OMAR KHAYYAM.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 508, 15 May 1909, Page 9

OMAR KHAYYAM.

Tho papers by.the last English mail contaui • much iconcerning FitzGerald, whose centenary had,come round. Wo take • jg 'discussion of;the famous Rubaiyat. from *ithe';''.StaridardV" article on Fitzgerald :— . f-It 'was • written,Xsays the .''.Standard. by. . '..the Moving -Finger," twhich. moves oh'irre-' Tocably,' that FitzGerald should achievefamo both for himself and for a man . of science '• and. lettersi'whb'', died .' and' Was "buncd i'at Naishapur, in Khorassan, • nearly t'nreo hun- ■ '■- . ? rod years .earlier. / /.One' may "reasonably' bo- j lievo that hadjit not. been for tho ;said •Finger and: a little volumo published by l vvFitzGerald in 1859' neither, his own name nor. that of lUiwaja • Omam Omar ibn Ibrahim al . v .Khayyami .would.'convoy. the' faintest* im- . ...pression to the .many enthusiastic! people who aro now honouring 'thoir memory. !Aa it is, the astrorionur.-paet of. Persia and .-his Eng- . lish paraphrascr. Instead: of bomg- fofgotteii, . ' enjoy an -staMished reputation, . and ' tho story of how they attained/it is :aniong tho curiosities' of literature.-. : . Strangely •• enough,? it was not till somo : years after FitzGerald's' :.death that learned -research brought to .light .more than a few. trivial !and in most cases Adoiibtful ; facts jjonMrnng, tho life and cliarac- . ter of Omar Khayyam, to use: the appellation— usually .mispronounced— by which he.is best, known.;.' Nor was it owing to the -pious - zeal ;.of tho 'Omar Khayyam Club,.'or primar-. . ljy to the enterprise and.,acutcness. of Eng- , lish Orientalists, .that so many' knots have been unravelled by. tho ,;way,v'; To. Professor Valentin ■JChojcovski, a 'llussian scholar, thanks are chiefly due.for, a very considerable ■"..'■addition W- what- FitzGerald''knew about- tho ' tentmaker.though also, of course, to Mr. : 'Heron:.:Alian/;.-wht«o.'.c'ditioftS;.of!-th6'{Persian test, if not immaculate', are both, elegant and

valuablo, and to Professor Browne and Dr. Donison Ross, whoi made the St. ; Petersburg professor's I'iscoveries accessiblo to English readers and carried them a few dogrces fur- , ther. : v, . .'' ' . Whon .t'itzGorald wroto his profaco to the ltubaiyat, Jjo : had" littlo. to go upon savo an essay by his friend Uowell, in tho "Calcutta Keview" for March, 1850, and. the authorities cited, therein.' - The most' notable of theso. was. the so-called: "Testament" of tho JNizam-ul-Mulk, a Persian Machiavolli,' who, if tradition can bo .-trusted; was a fellowstudent both of .Omar, Khayyam. and the grand -master 0f... the - sect of Assassins, a distant: progenitor of the Aga Khan, whose ideas: on - Indian - reform are so '. frequently, quoted to-day. .There.'' aro grave doubts, however, as to; tho authenticity of Nizam-u!-Muik's"."Testament," and,the work was certainly not compiled in its present; form bofore ; the fifteenth ccntury, or about two hundred years after its reputed' author's death. Cowoll, followed by EitzGcrald; also told, from still later texts, tho story of Omar's: prophecy that his tomb would be in":a spot"."where tho north wind may;scatter I'oscs ovc.r it.'' Alas! that spring should vanish with tho roso; . and alas 1 members of the Omar Khayyam. Club will doubtless add, that'these particular/roses must vanish in tho light of the later criticism. For in .iho "Four • Discourses" of Nizami of Samarkand, tho .first to relate the anecdote, the roses become, blossoms : of "tho pear and the peach.. Omar, was, staying with a,' friend ill the city of Balk; and there, at a house, in tile street of the slavc-sollers,. Nizami-held converse with him. "Jly grave," said the poet, ''will be in a "spot whero the .trees will shed their blossoms on me twico. a year.". . Aid when Nizami, went to Naishaptir, some years after Omar had veiled his countenance in'tho dust, be found the tomb at tho foot of a garden wall, over which pear trees. and peach. trees —roses aro not mentioned—thrust, their." branches, . and on the, grave had fallen so. many blossoms that it., was hidden beneath" thejn; wher'oupon Nizami: fell to weeping, for nowhere hid he beheld Omar's like. .. . . ■:? ■ . *It is scarcely necessary, perhaps, to refer at any length to. the .story of the schoolboy vow-, sworn by , Omar,'.ancl-'his two companions, one of whoni'. became' famous as the Vizir; God," says the-Asiatic. scribe) V.-'illumihate; his tomb and exalt his statipn :in; paradise.": . The, only point to be 'noted is that this..' anecdote, which seems -to inwlve.-gravo chronological difficulties, has bcen; ; traced .to: a-'history of .the Mongols written ; in the fourteenth century by Kashid-ud-din. "...'V' . i The reference to "Khaiam in. D Herbe? lot's-'. "BibliotheqUo Oriental,"- v. printed in Paris in 1907, 'may bp foiuid- in,. WtzGcTald s preface; wherei also, mention-is made of what is said about ;liim 'in'-Hyde's'i "Veterum Persorum lteligio." , FitzGerald, however,'* does not seem, to have , come across some rather strong remarks al>out Oiyar in Elphinstone's "Caubul," published in the early part of the last century. Elpbinstone .spoke of '.'the'.old Persiin poet, Kheiooin,'.whose works exhibit such'specimens of impiety as probably never were equalled in, any other language. Khcio6m,": he added; .'.'dwells particularly on '.the s :existence of evil- arid taxes *the.' Supreme Being with the introduction of it in terms which can scarcely be believed." Nor does FitzGerald appear to-have seen the account of a visit paid: by James Eraser •to Omar's tomb in 1821. .That traveller found it enclosed in a ' garden' onco laid out : with tanks, fountains, arid parterres, then all gone to decay, thougu a few fruit trees and -five or six fine old pines lent shade to the place, and sheltered a' multitude Pf rooks; Thei pre-" sent condition.of the tomb has been described by Lord Curzon and Colonel Yate. ; ;But in,the absence 'of-biographical details—; and there'!are: fow that cannot'bo found in almoit any; eclition'of FitzGerald's poem—it is niitural'-.tp turu.ttp Omar Khayyam's writings as' aii aid td,''a. proper conception of the man 'hl^eif-i'''' ! An(l:hefe we are at once confronted with tho-fact,-' gradually becoming more and more,"manifest, thati.he wrote vory .few of the 1 verses attributed .'to him.': At any Tate,. many of the quatrains, can bo traced to earlier -writers';/'.?)?-others 'the paternity' is highly . doubtfulwhile of tie remainder riot a few ;bear such .clear traces of other, influence that ;.itris impossible; to accept them as evidenco that Omar, as-some people have thought, was -remarkable- for a daringly original, mind. jMuch of his,free thinking is to be foiind, expressed in /strangely similar terms, in the -Arabic, poems of Abu ,'1 aal Ma'arri, born -in.Syria,, in the lattor part of the tenth century. Nor-is, the resemblance confincd to an approximation of their views on the higher ■problems'of mortal existence. l'hero are parallels of. stylo and treatment which.. are equally-striking'. ' : Every one knows the verse in FitzGerald's Omar: • Arid (his .reviving herb ,w;ho_se : tender green Pledges the; river-lip on which lean—. ' Ah, ; lean upon it lightly! for who knows From what,onco lovely' lip:it springs unseen. .. .Professor Browne gives us a translation of what' Abu 'l Ala had written:— ■ .' ■' Tread lightly, for . a thousand hearts unseen ' Might.-now'.bo beating on this misty green; Here are . the herbs'that; once were pretty cheeks, ' . ' • Hero the,remains of those-that once have been. ; Mention has been made of Avicennajvknown to Orientalists as Abu Ali lbn Sina, on whoso tomb at Hamadan: is written: ''The great philosopher, ibn'Sini, is dead:;his books .on philosophy have'not taught him the art of, good living, nor his books on medicine the art of livin" long. '.' To ; him -there is ovory ■reason to believo must be credited tho quatrain which FitzGerald. ronders:—• "Up, from earth's centre .by the seventh-gate : I rose, and on the throne, of' Saturn sate,. , ' VAnd many a knot - unravelled by the road, But not master.-knot of ' human fate." ..

■ Of,cour3e,'the discovery of an earlier text' of Omar'Khayyam's.poetry might,settle ojnee and for all his claims to a_ respectable modicum of what is ascribed to him. : But for the present it can-only be ..said that,-though ho no doubt. wrote, verses :when not.- engaged ,in scientific pursuits, the "Divan," or collection, of poetry' which bears his'name, in all likeli-hood-contains much that/ rightfully belongs toothers. From the"Divan" FitzGerald tpok 'as much: as • suited. his purposej rearranged the quatrains,' "mashed" and paraphrased them, and so produced an ordered poem which : is far more his own than "the divine Omar's 1 ,"; as. enthusiasts P f re pleased to style that worthy. They are probably. as far from tho mark as Carlylo,; who summed up Khayyam as a "Mahometan'blackguard."