TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

THE GARDEN OF BRIGHT WATERS

I am hoping that some readers will look on this collection primarily as a book of poems. The finding and selection of material and the shaping of the verses is my principal part in it. Most of the songs have been written from, or by comparing, the literal translations of French and Italian scholars, checked wherever possible by my own knowledge. When my first and very great debt to these has been stated, there remains my debt to the late John Duncan, to Mr. J. Wing, and to a friend, a distinguished writer both in Persian and Turkish, who wishes to remain unnamed. The kindness of these writers lies in trusting their work to my translation and helping me in that task. My book also owes much to suggestions prompted by the wide learning of Mr. L. Cranmer-Byng. My final debt is to him and to another generous critic. I have arranged my poems in the alphabetical order of their countries, and added short notes wherever I considered them necessary, at the instance of some kindly reviewers of an earlier book, which was not so arranged and provided.

AFGHANISTAN

ANNAM

ARABIC

"Let Mr. Mathers take up the story as he told it to me: 'He married an Arab, and all his forty-odd poems are addressed to her. I saw only a snapshot of her, which showed her to be beautiful. In her he certainly found healing for the wound his abnormally fiery and sensitive nature had taken from the first woman. She pulled together an intellect rather easily subdued. I only knew him after her death (his reason for travelling to this country), and a dazed, utterly unpractical and uninterested habit of mind, which alternated with his brilliance of speech and to a less degree of thought, was probably a reversion to the psychic state which his marriage had cured.

" 'Like so many to whom life has at one time given a paralysing shock, Duncan was extremely reticent, save when he could lead the conversation, and be confidential at points of his own choosing; and he was not an easy man to question. The disappointment which had driven him from his country certainly made him more bitter against the British than any other man I have listened to. All his considerable wit and the natural acid of his thought were directed against our ideas, institutions, and beliefs.

" 'His one sane enthusiasm, English lyric verse, of whose depths, main-stream, and back-waters his knowledge was profound, formed one-half of his conversation.

" 'His English in talking was rich and varied, and it was an ironic caprice which made him refuse to write in that language. I doubt, though, whether he would have composed with ease in any tongue, for he found it hard to concentrate, and his small stock of verse was the outcome of ten years of unoccupied life. He approved, rather mockingly, my promise to try to find an English equivalent for some of them; and I think I have copies of all he wrote.

" 'One not acquainted with the man might find them rather hard to render, as, had he been an Arab actually, still he would have been the most unconventional of poets, neglecting form and the literary language.'"

My most cordial thanks are due to The Bookworm, of the Weekly Dispatch, for permission to make this long quotation from an article headed, "The Strange Story of John Duncan, the Arab-Scot," which appeared over his nom de plume in the issue of that newspaper for March 30, 1919.

CHINA

JAPAN

KAZACKS

LAOS

PERSIA

I often wonder what the vintners buy One-half so precious as the goods they sell.

THIBET