Khayyam again

[steepholm]

When I was in Dublin recently lady_schrapnell and I visited St Patrick’s Cathedral and saw the Door of Reconciliation, a relic of the feud between the Butlers and the Fitzgeralds. I thought of it today as I picked up the Rubaiyat of Edward Fitzgerald, a scion of the latter house.

Fitzgerald would surely have loved LiveJournal:

“Eventually he settled in Boulge, a Suffolk village close to the small market-town of Woodbridge. He became increasingly reluctant to leave the area as he grew older, and excursions to see friends became infrequent... The older Fitzgerald cherished friendship, but at a distance; his enormous and fascinating correspondence is the direct result of this chosen way of life, which made friendship its central concern but a friendship savoured by proxy, in seclusion.”

My father was very fond of Fitzgerald, particularly this quatrain, which he would quote on the slightest pretext:

“Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went.”

My own favourite, usually, is this:

"They say the Lion and Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:
And Bahram, that great Hunter – the Wild Ass
Stamps o’er his Head, and he lies fast asleep."

But tonight, I found myself drawn to the more-bleakly-morbid:

“There was a Door to which I found no Key:
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little Talk awhile of ME and THEE
There seemed – and then no more of THEE and ME.”

I've no idea how close all this is to the spirit or meaning of Omar Khayyam: it may well be that in imitating him Fitzgerald, as Ben Jonson said of Spenser, "writ no language". I wish I could write any language half so well.

Comments

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Opinion seems to be very divided on the accuracy. The one Farsi speaker I know says it does a reasonable job of trying to be true to the spirit - it's significant, I think, that he avoids gendering pronouns and "thous", presumably so that he doesn't have to imply that the "thou" is a woman when it isn't.

Rab Wilson has done a version in Scots which I keep meaning to read. And Edwin Morgan has a lovely poem in which Omar defends tolerance and hedonism to the leader of the Assassins (I believe they had in fact been drinking pals before the latter saw the light, gave up drink and went in for religious murder instead). I posted it in my lj once but can't find it because I am rubbish at remembering to use tags.

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Hello there!
Found you over at Shewhomust, started reading your page, and hope it is alright if I write here? If not, no response will be my answer and I´m off without bothering you again. But,
I reacted to that last line about "writ no language" and my association immediately was this quote by...: Ben Jonson (seems to have been one curmodgeonly critic):

"That Done, for not keeping a accent, deserved hanging" but then Jonson went on to remark how John Donne (personal favourite, amongst very weird assembly of such) was:
"the first poet in some things". Thought this might amuse you?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Nice of you to drop by!

Ben Jonson had curmudgeonly things to say about most people, I think, though a lot of his choicest phrases seem to have been the result of a one evening's drunken table talk with William Drummond, zealously recorded by the latter for posterity after the fact - which doesn't seem quite fair on BJ. I seem to remember he also said that Donne would be forgotten for want of being understood, or something similar. But Donne, like Wordsworth, managed to create the taste by which he was enjoyed.

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

That is most kind of you to say!

And, I very much enjoyed your last line there. So true, so right. In fact, I was so glad to find your site, that, if you don´t mind (see above: no answer; is one) I would love to add you. No need whatsoever to recipocrate, though, as my own "style" of writing (cough) is not of everyone´s taste, surely.
So please be warned, in case you should consider such a thing.
But, there it is, on my side, after some short lurking at your page, one dito conversation and not a drop of alcohol involved. Yet. No drinks before six o´clock. That hour now passed, the churchbells just rang, I´m thinking much better of poor Jonson, now. For if that was the situation, it does indeed seem unfair on him.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Feel free to add - you don't need to ask!