Manuscripts of 'Omar Khayydm, 99 



which leads to constant repetition of a favourite quatrain 

 may and probably will account for much of the great dis- 

 crepancy which here appears. Concerning the other known 

 MSS. of 'Omar Khayyam, the following will be found in 

 pages VIII and IX of Major Evans Bell's reprint : 



" 'Omar has never been popular in his, own country, and 

 therefore has been but charily transmitted abroad. The 

 MSS. of his Poems, mutilated beyond the average casualties 

 of oriental transcription, are so rare in the East as scarce to 

 have reached Westward at all, in spite of all that arms and 

 science have brought to us. There is none at the India 

 House, none at the Bibliotheque Imperiale of Paris. We 

 know of but one in England, No. 140 of the Ouseley MSS. 

 at the Bodleian, written at Shiraz, A. H. 866 (A. D. 1460). 

 [Garcin de Tassy has a copy of this MS. at Paris.] This 

 contains but 158 Rubaiyat. One in the Asiatic Society's 

 Library of Calcutta, (of which we have a copy) contains 

 (and yet incomplete) 516, though swelled to that by all 

 kinds of repetition and corruption. So Von Hammer speaks 

 of his copy as containing about 200, while Dr. Sprenger 

 catalogues the Lucknow MS. at double that number. The 

 scribes, too, of the Oxford and Calcutta MSS. seem to do- 

 their work under a sort of protest ; each beginning with a 

 Tetrastich (whether genuine or not) taken out of its alpha- 

 betic order ; the Oxford with one of apology ; the Calcutta 

 with one of execration too stupid for 'Omar's, even had 

 'Omar been stupid enough to execrate himself." Then, in 

 a note, is the following : " Since this paper was written we 

 have met with a copy of a very rare edition, printed at 

 Calcutta in 1836. This contains 438 Tetrastichs with an 

 appendix containing 54 other not found in some MSS." 



The quatrains are also in Shikasta, and, except to one 

 well accustomed to this style of writing, there would be 

 some difficulty in getting through a few of them. 



