Omar Khayyám
The
Astronomer-Poet of Persia
By
Edward J. FitzGerald
I
have chosen for this entry to let FitzGerald speak in his own words. This is
the introductory essay which prefaces many versions of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, especially those that are not illustrated
and which compare the various versions which FitzGerald produced. This
particular form of the text is taken from a very nice American copy which my
sister gave to me this Christmas just passed, and which compares all five
versions of the poem with an array of commentaries.
FITZGERALD, Edward
(trans.), The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám,
Books Inc. Publishers, New York, NY, USA, n.d. (c.1910s?).
Octavo;
hardcover, with gilt spine-titling; 258pp., top edge dyed red. Spine
extremities mildly softened; previous owner’s ink inscription to the front free
endpaper; text block edges lightly toned. Lacks dustwrapper. Very good.
This
is the original introductory essay to the poem that followed in the wake of the
First Edition around 1868, and again in the Second Edition (1872), along with
emendations made after FitzGerald began copping flak from other translators,
especially the infamous M. Nicolas who became unreasonably incensed over
FitzGerald’s efforts. The little story about Omar and his friends that opens
the piece is pure fluff – it’s a nice tale but hardly true, and any scan of the
dates of those involved will reveal this fact. However, the real meat of the
work is FitzGerald’s assessment of Khayyam and his gentlemanly dismissal of
Nicolas’ objections. With all the academic to-ing and fro-ing that has gone on
over this poem since the late 1800s, I think it’s interesting to note that
FitzGerald had already made his position more than abundantly clear by the time
of his Second Edition; but obviously, those with a bee in their bonnets cannot
be bothered with the tiresome minutiae of Introductory material!
Anyone
even vaguely interested in Khayyam and his poem should take the time to read
this piece, so here it is in all its glory, complete with footnotes. FitzGerald
believed (reasonably, for his time) that everyone spoke French, so the bits in
that language were not translated in the text; I have done my best with my
creaky skills to provide the English forms and I apologise in advance for any faulty readings!
Omar
Khayyám was born at Naishápúr in Khorassán in the latter half of our Eleventh,
and died in 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 Nizám-ul-Mulk,
Vizier to Alp Arslán the Son, and Malik Shah the Grandson, of Toghrul Beg the
Tartar, who had wrested Persia from the feeble Successor of Mahmúd the Great,
and founded that Seljukian Dynasty which finally roused Europe into the
Crusades. This Nizám-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 Khorassán was the Imám Mowaffak of Naishápúr,
a man highly honoured 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 honour and happiness. For this cause did my father send me from Tús
to Naishápúr 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 favour 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 Khayyám, and the ill-fated Ben Sabbáh. 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 learned. Now Omar was
a native of Naishápúr, while Hasan Ben Sabbáh’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 Khayyám, “It is a universal belief that the pupils of the
Imám 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 will.” “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
Khorassán 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 an 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 Alamút, in the province of Rúdbar, 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 whether 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 Naishápúr. One of the countless victims of the Assassin’s
dagger was Nizám-ul-Mulk himself, the old school-boy friend.’1
‘Omar
Khayyám 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 really sincere in his refusal, he pressed him no
further, but granted him a yearly pension of 1200 mithkáls of gold, from the treasury of Naishápúr.
‘At
Naishápúr thus lived and died Omar Khayyám, “busied”, adds the Vizier, “in
winning knowledge of every kind, and especially in Astronomy, wherein he
attained a very high pre-eminence. Under the Sultanate of Malik Shah, he came
to Merv, and obtained great praise for proficiency in science, and the Sultan
showered favours upon him.”
‘When
Malik Shah determined to reform the calendar, Omar was one of the eight learned
men employed to do it, the result was the Jaláli
era (so called from Jalál-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 Zíji-Maliksháhí,’ and the French
have lately republished and translated an Arabic Treatise of his on Algebra.
‘His
Takhallus or poetical name (Khayyám) signifies a Tent-maker, and he is said to
have at one time exercised that trade, perhaps before Nizám-ul-Mulk’s
generosity raised him to independence. Many Persian poets similarly derive
their names from their occupations; thus we have Attár, “a druggist”, Assár,
“an oil presser”, etc.2 Omar himself alludes to his name in the
following whimsical lines:-
“Khayyám, 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 Bibliothèque, under Khiam.3-
‘“It
is written in the chronicles of the ancients that this King of the Wise, Omar
Khayyám, died at Naishápúr in the year of the Hegira, 517 (A.D. 1123); in
science he was unrivalled, - the very paragon of his age. Khwájah Nizámi of
Samarcand, who was one of his pupils, relates the following story: ‘I often
used to hold conversations with my teacher, Omar Khayyám, 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.4 Years after, when I chanced to revisit Naishápúr, 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 finding
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 “showered Favours 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 Sufi’s, whose Practice 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 Háfiz, 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 as 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 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 Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris. We know but of
one in England: No. 140 of the Ouseley MSS. at the Bodleian, written at Shiráz,
A.D. 1460. This contains but 158 Rubáiyát. 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.5
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:-
“Oh 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?”
The
Bodleian Quatrain pleads Pantheism by way of Justification.
“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 mis-read.”
The
Reviewer,6 to whom I owe the Particulars of Omar’s Life, concludes
his Review by comparing him to Lucretius, both as 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 unto 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 an 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
Theatre) discoloured 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 Rubáiyát (as, missing an Arabic
guttural, these Tetrastichs are more musically called) are independent Stanzas,
consisting of 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 Rubáiyát 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 endeavouring 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.
While
the second Edition of the 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 Rubáiyát, 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 Háfiz is supposed to do; in short, a Súfi Poet
like Háfiz and the rest.
I
cannot see reason to alter my opinion, formed as it was more than a dozen years
ago7 when Omar was first shown to me by one to whom I am indebted to
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.8 That he did 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 of
the Interpretation of the Poems given in his Notes. (See pp. xiii-xiv of his
Preface.) Indeed I hardly knew poor Omar was so far gone til his Apologist
informed me. For here we see that, whatever were the Wine that Háfiz 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 “hurlements.” And yet, whenever Wine,
Wine-bearer, &c., occur in the text – which is often enough – Mons. Nicolas
carefully annotates “Dieu,” “La Divinité,” &c.: so carefully
indeed that one is tempted to think that he was indoctrinated by the Súfi with
whom he read the Poems. (Note to Rub. ii, p.8.) A Persian would naturally wish
to vindicate a distinguished Countryman; and a Súfi to enrol him in his own
sect, which already comprises all the chief Poets of Persia.
What
historical Aurthority has Mons. Nicolas to show that Omar gave himself up “avec passion à l’étude de la philosophie
des Soufis”? (Preface, p. xiii.) The Doctrines of Pantheism, Materialism,
Necessity, &c., were not peculiar to the Súfi; 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
Rubáiyát of Mons. Nicolas’ own Edition Súf and Súfi 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 Divinité” –
by some succeeding Mystic? Mons. Nicolas himself is puzzled by some “bizarres” and “trop Orientales” allusions and images – “d’une sensualité quelquefois révoltante” indeed – which “les convenances” do not permit him to
translate; but still which the reader cannot but refer to “La Divinité”.9 No doubt also many of the Quatrains in
the Teheran, as in the Calcutta, Copies, are spurious; such Rubáiyát being the common form of
Epigram in Persia. But this, at best, tells as much one way as another; nay,
the Súfi, 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 observe 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 Bonhomme – 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 believed in the mysticism of Háfiz. It does not
appear there was any danger in holding and singing Súfi Pantheism, so long as
the Poet made his Salaam to Mohammed at the beginning and end of his Song.
Under such conditions Jeláluddin, Jámí, Attár, 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 Háfiz 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
Súfi; and the burden of Omar’s Song – if not Let us eat” – is assuredly – “Let
us drink, for To-morrow we die!” And if Háfiz 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 Súfi – and even something of a Saint –
those who please may so interpret his Wine and Cupbearer. 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 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 bragged more than he drank of it, in very defiance
perhaps of that Spiritual Wine which left its Votaries sunk in Hypocrisy or
Disgust.
Notes:
1
– Some of Omar’s Rubáiyát 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. Attár makes Nizám-ul-Mulk use the very words of his friend
Omar [Rub. xxviii.], “When Nizám-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.
3
– “Philosophe Musulman qui a vêcu en
Odeur de Sainteté dans sa Religion, vers la Fin du Premier et le Commencement
du Second Siècle,” (“[Khayyám was a] Muslim philosopher who lived in the
Odour of Sanctity of his Religion, towards the End of the First and the
Beginning of the Second Century...”) no part of which, except the “Philosophe”, can apply to our Khayyám.
4
– The rashness of the Words, according to D’Herbelot, consisted in being so
opposed to those of the Korán: “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 Dr. Hawkesworth – 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 on ‘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.’”
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 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
– This was written in 1868. W. Aldis Wright.]
9
– 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” (“reddening”, due to shame)
even by laymen in Persia – “Quant aux
termes de tendresse qui commencent ce quatrain, comme tant d’autres dans ce
recueil, nos lecteurs, habitués maintenant à l’étrangeté des expressions si
souvent employés par Khéyam pour rendre ses pensées sur l’amour divin, et à la
singularité de ses images trop orientales, d’un sensualité quelquefois
révoltante, n’auront pas de peine à se persuader qu’il s’agit de la Divinité,
bien que cette conviction soit vivement discutée par les moullahs musulmans et
même par beaucoup de laïques, qui rougissent véritablement d’une pareille
licence de leur compatriot à l’égard des choses spirituelles.”
(“As
for terms of endearment that begin this quatrain, like so many others in this
collection, our readers, now accustomed to the strange expressions so often
employed by Kheyam to outline his thoughts about God's love, and the
singularity of its overly-Oriental images, including a sometimes shocking
sensuality, will have no difficulty in being persuaded that this is of the
Godhead, although this belief is deeply discussed by Muslim mullahs and even by
many laymen who are truly ashamed of such license in their compatriot regarding
spiritual things.”)
