India’s first Renaissance Man and his verse (Column: Bookends XCIX)

 (13:13) 

Much before the term “Renaissance Man” came into vogue, he was one in what eventually became India. A prolific poet, historian and writer, he also introduced two music forms – ghazal and qawwali – popular to this day, is credited with developing two styles of classical music – khayal and tarana – as well as the tabla and sitar. But his most notable feat was using a local vernacular so adroitly that seven centuries hence it is the most commonly-used language across the South Asian subcontinent.

And Ab’ul Hasan Yamin ud-Din Khusrow (c. 1253-1325) or Amir Khusro, as we usually know him, seemed to epitomise the assimilative nature of India.

The son of a Turkic Hazara noble, forced to leave his homeland near Samarkand by Genghis Khan’s invasion and found shelter at the court of Sultan Iltutmish, and an Indian mother from a Rajput tribe, he was born in what is now Uttar Pradesh’s Etah district. Beginning imperial service as a soldier, he became court poet to Sultan Balban’s nephew in 1271 and soon enjoyed royal favour, serving seven monarchs of Delhi spanning the Mamluk or Slave Dynasty, the Khaljis and the Tughlaqs.

Besides his diwans – “Tuhfa-tus-Sighr (Offering of a Minor)”, “Wastul-Hayat (The Middle of Life)”, “Ghurratul-Kamaal (The Prime of Perfection)”, “Baquia-Naquia (The Rest/The Miscellaneous)” and “Nihayatul-Kamaal (The Height of Wonders)”, finished a few days before his death, other notable works include “Mathnavi Duval Rani-Khizr Khan”, a hauntingly beautiful but tragic poem about the love between Gujarat’s princess and Sultan Alauddin’s son, “Mathnavi Noh Sepehr (Mathnavi of the Nine Skies)” on his perceptions of India, a collection of five classical romances including of Shireen-Khusrau, and Layla-Majnun, as well as prose and histories.

But it is his poetry , both Persian and then Hindvi (“Khusro darya prem ka, ulti wa ki dhaar/Jo utra so doob gaya, jo dooba so paar”) that holds centrestage – even when he combines both as in this oft-quoted example, and glides between them within a line.

“Zehal-e miskin makun taghaful, duraye naina banaye batiyan/Ki taab-e hijran nadaram ay jaan, na leho kaahe lagaye chhatiyan/Shaban-e hijran daraz chun zulf wa roz-e waslat cho umr kotah, Sakhi piya ko jo main na dekhun to kaise kaatun andheri ratiyan…”

And his Persian poetry is as grand. Take either this ghazal (will be familiar as a qawwali for Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan fans): “Nami danam chi manzil bood shab jaay ki man boodam/Baharsu raqs-e bismil bood shab jaay ki man boodam (I don’t know which place I was at last night/Flailing were half-slain tormented victims (of love) around me where I was last night)”.

Or this one (also rendered as a qawwali): “Khabaram raseed imshab ki nigaar khvahi aamad/Sar-e man fida-e raah-e ki sawaar khvahi aamad! (There came news tonight that you, oh beloved, would come/Be my head sacrificed to the road along which you will come riding)”, “Kashish ki ishq daarad naguzaradat badinsaa/Ba-janazah gar nayai ba-mazaar khvahi aamad (Love’s attraction will not leave you unmoved/ If you don’t join my funeral prayer, you will definitely turn up at my grave)” and ending: “Baya aamadan raboodi, dil-o-deen sab chu Khusro/Che shavad agar badinsaa, do se baar khvahi aamad (The first time you came, you took away Khusro’s heart and faith/What will you happen if you come again?)”.

It is dedicated to his spiritual master – Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya as are these qawwalis in a more familiar language but a very different cultural idiom: “Chhap tilak sab cheeni ray mosay naina milaike/Prem bhatee ka madhva pilaike…. Khusrau Nijaam kay bal bal jayyiye/Mohe suhaagan keeni ray mosay naina milaike”, “Main to piya say naina lada aayi rae.. Khusrau Nijaam kay bal bal jayyiye/Main to anmol cheli kaha aayi rae…”, and “Aaj rang hai hey maan rung hai ri/More mehboob kay ghar rang hai ri… Mohe pir paayo Nijamudin Auliya/Nijamudin Auliyaa mohay pir paayo.”
His inventiveness never stopped – there were his clever riddles, some containing their own answers: “Saawan bhaadon bahut chalat hai/Maagh paus mein thodi/Amir Khusro yun kahay/Tu boojh paheli mori” and dual ones with one answer: “Ghar kyun andhiyaara? Faqeer kyun barhbarhaya? Diya na tha” and “Pundit kyun na nahaya? Dhoban kyun maari gayi? Dhoti na thi.”

And then who can forget the lament of generations of brides: “Kaahe ko biyahi bides, re, lakhi Baabul moray…”

There have been studies innumerable on Khusro, but unlike many of his counterparts – eg. Shakespeare, Dante, Schiller, Baudelaire and so on, he (or for that matter, several of his regional successors like Tagore or Iqbal) have yet to get the ultimate literary accolade – appearances in fiction. Anybody out there interested?

(04.01.2016 – Vikas Datta is an Associate Editor at IANS. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in )

The Wine of Life and Fate: The Rubaiyat’s FitzGerald version and its influence (Column: Bookends XLVI)

By Vikas Datta (09:58)

Call it fate but literature sometimes sees translations or adaptions becoming much more famous than the original work. Like this mid-Victorian era translation of some Persian poetry which became part of the English literary tradition, besides influencing the likes of Agatha Christie, Daphne du Maurier, O. Henry, Eugene O’Neill, Nevil Shute, Jorge Luis Borges, Harivansh Rai Bachchan and Paramhansa Yogananda, not to mention turning up in a Hollywood Western (Gregory Peck-starrer “Duel in the Sun”) and a Bollywood song. What’s more, Edward FitzGerald’s translation of Omar Khayyam’s “Rubaiyat” also ended up re-introducing the poet’s work to his native land.

FitzGerald (1809-83), who counted William Thackeray and Alfred Tennyson as friends, was inspired to translate Khayyam after his Oxford Persian professor E.B. Cowell discovered a manuscript in the Asiatic Society’s Calcutta (now Kolkata) library in 1857. He published his first translation, with 75 quatrains, anonymously in 1859, but it did not create much of a stir until 1861, when poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti discovered and popularised it. There were five editions, the second (1868) with 110 quatrains, but the third (1872), fourth, (1879) and fifth (1889, posthumous) stuck to 101. The first, second, and fifth differ significantly, while the second and third are almost identical, as are the last two.

The first and the fifth are the most referenced though a difference is discernible: “Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough/A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse – and Thou/Beside me singing in the Wilderness -/And Wilderness is Paradise enow” of the first in the fifth is “A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,/A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread–and Thou/Beside me singing in the Wilderness–/Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!”.

FitzGerald has been criticised for not maintaining fidelity to the original’s letter and spirit but himself admitted he did not do a translation but a “transmogrification”. In a letter to Cowell in 1858, he termed his work “very un-literal as it is. Many quatrains are mashed together: and something lost, I doubt, of Omar’s simplicity, which is so much a virtue in him”.

But his work’s sonorous, evocative phrases persist, and like the Bible and Shakespeare’s plays, have inspired many titles like Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novel “Some Buried Caesar”, O’Neill’s play “Ah, Wilderness!”, Christie and Stephen King’s stories “The Moving Finger”, Daphne du Maurier’s memoir “Myself when Young” and Shute’s “The Chequer Board”.

They gave Hector Hugh Munro his pen-name “Saki”, while O. Henry’s story “The Handbook of Hymen” refers to a book by “Homer KM” with the character “Ruby Ott” and another story is “The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball.” Borges, whose father translated FitzGerald into Spanish, discusses it in “The Enigma of Edward FitzGerald” and refers to it in various poems.

Closer to home, poets Maithili Sharan Gupta and Harivanshrai Bachchan translated it into Hindi while it inspired the latter’s own “Madhushala”. It was translated into various Indian languages (Bengali by Kazi Nazrul Islam), while Yogananda provided an interpretation in “Wine of the Mystic”.

Iranian author Sadeq Hedayat, who made the first modern study of the Rubaiyat in Persian, held that FitzGerald’s version re-evoked interest in Khayyám’s poetic legacy in his homeland, where he had been honoured as the greatest of mathematicians and astronomers, but never among the great poets.

The work also inspired a range of clever parodies – whether by Kipling whose “Rupaiyat of Omar Kalvin” is British India’s then financial administrator lamenting lack of funds, or a band of funny, innovative Americans like J.L. Duff’s lament on Prohibition in “The Rubaiyat of Ohow Dryyam”: “Wail! For the Law has scattered into flight/Those Drinks that were our sometime dear delight;/And still the Morals-tinkers plot and plan/New, sterner, stricter Statues to indite”; Oliver Hereford’s Persian cat version: “They say the Lion and the Lizard Keep/The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep/The Lion is my cousin; I don’t know/Who Jamshyd is-nor shall it break my sleep”, or Caroyn Welles’ “The Rubaiyat of Bridge”.

“The Rubaiyyat of Omar Cayenne” is Gelett Burgess’ peppery attack on publishers and critics: “Important Writers bound to feed ITS taste/For Literature and Poetry debased;/Hither and thither pandering we strive,/And one by one our Talents are disgraced”, and the misogynistic, nicotine lover in Wallace Irwin’s “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr.”: “Come, fill the Pipe, and in the Fire of Spring/The Cuban Leaves upon the Embers fling,/That in its Incense I may sermonize/On Woman’s Ways and all that sort of Thing.”

And then about FitzGerald himself in his style: “Myself now old am still the Suffolk-born/Have been to London once or twice but scorn/To venture where the Sufis weave their Spells/And Minarets the cloudless skies adorn”. Or take “A joint of Lamb, a Pint of Beer, and Thou/Khayyam of Naishapur, I will allow/To pay for them, but for the Rest/Woodbridge to me is Wilderness enow” or even “Let old Fitzgerald your Example be/Who spends his Life in Suffolk by the Sea/In Khorasan, may Sultan Mahmoud reign;/I have invited Tennyson for tea.”

It’s hard to find any other poetry that gripped and exercised the imagination more!

(28.12.2014 – Vikas Datta is an Associate Editor at IANS. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)

Parodies of Fitzgerald’s Omar Khayyam #3: Of Omar Jr, a tobacco aficionado VI

And another installment from the The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Jr, as “translated from the Original Bornese into English Verse” by Wallace Irwin, author of “The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum”.  If this is the first installment that you read and would like some background about the poet, I advise you consult the previous posts in these series- the first three or so would do.

Now I continue on from where I stopped last time…..

                             XXXIX

Better a meager Tome to sow the Seed
Of errant Thought and Fancy’s Lantern feed;
Better a Penny Dreadful than the Book
That sends you into Slumber when you read.

                              XL

And better still than these gorglorious Things
The Briar’s gracious Narcotine that clings
To my ambrosial Temples till I wear
A Halo-crown of vapoured Vortex Rings.

                               XLI

Virginia for the Pipe’s sweet Charity,
Havana for Cigars to solace me,
And Turkey for the transient Cigarette –
Was all I learned of my Geography.

                         XLII

Cigars I puff devoutly when I May,
And when I Can the Pipe, another Day,
And when I Must I browse on Cigarettes –
Then, as you love me, take the Stubs away!

                                 XLIII

Waste not your Weed, the Leaves are all too few
Its Nectar to defile as Others do –
Ah, shun the Solecism and the Plug
For Cattle-Kings and Stevedores to chew.

                           XLIV

Once in a Dream ’twas granted unto me
The open Gates of Paradise to see,
While Israfel loud chanted from the Void,
“This Vision comes of Pie; not Piety!”

                      XLV

Beloved, smoke my amber Pipe awhile
And from its Bowl narcotic Joys beguile,
Suck Lethe from its Stem – what though I trace
A certain greenish Pallour in your Smile?

                    XLVI

Strange is it not that, oft her Dolour cloaking
In hurried Puffs with Nonchalance provoking,
No woman reads that apodictic Ode
“How to be Happy Even Though You’re Smoking?”

                    XLVII

Look not so wild, the Fit will pass away –
No barbed Anguish chooses long to stay,
And only in the Pipe is Friendship found
That waxes Strong and Stronger day by day.

                        XLVIII

Come, rest your Head if Earth rotative seems
And close your Lids from these o’er wakeful Gleams –
Although your Palate cringe you shall not shrink
Within the Kitchen of the House of Dreams.

                             XLIX

Murkly I muse on that transcendent State
Where all my Pasts within the Future wait –
If I for Heavenly Marriages am marked,
Oh, what a Turk I’ll be beyond the Gate!

                              L

Minnie and Maud across my Flight will wing,
Birdie and Bess and Gwendolyn will bring
A Score of Other Pasts and make a Scene,
To say the Least, a Bit Embarrassing.

                              LI

Some I have known are jabbering in Hell,
Others have passed in Heaven’s Reward to dwell;
So, when my Soul has flitted, must I find
The same bland Bores, the same old Tales to tell.

                              LII

There is the Thought beneath whose vampire Tooth
The Soul outshrieks at such unseemly Sooth:
The Solemn Bore still waits beyond the Grave –
Ah, let me stay and taste undying Youth!

                             LIII

Into some secret, migrant Realm without,
By the dun Cloak of Darkness wrapped about,
Or by ringed Saturn’s Swirl thou may’st be hid
In vain: be sure the Bore will find you out.

To be continued….

Parodies of Fitzgerald’s Omar Khayyam #3: Of Omar Jr, a tobacco aficionado V

And continuing The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Jr, without any delay, save one thought… it is not just a witty parody, but a rollicking satire on the age.

                                       XXI

Then swart Gorgona rears her snaky Zone
Demanding Sip of Lip in poisonous Tone
While back Abaft I cower, for well I wot
A Face like that needs not a Chaperone.

                                  XXII

The Fair of Vanity has many a Booth
To sell its spangled Wares of Age and Youth;
And there have I beheld the Worldlings buy
Their Paris Gowns to clothe the Naked Truth.

                              XXIII

But cannot Beauty render Sin the less
When Aphroditan Damosels transgress,
Making the Error lovely with the Thought –
A Dimple is its own Forgiviness?

                            XXIV

Into your Soul may truculent Daemons pass
All hugger-mugger in that dun Morass,
But while the Rouge is mantling to your Cheek,
Nothing will chide you in your Looking-Glass.

                           XXV

Unto the Glass Gorgona torques her Eye
Beholding there Ten Myriad Fragments fly,
The Parts dispersing with lugubrious Din –
Who will invent a Mirror that will lie?

                  XXVI

Oft have I heard the Cant of flattering Friend
Admire my Forehead’s Apollonic Bend,
Then to the Glass I’ve wreathed my sad Regard –
The Looking-Glass is candid to the End.

                 XXVII

Look to the Rose who, as I pass her by,
Breathes the fond Attar-musk up to the Sky,
Spreading her silken Blushes – does she know
That I have come to smell and not to Buy?

                      XXVIII

Ah, Rose, assume a gentle Avarice
And hoard the soft Allurements that entice;
For One will come who holds the Golden Means
To buy your Blushes at the Standard Price.

                      XXIX

Down to the Deeps of Sheol, anguish-torn,
I’ve hurtled Beauty to a State forlorn,
Beauty the Curse, – yet if a Curse it be,
With what an Equanimity ’tis borne!

                            XXX

What shallow Guerdon of terrestrial Strife,
For him who quits this Donjon Keep of Life,
To read the World’s expectant Epitaph:
“He left a handsome Widow in his Wife!”

                           XXXI

Before the Dawn’s Encroachment I awoke
And heard again the bodeful Adage spoke:
Society Engagements are like Eggs –
You know not what’s Inside them till they’re Broke.

                            XXXII

Creation stands between the Won’t and Will,
Yes, and that Doubt Infinitude might fill –
It took nine Tailors once to make a Man;
It took nine more to make him pay the Bill.

                              XXXIII

The Thunderbolts of Heaven’s potent Sway
Gather and break, but never can dismay
When Indestructible Resistless meets,
The Please Remit confronts the Cannot Pay.

                              XXXIV

And true as Star and Star pursue their Course
Must Rapture crumb to Ashes of Remorse:
How many a Marriage License that is writ
Has proved a legal Permit to Divorce!

                           XXXV

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
A Woman’s Club and heard great Argument
Of crazy Cults and Creeds; but evermore
‘Twas by much Gossip of the Fashions rent.

                        XXXVI

In them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
Speaking of Things a Woman ought to know.
“Better than Years with Ibsen spent,” I said,
“One Evening with my Friend, Boccacio.”

                     XXXVII

And that same Bard who strews rhythmatic Daisies
And many a Female Heart discreetly crazes,
Seek him not out, fair Maid, for oftentimes
His Head is vastly Balder than his Phrases.

                    XXXVIII

Upon the Book of Time the Autocrat
Has writ in Stars the fiery Idem Stat,
Lettered the Riddle in the Lambent Suns –
I’d rather write than read a Book like that.

To be continued…… quite soon

Parodies of Fitzgerald’s Omar Khayyam #3: Of Omar Jr, a tobacco aficionado IV

And I finally come to the point, where I introduce you to that priceless literary pleasure, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. Since the last three posts on this topic were devoted to the introduction of this magnificent parody, I will not presume to test your patience any longer and straightaway go to the quatrains. Enjoy…..   I have however taken the liberty of marking, in bold, some which in my humble opinion, are among the best.          

                                   II

What though Gorgona at the Portal knocks
And charms the squamiest Serpent in her Locks –
I wear tobacchanalian Wreaths of Smoke
And there are more Perfectos in the box.

                                III

Now the New Year, reviving old Desires,
The craving Phoenix rises from its Fires.
Indeed, indeed Repentance oft I swore,
But last Year’s Pledge with this New Year expires.

                         IV

Mark how Havana’s sensuous-philtred Mead
Dispels the cackling Hag of Night at Need,
And, foggy-aureoled, the Smoke reveals
The Poppy Flowers that blossom from the Weed.

                           V

Come, fill the Pipe, and in the Fire of Spring
The Cuban Leaves upon the Embers fling,
That in its Incense I may sermonize
On Woman’s Ways and all that sort of Thing.

                        VI

While the tired Dog Watch hailed the sea-merged Star
I heard the Voice of Travellers from Afar
Making Lament with many an Ivory Yawn,
“There’s Comfort only in the Smoking Car!”

                         VII

See, heavenly Zamperina, damselish,
The Day has broken Night’s unwholesome Dish,
The Lark is up betimes to hail the Dawn,
The Early Worm is up to catch the Fish.

                        VIII

Let us infest the Lintel of the Gloam
And chase the Steeds from Morning’s Hippodrome,
And let Aurora’s wastrel Wanderings be
A good Excuse to stay away from Home.

                          IX

Ah, Love, th’ Invisible Buskin at the Gate
Illumes your Eyes that languored gaze and wait
And in their Incandescence seem to ask
The world-old Question: “Is my Hat On Straight?”

                          X

Than Basilisk or Nenuphar more fair,
Your Locks with countless glistening Pendants glare,
Then as the Fountain patters to the brim
A hundred Hairpins tumble from your Hair.

                          XI

So let them scatter, jangled in Duress.
What reckons Love of Hairpins more or less?
Guard well your Heart and let the Hairpins go –
To lose your Heart were arrant Carelessness.

                          XII

Acephalous Time to febrous Lengths bestirred
Strips the lush Blossom and outstrips the Bird,
Makes sweet the Wine – I cannot say the Same
Of Women or of Songs that I have heard.

                          XIII

With me along that mezzotinted Zone
Where Hymen Spring is hymning to his Own –
See how grave Mahmud gambols on the Glebe
And hangs the sign TO LET upon his Throne!

                         XIV

A Grand Piano underneath the Bough,
A Gramophone, a Chinese Gong, and Thou
Trying to sing an Anthem off the Key –
Oh, Paradise were Wilderness enow!

                              XV

Chromatic Catches troll from yonder Hill
Where Bill to Beak the Wren and Whip-poor-Will
In deed and truth beshrew the Beldam Life
Who kisses first and then presents the Bill.

                            XVI

As one who by the Sphinx delays a space
And on her Shoulder finds a Resting Place,
Breathes an awed Question in her stupored Ear.
And lights a Sulphur Match upon her Face,

                            XVII

So unto Venus’ Oracle in turn
I leaned the Secret of my Love to learn.
The Answering Riddle came: “She loves you, yes,
In just Proportion to the Sum you Earn.”

                          XVIII

Some by Eolian Aloes borne along
Swound on the Dulcimer’s reverbrant Thong;
But I, who make my Mecca in a Kiss,
Begrudge the Lips that waste their Time in Song.

                           XIX

Some clamour much for kisses, some for Few,
Others deep sup, their Thirstings to renew,
And mumble into Maunderings, but I,
In Kissing, scorn the How Much for the Who.

                             XX

Svelte Zamperina’s Lips incarnadine,
And languored lifting, fasten unto mine,
Their rubric Message giving Hint and Clew
How frequently a Kiss in Time saves Nine.

To be continued…

Parodies of Fitzgerald’s Omar Khayyam #3: Of Omar Jr, a tobacco aficionado III

The conclusion -finally – to the introduction to The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr… and after this, the quatrains itself. Since most of this post is again taken up the introduction only, I will add the first quatrain for all you patient readers.

Quite in accordance with his policy of improving on his father’s rakish Muse was the frequent endorsement of the beautiful and harmless practice of kissing. The kiss is mentioned some forty-eight times in the present work, and in the nine hundred untranslated Rubaiyat, two hundred and ten more kisses occur, making a grand total of two hundred and fifty-eight Omaric kisses –

“Enough! – of Kisses can there be Enough?”

It may be truly said that the Father left the discovery of Woman to his Son, for nowhere in the Rubaiyat of Naishapur’s poet is full justice done to the charms of the fair. Even in his most ardent passages old Omar uttered no more than a eulogy to Friendship.

Where the philosophy of the elder Omar was bacchanalian and epicurean, that of the Son was tobacchanalian and eclectic, allowing excess only in moderation, as it were, and countenancing nothing more violent than poetic license. However, we are led to believe that the tastes of his time called for a certain mild sensuality as the gustatio to a feast of reason, and had Omar Khayyam lived in our own day he would doubtless have agreed with a reverend Erlington and Bosworth Professor in the University of Cambridge who boldly asserts that the literature redolent of nothing but the glories of asceticism “deserves the credit due to goodness of intention, and nothing else.”

Due doubtless to the preservative influence of smoke Omar Khayyam, Jr., was enabled to live to the hale age of one hundred and seven, and to go to an apotheosis fully worthy his greatness. Among the native chroniclers the quatrain (number XCI) –

“Then let the balmed Tobacco be my Sheath,
The ardent Weed above me and beneath,
And let me like a living Incense rise,
A Fifty-Cent Cigar between my Teeth,”

has been the source of much relentless debate. By some it is held that this stanza is prophetic in its nature, foreseeing the transcendent miracle of the poet’s death; by others it is as stoutly maintained that the poet in the above lines decreed that his work should be preserved and handed down to posterity in a wrapping of tobacco. The Editor is inclined to the belief that there is much truth in both opinions, for the parchment, when it came to hand, was stained and scented from its wrappings of Virginia and Perique; and the manner of the poet’s death marks Number XCI as another remarkable instance of the clairvoyance of the Muse. To quote from the quaint words of the native chronicler: –

“For while the Volcanic Singer was seated one day in the shade of a banyan tree, fresh cigars and abandoned stumps surrounding him like the little hills that climb the mountain, he nodded and fell asleep, still puffing lustily at a panatella, sweet and black. Now the poet’s beard was long and his sleep deep, and as the weed grew shorter with each ecstatic puff, the little brand of fire drew closer and closer to the beautiful hairy mantle that fell from the poet’s chin. That day the Island was wrapped in a light gauze of blue mist, an exotic smoke that was a blessing to the nostrils. It suffused the whole Island from end to end, and reminded the happy inhabitants of the Cigars of Nirvana, grown in some Plantation of the Blessed. When the smoke had passed and our heads were cleared of the narcotic fumes, we hastened to the spot where our good master had loved to sit; but there naught remained but a great heap of white ashes, sitting among the pipes and cigars that had inspired his song. Thus he died as he lived, an ardent smoker.”

                                         I

Avaunt, acerbid Brat of Death, that sours
The Milk of Life and blasts the nascent Flowers!
Back to your morbid, mouldering Cairns, and let
Me do my worrying in Office Hours!

To be continued…

Parodies of Fitzgerald’s Omar Khayyam #2: The Persian Cat’s version (Continued)

And the rest of the Rubaiyat of the Cat (Persian…of course), which I go to straightaway. For all other details I suggest you see the first post on this topic….

Impotent glimpses of the Game displayed
Upon the Counter—temptingly arrayed;
Hither and thither moved or checked or weighed,
And one by one back in the Ice Chest laid.

What if the Sole could fling the Ice aside,
And with me to some Area’s haven glide—
Were’t not a Shame, were’t not a shame for it
In this Cold Prison crippled to abide?

Some for the Glories of the Sole, and Some
Mew for the proper Bowl of Milk to come.
Ah, take the fish and let your Credit go,
And plead the rumble of an empty Tum.

One thing is certain: tho’ this Stolen Bite
Should be my last and Wrath consume me quite,
One taste of It within the Area caught
Better than at the Table lost outright.

Indeed, indeed Repentance oft before
I swore, but was I hungry when I swore?
And then and then came Cook—with Hose in hand—
And drowned my glory in a sorry pour.

What without asking hither harried whence,
And without asking whither harried hence—
O, many a taste of that forbidden Sole
Must down the memory of that Insolence.

Heaven, but the vision of a flowing Bowl;
And Hell, the sizzle of a frying Sole
Heard in the hungry Darkness where Myself,
So rudely cast, must impotently roll.

The Vine has a tough fibre which about
While clings my Being;—let the Canine flout
Till his Bass Voice be pitched to such loud key
It shall unlock the door I mew without.

Up from the Basement to the Seventh flat
I rose, and on the Crown of fashion sat,
And many a Ball unraveled by the way—
But not the Master’s angry Bawl of “Scat!”

Then to the Well of Wisdom I—and lo!
With my own Paw I wrought to make it flow,
And This was all the Harvest that I reaped:
We come like Kittens and like Cats we go.

Why be this Ink the fount of Wit?—who dare
Blaspheme the glistening Pen-drink as a snare?
A Blessing?—I should spread it, should I not?
And if a Curse—why, then upset it!—there!

A moment’s Halt, a momentary Taste
Of Bitter, and amid the Trickling Waste
I wrought strange shapes from Mah to Mahi, yet
I know not what I wrote, nor why they chased.

Now I beyond the Pale am safely Past.
O, but the long, long time their Rage shall last,
Which, tho’ they call to supper, I shall heed
As a Stone Cat should heed a Pebble cast.

And that perverted Soul beneath the Sky
They call the Dog—Heed not his angry cry;
Not all his Threats can make me budge one bit,
Nor all his Empty Bluster terrify.

They are no other than a moving Show
Of whirling Shadow Shapes that come and go
Me-ward thro’ Moon illumined Darkness hurled,
In midnight, by the Lodgers of the Row.

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
The Backyard fence and heard great Argument
About it, and About, yet evermore
Came out with fewer fur than in I went.

Ah, me! If you and I could but conspire
To grasp this Sorry Scheme of things entire,
Would we not shatter it to bits, and then
Enfold it nearer to our Heart’s Desire?

Tho’ Two and Two make four by rule of line,
Or they make Twenty-two by Logic fine,
Of all the figures one may fathom, I
Shall ne’er be floored by anything but Nine.

And fear not lest Existence shut the Door
On You and Me, to open it no more.
The Cream of Life from out your Bowl shall pour
Nine times—ere it lie broken on the floor.

So, if the fish you Steal—the Cream you drink—
Ends in what all begins and ends in, Think,
Unless the Stern Recorder points to Nine,
Tho’ They would drown you—still you shall not sink.

And That is All…

Parodies of Fitzgerald’s Omar Khayyam #3: Of Omar Jr, a tobacco aficionado II

I was introducing you to a parody of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, as rendered by Edward Fitzgerald, supposedly written by Omar Khayyam Jr, who had moved to Borneo from Persia. How and why is explained here in the introduction, a veritable riot in itself. I began with a few passages and I would counsel you to be patient and read on as you wait for the transformed quatrains so you can enjoy them more…. I continue and assure you will get a taste of delights that follow within this…..

Although little is known of the life of Omar Khayyam the elder, the details of his private career are far more complete than those of his son, Omar Khayyam, Jr. In fact, many historians have been so careless as to have entirely omitted mention of the existence of such a person as the younger Omar. Comparative records of the two languages, however, show plainly how the mantle was handed from the Father to the Son, and how it became the commendable duty of the second generation to correct and improve upon the first.

Omar Khayyam died in the early part of the eleventh century, having sold his poems profitably, with the proceeds of which he established taverns throughout the length and breadth of Persia. Omar died in the height of his popularity, but shortly after his death the city of Naishapur became a temperance town. Even yet the younger Omar might have lived and sung at Naishapur had not a fanatical sect of Sufi women, taking advantage of the increasing respectability of the once jovial city, risen in a body against the house of Omar and literally razed it to the ground with the aid of hatchets, which were at that time the peculiar weapon of the sex and sect. It is said that the younger Omar, who was then a youth, was obliged to flee from the wrath of the Good Government Propagandists and to take abode in a distant city. For some time he wandered about Persia in a destitute condition, plying the hereditary trade of tent-maker, but at length poverty compelled him to quit his native country for good and to try his fortunes in a land so remote that the dissolute record of his parent could no longer hound him. Borneo was the island to which the poet fled, and here the historian finds him some years later prospering in the world’s goods and greatly reverenced by the inhabitants. Although Omar, Jr., was undoubtedly the greatest man that Borneo has yet produced, he must not be confused in the mind of the reader with the Wild Man of Borneo, who, although himself a poet, was a man of far less culture than the author of the present Rubaiyat.

While not a Good Templar, the younger Omar showed a commendable tendency toward reform. The sensitive Soul of the poet was ever cankered with the thought that his father’s jovial habits had put him in a false position, and that it was his filial duty to retrieve the family reputation. It was his life work to inculcate into the semi-barbaric minds of the people with whom he had taken abode the thought that the alcoholic pleasures of his father were false joys, and that (as sung in number VI), –

“There’s Comfort only in the Smoking Car.”

In Tobacco the son found a lasting and comparatively harmless substitute for the Wine, which, none can doubt, caused the elder Omar to complain so bitterly, –

“Indeed, the Idols I have loved so long
Have done my credit in Men’s eyes much wrong.”

Note the cheerfulness with which the Son answers the Father in a stanza which may be taken as a key to his Reformatory Philosophy,

“O foozied Poetasters, fogged with Wine,
Who to your Orgies bid the Muses Nine,
Go bid them then, but leave to me, the Tenth
Whose name is Nicotine, for she is mine!”

To be continued….

Parodies of Fitzgerald’s Omar Khayyam #3: Of Omar Jr, a tobacco aficionado

I was introducing you all to a series of brilliant parodies by some American wits of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, as rendered into English by Edward Fitzgerald. Beginning with The Rubaiyat of Ohow Dryyam, a brillaint litany of complaints by a dedicated drinker in Prohibition-era America and then the Rubaiyat from the viewpoint of a Cat (Persian…I may add), I come to a third… of course after the stuff that cheers, and cats, a third favourite of a man of refinement and discernment would definitely be the thing you… well I will leave it to the poet to explain it better to you. But before that, one more thing needs to be said….

As the person I am indebted to for introducing me to this and the other works says: “THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM, JR. is an absolute hoot. While it is a complete farce, Wallace Irwin managed to keep a literary straight-face while creating it. His introduction explains that this is a recently discovered rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam’s never-mentioned son…Omar Junior…who emigrated from Persia to Borneo! Wallace goes on to explain how Omar Junior tried to restore the families honor, which was damaged by his Dad’s obsession with wine, by instead focusing on tobacco and kissing in his (Jrs.’) rubaiyat. You must read the intro to appreciate the entire piece, and don’t overlook the hilarious deadpan ending notes. What a serious amount of work went into this funny parody!”

The work purports to be : Translated from the Original Bornese into English Verse by Wallace Irwin, author of “The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum”. (How wonderful!)

Well as says the man I cannot thank enough for bringing these priceless versions to our notice, you cannot skip the introduction, so here is it:

                                         Introduction

Since the publication of Edward Fitzgerald’s classic translation of the Rubaiyat in 1851 – or rather since its general popularity several years later – poets minor and major have been rendering the sincerest form of flattery to the genius of the Irishman who brought Persia into the best regulated families. Unfortunately there was only one Omar and there were scores of imitators who, in order to make the Astronomer go round, were obliged to draw him out to the thinness of Balzac’s Magic Skin. While all this was going on, the present Editor was forced to conclude that the burning literary need was not for more translators, but for more Omars to translate; and what was his surprise to note that the work of a later and superior Omar Khayyam was lying undiscovered in the wilds of Borneo! Here, indeed, was a sensation in the world of letters – a revelation as thrilling as the disinterment of Ossian’s forgotten songs – the discovery of an unsubmerged Atlantis. While some stout Cortez more worthy than the Editor might have stood on this new Darien and gazed over the sleeping demesne of Omar Khayyam, Jr., he had, so to speak, the advantage of being first on the ground, and to him fell the duty, nolens volens, of lifting the rare philosophy out of the Erebus that had so long cloaked it in obscurity.

It is still a matter of surprise to the Editor that the discovery of these Rubaiyat should have been left to this late date, when in sentiment and philosophy they have points of superiority over the quatrains of the first Omar of Naishapur. The genius of the East has, indeed, ever been slow to reveal itself in the West. It took a Crusade to bring to our knowledge anything of the schoner Geist of the Orient; and it was not until the day of Matthew Arnold that the Epic of Persia (“Sohrab and Rustam: being a fragment of the Persian epic) was brought into the proper realm of English poesy. What wonder, then, that not until the first Omaric madness had passed away were the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Jr., lifted into the light after an infinity of sudor et labor spent in excavating under the 9,000 irregular verbs, 80 declensions, and 41 exceptions to every rule which go to make the ancient Mango-Bornese dialect in which the poem was originally written, foremost among the dead languages!

To be continued…..

Parodies of Fitzgerald’s Omar Khayyam #2: The Persian Cat’s version

Desirous of acquainting you with some cleverly-done parodies of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, as rendered by Edward Fitzgerald, and for some reason, all by American wits.

I had begun with the “The Rubaiyyat of Ohow Dryyam”, a heartfelt plaint of a seasoned and regular tippler when Prohibition was imposed in America – and in the wisdom they often display, the manufacture, sale and transport of alcohol was banned and not its consumption! Go figure that out. Well, our Ohow Dryyam laid his moving tale before us – and if you haven’t figured what his name means, nothing can be done for you.

Now, I move to the Rubaiyyat as seen from the viewpoint of a Persian Cat. This innovative version was the work of Oliver Herford, and came out in 1904. I wish I could have also displayed the illustrations that accompanied the transformed quatrains but maybe sometime else…. Meanwhile, you enjoy these.

Wake! For the Golden Cat has put to flight
The Mouse of Darkness with his Paw of Light:
Which means, in Plain and simple every-day
Unoriental Speech—The Dawn is bright.

They say the Early Bird the Worm shall taste.
Then rise, O Kitten! Wherefore, sleeping, waste
The fruits of Virtue? Quick! the Early Bird
Will soon be on the flutter—O make haste!

The Early Bird has gone, and with him ta’en
The Early Worm—Alas! the Moral’s plain,
O Senseless Worm! Thus, thus we are repaid
For Early Rising—I shall doze again.

The Mouse makes merry ‘mid the Larder Shelves,
The Bird for Dinner in the Garden delves.
I often wonder what the creatures eat
One half so toothsome as they are Themselves.

And that Inverted Bowl of Skyblue Delf
That helpless lies upon the Pantry Shelf—
Lift not your eyes to It for help, for It
Is quite as empty as you are yourself.

The Ball no question makes of Ayes or Noes,
But right or left, as strikes the Kitten, goes;
Yet why, altho’ I toss it far Afield,
It still returneth—Goodness only knows!

A Secret Presence that my likeness feigns,
And yet, quicksilver-like, eludes my pains—
In vain I look for Him behind the glass;
He is not there, and yet He still remains.

What out of airy Nothing to invoke
A senseless Something to resist the stroke
Of unpermitted Paw—upon the pain
Of Everlasting Penalties—if broke.

I sometimes think the Pussy-Willows grey
Are Angel Kittens who have lost their way,
And every Bulrush on the river bank
A Cat-Tail from some lovely Cat astray.

Sometimes I think perchance that Allah may,
When he created Cats, have thrown away
The Tails He marred in making, and they grew
To Cat-Tails and to Pussy-Willows grey.

And lately, when I was not feeling fit,
Bereft alike of Piety and Wit,
There came in Angel Shape and offered me
A fragrant Plant and bid me taste of it.

‘Twas that reviving Herb, that Spicy Weed,
The Cat-Nip. Tho’s ‘tis good in time of need,
Ah, feed upon it lightly, for who knows
To what unlovely antics it may lead.

Strange—is it not?—that of the numbers who
Before me passed this Door of Darkness thro’,
Not one returns thro’ it again, altho’
Ofttimes I’ve waited for an hour or two.

‘Tis but a Tent where takes his one Night’s Rest
A Rodent to the Realms of Death address’d
When Cook, arising, looks for him and then—
Baits, and prepares it for another Guest.

They say the Lion and the Lizard Keep
The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep.
The Lion is my cousin; I don’t know
Who Jamshyd is—nor shall it break my sleep.