Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

SABCL 26

Fragment ID: 7898

Q: You have nowhere said anything about Firdausi, the epic poet of Persia, author of Shahnameh? Would you rank him with the other epic poets whom you consider absolutely first-rate – Homer, Valmiki, Vyasa? How is it that you who have made your own culture so wide by means of learning so many languages have allowed a serious gap in it by not knowing Persian?

A: I read Firdausi in a translation long ago but it gave me no idea at all of the poetic qualities of the original. As for gaps in the culture – well, I don’t know Russian or Finnish (missing the Kalevala) and haven’t read the Nibelungenlied in the original, nor for that matter Pentaur’s poem on the conquests of Rameses in ancient Egyptian or at least the fragment that survives. I don’t know Arabic either, but I don’t mind that, having read Burton’s translation of the Arabian Nights which is as much a classic as the original. Anyhow, the gaps are vast and many.

13-7-1937