The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam | Page 5

Mr.
Forster by a man on shore; but he gave a different, and indeed more proper answer, by

saying, 'No man who used the sea could say where he should be buried.'"
Thus far--without fear of Trespass--from the Calcutta Review. The writer of it, on
reading in India this story of Omar's Grave, was reminded, he says, of Cicero's Account
of finding Archimedes' Tomb at Syracuse, buried in grass and weeds. I think
Thorwaldsen desired to have roses grow over him; a wish religiously fulfilled for him to
the present day, I believe. However, to return to Omar.
Though the Sultan "shower'd Favors upon him," Omar's Epicurean Audacity of Thought
and Speech caused him to be regarded askance in his own Time and Country. He is said
to have been especially hated and dreaded by the Sufis, whose Practise he ridiculed, and
whose Faith amounts to little more than his own, when stript of the Mysticism and formal
recognition of Islamism under which Omar would not hide. Their Poets, including Hafiz,
who are (with the exception of Firdausi) the most considerable in Persia, borrowed
largely, indeed, of Omar's material, but turning it to a mystical Use more convenient to
Themselves and the People they addressed; a People quite as quick of Doubt as of Belief;
as keen of Bodily sense as of Intellectual; and delighting in a cloudy composition of both,
in which they could float luxuriously between Heaven and Earth, and this World and the
Next, on the wings of a poetical expression, that might serve indifferently for either.
Omar was too honest of Heart as well of Head for this. Having failed (however
mistakenly) of finding any Providence but Destiny, and any World but This, he set about
making the most of it; preferring rather to soothe the Soul through the Senses into
Acquiescence with Things as he saw them, than to perplex it with vain disquietude after
what they might be. It has been seen, however, that his Worldly Ambition was not
exorbitant; and he very likely takes a humorous or perverse pleasure in exalting the
gratification of Sense above that of the Intellect, in which he must have taken great
delight, although it failed to answer the Questions in which he, in common with all men,
was most vitally interested.
For whatever Reason, however, Omar as before said, has never been popular in his own
Country, and therefore has been but scantily transmitted abroad. The MSS. of his Poems,
mutilated beyond the average Casualties of Oriental Transcription, are so rare in the East
as scarce to have reacht Westward at all, in spite of all the acquisitions of Arms and
Science. There is no copy at the India House, none at the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris.
We know but of one in England: No. 140 of the Ouseley MSS. at the Bodleian, written at
Shiraz, A.D. 1460. This contains but 158 Rubaiyat. One in the Asiatic Society's Library
at Calcutta (of which we have a Copy), contains (and yet incomplete) 516, though
swelled to that by all kinds of Repetition and Corruption. So Von Hammer speaks of his
Copy as containing about 200, while Dr. Sprenger catalogues the Lucknow MS. at double
that number.<5> The Scribes, too, of the Oxford and Calcutta MSS. seem to do their
Work under a sort of Protest; each beginning with a Tetrastich (whether genuine or not),
taken out of its alphabetical order; the Oxford with one of Apology; the Calcutta with one
of Expostulation, supposed (says a Notice prefixed to the MS.) to have arisen from a
Dream, in which Omar's mother asked about his future fate. It may be rendered thus:--
"O Thou who burn'st in Heart for those who burn
In Hell, whose fires thyself shall feed
in turn,
How long be crying, 'Mercy on them, God!'
Why, who art Thou to teach, and

He to learn?"
The Bodleian Quatrain pleads Pantheism by way of Justification.
"If I myself upon a looser Creed
Have loosely strung the Jewel of Good deed,
Let this
one thing for my Atonement plead:
That One for Two I never did misread."
<5>"Since this paper was written" (adds the Reviewer in a note), "we have met with a
Copy of a very rare Edition, printed at Calcutta in 1836. This contains 438 Tetrastichs,
with an Appendix containing 54 others not found in some MSS."
The Reviewer,<6> to whom I owe the Particulars of Omar's Life, concludes his Review
by comparing him with Lucretius, both as to natural Temper and Genius, and as acted
upon by the Circumstances in which he lived. Both indeed were men of subtle, strong,
and cultivated Intellect, fine Imagination, and Hearts passionate for Truth and Justice;
who justly revolted from their Country's false Religion, and false, or foolish, Devotion to
it; but who fell short of replacing