This quatrain is translated from O. 148.
In a thousand places on the road I walk, Thou placest snares,
Thou say'st «I will catch thee if thou settest foot in them,»
In no smallest thing is the world independent of Thee,
Thou orderest all things, and (yet) callest me rebellious!
Ref.: O. 148, B. ii. 546.—W. 432, N. 390.
Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake:
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken'd—Man's forgiveness give—and take!
* * * * * * *
This is a very composite quatrain, round which some controversy has raged. Professor Cowell has given the weight of his authority to the statement that «there is no original for the line about the snake.» This is true in so far as that the image does not occur in Omar, but FitzGerald had seen it in an important apologue in the Mantik ut-tair (beginning at distich 3229) in which we read of the presence of the Snake (Iblis) in Paradise, at the moment of the creation of Adam, and in the course of which, Satan himself addresses God thus:
If malediction comes from Thee, there comes also mercy,
The created thing is dependent upon Thee since Destiny is in Thy hands;
If malediction be my lot, I do not fear,
There must be poison, everything is not antidote.
The influence of the following is traceable in the quatrains, C. 115, C. 286, and C. 510: