One of the Gilbert James
Illustrations of the "Rubá'iyát" taken
from an Edition Published by
Paul Elder and Company
This lack of faith is finely expressed in several quatrains, which might have been written by a poet of today so modern are they in tone, so thoroughly do they embody the new doctrine that happiness or misery depends upon one's own character and acts. The man who cheats and over-reaches his neighbor, who lies and deceives those who trust him, who indulges in base pleasures through lack of self-restraint, such a man lives in a real hell on earth, plagued by fears of exposure and ever in a mental ferment of unsatisfied desires. Old Omar Khayyám has pictured this doctrine in these two exquisite quatrains, which give a good idea of the quality of his thought, as well as the beauty of FitzGerald's version:
Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who
Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through,
Not one returns to tell us of the Road
Which to discover we must travel too.
I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell;
And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
And answer'd "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell."
The best known quatrain of the Rubá'iyát, the one which is always quoted as typical of Omar's epicurean attitude toward life, is this:
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!
Here we will take leave of Omar. His Rubá'iyát is good to read because FitzGerald has clothed his Oriental imagery in beautiful words that appeal to any one fond of melodious verse. If you wish to see what a great artist can evoke from the thoughts of this Persian poet, look over Elihu Vedder's illustrations of the Rubá'iyát—a series of memory-haunting pictures that are as full of majesty and beauty as the visions of the poet of Naishapur.