The Sufistic Quatrains of Omar KhayyamOmar Khayyam
ReligionSufism
The Sufistic Quatrains of Omar Khayyam
Omar Khayyam
FitzGerald, Edward, 1809-1883; Sufi poetry
[3] C.H.A. Bjerregaard in «The Sufi Omar». J.F. Taylor & Co., N.Y.,
1902.
[4] Some of Omar's Rubaiyat warn us of the danger of greatness, the
instability of fortune, and while advocating charity to all men,
recommending us to be too intimate with none. Attar makes Nizam ul Mulk
use the very words of his friend Omar [Rub. xxviii.], «When Nizam ul
Mulk was in the Agony (of Death) he said, ‹Oh God! I am passing away in
the hand of the Wind.›»
[5] Though all these, like our Smiths, Archers, Millers, Fletchers,
etc., may simply regain the surname of an hereditary calling.
[6] «_Philosophe Musulman qui a vêcu en Odeur de Sainteté dans sa
Religion, vers la Fin du premier et le Commencement du second Siècle_,»
no part of which, except the «_Philosophe_» can apply to our Khayyam.
[7] The Rashness of the Words, according to D'Herbelot, consisted in
being so opposed to those in the Koran: «No Man knows where he shall
die.»--This story of Omar reminds me of another so naturally--and when
one remembers how wide of his humble mark the noble sailor aimed--so
pathetically told by Captain Cook--not by Doctor Hawkesworth--in his
Second Voyage (i. 374). When leaving Ulietea, «Oreo's last request was
for me to return. When he saw he could not obtain that promise, he asked
the name of my _Marai_ (burying-place). As strange a question as this
was, I hesitated not a moment to tell him ‹Stepney›; the parish in which
I live when in London. I was made to repeat it several times over till
they could pronounce it; and then ‹_Stepney Marai no Toote_› was echoed
through an hundred mouths at once. I afterwards found the same question
had been put to Mr. Forster by a man on shore; but he gave a different,
and indeed more proper answer, by saying, ‹No man who used the sea could
say where he should be buried.›»
[8] «Since this paper was written» (adds the Reviewer in a note), «we
have met with a Copy of a very rare Edition, printed at Calcutta in
1836. This contains 438 Tetrastichs, with an Appendix containing 54
others not found in some MSS.»
[9] Professor Cowell.
[10] This was written in 1868.
[11] Perhaps he would have edited the Poems himself some years ago. He
may now as little approve of my version on one side, as of M. Nicolas'
theory on the other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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