CI
And some expectant Devotee who knocks
At that poor House where once I rent my locks,
In vain may seek a Last Cigar and find
My Muse asleep within an empty Box.
Hammam
Notes
I - "Sours the Milk of Life;" thunderstorms, earthquakes and artificial commotions of the earth are popularly and quasi-scientifically believed to have the effect of turning milk from sweet to sour; so here the Milk of Life is soured by the sudden advent of the Brat of Death (Care, perhaps, who is said to have killed a cat on one occasion). By some critics it is held that the figure might have been enrichened by the substitution of the Cream of Life for the Milk of Life.
II- Gorgona is referred to but three times in the present work, in Rubs II, XXI and XXVI. Number II would lead us to believe that the poet used her figuratively as Sorrow or Remorse; but the text of XXI and XXVI point another conclusion. The latter Rubaiyat tell us forcefully that Gorgona was but too real and that her unloveliness was a sore trial to the fine attunement of the poet's nerves.
II - Such words as "tobacchanalian" (compounded from tobacco and bacchanalian) Lewis Carrol claimed as his own under the title of "portmanteau words," - another example of the antiquity of modernity.
VII - "The Early Worm is up to Catch the Fish;" the worm, caught as bait, will in turn serve as captor for some luckless fish. This, possibly, is the Bornese version of our own proverb, "The early bird catches the worm."
IX - "The Invisible Buskin at the Gate" probably refers to the shoe left outside of temples and mosques in the Orient. The temple here meant is doubtless the Temple of Love, and the fact of the Buskin being Invisible illumes the eyes of the damosel who knows that the devotee is worshiping at the Shrine of Love.
X - Than Basilisk or Nenuphar; the poet has given us in two words the dual aspect of Woman; flowerlike in repose, serpentine in action.
X - Pendants; who has not noted a hairpin in the act of falling, hanging for a moment, as though loth to leave its gentle habitation? Omar Khayyam, Jr., was an observer of small things as well as great.
X - A Hundred Hairpins; aspirates are used liberally in this line, probably to give the effect of falling hairpins.
XIII - Hymen Spring; Hymen, while not the god of husbandry, was the accepted deity of marriage; hence Spring, the incorrigible match-maker, may very, easily be identified with Hymen. Note the pleasing alliteration of the words Hymen and hymning brought so close together.
XVIII - Eolian Aloes; aloes, according to Oscar Wilde in the Picture of Dorian Grey, have the power of banishing melancholy wherever their perfume penetrates. Eolian Aloes may be the exotic melodies that drive care from the mind.
XXIII - Forgiviness; the reader will probably regard this spelling of forgiveness somewhat unusual, and the Editor freely confesses that he has no authority for such usage. But since Fitzgerald has coined enow for the sake of a rhyme, the Editor hopes that he will be forgiven his forgiviness.
XXIX - With what an Equanimity; there is an untranslated quatrain to the effect that ugliness is the only sin that can make a woman ashamed to look her mirror in the face.
XXV - The breaking of the glass at the gaze of Gorgona, as well as the squamiest serpent in her locks, mentioned in II, give us a clew as to the derivation of her name from that of the Gorgon, Medusa, whose uncomeliness was so intense as to petrify all that met her gaze. On the other hand, the glance of Gorgona seemed to be rather explosive than congealing.
XXV - Torques; this word (like squamiest) is derived directly from the Latin, to be used in this work. They are not properly English words, but the Editor intends they shall become so in the near future.
XXVI - Wreathed is used in obsolete English and especially in Spenser, to mean turned or bent.
XXVII - Attar-Musk; attar is the Persian word for druggist, but we hesitate to believe that the poet would attribute an artificial perfume to the rose.
XXXV - Myself when young; this stanza is supposed to be biographical in its intent. It is known that before the anti-Omaric uprising in Naishapur, and even during his errant tour through Persia, the younger Omar was socially lionized,, becoming much sought after. It may seem improbable that Omar, Jr., as a member of the sterner sex, should have been admitted as a regular frequenter of women's clubs, but it must be remembered that then, even as in our own day, men were eagerly prized as lecturers on subjects of interest to women. Omar, Jr., appeared for several seasons before the women's clubs of Naishapur, giving recitations and readings from his father's works.
XXXVI - Ibsen - Boccacio; for a Persian poet of so remote a date, Omar Khayyam, Jr., showed a remarkable knowledge of modern as well as mediaeval literature.
LVII - That Great Menagerie; another reference to his experience as a social lion is found here, as in the three rubaiyat following. The gabble garbled garrulousness (the familiar "gobble, gabble and git, crystallized into the higher form of expression) indicates that the narcotic effect of tea on womankind was much the same in Omar's time as in ours.
LXI - Leave to me the Tenth; the discovery of a tenth Muse puts the younger Omar on an equal footing with his father in science as well as in poetry. The editor has found that upon quitting forever his native Persia, Omar Khayyam, Jr., brought to Borneo many of the more refined sciences. In his hereditary profession, astronomy, he claims the rare distinction of having first made observations through the medium of a wine-glass. His long fidelity to this method was rewarded by some remarkable results, for his private journals show that on several occasions he was able to discern as many as eight sister satellites swimming in eccentric orbits around the moon - a discovery which our much-vaunted modern science has never been able to equal or even to approach.
LXVII - Her Lips no Questions ask;
"Lips with kissing forfeit no favour;
Nay, they increase as the moon doth ever."
Boccacio. (Decameron.)
LXXI - The A B C; this rubái'y, though indescribably beautiful in the Original, is somewhat too involved for us to grasp the meaning at one reading. Perhaps, in thus weaving the alphabet into his numbers, it was the purpose of the poet to give promise of the ultimate attainment of the Alpha and Omega of knowledge. Perhaps the stanza, on the other hand, was merely intended as a pretty poetical conceit, an exercise in metrical ingenuity. If the latter theory holds good, what a pity it would seem that these rubaiyat were not originally written in Chinese, the infinite alphabet of which language would have furnished material for the present work and several revised editions also!
LXXIII - While Growing Roses in a Cabbage Lot; confusing, perhaps at first reading, but here again may the student employ the device of symbolism with great advantage. The Roses may be taken for the flowers of fancy, the Cabbage Lot for the field of sordid reality. As a staple vegetable, the rose can never compete with the Cabbage.
LXXIV - He Whistles on his Fingers and his Toes; there are many who may very justly consider this line as undignified and unrefined; but such readers should always remember that these quatrains may be taken as purely symbolical. Thus the Fingers and Toes may be regarded as mental aspects and the whistle as whatever best suits the reader.
LXXXIII - Asphodel; the fabled flower of immortality; also a brand of cigar much favoured by the younger Omar.
LXXXV - Anodyne; some translations have this Iodine.
XCIII - The How is swiftly mingling with the When, etc.; the great questions, How, What and When, are being withdrawn unanswered by the dnulovpec, who is responsible for their propounding.