I INTRODUCTION T is seldom that we come across a poem which it is impossible to classify in accordance with European standards. Yet such a poem is Omar's "Rubáiyát." If elegiac poetry is the expression of subjective emotion, sentiment, and thought, we might class this Persian masterpiece as elegy; but an elegy is a sustained train of connected imagery and reflection. The "Rubáiyát" is, on the other hand, a string of quatrains, each of which has all the complete and independent significance of an epigram. Yet there is so little of that lightness which should characterize an epigram that we can scarcely put Omar in the same category with Martial, and it is easy to understand why the author should have been contented to name his book the "Rubáiyát," or Quatrains, leaving it to each individual to make, if he chooses, a more definite description of the work. To English readers, Mr. Edward Fitzgerald's version of the poem has provided one of the most masterly translations that was ever made from an Oriental classic. For Omar, like Háfiz, is one of the most Persian of Persian writers. There is in this volume all the gorgeousness of the East: all the luxury of the most refined civilization. Omar's bowers are always full of roses; the notes of the nightingale tremble through his stanzas. The intoxication of wine, and the bright eyes of lovely women are ever present to his mind. The feast, the revel, the joys of love, and the calm satisfaction of appetite make up the grosser elements in his song But the prevailing note of his music is that of deep and settled melancholy, breaking out occasionally into words of misanthropy and despair. The e keenness and intensity of this poet's style seems to be inspired by an ever-present fear of death. This sense of approaching Fate is never absent from him, even in his most genial moments; and the strange fascination which he exercises over his readers is largely due to the thrilling sweetness of some passage which ends in a note of dejection and anguish. 341 CONCLUSION |