THE RUBAIYAT OF UMAR KHAIYAM. The French translation of J.
B. Nicolas, the English translation of Frederic Baron Corvo. (Bodley Head. 21s. net.) As there is still no complete and accurate translation of Omar Khayyam's stanzas, these two will serve the student best. J. B. Nicolas was obsessed by the idea that to the most pagan stanza of the poem there must be some mystical inter- pretation; he made his translation into French, therefore,' a sort of exegesis on the Sufi religion. Nevertheless he did not distort the text very much, and anyone who chooses may read through his rendering the atmosphere of the original). "Baron Corvo" (whose actual name was Frederick William Semfino Austin Lewis Mary Rolfe) determined? in trans-, lating Nicolas's version into English, to restore as much' amorousness to the poem as he could work in, and he redressed the balance too vigorously. He had, moreover, one of the most curious styles in the world : his translation begins: "No, Phosphor ! And a Voice from the Tavern cneth,1 Enter, hilarious Philopots, hybrist Youths " ; and attention has been called in The London Mercury to such instances of his vocabulary as " tolutiloquent " and " fumicable." But, between the two translators, and with the help Mr. Heron- Allen gives in his notes, a reader will be able to gather the sense of Omar's stanzas. There are excellent coloured' plates to illustrate the book painted by Hamzeh Abd-ullah Kar.
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