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RUBAIYAT
OF
OMAR
KHAYYAM
RENDERED INTO ENGLISH VERSE BY
_Edward Fitzgerald_
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
_Edmund Dulac_
[Illustration]
DE LUXE EDITION
GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC.
_Garden City, New York_
1937
GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC.
CL
RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE
EDWARD FITZGERALD ix
OMAR KHAYYAM xxv
THE FIRST EDITION OF THE TRANSLATION 39
THE SECOND EDITION OF THE TRANSLATION 79
THE FIFTH EDITION OF THE TRANSLATION 136
VARIATIONS IN THE THIRD EDITION OF THE TRANSLATION 190
ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGE
QUATRAIN I p. 41 xxxviii
QUATRAIN XI p. 46 xxxix
QUATRAIN XXIV p. 52 54
QUATRAIN XLII p. 61 55
QUATRAIN LXXII p. 76 86
QUATRAIN XI p. 86 87
QUATRAIN XX p. 90 102
QUATRAIN XLIV p. 102 103
QUATRAIN LXXII p. 116 134
QUATRAIN XIV p. 145 135
QUATRAIN XXXVII p. 157 150
QUATRAIN XLI p. 159 151
BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE
EDWARD FITZGERALD
Edward Fitzgerald, whom the world has already learned, in spite of his
own efforts to remain within the shadow of anonymity, to look upon as
one of the rarest poets of the last century, was born at Bredfield, in
Suffolk, on the 31st March, 1809. He was the third son of John Purcell,
of Kilkenny, in Ireland, who, marrying Miss Mary Frances Fitzgerald,
daughter of John Fitzgerald, of Williamstown, County Waterford, added
that distinguished name to his own patronymic; and the future Omar was
thus doubly of Irish extraction. (Both the families of Purcell and
Fitzgerald claim descent from Norman warriors of the eleventh century.)
This circumstance is thought to have had some influence in attracting
him to the study of Persian poetry, Iran and Erin being almost
convertible terms in the early days of modern ethnology. After some
years of primary education at the grammar school of Bury St. Edmunds, he
entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1826, and there formed
acquaintance with several young men of great abilities, most of whom
rose to distinction before him, but never ceased to regard with
affectionate remembrance the quiet and amiable associate of their
college-days. Amongst them were Alfred Tennyson, James Spedding, William
Bodham Donne, John Mitchell Kemble, and William Makepeace Thackeray;
and their long friendship was touchingly referred to by Tennyson in
dedicating his last poem to the memory of Edward Fitzgerald.
"Euphranor," our author's earliest printed work, affords a curious
picture of his academic life and associations. Its substantial reality
is evident beneath the thin disguise of the symbolical or classical
names which he gives to the personages of the colloquy; and the speeches
which he puts into his own mouth are full of the humorous gravity, and
whimsical and kindly philosophy, which remained his distinguishing
characteristics till the end. This book was first published in 1851; a
second and a third edition were printed some years later; all anonymous,
and each of the latter two differing from its predecessor by changes in
the text which were not indicated on the title-pages.
"Euphranor" furnishes a good many characterizations which would be
useful for any writer treating upon Cambridge society in the third
decade of this century. Kenelm Digby, the author of the "Broadstone of
Honour," had left Cambridge before the time when Euphranor held his
"dialogue," but he is picturesquely recollected as "a grand swarthy
fellow who might have stepped out of the canvas of some knightly
portrait in his father's hall--perhaps the living image of one sleeping
under some cross-legged _effigies_ in the church." In "Euphranor," it is
easy to discover the earliest phase of the unconquerable attachment
which Fitzgerald entertained for his college and his life-long friends,
and which induced him in later days to make frequent visits to
Cambridge, renewing and refreshing the old ties of custom and
friendship. In fact, his disposition was affectionate to a fault, and he
betrayed his consciousness of weakness in that respect by referring
playfully at times to "a certain natural lubricity" which he attributed
to the Irish character, and professed to discover especially in himself.
This amiability of temper endeared him to many friends of totally
dissimilar tastes and qualities; and, by enlarging his sympathies,
enabled him to enjoy the fructifying influence of studies pursued in
communion with scholars more profound than himself, but less gifted with
the power of expression. One of the younger Cambridge men with whom he
became intimate during his periodical pilgrimages to the university, was
Edward B. Cowell, a man of the highest attainment in Oriental learning,
who resembled Fitzgerald himself in the possession of a warm and genial
heart and the most unobtrusive modesty. From Cowell he could easily
learn that the hypothetical affinity between the names of Erin and Iran
belonged to an obsolete stage of etymology; but the attraction of a
far-fetched theory was replaced by the charm of reading Persian poetry
in companionship with his young friend, who was equally competent to
enjoy and to analyze the beauties of a literature that formed a portion
of his regular studies. They read together the poetical remains of
Khayyam--a choice of reading which sufficiently indicates the depth and
range of Mr. Cowell's knowledge. Omar Khayyam, although not quite
forgotten, enjoyed in the history of Persian literature a celebrity
like that of Occleve and Gower in our own. In the many _Tazkirat_
(memoirs or memorials) of Poets, he was mentioned and quoted with
esteem; but his poems, laboring as they did under the original sin of
heresy and atheism, were seldom looked at, and, from lack of demand on
the part of readers, had become rarer than those of most other writers
since the days of Firdausi. European scholars knew little of his works
beyond his Arabic treatise on Algebra, and Mr. Cowell may be said to
have disentombed his poems from oblivion. Now, thanks to the fine taste
of that scholar, and to the transmuting genius of Fitzgerald, no Persian
poet is so well known in the western world as Abu-'l-fat'h 'Omar, son of
Ibrahim the tentmaker of Naishapur, whose manhood synchronizes with the
Norman conquest of England, and who took for his poetic name
(_takhallus_) the designation of his father's trade (_Khayyam_). The
"Ruba'iyyat" (Quatrains) do not compose a single poem divided into a
certain number of stanzas; there is no continuity of plan in them, and
each stanza is a distinct thought expressed in musical verse. There is
no other element of unity in them than the general tendency of the
Epicurean idea, and the arbitrary divan form by which they are grouped
according to the alphabetical arrangement of the final letters; those in
which the rhymes end in _a_ constituting the first division, those with
_b_ the second, and so on. The peculiar attitude towards religion and
the old questions of fate, immortality, the origin and the destiny of
man, which educated thinkers have assumed in the present age of
Christendom, is found admirably foreshadowed in the fantastic verses of
Khayyam, who was no more of a Mohammedan than many of our best writers
are Christians. His philosophical and Horatian fancies--graced as they
are by the charms of a lyrical expression equal to that of Horace, and a
vivid brilliance of imagination to which the Roman poet could make no
claim--exercised a powerful influence upon Fitzgerald's mind, and
colored his thoughts to such a degree that even when he oversteps the
largest license allowed to a translator, his phrases reproduce the
spirit and manner of his original with a nearer approach to perfection
than would appear possible. It is usually supposed that there is more of
Fitzgerald than of Khayyam in the English "Ruba'iyyat," and that the old
Persian simply afforded themes for the Anglo-Irishman's display of
poetic power; but nothing could be further from the truth. The French
translator, J. B. Nicolas, and the English one, Mr. Whinfield, supply a
closer mechanical reflection of the sense in each separate stanza; but
Mr. Fitzgerald has, in some instances, given a version equally close and
exact; in others, rejointed scattered phrases from more than one stanza
of his original, and thus accomplished a feat of marvelous poetical
transfusion. He frequently turns literally into English the strange
outlandish imagery which Mr. Whinfield thought necessary to replace by
more intelligible banalities, and in this way the magic of his genius
has successfully transplanted into the garden of English poesy exotics
that bloom like native flowers.
One of Mr. Fitzgerald's Woodbridge friends was Bernard Barton, the
Quaker poet, with whom he maintained for many years the most intimate
and cordial intercourse, and whose daughter Lucy he married. He wrote
the memoir of his friend's life which appeared in the posthumous volume
of Barton's poems. The story of his married life was a short one. With
all the overflowing amiability of his nature, there were mingled certain
peculiarities or waywardnesses which were more suitable to the freedom
of celibacy than to the staidness of matrimonial life. A separation took
place by mutual agreement, and Fitzgerald behaved in this circumstance
with the generosity and unselfishness which were apparent in all his
whims no less than in his more deliberate actions. Indeed, his entire
career was marked by an unchanging goodness of heart and a genial
kindliness; and no one could complain of having ever endured hurt or
ill-treatment at his hands. His pleasures were innocent and simple.
Amongst the more delightful, he counted the short coasting trips,
occupying no more than a day or two at a time, which he used to make in
his own yacht from Lowestoft, accompanied only by a crew of two men, and
such a friend as Cowell, with a large pasty and a few bottles of wine to
supply their material wants. It is needless to say that books were also
put into the cabin, and that the symposia of the friends were thus
brightened by communion with the minds of the great departed.
Fitzgerald's enjoyment of gnomic wisdom enshrined in words of exquisite
propriety was evinced by the frequency with which he used to read
Montaigne's essays and Madame de Sevigne's letters, and the various
works from which he extracted and published his collection of wise saws
entitled "Polonius." This taste was allied to a love for what was
classical and correct in literature, by which he was also enabled to
appreciate the prim and formal muse of Crabbe, in whose grandson's house
he died.
His second printed work was the "Polonius," already referred to, which
appeared in 1852. It exemplifies his favorite reading, being a
collection of extracts, sometimes short proverbial phrases, sometimes
longer pieces of characterization or reflection, arranged under abstract
headings. He occasionally quotes Dr. Johnson, for whom he entertains
sincere admiration; but the ponderous and artificial fabric of
Johnsonese did not please him like the language of Bacon, Fuller, Sir
Thomas Browne, Coleridge, whom he cites frequently. A disproportionate
abundance of wise words was drawn from Carlyle; his original views, his
forcible sense, and the friendship with which Fitzgerald regarded him,
having apparently blinded the latter to the ungainly style and
ungraceful mannerisms of the Chelsea sage. (It was Thackeray who first
made them personally acquainted; and Fitzgerald remained always loyal to
his first instincts of affection and admiration.) Polonius also marks
the period of his earliest attention to Persian studies, as he quotes in
it the great Sufi poet, Jalal-ud-din-Rumi, whose "Masnavi" has been
translated into English by Mr. Redhouse, but whom Fitzgerald can only
have seen in the original. He, however, spells the name _Jallaladin_,
an incorrect form of which he could not have been guilty at the time
when he produced Omar Khayyam, and which thus betrays that he had not
long been engaged with Irani literature. He was very fond of Montaigne's
essays, and of Pascal's "Pensees"; but his "Polonius" reveals a sort of
dislike and contempt for Voltaire. Amongst the Germans, Jean Paul,
Goethe, Alexander von Humboldt and August Wilhelm von Schlegel attracted
him greatly; but he seems to have read little German, and probably only
quoted translations. His favorite motto was "Plain Living and High
Thinking," and he expresses great reverence for all things manly,
simple, and true. The laws and institutions of England were, in his
eyes, of the highest value and sacredness; and whatever Irish sympathies
he had would never have diverted his affections from the Union to Home
Rule. This is strongly illustrated by some original lines of blank verse
at the end of "Polonius," annexed to his quotation, under "AEsthetics,"
of the words in which Lord Palmerston eulogized Mr. Gladstone for having
devoted his Neapolitan tour to an inspection of the prisons.
Fitzgerald's next printed work was a translation of Six Dramas of
Calderon, published in 1853, which was unfavorably received at the time,
and consequently withdrawn by him from circulation. His name appeared on
the title-page,--a concession to publicity which was so unusual with him
that it must have been made under strong pressure from his friends. The
book is in nervous blank verse, a mode of composition which he handled
with great ease and skill. There is no waste of power in diffuseness
and no employment of unnecessary epithets. It gives the impression of a
work of the Shakespearean age, and reveals a kindred felicity, strength,
and directness of language. It deserves to rank with his best efforts in
poetry, but its ill-success made him feel that the publication of his
name was an unfavorable experiment, and he never again repeated it. His
great modesty, however, would sufficiently account for his shyness. Of
"Omar Khayyam," even after the little book had won its way to general
esteem, he used to say that the suggested addition of his name on the
title would imply an assumption of importance which he considered that
his "transmogrification" of the Persian poet did not possess.
Fitzgerald's conception of a translator's privilege is well set forth in
the prefaces of his versions from Calderon, and the "Agamemnon" of
AEschylus. He maintained that, in the absence of the perfect poet, who
shall re-create in his own language the body and soul of his original,
the best system is that of a paraphrase conserving the spirit of the
author,--a sort of literary metempsychosis. Calderon, AEschylus, and Omar
Khayyam were all treated with equal license, so far as form is
concerned,--the last, perhaps, the most arbitrarily; but the result is
not unsatisfactory as having given us perfect English poems instinct
with the true flavor of their prototypes. The Persian was probably
somewhat more Horatian and less melancholy, the Greek a little less
florid and mystic, the Spaniard more lyrical and fluent, than their
metaphrast has made them; but the essential spirit has not escaped in
transfusion. Only a man of singular gifts could have performed the
achievement, and these works attest Mr. Fitzgerald's right to rank
amongst the finest poets of the century. About the same time as he
printed his Calderon, another set of translations from the same
dramatist was published by the late D. F. MacCarthy, a scholar whose
acquaintance with Castilian literature was much deeper than Mr.
Fitzgerald's, and who also possessed poetical abilities of no mean
order, with a totally different sense of the translator's duty. The
popularity of MacCarthy's versions has been considerable, and as an
equivalent rendering of the original in sense and form his work is
valuable. Spaniards familiar with the English language rate its merit
highly; but there can be little question of the very great superiority
of Mr. Fitzgerald's work as a contribution to English literature. It is
indeed only from this point of view that we should regard all the
literary labors of our author. They are English poetical work of fine
quality, dashed with a pleasant outlandish flavor which heightens their
charm; and it is as English poems, not as translations, that they have
endeared themselves even more to the American English than to the mixed
Britons of England.
It was an occasion of no small moment to Mr. Fitzgerald's fame, and to
the intellectual gratification of many thousands of readers, when he
took his little packet of "Ruba'iyyat" to Mr. Quaritch in the latter
part of the year 1858. It was printed as a small quarto pamphlet,
bearing the publisher's name but not the author's; and although
apparently a complete failure at first,--a failure which Mr. Fitzgerald
regretted less on his own account than on that of his publisher, to whom
he had generously made a present of the book,--received, nevertheless, a
sufficient distribution by being quickly reduced from the price of five
shillings and placed in the box of cheap books marked a penny each. Thus
forced into circulation, the two hundred copies which had been printed
were soon exhausted. Among the buyers were Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
Swinburne, Sir Richard Burton, and William Simpson, the accomplished
artist of the _Illustrated London News_. The influence exercised by the
first three, especially by Rossetti, upon a clique of young men who
later grew to distinction, was sufficient to attract observation to the
singular beauties of the poem anonymously translated from the Persian.
Most readers had no possible opportunity of discovering whether it was a
disguised original or an actual translation;--even Burton enjoyed
probably but little chance of seeing a manuscript of the Persian
"Ruba'iyyat." The Oriental imagery and allusions were too thickly
scattered throughout the verses to favor the notion that they could be
the original work of an Englishman; yet it was shrewdly suspected by
most of the appreciative readers that the "translator" was substantially
the author and creator of the poem. In the refuge of his anonymity,
Fitzgerald derived an innocent gratification from the curiosity that was
aroused on all sides. After the first edition had disappeared, inquiries
for the little book became frequent, and in the year 1868 he gave the
MS. of his second edition to Mr. Quaritch, and the "Ruba'iyyat" came
into circulation once more, but with several alterations and additions
by which the number of stanzas was somewhat increased beyond the
original seventy-five. Most of the changes were, as might have been
expected, improvements; but in some instances the author's taste or
caprice was at fault,--notably in the first _Ruba'iy_. His fastidious
desire to avoid anything that seemed _baroque_ or unnatural or appeared
like plagiarism, may have influenced him; but it was probably because he
had already used the idea in his rendering of Jami's "Salaman," that he
sacrificed a fine and novel piece of imagery in his first stanza and
replaced it by one of much more ordinary character. If it were from a
dislike to pervert his original too largely, he had no need to be so
scrupulous, since he dealt on the whole with the "Ruba'iyyat" as though
he had the license of absolute authorship, changing, transposing, and
manipulating the substance of the Persian quatrains with a singular
freedom. The vogue of "old Omar" (as he would affectionately call his
work) went on increasing, and American readers took it up with
eagerness. In those days the mere mention of Omar Khayyam between two
strangers meeting fortuitously acted like a sign of freemasonry and
established frequently a bond of friendship. Some curious instances of
this have been related. A remarkable feature of the Omar-cult in the
United States was the circumstance that single individuals bought
numbers of copies for gratuitous distribution before the book was
reprinted in America. Its editions have been relatively numerous, when
we consider how restricted was the circle of readers who could
understand the peculiar beauties of the work. A third edition appeared
in 1872, with some further alterations, and may be regarded as virtually
the author's final revision, for it hardly differs at all from the text
of the fourth edition, which appeared in 1879. This last formed the
first portion of a volume entitled "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam; and the
Salaman and Absal of Jami; rendered into English verse." The "Salaman"
(which had already been printed in separate form in 1856) is a poem
chiefly in blank verse, interspersed with various meters (although it is
all in one measure in the original) embodying a love-story of mystic
significance; for Jami was, unlike Omar Khayyam, a true Sufi, and indeed
differed in other respects, his celebrity as a pious Mussulman doctor
being equal to his fame as a poet. He lived in the fifteenth century, in
a period of literary brilliance and decay; and the rich exuberance of
his poetry, full of far-fetched conceits, involved expressions,
overstrained imagery, and false taste, offers a strong contrast to the
simpler and more forcible language of Khayyam. There is little use of
Arabic in the earlier poet; he preferred the vernacular speech to the
mongrel language which was fashionable among the heirs of the Saracen
conquerors; but Jami's composition is largely embroidered with Arabic.
Mr. Fitzgerald had from his early days been thrown into contact with the
Crabbe family; the Reverend George Crabbe (the poet's grandson) was an
intimate friend of his, and it was on a visit to Morton Rectory that
Fitzgerald died. As we know that friendship has power to warp the
judgment, we shall not probably be wrong in supposing that his
enthusiastic admiration for Crabbe's poems was not the product of sound,
impartial criticism. He attempted to reintroduce them to the world by
publishing a little volume of "Readings from Crabbe," produced in the
last year of his life, but without success. A different fate awaited his
"Agamemnon: a tragedy taken from AEschylus," which was first printed
privately by him, and afterwards published with alterations in 1876. It
is a very free rendering from the Greek, and full of a poetical beauty
which is but partly assignable to AEschylus. Without attaining to
anything like the celebrity and admiration which have followed Omar
Khayyam, the "Agamemnon" has achieved much more than a _succes
d'estime_. Mr. Fitzgerald's renderings from the Greek were not confined
to this one essay; he also translated the two OEdipus dramas of
Sophocles, but left them unfinished in manuscript till Prof. Eliot
Norton had a sight of them and urged him to complete his work. When this
was done, he had them set in type, but only a very few proofs can have
been struck off, as it seems that, at least in England, no more than one
or two copies were sent out by the author. In a similar way he printed
translations of two of Calderon's plays not included in the published
"Six Dramas"--namely, "La Vida es Sueno," and "El Magico Prodigioso"
(both ranking among the Spaniard's finest work); but they also were
withheld from the public and all but half a dozen friends.
When his old boatman died, he abandoned his nautical exercises and gave
up his yacht forever. During the last few years of his life, he divided
his time between Cambridge, Crabbe's house, and his own home at Little
Grange, near Woodbridge, where he received occasional visits from
friends and relatives. He was one of the most modest men who have
enriched English literature with poetry of distinct and permanent value,
and his best epitaph is found in Tennyson's "Tiresias and other Poems,"
published immediately after our author's quiet exit from life, in 1883,
in the seventy-fifth year of his age.
OMAR KHAYYAM
_The Astronomer-Poet of Persia_
(BY EDWARD FITZGERALD)
Omar Khayyam was born at Naishapur in Khorassan in the latter half of
our Eleventh, and died within the First Quarter of our Twelfth Century.
The slender story of his life is curiously twined about that of two
other very considerable Figures in their Time and Country: one of whom
tells the Story of all Three. This was Nizam ul Mulk, Vizyr to Alp
Arslan the Son, and Malik Shah the Grandson, of Toghrul Beg the Tartar,
who had wrested Persia from the feeble Successor of Mahmud the Great,
and founded that Seljukian Dynasty which finally roused Europe into the
Crusades. This Nizam ul Mulk, in his _Wasiyat_--or _Testament_--which he
wrote and left as a Memorial for future Statesmen--relates the
following, as quoted in the _Calcutta Review_, No. 59, from Mirkhond's
History of the Assassins.
"One of the greatest of the wise men of Khorassan was the Imam Mowaffak
of Naishapur, a man highly honored and reverenced,--may God rejoice his
soul: his illustrious years exceeded eighty-five, and it was the
universal belief that every boy who read the Koran or studied the
traditions in his presence, would assuredly attain to honor and
happiness. For this cause did my father send me from Tus to Naishapur
with Abd-us-samad, the doctor of law, that I might employ myself in
study and learning under the guidance of that illustrious teacher.
Towards me he ever turned an eye of favor and kindness, and as his pupil
I felt for him extreme affection and devotion, so that I passed four
years in his service. When I first came there, I found two other pupils
of mine own age newly arrived, Hakim Omar Khayyam, and the ill-fated Ben
Sabbah. Both were endowed with sharpness of wit and the highest natural
powers; and we three formed a close friendship together. When the Imam
rose from his lectures, they used to join me, and we repeated to each
other the lessons we had heard. Now Omar was a native of Naishapur,
while Hasan Ben Sabbah's father was one Ali, a man of austere life and
practice, but heretical in his creed and doctrine. One day Hasan said to
me and to Khayyam, 'It is a universal belief that the pupils of the Imam
Mowaffak will attain to fortune. Now, even if we _all_ do not attain
thereto, without doubt one of us will; what then shall be our mutual
pledge and bond?' We answered, 'Be it what you please.' 'Well,' he said,
let us make a vow, that to whomsoever this fortune falls, he shall share
it equally with the rest, and reserve no pre-eminence for himself.' 'Be
it so,' we both replied, and on those terms we mutually pledged our
words. Years rolled on, and I went from Khorassan to Transoxiana and
wandered to Ghazni and Cabul; and when I returned, I was invested with
office, and rose to be administrator of affairs during the Sultanate of
Sultan Alp Arslan.
"He goes on to state, that years passed by, and both his old
school-friends found him out, and came and claimed a share in his good
fortune, according to the school-day vow. The Vizier was generous and
kept his word. Hasan demanded a place in the government, which the
Sultan granted at the Vizier's request; but discontented with a gradual
rise, he plunged into the maze of intrigue of an oriental court, and,
failing in a base attempt to supplant his benefactor, he was disgraced
and fell. After many mishaps and wanderings, Hasan became the head of
the Persian sect of the _Ismailians_,--a party of fanatics who had long
murmured in obscurity, but rose to an evil eminence under the guidance
of his strong and evil will. In A.D. 1090, he seized the castle of
Alamut, in the province of Rudbar, which lies in the mountainous tract
south of the Caspian Sea; and it was from this mountain home he obtained
that evil celebrity among the Crusaders as the OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS,
and spread terror through the Mohammedan world; and it is yet disputed
whether the word _Assassin_, which they have left in the language of
modern Europe as their dark memorial, is derived from the _hashish_, or
opiate of hemp-leaves (the Indian _bhang_), with which they maddened
themselves to the sullen pitch of oriental desperation, or from the name
of the founder of the dynasty, whom we have seen in his quiet collegiate
days, at Naishapur. One of the countless victims of the Assassin's
dagger was Nizam-ul-Mulk himself, the old schoolboy friend.
"Omar Khayyam also came to the Vizier to claim his share; but not to
ask for title or office. 'The greatest boon you can confer on me,' he
said, 'is to let me live in a corner under the shadow of your fortune,
to spread wide the advantages of Science, and pray for your long life
and prosperity.' The Vizier tells us, that when he found Omar was really
sincere in his refusal, he pressed him no further, but granted him a
yearly pension of 1200 _mithkals_ of gold from the treasury of
Naishapur.
"At Naishapur thus lived and died Omar Khayyam, 'busied,' adds the
Vizier, 'in winning knowledge of every kind, and especially in
Astronomy, wherein he attained to a very high pre-eminence. Under the
Sultanate of Malik Shah, he came to Merv, and obtained great praise for
his proficiency in science, and the Sultan showered favors upon him.'
"When the Malik Shah determined to reform the calendar, Omar was one of
the eight learned men employed to do it; the result was the _Jalali_ era
(so called from _Jalal-ud-din_, one of the King's names)--'a computation
of time,' says Gibbon, 'which surpasses the Julian, and approaches the
accuracy of the Gregorian style.' He is also the author of some
astronomical tables, entitled Ziji-Malikshahi," and the French have
lately republished and translated an Arabic Treatise of his on Algebra.
"His Takhallus or poetical name (Khayyam) signifies a Tent-maker, and he
is said to have at one time exercised that trade, perhaps before
Nizam-ul-Mulk's generosity raised him to independence. Many Persian
poets similarly derive their names from their occupations; thus we have
Attar, 'a druggist,' Assar, 'an oil presser,' etc. Omar himself alludes
to his name in the following whimsical lines:--
"'Khayyam, who stitched the tents of science,
Has fallen in grief's furnace and been suddenly burned;
The shears of Fate have cut the tent ropes of his life,
And the broker of Hope has sold him for nothing!'
"We have only one more anecdote to give of his Life, and that relates to
the close; it is told in the anonymous preface which is sometimes
prefixed to his poems; it has been printed in the Persian in the
Appendix to Hyde's _Veterum Persarum Religio_, p. 499; and D'Herbelot
alludes to it in his Bibliotheque, under _Khiam_,--
"It is written in the chronicles of the ancients that this
King of the Wise, Omar Khayyam, died at Naishapur in the year
of the Hegira, 517 (A.D. 1123); in science he was
unrivaled,--the very paragon of his age. Khwajah Nizami of
Samarcand, who was one of his pupils, relates the following
story: 'I often used to hold conversations with my teacher,
Omar Khayyam, in a garden; and one day he said to me, "My
tomb shall be in a spot where the north wind may scatter
roses over it." I wondered at the words he spake, but I knew
that his were no idle words. Years after, when I chanced to
revisit Naishapur, I went to his final resting-place, and lo!
it was just outside a garden, and trees laden with fruit
stretched their boughs over the garden wall, and dropped
their flowers upon his tomb, so that the stone was hidden
under them.'"
Thus far--without fear of Trespass--from the _Calcutta Review_. The
writer of it, on reading in India this story of Omar's Grave, was
reminded, he says, of Cicero's account of finding Archimedes' Tomb at
Syracuse, buried in grass and weeds. I think Thorwaldsen desired to have
roses grow over him; a wish religiously fulfilled for him to the present
day, I believe. However, to return to Omar.
Though the Sultan "shower'd Favors upon him," Omar's Epicurean Audacity
of Thought and Speech caused him to be regarded askance in his own Time
and Country. He is said to have been especially hated and dreaded by the
Sufis, whose Practise he ridiculed, and whose Faith amounts to little
more than his own, when stript of the Mysticism and formal recognition
of Islamism under which Omar would not hide. Their Poets, including
Hafiz, who are (with the exception of Firdausi) the most considerable in
Persia, borrowed largely, indeed, of Omar's material, but turning it to
a mystical Use more convenient to Themselves and the People they
addressed; a People quite as quick of Doubt as of Belief; as keen of
Bodily Sense as of Intellectual; and delighting in a cloudy composition
of both, in which they could float luxuriously between Heaven and Earth,
and this World and the next, on the wings of a poetical expression, that
might serve indifferently for either. Omar was too honest of Heart as
well of Head for this. Having failed (however mistakenly) of finding
any Providence but Destiny, and any World but This, he set about making
the most of it; preferring rather to soothe the Soul through the Senses
into Acquiescence with Things as he saw them, than to perplex it with
vain disquietude after what they _might_ be. It has been seen, however,
that his Worldly Ambition was not exorbitant; and he very likely takes a
humorous or perverse pleasure in exalting the gratification of Sense
above that of the Intellect, in which he must have taken great delight,
although it failed to answer the Questions in which he, in common with
all men, was most vitally interested.
For whatever Reason, however, Omar, as before said, has never been
popular in his own Country, and therefore has been but scantily
transmitted abroad. The MSS. of his Poems, mutilated beyond the average
Casualties of Oriental Transcription, are so rare in the East as scarce
to have reached Westward at all, in spite of all the acquisitions of
Arms and Science. There is no copy at the India House, none at the
Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris. We know but one in England: No. 140 of
the Ouseley MSS. at the Bodleian, written at Shiraz, A.D. 1460. This
contains but 158 Rubaiyat. One in the Asiatic Society's Library at
Calcutta (of which we have a copy) contains (and yet incomplete) 516,
though swelled to that by all kinds of Repetition and Corruption. So Von
Hammer speaks of _his_ Copy as containing about 200, while Dr. Sprenger
catalogues the Lucknow MSS. at double that number. The Scribes, too, of
the Oxford and Calcutta MSS. seem to do their Work under a sort of
Protest; each beginning with a Tetrastich (whether genuine or not) taken
out of its alphabetical order; the Oxford with one of Apology; the
Calcutta with one of Expostulation, supposed (says a Notice prefixed to
the MS.) to have arisen from a Dream, in which Omar's mother asked about
his future fate. It may be rendered thus:--
"Oh Thou who burn'st in Heart for those who burn
In Hell, whose fires thyself shall feed in turn;
How long be crying, 'Mercy on them, God!'
Why, who art Thou to teach, and He to learn?"
The Bodleian Quatrain pleads Pantheism by way of Justification.
"If I myself upon a looser Creed
Have loosely strung the Jewel of Good deed,
Let this one thing for my Atonement plead:
That One for Two I never did misread."
The Reviewer to whom I owe the Particulars of Omar's Life concludes his
Review by comparing him with Lucretius, both as to natural Temper and
Genius, and as acted upon by the Circumstances in which he lived. Both
indeed were men of subtle, strong, and cultivated Intellect, fine
Imagination, and Hearts passionate for Truth and Justice; who justly
revolted from their Country's false Religion, and false, or foolish,
Devotion to it; but who fell short of replacing what they subverted by
such better _Hope_ as others, with no better Revelation to guide them,
had yet made a Law to themselves. Lucretius indeed, with such material
as Epicurus furnished, satisfied himself with the theory of a vast
machine fortuitously constructed and acting by a Law that implied no
Legislator; and so composing himself into a Stoical rather than
Epicurean severity of Attitude, sat down to contemplate the mechanical
Drama of the Universe which he was part Actor in; himself and all about
him (as in his own sublime description of the Roman Theatre) discolored
with the lurid reflex of the Curtain suspended between the Spectator and
the Sun. Omar, more desperate, or more careless of any so complicated
System as resulted in nothing but hopeless Necessity, flung his own
Genius and Learning with a bitter or humorous jest into the general Ruin
which their insufficient glimpses only served to reveal; and, pretending
sensual pleasure, as the serious purpose of Life, only _diverted_
himself with speculative problems of Deity, Destiny, Matter and Spirit,
Good and Evil, and other such questions, easier to start than to run
down, and the pursuit of which becomes a very weary sport at last!
With regard to the present Translation. The original Rubaiyat (as,
missing an Arabic Guttural, these _Tetrastichs_ are more musically
called) are independent Stanzas, consisting each of four Lines of equal
though varied Prosody; sometimes _all_ rhyming, but oftener (as here
imitated) the third line a blank. Somewhat as in the Greek Alcaic, where
the penultimate line seems to lift and suspend the Wave that falls over
in the last. As usual with such kind of Oriental Verse, the Rubaiyat
follow one another according to Alphabetic Rhyme--a strange succession
of Grave and Gay. Those here selected are strung into something of an
Eclogue, with perhaps a less than equal proportion of the "Drink and
make-merry," which (genuine or not) recurs over-frequently in the
Original. Either way, the Result is sad enough: saddest perhaps when
most ostentatiously merry: more apt to move Sorrow than Anger toward the
old Tent-maker, who, after vainly endeavoring to unshackle his Steps
from Destiny, and to catch some authentic Glimpse of To-morrow, fell
back upon To-day (which has outlasted so many To-morrows!) as the only
ground he had got to stand upon, however momentarily slipping from under
his feet.
# # # # #
While the second Edition of this version of Omar was preparing, Monsieur
Nicolas, French Consul at Resht, published a very careful and very good
Edition of the Text from a lithograph copy at Teheran, comprising 464
Rubaiyat, with translation and notes of his own.
Mons. Nicolas, whose Edition has reminded me of several things, and
instructed me in others, does not consider Omar to be the material
Epicurean that I have literally taken him for, but a Mystic, shadowing
the Deity under the figure of Wine, Wine-bearer, etc., as Hafiz is
supposed to do; in short, a Sufi Poet like Hafiz and the rest.
I cannot see reason to alter my opinion, formed as it was more than a
dozen years ago when Omar was first shown me by one to whom I am
indebted for all I know of Oriental, and very much of other, literature.
He admired Omar's genius so much that he would gladly have adopted any
such interpretation of his meaning as Mons. Nicolas' if he could. That
he could not, appears by his Paper in the _Calcutta Review_ already so
largely quoted; in which he argues from the Poems themselves, as well as
from what records remain of the Poet's Life.
And if more were needed to disprove Mons. Nicolas' Theory, there is the
Biographical Notice which he himself has drawn up in direct
contradiction to the Interpretation of the Poems given in his Notes.
(See pp. xiii-xiv of his Preface.) Indeed I hardly knew poor Omar was so
far gone till his Apologist informed me. For here we see that, whatever
were the Wine that Hafiz drank and sang, the veritable Juice of the
Grape it was which Omar used, not only when carousing with his friends,
but (says Mons. Nicolas) in order to excite himself to that pitch of
Devotion which others reached by cries and "Hurlemens." And yet,
whenever Wine, Wine-bearer, etc., occur in the text--which is often
enough--Mons. Nicolas carefully annotates "Dieu," "La Divinite," etc.:
so carefully indeed that one is tempted to think that he was
indoctrinated by the Sufi with whom he read the Poems. A Persian would
naturally wish to vindicate a distinguished Countryman; and a Sufi to
enrol him in his own sect, which already comprises all the chief Poets
of Persia.
What historical Authority has Mons. Nicolas to show that Omar gave
himself up "avec passion a l'etude de la philosophie des Soufis?"
(Preface, p. xiii.) The Doctrines of Pantheism, Materialism, Necessity,
etc., were not peculiar to the Sufi; nor to Lucretius before them; nor
to Epicurus before him; probably the very original Irreligion of
Thinking men from the first; and very likely to be the spontaneous
growth of a Philosopher living in an Age of social and political
barbarism, under shadow of one of the Two and Seventy Religions supposed
to divide the world. Von Hammer (according to Sprenger's Oriental
Catalogue) speaks of Omar as "a Free-thinker, and _a great opponent of
Sufism_;" perhaps because, while holding much of their Doctrine, he
would not pretend to any inconsistent severity of morals. Sir W. Ouseley
has written a note to something of the same effect on the fly-leaf of
the Bodleian MS. And in two Rubaiyat of Mons. Nicolas' own Edition Suf
and Sufi are both disparagingly named.
No doubt many of these Quatrains seem unaccountable unless mystically
interpreted; but many more as unaccountable unless literally. Were the
Wine spiritual, for instance, how wash the Body with it when dead! Why
make cups of the dead clay to be filled with--"La Divinite"--by some
succeeding Mystic? Mons. Nicolas himself is puzzled by some "bizarres
and trop Orientals" allusions and images--"d'une sensualite quelquefois
revoltante" indeed--which "les convenances" do not permit him to
translate, but still which the reader cannot but refer to "La Divinite."
No doubt also many of the Quatrains in the Teheran, as in the Calcutta
Copies, are spurious; such _Rubaiyat_ being the common form of Epigram
in Persia. But this, at best, tells as much one way as another; nay,
the Sufi, who may be considered the Scholar and Men of Letters in
Persia, would be far more likely than the careless Epicure to
interpolate what favors his own view of the Poet. I observe that very
few of the more mystical Quatrains are in the Bodleian MS. which must be
one of the oldest, as dated at Shiraz, A.H. 865, A.D. 1460. And this, I
think, especially distinguishes Omar (I cannot help calling him by
his--no, not Christian--familiar name) from all other Persian Poets:
That, whereas with them the Poet is lost in his Song, the Man in
Allegory and Abstraction; we seem to have the Man--the _Bonhomme_--Omar
himself, with all his Humors and Passions, as frankly before us as if we
were really at Table with him, after the Wine had gone round.
I must say that I, for one, never wholly believed in the mysticism of
Hafiz. It does not appear there was any danger in holding and singing
Sufi Pantheism, so long as the Poet made his Salaam to Mohammed at the
beginning and end of his Song. Under such conditions Jelaluddin, Jami,
Attar, and others sang; using Wine and Beauty indeed as Images to
illustrate, not as a Mask to hide, the Divinity they were celebrating.
Perhaps some Allegory less liable to mistake or abuse had been better
among so inflammable a People: much more so when, as some think with
Hafiz and Omar, the abstract is not only likened to, but identified
with, the sensual Image; hazardous, if not to the Devotee himself, yet
to his weaker Brethren; and worse for the Profane in proportion as the
Devotion of the Initiated grew warmer. And all for what? To be
tantalized with Images of sensual enjoyment which must be renounced if
one would approximate a God, who, according to the Doctrine, _is_
Sensual Matter as well as Spirit, and into whose Universe one expects
unconsciously to merge after Death, without hope of any posthumous
Beatitude in another world to compensate for all one's self-denial in
this. Lucretius' blind Divinity certainly merited, and probably got, as
much self-sacrifice as this of the Sufi; and the burden of Omar's
Song--if not "Let us eat"--is assuredly--"Let us drink, for To-morrow we
die!" And if Hafiz meant quite otherwise by a similar language, he
surely miscalculated when he devoted his Life and Genius to so equivocal
a Psalmody as, from his Day to this, has been said and sung by any
rather than Spiritual Worshipers.
However, as there is some traditional presumption, and certainly the
opinion of some learned men, in favor of Omar's being a Sufi--and even
something of a Saint--those who please may so interpret his Wine and
Cup-bearer. On the other hand, as there is far more historical certainty
of his being a Philosopher, of scientific Insight and Ability far beyond
that of the Age and Country he lived in; of such moderate worldly
Ambition as becomes a Philosopher, and such moderate wants as rarely
satisfy a Debauchee; other readers may be content to believe with me
that, while the Wine Omar celebrates is simply the Juice of the Grape,
he bragged more than he drank of it, in very defiance perhaps of that
Spiritual Wine which left its Votaries sunk in Hypocrisy or Disgust.
[Illustration: QUATRAIN I p. 41
[_First Edition of the Translation_]
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.]
[Illustration: QUATRAIN XI p. 46
[_First Edition of the Translation_]
Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.]
[Illustration: RUBAIYAT.OF.OMAR.KHAYYAM]
THE FIRST EDITION OF THE TRANSLATION
RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM
I
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.
II
Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."
III
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted--"Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more."
IV
Now the New Year reviving old Desires,
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the WHITE HAND OF MOSES ON THE BOUGH
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.
V
Iram indeed is gone with all its Rose,
And Jamshyd's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where no one knows;
But still the Vine her ancient Ruby yields,
And still a Garden by the Water blows.
VI
And David's Lips are lock't; but in divine
High piping Pehlevi, with "Wine! Wine! Wine!
_Red_ Wine!"--the Nightingale cries to the Rose
That yellow Cheek of hers to incarnadine.
VII
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly--and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.
VIII
And look--a thousand Blossoms with the Day
Woke--and a thousand scatter'd into Clay:
And this first Summer Month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away.
IX
But come with old Khayyam, and leave the Lot
Of Kaikobad and Kaikhosru forgot:
Let Rustum lay about him as he will,
Or Hatim Tai cry Supper--heed them not.
X
With me along some Strip of Herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultan scarce is known,
And pity Sultan Mahmud on his Throne.
XI
Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.
XII
"How sweet is mortal Sovranty!"--think some:
Others--"How blest the Paradise to come!"
Ah, take the Cash in hand and waive the Rest;
Oh, the brave Music of a _distant_ Drum!
XIII