Notes

1] Omar Khayyám, Persian astronomer, mathematician, philosopher and poet, lived at Naishápúr in Khorassán in the second half of the eleventh and the first quarter of the twelfth century A.D. The traditional Persian stanza he employed, the rubái, consisted of two verses of varied prosody divided into hemistichs, with the first, second and fourth hemistichs rhyming--and occasionally the third as well. FitzGerald's stanza, a pentameter quatrain with aaba rhyme, is similar in form to Omar's although less varied in its rhythm. In the Persian original each rubái is an independent composition, its thought condensed and polished to the form of epigram. Collections of rubáiyát were made, not by grouping together stanzas similar in subject matter, but by arranging the independent units in an alphabetic sequence. The result is, as FitzGerald said, "a strange farrago of grave and gay," with recurring motifs but without essential unity or progression of theme or mood. Studying some six hundred rubáiyát in the two Omar manuscripts available to him, FitzGerald saw that by selection and arrangement "a very pretty eclogue might be tesselated out of his scattered fragments." The controlling design was outlined by FitzGerald in a letter to his publisher: "[The poet] begins with dawn pretty sober and contemplative; then as he thinks and drinks, grows savage, blasphemous, etc., and then again sobers down into melancholy at nightfall." FitzGerald recognized that his plan altered somewhat the balance of moods in Omar, allowing "a less than equal proportion of the 'Drink and make merry,' which (genuine or not) recurs over-frequently in the original." Since Omar's own day there have been recurrent attempts to interpret in a mystical sense the poet's glorification of wine and the joys of the moment. FitzGerald viewed the rubáiyát more literally: "... his worldly pleasures are what they profess to be without any pretence at divine allegory: his wine is the veritable juice of the grape: his tavern, where it was to be had: his Saki, the flesh and blood that poured it out for him: all which, and where the roses were in bloom, was all he profess'd to want of this world or to expect of paradise." As translator, FitzGerald was concerned not with literal accuracy but with securing a forceful and lively equivalent: "Better a live sparrow than a stuffed eagle." As Persian scholar, he was a dedicated and careful amateur. When he encountered difficulties in interpreting Omar, he consulted his friend and unofficial tutor, E. B. Cowell who later became a distinguished Sanskrit scholar but who, in the 1850's, was rather a keen and gifted student of Oriental languages than an authoritative guide. The first edition of FitzGerald's Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám appeared anonymously in March 1859. The poem underwent extensive revision for successive editions in 1868 (with 110 quatrains), 1872 (101 quatrains), and 1879. FitzGerald's publisher, Bernard Quaritch, had named him as Omar's translator in a book catalogue in the autumn of 1868, but that mention went unnoticed and FitzGerald was not formally recognized as the author of the Rubáiyát until March 1876, in an article in the Contemporary Review. The text printed here is that of the first edition. Textual notes in quotation marks are FitzGerald's notes from that edition. The best recent edition of the 1859 version is A. J. Arberry's The Romance of the Rubáiyát, London, 1959.

Comparison of a literal translation of the Persian original of lines 1-4 with FitzGerald's successive versions will exemplify his method of translation and recension:

Literal: The sun has thrown the lassoo of dawn over the roof; the emperor of day has thrown the stone into the cup.

1859: Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo ! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultán's Turret in a Noose of Light.

1868: Wake! For the Sun behind yon Eastern height
Has chased the Session of the Stars from Night;
And, to the field of Heav'n ascending, strikes
The Sultán's Turret with a Shaft of Light.

1872-79: Wake! For the Sun who scatter'd into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night
Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes
The Sultán's Turret with a Shaft of Light.

2] "Flinging a stone into the cup was the signal for 'To horse!' in the desert."

5] Dawn's left hand: "the 'false dawn;' ... a transient light on the horizon about an hour before the ... true dawn; a well-known phenomenon in the East."

13] New Year. The Persian year began with the vernal equinox.

15] the White Hand of Moses: an allusion to the sudden appearance of clusters of white blossoms on flowering trees in the spring. FitzGerald cites Exodus 4:6, "where Moses draws forth his hand--not, according to the Persians, 'leprous as snow',--but white as our May-blossom in spring perhaps."

16] suspires: breathes. According to Moslem belief the breath of Christ is a continuously vivifying force, keeping the world alive. The poet alludes here to the earth's renewed vitality in spring.

17] Iram: a legendary garden city, "now sunk somewhere in the sands of Arabia."

18] Jamshýd: monarch of the mythical Pishdadian dynasty--oldest dynasty of Persian legend. "King Splendid" of a golden age, Jamsh{'y}d is credited, in his seven-hundred-year-long reign with the building of Persepolis, the invention of most of the arts of civilization, and the discovery of the benefits of wine. In later Islamic legend he is identified with both King Solomon and Alexander the Great.
Sev'n-ring'd Cup: a magic cup, famous in Persian legend, in which all the activities of the world could be seen. Seven, of course, is a mystic number; FitzGerald comments: "typical of the seven heavens, seven planets, seven seas, etc."

21] David. In Persian poetry David appears as sweet singer and lutanist. FitzGerald probably intends to add the connotation of the sacred singer whose lips are now silent, whereas the nightingale, celebrating the joys of the fleeting present, sings on.

22] Pehleví. In a strict sense, Pahlavi is Middle Persian, the language from about the third to the seventh centuries. In Persian literature, however, Pahlavi is not so much a chronological term as a richly connotative one, gathering up memories of pre-Islamic Persian greatness.

34] Kaikobád and Kaikhosrú: legendary kings of ancient Persia, members of the Kaianid dynasty, celebrated in Firdausí's Sháh-náma. Their names are evocative of past splendour and heroic action.

35] Rustum: the Hercules of Persian legend, champion for centuries of the Kaianid monarchs. Rustum is known to English readers through Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum.

36] Hátim Tai: an Arab who beggared himself by his excessive bounty. He became, in Oriental literature, a type of lavish generosity.

40] Sultán Mahmúd: Mahmúd of Ghazna, eleventh-century ruler of part of eastern Persia and a large area of Afghanistan, and conqueror of northern India. His celebrated devotion to his slave boy, Ayáz, may be alluded to in line 39.

57] Golden Grain: money.

60] The burial of treasure, an economic necessity to preserve it from theft, is a recurring theme in Persian poetry.

61] Caravanserai: an inn providing shelter for caravans; here it is an image for the world.

66] Courts: Persepolis, called the "Throne of Jamshyd" because tradition named him as its founder.

67] Bahrám: a Persian sovereign of the Sassanid dynasty (ca. 421-38), called Bahrám Gúr--Bahrám of the Wild Ass--for his strength and skill, and his prowess in the hunt.

80] Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years: FitzGerald comments cryptically: "a thousand years to each planet." The Persian may be literally translated: "We shall be level with those of seven thousand years ago."

95] Muezzin: a public crier who proclaims the hour of prayer from the minaret of a mosque.

101-02] In the second and subsequent editions these lines were altered to read: "Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!/One thing at least is certain--This Life flies."

117-20] The Persian original of this quatrain much milder: "Since neither my entrance into the world nor my departure from it depend upon my own design, rise up, O nimble cup-bearer, for I will wash down the grief of the world with wine" (Ougley MS., 21).

121-22] Omar claims he has pursued knowledge to its farthest human limit. According to the Ptolemaic system the sphere of Saturn was the outermost of the seven concentric planetary spheres surrounding the earth.

127] Me and Thee: "that is, some dividual existence or personality apart from the whole."

129-32] The final version of this stanza reads:

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"

137-44] Omar frequently ponders the irony of human dust become potter's clay.

161-62] FitzGerald comments: "A jest, of course, at his studies" (note from second edition). Omar was bothphilosopher and mathematician.

166] Angel Shape. FitzGerald's misreading of pírí (old man) as pirí (fairy) has radically altered the spirit of the Persian original of the quatrain.

170] the Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects: "The seventy-two sects into which Islamism so soon split." This note from the first edition is a more accurate rendering of Mohammedan tradition than the revised note of the second and later editions, which reads: "The seventy-two religions supposed to divide the world, including Islamism, as some think: but others not."

173] Mahmúd: see the note at line 40, introduced as metaphor to express the power of wine to dispel sorrow.

174] misbelieving and black Horde. "This alludes to Mahmúd's conquest of India and its swarthy idolaters." In later editions FitzGerald made an interesting change in wording from "swarthy idolaters," a term which accurately expressed the traditional Persian view of Indians, to the less invidious "dark people."

182] Magic Shadow-Show: a magic lantern used all through the middle East, in some places even up to the present time, "the cylindrical interior being painted with various figures, and so lightly poised and ventilated as to revolve round the candle lighted within."

189-92] In its third and final version this stanza reads:

So when the Angel of the darker Drink
At last shall find you by the river-brink,
And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul
Forth to your Lips to quaff--you shall not shrink.

195] mates: checkmates.

213] starting from the Goal: continues the concept introduced in stanza LIII: goal and starting point are one in the cycle of existence.

214] flaming Foal Of Heav'n: a common metaphor for the sun in Persian literature.

215] Parwín and Mushtara: the Pleiades and Jupiter.

218] Súfi: Moslem mystic and ascetic. The name early became associated with extravagant observances and a sense of election.

225] Gin: snare.

227] Predestination: in the second and subsequent editions this word was altered to read "Predestin'dEvil."

231-32] These two lines were based on FitzGerald's misconception of a perfectly orthodox passage in Omar (Calcutta MS., 292): "O Lord, grant me repentance and accept my excuse, You who grant repentance and accept the excuse of every man." E. B. Cowell pointed out to FitzGerald his misinterpretation of Omar's lines, but FitzGerald chose to retain what he had written, believing it consistent with Omar's general spirit.

232] KÚZANAMA: "Book of Pots"; the sub-heading was removed in later editions. FitzGerald notes in the third edition: "This relation of Pot and Potter to Man and his Maker figures far and wide in the literature of the world, from the time of the Hebrew prophets to the present." In FitzGerald's own day Browning made notable use of the metaphor in "Rabbi Ben Ezra," possibly in reply to FitzGerald's Omar.

234] Ramazán: in Islam a month of strict fasting.
better Moon: the new moon heralding the end of Ramazán and ushering in the month of Shawwál with a three-day long festival.

253-56] In its final version this stanza reads:

`Why,' said another, `Some there are who tell
Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell
The luckless Pots he marr'd in making--Pish!
He's a Good Fellow, and 't will all be well."

262] little Crescent: the "better Moon" of line 234.

264] the Porter's shoulder-knot: a device for carrying his wares--jars of wine to celebrate the end of Ramazán.

289] In the third and fourth editions this line became: "Ah, Love! could you and I with Him conspire."

297] Thyself: the "Moon of my Delight" of line 293, the Sákí who pours his wine.
TAMÁM SHUD: The End.

Other poems by Edward FitzGerald