OMAR

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3495, 3 November 1926, Page 12

OMAR

[To the Editor.] Sir, —Although I do not wish to enter into the controversy between •Hunter of the East’ and ‘Carpe Diem" ! would very much like to write a few words on a certain point in this controversy, if you will kindly allow me a little space. ’Hunter of the East' seems very decided in his idea that Omar's -allusions to 'wine' in his Rubaiyat, wore to the ‘Wine of Heaven’. It is known that a great part of Urn Rubaiyat must be taken metaphorically, but has 'Hunter of the East’ not become a little too imaginative when ho takes him in this light? Surely references to the earthly ‘grape’ and, ‘vine’ come often enough in the Rubaiyat? Omar writes plainly, 'Bo merry with the fruitful grape,’ and in the next stanza: — “You Know, my Friends, how long since in my House For a new marriage I did make carouse:

Divorced old barren Reason from my bod, And took the Daughter of the Vino to Spouse. 1 ’ What issue could be more clear? However I am only a reader of the ‘Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam;’ let us go to the recognised English authority on this great work, the learned man who translated it, Edward Fitzgerald, he says in his 'Life of Omar Khayyam;—“lt has been said that his worldly desires, however, wore not so exorbitant; and he very likely takes a humorous pleasure in exaggerating them above that intellect in whose exercise he must have found great pleasure, though not in a theological direction. However this may be, his worldly pleasures are what they profess to be without any pretence at divine allegory; his wine is the veritable juice of the grape; his tavern,, where it was to be had; his saki, the flesh and blood that poured it out tor him; all which, and where the roses to want of this world, or even to exwere in bloom, was all he professed pect of Paradise.” If this statement of ‘Hunter of the East’ was right, I do not think the Rubaiyat would have been so popular as it is. Nor had its readers thought they had been under a delusion would it have the same savour with a great many. It certainly would not with me!—X am, ONE OF ‘THAT EASTERN LOT,’