Notes to the FitzGerald Editions
Introduction to the First Edition
Omar Khayyam, The Astronomer-Poet of Persia.
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, Vizier 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 practise, 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 where 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 school-boy 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 reacht 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 of
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
MS. 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:--
O
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?
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.
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
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.
--------------------------
(The
following is 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.
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."
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
Notes
to the Introduction
(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.'"
(2)Though
all these, like our Smiths, Archers, Millers, Fletchers, etc., may
simply retain the Surname of an hereditary calling.
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.
(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.'"
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
1836. This contains 438 Tetrastichs, with an Appendix containing 54
others not found in some MSS."
(6)Professor Cowell. (7) Perhaps would have edited
the Poems himself some years ago. He may now as little approve of my
Version on one side, as of Mons. Nicolas' Theory on the other. (8) A
note to Quatrain 234 admits that, however clear the mystical meaning
of such Images must be to Europeans, they are not quoted without
"rougissant" even by laymen in Persia--"Quant aux
termes de tendresse qui commencent ce quatrain, comme tant d'autres
dans ce recueil, nos lecteurs, habitues maintenant a 1'etrangete des
expressions si souvent employees par Kheyam pour rendre ses pensees
sur l'amour divin, et a la singularite des images trop orientales,
d'une sensualite quelquefois revoltante, n'auront pas de peine a se
persuader qu'il s'agit de la Divinite, bien que cette conviction soit
vivement discutee par les moullahs musulmans, et meme par beaucoup de
laiques, qui rougissent veritablement d'une pareille licence de leur
compatriote a 1'egard des choses spirituelles."
Textual
Footnotes
Jump
to comments for the Third Edition
[The references are, except in the first note only, to the stanzas of
the Fifth Edition.]
(Stanza
I.) Flinging a Stone into the Cup was the signal for "To Horse!"
in the Desert.
(II.)
The "False Dawn"; Subhi Kazib, a transient Light on the
Horizon about an hour before the Subhi sadik or True Dawn; a
well-known Phenomenon in the East.
(IV.)
New Year. Beginning with the Vernal Equinox, it must be remembered;
and (howsoever the old Solar Year is practically superseded by the
clumsy Lunar Year that dates from the Mohammedan Hijra) still
commemorated by a Festival that is said to have been appointed by the
very Jamshyd whom Omar so often talks of, and whose yearly Calendar
he helped to rectify.
"The
sudden approach and rapid advance of the Spring," says Mr.
Binning, "are very striking. Before the Snow is well off the
Ground, the Trees burst into Blossom, and the Flowers start from the
Soil. At Naw Rooz (their New Year's Day) the Snow was lying in
patches on the Hills and in the shaded Vallies, while the Fruit-trees
in the Garden were budding beautifully, and green Plants and Flowers
springing upon the Plains on every side--
'And
on old Hyems' Chin and icy Crown An odorous Chaplet of sweet Summer
buds Is, as in mockery, set--'--
Among
the Plants newly appear'd I recognized some Acquaintances I had not
seen for many a Year: among these, two varieties of the Thistle; a
coarse species of the Daisy, like the Horse-gowan; red and white
clover; the Dock; the blue Cornflower; and that vulgar Herb the
Dandelion rearing its yellow crest on the Banks of the
Water-courses." The Nightingale was not yet heard, for the Rose
was not yet blown: but an almost identical Blackbird and Woodpecker
helped to make up something of a North-country Spring.
"The
White Hand of Moses." Exodus iv. 6; where Moses draws forth his
Hand--not, according to the Persians, "leprous as Snow,"
but white, as our May-blossom in Spring perhaps. According to them
also the Healing Power of Jesus resided in his Breath.
(V.)
Iram, planted by King Shaddad, and now sunk somewhere in the Sands of
Arabia. Jamshyd's Seven-ring'd Cup was typical of the 7 Heavens, 7
Planets, 7 Seas, &c., and was a Divining Cup.
(VI.)
Pehlevi, the old Heroic Sanskrit of Persia. Hafiz also speaks of the
Nightingale's Pehlevi, which did not change with the People's.
I
am not sure if the fourth line refers to the Red Rose looking sickly,
or to the Yellow Rose that ought to be Red; Red, White, and Yellow
Roses all common in Persia. I think that Southey in his Common- Place
Book, quotes from some Spanish author about the Rose being White till
10 o'clock; "Rosa Perfecta" at 2; and "perfecta
incarnada" at 5.
(X.)
Rustum, the "Hercules" of Persia, and Zal his Father, whose
exploits are among the most celebrated in the Shahnama. Hatim Tai, a
well-known type of Oriental Generosity.
(XIII.)
A Drum--beaten outside a Palace.
(XIV.)
That is, the Rose's Golden Centre.
(XVIII.)
Persepolis: call'd also Takht-i-Jam-shyd--THE THRONE OF JAMSHYD,
"King Splendid," of the mythical Peshdadian Dynasty, and
supposed (according to the Shah-nama) to have been founded and built
by him. Others refer it to the Work of the Genie King, Jan Ibn
Jan--who also built the Pyramids--before the time of Adam.
BAHRAM
GUR.--Bahram of the Wild Ass--a Sassanian Sovereign--had also his
Seven Castles (like the King of Bohemia!) each of a different Colour:
each with a Royal Mistress within; each of whom tells him a Story, as
told in one of the most famous Poems of Persia, written by Amir
Khusraw: all these Sevens also figuring (according to Eastern
Mysticism) the Seven Heavens; and perhaps the Book itself that
Eighth, into which the mystical Seven transcend, and within which
they revolve. The Ruins of Three of those Towers are yet shown by the
Peasantry; as also the Swamp in which Bahram sunk, like the Master of
Ravenswood, while pursuing his Gur.
[Included
in Nicolas's edition as No. 350 of the Rubaiyat, and also in Mr.
Whinfield's translation.]
This
Quatrain Mr. Binning found, among several of Hafiz and others,
inscribed by some stray hand among the ruins of Persepolis. The
Ringdove's ancient Pehlevi Coo, Coo, Coo, signifies also in Persian
"Where? Where? Where?" In Attar's "Bird-parliament"
she is reproved by the Leader of the Birds for sitting still, and for
ever harping on that one note of lamentation for her lost Yusuf.
Apropos
of Omar's Red Roses in Stanza xix, I am reminded of an old English
Superstition, that our Anemone Pulsatilla, or purple "Pasque
Flower," (which grows plentifully about the Fleam Dyke, near
Cambridge,) grows only where Danish Blood has been spilt.
(XXI.)
A thousand years to each Planet.
(XXXI.)
Saturn, Lord of the Seventh Heaven.
(XXXII.)
ME-AND-THEE: some dividual Existence or Personality distinct from the
Whole.
(XXXVII.)
One of the Persian Poets--Attar, I think--has a pretty story about
this. A thirsty Traveller dips his hand into a Spring of Water to
drink from. By-and-by comes another who draws up and drinks from an
earthen bowl, and then departs, leaving his Bowl behind him. The
first Traveller takes it up for another draught; but is surprised to
find that the same Water which had tasted sweet from his own hand
tastes bitter from the earthen Bowl. But a Voice--from Heaven, I
think--tells him the clay from which the Bowl is made was once Man;
and, into whatever shape renew'd, can never lose the bitter flavour
of Mortality.
(XXXIX.)
The custom of throwing a little Wine on the ground before drinking
still continues in Persia, and perhaps generally in the East. Mons.
Nicolas considers it "un signe de liberalite, et en meme temps
un avertissement que le buveur doit vider sa coupe jusqu'a la
derniere goutte." Is it not more likely an ancient Superstition;
a Libation to propitiate Earth, or make her an Accomplice in the
illicit Revel? Or, perhaps, to divert the Jealous Eye by some
sacrifice of superfluity, as with the Ancients of the West? With Omar
we see something more is signified; the precious Liquor is not lost,
but sinks into the ground to refresh the dust of some poor
Wine-worshipper foregone.
Thus
Hafiz, copying Omar in so many ways: "When thou drinkest Wine
pour a draught on the ground. Wherefore fear the Sin which brings to
another Gain?"
(XLIII.)
According to one beautiful Oriental Legend, Azrael accomplishes his
mission by holding to the nostril an Apple from the Tree of Life.
This,
and the two following Stanzas would have been withdrawn, as somewhat
de trop, from the Text, but for advice which I least like to
disregard.
(LI.)
From Mah to Mahi; from Fish to Moon.
(LVI.)
A Jest, of course, at his Studies. A curious mathematical Quatrain of
Omar's has been pointed out to me; the more curious because almost
exactly parallel'd by some Verses of Doctor Donne's, that are quoted
in Izaak Walton's Lives! Here is Omar: "You and I are the image
of a pair of compasses; though we have two heads (sc. our feet) we
have one body; when we have fixed the centre for our circle, we bring
our heads (sc. feet) together at the end." Dr. Donne:
If
we be two, we two are so As stiff twin-compasses are two; Thy Soul,
the fixt foot, makes no show To move, but does if the other do.
And
though thine in the centre sit, Yet when my other far does roam,
Thine leans and hearkens after it, And rows erect as mine comes home.
Such
thou must be to me, who must Like the other foot obliquely run; Thy
firmness makes my circle just, And me to end where I begun.
(LIX.) Alluding to Sultan Mahmud's Conquest of India and its dark people.
Fanusi khiyal, a Magic-lanthorn still used in India; the cylindrical
Interior being painted with various Figures, and so lightly poised
and ventilated as to revolve round the lighted Candle within.
(LX.)
Alluding to Sultan Mahmud's Conquest of India and its dark people.
(LXVIII.)
Fanusi khiyal, a Magic-lanthorn still used in India; the cylindrical
Interior being painted with various Figures, and so lightly poised
and ventilated as to revolve round the lighted Candle within.
(LXX.) A very mysterious Line in the Original:
O
danad O danad O danad O--
breaking
off something like our Wood-pigeon's Note, which she is said to take
up just where she left off.
(LXXV.)
Parwin and Mushtari--The Pleiads and Jupiter.
(LXXXVII.)
This Relation of Pot and Potter to Man and his Maker figures far and
wide in the Literature of the World, from the time of the Hebrew
Prophets to the present; when it may finally take the name of "Pot
theism," by which Mr. Carlyle ridiculed Sterling's "Pantheism."
My Sheikh, whose knowledge flows in from all quarters, writes to me--
"Apropos
of old Omar's Pots, did I ever tell you the sentence I found in
'Bishop Pearson on the Creed'? 'Thus are we wholly at the disposal of
His will, and our present and future condition framed and ordered by
His free, but wise and just, decrees. Hath not the potter power over
the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and
another unto dishonour? (Rom. ix. 21.) And can that earth-artificer
have a freer power over his brother potsherd (both being made of the
same metal), than God hath over him, who, by the strange fecundity of
His omnipotent power, first made the clay out of nothing, and then
him out of that?'"
And
again--from a very different quarter--"I had to refer the other
day to Aristophanes, and came by chance on a curious Speaking-pot
story in the Vespae, which I had quite forgotten.
[Greek
text deleted from etext.]
"The
Pot calls a bystander to be a witness to his bad treatment. The woman
says, 'If, by Proserpine, instead of all this 'testifying' (comp.
Cuddie and his mother in 'Old Mortality!') you would buy yourself a
rivet, it would show more sense in you!' The Scholiast explains
echinus as [Greek phrase deleted from etext]."
One
more illustration for the oddity's sake from the "Autobiography
of a Cornish Rector," by the late James Hamley Tregenna. 1871.
"There
was one odd Fellow in our Company--he was so like a Figure in the
'Pilgrim's Progress' that Richard always called him the 'ALLEGORY,'
with a long white beard--a rare Appendage in those days--and a Face
the colour of which seemed to have been baked in, like the Faces one
used to see on Earthenware Jugs. In our Country- dialect Earthenware
is called 'Clome'; so the Boys of the Village used to shout out after
him--'Go back to the Potter, Old Clomeface, and get baked over
again.' For the 'Allegory,' though shrewd enough in most things, had
the reputation of being 'saift-baked,' i.e., of weak intellect."
(XC.)
At the Close of the Fasting Month, Ramazan (which makes the Mussulman
unhealthy and unamiable), the first Glimpse of the New Moon (who
rules their division of the Year) is looked for with the utmost
Anxiety, and hailed with Acclamation. Then it is that the Porter's
Knot maybe heard--toward the Cellar. Omar has elsewhere a pretty
Quatrain about the same Moon--
"Be
of Good Cheer--the sullen Month will die, And a young Moon requite us
by and by: Look how the Old one meagre, bent, and wan With Age and
Fast, is fainting from the Sky!"