Spiritual, sensual, and relentlessly searching, the ecstatic poems of the 13th-century Sufi mystic Rumi have been shared, studied, and relished for centuries, enjoying a popular vogue in the West in recent decades, especially among seekers exploring the literature of love and divinity. For all that, significant portions of the Persian poet’s extensive work have not appeared in English, certainly not in complete editions. This volume is the first of four compiling Rumi’s complete quatrains (or rubais) in English for the first time, as translated by Nevit O. Ergin (1928–2015), the original translator of Rumi’s complete Divan-i Kebir in 22 volumes and the coauthor of more accessible collections like The Forbidden Rumi.

Ergin’s *Rubáiyát*, compiled and edited by Millicent Alexander with Shahzad Mazha, is invitingly direct in its language, making it edifying for browsers and completionists alike. Quatrain 258 (out of a total of 466) concludes with a heartsick parallelism worthy of Tin Pan Alley lyricists: “I ran from Your traps to the house of my heart. / But, the house of my heart became the trap for me.” Despite that breezy straightforwardness, Alexander’s introduction, appendices, and notably sparse footnotes don’t offer much in the way of guidance for readers eager to plumb the deeper mysteries of Rumi.

One quatrain appears twice without explanation, and it’s as good an example as any of the challenges this collection presents to contemporary readers. It runs: “The beguiling beauty of the idol who seized my heart / took me to the tavern of idols. / Those idols appear like pious souls. / But actually, they are blood-thirsty brigands.” This edition offers no guidance for interpreting Rumi’s terms like idol, tavern, or brigands, or insight into how their meanings might have shifted across centuries and languages. Ergin translated from Turkish to English, though Rumi wrote in medieval Farsi; Alexander makes the case that each of Ergin’s quatrains is “matched in its essence” by Rumi’s original. While their ambiguities would benefit from greater illumination, Ergin’s verses still pulse with Rumi’s passion and genius.

Takeaway: English translation of the complete quatrains of Rumi abounds in ecstasy and mystery.

Comparable Titles: The Forbidden Rumi, Rumi’s Divan-I Kebir.

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