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NOTE BY W. ALDIS WRIGHT*

     It must be admitted that FitzGerald took great liberties with the original in his version of Omar Khayyám. The first stanza is entirely his own, and in stanza XXXI. of the fourth edition (XXXVI. in the second) he has introduced two lines from Attár (see Letters, p. 251). In stanza LXXXI. (fourth edition), writes Professor Cowell, "There is no original for the line about the snake: I have looked for it in vain in Nicolas; but I have always supposed that the last line is FitzGerald's mistaken version of Quatr. 236 in Nicolas' ed. which runs thus:

0 thou who knowest the secrets of every one's mind,
Who graspest every one's hand in the hour of weakness,
0 God, give me repentance and accept my excuses,
0 thou who givest repentence and acceptest the excuses of every one.

     FitzGerald mistook the meaning of giving and accepting as used here, and so invented his last line out of his own mistake. I wrote to him about it when I was in Calcutta; but he never cared to alter it."

                        * Added to the Fifth Edition.

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