The early years of Omar Khayyam Junior…his success after emigrating to Borneo…his fitting death while surrounded by his beloved tobacco…all hooey, but very funny. Enjoy.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Jr.

Translated from the Original Bornese into English Verse by Wallace Irwin, author of "The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum".

Since the publication of Edward Fitzgerald's classic translation of the Rubaiyat in 1851 - or rather since its general popularity several years later - poets minor and major have been rendering the sincerest form of flattery to the genius of the Irishman who brought Persia into the best regulated families. Unfortunately there was only one Omar and there were scores of imitators who, in order to make the Astronomer go round, were obliged to draw him out to the thinness of Balzac's Magic Skin. While all this was going on, the present Editor was forced to conclude that the burning literary need was not for more translators, but for more Omars to translate; and what was his surprise to note that the work of a later and superior Omar Khayyam was lying undiscovered in the wilds of Borneo! Here, indeed, was a sensation in the world of letters – a revelation as thrilling as the disinterment of Ossian's forgotten songs - the discovery of an unsubmerged Atlantis. While some stout Cortez more worthy than the Editor might have stood on this new Darien and gazed over the sleeping demesne of Omar Khayyam, Jr., he had, so to speak, the advantage of being first on the ground, and to him fell the duty, nolens volens, of lifting the rare philosophy out of the Erebus that had so long cloaked it in obscurity.

It is still a matter of surprise to the Editor that the discovery of these Rubaiyat should have been left to this late date, when in sentiment and philosophy they have points of superiority over the quatrains 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 Crusade to bring to our knowledge anything of the schoner Geist of the Orient; and it was not until the day of Matthew Arnold that the Epic of Persia (“Sohrab and Rustam: being a fragment of the Persian epic) was brought into the proper realm of English poesy. What wonder, then, that not until the first Omaric madness had passed away were the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Jr., lifted into the light after an infinity of sudor et labor spent in excavating under the 9,000 irregular verbs, 80 declensions, and 41 exceptions to every rule which go to make the ancient Mango-Bornese dialect in which the poem was originally written, foremost among the dead languages!

Although little is known of the life of Omar Khayyam the elder, the details of his private career are far more complete than those of his son, Omar Khayyam, Jr. In fact, many historians have been so careless as to have entirely omitted mention of the existence of such a person as the younger Omar. Comparative records of the two languages, however, show plainly how the mantle was handed from the Father to the Son, and how it became the commendable duty of the second generation to correct and improve upon the first.

Omar Khayyam died in the early part of the eleventh century, having sold his poems profitably, with the proceeds of which he established taverns throughout the length and breadth of Persia. Omar died in the height of his popularity, but shortly after his death the city of Naishapur became a temperance town. Even yet the younger Omar might have lived and sung at Naishapur had not a fanatical sect of Sufi women, taking advantage of the increasing respectability of the once jovial city, risen in a body against the house of Omar and literally razed it to the ground with the aid of hatchets, which were at that time the peculiar weapon of the sex and sect. It is said that the younger Omar, who was then a youth, was obliged to flee from the wrath of the Good Government Propagandists and to take abode in a distant city. For some time he wandered about Persia in a destitute condition, plying the hereditary trade of tent-maker, but at length poverty compelled him to quit his native country for good and to try his fortunes in a land so remote that the dissolute record of his parent could no longer hound him. Borneo was the island to which the poet fled, and here the historian finds him some years later prospering in the world's goods and greatly reverenced by the inhabitants. Although Omar, Jr., was undoubtedly the greatest man that Borneo has yet produced, he must not be confused in the mind of the reader with the Wild Man of Borneo, who, although himself a poet, was a man of far less culture than the author of the present Rubaiyat.

While not a Good Templar, the younger Omar showed a commendable tendency toward reform. The sensitive Soul of the poet was ever cankered with the thought that his father's jovial habits had put him in a false position, and that it was his filial duty to retrieve the family reputation. It was his life work to inculcate into the semi-barbaric minds of the people with whom he had taken abode the thought that the alcoholic pleasures of his father were false joys, and that (as sung in number VI), -

In Tobacco the son found a lasting and comparatively harmless substitute for the Wine, which, none can doubt, caused the elder Omar to complain so bitterly, -

Note the cheerfulness with which the Son answers the Father in a stanza which may be taken as a key to his Reformatory Philosophy,

Quite in accordance with his policy of improving on his father's rakish Muse was the frequent endorsement of the beautiful and harmless practice of kissing. The kiss is mentioned some forty-eight times in the present work, and in the nine hundred untranslated Rubaiyat, two hundred and ten more kisses occur, making a grand total of two hundred and fifty-eight Omaric kisses -

It may be truly said that the Father left the discovery of Woman to his Son, for nowhere in the Rubaiyat of Naishapur's poet is full justice done to the charms of the fair. Even in his most ardent passages old Omar uttered no more than a eulogy to Friendship.

Where the philosophy of the elder Omar was bacchanalian and epicurean, that of the Son was tobacchanalian and eclectic, allowing excess only in moderation, as it were, and countenancing nothing more violent than poetic license. However, we are led to believe that the tastes of his time called for a certain mild sensuality as the gustatio to a feast of reason, and had Omar Khayyam lived in our own day he would doubtless have agreed with a reverend Erlington and Bosworth Professor in the University of Cambridge who boldly asserts that the literature redolent of nothing but the glories of asceticism "deserves the credit due to goodness of intention, and nothing else."

Due doubtless to the preservative influence of smoke Omar Khayyam, Jr., was enabled to live to the hale age of one hundred and seven, and to go to an apotheosis fully worthy his greatness. Among the native chroniclers the quatrain (number XCI) -

has been the source of much relentless debate. By some it is held that this stanza is prophetic in its nature, foreseeing the transcendent miracle of the poet's death; by others it is as stoutly maintained that the poet in the above lines decreed that his work should be preserved and handed down to posterity in a wrapping of tobacco. The Editor is inclined to the belief that there is much truth in both opinions, for the parchment, when it came to hand, was stained and scented from its wrappings of Virginia and Perique; and the manner of the poet's death marks Number XCI as another remarkable instance of the clairvoyance of the Muse. To quote from the quaint words of the native chronicler: -

"For while the Volcanic Singer was seated one day in the shade of a banyan tree, fresh cigars and abandoned stumps surrounding him like the little hills that climb the mountain, he nodded and fell asleep, still puffing lustily at a panatella, sweet and black. Now the poet's beard was long and his sleep deep, and as the weed grew shorter with each ecstatic puff, the little brand of fire drew closer and closer to the beautiful hairy mantle that fell from the poet's chin. That day the Island was wrapped in a light gauze of blue mist, an exotic smoke that was a blessing to the nostrils. It suffused the whole Island from end to end, and reminded the happy inhabitants of the Cigars of Nirvana, grown in some Plantation of the Blessed. When the smoke had passed and our heads were cleared of the narcotic fumes, we hastened to the spot where our good master had loved to sit; but there naught remained but a great heap of white ashes, sitting among the pipes and cigars that had inspired his song. Thus he died as he lived, an ardent smoker."

I – "Sours the Milk of Life"; thunderstorms, earthquakes and artificial commotions of the earth are popularly and quasi-scientifically believed to have the effect of turning milk from sweet to sour; so here the Milk of Life is soured by the sudden advent of the Brat of Death (Care, perhaps, who is said to have killed a cat on one occasion). By some critics it is held that the figure might have been enrichened by the substitution of the Cream of Life for the Milk of Life.

II- Gorgona is referred to but three times in the present work, in Rubs II, XXI and XXVI. Number II would lead us to believe that the poet used her figuratively as Sorrow or Remorse; but the text of XXI and XXVI point another conclusion. The latter Rubaiyat tell us forcefully that Gorgona was but too real and that her unloveliness was a sore trial to the fine attunement of the poet's nerves.

II - Such words as "tobacchanalian" (compounded from tobacco and bacchanalian) Lewis Carrol claimed as his own under the title of "portmanteau words," - another example of the antiquity of modernity.

VII - "The Early Worm is up to Catch the Fish”; the worm, caught as bait, will in turn serve as captor for some luckless fish. This, possibly, is the Bornese version of our own proverb, "The early bird catches the worm."

IX - "The Invisible Buskin at the Gate" probably refers to the shoe left outside of temples and mosques in the Orient. The temple here meant is doubtless the Temple of Love, and the fact of the Buskin being Invisible illumes the eyes of the damosel who knows that the devotee is worshiping at the Shrine of Love.

X - Than Basilisk or Nenuphar; the poet has given us in two words the dual aspect of Woman; flowerlike in repose, serpentine in action.

X - Pendants; who has not noted a hairpin in the act of falling, hanging for a moment, as though loth to leave its gentle habitation? Omar Khayyam, Jr., was an observer of small things as well as great.

X - A Hundred Hairpins; aspirates are used liberally in this line, probably to give the effect of falling hairpins.

XIII - Hymen Spring; Hymen, while not the god of husbandry, was the accepted deity of marriage; hence Spring, the incorrigible matchmaker, may very easily be identified with Hymen. Note the pleasing alliteration of the words Hymen and hymning brought so close together.

XVIII - Eolian Aloes; aloes, according to Oscar Wilde in the Picture of Dorian Grey, have the power of banishing melancholy wherever their perfume penetrates. Eolian Aloes may be the exotic melodies that drive care from the mind.

XXIII - Forgiviness; the reader will probably regard this spelling of forgiveness somewhat unusual, and the Editor freely confesses that he has no authority for such usage. But since Fitzgerald has coined enow for the sake of a rhyme, the Editor hopes that he will be forgiven his forgiviness.

XXIX - With what an Equanimity; there is an untranslated quatrain to the effect that ugliness is the only sin that can make a woman ashamed to look her mirror in the face.

XXV - The breaking of the glass at the gaze of Gorgona, as well as the squamiest serpent in her locks, mentioned in II, give us a clew as to the derivation of her name from that of the Gorgon, Medusa, whose uncomeliness was so intense as to petrify all that met her gaze. On the other hand, the glance of Gorgona seemed to be rather explosive than congealing.

XXV - Torques; this word (like squamiest) is derived directly from the Latin, to be used in this work. They are not properly English words, but the Editor intends they shall become so in the near future.

XXVI - Wreathed is used in obsolete English and especially in Spenser, to mean turned or bent.

XXVII - Attar-Musk; attar is the Persian word for druggist, but we hesitate to believe that the poet would attribute an artificial perfume to the rose.

XXXV - Myself when young; this stanza is supposed to be biographical in its intent. It is known that before the anti-Omaric uprising in Naishapur, and even during his errant tour through Persia, the younger Omar was socially lionized,, becoming much sought after. It may seem improbable that Omar, Jr., as a member of the sterner sex, should have been admitted as a regular frequenter of women's clubs, but it must be remembered that then, even as in our own day, men were eagerly prized as lecturers on subjects of interest to women. Omar, Jr., appeared for several seasons before the women's clubs of Naishapur, giving recitations and readings from his father's works.

XXXVI - Ibsen - Boccacio; for a Persian poet of so remote a date, Omar Khayyam, Jr., showed a remarkable knowledge of modern as well as mediaeval literature.

LVII - That Great Menagerie; another reference to his experience as a social lion is found here, as in the three rubaiyat following. The gabble garbled garrulousness (the familiar "gobble, gabble and git”, crystallized into the higher form of expression) indicates that the narcotic effect of tea on womankind was much the same in Omar's time as in ours.

LXI - Leave to me the Tenth; the discovery of a tenth Muse puts the younger Omar on an equal footing with his father in science as well as in poetry. The editor has found that, upon quitting forever his native Persia, Omar Khayyam, Jr., brought to Borneo many of the more refined sciences. In his hereditary profession, astronomy, he claims the rare distinction of having first made observations through the medium of a wine-glass. His long fidelity to this method was rewarded by some remarkable results, for his private journals show that on several occasions he was able to discern as many as eight sister satellites swimming in eccentric orbits around the moon - a discovery which our much-vaunted modern science has never been able to equal or even to approach.

LXVII - Her Lips no Questions ask;

LXXI - The A B C; this rubai'y, though indescribably beautiful in the Original, is somewhat too involved for us to grasp the meaning at one reading. Perhaps, in thus weaving the alphabet into his numbers, it was the purpose of the poet to give promise of the ultimate attainment of the Alpha and Omega of knowledge. Perhaps the stanza, on the other hand, was merely intended as a pretty poetical conceit, an exercise in metrical ingenuity. If the latter theory holds good, what a pity it would seem that these rubaiyat were not originally written in Chinese, the infinite alphabet of which language would have furnished material for the present work and several revised editions also!

LXXIII - While Growing Roses in a Cabbage Lot; confusing, perhaps, at first reading, but here again may the student employ the device of symbolism with great advantage. The Roses may be taken for the flowers of fancy, the Cabbage Lot for the field of sordid reality. As a staple vegetable, the rose can never compete with the Cabbage.

LXXIV - He Whistles on his Fingers and his Toes; there are many who may very justly consider this line as undignified and unrefined; but such readers should always remember that these quatrains may be taken as purely symbolical. Thus the Fingers and Toes may be regarded as mental aspects and the whistle as whatever best suits the reader.

LXXXIII - Asphodel; the fabled flower of immortality; also a brand of cigar much favoured by the younger Omar.

LXXXV - Anodyne; some translations have this Iodine.

XCIII - The How is swiftly mingling with the When, etc.; the great questions, How, What and When, are being withdrawn unanswered by the ^nuiovpyos, who is responsible for their propounding.

* This verse parodies the following original quatrain from the real Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat:

** This verse parodies the following original quatrain from the real Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat:

*** This, and several of the following quatrains parody a section of the original Rubaiyat wherein the author describes entering a pottery shop, and having the various pots give their thoughts on their earthly situation, as well as their maker (a reference to God) and their hereafters (references to Heaven and Hell).

**** This verse parodies the following original quatrain from the real Rubaiyat:

Return to Examples of Parody from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khyyam Jr.