The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
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 Theater) 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 Tentmaker, 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.
[From the Third Edition.]
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, &c., 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.[7] 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. 13-14 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, &c., occur in the Text--which is
often enough--Mons. Nicolas carefully annotates "Dieu," "La Divinite,"
&c.: so carefully indeed that one is tempted to think that he was
indoctrinated by the Sufi with whom he read the Poems. (Note to Rub.
ii. p. 8.) A Persian would naturally wish to vindicate a
distinguished Countryman; and a Sufi to enroll 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, &c., 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 Orientales" 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."[8] 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 Man of Letters in Persia, would be far more likely than
the careless Epicure to interpolate what favours his own view of the
Poet. I observed 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 Bon-homme--Omar himself, with all his Humours 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 Worshippers.
However, as there is some traditional presumption, and certainly the
opinion of some learned men, in favour 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 bragg'd more than he drank of it, in very
defiance perhaps of that Spiritual Wine which left its Votaries sunk
in Hypocrisy or Disgust.
Edward J. Fitzgerald
Footnotes:
[Footnote 1: Some of Omar's Rubaiyat warn us of the danger of Greatness, the
instability of Fortune, and while advocating Charity to all Men,
recommending us to be too intimate with none. Attar makes Nizam-ul-Mulk
use the very words of his friend Omar [Rub. xxviii.], "When Nizam-ul-
Mulk was in the Agony (of Death) he said, 'Oh God! I am passing away in
the hand of the wind.'"]
[Footnote 2: Though all these, like our Smiths, Archers, Millers, Fletchers, etc.,
may simply retain the Surname of an hereditary calling.]
[Footnote 3: "Philosophe Musulman qui a vecu en Odeur de Saintete dans sa
Religion, vers la Fin du premier et le Commencement du second Siecle,"
no part of which, except the "Philosophe," can apply to our Khayyam.]
[Footnote 4: The Rashness of the Words, according to D'Herbelot, consisted in
being so opposed to those in the Koran: "No Man knows where he shall
die."--This story of Omar reminds me of another so naturally--and when
one remembers how wide of his humble mark the noble sailor aimed--so
pathetically told by Captain Cook--not by Doctor Hawkworth--in his
Second Voyage (i. 374). When leaving Ulietea, "Oreo's last request was
for me to return. When he saw he could not obtain that promise, he
asked the name of my Marai (burying-place). As strange a question as
this was, I hesitated not a moment to tell him 'Stepney'; the parish in
which I live when in London. I was made to repeat it several times over
till they could pronounce it; and then 'Stepney Marai no Toote' was
echoed through an hundred mouths at once. I afterwards found the same
question had been put to Mr. Forster by a man on shore; but he gave a
different, and indeed more proper answer, by saying, 'No man who used
the sea could say where he should be buried.'"]
[Footnote 5: "Since this paper was written" (adds the Reviewer in a note), "we
have met with a Copy of a very rare Edition, printed at Calcutta in