THE SHAH-NAMEH.•
Tax book which now appears in a new edition, after the lapse of more than fifty years, was the work of an officer in the medical service of the East India Company. To say that it is an abridgment of the original poem scarcely represents the state of the case. It does not go beyond the death of Sicander (or, as it might be better written, Iskender), the Persian equivalent for Alexander, and thus leaves without notice more than two- sevenths of Firdausi's work. And of the portion with which it deals, it gives—to make a rough estimate—about a fifth. M. Jules Mohl, indeed, in his preface to what is now the standard edition of the Sluih-Ncirneh, describes Mr. Atkinson's volume as nothing more than a translation of an abridgment made by Tewakkol-Beg, an official at the Court of Lahore, in 1685. The plan of the two books is the same, consisting as they do of passages in prose and verse, and ending with the death of Alexander. Mr. Atkinson, however, speaks of having used " copies " of the Shcih-Ncinteh in the execution of his work, and it is very likely that he had the unabridged original before him. Still, it may be doubted whether the " innumerable copies " of which he speaks could have been copies of the poem itself. This, it must be remembered, contains more than sixty thousand lines, and makes an exceedingly bulky as well as costly manu- script.
It is to be regretted that the present editor has not consulted the bibliography of Firdausi given in M. Mohl's preface. He would not have committed himself to the erroneous statement that his father's work 'was "the first attempt to translate the Shcih-Ncinzeh. into English." Mr. W. Champion appears to have published a translation into verse of the unabridged poem as far as the marriage of Zal and Rondabeh, about a tenth part of the whole ; and Mr. S. Weston brought out a translation of some extracts in 1815. Mr. Atkinson's work, however, was more representative of the original than its predecessors, and its republication needs no apology.
The Shish-Ncimeh is a historical epic of a kind to which it would not be easy to find a parallel in literature. It contains a history of Persia, which the poet's patriotism considered to be about equivalent to a history of the world, from the Creation down to the seventh century of the Christian era ; in fact, to the conquest of Persia by the Mahomedan power. Like other Oriental histories, its earlier facts have a fabulous or semi- falmlons character. Marvels of every kind abound in them ; the lives of the kings and heroes who are celebrated in the verse extend over centuries. The scale of everything is reduced as we approach more recent times, and though as a narrative the poem is never either exact or complete, it has at least a basis of genuine history. We may conjecture that the circumstances in which the poet was placed, his position as the laureate of the Sultan, did something to determine the plan of the work. He had to celebrate the ancient glories of Persia, and this purpose would not be answered except by a poem which would embrace the whole of its histories, genuine and legendary. But as the ingenuity of modern critics has extracted from the Iliad an Achilleid, which they conjecture to be the original work of the true Homer—if a true Homer there was—so we may find an " Epic of Rustem " as the real poetical nucleus of the "Book of the Kings." It is on the story of Rnstem that the poet expends his best powers ; indeed, when the great hero disappears from the scene, there is little left that is worthy of attention. The story of Iskender, indeed, may be accepted ; but this is rather curious in the comparisons which it suggests with the history of the conqueror as written from the Greek point of view, than valuable for its literary qualities.
And of the "Epic of Rustem," the story of Sohrab is without doubt, and, indeed, beyond comparison, the most striking part. It might almost be said that Firdausi's claim to be considered one of the great poets of the world rests upon this. English readers have been made familiar with a portion of this noble episode by the beautiful poem which Mr. Matthew Arnold has founded upon it. But it did not fall within Mr. Arnold's plan to bring out what is strikingly manifest in the original,—the dramatic character of the story. We are reminded, as we read, of the Greek tragedy, and especially of what is, perhaps, its noblest expression, the &dip's Tyrannus. Fate, working together with his own blindness and headstrong determination, and the evil • The Shdh-NELmeh of the Persian Poet Pirdasesi. Translated and Abridged, in Prose and Verse, by James Atkinson. Edited by the Bey. J. Atkinson. London : Warne and Co. designs of others, drives on the hero to the frightful act of slaying his own son. It is the great desire of Sohrab's heart, when he leaves the distant home of his mother, to find the great hero, his father. He will conquer Persia, that he may set his father on the throne. The Tartar King Afrasiab encourages him, with the treacherous purpose of ridding himself of the whole race of these dangerous enemies. " If the young lion,' he says to his counsellors, "slay the old one, well. If, on the other hand, Rnstem should slay his son, he will be too broken- hearted to trouble us again." Everything seems to league together to defeat Sohrab's purpose. When he surveys the Persian army, and asks the names of the chiefs who are ranged each with his own banner (a scene which strongly reminds one of Priam and Helen on the walls of Troy), the Tartar chief whom he questions conceals the truth. Rustem himself is on the point of discovering the truth when he goes as a spy into the Tartar fortress, and watches Sohrab at the ban- quet among the lords of the Tartar army. Among these lords is the brother of Sohrab's mother, who had seen the great champion at his father's court at the banquet that followed his sister's marriage. But Rustem unconsciously puts an end to this chance, for, fearful of being discovered, he strikes his brother-in-law dead with a blow of his fist as he leaves the apartment. It is curious that Mr. Atkinson does not take any notice of this incident, so important in the evolution of the drama.
Mr. Atkinson's volume consists, as has been said above, of mixture of prose and verse. The latter is but of indifferent quality ; the former, though without distinction of style, serves its purpose sufficiently well. The reader will get from this volume, which, published in the series known as " The Cha.ndc Classics," is of very moderate price, a fair idea of the original. If he wants something more, it can be got, supposing that, as is probable, he is not acquainted with Persian, from M. Mohl's translation, a popular edition of which, in seven duodecimo) volumes, was published by Madame Mohl after her husband's death.
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