Machine summary:
HAFIZ AND HIS ENGLISH TRANSLATORS I CENTURY and a half ago, wheii the East India Company had but recently stumbled into a great Imperial inheritance in Bengal, and its servants were concerned to equip themselves linguistically for the onerous responsibilities that had settled upon their shoulders, it was a mark of polite culture in the brilliant society of Calcutta to be able to illustrate a point or adorn an argument with quotations from the Per• sian poets.
A 'single example will perhaps be sufficient illustration : (View the image of this page) O toi, leger & doux Zephire, Quand tu passes par le sejour HAFIZ AND HIS ENGLISH TRANSLATORS I CENTURY and a half ago, when the East India Company had but recently stumbled into a great Imperial inheritance in Bengal, and its servants were concerned to equip themselves linguistically for the onerous responsibilities that had settled upon their shoulders; it was a mark of polite culture in the brilliant society of Calcutta to be able: to illustrate a point or adorn an argument with quotations from the Per• sian poets.
,yv<f,wvos A1]8ov,s, Xp']v u'ap', w cf,,'Aov ']Top, vv<1p<pLAEELV KOVLV B']ouwv, ev8a po8wv µ,e'Ae,wp £1TLVLC1C1ETaL, II Three years after Jones and Reviczki published their first versions of }::Ia~, a colleague of Jones at the Temple, John Richardson (1741-1811), fired by this double example, and animated with the desire to provide servants of the East India Company with materials for their Persian studies, produced a small volume containing the text, literal and verse translations, and detailed analysis of three odes of J:Ia~.