Vis and Ramin

PREFACE vii
mathy (St Petersburg, 1868), there is no other printed
Georgian text. An article on the book appeared at Tiflis in
June, 1896, in the Journal ocwbocW No. 6, part ii., p. 70.
It is an unfortunate circumstance that none of the MSS.
used for the 1884 edition is of an earlier date than
the seventeenth century. The Catholicos Antony, in the
i-i.^hteenth century, no doubt destroyed all the copies he
could seize, and it is a subject for congratulation and
surprise that any escaped the fury of an ecclesiastic who
regarded even Rust'haveli as an immoral writer.
Tradition says that Visramiani was translated into
Georgian by Sargis T'hmogveli, in the reign of Queen
T'hamara. It was certainly known to Rust'haveli, for he
refers to it in quatrains 182, 1058, 1519 of The Man in the
Panther's SL'in (Oriental Translation Fund, New Series,
vol. xxi., London, 1912), and several parallel passages
are noted in this volume after the Index. References in
the notes are marked " R." The writers of the Odes of
that period (N. Marr's TeKciu, vol. iv. Odes v. 22 and ;
82, 1 )
make two allusions to Vis and Ramin. In the notes " M "
indicates Prof. Marr's works.
It will be apparent to readers that the text has suffered
corruption ; some references to the Christian religion and
some tiresome tirades have been added by scribes. In spite
of the numerous Persian words and locutions, the style is
singularly limpid, and full of the genius of the Georgian
language.
The English translation is published chiefly with the
object of aiding students of classical Georgian literature.
An endeavour has been made to render the meaning of the
text as closely as possible, even at the cost of lucidity and
elegance. A beginner who works through the text of
Visrawiaiii with tin's translation should be fairly well
piipped for the study of Rust'haveli.
II 10 footnotes are mostly devoted to the tracing through
tl>< hook of words, especially words which seem to be of
foreign origin ; but it would be rash to suppose that in