This eBook was produced by David Schwan <davidsch@earthlink.net>.
The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám Jr.
Translated from the Original Bornese into English Verse byWallace Irwinauthor of "The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum,"
with eight illustrations and cover design byGelett Burgess
Introduction
Since the publication of Edward Fitzgerald's classic translation of theRubaiyat in 1851 - or rather since its general popularity several yearslater - poets minor and major have been rendering the sincerest form offlattery to the genius of the Irishman who brought Persia into the bestregulated families. Unfortunately there was only one Omar and there werescores of imitators who, in order to make the Astronomer go round, wereobliged to draw him out to the thinness of Balzac's Magic Skin. Whileall this was going on, the present Editor was forced to conclude thatthe burning literary need was not for more translators, but for moreOmars to translate; and what was his surprise to note that the work of alater and superior Omar Khayyam was lying undiscovered in the wilds ofBorneo! Here, indeed, was a sensation in the world of letters - arevelation as thrilling as the disinterment of Ossian's forgotten songs- the discovery of an unsubmerged Atlantis. While some stout Cortez moreworthy than the Editor might have stood on this new Darien and gazedover the sleeping demesne of Omar Khayyam, Jr., he had, so to speak, theadvantage of being first on the ground, and to him fell the duty, nolensvolens, of lifting the rare philosophy out of the Erebus that had solong cloaked it in obscurity.
It is still a matter of surprise to the Editor that the discovery ofthese Rubaiyat should have been left to this late date, when insentiment and philosophy they have points of superiority over thequatrains of the first Omar of Naishapur. The genius of the East has,indeed, ever been slow to reveal itself in the West. It took a Crusadeto bring to our knowledge anything of the schöner Geist of the Orient;and it was not until the day of Matthew Arnold that the Epic ofPersia[1] was brought into the proper realm of English poesy. Whatwonder, then, that not until the first Omaric madness had passed awaywere the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Jr., lifted into the light after aninfinity of sudor et labor spent in excavating under the 9,000 irregularverbs, 80 declensions, and 41 exceptions to every rule which go to makethe ancient Mango-Bornese dialect in which the poem was originallywritten, foremost among the dead languages!
Although little is known of the life of Omar Khayyam the elder, thedetails of his private career are far more complete than those of hisson, Omar Khayyam, Jr. In fact, many historians have been so careless asto have entirely omitted mention of the existence of such a person asthe younger Omar. Comparative records of the two languages, however,show plainly how the mantle was handed from the Father to the Son, andhow it became the commendable duty of the second generation to correctand improve upon the first.
Omar Khayyam died in the early part of the eleventh century, having soldhis poems profitably, with the proceeds of which he established tavernsthroughout the length and breadth of Persia. Omar died in the height ofhis popularity, but shortly after his death the city of Naishapur becamea temperance town. Even yet the younger Omar might have lived and sungat Naishapur had not a fanatical sect of Sufi women, taking advantage ofthe increasing respectability of the once jovial city, risen in a bodyagainst the house of Omar and literally razed it to the ground