The Sufistic Quatrains Of Omar Khayyam Part 30

The poems in praise of scenery again offer a strong contrast to modern treatment of the same theme. The only aspects of nature noticed by Omar are such as affect the senses agreeably--the bright flowers, the song of the nightingale, the gra.s.sy bank of the stream, and the shady garden a.s.sociated in his mind with his convivial parties. The geographer translated by Sir W. Ouseley says of Naishapur, The city is watered by a subterranean ca.n.a.l, which is conveyed to the fields and gardens, and there is a considerable stream that waters the city and the villages about it--this stream is named _Saka_. In all the provinces of Khora.s.san there is not any city larger than Naishapur, nor any blessed with a more pure and temperate air No doubt it was some of these gardens that called forth Omar's encomiums.

But it is in the _Kufriya_, or antinomian quatrains, and in the _Munajat_, or pious aspirations, that the most remarkable and characteristic features of Omar's poetry are exhibited. The glaring contrast between these two cla.s.ses of his poetry has led his readers to take very opposite views of him, according as they looked at one or the other side of the shield. European critics, like his contemporaries, mostly consider him an infidel and a voluptuary of like mind with Sardanapalus. On the other hand, the Sufis have contrived to affix mystical and devotional meanings even to his most Epicurean quatrains; and this method of interpretation is nowadays as universally accepted in Persia and India as the Mystical interpretation of the Canticles is in Europe. But neither of these views can be accepted in its entirety. Even if the Sufi symbolism had been definitely formulated as early as Omar's time, which is very doubtful, common sense would forbid us to force a devotional meaning on the palpably Epicurean quatrains; and, on the other hand, unless we are prepared to throw over the authority of all the ma.n.u.scripts, including the most ancient ones, we must reckon with the obviously Mystical and devotional quatrains. The essential contradiction in the tone and temper of these two sections of Omar's poetry cannot be glossed over, but calls imperatively for explanation.

His poems were obviously not all written at one period of his life, but from time to time, just as circ.u.mstances and mood suggested, and under the influence of the thoughts, pa.s.sions, and desires which happened to be uppermost at the moment. It may be that the irreligious and Epicurean quatrains were written in youth, and the _Munajat_ in his riper years.

But this hypothesis seems to be disproved by Sharastani's account of him, which is quite silent as to any such conversion or change of sentiment on his part, and also by the fact that he describes himself from first to last as a _Dipsychus_ in grain, a halter between two opinions, and an _Acrates_, or back-slider, in his practice.

If his poems be considered not in the abstract, but in the light of history, taking into account his mental pedigree and his intellectual surroundings, a more plausible explanation of his inconsistencies readily presents itself. In his youth, as we know, he sat at the feet of the Suni theologian Imam Muaffik, and he was then no doubt thoroughly indoctrinated with the great Semitic conception of the One G.o.d, or, to use the expressive term of Muhammadan theology, the Only Real Agent (_Fa' il i Hakiki_). To minds dominated by the overwhelming sense of Almighty Power, everywhere present and working, there seems no room for Nature, or human will, or chance, or any other Ahriman whatsoever, to take the responsibility of all the evils in the world, the storms and the earthquakes, the Borgias and the Catilines. The Only Real Agent has to answer for all. In the most ancient doc.u.ment of Semitic religious speculation now extant, the Book of Job, we find expostulations of the boldest character addressed to the Deity for permitting a righteous man to be stricken with unmerited misfortunes, though the writer ultimately concludes in a spirit of pious agnosticism and resignation to the inscrutable dispensations of Providence. In the Book of Ecclesiastes again, the same problems are handled, but in a somewhat different temper. The weary king Ecclesiast remarks that there is one event to all, to him that sacrificeth and him that sacrificeth not--that injustice and wrong seem eternally triumphant, that G.o.d has made things crooked, and none can make them straight; and concludes now in favour of a sober _carpe diem_ philosophy, now in favour of a devout fear of the Lord. Of course the manner in which the serious Hebrew handles these matters is very different from the levity and flippancy of the volatile Persian, but it can hardly be denied that the Ecclesiast and Omar resemble one another in the double and contradictory nature of their practical conclusions.

No sooner was Islam established than the same problem of the existence of evil in the handiwork of the Almighty Author and Governor of all began to trouble the Moslem theologians, and by their elaboration of the doctrine of Predestination they managed to aggravate its difficulties.

One of the chief roots of their discussions was how to reconcile the Divine justice and benevolence with the Divine prescience,--the predestination of some vessels to honour, and others to dishonour,--the pre-ordainment of all things by a kind of mechanical necessity (_Jabr_), leaving no possibility of the occurrence of any events except those which actually do occur. The consideration of one corollary of a similar doctrine moved the pious and gentle Cowper to use language of indignant dissent; and there is high theological authority for the view that it is calculated to thrust some into desperation, but to stimulate the piety of others. Omar is constantly dwelling on this doctrine, and he seems to be affected by it in the double way here mentioned.

Other influences which acted on Omar must not be left out of account.

Born as he was in Khora.s.san, the focus of Persian culture, he was no doubt familiar with speculations of the Moslem philosophers, Alkindi, Alfarabi, and Avicenna,[102] the last of whom he may possibly have seen.

And though, think he was not himself a Sufi, in the sense of being affiliated to any Sufi order, he can hardly have been unaffected by the mysticism of which his predecessor in _Ruba'i_ writing, Abu Sa'id bin Abul Khair, his patron Nizam ul Mulk, and his distinguished countryman Imam Ghazali were all strong adherents. His philosophical studies would naturally stimulate his sceptical and irreligious dispositions, while his Mystic leanings would operate mainly in the contrary direction.

If this explanation of the inconsistencies in his poetry be correct, it is obvious that the parallel often sought to be traced between him and Lucretius has no existence. Whatever he was, he was not an Atheist. To him, as to other Muhammadans of his time, to deny the existence of the Deity would seem to be tantamount to denying the existence of the world and of himself. And the conception of laws of nature was also one quite foreign to his habits of thought. As Deutsch says, To a Shemite, Nature is simply what has been begotten, and is ruled absolutely by One Absolute Power.

Hammer compares him to Voltaire, but in reality he is a Voltaire and something more. He has much of Voltaire's flippancy and irreverence. His treatment of the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body, for instance, which Muhammad took from Christianity, and travestied by the embellishments he added to it, is altogether in Voltaire's manner. And his insistence on the all importance of kindness and charity recalls the better side of Voltaire's character, viz., his kindness to Calas, and the other victims of ecclesiastical persecution. But Omar also possessed, what Voltaire did not, strong religious emotions, which at times overrode his rationalism, and found expression in those devotional and Mystical quatrains, which offer such a strong contrast to the rest of his poetry.

E.H. WHINFIELD

NOTE

The text has been framed from a comparison of the following authorities:--

I. The Bodleian ma.n.u.script, No. 140 of the Ouseley Collection, containing 158 quatrains.

II. The Calcutta Asiatic Society's ma.n.u.script, No. 1548, containing 516 quatrains.

III. The India Office ma.n.u.script, No. 2420, ff. 212 to 267, containing 512 quatrains.

IV. The Calcutta edition of 1252 A.H., containing 438 quatrains, with an appendix of 54 more, which the editor says he found in a Bayaz, or common-place book, after the others had been printed.

V. The Paris edition of M. Nicolas, containing 464 quatrains.

VI. The Lucknow lithographed edition, containing 763 quatrains.

VII. A fragment of an edition begun by the late Mr. Blochmann, containing only 62 quatrains.

QUATRAINS OF OMAR KHAYYAM

1.

At dawn a cry through all the tavern shrilled, Arise my brethren of the revellers' guild, That I may fill our measure, full of wine Or e'er the measure of our days be filled.

1. Bl. C. L. N. A. I. J. Bl. considers this quatrain Mystical.

2.

Who was it brought thee here at nightfall, who?

Forth from the harem in this manner, who?

To him who in thy absence burns as fire, And trembles like hot air, who was it, who?

2. Bl. C. L. N. A. I. J. Bl. says the omission of the copulative _wa_ in line 4 of the original is characteristic of Khayyam. In line 4 I follow Blochmann's rendering. It may mean, when the wind blows.

3.

'Tis but a day we sojourn here below, And all the gain we get is grief and woe, And then, leaving life's riddles all unsolved, And burdened with regrets, we have to go.

3. N.

4.

Khaja! grant one request, and only one, Wish me G.o.d-speed, and get your preaching done; I walk aright, 'tis you who see awry; Go! heal your purblind eyes, leave me alone.

4. Bl. C. L. N. A. I. J.

5.

Arise! and come, and of thy courtesy Resolve my weary heart's perplexity, And fill my goblet, so that I may drink, Or e'er they make their goblets out of me.

5. Bl. C. L. N A. I. J. The heart is supposed to be the seat of reason.

Or ever and or e'er are both found in Elizabethan English. Abbot, Shakespearian Grammar, p. 89.

6.

When I am dead, with wine my body lave, For obit chant a baccha.n.a.lian stave, And, if you need me at the day of doom, Beneath the tavern threshold seek my grave.

6. Bl. C. L. N. A. I. J.

7.

Since no one can a.s.sure thee of the morrow, Rejoice thy heart to-day, and banish sorrow With moonbright wine, fair moon, for heaven's moon.

Will look for us in vain on many a morrow.