TALK ABOUT BOOKS.
That most remarkable poem of the Orient, the “Rubáiyát”[J] of Omar Khayyám, has recently had the rare fortune of receiving from translator, artist and publisher an almost perfect treatment. Its translation places it among English classic poems, its illustration and make-up among American classic art books. This poem, very imperfectly known among us, is the work of a Persian astronomer and poet, Omar Khayyám, or Omar the Tent-Maker, a native of Naishapúr, in Khorassan. He was born in the latter half of the eleventh century, and became a favorite of the rulers of the realm. His life was, so goes the chronicle, “busied in winning knowledge of every kind, and especially in astronomy, wherein he attained to a very high preēminence. Under the Sultanate of Malik Shah, he came to Merv and obtained great praise for his proficiency in science, and the Sultan showered favors upon him.” Omar was an honest thinker; he refused the hollow mysticism of the times, and framed a system which approaches Epicureanism. His views of life, his fruitless search for Providence, his sad conclusion,
“I came like water, and like wind I go,”
together with his final refuge in the wine cup, with the command
“Drink, for you know not whence you came nor why,
Drink, for you know not why you go, nor where,”
are the subjects of his “Rubáiyát,” or quatrains. In the original these verses have no connection. The translator, Mr. Edward Fitzgerald, selected those which seemed to him most suitable, and arranged them into a sort of eclogue. This translation met with a hearty reception. Mr. Fitzgerald had been fortunate enough to make Omar Khayyám much more lucid and entertaining than Omar had made himself. An interpretation of the poem was undertaken in May 1883, by Elihu Vedder. The interest in the elegant volume just issued by Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., centers, of course, about these illustrations. There is not a line of the poem but what takes a new and powerful meaning under his treatment. Indeed, it seems as if in many cases the verses were but a key-note, the drawing the completed strain. The artist seems to have been inspired by the same sense of mystery, sadness, and final devotion to pleasure which influenced the author. His idea of Omar’s philosophy is most beautifully represented in the picture called “Omar’s Emblem.” In it life is represented by a whirling stream, upon which the mortal, under the form of a rose, has floated in. Along the stream the leaves are scattered here and there, while crushed and half petalless the rose floats into oblivion. This whirl of life surrounds what we may suppose to be the emblem which incessantly confronted Omar’s mind—a human skull; upon this is perched a singing nightingale—a sign of the music which in spite of the mockery of existence the poet always heard, and in which he found the sole relief for living. The pictures include a wealth of suggestion which only diligent and sympathetic study discloses. They show surprising fancy and versatility, while at the same time the finish of each is most perfect.