Concordances

Over the years Khayyám's rubáiyát have been subject of research, which has resulted in a considerable number of studies regarding their authenticity and their original sources. In many of these studies, explorers compared the various manuscripts and sources in order to find a way to determine which of the thousands of quatrains can be ascribed to Khayyám. These studies often contain tables of correspondence or concordance between the various manuscripts, editions and translations.

The Bodleian and Calcutta quatrains
The quatrains from the Bodleian manuscript, one of the sources that Edward FitzGerald used for his famous translation, form the basis of this website. Included is the Persian text, together with a number of translations, renderings and adaptations from various authors and translators. The other source that FitzGerald used were the quatrains from the Calcutta manuscript. These collections of quatrains constitute the nucleus of this website.

Tables
This section shows a number of tables from various publications. This part of the project exceeds the Bodleian domain. These tables, originally static by nature, have been converted into 'dynamic', that is sortable, tables. In some cases a table is expanded with data from other tables or sources, or may be constructed from scratch by combining data from other sources, such as the Nicolas table.

Database
The Database page shows the quatrains from the Bodleian MS, as translated by E. Heron-Allen (London, 1898). To each quatrain reference codes are added that link a specific quatrain to a number of corresponding quatrains from other translations. For more details, see the Quatrains database section.

On the concept 'concordance'
One should bear in mind that the terms 'concordance' or 'correspondence' are not strictly defined here and may denote a varying set of relations between the quatrains in question. It would be useful, however, to construct some sort of classification or taxonomy of relations, in the near future.

With thanks to Douglas Taylor, for highly appreciated contributions.
Images at the head of the pages are by M. Tadjvidi.