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Another quick project this week: downloaded The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam from Project Gutenberg and put it on my iPod. PG thoughtfully gives the first edition and the fifth, along with an introduction and end notes. I looked for a longer version of the Rubaiyat, but the one included in "Persian Literature" seems to be FitzGerald's as well. This is not a huge tragedy, as his translating, selecting and ordering are what I believe made a really good work into a great one, but I do get curious as to what he left out. I did find one sample:

The Palace that to Heav'n his pillars threw,
And Kings the forehead on his threshold drew--
I saw the solitary Ringdove there,
And "Coo, coo, coo," she cried; and "Coo, coo, coo."

Also on PG is FitzGerald's translation of Calderon de la Barca's play "La Vide es Sueño" (Life is a Dream). I read it back around 1980, and it probably was a different translation. When I get around to reading it again, I probably won't remember any of it, so it'll be like new.

Sarah continues to resist her glasses. We've been taking walks together, which is nice. She likes it best when we encounter the ice cream truck and buy something, of course. I like the walks because the things that distract her at home aren't there, so we get to talk to each other for about 25 minutes at a stretch.

Cathy's been reading the Potter books. She has finished the first five in the past week, and has the next two lined up and ready to knock off. I told her they knock Voldemort off at the end of the sixth book, and in the seventh book they just go after counterfeiters and stuff. Don't tell her.
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Comments

[davesslave.livejournal.com]

That is such a wonderful poem. Do you read poetry to Sarah? My mother put the love of poetry in me by reading poems to me before I went to sleep at night.

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

For the record, *I* like walks best when I encounter an ice cream truck and buy somethng.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I can't decide if we have an ice cream truck in the area or a rude neighbor, but every now and then, I hear the first eight bars of Turkey in the Straw repeating.