Penny Dreadfuls, 1900 · page 97 of 142
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and the Salaman and Absal of Jami — page 97: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a page of running prose poetry from what appears to be a Victorian literary work titled "Salámán and Absál." The text presents a dramatic dialogue in verse, where a speaker is rebuked by an "inward Voice" for writing in celebration of an earthly shah, then responds with an elaborate defense invoking a eternal, divine power whose authority extends over "the Kingdoms Sev'n of this World, and the Seas, / And the Sev'n Heavens." The passage concludes with a stage direction indicating "Sate a Lover in a garden / All alone, apostrophizing," and a footnote clarifies that the story's hero is from Yunan-Ionia (Greece) rather than Persia.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
SALAMAN AND ABSAL. ae ee Ee Ee It was a Heav’n that rain’d on all below Dirhems for drops— But here that inward Voice Arrested and rebuked me—‘“ Foolish Jami ! ‘“‘ Wearing that indefatigable pen ‘In celebration of an alien SHAH “Whose Throne, not grounded in the Eternal * World, “‘ If YusTerDAY it were, To-pay is not, ‘ To-MoRROW cannot be.”* But I replied ; ‘Oh Fount of Light !—under an alien name “IT shadow One upon whose head the Crown “ Was and yet Is, and SHALL BE; whose Firman “ The Kingdoms Sev’n of this World, and the Seas, ‘“‘ And the Sev’n Heavens, alike are subject to. ** Good luck to him who under other Name ‘“* Instructed us that Glory to disguise “ ‘To which the Initiate scarce dare lift his eyes.” Sate a Lover in a garden All alone, apostrophiazing 1 The Hero of the Story being of YUNAN—Ionz4, or GREECE generally (the Persian Geography not being very precise)—and so not of THE FaIru. -. = *) 3 7 ea GOnilGeboo S, (C©)