Herbage...

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.”

 

With this verse, Omar and FitzGerald play the egalitarian card. However, coming from two wildly different cultures, places and times as they did, their individual intentions regarding these lines were probably quite different.

What this verse is telling us is that it’s good to be free from obligation and duty, to drop the attitudes and behaviours that come from rank and position in society and to simply relax and accept everyone for who they are, not what they are. The location is specifically ambivalent – neither here nor there – a liminal space removing the individual from all context. Ease and tranquillity comes from the divesting of titles and the responsibility that accompanies them. Having discovered this equanimity within the world we can then feel sympathy for those who cling to such constructs.

From Omar’s perspective, there are subtle political ramifications to this verse. Remember that he lived in times riven by a theological divide between Sunni and Shi’ite orthodoxy (as the French say, plus ça change, plus ça meme chose) and both factions were wary of the Sufi mysticism that threatened to offer a third option. We know that Omar spent much of his life in fear of being charged with heresy and tried to fly beneath the radar on religious issues, but also that he couldn’t help speaking out on matters that he thought were important – and the Islamic schism was no less devastating in his day than it is in modern times.

 

With this in mind, the verse takes on a different character. Now it looks like a meeting between the powerful and the oppressed on neutral soil, and the beginnings of a mutual understanding that might possibly ensue as the result of a discussion divested of baggage. Now it sounds like a US-hosted, Middle East Peace Conference. Heavy stuff indeed.

The last line is still a bit cryptic. Why should we pity Sultan Mahmud? Without getting into who he was or whether he even existed, the answer is soon clear: in Omar’s day, there was both a spiritual and a temporal ruler – the Caliph and the Sultan. Given that the culture was a theocracy – rule by religious law – it’s not hard to guess that the Caliph had an unequal hold over the Sultan, especially in the case of a governmental impasse. So, the Sultan is to be pitied because he is not free to rule on his own terms; he has to toe a dogmatic religious line. In a sense - and it’s a long bow to draw but not too much of a stretch - Omar seems to be indicating a plan of attack in negotiating an end to hostilities: the Sultan, in that he is oppressed by religious doctrine too, is your potential ally.

No wonder Omar tried to keep things on the down-low.

In FitzGerald’s case the lines are less incendiary, but they still take a swing at his current orthodoxy. In this instance, the verse can be taken as blow against the British class system.

We have to remember, of course, that FitzGerald was very well off; he had no money troubles or issues about having to work, or indeed any need to justify his swanning about translating ancient texts, growing flowers and mucking about in boats. From all accounts, he was a very easy-going chap, likable, witty and self-effacing. Like Omar, he had strong religious convictions, but these were of a nebulous and unstructured character – he didn’t know what he believed in, but he sure knew what he wouldn’t condone in terms of faith. Mostly he objected to the religious options that directly surrounded him: Anglican Christianity (both high and low) and Catholicism. In his later years, he stopped attending any form of religious observation, a decision which met with disapproval from the local pastor. Calling upon FitzGerald to enquire the reason for his truancy from church, he was told that the decision was not lightly taken and that it was final. The pastor objected strongly and was shown the door with the following words:

"Sir, you might have conceived that a man does not come to my years of life without thinking much of these things. I believe I may say that I have reflected [upon] them fully as much as yourself. You need not repeat this visit."

Robert Graves, amongst others, has made much of FitzGerald’s sexuality, his ill-considered and soon-aborted marriage, his close relationship with Joseph Fletcher. It’s possible to read these events as red flags indicating a certain proclivity; however, I, for one, believe that people are much more complex than a surface reading would indicate. I believe that FitzGerald was a much deeper thinker than he is usually given credit for and that he was an intensely private person. He wasn’t the type to shy away from injustice; he also wasn’t the sort who would detonate bombs beneath the Houses of Parliament to provoke societal change. He couldn’t change the accident of his birth but that didn’t mean he needed to rub anyone’s nose in it or to martyr himself to assuage anyone’s outrage or his own guilt. He did what he could and kept things quiet and steady; he helped his family and friends, hard-working men of the land (or sea), and his own staff (I don’t for a minute believe those pound-note bookmarks were any kind of an accident).

 

With this verse, FitzGerald seems to be saying that people are more important than their position in society, their occupation, or their title. Like Omar he advocates a meeting outside the general run of life, on neutral soil, where a one-to-one conversation can take place. He’s talking about getting to know one another, devoid of society’s artificial constraints. If a Captain of Industry could undertake to do this, he seems to be saying, then he would pity having to return to his Throne. And we know that this is exactly what FitzGerald did in his own life.

 

*Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna in Afghanistan (998-1030 AD) founded a mighty empire including Khorasan, Transoxiana, Cashmere, and a large part of northwestern India. His father having been a slave, Mahmud's ascent was spectacular indeed. Known as a literary luminary it has been suggested that he was rather a great kidnapper of poets and other men of letters!