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37THETTA-949 • 26
I myself was passing on. Greed didn't grow old and leave my body,
I myself grew old." 24. Kosambi reads tanute at this point. However, he also indicates that
the objective support for the reading is not as in the case of the other words to the stanza and that manute can also lay a claim for being the authentic reading. An idiom of the form drsțiḥ tri-bhuvanam brahma tanute seems less than probable in Sanskrit. Furthermore, in most Indian scripts ta is more likely to result from ma (through some parts of the written syllable becoming faint) than the other way
round." 25. I am not certain about the sense of sami-bhūtā intended by the
poet. Normally, an añjana cures the eyes or makes them stronger (for the latter, recall references in literature to ointments that enable a hero etc. to see in the dark or to see a hidden treasure.) In view of these associations and the context, sami-bhūtā should mean 'one which has come to its normal state' or, much less likely, ‘one which has become equal to the task to be performed — to the challenge
to be faced.' 26. The readable translations by Ingalls (1965:423), Miller (1967:7,
1990:31) and Bailey (1996:203) have helped me in my choice of words, but I found them all to be unnecessarily diffusing the dramatic
contrast in the original. 27 (a) The translatins by Ingalls (1965:421-422), Miller (1967:135,
1990:96) and cort (1983:36) deviate too much from the original. (b) Kosambi's (1948: introducton p. 81) comment on the stanza (“No king who had renounced would have advised his soul to renounce
if it could not taste the pleasures of royalty.") misses the point. 28. Translation as in Fitzgerald 1859 (first edition), rubai 11. 29. I have taken some help from Miller (1967:87 = 1990:72) in offering
this translation. I had to set aside her translation because she misconstrues
the original here to an extent that cannot be overlooked. 30. Alos, partially or indirectly in stanzas 27 (maņinā bhūşitaḥ sarpaḥ
kim asau na bhayamkaraḥ "Does a serpent cease to be dangerous because it has a diadem hood ?"), 37 (sva-mahimā yady asti kim mandanaiḥ "If one has a majestic personality, what need is there of embellishments ?"), and 68 (vibhūşanaṁ maunam apanditānām
"Refraining from speech is the ornament of fools"). 31. (a) Miller 1967:69 has "swelling bosses" instead of "swelling temples."
In other respects her earlier translation is identical with the one reproduced
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