations,
but also the intensity, which we see in the Florentine poet. Atkinson's
versification is rather that of Queen Anne's time than what we of the
Victorian age profess to admire in Browning and Tennyson. But it is one
of the chief praises of Tennyson that he has treated Sir Thomas Malory
very much in the same way as Mr. Atkinson has treated Abul Kasim Mansur,
by bringing the essential features of an extinct society within the
range of modern vision, and into touch with modern sympathies. All that
is of value in Firdusi, to the reader of to-day, will be found in this
version of Atkinson, while the philologist or the antiquarian can
satisfy their curiosity either in the original, or in the French
versions whose fidelity is above suspicion. For it is bare justice to
say that James Atkinson's Firdusi is one of those translations, even
though it be at the same time an abridgment, which have taken their
place in the rank of British classics. It is the highest praise that can
be given to a work of this character to say that it may be placed on the
bookshelf side by side with Jeremy Collier's "Marcus Aurelius," Leland's
"Demosthenes," and the "Montaigne" of Charles Cotton. 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.