SELECTED QUATRAINS FROM FITZGERALD'S

Translation of Omar Khayyam's quatrains, considerably altered by Sir Tollemache Sinclair, In this altered translation the lines are rhymed, whilst Fitzgerald does not rhyme the third line and has the same rhyme for the other three. Sometimes all four lines have the

same rhyme. ,,

The edition which I possess consists of 75 stanzas or 300 Imes. I have omitted nearly all the many stanzas in praise of drink. Fitzgerald has taken as great liberties with Omar Khayyam's « Rubaivat » as I have taken with his translation.

The substantives are always printed by Fitzgerald with a capital letter. The conclusion arrived at by M' Heron Allen after a long and painstaking study of the matter and an examination of 5.23o quatrains (20.940 linesj ascribed to Omar Khayyam in the original Persian was that of Fitzgerald's quatrains : 49 are faithful and beautiful paraphrases of single quatrains to be found in the Ouseley or Calcutta MSS or in both; 44 are traceable to more than one quatrain and may therefore be termed the composite quatrains: two were inspired by quatrains found by Fitzgerald only in Nicolas French prose text ; two were quatrains reflecting the whole spirit of the original poem; two are traceable exclusively to the influence of the Montigut Tayr of Farrdud Din-Altar, and two primarily inspired by Omar were influenced by the odes of Hafiz.

Omar was the greatest mathematician and astronomer of his age, but whatever light his science could throw on the how of the universe, the tvhy, the whence, and the tvhither remained as inscrutable as ever (From the Pall Mall Gazette, March 2d^^ 1901).

It is strange that M-" Whinfleld did not find more than 2.000 lines out of more than 20.000 that he cared to translate and that Fitzgerald only translated a fraction of the number which M-" Whinfleld adapted, and that there were only 12 stanzas which both of them selected. I had the pleasure of M»- Whinfield's acquaintance, and it seems to me that his translation of a part of the Rubaiyat is more attractive than Fitzgerald's and that his selection of stanzas is much superior to Fitzgerald's. M. Whinfleld gave me his permission to alter and rhyme the third lines of his translation.

Each Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon

Turns Ashes or it prospers and anon,

Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face

Lights but a little Hour and leaves no Trace.

Ah my Belov'd one, fill the cup that clears

Today of past Regrets and future Fears !

Tomorrow ! Why ! Tomorrow I may be

Myself with Yesterday's Eternity.

For some we prized, the loveliest and the best,

That for his Harvest Death has seized with zest.

Their course have finished a short while before

And one by one now rest for evermore.

And we who now make merry in the Room

They left when Summer dresses in new bloom.

We must alas ! beneath the Couch of Earth

Descend ourselves and leave to heirs our hearth.

Ah! make the most of time we yet may spend

Before we too into the Dust descend :

« Dust unto Dust and under Dust to lie.

Sans Urn, sans song, sans singer : thus we die !

Alike for those who for Today prepare,

And those that for some hoped Tomorrow care,

A loud voice from the Tower of Darkness cries :

« Fools ! your Reward's not here nor in the Skies !»

482 LARMKS ET EOURIHES

Why all the Saints and Sages who discussed

Of the two Worlds so wisely they are thrust,

Like foolish Prophets forth, their Words to scorn

Are scattered, and their mouths are stopped — forlorn.

Myself when young did eagerly frequent

Doctor and Saint and heard great Argument

About it and on Fate, but evermore

As I went in came out by the same Door.

With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow

And with mine own hand sought to make it grow,

And this was all the Harvest that I gained :

I came like Rain, like Winds I go much pained.

Into this Universe and Why not knowing

Nor Whence like Water by some chance o'erflowing

And out of it as Wind along the Waste

I know not where without my Will — in haste.

What! without asking Whither — hurried Hence? And without asking Hither — hurried Whence? Oh! many a Cup of this forbidden Wine Must drown the Memory of all Griefs of Mine.

' Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh wide Gate I rose and on the Throne of Saturn sate. And many a Knot unravelled by the Road, But not the Secret of our next Abode.

There was the Door to which I found no Key, There was the Veil through which I might not see, Of me and Thee some little talk awhile There was, then after came our funeral pile. When you and I behind the Veil are passed, Oh ! what a long, long while this World will last ! Which of our Coming and Departure heeds, As the Sea's Self would note its dying weeds. A moment's Halt, a momentary Taste, Of Being from the Well amid the Waste, And lo ! the Phantom Caravan has reached The Nothing it set out from as We preached. Would you the moments of Existence spend About the Secret — quick about it. Friend, A Hair perhaps divides the False and True, And on that Life, no doubt, depends for you. A Hair perhaps divides the False and True, Yes, and a single word is all the clue. Could you but find it to the Treasure Room And to the Master too of our dread Doom.

Whose secret Presence through Creation's Veins Running Quicksilverlike eludes your Pains, Taking all shapes from small to great, and lures They change and perish All, but He endures. A moment here, then back behind the Fold Immers'd in Darkness round the Drama rolled. Which for the Pastime of Eternity He doth Himself contrive, enact and see. But if in vain down on the flinty Floor Of Earth and up to Heaven's unopening Door You gaze Today while You are You, Ah ! then Tomorrow You'll be lost to mortal Ken.

LARMES KT SOUniRES 483

Waste not your Hour nor in the vain Pursuit Of This and That endeavour and dispute. Better be Jocund with the Grape's rich Juice Than long for bitter Fruit to joy obtuse.

Why be this juice the growth of God who dare Decry the twisted Tendril as a Snare, A Blessing, we should use it, should we not? And if a Curse, then from whom was't got ?

I must abjure the Balm of Life, I must, Scared by some After Reckoning ta'en on trust, Or lured with Hope of some Diviner Drink To fill the cup when I to dust fast sink.

Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise ! One thing at least is certain : This Life flies, One thing is certain, and the rest's a Snare : The flower when blown dies, and its Place is bare. Strange, is it not ? That of the Myriads, who Before Us passed the Door of Darkness through. Not One returned to tell us of the Road Which we must travel to our dread Abode.

The moving Finger writes and having writ

Moves on nor all your Piety nor Wit

Can lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all your tears wash out a word or sign.

And that inverted Bowl they call the sky,

Whereunder crawling, cooped, we live and die,

Lift not your hands thereto for Help, for It

As blindly moves as you by Fate's stern Writ.

Yesterday this Day's Madness did prepare,

Tomorrow's Silence, Triumph or Despair.

Drink ! for you know not Where you go, nor why,

Drink, for you know not Where you go, nor L

What ! out of senseless Nothing to provoke

A conscious something to resent the Yoke

Of unpermitted Pleasure under Pain,

If broke, of endless Penalties and Stain !

What! from His helpless Creature be repaid

Pure Gold for what He lent him dross allayed,

Sue for a Debt he never did contract,

And cannot pay, Ah ! what an unjust Act.

Oh ! Thou, who didst with Pitfall and with Gin

Beset the Road I was to wander in.

Wilt Thou with Predestined sin tempt me.

Then smite me for my Fall? why, I can't see.

Oh ! Thou, who man of baser Earth didst make,

And e'en in Paradise devised the snake,

For all the sins wherewith all Those who live

Are punished, Man's Forgiveness take and give.

As under Cover of departing Day

Slunk Hunger-Stricken Fasting-Time away.

Once more within the Potter's House, alone,

I stood, surrounded by Clay-Shapes which moan.

Shapes of all sorts and sizes, great and small,

That stood along the Floor and by the Wall,

And some loquacious vessels were, and some

Listened perhaps, but suffering much, were dumb.

484 LARUES ET SOURIRES

Said One among Them « Surely not in vain

My substance of the common Earth was ta'en,

And to this Figure moulded to be crushed,

Or trampled back to Clay when my tongue's hushed.

Then said a second « Ne'er a peevish Boy

Would break the Bowl from which he drank in Joy,

And He that made this Vessel with His Hand

Will not in wrath let it from Heaven be banned.

After a momentary silence spake

A wretched Vessel of ungainly Make :

« They sneer at me for leaning all awry,

What ! did the Potter's Skill then from Him fly? »

« Why, — said another — some there are who tell

Of One who threatens he will send to Hell

The luckless Pots He marred in making, Pish !

He's just, and we'll be blest as we would wish.

Oh ! that some Kind wing'd Angel e'er too late

Would snatch the yet unfolded Roll of Fate,

And make the stern Recorder otherwise

Write or erase it 'neath far happier Skies.

Ah, Love ! could You and I with Him conspire *

To grasp this sorry scheme of Things entire

Would we not shatter it to Bits and Then

Remould it to the Heart's Desire again ?

To estimate my adaptation of the Rubaiyat as translated by Fitzgerald and Whinfield, on comparing them with the hleral translation in prose, I quote the two following quatrains :

(Prose.) Were you as wise as Ari«totle, as potent as Roman Cœsar, or monarch of Cathay, I should bid you drink in the cup of Djemshed, for the grave is the end of all. Were you Bahram himself, the tomb is your final abode.

(Whinfield.) Though you should sit in sage Aristo's room Or rival Cœsar on his throne of Rum, Drain Djemshed's goblet for your end's the tomb, Yes, were you Bahram's self, your end's the tomb.

(My adaptation.) If you should sit in Aristotle's room.

Or rival Cœsar when he ruled o'er Rome, Drain Pleasure's chalice, for your end's the tomb, E'en for a king the grave's his final home.

Fitzgerald did not translate this quatrain, I am therefore unable to compare witli histranslation.

Since Life flies, what matter whether it be sweet or bitter? Since the soul must escape, what matter whether it be at Naishapur or Babylon? Drink, then, for long after you and I are dust, the moon will pass from her last to her first quarter and from her first to her last.

(Whinfield.)

When life is spent, what's Balk or Naishapore?

What's sweet or bitter, when the cup runs o'er? |

Come, drink ! full many a moon will wax and wane

In times to come, when we are here no more.

' it will be observed that in this stanza Fitzgerald rhymes the first and second and third anc fourth lines precisely as I have done with all his stanzas, and does not leave the third line as usua' without a rhyme.

LARMES ET SOUniRES 4<S5

(My adaptation.) Whether in youth or when our life's near done, Whether the cup with sweet or bitter run, The wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, The Leaves of Life keep faUing and ne'er stop.

(Fitzgerald.) Whether at Naishapur or Babylon, Whether the cup with sweet or bitter run, The wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, The leaves of Life keep falling one by one.

SOME TRANSLATIONS OF OMAR KHAYYAMS RUBAIYAT

The Chief interpieter at the French Embassy in Persia. iM"" Dole, in his work on the Rubaiyat, says of Nicolas French translation that it «contains 464 Rubaiyats (or quatrains) copied from the Teheran lithographed edition together with a prose translation accompanied by an extraordinary number of notes. It must be confessed that M. Nicolas versions are often flat and unsatisfactory...

He is open to the severer charge of frequent inaccuracy and he is on the whole an untrustworthy guide. « The quatrains in the Rubaiyat » follow one another not in accordance with any logical sequence of thought, but simply as the alphabetical ending of the rhyming syllabes chances to bring them together ». Any poem, requiring a dictionary or glossary, is unsatisfactory, and no prose translation of a poem is pleasing. The version of Mr. Nicolas from which I here quote is in prose.

Sometimes, according to Mr. Dole, the last words of three lines are monotononsly the same which added to the want of a rhyme to the third line, which has a most désagréable effect to the ear and is a double and intolerable prosodie fault because a word cannot rhyme even once to itself, far less twice.

The failure to rhyme in the third line is more distressing to the ear than the worst false note in music and sets one's teeth on edge, especially in those cases where the second hne rhymes on the same word as the first line, and the climax of discord is reached when all the lines rhyme on the same word.

Pope did not think it necessary or desirable to translate Homer's Hiad into Hexameters ' which vary in length from 13 to 18 syllables and why should translators of the Rubaiyat render it in the ear-splitting Persian system of only rhyming 3 lines in a quatrain.

By enormousty abridging the Rubaiyat, translators have as much improved the quatrains they have retained as milk is improved by making it into cream, or the Koh-t-Noor diamond by diminishing it largely so as to provide new and suitable facets.

Here is a specimen of 3 rhymes of the same word in a quatrain : Pagoda Katabu, both are temples of true service. The tellpeal is the hymning music of true service; The Mihrab and the Church, the Rosary and Cross In truth are one and all but tokens of good service.

Here are a few of M. Nicolas prose translations of quatrains in the Rubaiyat.

Nous n'avons éprouvé que chagrin et malheur dans ce monde qui nous sert un instant d'asile. Hélas ! aucun problème de la création ne nous y a été expliqué et voilà que nous quittons le cœur plein de regret (de ne rien avoir appris sur ce sujet).

Mon tour d'existence s'est écoulé en quelques jours. Il est passé comme passe le vent du désert. Aussi tant qu'il me restera un souffle de vie, il y a deux jours dont je ne m'inquic terai jamais, c'est le jour qui n'est pas encore venu et celui qui est passé.

' La Bible contient cet hexamètre :

Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. Voici un autre hexamètre de la Bible ;

Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? L'effet de ces hexamètres répétés plusieurs fois n'est pas mélodieux à l'oreille ! Voici un pentamètre :

Theyre ail a nation of | fools, | that is the | reason of it.

0 mon pauvre cœur, puisque ton sort est d'être meurtri jusqu'au sang par le chagrin, puisque la nature veut que tu sois chaque jour accablé d'un nouveau tourment, alors ô âme! dis-moi ce que tu es venu faire dans mon corps, dis, puisque tu dois enfin le quitter un jour.

0 Khâyam 1 pourquoi tant de deuil pour un péché commis ? Quel soulagement plus ou moins grand trouves-tu à te tourmenter ainsi? Celui qui n'a point péché ne jouira jamais de la douceur du pardon. C'est pour le péché que le pardon existe; dans ce cas, quelle crainte peux-tu avoir?

Tu as parcouru le monde, eh bien ! tout ce que tu y as vu n'est rien, tout ce que tu y as vu tout ce que tu as entendu n'est également rien. Tu es allé d'un univers à l'autre, tout cola n'est rien ; tu t'es recueilli dans un coin de ta chambre, tout cela n'est rien, rien.

Je ne suis digne ni de l'enfer ni du séjour céleste ; Dieu sait de quelle terre il m'a pétri . Je suis hérétique comme un derviche, laid comme une femme perdue ; je n'ai ni religion, ni fortune, ni espérance du Paradis.

PUATRAIN 63 :

Si je bois du vin, ce n'est pas pour ma propre satisfaction; ce n'est pas pour commettre du désordre ou pour m'abstenir de religion : non, c'est pour respirer un moment en dehors de moi-même. Aucun autre motif ne me sollicite à boire et à m'ennuyer.

On affirme qu'il y aura, qu'il y a même un enfer. C'est une assertion erronée ; on ne saurait y ajouter foi, car s'il existait un enfer pour les amoureux et les ivrognes, le paradis serait dès demain aussi vide que le creux de ma main.

Lorsque Dieu a confectionné la boue de mon corps, il savait ce que sera le résultat de mes actes. Ce n'est pas sans ses ordres que je commets les péchés dont je suis coupable : dans ce cas, pourquoi au jour dernier me brûler dans l'enfer?

0 mon Dieu ! tu es miséricordieux, et la miséricorde c'est de la clémence. Pourquoi donc le premier pécheur a-t-il été mis hors du paradis terrestre? Si tu me pardonnes parce que je t'ai obéi, ce n'est point de la miséricorde. La miséricorde existerait si tu me pardonnais, tout pécheur que je suis.

Je n'ai pas trouvé d'autres quatrains qui me plaisent que ces dix dans les premiers 102 de Nicolas, et dans mon opinion ils ne sont pas si bien choisis que la plupart de ceux que "Whinfield et Fitzgerald ont traduits. Il omet surtout les 8 quatrains sur le Potier (Dieu), qui me paraissent les plus intéressants de tous les quatrains.