The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám Omar Khayyám (bts books to read .TXT) 📖

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 Monsieur Nicolas’ theory, there is the biographical notice which he himself has drawn up in direct contradiction to 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 till 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 Monsieur Nicolas) in order to excite himself to that pitch of devotion which others reached by cries and “Hurlemens.” And yet, whenever Wine, Wine-bearer, etc., occur in the text⁠—which is often enough⁠—Monsieur Nicolas carefully annotates “Dieu,” “La Divinité,” etc.: so carefully indeed that one is tempted to think that he was indoctrinated by the Súfi with whom he read the poems. 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 authority has Monsieur 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, etc., 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 freethinker, 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 flyleaf of the Bodleian manuscript. And in two rubáiyát of Monsieur 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? Monsieur Nicolas himself is puzzled by some “bizarres” and “trop Orientals” 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.” No doubt also many of the quatrains in the Tehran, 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 favors his own view of the poet. I observe that very few of the more mystical quatrains are in the Bodleian manuscript which must be one of the oldest, as dated at Shiraz, AH 865, AD 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 humors 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 wholly 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 Jeláluddín, 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 tomorrow 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 worshipers.

However, as there is some traditional presumption, and certainly the opinion of some learned men, in favor of Omar’s being a Súfi⁠—and even something of a saint⁠—those who please may so interpret his Wine and Cup-bearer. 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