CAMELOT FANTASIES

<6>Professor Cowell.

With regard to the present Translation. The original Rubaiyat (as,
 missing an Arabic Guttural, these Tetrastichs are more musically
 called) are independent Stanzas, consisting each of four Lines of
 equal, though varied, Prosody; sometimes all rhyming, but oftener (as
 here imitated) the third line a blank. Somewhat as in the Greek
 Alcaic, where the penultimate line seems to lift and suspend the Wave
 that falls over in the last. As usual with such kind of Oriental
 Verse, the Rubaiyat follow one another according to Alphabetic
 Rhyme--a strange succession of Grave and Gay. Those here selected are
 strung into something of an Eclogue, with perhaps a less than equal
 proportion of the "Drink and make-merry," which (genuine or not)
 recurs over-frequently in the Original. Either way, the Result is sad
 enough: saddest perhaps when most ostentatiously merry: more apt to
 move Sorrow than Anger toward the old Tentmaker, who, after vainly
 endeavoring to unshackle his Steps from Destiny, and to catch some
 authentic Glimpse of TO-MORROW, fell back upon TO-DAY (which has
 outlasted so many To-morrows!) as the only Ground he had got to stand
 upon, however momentarily slipping from under his Feet.

[From the Third Edition.]

While the second Edition of this version of Omar was preparing,
 Monsieur Nicolas, French Consul at Resht, published a very careful and
 very good Edition of the Text, from a lithograph copy at Teheran,
 comprising 464 Rubaiyat, with translation and notes of his own.

Mons. Nicolas, whose Edition has reminded me of several things, and
 instructed me in others, does not consider Omar to be the material
 Epicurean that I have literally taken him for, but a Mystic, shadowing
 the Deity under the figure of Wine, Wine-bearer, &c., as Hafiz is
 supposed to do; in short, a Sufi Poet like Hafiz and the rest.

I cannot see reason to alter my opinion, formed as it was more than a
 dozen years ago when Omar was first shown me by one to whom I am
 indebted for all I know of Oriental, and very much of other,
 literature. He admired Omar's Genius so much, that he would gladly
 have adopted any such Interpretation of his meaning as Mons. Nicolas'
 if he could.<7>  That he could not, appears 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.

  <7> Perhaps would have edited the Poems himself some years ago. He
   may now as little approve of my Version on one side, as of Mons.
   Nicolas' Theory on the other.

And if more were needed to disprove Mons. 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. 13-14 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 Hafiz drank and sang, the veritable Juice
 of the Grape it was which Omar used, not only when carousing with his
 friends, but (says Mons. Nicolas) in order to excite himself to that
 pitch of Devotion which others reached by cries and "hurlemens."  And
 yet, whenever Wine, Wine-bearer, &c., occur in the Text--which is
 often enough--Mons. Nicolas carefully annotates "Dieu," "La Divinite,"
 &c.: so carefully indeed that one is tempted to think that he was
 indoctrinated by the Sufi with whom he read the Poems. (Note to Rub.
 ii. p. 8.)  A Persian would naturally wish to vindicate a
 distinguished Countryman; and a Sufi to enroll him in his own sect,
 which already comprises all the chief Poets of Persia.

What historical Authority has Mons. Nicolas to show that Omar gave
himself up "avec passion a l'etude de la philosophie des Soufis"?
 (Preface, p. xiii.)  The Doctrines of Pantheism, Materialism,
 Necessity, &c., were not peculiar to the Sufi; 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 Free-thinker, 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 fly-leaf of the Bodleian MS. And in two Rubaiyat of
 Mons. Nicolas' own Edition Suf and Sufi 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 Divinite," by
 some succeeding Mystic? Mons. Nicolas himself is puzzled by some
 "bizarres" and "trop Orientales" allusions and images--"d'une
 sensualite quelquefois revoltante" indeed--which "les convenances" do
 not permit him to translate; but still which the reader cannot but
 refer to "La Divinite."<8>  No doubt also many of the Quatrains in the
 Teheran, as in the Calcutta, Copies, are spurious; such Rubaiyat being
 the common form of Epigram in Persia. But this, at best, tells as
 much one way as another; nay, the Sufi, who may be considered the
 Scholar and Man of Letters in Persia, would be far more likely than
 the careless Epicure to interpolate what favours his own view of the
 Poet. I observed that very few of the more mystical Quatrains are in
 the Bodleian MS., which must be one of the oldest, as dated at Shiraz,
 A.H. 865, A.D. 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 Bon-homme--Omar himself, with all his Humours and Passions,
 as frankly before us as if we were really at Table with him, after the
 Wine had gone round.

  <8> A note to Quatrain 234 admits that, however clear the mystical
   meaning of such Images must be to Europeans, they are not quoted
   without "rougissant" even by laymen in Persia--"Quant aux termes de
   tendresse qui commencent ce quatrain, comme tant d'autres dans ce
   recueil, nos lecteurs, habitues maintenant a 1'etrangete des
   expressions si souvent employees par Kheyam pour rendre ses pensees
   sur l'amour divin, et a la singularite des images trop orientales,
   d'une sensualite quelquefois revoltante, n'auront pas de peine a se
   persuader qu'il s'agit de la Divinite, bien que cette conviction
   soit vivement discutee par les moullahs musulmans, et meme par
   beaucoup de laiques, qui rougissent veritablement d'une pareille
   licence de leur compatriote a 1'egard des choses spirituelles."

I must say that I, for one, never wholly believed in the Mysticism of
 Hafiz. It does not appear there was any danger in holding and singing
 Sufi Pantheism, so long as the Poet made his Salaam to Mohammed at the
 beginning and end of his Song. Under such conditions Jelaluddin,
 Jami, Attar, 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 Hafiz 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 Sufi; and the
 burden of Omar's Song--if not "Let us eat"--is assuredly--"Let us
 drink, for To-morrow we die!"  And if Hafiz 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 Worshippers.

However, as there is some traditional presumption, and certainly the
 opinion of some learned men, in favour of Omar's being a Sufi--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 Age and Country he lived in; of such
 moderate worldly Ambition as becomes a Philosopher, and such moderate
 wants as rarely satisfy a Debauchee; other readers may be content to
 believe with me that, while the Wine Omar celebrates is simply the
 Juice of the Grape, he bragg'd more than he drank of it, in very
 defiance perhaps of that Spiritual Wine which left its Votaries sunk
 in Hypocrisy or Disgust.