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 "THE RUBA'IYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM' 
 
 Being the Substance of a Lecture delivered at the 
 
 Grosvenor Crescent Club and Women's Institute 
 
 on the 22nd March 1898 
 
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 39 
 
 LONDON 
 
 H. S. NICHOLS Ltd. 
 CHARING CROSS ROAD W.C 
 
 1898 
 
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EDWARD HERON-ALLEN 
 
 ^»ome ^>io«%0te upon SbStaro Jt^BerafVe 
 
 (J)oem 
 
 "THE RUBA'IYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM" 
 
 Being the Substance of a Lecture delivered at the 
 
 Grosvenor Crescent Club and Women's Institute 
 
 on the 22nd March 1898 
 
 LONDON 
 
 H. S. NICHOLS Ltd. 
 39 CHARING CROSS ROAD W.C 
 
 1808 
 
Printed and Published by 
 
 H. S. NICHOLS, LTD., 
 3Q CHARING CROSS ROAD, W.C. 
 
etc. 
 
 ma/k/ 
 
 TO 
 
 Professor E. B. COWELL, M.A., 
 
 Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Cambridge. 
 
 Dear Professor Cowell, 
 
 It was to you that Edward FitzGerald owed his knowledge of 
 the Persian language, and his introduction to the Ruba'iyat of Omar 
 Khayyam. It is to you that I owe, not only my grateful thanks for 
 much sympathy and assistance in my own work as a humbler student 
 of those quatrains, but also the clue which started me upon the re- 
 searches whose results are embodied in this opusculum. As a slight 
 acknowledgment of these favours I have ventured to address my 
 observations to you, 
 
 And I am, with great respect, 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 EDWARD HERON-ALLEN. 
 
 London, 22nd March, 1898. 
 
 H 
 
 ^52279 
 
SOME SIDE-LIGHTS UPON EDWARD 
 
 FITZGERALD'S POEM, 
 
 "THE RUBA'iYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM." 
 
 There is material for much subtle argument — material 
 indeed for discussion such as is dear to the souls of the self- 
 proclaimed Wise Men of the East — in the following problem : 
 Did Omar Khayyam give fame to Edward FitzGerald, or did 
 Edward FitzGerald give European fame to Omar Khayyam ? 
 And by fame I mean, not the respect paid to a great poet by 
 students of the language in which he wrote, but that far- 
 reaching and universal popularity which enshrouds the names 
 of Edward FitzGerald and Omar Khayyam in every quarter of 
 the known world where the English language is spoken by 
 natives or colonists. Though the recent utterances of Colonel 
 Hay, the United States Ambassador to this country, may seem, 
 even to Omar's most fervent devotees, a trifle exaggerated, 1 
 it is not, I think, too much to say that, even in this latter 
 half of the igth century, when the cult of particular poets 
 has drawn bands of men and women together and given us 
 Shakespeare Societies, Shelley Societies, Browning Societies, 
 and the like, there is no freemasonry so infallible, no sympathy 
 
 i. Daily Chronicle, gth December, 1897. — " The exquisite beauty, the fault- 
 less form, the singular grace of those amazing stanzas, were not more wonderful 
 than the depth and breadth of their profound philosophy, their knowledge of 
 life, their dauntless courage, their serene facing of the ultimate problems of life 
 and death. ... I came upon a literal translation of the Ruba'iyat, and I saw 
 that not the least remarkable quality of FitzGerald's poem was its fidelity to the 
 original. . . . It is not to the disadvantage of the later poet that he followed so 
 closely in the footsteps of the earlier. . . . There is not a hill-post in India or a 
 village in England where there is not a coterie to whom Omar Khayyam is a 
 familiar friend and a bond of union." 
 
so profound, as that which unites the lovers of the quatrains of 
 Omar Khayyam, in the form in which they have been made 
 known to us by the beautiful, the eternal poem of " Old Fitz " 
 — the Laird of Littlegrange. 
 
 The incunabulum, the earliest archive of the cult, is 
 admittedly the single verse attributed to the ghost of Omar 
 (by whom it was recited in a dream to his mother) and re- 
 corded in the " History of the Religion of the Ancient Persians, 
 Parthians and Medes," by Dr. Thomas Hyde, Regius Pro- 
 fessor of Arabic in the University of Oxford, in the year 1700. 2 
 This is the quatrain which was rendered by FitzGerald in the 
 Introduction to his poem : 
 
 O thou who burn'st in Heart for those who burn 
 In Hell, whose fires thyself should feed in turn ; 
 How long be crying, " Mercy on them, God ! " 
 Why, who art thou to teach, and He to learn. 3 
 
 The German renderings of Josef von Hammer-Purgstall 4 and 
 Friedrich Riickert 5 would not by themselves have called Omar 
 to the position which he holds to-day among the poets of the 
 world, and without the poem of FitzGerald the record of the 
 astronomer-poet might have closed with the publication of his 
 treatise upon Algebra and the higher mathematics, which was 
 given to the world in 185 1 by Dr. Woepcke, Professor of Mathe- 
 
 2. " Veterum Persarum et Parthorum et Medorum religionis historia." 
 Oxford, 1700; 2nd Edition, 1760. Appendix, pp. 529, 530. 
 
 3. Dr. Hyde's rendering runs: 
 
 O combustus combustus Combustione ! 
 
 Vae, a te est Ignis Gehennae Accensis ! 
 
 Quousque dicis, Omaro misericors esto ? 
 
 Quousque Deum, Caput Misericordiae , docebis ? 
 which is a more correct rendering than FitzGerald' s of the original, which is 
 C. 1, L. 769, B. 755, S. P. 453, B. II. 537, W. 488, N. 459. Persian: 
 
 ^J!^yj»\ y j\ £)^0 (j*-*! &£ l51? i ^ x£ -^ m **^»J*» C &X£»j~i ^ 
 
 4. " Geschichte der schonen Redekiinste Persiens, &c." Vienna, 1818, 
 p. 80, 20. 
 
 5. "Grammatik, Poetik und Rhetorik der Perser," herausgegeben von 
 W. Pertsch. Gotha, 1874. 
 
matics in the University of Bonn a /r. 6 Dr. Woepcke has 
 pointed out in the Introduction to his translation that the 
 Algebra of Omar Khayyam first attracted the notice of 
 mathematicians in 1742, when a Dutch savant, Gerard 
 Meerman, called attention to a manuscript of his treatise, 
 bequeathed by one Warner to the town of Leyden. The 
 citation occurs in the Introduction to Meerman's " Specimen 
 calculi fluxionalis." Succeeding mathematicians called atten- 
 tion to the work ; but the first important consideration that it 
 received was at the hands of L. A. Sedillot, who announced in 
 the Nouveau Journal Asiatique, in May, 1834, the discovery of an 
 incomplete MS. of the same treatise in the Bibliotheque Royale 
 in Paris. It was reserved for Professor Libri to discover, in the 
 same place, a complete MS. of the work, and it was from the 
 Leyden MS., the Sedillot fragment, and the Libri MS. that 
 Dr. Woepcke edited his admirable text and translation. In his 
 Introduction Dr. Woepcke gives a translation of the account 
 of Omar from the Tarikh ul hukama of Jamal ud Din 'Ali, which 
 has been so often quoted in articles upon the poet, 7 and 
 observes upon it that Omar "is a detestable man, but an un- 
 equalled astronomer; he is perhaps a heretic, but surely he is a 
 philosopher of the firstorder." This opinion would appear to have 
 been shared by Elphinstone, 8 who, in his account of Cabul, places 
 on record what may, perhaps, be looked upon as an undesirable 
 precursor of the Omar Khayyam Club. He says: "Another 
 sect, which is sometimes confounded with the Sufis, is one 
 which bears the name of Moollah Zukkee, who was its great 
 patron in Cabul. Its followers hold that all the prophets were 
 impostors and all revelation an invention. They seem very 
 doubtful of the truth of a future state, and even of the being of 
 
 6. " L'Algebre d'Omar Alkhayyami," publiee, traduite et accompagnee 
 d'extraits de manuscrits inedits par F. Woepcke. Paris, 1851. 
 
 7. Vide Nathan H. Dole's Multi variorum edition of the " Ruba'iyat of 
 Omar Khayyam." Boston (Mass.), 1896. Vol. ii., pp. 457-461. 
 
 8. The Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone. " An account of the Kingdom of 
 Caubul and its Dependencies in Persia, Tartary, and India." London, 1815. 
 Ch. v., p. 209. 
 
 I — 2 
 
a God. Their tenets appear to be very ancient, and are 
 precisely those of the old Persian poet Khayyam (sic, Kheioom), 
 whose works exhibit such specimens of impiety as probably 
 never were equalled in any other language. Khayyam dwells 
 particularly on the existence of evil, and taxes the Supreme 
 Being with the introduction of it in terms which can scarcely 
 be believed. The Sufis have unaccountably pressed this 
 writer into their service ; they explain away some of his 
 blasphemies by forced interpretations ; others they represent 
 as innocent freedoms and reproaches such as a lover may pour 
 out against his beloved. The followers of Moollah Zukkee are 
 said to take the full advantage of their release from the fear of 
 hell and the awe of a Supreme Being, and to be the most 
 dissolute and unprincipled profligates in the kingdom. Their 
 opinions nevertheless are cherished in secret, and are said to 
 be very prevalent among the licentious nobles of the Court 
 of Shah Mahmoud." And, notwithstanding that Professor 
 Cowell made the Algebra of Omar Khayyam the text for his 
 article in the Calcutta Review (January, 1858), here, but for 
 FitzGerald, might have rested the fame of him who, as Dr. 
 Hyde described him, was " one of the Eight who settled the 
 Jalali era, in 1079," a computation of time which, says Gibbon, 9 
 surpassed the Julian and approached the accuracy of the 
 Gregorian style. 
 
 The object of the present essay, however, is, not to 
 analyse the quatrains composed by, or attributed to Omar 
 Khayyam, but to examine by the light of diligent research the 
 poem of Edward FitzGerald, which was founded upon and 
 took its title from those quatrains, or <^Ls>b; (ruba'iyat). 
 Almost from the day upon which FitzGerald's poem first 
 saw the light, a controversy, in which question and doubt 
 have been uppermost, has raged round the problem of how 
 far it can claim to be regarded as a correct rendering — I will 
 
 9. " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chap, lvii., Gibbing's 
 edition, 1890, vol. iv., p. 180. Vide also Dr. Hyde, he. cit., chap, xvi., pp. 200-211. 
 
not say translation, for that is an expression that cannot be 
 properly applied to it — of the original quatrains. I have 
 remarked in another place, 10 " A translation pure and simple 
 it is not, but a translation in the most classic sense of the 
 term it undoubtedly is." Since expressing that view, how- 
 ever, I have had occasion to modify it. Prof. Charles Eliot 
 Norton has summed up the position in a passage unsur- 
 passed in the literature of criticism. 11 He says : " FitzGerald 
 is to be called ' translator ' only in default of a better word, 
 one which should express the poetic transfusion of a poetic 
 spirit from one language to another, and the re-representation 
 of the ideas and images of the original in a form not altogether 
 diverse from their own, but perfectly adapted to the new 
 conditions of time, place, custom and habit of mind in which 
 they reappear. ... It is the work of a poet inspired by the 
 work of a poet ; not a copy, but a reproduction ; not a transla- 
 tion, but the re-delivery of a poetic inspiration." 
 
 FitzGerald's poem is, however, something more than 
 this. Stated in the fewest possible words, the poem familiar 
 to English readers as the " Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam " is 
 the expressed result of FitzGerald's entire course of Persian 
 studies. There are many isolated lines and ideas, and more 
 than one entire quatrain for which diligent study has revealed 
 no corresponding passages in the original quatrains of Omar 
 Khayyam — notably, for instance, the quatrain : 
 
 O Thou who Man of baser Earth did'st make, 
 And ev'n with Paradise devised the Snake : 
 
 For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man 
 Is blacken'd — Man's forgiveness give — and take ! 
 
 and the opening quatrain, which Mr. Aldis Wright, the editor 
 of his " Letters and Literary Remains," 12 says " is entirely his 
 own." Even Professor Cowell has said, ex cathedra, " there 
 is no original for the line about the snake," and attri- 
 
 10. "The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam," translated by Edward Heron- 
 Allen. London, 1898. 
 
 11. In the North American Review, October, 1869. 
 
 12. London, 1889. Macmillan, 3 vols. 
 
butes the last line to a mistake of FitzGerald's in 
 translating a quatrain from Nicolas, which led him to 
 " invent " the line. We shall presently see that this is 
 not so, save in so far as that FitzGerald took these lines by 
 a process of automatic cerebration, not from Omar, but from 
 other sources. The manner in which he wrote his poem must 
 be borne in mind. Professor Cowell, writing to me (under 
 date 8th July, 1897), says: " I am quite sure that he did not 
 make a literal prose version first ; he was too fond of getting 
 the strong vivid impression of the original as a whole. He 
 pondered this over and over afterwards, and altered it in his 
 lonely walks, sometimes approximating nearer to the original, 
 and often diverging farther. He was always aiming at some 
 strong and worthy equivalent; verbal accuracy he disregarded." 
 Composing his poem in this manner, with the original ruba'iyat 
 not before him, all the impressions stored in his brain as the 
 result of his extensive studies of Persian poetry, and Persian 
 history, manners and customs, were present in his mind, and 
 the echoes of those studies are clearly recognisable in the lines 
 and passages which have defied the research of students of the 
 original quatrains. 
 
 That no one should have called attention to this before, 
 surprises me, for the process was indicated clearly by Pro- 
 fessor Cowell in his note upon the opening lines of quatrain 
 No. 33 : 
 
 Earth could not answer ; nor the seas that mourn 
 In flowing Purple, of their Lord forlorn. 
 
 FitzGerald corresponded with Professor Cowell upon these 
 two very lines — or rather upon the idea contained in them — 
 in March, 1857, but it was reserved for the latter to call atten- 
 tion to the fact that they were taken from the Mantik-ut-Tair 
 (the Parliament, or Language of Birds) of Ferid-ud-din Attar. 
 FitzGerald himself never acknowledged in his printed works 
 the assistance of anyone, or (except in the case of Mr. Binning's 
 Journal) the sources of any of his information, but I have 
 
followed the clue given by Professor Cowell, and by dint of 
 reading every work to which FitzGerald refers in his letters, 
 during the time when he was composing his poem, I have 
 traced the actual originals of those debatable lines, and 
 discovered the sources from which his information concern- 
 ing Persia and the Persians was derived. 
 
 FitzGerald, in 1845, was repelled rather than attracted by 
 Oriental study, as we know from the contempt he expressed 
 concerning Eliot Warburton's " The Crescent and the Cross," 
 published in that year ; but in 1846 Professor Cowell was 
 translating some Odes of Hafiz, 13 and sent some of his render- 
 ings to FitzGerald, who was greatly impressed by them. It 
 was not, however, until 1853 that, fired by Cowell's enthusiasm, 
 he addressed himself seriously to the study of the Persian 
 language, reading as a foundation Sir Wm. Jones's Persian 
 Grammar, which exactly suited him, as all the examples of the 
 values are given in beautiful lines from Hafiz, Sa'adi, and other 
 Persian poets. He records buying a Gulistan (of Sa'adi) u 
 whilst still studying the Grammar, but it did not very greatly 
 influence his later work. In 1854 he read and paraphrased 
 Jaml's " Salaman and Absal," which he printed for private 
 circulation in 1856, and reprinted in 1871. After this came 
 Hafiz (in 1857), but by this time he had received from Professor 
 Cowell a copy of the MS. of Omar Khayyam, which Cowell 
 had found uncatalogued and unknown among the Ouseley MSS. 
 in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It was about this time 
 also that he began to correspond with the eminent French 
 Orientalist Garcin de Tassy, about the latter's critical essay 
 upon the Mantik-ut-Tair of Ferld-ud-din Attar, with which he 
 had already become acquainted in De Sacy's notes to the 
 Pend Namah of the same poet; 15 and early in 1857 he borrowed 
 
 13. These were not published until September, 1854, when they appeared 
 anonymously in Fraser's Magazine, and called forth further praise from FitzGerald. 
 
 14. E. B. Eastwick. " The Gulistan, or Rose Garden." London, 1852. 
 
 15. " Pend-Nameh, ou Livre des Conseils de Ferid eddin Attar." Traduit 
 et publie par M. le Bon Silvestre de Sacy. Paris, 1819. At p. 41 of this work 
 the parable of Jesus and the bitter water in the jar is given at length in French 
 
a MS. of the original poem from Napoleon Newton, one of the 
 dons of Hertford College, Oxford. The two poems, the Ruba'iyat 
 and the Mantik-ut-Tair, took violent hold of his imagination, 
 and already, in March, 1857, he had completed " twenty pages 
 of a metrical sketch of the Mantik." This sketch, though 
 eventually finished, was never published until after his death, when 
 it was included in his " Letters and Literary Remains " ; but the 
 influence of the original upon his Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam 
 
 and Persian, and at pp. 168-173 there is a complete resume of the entire Mantik- 
 ut-Tair. Though we know that this volume formed part of FitzGerald's course of 
 study, I have not made it one of the works to be analysed in this essay, for the 
 reason that its teaching was, without doubt, merged in that of the same author's 
 Mantik-ut-Tair. At the same time, besides the passage cited in Note 38, there are 
 several passages to which one might refer in such an essay as this, exempli gratia, 
 the story from Sa'adi's Mujaliss, which is worthy of transcription in its entirety : 
 "One day, Ibrahim bin Adhem was seated at the gate of his palace, and his 
 pages stood near him in a line. A dervish, bearing the insigna of his condition, 
 came up and attempted to enter the palace. ' Old man,' said the pages, 'whither 
 goest thou?' 'I am going into this caravanserai,' said the old man. The pages 
 answered, ' It is not a caravanserai; it is the palace of Ibrahim, Shah of Balkh.' 
 Ibrahim caused the old man to be brought before him, and said to him : ' Darvish, 
 this is my palace.' 'To whom,' asked the old man, 'did this palace originally 
 belong ? ' 'To my grandfather.' ' After him, who was its owner ? ' ' My father." 
 ' And to whom did it pass on his death ? ' ' To me.' ' When you die, to whom 
 will it belong?' 'To my son.' 'Ibrahim,' said the Darvish, 'a place whither 
 one enters and whence another departs is not a palace, it is a caravanserai.' " 
 We have here a powerful suggestion of FitzGerald's 17th and 45th quatrains: 
 
 Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai, 
 
 Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day, 
 How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp 
 
 Abode his destined Hour, and went his way. 
 
 'Tis but a Tent where takes his one day's rest 
 
 A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest : 
 The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash 
 
 Strikes, and prepares it for another Guest. 
 At pp. 236-244, we have a collection of passages in eulogy of generosity, 
 and at p. 309, de Sacy quotes an ode of Shahi containing the image of the rose 
 tearing asunder its garment of purple silk, 
 
 uH^ ef f- °j* hk l V»^- ^^ y i3yt &"* **y J^ ^ 
 
 which suggests FitzGerald's No. 14 : 
 
 Look to the blowing Rose about us, " Lo, 
 Laughing," she says, " into the world I blow, 
 
 At once the silken tassel of my Purse 
 Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw." 
 Such parallels might be greatly extended, but, for the most part, the images 
 are repeated in the Mantik-ut-Tair. 
 
was so great, that whole quatrains and a great many isolated 
 lines came, consciously or unconsciously, from the Mantik into 
 his poem. It is not in any way surprising that this was so, for 
 Attar's poems are a perfect reflection of the Ruba'iyat of Omar, 
 on which it is more than probable that much of their philo- 
 sophy was founded, seeing that Ferld-ud-dln Attar was born 
 at Nishapur in Khorasan four years before Omar Khayyam 
 died there, and was, no doubt, brought up to revere the 
 recently deceased poet-mathematician and his works. In 1857 
 FitzGerald received from De Tassy his magnificent text of the 
 Mantik ; but De Tassy's translation was not published until 
 1863, so FitzGerald had nothing but the introductory analysis 
 to help him, Professor Cowell being at that time in India. By 
 June, 1857, ne na d received from Professor Cowell a copy of 
 the MS. of Omar Khayyam in the Bengal Asiatic Society's 
 Library at Calcutta, 16 and addressed himself at once to the 
 arduous task of deciphering it. We may infer with some 
 degree of certainty that his poem was principally constructed 
 on the foundation of the Bodleian MS. from the fact that 
 within three weeks of the arrival of the Calcutta MS. he had 
 practically finished the first draft of his poem, having surveyed 
 the Calcutta MS. " rather hastily," as he himself says. During 
 the remaining months of 1857 he polished and prepared his 
 poem for the press, and sent it (in January, 1858) to Fraser's 
 Magazine for publication ; but the editor of that eminently 
 respectable serial did not consider it, evidently, up to the 
 standard demanded by his other contributors and readers, and 
 in January, 1859, FitzGerald took it away from him, added a 
 few of the more antinomian quatrains that he had suppressed 
 out of consideration for Fraser's families, schools, and the 
 Young Person, and gave them to our mutual friend " little 
 Quaritch " to sell The oft-told tale of how the edition fell 
 
 16. This MS. has been lost or stolen, so that Professor Covvell's copy is now 
 the only means of ascertaining what were the materials from which FitzGerald 
 worked. A copy is now being remade from Professor Cowell's copy for the 
 Asiatic Society's Library in Calcutta. 
 
10 
 
 from grace to " the penny box," and rose thence to seven 
 guineas a copy, has become a gem of classic antiquity, like 
 most of the anecdotes concerning Omar, FitzGerald and Fitz- 
 Gerald's poem. This particular story, however, has paled 
 into insignificance, for a copy of this first edition was sold at 
 auction on the ioth February, 1898, to Mr. Quaritch for £21, 
 and I have received an offer from America of £45 for a copy. 
 Meanwhile, he had read Mr. Binning's charming journal of his 
 travels in Persia, 17 and culled therefrom the historical, topo- 
 graphical, legendary and sociological information that is to be 
 found in the notes to his Ruba'iyat, including a prose transla- 
 tion of the quatrain which appeared in his second edition, and 
 which he quotes in his notes to the third and fourth editions : 
 
 The Palace that to Heav'n his pillars threw, 
 And Kings the forehead on his threshold drew — 
 
 I saw the solitary Ringdove there, 
 And " Coo, coo, coo," she cried ; and " Coo, coo, coo." 18 
 
 (C. 419, L. 627, B. 619, S. P. 347, P. 140, B. ii. 459, W. 392, 
 N. 350.) This is merely quoted by Mr. Binning, without 
 reference to Omar Khayyam, but FitzGerald identified it, of 
 course, in the Calcutta MS. where it occurs, though it is not 
 to be found in the Bodleian MS. 19 
 
 In 1867, Mons. Nicolas published his text and prose 
 translation, 20 which, as FitzGerald tells us, " reminded him of 
 
 17. Robert B. M. Binning. " A Journal of Two Years' Travel in Persia, 
 Ceylon, &c." London, 1857. Vol. ii., p. 20. 
 
 £ £ £ y£ &£ olOwv^Jb )\j\ dJizM tjdl^UZ ji &£ f-J^<^ 
 
 19. FitzGerald had also before him a very similar passage from the Pend 
 Nameh of Attar (vide Note 15), to which de Sacy had appended notes from Omar 
 Khayyam and other poets, which impressed it on his mind. The passage runs as 
 follows: "Though thou may'st rear thy palace towards heaven, thou wilt one day 
 be buried beneath the earth. Though thy power and strength equal those of 
 Rustam, thou shalt be one day reduced like Bahram to the abode of the tomb." 
 
 °S ^>)£ )* r!/rf OJ^ &■ °^ «*vtf ) «^y* p*~j ^ f 
 
 20. J. B. Nicolas. " Les Quatrains de Kheyam traduits du Persan." 
 Paris, 1867. 
 
II . 
 
 several things and instructed him in others," and his interest 
 being once more aroused in Omar Khayyam, he prepared his 
 second edition (that of 1868), in which we find several new 
 quatrains (ten in all), the originals of most of which are common 
 to Nicolas's translation and the Calcutta MS. FitzGerald's 
 note upon the dying utterance of Nizam ul Mulk came from 
 De Tassy's translation of the Mantik-ut-Tair, which he sent to 
 FitzGerald in exchange for a copy of this translation by Nicolas. 
 After this, FitzGerald practically dropped the study of Persian 
 literature; he reduced the number of his quatrains to 101, and 
 gave us what for all practical purposes was the final form of 
 his poem in the third edition (of 1872). 
 
 In this recapitulation of FitzGerald's study of the Ruba'iyat, 
 I fear that I have perforce travelled over well-worn ground, 
 but it has been necessary for the purpose I have in view of 
 showing how those studies influenced his poem. We have, 
 then, as his acknowledged materials : 
 
 (i.) The Odes of Hafiz, translated by Professor 
 
 Cowell in 1846, and published in 1854. 
 (ii.) Sir William Jones's Grammar of the Persian 
 
 Language, 
 (iii.) The Gulistan of Sa'adi. 
 (iv.) The Salaman and Absal of Jam!. 
 (v.) The Mantik-ut-Tair of Attar. 
 (vi.) Binning's Journal. 
 
 And of Omar Khayyam's Ruba'iyat, 
 (vii.) The Bodleian MS. 
 (viii.) The Calcutta MS. 
 (ix.) Nicolas's Translation and Text. 
 I propose to examine these materials in their chronological 
 order, and call attention to those passages whose echoes we 
 find in FitzGerald's poem. 
 
 I. It is not surprising that the future " translator " (in 
 default of that better word for which Professor Norton appeals) 
 of the Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam should first have been 
 
12 
 
 attracted to the study of Persian by the Odes of Hafiz as 
 presented by Professor Cowell's translations, and the examples 
 of Sir Wm. Jones, for the two poets are brothers in song 
 indeed. There is recorded a saying of the great Akbar himself 
 that " an ode of Hafiz is the wine, and a quatrain of Omar is 
 the relish." 21 I take the following parallels from the Odes of 
 Hafiz translated by Cowell : 
 
 Cowell's Hafiz. FitzGerald's Ruba'iyat. 
 
 I. Thou knowest not the secrets 52. A moment guess'd — then back 
 
 of futurity, behind the Fold 
 
 There are hidden games behind Immerst of Darkness round the 
 
 the Veil; do not despair. Drama roll'd 
 
 Which, for the Pastime of 
 
 Eternity, 
 He doth himself contrive, enact, 
 behold. 
 
 There is a parallel for this in the Bodleian MS. : 
 94. To speak plain language and not in parables, 
 we are the pieces and heaven plays the game, 
 we are played together in a baby game upon the chessboard 
 
 of existence, 
 and one by one return to the box of non-existence. 22 
 
 FitzGerald took from this his quatrain : 
 
 69. But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays 
 Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days 
 Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, 
 And one by one, back in the Closet lays. 
 
 So that the sentiment of No. 52 comes clearly from Hafiz. 
 
 II. Rest not thy trust on that 9-10. And this first Summer Month 24 
 
 night-patrolling star, 23 for that that brings the Rose 
 
 cunning thief Shall take Jamshyd and Kaiko- 
 
 Hath stolen Kawus' crown and bad away. 
 
 the girdle of Kay Khusraw. Well, let it take them ! What 
 
 have we to do 
 With Kaikobad the Great, or 
 Kaikhosru ? 
 
 2iv H. S. Jarrett. Ain-i-Akbari, by Abu Fazl-i-Allami. Calcutta, 1891. 
 Pt. ii., p. 392. 
 
 23. i.e., The Moon. 
 
 24. Moon — Month = Mah (aU — 6-») Persian synonym. 
 
13 
 
 And, as the Cock crew, those 
 
 who stood before 
 The Tavern shouted, " Open 
 
 then the Door ! 
 You know how little while we 
 
 have to stay, 
 And, once departed, may return 
 
 no more." 
 
 V. The morning dawns and the 
 
 cloud has woven a canopy, 
 The morning draught, my friends, 
 
 the morning draught ! . . . 
 It is strange that at such a 
 
 season 
 They shut up the wine-tavern ! 
 
 oh, hasten ! 
 Have they still shut up the door 
 
 of the tavern ? 
 Open, oh thou Keeper of the 
 
 Gates ! 
 
 The parallel here is obvious, the more so as there is no 
 quatrain in the Bodleian or Calcutta MSS. that conveys this 
 picture of the unopened tavern. 
 
 VII. The foundations of our peni- 
 tence, whose solidity seemed 
 as of stone — 
 See, a cup of glass, how easily 
 hath it shattered them 
 
 93-4. Indeed, the Idols I have loved 
 so long 
 
 Have drown'd my Glory in a 
 shallow Cup 
 
 Indeed, indeed 
 
 oft before 
 I swore . . . 
 And then and 
 
 Repentance 
 
 Since from this caravanserai 
 with its two gates departure 
 is inevitable. 
 
 then came 
 Spring, and Rose-in-hand 
 
 My thread - bare Penitence 
 a-pieces tore. 
 
 Think, in this battered Cara- 
 vanserai 
 
 Whose Portals are alternate 
 Night and Day, 
 
 How Sultan after Sultan with 
 his Pomp 
 
 Abode his destined Hour, and 
 went his way. 
 
 'Tis but a Tent where takes 
 his one day's rest 
 
 A Sultan to the realm of 
 Death addrest ; 
 &c. &c. (C. 95 & no.) 
 
 It will be borne in mind that FitzGerald read these Odes 
 over again in Fraser's Magazine (as he himself indicates in his 
 " Letters ") whilst his poem was in course of construction. It 
 
 45- 
 
14 
 
 is also worthy of remark that he took his incorrect translitera- 
 tion of Jalal-ud-din Rumi — " Jellaledin," to which more than 
 one writer has referred, from this article. 
 
 II. We have not, however, finished with Hafiz. His lines 
 predominate in Sir Wm. Jones's Grammar, and these isolated 
 passages, with some from other poets, evidently fixed them- 
 selves in FitzGerald's mind when he was deciphering them 
 word by word for the purpose of learning the language. 
 
 Jones's Quotations. 25 FitzGerald's Ruba'iyat. 
 
 p. 22. Boy, bring the wine, for the 94. Quoted above, 
 season of the rose ap- 
 proaches ; 
 let us again break our vows 
 of repentance in the midst 
 of the roses.- 
 
 The phrase fasl-i-gul ( V£ J^i), " the season of roses," 
 is a common Persian expression to indicate spring, but I have 
 not found it connected with the breaking of vows of penitence 
 in FitzGerald's MSS. of Omar Khayyam. It may be observed 
 that this passage was his first introduction to the connection 
 of the Rose and Nightingale, so constantly recurring in Persian 
 belles-lettres. 21 
 
 p. 27. The Cypress is graceful, but 41. The Cypress-slender minister 
 thy shape is more graceful of wine, 
 
 than the cypress. 28 
 p. 89. It is morning; boy, fill the 
 cup with wine, 
 the rolling heaven makes no 
 
 delay; therefore hasten. 
 The sun of the wine rises 
 
 from the east of the cup : 
 
 if thou seekest the delights of 
 
 mirth, leave thy sleep. 29 
 
 25. The Seventh Edition. London, 1809. 
 
 27. Save in No. 6 and remotely in No. 96, FitzGerald has not introduced 
 the loves of the Nightingale and the Rose into his poem. There are many 
 references to it in Jones. Cf. pp. 80, 90, 112, 120, etc. 
 
i5 
 
 Here we have again the inspiration for the opening 
 
 quatrains cited above. 
 
 p. 102. By the approach of Spring 8. The leaves of life keep falling 
 
 and the return of December one by one. 
 
 the leaves of our life are 
 continually folded. 80 
 
 This is a distich culled by Sir Wm. Jones from Omar 
 Khayyam himself, and from a quatrain which occurs in the 
 Calcutta MS. (No. 500), but FitzGerald was evidently "re- 
 minded of it" by Nicolas'stext, where it is No. 402, for the line 
 does not occur in his first edition. It was doubtless the above 
 quotation that originally fixed it in his mind. 
 On p. 106. The spider holds the veil in the palace of Caesar; 
 
 The owl stands sentinel on the watch-tower of Afrasiab. 31 
 
 This is a constantly recurring illustration of the vanity of 
 
 < earthly_ j glory r in Persian belles-lettres. FitzGerald probably 
 
 took the first half of his quatrain No. 16 from this : 
 
 They say the Lion and the Lizard keep 
 
 The courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep. 
 
 The second half comes from the Calcutta MS. 
 
 p. in. A garden more fresh than 5. Iram indeed is gone with all 
 
 the bower of Iram. 3 ' 2 his rose. 
 
 I cannot ascertain whether FitzGerald had studied 
 S. Rousseau's " Flowers of Persian Literature," which was 
 published in 1801 as " a companion to Sir W. Jones's Persian 
 Grammar," but at p. 71 of that work is an account of the 
 " Garden of Iram," translated by Jonathan Scott from the 
 ^JUJI c^i-sJ (Tohfet al Mujalis). References to this 
 
 fabulous garden, however, occur constantly in all Persian 
 literature. 
 
 At pp. 123-124 occur quotations referring to the images of 
 the Caravan in the desert, and the cock-crow rousing the 
 apathetic sleepers. At p. 132, in an ode from Hafiz we find 
 
 Jo oj/-i U ^>U» Jjljjjl 
 
 C5° &*) ') s h 0°- T J 1 3 ° 
 
 «__>L**iL*l Ju^j ^j-y* •■**-*?♦* eS'*^ 
 
 c^4aS0^ y°^ f=>* )<^ <- v ^^ # i3J^ 8^}.'. "* 
 
 
 pj\ ^buJ^ j\ j*fi)U ^bu-^j 8 - 
 
i6 
 
 the inaccessibility of the secrets of futurity and the ignorance 
 of the wise on this subject, 33 and finally in the list of works 
 recommended to the student at the end of the Grammar, we 
 find the Salaman and Absal of Jam! to which FitzGerald next 
 turned his attention. 
 
 III. We have seen that, whilst FitzGerald's study of 
 Jones's Persian Grammer was still in progress, he had 
 obtained Eastwick's translation of the Gulistan of Sa'adi, 
 but no record is preserved of the text which he used with it. 
 It is readily comprehensible that a mind already strongly 
 attracted by the Sufistic and antinomian verses of Hafiz did 
 not enter into warm sympathy with the rhapsodies of the 
 essentially pious Sa'adi, but certain isolated passages must 
 have impressed him, for we gather distinct echoes of them in 
 his poem. The principal are as follows : 
 
 Gulistan. 34 FitzGerald's Ruba'iyat. 
 
 Chapter I., Story 2. 
 
 Many famous men have been 
 
 buried underground 
 Of whose existence on earth not 
 
 a trace has remained, 
 And that old corpse which had 
 been surrendered to the earth 
 Was so consumed by the soil 
 that not a bone remained. 85 
 Here again is a vivid picture of the transitory nature of earthly 
 pomp, which is everywhere apparent in Omar Khayyam and 
 in FitzGerald's poem. 
 Story 9. I spent my precious life 
 in hopes, alas ! 
 That every desire of my heart 
 
 will be fulfilled ; 
 My wishes were realised, but to 
 what profit ? since 
 
 34. I quote the Kama Shastra Society's translation, "Benares" (London, 
 1888), as being more literally accurate than the rhymed translation of Eastwick. 
 
 ooUi Uj tat* ^j c ^j> u^:~~*> £ *$ **/ tf»° o*f) jO **" ;r* u u* 35 
 
i7 
 
 There is no hope that my past 
 
 life will return. 
 
 * * * 
 
 My life has elapsed in ignorance, 
 I have done nothing — be on 
 your guard ! M 
 
 This is quite in the spirit of Omar, and the quatrains in Fitz- 
 
 Gerald's poem which echo the sentiment are too numerous to 
 
 quote. 
 
 Story 26. For how many years 23-4. Ourselves must we beneath 
 and long lives the couch of earth 
 
 Will the people walk over my Descend — ourselves to make a 
 
 head on the ground ? 37 Couch — for whom ? 
 
 Ah 1 make the most of what we 
 
 yet may spend, 
 Before we too into the Dust 
 descend. 38 
 
 In chapter ii. we find references to the hospitality of 
 Hatim Tai (F. 10) and the sweet voice of David (F. 6). In 
 chapter v. we recognise the " rumble of a distant drum " 
 (F. 13), and in chapter vii. the image of the verdure and 
 flowers sprouting from the clay of those who have died before 
 us (F. 19-20). But these images are also to be found in Omar, 
 so we can only say that FitzGerald met with them originally 
 in the Gulistan. 
 
 IV. The Salaman and Absal of Jam! occupies a small but 
 not important place in this examination, for it was one of the 
 works of which FitzGerald laboriously studied the original 
 text and made a metrical paraphrase — his first printed volume. 
 I have not read the original of this, save in a desultory and 
 
 a>T j\j» p^O j\ u^wJj j^ &ssil &£ y*j& j+& £ij° tX& > J — i °**t (J*J^ ^ 
 K\t) jii 6JU*i6S j+& &£ ut "—■«»> »- v ~*' &£ij) fiOoA* &£» Jj Ou»T ji fow-J ^V-»l 
 
 38. FitzGerald had had before him a passage very analogous to this from 
 the Bostan of Sa'adi, quoted in Sacy's notes to the Pend Nameh (loc. cit., pp. 225-6), 
 "After having brought and accumulated goods like the ant, hasten to consume 
 them ere that thyself art consumed by the worms of the grave." 
 
 2 
 
i8 
 
 superficial manner, for I found it difficult to arouse my own 
 interest in it, but readers of FitzGerald's paraphrase will 
 recognise many lines which contain thoughts which reappeared 
 in his ruba'iyat. One passage, however, occurs in it to which 
 especial reference must be made, and that is the couplet : 
 Drinking, that cup of Happiness and Tears 
 In which " Farewell " had never yet been flung. 
 It was from this that FitzGerald got the opening lines of 
 his first edition : 
 
 Awake ! for Morning in the Bowl of Night 
 Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight : 
 appending a note to the effect that the flinging of a stone into 
 a cauldron was the signal for the breaking up of a company, 
 such as a camp or halt of Arabs in the desert. The image 
 occurs nowhere in Omar Khayyam. 
 
 V. The Mantik-ut-Tair of Ferid-ud-din Attar is by far the 
 most important of the materials under examination, for it is 
 not too much to say that it might properly have been cited on 
 the title-page of FitzGerald's poem as one of the sources of 
 that work. It is one of the most important expositions that 
 have come down to us of that alliance of religious revelation 
 and mundane philosophy which the Muslims in general, and 
 the Sufi philosophers in particular, have from all time attempted 
 to demonstrate. The philosophical study of religions is neither 
 more nor less than an attempt to solve the enigma of nature, 
 and in Persia this study has been the constant care of the 
 Sufis. They commence by the postulation of a vast Pantheism 
 in which everything is God save alone God himself, everything 
 being regarded by them as an emanation from God and every- 
 thing being finally reabsorbed into God. As opposed to this, 
 Muhammadanism is the gospel of the abstract and personal 
 Unity of God, and it is interesting to note that Muhammad, 
 admitting the personalities of Moses, the Prophets and Christ, 
 looked upon Christianity as a kind of developed Judaism, 
 which authorises us in concluding that Islam itself is nothing 
 more than an aberration of Christianity. 
 
19 
 
 Sufism, as it presents itself to the student of Omar Khay- 
 yam and Ferid-ud-din Attar, has been admirably described by 
 the great English traveller and Oriental scholar Sir Richard 
 Burton ; he says : " It is the religion of beauty, whose leading 
 principle is that of earthly, the imperfect type of heavenly love. 
 Its high priests are Anacreontic poets ; its rites, wine, music 
 and dancing, spiritually considered ; and its places of worship, 
 meadows and gardens where the perfume of the rose and the 
 song of the nightingale, by charming the heart, are supposed 
 to improve the mind of the listener." 39 The first Sufi (a word 
 derived from *~J>y* suf= wool, the material of which the robes 
 of dervishes and fakirs are made) was one Abu Hashim Kufa, 
 who lived in the second half of the eighth century A.D., so that 
 Sufism was only two centuries old when Omar Khayyam 
 flourished, and undoubtedly its greatest priest and poet 
 was Muhammad bin Ibrahim Nishapuri Ferid-ud-din Attar 
 (meaning " Pearl of the Faith, the Druggist," from his trade, 
 which was that of an oil-presser), born, as his name denotes, 
 at Omar's own town of Nishapur in nig A.D., and massacred 
 by the soldiers of Gengiz Khan in 1230, and in the 110th 
 year of his age. The story of his conversion to philosophical 
 religion is told to the effect that a Sufi Darvish apostrophized 
 him one day in his shop, congratulating himself that he had 
 no merchandise to carry on the Mystic Road, or Oriental 
 " Way of Salvation," and exhorting Attar to prepare himself 
 for the journey. 
 
 Attar, like almost every other Persian poet, wrote an immense 
 quantity of verse, but his most interesting and important work 
 is undoubtedly his " Language of Birds," a title which he 
 borrowed from the passage in the Qur'an, where Solomon 
 declares, on his accession to the throne of David, " Oh, men ! 
 I understand the language of the birds." 40 No exposition of 
 the doctrines of Sufism could be more complete than that 
 
 39. R. F. Burton. " Sindh, and the Races that inhabit the Valley of the 
 Indus." London, 1851. Ch. viii., p. 201. 
 
 40. Chap, xxvii., v. 16. 
 
 2 — 2 
 
20 
 
 contained in this book, and as those doctrines are prominent 
 in the sentiments of Omar Khayyam, we may shortly state 
 them, as follows : 
 
 (i.) All created beings are emanations from God 
 and are finally reabsorbed in God. 
 
 (ii.) Since God orders all things, good and bad 
 are indifferent, a doctrine identical with that of the 
 early Christian schismatics called "Adamites," whose 
 rites and tenets, by the way, leave much to be desired 
 on the score of social ethics. 
 
 (iii.) The soul is everything and the body im- 
 prisons it, therefore death is merely a return to God. 41 
 And these doctrines are clothed in a wealth of imagery, 
 often licentious, which, like the doctrine of Platonism, invoke 
 God under the form of beauty, pleasure, and woman — which 
 are one. It may be observed that the Sufis do not admit the 
 contention of the strict Muhammadans that they are heretics ; 
 indeed, Attar himself, in the epilogue to this poem, says 
 (as Omar said before him 4 ' 2 ), " I am neither a Muslim nor an 
 infidel," 43 and immediately after implores God to keep him 
 firm in the faith of Islam, 44 and to make him die therein. 45 
 
 I will now, following as far as possible the system observed 
 above, point out some of the principal parallels between the 
 Mantik-ut-Tair and FitzGerald's Ruba'iyat. The lines in the 
 Mantik are counted by distichs (d). 
 
 41. . Qur'an, chap, i., v. 151 : " We are of God and return to him." 
 
 42. " Beneath this heaven of azure marble I am neither an independent 
 infidel nor a perfect Muslim," which is L. 527, C. 340, W. 347, N. 315, S.P. 314, 
 P. 302, B. 532, B. II. 417. 
 
 |»Ui* <jUJ~~» &i < 3^ b * # J^ cS* f^J & )}J** * X * J ^ i^J^ t*£\" 
 
 43. d. 4592. I remain neither an infidel nor a Muslim, 
 
 Between the two I remain bewildered. 
 COkil* (jjj^tf*. jo jJb ^fr* j^ soil* jjUJ — • 6i ±\£ 6.5 ^» 
 
 44. d. 4595. Open this door to worthless me, 
 
 And indicate a path to this pathless (lost) one. 
 
21 
 
 Mantik-ut-Tair. 
 
 d. 4. To this (i.e., the sky) he has 
 imparted a perpetual motion. 46 
 
 d. 24. The sky is like a bird that 
 flutters along the path God 
 has appointed for it. 4 ? 
 
 d. 145. What is the sky, like a bowl 
 turned upside down, unstable, 
 stationary and revolving at the 
 same time. 48 
 
 d. 2290. The sky is like a dish 
 turned upside down. 49 
 
 d. 38. From the back' of the Fish 
 (Mahi) to the Moon (Mah) 
 every atom attests Him. 50 
 
 FitzGerald. 
 
 72. And that inverted Bowl they 
 call the Sky, 
 
 As impotently moves as you 
 or I, 
 
 51. Taking all shapes from Mah 
 to Mahi. 
 They change and perish all, 
 but He remains ! 
 
 A score of passages might be quoted in which this figure 
 
 occurs. FitzGerald's quatrain came, as a whole, from the 
 
 Calcutta MS. (C. 72). 
 
 d. 147-8. Can he who during so 32. There was the Door to which 
 
 many years . . . has impotently I found no key ; 
 
 frequented the Door, know There was the Veil through 
 
 what is behind the veil. 51 which I might not see. 
 
 This is also an image which constantly recurs. 
 d. 152. Those who before us 26. Why all the Saints and Sages 
 
 entered upon the Path 
 have studied the Mystery time 
 
 and again. 
 They have agitated themselves 
 
 profoundly and in the end 
 
 their result is feebleness and 
 
 astonishment. 52 
 
 >) cs* r" 
 
 l &SJe 
 
 Of? <J*> 
 
 j\j» o\j ji U*lo ^f 
 
 
 who discuss'd 
 Of the Two Worlds so wisely 
 
 — they are thrust 
 Like foolish Prophets forth ; 
 
 their words to scorn 
 Are scattered and their Mouths 
 
 are stopt with Dust. 
 
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 d> ) 
 
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 j#*> 
 
 air 
 
 0>Ow«T 
 
 ^ a ; 
 
 &£ .M 
 
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 52 
 
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22 
 
 There is a quatrain in Omar (L. 326, C. 236, B. 322, 
 
 W. 147, N. 120, S. P. 120) which is almost identical with this. 
 
 At d. 216-8. Oh ! Thou who pardonest my faults and acceptest my excuses, I 
 am an hundred times consumed, why burn me again. It is by 
 thy impulsion that my blood boils ; let me shew my ardour. 53 
 
 Here we have part of the sentiment of the quatuor of 
 quatrains 78-81. There is a parallel quatrain for this in Omar, 
 (L. 449, C. 286, W. 276, N. 236, S. P. 235, B. 445, B. ii. 308) 
 but the whole of this great quatuor comes primarily from 
 the parable quoted here ; a little further on we find dd. 217 
 (bis 5i ) to 220. " Oh ! Thou my Creator ! the good and the bad 
 actions that I commit, I commit with my body. Pardon my 
 weakness and efface my faults. I am led away by my natural 
 instincts and cast by Thee into uncertainty ; therefore the 
 good and the bad I do comes from Thee." 55 And further, 
 d. 225: " Thou hast planted in the centre of my soul a black 
 mole (i.e., original sin). Thou hast marked me with a spot as 
 black as the skin of an Abyssinian ; but if I do not become 
 Thy mole, how can I become accepted by Thee ? There- 
 fore to attain that state I have made my heart like a black 
 Abyssinian slave." 56 Here we have the original of the lines : 
 For 'all the Sin with which the face of Man 
 Is blackened, Man's forgiveness give — and take ! 
 
 This plea for reciprocal forgiveness appears again with 
 great force at d. 4618 : " Deign to notice neither the good nor 
 the bad that I have done. Since Thou createdst me gratuitously, 
 Thou must pardon me gratuitously." 57 We shall presently 
 
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 54. By an error of the Editor the numbers 215 to 220 are repeated twice. 
 
 y ') f\>'° ^^ o^' 4 -* £'° y ) fv' o^* f- d^ csj**** 56 
 
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 •!>*• ^3)y^ / r^J — ijj ^ fj&tij *>j*i 
 
23 
 
 find other passages in the Mantik-ut-Tair which contributed 
 to this quatuor. We will proceed again with the parallel 
 passages. 
 
 FitzGerald. 
 43. And, offering his Cup, invite 
 your Soul 
 Forth to your Lips to quaff — 
 you shall not shrink. 
 
 Mantik-ut-Tair. 
 
 d. 240. So long as my Soul comes 
 not forth to my lips, I will 
 cherish these thoughts. 58 
 
 dd. 2501 and 3031 open passages 
 containing this same meta- 
 phor.^ 
 
 d. 302. One night he (Muhammad) 
 ascended to heaven, and all 
 secrets were revealed to 
 
 him from God he 
 
 obtained complete under- 
 standing of all things. 60 
 
 The " Seven Gates," or " Seven Heavens," recur con- 
 tinually all through the poem, sc. dd. 271 61 and 1818, 62 etc. 
 At d. 451 we find a reference to the life-giving breath of 
 Jesus, 63 and at d. 453 to the White Hand of Moses. 64 At 
 d. 742 et passim the loves of the Nightingale and the Rose. 65 
 
 At d. 972. An observer of Spiritual 
 Things approached the 
 
 31. Up from Earth's Centre through 
 
 the Seventh Gate 
 I rose and on the Throne of 
 
 Saturn sate ; 
 And many a Knot unravel'd by 
 
 the Road. 
 
 Ocean, and asked it why it 
 was clad in blue (purple) ; 
 why this robe of mourning 
 . The Ocean replied 
 " I weep for my 
 separation from The Friend. 
 
 33. Earth could not answer; nor 
 the Seas that mourn 
 In flowing Purple of their 
 Lord forlorn. 
 
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24 
 
 Since, by reason of my in- 
 sufficiency, I am not worthy 
 of him, I am clad in blue 
 on account of the sorrow 
 that I suffer." 66 
 
 These are the two lines upon which Professor Cowell has 
 
 given us the note which gave me the first clue for these 
 
 researches. A curious illustration of FitzGerald's method 
 
 is found in connection with the passage at d. 1017: "The true 
 
 dawn was the light of his countenance." 67 This, together with 
 
 Mr. Binning's note on the phenomena of the Oriental sunrise, 
 
 produced his line and note concerning "the Phantom of 
 
 False Morning." The process will be set out further on. 
 
 At d. 1559. We, all of us, leave the 29. And out of it, as Wind along 
 world like Wind, it has gone the Waste, 
 
 and we must go too. 08 I know not Whither, willy- 
 
 nilly blowing. 
 
 This is one of two frequently recurrent images of death 
 in Persian poetry; the other we find in d. 2288. " Knowest thou 
 not that every man who is born, sinks into the earth and the 
 wind disperses his elements," 69 — a figure as frequently found in 
 Omar as the former one. 
 
 At d. 1866. Heaven and Hell are re- 68. Heav'n but the Vision of ful- 
 flections, the one of thy fill'd Desire, 
 
 goodness, and the other of And Hell the Shadow from a 
 
 thy malice. 70 Soul on fire. 
 
 Here, again, we have a true original, for there is no parallel 
 for No. 68 in Omar. FitzGerald was reminded of it, but no 
 
 w <s" r* *** ^ > y "^j r*A? cr* r 5 ^ s? ^ o^ ^^ 68 
 
 Oji j>\j ,jUio^ di. jjt } .sJI&j oui, o^« olJ> ^ ^* &£ ^l *** 
 
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 v 69 
 
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25 
 
 more, by quatrain 33 of the Bodleian, and go of the Calcutta 
 
 MSS., which reads : 
 
 The heavenly vault is the girdle of my weary body, 
 Jihun is a watercourse worn by my filtered tears, 
 Hell is a spark from my useless worries, 
 Paradise is a moment of time when I am tranquil. 71 
 
 We trace in this quatrain the original of " the Soul on Fire." 
 
 We find the first mention of " the rumble of the distant 
 
 drum," at d. 2162, " He whose lofty station is indicated by the 
 
 drum and the standard, cannot become a darvish," 72 and at 
 
 d. 2753, " Were it not better to strike the drum of sovereignty, 
 
 etc. 73 
 
 At d. 2340. He who controlled the world beneath his signet-ring (i.e., Solomon) 
 is actually an element beneath the earth. 74 
 
 This figure occurs in various forms in Omar, and has been 
 freely made use of by FitzGerald. 
 
 At d. 2342. The dead sleep beneath 29 the fire of Anguish 
 
 the earth, but though asleep in some Eye 
 
 they are anguished. 75 There hidden, far beneath and 
 
 long ago. 
 
 Closely following these passages, we find the following 
 
 fable : 
 
 d. 2345. (On a certain occasion) Jesus drank of the water of a clear stream 
 whose flavour was more sweet than that of rose-water. By his 
 side, a certain one filled his jar at this same stream and then 
 withdrew. Then Jesus drank a little from this jar, and pursued 
 his way, but now he found the water bitter, and stood amazed. 
 " Oh, God! " he said, " the water of the stream and that in the 
 jar are identical : explain to me the mystery of this difference in 
 the flavour, why is the water in the jar bitter and that in the 
 stream more sweet than honey." Then spake the jar these 
 words to Jesus: " I am, of old, a man. I have been fashioned 
 
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26 
 
 a thousand times beneath the seven-domed heavens, now into 
 a vase, now into a jar, and again into a bowl. They may 
 refashion me again a thousand times, but I shall always be 
 tainted with the bitterness of death. It so impregnates me that 
 water contained in me can never be sweet." 76 
 
 FitzGerald, in his paraphrase of the Mantik, 77 rendered 
 this answer very beautifully : 
 
 The Clay that I am made of, once was Man, 
 Who dying, and resolved into the same 
 Obliterated Earth from which he came 
 Was for the Potter dug and chased in turn 
 Through long vicissitude of Bowl and Urn : 
 But, howsoever moulded, still the pain 
 Of that first mortal Anguish would retain, 
 And cast and re-cast, for a Thousand years 
 Would turn the sweetest Water into Tears. 
 
 And it was from this passage of the Mantik, and from this 
 alone, that we get the quatrain No. 38. 
 
 And has not such a Story from of Old 
 Down Man's successive generations roll'd, 
 Of such a clod of saturated Earth 
 Cast by the Maker into Human mould ? 
 
 In the comment upon this parable in the Mantik we find 
 the original of another quatrain of Fitzgerald that has no 
 other source : 
 
 76 
 
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 b ) °^ «ftf j# (^ )! cr-** ***» °/ j* r* *r»J o!) <J* o T 
 
 ,jlj)l OciU v—^lsS* j ^t^j^ j\* O^ 60 (j**«i» <_£♦•*> f^> «-r s l) tA ^ t 
 
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 o^ **./• r** ts***^* ^ «*>** e^" j° ^ r^- o* cj— ** u 6 ^. 
 
 77. This paraphrase was never published during FitzGerald's lifetime. 
 It occupies pp. 433-452 of vol. ii. of his " Letters and Literary Remains." (Vide 
 Note 12.) 
 
27 
 
 d. 2355. Thou thyself art lost. Oh! 53. But if in vain, down on the 
 
 Thou that pursuest the stubborn floor 
 
 Mystery. Strive to discover Of Earth, and up to Heav'n's 
 
 it, ere thy life be reft from unopening Door, 
 
 thee, for if, to-day, whilst You gaze To-day while You are 
 
 thou livest thou findest not You — how then 
 
 thyself, how then, when To-morrow, You when shall be 
 
 thou art dead, shalt thou You no more ? 
 unravel the secret of thine 
 existence ? 78 
 
 The whole doctrine of the evanescence of the world is 
 contained in the 27th chapter, which immediately follows 
 this, and which contains the germ of one of FitzGerald's most 
 sarcastic quatrains : 
 
 d. 2409. If thou seekest a moment 65. The Revelations of Devout and 
 of well-being in this world, Learn'd 
 
 Sleep ! and then repeat Who rose before us and as 
 
 what thou hast seen in thy Prophets burn'd 
 
 dreams. 79 Are all but Stories which awoke 
 
 from Sleep, 
 They told their comrades and 
 to Sleep returned. 
 
 It may be observed, however, that FitzGerald translated 
 his quatrain from No. 127 of the Calcutta MS. 
 
 We come now to another most interesting side-light upon 
 FitzGerald's mental process. There is in the Calcutta MS. 
 (but not in the Bodleian MS. or Nicolas) a quatrain, No. 387, 
 which may be thus rendered : 
 
 Neither thou nor I know the Secret of Eternity, 
 
 And neither can thou nor I read this Enigma. 
 
 There is talk of me and thee behind the curtain, 
 (But) When they raise the curtain there remains neither thee nor me. 80 
 
 From this FitzGerald constructed two remarkable verses : 
 
 32. There was the Door to which I found no Key ; 
 
 There was the Veil through which I might not see : 
 
 v5^ ')* ^ S O^ *»** O 1 ; 1 u^ k3^- 'h k3 ] **/ t^ U/***' 78 
 
 y )b cr*^ c/ s5jz* o^- y & b°y- 5kX ^ £ 
 
 &* w i j^^ y w L *** t - i /* &> o* ** j ^° y w ujj 1 jih 80 
 v^* ** > c^ 1 * y *» ***•!* c °^ o^- ? > <&• *J&^ & *>S" err y ^ • * 
 
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee 
 There was — and then no more of Thee and Me. 
 
 34. Then of the Thee in Me who works behind 
 The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find 
 
 A lamp amid the Darkness: and I heard, 
 As from Without, " The Me within Thee blind!" 
 
 There are those, I believe, " who by Genius and by Power 
 
 of Brain" have found these two quatrains quite simple and 
 
 self-explanatory. For my own part, I confess that I never 
 
 understood them in the least until I found the two passages in 
 
 Ferld-ud-din Attar, which evidently surged up in FitzGerald's 
 
 brain when he read the Calcutta quatrain. They are as 
 
 follows : 
 
 d. 3090. The Creator of the world spoke thus to David from behind the 
 Curtain of the Secret: "Everything in the world, good or bad, 
 visible or invisible, is mere substitute, unless it be Me, Me for 
 whom thou canst find neither substitute nor equal. Since 
 nothing can be substituted for Me, do not cease to abide in Me. 
 I am thy soul, be not separated from Me ; I am necessary, thou 
 art dependent upon Me . . . Seek not to exist apart from Me." 81 
 
 and 
 
 d- 3735- " Since long ago, really, I am Thee and Thou art Me, we two are 
 but one. Art thou Me or am I Thee, is there any duality 
 in the matter ? Or else, I am thee, or thou art me, or thou, 
 thou art thyself. Since thou art me and I am thee for ever, our 
 two bodies are one. That is all ! 82 
 
 This is an admirable specimen of the Sufistic argument of 
 
 Unity with God, or the Thee-in-Me that FitzGerald has 
 
 introduced with such mystic skill into his Ruba'iyat. 
 
 jfcL* ^ l=> y y U> p—i - jfcL. .. ^ \j+ ^yi ycf- C y^ 
 
 ^f y k o" y l i o* ry ^ ^° >* *** ^y o* ^ ^ y 
 
29 
 
 I have never found in Omar any mention of 
 
 The Mighty Mahmoud Allah-breathing Lord 
 That all the misbelieving and black Horde 
 
 Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul 
 Scatters before him with his whirlwind Sword. 
 
 The reference is to Mahmoud the Ghasnawi, who made war 
 upon the black infidels of Hindostan, whose conquest and 
 its sequelae are related at d. 3117 of the Mantik. The main 
 image of the quatrain, the dispersal of fears and sorrows by 
 wine, comes primarily to FitzGerald from a quatrain which is 
 No. 81 in the Bodleian and No. 180 in the Calcutta MSS. 
 
 In like manner, though Omar is full of allusions to the 
 dead that come not back again, the precise image of our 
 ignorance of the road they travel comes from the Mantik : 
 
 d. 3205. No one has returned to 64. Strange is it not ? that of the 
 
 the world after having myriads who 
 
 travelled that Road, no Before us pass'd the door of 
 
 one knows how many para- Darkness through 
 
 sangs it extends . . . Fool Not one returns to tell us of 
 
 that thou art ! how can the Road, 
 
 those who have been lost Which to discover, we must 
 
 in the Road for ever tell travel too. 
 us of it. 83 
 
 This passage is quoted in the Notes to De Sacy's Pend 
 Nameh, where FitzGerald originally saw it. 
 
 At d. 3229 we find an allegory related by Amru Osman, in 
 which we read of the presence of the Snake (Iblis) in Paradise 
 at the moment of the creation of Adam (FitzGerald 81), and at 
 d. 3248 Satan argues with the Creator quite in the manner of 
 FitzGerald's great quatuor of quatrains: " If malediction comes 
 from thee, there comes also mercy ; the created thing is de- 
 pendent upon thee since destiny is in thy hands. If maledic- 
 
 
30 
 
 tion be my lot, I do not fear ; for every poison there is an 
 antidote." 64 
 
 Finally, at d. 4620, we find the dying words of Omar's 
 reputed friend Nizam ul Mulk, recorded by FitzGerald in his 
 letter to Professor Cowell of 28th December, 1867, 85 and quoted 
 in a note to his Introduction. 
 
 The parallel passages cited at so much length above 
 might have been considerably increased, but I think that 
 enough have been recorded to exhibit the intimate connection 
 between Fitzgerald's study of this Author and his own poem. 
 
 VI. We now come to the last of the authorities cited as 
 FitzGerald's material for his work, the Journal of Mr. Binning, 
 from which he drew very largely for his notes. To the 
 student of Oriental manners and customs no more interesting 
 or delightful work has been written, the conservative tendencies 
 of the Persians having militated successfully against any pro- 
 gress in their social conditions, so that the reader of the latest 
 travel-journal of Persia finds little or nothing altered in the 
 state of the country from what was described by Binning, and 
 before him by Dr. Wolff, 86 by the Hon. Mountstuart Elphin- 
 stone, 87 and by even earlier travellers. 
 
 FitzGerald's first note about the False Dawn is taken 
 from vol. i., p. 176, practically word for word. It is curious 
 to note that in speaking of the subh i sadik (^Jj^Lo r-r~o), or 
 True Dawn, FitzGerald has followed Binning in his Persian 
 phrase for False Dawn, the subh i kazib (<-r*)^ F*~*) a phrase 
 that does not occur in Omar. In quatrain 145 of the Calcutta 
 MS. we find the synonym subh i azrak (^A)^ r" 1 "^)* ^ tera ^y 
 
 
 86. Joseph Wi 
 ;ars 1843-1845." 
 
 87. Vide Note 
 
 86. Joseph Wolff, D.D., LL.D. "Narrative of a Mission to Bokhara in 
 the years 1843-1845." London, 1846. 
 
3i 
 
 " the blue dawn," having the same meaning, which one would 
 have expected FitzGerald (who had it before him) to use. 
 
 Mr. Binning's work, besides referring at some length to 
 the Mantik-ut-Tair of Attar, contains translations of a dozen 
 odes of Hafiz which we know were in FitzGerald's mind 
 (together with those of Cowell) when he was constructing his 
 poem. One or two passages from these translations will show 
 what I mean : 
 
 III. The season of Spring has arrived : endeavour now to 
 be merry and gay while thou art able ; for the roses will blow 
 again and again, after thou art laid under the sod. 
 
 V. Bring the right medicine for all the pains and troubles 
 of love — namely, the juice of the grape — for that is the true 
 panacea for all ills that beset both the young and the old. 
 
 VI. When Hafiz has become fairly intoxicated, he cares 
 not a barleycorn for the whole Empire of the Cyruses. 
 
 VII. At early dawn I walked forth into the garden to pluck 
 a rose, when suddenly the plaintive voice of a nightingale fell on 
 mine ear. The poor bird like myself, was in love with the rose, 
 and, sick with the passion, warbled its complaint. 
 
 XII. Bring the wine, O cupbearer, for the season of roses 
 has arrived, that we may again break our vows of abstinence 
 among the rosebushes. 
 
 It will be observed that some of these have already been 
 quoted by Professor Cowell and Sir William Jones. 
 
 Mr. Binning's information about the festival of the Nu- 
 ruz (New Year), reproduced by FitzGerald, is to be found at 
 vol. i., p. 346, and vol. ii., pp. 160, 165 and 207, and the 
 account of Bahram Gur is taken from vol. ii., pp. 353 and 
 357, though we have it recorded by FitzGerald himself in his 
 letters w that he made a superficial study of the Haft Paikar 
 of Nizami, which contains the legend of that hero's Seven 
 Castles and the seven ladies inhabiting them, who recount 
 their stories in turn in true Oriental style. 
 
 88. Loc. cit., Note 12, vol. i., p. 266. 
 
32 
 
 At the risk of being wearisomely prolix, I have set out the 
 above parallels seriatim, encouraged by the belief that nothing 
 that adds to our knowledge of the history of FitzGerald's 
 beautiful poem can lack interest for the students and admirers 
 of that poem. The array might have been largely extended, 
 but not, I think, with any great advantage. It has been enough 
 to show that, as I stated at the outset, FitzGerald's " Ruba'iyat 
 of Omar Khayyam " is, in addition to being a remarkable para- 
 phrase of Omar's incomparable quatrains, a synthetical result 
 of our poet's entire course of Persian studies. 
 
 London, February, i 
 
 Note. — The following texts are referred to in the above : 
 
 C, the MS., No. 1548, in the Bengal Asiatic Society (Calcutta), 
 
 L., the Lucknow lithographed edition of 1894. 
 
 O., the Ouseley or Bodleian MS. of 1460. 
 
 B., the Bombay lithograph of 1880. 
 
 S. P., the St. Petersburg lithograph of 18S8. 
 
 B. II., the Bankipur MS. (recently discovered) of 1554. 
 
 W., Whinfield's text and translation ; London, 1883. 
 
 N., Nicolas's text and translation ; Paris, 1867. 
 
 H. S. Nichols, Ltd., 39 Charing Cross Road, London, W.C. 
 

 
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