The Sufistic Quatrains Of Omar Khayyam Part 29

STANZAS WHICH APPEAR IN THE SECOND EDITION ONLY

XIV. Were it not Folly, Spider-like to spin The Thread of present Life away to win-- What? for ourselves, who know not if we shall Breathe out the very Breath we now breathe in!

XX. (This stanza is quoted in the note to stanza XVIII.

in the third and fourth editions.)

XXVIII. Another Voice, when I am sleeping, cries, The Flower should open with the Morning skies.

And a retreating Whisper, as I wake-- The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

XLIV. Do you, within your little hour of Grace, The waving Cypress in your Arms enlace, Before the Mother back into her arms Fold, and dissolve you in a last embrace.

LXV. If but the Vine and Love-abjuring Band Are in the Prophet's Paradise to stand, Alack, I doubt the Prophet's Paradise Were empty as the hollow of one's Hand.

LXXVII. For let Philosopher and Doctor preach Of what they will, and what they will not--each Is but one Link in an eternal Chain That none can slip, or break, or over-reach.

Lx.x.xVI. Nay, but, for terror of his wrathful Face, I swear I will not call Injustice Grace, Not one Good Fellow of the Tavern but Would kick so poor a Coward from the place.

XC. And once again there gather'd a scarce heard Whisper among them; as it were, the stirr'd Ashes of some all but extinguisht Tongue, Which mine ear kindled into living Word.

(In the third and fourth editions stanza Lx.x.xIII. takes the place of this.)

XCIX. Whither resorting from the vernal Heat Shall Old Acquaintance Old Acquaintance greet, Under the Branch that leans above the Wall To shed his Blossom over head and feet.

(This was retained in the first draft of ed. 3.)

CVII. Better, oh better, cancel from the Scroll Of Universe one luckless Human Soul, Than drop by drop enlarge the Flood that rolls Hoa.r.s.er with Anguish as the Ages Roll.

QUATRAINS OF OMAR KHAYYAM

COMPARATIVE TABLE OF STANZAS IN THE FOUR[100] EDITIONS OF FITZGERALD

Ed. 1 Ed. 2 Edd. 3 and 4 I I I II II II III III III IV IV IV V V V VI VI VI VII VII VII VIII IX IX IX X X X XI XI XI XII XII XII XIII XIII XIII XV XIV XIV XVII XVI XV XVI XV XVI XVIII XVII XVII XIX XVIII XVIII XXIV XIX XIX XXV XX XX XXI XXI XXI XXII XXII XXII XXIII XXIII XXIII XXVI XXIV XXIV XXVII XXV XXV XXIX XXVI XXVI LXVI LXIII XXVII x.x.x XXVII XXVIII x.x.xI XXVIII XXIX x.x.xII XXIX x.x.x x.x.xIII x.x.x x.x.xI x.x.xIV x.x.xI x.x.xII x.x.xV x.x.xII x.x.xIII x.x.xVII x.x.xIV x.x.xIV x.x.xVIII x.x.xV x.x.xV x.x.xIX x.x.xVI x.x.xVI XL x.x.xVII x.x.xVII x.x.xVIII XLIX XLVIII x.x.xIX LVI LIV XL LVII LV XLI LVIII LVI XLII LX LVIII XLIII LXI LIX XLIV LXII LX XLV XLVI LXXIII LXVIII XLVII XLV XLII XLVIII XLVI XLIII XLIX LXXIV LXIX L LXXV LXX LI LXXVI LXXI LII LXXVIII LXXII LIII LXXIX LXXIII LIV Lx.x.xI LXXV LV Lx.x.xII LXXVI LVI Lx.x.xIII LXXVII LVII Lx.x.xVII Lx.x.x LVIII Lx.x.xVIII Lx.x.xI LIX Lx.x.xIX Lx.x.xII LX XCIV Lx.x.xVII LXI XCI Lx.x.xIV LXII XCII Lx.x.xV LXIII XCIII Lx.x.xVI LXIV XCV Lx.x.xVIII LXV XCVI Lx.x.xIX LXVI XCVII XC LXVII XCVIII XCI LXVIII C XCII LXIX CI XCIII LXX CII XCIV LXXI CIII XCV LXXII CIV XCVI LXXIII CVIII XCIX LXXIV CIX C LXXV CX CI VIII VIII XIV Note on XX XVIII

XXVIII x.x.xVI x.x.xIII XLI x.x.xVIII XLII x.x.xIX XLIII XL XLIV XLVII XLVI XLVIII XLVII L XLIX LI L LII LI LIII LII LIV LIII LV XLI LIX LVII LXIII LXI LXIV LXII LXV LXVII LXIV LXVIII LXV LXIX XLIV LXX XLV LXXI LXVI LXXII LXVII LXXVII Lx.x.x LXXIV Lx.x.xIV LXXVIII Lx.x.xV LXXIX Lx.x.xVI XC Lx.x.xIII XCIX CV XCVII CVI XCVIII CVII

NOTE

It must be admitted that FitzGerald took great liberties with the original in his version of Omar Khayyam. The first stanza is entirely his own, and in stanza x.x.xI. of the fourth edition (x.x.xVI. in the second) he has introduced two lines from Attar. (See Letters, p. 251.) In stanza Lx.x.xI. (fourth edition), writes Professor Cowell, There is no original for the line about the snake: I have looked for it in vain in Nicolas; but I have always supposed that the last line is FitzGerald's mistaken version of Quatr. 236 in Nicolas's ed. which runs thus:

O thou who knowest the secrets of every one's mind, Who graspest every one's hand in the hour of weakness, O G.o.d, give me repentance and accept my excuses, O thou who givest repentance and acceptest the excuses of every one.

FitzGerald mistook the meaning of _giving_ and _accepting_ as used here, and so invented his last line out of his own mistake. I wrote to him about it when I was in Calcutta; but he never cared to alter it.

THE

QUATRAINS OF OMAR KHAYYAM

TRANSLATED BY

E.H. WHINFIELD, M.A.

INTRODUCTION

Omar is a poet who can hardly be translated satisfactorily otherwise than in verse. Prose does well enough for narrative or didactic poetry, where the main things to be reproduced are the matter and substance, but it is plainly contra-indicated in the case of poetry like Omar's, where the matter is little else than the commonplaces of the lyric ode and the tragic chorus, and where nearly the whole charm consists in the style and the manner, the grace of the expression and the melody of the versification. A literal prose version of such poetry must needs be unsatisfactory, because it studiously ignores the chief points in which the attractiveness of the original consists, and deliberately renounces all attempt to reproduce them.

In deciding on the form to be taken by a new translation of Omar, the fact of the existence of a previous verse translation of universally acknowledged merit ought not, of course, to be left out of account. The successor of a translator like Mr. Fitzgerald, who ventures to write verse, and especially verse of the metre which he has handled with such success, cannot help feeling at almost every step that he is provoking comparisons very much to his own disadvantage. But I do not think this consideration ought to deter him from using the vehicle which everything else indicates as the proper one.

As regards metre, there is no doubt that the quatrain of ten-syllable lines which has been tried by Hammer, Bicknell, and others, and has been raised by Mr. Fitzgerald almost to the rank of a recognised English metre, is the best representative of the _Ruba'i_. It fairly satisfies Conington's canon, viz., that there ought to be some degree of metrical conformity between the measure of the original and the translation, for though it does not exactly correspond with the _Ruba'i_, it very clearly suggests it. In particular, it copies what is perhaps the most marked feature of the _Ruba'i_,--the interlinking of the four lines by the repet.i.tion in the fourth line of the rhyme of the first and second.

Mr Swinburne's modification of this metre, in which the rhyme is carried on from one quatrain to the next, is not applicable to poems like Omar's, all of which are isolated in sense from the context.

Alexandrines would, of course, correspond more nearly than decasyllables with _Ruba'i_ lines in number of syllables, and they have been extensively used by Bodenstedt and other German translators of the metre but, whatever may be the case in German, they are apt to read very heavily in English, even when constructed by skilful verse-makers, and an inferior workman can hardly hope to manage them with anything like success. The shorter length of the decasyllable line is not altogether a disadvantage to the translator. Owing to the large number of monosyllables in English, it is generally adequate to hold the contents of a Persian line a syllable or two longer; and a line erring, if at all, on the side of brevity, has at any rate the advantage of obliging the translator to eschew modern diffuseness, and of making him try to copy the cla.s.sical parsimony, the archaic terseness and condensation of the original.

The poet Cowper has a remark on translation from Latin which is eminently true also of translation from Persian. He says, That is epigrammatic and witty in Latin which would be perfectly insipid in English.... If a Latin poem is neat, elegant, and musical, it is enough, but English readers are not so easily satisfied. Much of Omar's matter, when literally translated, seems very trite and commonplace, many of the conceits, of which he is so fond, very frigid, and even his peculiar grotesque humour often loses its savour in an English _replica_. The translator is often tempted to elevate a too grovelling sentiment, to sharpen a point here and there, to trick out a commonplace with some borrowed modern embellishment. But this temptation is one to be resisted as far as possible. According to the _Hadis_, The business of a messenger is simply to deliver his message, and he must not shrink from displaying the naked truth. A translator who writes in verse must of course claim the liberty of altering the form of the expression over and over again, but the subst.i.tuted expressions ought to be in keeping with the author's style, and on the same plane of sentiment as his. It is beyond the province of a translator to attempt the task of painting the lily. But it is easier to lay down correct principles of translation than to observe them unswervingly in one's practice.

As regards subject matter, Omar's quatrains may be cla.s.sed under the following six heads:--

I. _Shikayat i rozgar_--Complaints of the wheel of heaven, or fate, of the world's injustice, of the loss of friends, of man's limited faculties and destinies.

II. _Hajw_--Satires on the hypocrisy of the unco' guid, the impiety of the pious, the ignorance of the learned, and the untowardness of his own generation.

III. _Firakiya_ and _Wisaliya_--Love-poems on the sorrows of separation and the joys of reunion with the Beloved, earthly or spiritual.

IV. _Bahariya_--Poems in praise of spring, gardens, and flowers.

V. _Kufriya_--Irreligious and antinomian utterances, charging the sins of the creature to the account of the Creator, scoffing at the Prophet's Paradise and h.e.l.l, singing the praises of wine and pleasure--preaching _ad nauseam_, eat and drink (especially drink), for to-morrow ye die.

VI. _Munajat_--Addresses to the Deity, now in the ordinary language of devotion, bewailing sins and imploring pardon, now in Mystic phraseology, craving deliverance from self, and union with the Truth (_Al Hakk_), or Deity, as conceived by the Mystics.

The complaints may obviously be connected with the known facts of the poet's life, by supposing them to have been prompted by the persecution to which he was subjected on account of his opinions. His remarks on the Houris and other sacred subjects raised such a feeling against him that at one time his life was in danger, and the wonder is that he escaped at all in a city like Naishapur, where the _odium theologic.u.m_ raged so fiercely as to occasion a sanguinary civil war. In the year 489 A.H., as we learn from Ibn Al Athir,[101] the orthodox banded themselves together under the leadership of Abul Kasim and Muhammad, the chiefs of the Hanefites and the Shafeites, in order to exterminate the Kerramians or Anthropomorphist heretics, and succeeded in putting many of them to death, and destroying all their establishments. It may be also that after the death of his patron, Nizam ul Mulk, Omar lost his stipend and was reduced to poverty.

The satires probably owed their origin to the same cause. _Rien soulage comme la rhetorique_, and if Omar could not relieve his feelings by open abuse of his persecutors, he made up for it by the bitterness of his verses. The bitterness of his strictures on them was no doubt fully equalled by the rancour of their attacks upon him.

The love-poems are samples of a cla.s.s of compositions much commoner in later poets than in Omar. Most of them probably bear a mystical meaning, for I doubt if Omar was a person very susceptible of the tender pa.s.sion.

He speaks with appreciation of tulip cheeks and cypress forms, but apparently recognises no attractions of a higher order in his fair friends.