OMAR KHAYYAM AND HIS " RUBAIYATS."

Otago Witness, Issue 2373, 24 August 1899, Page 59

OMAR KHAYYAM AND HIS " RUBAIYATS."

J sent my soul through the Invisible, Some letter of that after life to spell : And by-and-bye my Soul returned to me, And answer'd " I myself am Heav n and Hell." It does not always take a big book to jmake a big stir, and "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" is a very tiny book indeed. .What is here rendered by the loving hand Qf Edward Fitzgerald into melodious English verse may easily be read in an hour, though the thoughtful reader will incline to go back for reperusal during many another hour. The little book has made its stir, too, no mistaking that, for not only has all the world of literature been discussing it, the wider world outside, from gutter-fiddler to duke and millionaire, has been having its say also. Was it not only the other day that one of those gentlemen whose lives are consecrated to the making of " copy " for the papers published a conversation he had had in London with a peripatetic street-vendor of astounding pennyworths, and was the subject which, called forth this interesting dialogue not Omar Khayyam of Naishapur and his Rubaiyat? And a capital subject, too, for a talk, ! is this little book of Eastern verse. Those (and they are many and wise in their generation) who seek to find the essences of things eternal and remote without digging unduly deep and in wrong places for them should be most grateful to Fitzgerald for the gift he has brought them. Brief as are the utterances here given, yet do they cover the whole of life, and enforce (a very needful thing also) modesty in matters supposed to affect; our interests when life, for us, is no more: Oh, threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise! One thing at least is certain — this Life flies, One thing is certain, and the rest is Lies ; The Flower that once has blown for ever dies. Omar Khaj'yam was born at Naishapuv in Khorassan in the latter half of our eleventh and died within the first quarter of our twelfth centuiy. So he cannot be described as a pessimistic outcome of modern and too analytic science. iTet pessimist he was, though far enough removed iv temper from the modern indulgent in that peculiar luxury. The story of his life has a truly Oriental flavour about it as compiled in brief compass by the translator, and this must be read in the book itself to be well understood. But I may just mention that in youth Omar was one of three young student friends, reading the Koran, and listening to the wise words of a famous teacher of that time. The friends had much in common one with another, and as is the wont of youth, thought such a condition might well last throughout life. It was believed that pupils of the great teacher at whose feet they . dajly sat would all attain to fortune, and, with a certain amount of caution, they j accepted this belief. At the suggestion of one of their number each pledged himself to a vow that should fortune ft II to him I and not the rest, he would share it equally ! with the others, reserving no pre-eminence i for himself. This pledge made, they soon ! after parted, going on their separate ways, j That one of the three who tells the story — Nizam ul Mulk, went from Khorassan to Transoxiana, and wandered to Ghazni and Cabul ; and, when he returned, was invested with office and rose to be administrator of affairs during the Sultanate of Sultan Alp Arslau. Years rolled on, and both his old school friends found him out and came to claim a share in his good fortune according to the schcol-day vow. The Vizier was generous, and kept his word with joy. Like "any modern politician well in power, lie found it an easy matter to place one of his friends in a good Government billet. This was Hasan Ben Sabbah, who having got a footing, sought to improve it by Court intrigue, :md. failing in a base attempt to supplant his benefactor, was disgraced and fell. After many mishaps and wanderings Hasan became head of the Persian sect of Ismailians, who under his strong guidance became a terror and a scourge to the Mohammedan world. It is still disputed whether the word assassin which they have Jeft in the language of modern Europe is derived from the hashish their favourite opiate, or from t'«e name of their leader, the erstwhile student of Naishapur. Certain it is that one of the countless victims of this great assassin's danger was Nizam ul Mulk himself, the old schoolboy friend and well-acting benefactor. " Omar Khayyam 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 was really sincere in his refusal, he pressed him no further, but granted him a yearly pension of 1200 mithkals of gold from the treasury of Naishapur. "At Naishapur thus lived and died Omar Khayyam, ' busied.' adds the Vizier. in 'winning knowledge of every kind, and especially in astronomy, wherein he attained to a very high pre-eminence. Under the Sultanate of Malik Shah, lie obtained great praise for his 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 Jalali era (so called from Ja}ftl-ud-din, one of che 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 Ziji-Maliltshihi, nrd the French iavp lately republished and translated an Aralm- Treatise of L"; on aljrbra." His works, both |j(ic!irc»l and have been but iP-pievi\<.a by la.i counpryvxm, wiio to ibis dw. htfwtvei, have

continued to wrangle over his utterances. Like many another intellectual giant, Omar in his lifetime was looked upon askance by both priests .and populace, but, basking in the sunshine of the Sultan's wellmerited favour, he could sing and philosophise in an atmosphere of serenity. So he sang of friendship and love ; of wine and its joys ; and of the problem of the human mind in musical verse that has lasted long and will yet last long. And if the wine you drink, the lip you press, End in what all begins and ends in — yes ; Think then you are to-day what yesterday You were — to-morrow you shall not be less. Tradition holds Omar to have been, during his early wander-years, occupied as a tentmaker, but the literal truth of this is extremely debatable. Khayyam, his Takhallus, or poetical name, signifies a tentmaker, and in a few whimsical lines written in after life he alludes to the name : Khayyam, 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 ha 3 sold him for nothing! Over Omar's attitude towards the " popular faith" of his time there has been much dispute, and will be, both in his own country and elsewhere. Scholars will never agree about it, because each considers the matter from a different standpoint, for which, if none can be great ly blamed none need be greatly praised. What to one seems matter of fact, seems to another metaphysic. All we have to do is to do as the others, whether we be scholars learned in the tongues of the East or not. To me it seems that Omur was at any rate an exceptionally brightminded rebel, such as tho Pharisaism and hypocrisy of all times and climes force into revolt Take these lines as part of his mind on the subject: Alike for those who fov To-day prepare, And those that after some To-morrow stare, A muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries, Fools! your reward is neither here nor there. Why, all the saints and sages who discuss' A Of tho two worlds so wisely— they are thiust Like foolish prophets forth; their word 3to acorn Are scatter'd, and their raouihs are stopt with dust. Myself when youngs did eagerly freqiient Doctor and saint, and heard great argument About it and about- but evermore Came out by the same door where, in I went. With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow, j And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow; And this wa9 all the harvest that I reap'd — " I came- like Water, and like Wind I go."' j Where is the man of marked character \ or strong individuality ever o be found conforming lo what are vaguely called the beliefs of his time? Where is the period that does not show the wheels of true religion clogged and bestained by canting insinceritjrV Omar was no prodigy, no exception in this regard. No one can read his philosophy and re-dream his poetry and still believe that this clear-minded singer was other than wide-a-wake to the specious charlatancy of his age in pretence of knowledge of the inscrutably unknowable. But each man to his opinion still — opinions sway the world. My function is i merely to bring before readers a few of j his thoughts and musings, as rendered in this, the most perfect English U.\r.sk" : ci. they have 3 r et received. Omar pictures the abode of Life as n tavern or caravanserai, to which men come and whence men go, and to which each corner brings what Faie has endowed him with ownership of or character driven him to become. Newcomers, arriving as the sun has . . . scattered into flight The stars befwe him fiom the Field oi Xigtit, hear a voice within crying: When all the temple is prepared within, Why nods the drowsy worshipper outside? And as the cock crew, those who stood befoic The tavern shouted — "Open, then, the door! You know how little while wo have to stay, And, o'X'o departed, may return r,o more. A great deal of Omar's philosophy is l contained in the two concluding lines of the above verse. He returns to the idea of tha world as a mere halting place wherein to eat and drink and be merry over and ove* again. His pessimism is not of the dyspeptic sort at least. He who had, with feeling and clear intellect combined, divided out every findable thread of human destiny, 'had long been satisfied that all we can know of what lies beyond our life-spheres is that we can know absolutely nothing at all. Some sigh for the glories of this world, and some Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come , Ah, take the cash, and lpt the credit go, Nor heed the rumble of a distant drum! Thus his attitude towards the idea of Immortality — that pathetic, often beautiful dream — which so haunts us, not always with increase of happiness, would generally be described as unsympathetic. Yet it was not so, really, for his insistence is ever that while we know To-day and know not To-morrow, yet we will at least be as capable of happiness on the morrow when it comes as we are to-day. Still it is evident that he did not believe that after Life is done with them and they with Life, either the wise or the foolish are ever liktty to be of much account again : And those who husbanded the golden grain, And those who flung it to the winds like rain. Alike to no such aureate earth are turned As, buried once, Men want dug up again. The worldly hope men set their hearts upon Turns ashes — or it prospers; and anon Like snow upon the desert's dusty face, Lighting a little hour or two — is gone. So in the sun he sat and sang, not of these themes only, bu tof love, and friendship, and wine, -i.no learned class — the Suho — of his country still hold to it that these concepts are to be looked upon as figurativj, allogorical, but this idea is genii-ally discredited among his biassed judges. Omars love is as clearly love of his fellows as is his wine the veritable juice of the grape. Gay himself, he beseeches everyone to be likewise gay, no

I matter what the problems of Fate that perplex the mind : Come, fill the cup, and in the fire of spring Your winter garment of repentance fling; The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter — and the bird is or tho whig. Waste not your hour, nor in the vain pursuit Of this and that endeavour and dispute; Better be jocund with the fruitful grape Than sadden after none, or bitter, rrait. Some wished-for companion, a lady presumably, he addresses in the striking lines : A book of verses underneath the bough, A jug of wine, a, loaf of bread — and thou Beside me singing in the wilderness — I Oh, wilderness were Paradise enow! | This sounds very like what many a poet has ±-ad to say since Omar's time, but ! none has put it with such neat conciseness j as he. It does not need metaphysic in the*! least ; why should he, who had long dis- j counted speculative mystification, fill his j ', verses with it? i Into this universe, and Why not knowing Nor Whence, liko water willy-nilly flowing; ! And out. of it, as wind along tho waste, 1 I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing. i ' What, without asking, hither hurried Whence? ■ And, without asking, Whither hurried hence! ' Oh, many a cup of this forbidden wine | Must drown the memory of that insolence! I i Up from Earth's centro through the Seventh j Gate i I rose, and on the Throne of Satuvn sate; ! And many a knot unravell'd by the road ; But not the master knot of human fate. No, not the master-knot of human fate, and there are many in the world still who might be of more use in it would they i but own, once and for all, that the mas-ter-knot is and forever will remain beyond their power of unravelling. Yet shall we , go on in that quest for the unfindable j Master of the Universe : ' Whose secret presence through creatioa's veins I ! Running quicksilver-like, eludes your pains; > j But what, after all, is human existence i I save a moment's pause betwixt a comiug j and a going that are equally and eternally ; mysterious? Then } j j. . . fear not lest existence closing your I I Account, and mine, should know th-i liko no • ■ more ; j The .Eternal Sake from that bowl has pour'd ! Millions of bubbles like us, and will pour.