Omar Khayyam

As an expatriate teacher of American literature in pre-revolutionary Iran, I was shocked to be told by literature scholars there that the translation by Edward Fitzgerald of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat was not very faithful and that Omar Khayyam himself, though considered an important Persian poet, was far from their best. (That distinction belongs to Ferdussi.) Here is an example of a translator adding so much value to a work that the original writer undeservedly gains an international reputation.