XCV
And much as Wine has played the Infidel,
And robbed me of my Robe of Honor — Well,
I wonder often what the Vintners buy
One half so precious as the stuff they sell.
And much as Wine has played the Infidel,
And robbed me of my Robe of Honor — Well,
I wonder often what the Vintners buy
One half so precious as the stuff they sell.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v15 - Kab to Les
how inany lovers hast thou slain
Like Mabmud and Ayaz, O inhumane!
Come, let us drink! thou grantest not two lives;
When one is spent, we find it not again. ”
The bitter fatalism, worthy of Koheleth, soon translates itself into
practical acceptance of all the good things of earth:-
«In the sweet Spring a grassy bank I sought,
And thither wine and a fair Houri brought;
And though the people called me graceless dog,
Gave not to Paradise another thought.
V-535
## p. 8546 (#154) ###########################################
8546
OMAR KHAYYÁM
«Life void of wine and minstrels with their lutes,
And the soft murmurs of Irakian Autes,
Were nothing worth: I scan the world and see,
Save pleasure, life yields only bitter fruits.
(And now
moment, be sure
zake pilgrima
pendid beare
stems, CONDE
and drop bloc
“O soul! lay up all earthly goods in store;
Thy mead with pleasure's flowerets spangle o'er;
And know 'tis all as dew that decks the Aowers
For one short night, and then is seen no more!
tomated moa
the lament i
s triumphan
Oma: knew
Bat was
«Like tulips in the Spring your cups lift up,
And with a tulip-cheeked companion sup
With joy your wine, or e'er this azure wheel
With some unlooked for blast upset your cup. ”
be paints -
and the ne
form. Orier
mat his mo
The Prophet promises for the Faithful in the Paradise to come,
multiplied joys: feasts of many courses, rivers running with wine and
milk, and exquisite Houris, star-eyed maidens with bodies made of
musk or saffron; but Omar says if those things are to be in the world
to come, then surely it is right to enjoy their counterparts on earth.
He invites us to the tavern, there to forget the sorrows of life; he
comes forth from the tavern to mock at the hypocritical sages who in
reality envy him his freedom.
A recent writer, James A. Murray, in the Fortnightly Review, elo-
quently pictures one phase of Omar's poetry :-
«Behind this joyous life lies the very shadow of death. Omar entreats his
mistress to pour wine for him while she can, before the potters make vessels
from their dust; to love him while the light is in her eyes and the laughter
in her voice. It is the old sorrow for the dead, made personal and thereby
increased in poignancy and pathos. The lion and the lizard haunt the courts
of Jamshed's splendor, the wild ass stamps above the head of Bahram; birds
wail over the skull of Kai Kawus, potters mold upon their wheels the ashes
of Faridun and Kai Khosru. Those delicate lithe curves were once the more
perfect lines of a human body; the glass, the goblet, that one may break in
carelessness, thrills with the anguish of a living creature. In like manner
Omar prays that when he is dead he may be ground to dust, and mingled
into clay with wine, and molded to a stopper for the wine-jar's mouth. For
all men have a regeneration which is sometimes beautiful and sometimes
base. Roses and tulips spring from the dust of monarchs; beneath purple
violets, dark ladies are laid. And still that pitiful refrain continues: of what
avail is it, when men are dead, and do not feel or see or hear? It is the
spirit of a most noble Hellenic epitaph, strangely distant from the Greeks in
its unrestraint: -“We, the dead, are only bones and ashes: waste no precious
ointments or wreaths upon our tomb, for it is only marble; kindle no funeral
pyre, for it is useless extravagance. If you have anything to give, give it
while I am alive; but if you steep ashes in wine you only make mud, for the
dead man does not drink. )
But it
and mot
ad var
ནན
انة بها
mustice
pemas,
either i
3. 1Bit
wondes,
lated to
le temaer
simpic
Ofi
scripts
## p. 8547 (#155) ###########################################
OMAR KHAYYÁM
8547
«And now the dust of Omar, as that of all men, brings forth flowers: (God
knows,' he says, (for whom. ) For whom? To-day travelers from all countries
make pilgrimage to the sepulchre in that soft garden where he rests. The
splendid heaven of Nishápúr is over him; the cool earth embraces him; brown
stems, crowned heavily with white and crimson blossom, rise from his ashes,
and drop blown petals on his tomb. The ringdove murmurs in that low full-
throated moan whose significance is sculptured over the ruins of Persepolis,-
the lament for strong dead men and imperious queens. But the dawn is
as triumphant, the incense-wind as sweet, the gardens flower-laden, as when
Omar knew them more than nine hundred years ago.
But was the grave astronomer the wine-bibber and voluptuary that
he paints himself? Must we not read into his praise of the wine-cup
and the narcissus-eyed Cup-bearer with his or her slender cypress
form, Oriental images meant to convey a deep esoteric meaning? Are
not his more serious verses safer tests of his real thought?
«Whilom, ere youth's conceit had waned, methought
Answers to all life's problems I had wrought;
But now, grown old and wise, too late I see
My life is spent, and all my lore is naught.
« Let him rejoice who has a loaf of bread,
A little nest wherein to lay his head,
Is slave to none, and no man slaves for him,-
In truth his lot is wondrous well bestead.
«Sooner with half a loaf contented be,
And water from a broken crock, like me,
Than lord it over one poor fellow-man,
Or to another bow the vassal knee. »
But in contemplating all these poems,- and there are a thousand
and more attributed to Omar Khayyam, many of them only replicas
and variations of certain themes: complaints of Fate and the world's
injustice, satires on the hypocrisy and impiety of the pious, love
poems, Rubaiyát in praise of spring and flowers, addresses to Allah
either in humility or in reproach, and everlasting reiteration of the
old Biblical “Eat and drink, for to-morrow you die,” — the question
comes, how many were really written by Omar himself. Those attrib-
uted to him are differentiated from the great mass of Persian verse
by their lack of florid ornamentation and arabesque, by their stately
simplicity.
Owing to his unpopularity as a heretic, comparatively few manu-
scripts have come down to us, and there is no undoubted text. The
first known translation is of one quatrain, which exists in Arabic and
in Latin. Professor E. B. Cowell was the first to make known to
English readers the wealth of his poetic and philosophic thought.
## p. 8548 (#156) ###########################################
8548
OMAR KHAYYÁM
But as his prose versions and comments appeared in a magazine
published in India, it excited little attention. It was through Edward
Fitzgerald that he became generally known to the English-speaking
world. For some time it was thought that the quatrains were of
English origin; but at last the truth was told. A new impulse was
given to the interest in Omar Khayyam by the publication, in 1884,
of the superb illustrations by Elihu Vedder, which interpreted the
text in the true Oriental and epicurean spirit. These illustrations are
not slavish reproductions of the text, but rather a parallel poem, in
keeping with it. Faithful service to the poet also was performed in
Germany by Baron von Hammer-Purgstall, by Graf von Schack, and
by Friedrich von Bodenstedt; in France by Garcin de Tassy, and by
J. B. Nicolas. Besides Fitzgerald's rendering, English versions, prose
and verse, more or less complete, have been made by Justin Huntly
McCarthy, E. H. Whinfield (whose translations are used in this sketch),
and others. There are also Hungarian and Norwegian versions, and
an edition in the original has been published in St. Petersburg.
The modernness of Omar's spirit, his view of the world, half pessi-
mistic and half defiant, his good humor and good cheer, his wit and
bonhomie, all make him appeal to a very wide circle of nineteenth-
century readers. They find in him echoes of their own doubts and
questionings; they too look upon the universe as the plaything of a
Fate which they cannot pretend to explain or change; and they too
somehow complacently feel that the Power above them “is a good
Fellow” who will not without cause damn them to the Prophet's Hell.
At the same time they recognize the claims of the perfect life.
Well sings old Omar in more serious mood,--
Or else some critic of the Mollah brood, -
«In all this changing world whereat I gaze,
Save Goodness only there is nothing good. ”
Nendeter
## p. 8549 (#157) ###########################################
OMAR KHAYYÁM
8549
RUBÁLYÁT
I
WAK
AKE! for the Sun, who scattered into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heaven,
and strikes
The Sultán's Turret with a Shaft of Light.
II
Before the phantom of False morning died,
Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,
«When all the Temple is prepared within,
Why nods the drowsy Worshiper outside >>
III
And as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted “Open then the Door!
« You know how little while we have to stay,
And once departed, may return no more. ”
IV
Now the New Year reviving old Desires,
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the WHITE HAND OF Moses on the Bough
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.
V
Iram indeed is gone with all his Rose,
And Jamshyd's Seven-ringed Cup where no one knows;
But still a Ruby kindles in the Vine,
And many a Garden by the Water blows.
VI
(C
And David's lips are lockt; but in divine
High-piping Pehleví, with «Wine! Wine! Wine!
Red Wine! ” – the Nightingale cries to the Rose,
That sallow cheek of hers ť incarnadine.
VII
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter - and the Bird is on the Wing.
## p. 8550 (#158) ###########################################
8550
OMAR KHAYYÁM
VIII
Whether at Naishápúr or Babylon,
Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,-
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.
IX
Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say:
Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?
And this first Summer month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobád away.
х
Well, let it take them! What have we to do
With Kaikobád the Great, or Kaikhosrú ?
Let Zál and Rustum bluster as they will,
Or Hátim call to Supper-heed not you.
-
XI
With me along the strip of Herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultán is forgot -
And Peace to Mahmúd on his golden Throne!
XII
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
XIII
Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come:
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!
XIV
Look to the blowing Rose about us — "Lo,
Laughing,” she says, “into the world I blow,
At once the silken tassel of my Purse
Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw. ”
## p. 8551 (#159) ###########################################
OMAR KHAYYÁM
8551
XV
And those whọ husbanded the Golden grain,
And those who flung it to the winds like Rain,
Alike to no such aureate Earth are turned
As, buried once, Men want dug up again.
XVI
The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face,
Lighting a little hour or two- is gone.
XVII
Think, in this battered Caravanserai
Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultán after Sultán with his Pomp
Abode his destined Hour, and went his way.
XVIII
They say the Lion and the Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:
And Bahrám, that great Hunter - the Wild Ass
Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.
XIX
I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Cæsar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.
XX
And this reviving Herb whose tender Green
Fledges the River-Lip on which we lean-
Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows
From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!
XXI
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
To-Day of past Regrets and future Fears:
To-morrow! - Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Seven thousand Years.
## p. 8552 (#160) ###########################################
8552
OMAR KHAYYÁM
XXII
For some we loved, the loveliest and the best
That from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest,
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to rest.
XXIII
And we, that now make merry in the Room
They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom,
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend — ourselves to make a Couch — for whom?
XXIV
Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and
sans End!
XXV
Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare,
And those that after some To-MORROW stare,
A Muezzín from the Tower of Darkness cries,
«Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There. ”
XXVI
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discussed
Of the Two Worlds so wisely - they are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scattered, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.
XXVII
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 wherein I went.
XXVIII
With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;
And this was all the Harvest that I reaped –
"I came like Water, and like Wind I go. ”
## p. 8553 (#161) ###########################################
OMAR KHAYYÁM
8553
XXIX
Into this Universe, and Why not knowing,
Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.
XXX
What, without asking, hither hurried Whence?
And, without asking, Whither hurried hence!
Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine
Must drown the memory of that insolence !
XXXI
Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate:
And many a Knot unraveled by the Road;
But not the Master-knot of Human Fate.
1
XXXII
There was the Door to which I found no Key;
There was the Veil through which I might not see.
Some little talk awhile of Me and THEE
There was- and then no more of Thee and Me.
1
XXXIII
Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that mourn
In flowing Purple, of their Lord forlorn;
Nor rolling Heaven, with all his Signs revealed
And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn.
XXXIV
Then of the THEE IN ME who works behind
The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find
A lamp amid the Darkness; and I heard,
As from Without-"THE ME WITHIN THEE BLIND! »
XXXV
Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn
I leaned, the Secret of my Life to learn;
And Lip to Lip it murmured « While you live,
Drink! - for once dead, you never shall return. ”
-
## p. 8554 (#162) ###########################################
8554
OMAR KHAYYÁM
XXXVI
I think the Vessel, that with fugitive
Articulation answered, once did live,
And drink; and Ah! the passive Lip I kissed,
How many Kisses might it take-and give!
XXXVII
For I remember stopping by the way
To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay:
And with its all-obliterated Tongue
It murmured - Gently, Brother, gently, pray! ”
(C
-
XXXVIII
And has not such a Story from of Old
Down Man's successive generations rolled
Of such a clod of saturated Earth
Cast by the Maker into Human mold?
XXXIX
And not a drop that from our Cups we throw
For Earth to drink of, but may steal below
To quench the fire of Anguish in some Eye
There hidden — far beneath, and long ago.
XL
As then the Tulip for her morning sup
Of Heavenly Vintage from the soil looks up,
Do you devoutly do the like, till Heaven
To Earth invert you — like an empty Cup.
XLI
Perplext no more with Human or Divine,
To-morrow's tangle to the winds resign,
And lose your fingers in the tresses of
The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine.
XLII
And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,
End in what All begins and ends in — Yes;
Think then you are TO-DAY what YESTERDAY
You were — TO-MORROW you shall not be less.
## p. 8555 (#163) ###########################################
OMAR KHAYYÁM
8555
XLIII
So when that Angel of the darker Drink
At last shall find you by the river-brink,
And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul
Forth to your Lips to quaff - you shall not shrink.
XLIV
Why, if the Soul can Aling the Dust aside,
And naked on the Air of Heaven ride,
Were't not a Shame - were't not a Shame for him
In this clay carcass crippled to abide ?
XLV
'Tis but a Tent where takes his one day's rest
A Sultán to the realm of Death addrest;
The Sultán rises, and the dark Ferrásh
Strikes, and prepares it for another Guest.
XLVI
And fear not lest Existence, closing your
Account, and mine, should know the like no more;
The Eternal Sákí from that Bowl has poured
Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour.
XLVII
When You and I behind the Veil are past,
Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last,
Which of our Coming and Departure heeds
As the Sea's self should heed a pebble-cast.
XLVIII
A Moment's Halt - a momentary taste
Of Being from the Well amid the Waste-
And Lo! - the phantom Caravan has reached
The Nothing it set out from - Oh, make haste!
XLIX
Would you that spangle of Existence spend
About THE SECRET — quick about it, Friend!
A Hair perhaps divides the False and True-
And upon what, prithee, may life depend?
## p. 8556 (#164) ###########################################
8556
OMAR KHAYYÁM
L
A Hair perhaps divides the False and True;
Yes; and a single Alif were the clue —
Could you but find it — to the Treasure-house
And peradventure to THE MASTER too;
LI
Whose secret Presence, through Creation's veins
Running Quicksilver-like, eludes your pains;
Taking all shapes from Máh to Máhi; and
They change and perish all - but He remains:
LII
A moment guessed – then back behind the Fold
Immerst of Darkness round the Drama rolled
Which, for the Pastime of Eternity,
He doth Himself contrive, enact, behold.
LIII
But if in vain, down on the stubborn floor
Of Earth, and up to Heaven's unopening Door,
You gaze TO-DAY, while. You are You – how then
TO-MORROW, when You shall be You no more ?
LIV
Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit
Of This and That endeavor and dispute;
Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.
LV
You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse
I made a Second Marriage in my house;
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.
LVI
(
For “Is” and “IS-NOT » though with Rule and Line
And “UP-AND-DOWN » by Logic I define,
Of all that one should care to fathom, I
Was never deep in anything but — Wine.
## p. 8557 (#165) ###########################################
OMAR KHAYYÁM
8557
LVII
Ah, but my Computations, People say,
Reduced the Year to better reckoning ? -Nay,
'Twas only striking from the Calendar
Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday.
LVIII
And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,
Came shining through the Dusk an Angel Shape
Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and
He bid me taste of it; and 'twas — the Grape!
-
LIX
The Grape, that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute;
The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice
Life's leaden metal into Gold transmute;
LX
The mighty Mahmúd, Allah-breathing Lord,
That all the misbelieving and black Horde
Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul
Scatters before him with his whirlwind Sword.
LXI
Why, be this Juice the growth of God, who dare
Blaspheme the twisted tendril as a Snare ?
A Blessing, we should use it, should we not?
And if a Curse — why, then, Who set it there?
LXII
I must abjure the Balın of Life, I must,
Scared by some After-reckoning ta'en on trust,
Or lured with Hope of some Diviner Drink,
To fill the Cup— when crumbled into Dust!
LXIII
Oh, threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain - This Life flies;
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies:
The Flower that once has blown forever dies.
## p. 8558 (#166) ###########################################
8558
OMAR KHAYYÁM
LXIV
Strange, is it not ? that of the myriads who
Before us passed the door of Darkness through,
Not one returns to tell us of the Road,
Which to discover we must travel too,
LXV
The Revelations of Devout and Learned
Who rose before us, and as Prophets burned,
Are all but Stories, which awoke from Sleep
They told their comrades, and to Sleep returned.
LXVI
I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell;
And by-and-by my Soul returned to me,
And answered, «I Myself am Heaven and Hell:)
LXVII
Heaven but the Vision of fulfilled Desire,
And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire,
Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,
So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.
LXVIII
We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
In Midnight by the Master of the Show;
LXIX
But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
LXX
The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Here or There as strikes the Player goes;
And He that tossed you down into the Field,
He knows about it all- He knows-HE knows!
## p. 8559 (#167) ###########################################
OMAR KHAYYÁM
8559
LXXI
The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
LXXII
And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,
Whereunder crawling cooped we live and die,
Lift not your hands to It for help — for It
As impotently moves as you or I.
LXXIII
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And there of the Last Harvest sowed the Seed;
And the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.
LXXIV
YESTERDAY This Day's Madness did prepare;
TO-MORROW's Silence, Triumph, or Despair:
Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why;
Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.
LXXV
I tell you this — When, started from the Goal,
Over the flaming shoulders of the Foal
Of Heaven Parwin and Mushtari they flung,
In my predestined Plot of Dust and Soul
LXXVI
The Vine had struck a fibre; which about
If clings my Being — let the Dervish flout:
Of my Base metal may be filed a Key
That shall unlock the Door he howls without.
LXXVII
And this I know: whether the one True Light
Kindle to Love, or Wrath-consume me quite,
One Flash of It within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright.
## p. 8560 (#168) ###########################################
8560
OMAR KHAYYÁM
:
LXXVIII
What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke
A conscious Something to resent the yoke
Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain
Of Everlasting Penalties, if broke!
LXXIX
What! from his helpless Creature be repaid
Pure Gold for what He lent him dross-allayed -
Sue for a Debt he never did contract,
And cannot answer — Oh the sorry trade!
LXXX
Oh Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not with Predestined Evil round
Enmesh, and then impute my Fall to Sin!
LXXXI
Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And e'en with Paradise devise the Snake:
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blackened – Man's forgiveness give - and take!
*
LXXXII
As under cover of departing Day
Slunk hunger-stricken Ramazan away,
Once more within the Potter's house alone
I stood, surrounded by the Shapes of Clay.
LXXXIII
Shapes of all Sorts and Sizes, great and small,
That stood along the floor and by the wall:
And some loquacious Vessels were; and some
Listened, perhaps, but never talked at all.
LXXXIV
Said one among them . “Surely not in vain
My substance of the common Earth was ta’en
And to this Figure molded, to be broke,
Or trampled back to shapeless Earth again. ”
## p. 8561 (#169) ###########################################
OMAR KHAYYÁM
8561
LXXXV
Then said a Second — “Ne'er a peevish Boy
Would break the Bowl from which he drank in joy;
And He that with his hand the Vessel made
Will surely not in after Wrath destroy. "
LXXXVI
.
After a momentary silence spake
Some Vessel of a more ungainly Make:
«They sneer at me for leaning all awry:
What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake ? »
LXXXVII
1
.
Whereat some one of the loquacious Lot -
I think a Súfi pipkin — waxing hot-
“All this of Pot and Potter - Tell me, then,
Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot ? »
1
LXXXVIII
“Why,” said another, « Some there are who tell
Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell
The luckless Pots he marred in making Pish!
He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well. ”
1
LXXXIX
>>
« Well," murmured one, “Let whoso make or buy,
My Clay with long Oblivion is gone dry;
But fill me with the old familiar Juice,
Methinks I might recover by-and-by. ”
XC
So while the Vessels one by one were speaking,
The little Moon looked in that all were seeking:
And then they jogged each other, “Brother! Brother!
Now for the Porter's shoulder-knot a-creaking! ”
c
XCI
Ah, with the Grape my fading life provide,
And wash the Body whence the Life has died,
And lay me, shrouded in the living Leaf,
By some not unfrequented Garden-side.
XV-536
## p. 8562 (#170) ###########################################
8562
OMAR KHAYYÁM
XCII
That e'en my buried Ashes such a snare
Of Vintage shall Aling up into the Air,
As not a True-believer passing by
But shall be overtaken unaware.
XCIII
Indeed, the Idols I have loved so long
Have done my credit in this World much wrong:
Have drowned my Glory in a shallow Cup,
And sold my Reputation for a Song.
XCIV
Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore — but was I sober when I swore ?
And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My threadbare Penitence apieces tore.
XCV
And much as Wine has played the Infidel,
And robbed me of my Robe of Honor — Well,
I wonder often what the Vintners buy
One half so precious as the stuff they sell.
XCVI
Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the branches sang,
Ah whence, and whither flown again, who knows!
XCVII
-
Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield
One glimpse - if dimly, yet indeed revealed,
To which the fainting Traveler might spring,
As springs the trampled herbage of the field!
XCVIII
Would but some winged Angel ere too late
Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate,
And make the stern Recorder otherwise
Enregister, or quite obliterate!
## p. 8563 (#171) ###########################################
OMAR KHAYYÁM
8563
XCIX
Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits — and then
Remold it nearer to the Heart's Desire!
*
C
Yon rising Moon that looks for us again
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;
How oft hereafter rising look for us
Through this same Garden -- and for one in vain!
CI
And when like her, O Sakí, you shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scattered on the Grass,
And in your joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made One — turn down an empty Glass!
Version of Edward Fitzgerald: fifth edition.
ADDITIONAL RUBÁIYÁT
[These are verses from earlier editions which Fitzgerald either transformed
or dropped in others, and one which he never included in his « Eclogue »
scheme; but which seem too beautiful or too quaint not to be given. ]
I
Opening Verses of the First Edition
WAKE! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:*
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.
A
Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
“Awake, my little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its cup be dry. ”
*« Flinging a Stone into the Cup was the signal for «To Horse! ) in the
Desert. » -- FITZGERALD.
## p. 8564 (#172) ###########################################
8564
OMAR KHAYYÁM
1
II
Stanza xxxvii. of the First Edition
AH, fill the Cup: what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday,
Why fret about them if To-day be sweet?
III
Stanza lxiv. of the First Edition
Said one,— «Folks of a surly Tapster tell,
And daub his Visage with the Smoke of Hell:
They talk of some strict Testing of us — Pish!
He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well. ”
»
IV
Stanza xiv. of the Second Edition
WERE it not Folly, Spider-like to spin
The Thread of present Life away to win -
What? for ourselves, who know not if we shall
Breathe out the very Breath we now breathe in!
V
Stanza lxv. of the Second Edition
IF BUT the Vine- and Love-abjuring Band
Are in the Prophet's Paradise to stand,
Alack, I doubt the Prophet's Paradise
Were empty as the hollow of one's Hand.
11
VI
Verse given among Fitzgerald's notes to the (Rubáiyát,' but not included in
the body of the text
BE of Good Cheer: the Sullen Month will die,
And a young Moon requite us by-and-by:
Look how the Old one, meagre, bent, and wan
With Age and Fast, is Fainting from the Sky!
## p. 8565 (#173) ###########################################
8565
ALEXANDER KIELLAND
(1849-)
LEXANDER KIELLAND, one of the foremost of the living authors
of Norway, belongs in Norwegian literature to the genera-
tion subsequent to Björnson, Ibsen, and Lie, the three great
names that most readily recur among the contemporary writers of
his native country. In point of fact, he has very little in common
with them or their predecessors, but in many ways inarks a new
tendency in the literature of Norway, which in its most recent devel-
opment owes not a little to his incentive. In this attitude he and
his immediate contemporary Arne Garborg
though direct antitheses in some respects,
here stand together,— an intermediate devel-
opment between the oldest and the newest
phases of that extraordinary literature that
has attracted to it the attention of the
world.
Kielland was born in 1849, in Stavanger,
Norway. His father was a ship-owner and
merchant of abundant means and social
position, as had been his ancestors for gen-
erations before him. At the University of
Christiania he studied law, which however
he never practiced, although he duly took ALEXANDER KIELLAND
his examination at the end of the course.
Instead he chose at the outset a business career; and bought a brick
and tile factory at Malk, near Stavanger, which he managed with
ability until 1881, when it was sold to a stock company.
His first literary work saw the light under these conditions. His
career began with a series of short stories, which appeared anony-
mously in the Christiania Dagblad. These first tales, with others
written subsequently, went to make up the material of his first two
books, Novelletter) (1879), and Nye Novelletter» (1880).
Several winters spent in Paris, and the study of modern French
literature, established the characteristic tendency of his genius. Many
of his novelettes and short stories are so essentially French in method
and manner, that except for their environment they might equally
well have been the product of French soil. To associate him with
Daudet is natural and inevitable; for in his point of view and treat-
ment of material he most resembles that great master of short stories.
## p. 8566 (#174) ###########################################
8566
ALEXANDER KIELLAND
1
!
Kielland's use of the Norwegian language is a revelation, and it
flows from his pen in incisive and often sparkling sentences. No one
ever before has used the language as he uses it. In his hands it is
a medium of the utmost clarity, and transmits every delicate shade of
meaning. It lends itself readily to translation, but very little has as
yet found its way into English. “Garman and Worse' has been trans-
lated by W. W. Kettlewell (London, 1885), Skipper Worse by the
Earl of Ducie (London, 1885), and William Archer has translated a
number of short stories which have been published under the title of
(Tales of Two Countries) (1891).
Kielland's first novel, Garman and Worse) (1880), demonstrated his
seriousness of purpose. It is a social study of bourgeois life in the
towns of the western coast of Norway, and treats of types of char-
acter with which the author has all his life been familiar. Inevita-
bly it is autobiographical, particularly in the incidents of the boyhood
of Gabriel Garman. A faithful picture of the life of a small Nor-
wegian town, it is full of clever satire and humorous delineation.
Discontent with existing social conditions ramifying in various
directions is the psychological element in most of Kielland's novels.
Kielland's second novel, Laboring People (1881), is the pathology as
well as the psychology of vice, and treats of the corrupting influence
of the upper classes upon the lower. The horrors of the subject are
not disguised; and from this book it may be understood why Georg
Brandes, in his brilliant essay upon Kielland, should trace in his
writings the influence of Balzac and Zola. In point of structure and
composition 'Skipper Worse ranks among the best of his novels; and
here as always there is the suggestion of Daudet, for the theme of
the story—a study of Pietism in Norway - is similar to that of
(L'Évangéliste. His strength and earnestness are nowhere better
exemplified than in this psychological study.
Kielland's development has been uniform and steady, and his
recent work shows an immense increase in power. His later books
all indicate the trend of his socialistic tendency. (Snow) is a protest
against blind orthodoxy. The wintry Norwegian landscape is sym-
bolical of the icy fetters of tradition, but there is a hint and promise
of spring. In Jacob, however, pessimism settles like a heavy fog,
rayless and dispiriting. It is a revolt against senseless optimism and
poetic justice, and a plea for what he believes to be reality. Kiel-
land's characteristic is the spirit of liberalism in politics, ethics, and
religion. Of aristocratic social connections, a conservative by birth
and education, Kielland is the champion of democracy. So outspoken
is he, indeed, that the government itself, through a committee ap-
pointed to investigate his claims to the customary literary pension,
has protested against a literature opposed to the prevailing moral
## p. 8567 (#175) ###########################################
ALEXANDER KIELLAND
8567
A
and religious ideas of the nation,” and refused to sanction his writ-
ings by granting the stipend petitioned by his friends. As a com-
pensation, his popularity with the people is unbounded; and in spite
of the frowns of the government, he has virtually remained master
of the field.
1
AT THE FAIR
From (Tales of Two Countries. )
Copyright 1891, by Harper & Brothers
I"
seau
+
T was by the merest chance that Monsieur and Madame Tous-
came to Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the early days of
September.
Four weeks ago they had been married in Lyons, which was
their home; but where they had passed these four weeks they
really could not have told you. The time had gone hop-skip-
and-jump: a couple of days had entirely slipped out of their
reckoning; and on the other hand they remembered a little sum-
mer-house at Fontainebleau, where they had rested one evening,
as clearly as if they had passed half their lives there.
Paris was, strictly speaking, the goal of their wedding journey,
and there they established themselves in a comfortable little
hôtel garni. But the city was sultry, and they could not rest; so
they rambled about among the small towns in the neighborhood,
and found themselves one Sunday at noon in Saint-Germain.
« Monsieur and Madame have doubtless come to take part
in the fête ? » said the plump little landlady of the Hotel Henri
Quatre, as she ushered her guests up the steps.
The fête ? They knew of no fête in the world except their
own wedded happiness; but they did not say so to the landlady.
They soon learned that they had been lucky enough to drop
into the very midst of the great and celebrated fair which is held
every year, on the first Sunday of September, in the Forest of
Saint-Germain.
The young couple were highly delighted with their good hap.
It seemed as though Fortune followed at their heels, or rather
ran ahead of them, to arrange surprises. After a delicious tête- .
à-tête dinner behind one of the clipped yew-trees in the quaint
garden, they took a carriage and drove off to the forest.
In the hotel garden, beside the little fountain in the middle of
the lawn, sat a ragged condor which the landlord had bought to
## p. 8568 (#176) ###########################################
8568
ALEXANDER KIELLAND
08
amuse his guests. It was attached to its perch by a good strong
rope. But when the sun shone upon it with real warmth, it fell
a-thinking of the snow-peaks of Peru, of mighty wing-strokes
over the deep valleys- and then it forgot the rope.
Two vigorous strokes with its pinions would bring the rope
up taut, and it would fall back upon the sward. There it would
lie by the hour, then shake itself and clamber up to its little
perch again.
When it turned its head to watch the happy pair, Madame
Tousseau burst into a fit of laughter at its melancholy mien.
The afternoon sun glimmered through the dense foliage of the
interminable straight-ruled avenue that skirts the terrace. The
young wife's veil fluttered aloft as they sped through the air, and
wound itself right around Monsieur's head. It took a long time
to put it in order again, and Madame's hat had to be adjusted
ever so often. Then came the relighting of Monsieur's cigar, and
that too was quite a business,- for Madame's fan would always
give a suspicious little Airt every time the match was lighted;
then a penalty had to be paid, and that again took time.
The aristocratic English family which was passing the summer
at Saint-Germain was disturbed in its regulation walk by the
passing of the gay little equipage. They raised their correct
gray or blue eyes; there was neither contempt nor annoyance in
their look — only the faintest shade of surprise. But the condor
followed the carriage with its eyes until it became a mere black
speck at the vanishing-point of the straight-ruled interminable
avenue.
« “La joyeuse fête des Loges” is a genuine fair, with ginger-
bread cakes, sword-swallowers, and waffles piping hot.
evening falls, colored lamps and Chinese lanterns are lighted
around the venerable oak which stands in the middle of the fair-
ground, and boys climb about among its topmost branches with
maroons and Bengal lights.
Gentlemen of an inventive turn of mind go about with lan-
terns on their hats, on their sticks, and wherever they can possi-
bly hang; and the most inventive of all strolls around with his
sweetheart under a great umbrella, with a lantern dangling from
each rib.
On the outskirts, bonfires are lighted; fowls are roasted on
spits, while potatoes are cut into slices and fried in drippings.
Each aroma seems to have its amateurs, for there are always
As the
## p. 8569 (#177) ###########################################
ALEXANDER KIELLAND
8569
-
1
people crowding round; but the majority stroll up and down the
long street of booths.
Monsieur and Madame Tousseau had plunged into all the fun
of the fair. They had gambled in the most lucrative lottery in
Europe, presided over by a man who excelled in dubious witti-
cisms. They had seen the fattest goose in the world, and the
celebrated flea, “Bismarck," who could drive six horses. Further-
more they had purchased gingerbread, shot at a target for clay
pipes and soft-boiled eggs, and finally had danced a waltz in the
spacious dancing-tent.
They had never had such fun in their lives. There were no
great people there—at any rate, none greater than themselves.
As they did not know a soul, they smiled to every one; and
when they met the same person twice they laughed and nodded
to him.
They were charmed with everything. They stood outside
the great circus and ballet marquees and laughed at the shouting
buffoons. Scraggy mountebanks performed on trumpets, and
young girls with well-floured shoulders smiled alluringly from the
platforms.
Monsieur Tousseau's purse was never at rest; but they did
not grow impatient of the perpetual claims upon it. On the
contrary, they only laughed at the gigantic efforts these people
would make, to earn perhaps half a franc, or a few centimes.
Suddenly they encountered a face they knew. It was a young
American whom they had met at the hotel in Paris.
"Well, Monsieur Whitmore! » cried Madame Tousseau gayly,
"here at last you've found a place where you can't possibly help
enjoying yourself. ”
“For my part,” answered the American slowly, “I find no
enjoyment in seeing the people who haven't money making fools
of themselves to please the people who have. ”
"Oh, you're incorrigible! ” laughed the young wife. But I
must compliment you on the excellent French you are speaking
to-day. ”
After exchanging a few more words they lost each other in
the crowd: Mr. Whitmore was going back to Paris immediately.
Madame Tousseau's compliment was quite sincere. As a rule
the grave American talked deplorable French; but the answer he
had made to Madame was almost correct.
It seemed as though
it had been well thought out in advance --as though a whole
-
## p. 8570 (#178) ###########################################
8570
ALEXANDER KIELLAND
series of impressions had condensed themselves into these words.
Perhaps that was why his answer sank so deep into the minds of
Monsieur and Madame Tousseau.
Neither of them thought it a particularly brilliant remark;
on the contrary, they agreed that it must be miserable to take
so gloomy a view of things. But nevertheless his words left
something rankling. They could not laugh so lightly as before;
Madame felt tired, and they began to think of getting homewards.
Just as they turned to go down the long street of booths in
order to find their carriage, they met a noisy crew coming up-
ward.
“Let us take the other way,” said Monsieur.
They passed between two booths, and emerged at the back of
one of the rows. They stumbled over the tree-roots before their
eyes got used to the uncertain light which fell in patches between
the tents. A dog which lay gnawing at something or other rose
with a snarl, and dragged its prey further into the darkness
among the trees.
On this side the booths were made up of old sails and all sorts
of strange draperies. Here and there light shone through the
openings, and at one place Madame distinguished a face she
knew.
It was the man who had sold her that incomparable ginger-
bread — Monsieur had half of it still in his pocket.
But it was curious to see the gingerbread-man from this side.
Here was something quite different from the smiling obsequious-
ness which had said so many pretty things to her pretty face,
and had been so unwearied in belauding the gingerbread — which
really was excellent.
Now he sat crouched together, eating some indescribable mess
out of a checked pocket-handkerchief - eagerly, greedily, without
looking up.
Farther down they heard a muffled conversation. Madame was
bent upon peeping in; Monsieur objected, but had to give in.
An old mountebank sat counting a handful of coppers, grum-
bling and growling the while. A young girl stood before him,
shivering and pleading for pardon; she was wrapped in a long
waterproof.
The man swore and stamped on the ground. Then she threw
off the waterproof and stood half naked in a sort of ballet cos-
tume. Without saying a word, and without smoothing her hair
## p. 8571 (#179) ###########################################
ALEXANDER KIELLAND
8571
10
or preening her finery, she mounted the little steps that led to
the stage.
At that moment she turned and looked at her father. Her
face had already put on the ballet simper, but it now gave place
to a quite different expression. The mouth remained fixed, but
the eyes tried for a second to send him a beseeching smile. The
mountebank shrugged his shoulders, and held out his hand with
the coppers; the girl turned, ducked under the curtain, and was
received with shouts and applause.
Beside the great oak-tree the lottery man was holding forth
as fluently as ever. His witticisms, as the darkness thickened,
grew less and less dubious. There was a different ring, too, in
the laughter of the crowd; the men were noisier, the mounte-
banks leaner, the women more brazen, the music falser — so it
seemed at least to Madame and Monsieur.
As they passed the dancing-tent the racket of a quadrille
reached their ears. “Great heavens! - was it really there that
we danced ? ” said Madame, and nestled closer to her husband.
They made their way through the rout as quickly as they
could; they would soon reach their carriage,- it was just be-
yond the circus marquee.
It would be nice to rest and escape
from all this hubbub.
The platform in front of the circus marquee was now vacant.
Inside, in the dim and stilling rotunda, the performance was in
full swing.
Only the old woman who sold the tickets sat asleep at her
desk. And a little way off, in the light of her lamp, stood a
tiny boy.
He was dressed in tights, green on one side, red on the other;
on his head he had a fool's cap with horns.
Close up to the platform stood a woman wrapped in a black
shawl. She seemed to be talking to the boy.
He advanced his red leg and his green leg by turns, and
drew them back again.
At last he took three steps forward on
his meagre shanks and held out his hand to the woman.
She took what he had in it, and disappeared into the dark-
ness.
He stood motionless for a moment, then he muttered some
words and burst into tears.
Presently he stopped, and said, “Maman m'a pris mon sou! ”
and fell to weeping again.
## p. 8572 (#180) ###########################################
8572
ALEXANDER KIELLAND
-
18
T
anovanced
is liter
one of les
ble real
berarise
e origin
The w
He dried his eyes and left off for a time, but as often as he
repeated to himself his sad little history — how his mother had
taken his sou from him — he was seized with another and a bit.
terer fit of weeping.
He stooped and buried his face in the curtain. The stiff,
wrinkly oil painting must be hard and cold to cry into. The
little body shrank together; he drew his green leg close up
under him, and stood like a stork upon the red one.
No one on the other side of the curtain must hear that he
was crying. Therefore he did not sob like a child, but fought
as a man fights against a broken heart.
When the attack was over, he blew his nose with his fingers,
and wiped them on his tights. With the dirty curtain he had
dabbled the tears all over his face until it was streaked with
black; and in this guise, and dry-eyed, he gazed for a moment
over the fair.
Then: “Maman m'a pris mon sou” — and he set off again.
The back-sweep of the wave leaves the beach dry for an
instant while the next wave is gathering. Thus sorrow swept
in heavy surges over the little childish heart.
His dress was so ludicrous, his body so meagre, his weeping
was so woefully bitter, and his suffering so great and man-like-
But at home at the hotel — the Pavillon Henri Quatre, where
the Queens of France condescended to be brought to bed — there
the condor sat and slept upon its perch.
And it dreamed its dream — its only dreamits dream about
the snow-peaks of Peru and the mighty wing-strokes over the
deep valleys; and then it forgot its rope.
It uplifted its ragged pinions vigorously, and struck two sturdy
strokes.
Like Mabmud and Ayaz, O inhumane!
Come, let us drink! thou grantest not two lives;
When one is spent, we find it not again. ”
The bitter fatalism, worthy of Koheleth, soon translates itself into
practical acceptance of all the good things of earth:-
«In the sweet Spring a grassy bank I sought,
And thither wine and a fair Houri brought;
And though the people called me graceless dog,
Gave not to Paradise another thought.
V-535
## p. 8546 (#154) ###########################################
8546
OMAR KHAYYÁM
«Life void of wine and minstrels with their lutes,
And the soft murmurs of Irakian Autes,
Were nothing worth: I scan the world and see,
Save pleasure, life yields only bitter fruits.
(And now
moment, be sure
zake pilgrima
pendid beare
stems, CONDE
and drop bloc
“O soul! lay up all earthly goods in store;
Thy mead with pleasure's flowerets spangle o'er;
And know 'tis all as dew that decks the Aowers
For one short night, and then is seen no more!
tomated moa
the lament i
s triumphan
Oma: knew
Bat was
«Like tulips in the Spring your cups lift up,
And with a tulip-cheeked companion sup
With joy your wine, or e'er this azure wheel
With some unlooked for blast upset your cup. ”
be paints -
and the ne
form. Orier
mat his mo
The Prophet promises for the Faithful in the Paradise to come,
multiplied joys: feasts of many courses, rivers running with wine and
milk, and exquisite Houris, star-eyed maidens with bodies made of
musk or saffron; but Omar says if those things are to be in the world
to come, then surely it is right to enjoy their counterparts on earth.
He invites us to the tavern, there to forget the sorrows of life; he
comes forth from the tavern to mock at the hypocritical sages who in
reality envy him his freedom.
A recent writer, James A. Murray, in the Fortnightly Review, elo-
quently pictures one phase of Omar's poetry :-
«Behind this joyous life lies the very shadow of death. Omar entreats his
mistress to pour wine for him while she can, before the potters make vessels
from their dust; to love him while the light is in her eyes and the laughter
in her voice. It is the old sorrow for the dead, made personal and thereby
increased in poignancy and pathos. The lion and the lizard haunt the courts
of Jamshed's splendor, the wild ass stamps above the head of Bahram; birds
wail over the skull of Kai Kawus, potters mold upon their wheels the ashes
of Faridun and Kai Khosru. Those delicate lithe curves were once the more
perfect lines of a human body; the glass, the goblet, that one may break in
carelessness, thrills with the anguish of a living creature. In like manner
Omar prays that when he is dead he may be ground to dust, and mingled
into clay with wine, and molded to a stopper for the wine-jar's mouth. For
all men have a regeneration which is sometimes beautiful and sometimes
base. Roses and tulips spring from the dust of monarchs; beneath purple
violets, dark ladies are laid. And still that pitiful refrain continues: of what
avail is it, when men are dead, and do not feel or see or hear? It is the
spirit of a most noble Hellenic epitaph, strangely distant from the Greeks in
its unrestraint: -“We, the dead, are only bones and ashes: waste no precious
ointments or wreaths upon our tomb, for it is only marble; kindle no funeral
pyre, for it is useless extravagance. If you have anything to give, give it
while I am alive; but if you steep ashes in wine you only make mud, for the
dead man does not drink. )
But it
and mot
ad var
ནན
انة بها
mustice
pemas,
either i
3. 1Bit
wondes,
lated to
le temaer
simpic
Ofi
scripts
## p. 8547 (#155) ###########################################
OMAR KHAYYÁM
8547
«And now the dust of Omar, as that of all men, brings forth flowers: (God
knows,' he says, (for whom. ) For whom? To-day travelers from all countries
make pilgrimage to the sepulchre in that soft garden where he rests. The
splendid heaven of Nishápúr is over him; the cool earth embraces him; brown
stems, crowned heavily with white and crimson blossom, rise from his ashes,
and drop blown petals on his tomb. The ringdove murmurs in that low full-
throated moan whose significance is sculptured over the ruins of Persepolis,-
the lament for strong dead men and imperious queens. But the dawn is
as triumphant, the incense-wind as sweet, the gardens flower-laden, as when
Omar knew them more than nine hundred years ago.
But was the grave astronomer the wine-bibber and voluptuary that
he paints himself? Must we not read into his praise of the wine-cup
and the narcissus-eyed Cup-bearer with his or her slender cypress
form, Oriental images meant to convey a deep esoteric meaning? Are
not his more serious verses safer tests of his real thought?
«Whilom, ere youth's conceit had waned, methought
Answers to all life's problems I had wrought;
But now, grown old and wise, too late I see
My life is spent, and all my lore is naught.
« Let him rejoice who has a loaf of bread,
A little nest wherein to lay his head,
Is slave to none, and no man slaves for him,-
In truth his lot is wondrous well bestead.
«Sooner with half a loaf contented be,
And water from a broken crock, like me,
Than lord it over one poor fellow-man,
Or to another bow the vassal knee. »
But in contemplating all these poems,- and there are a thousand
and more attributed to Omar Khayyam, many of them only replicas
and variations of certain themes: complaints of Fate and the world's
injustice, satires on the hypocrisy and impiety of the pious, love
poems, Rubaiyát in praise of spring and flowers, addresses to Allah
either in humility or in reproach, and everlasting reiteration of the
old Biblical “Eat and drink, for to-morrow you die,” — the question
comes, how many were really written by Omar himself. Those attrib-
uted to him are differentiated from the great mass of Persian verse
by their lack of florid ornamentation and arabesque, by their stately
simplicity.
Owing to his unpopularity as a heretic, comparatively few manu-
scripts have come down to us, and there is no undoubted text. The
first known translation is of one quatrain, which exists in Arabic and
in Latin. Professor E. B. Cowell was the first to make known to
English readers the wealth of his poetic and philosophic thought.
## p. 8548 (#156) ###########################################
8548
OMAR KHAYYÁM
But as his prose versions and comments appeared in a magazine
published in India, it excited little attention. It was through Edward
Fitzgerald that he became generally known to the English-speaking
world. For some time it was thought that the quatrains were of
English origin; but at last the truth was told. A new impulse was
given to the interest in Omar Khayyam by the publication, in 1884,
of the superb illustrations by Elihu Vedder, which interpreted the
text in the true Oriental and epicurean spirit. These illustrations are
not slavish reproductions of the text, but rather a parallel poem, in
keeping with it. Faithful service to the poet also was performed in
Germany by Baron von Hammer-Purgstall, by Graf von Schack, and
by Friedrich von Bodenstedt; in France by Garcin de Tassy, and by
J. B. Nicolas. Besides Fitzgerald's rendering, English versions, prose
and verse, more or less complete, have been made by Justin Huntly
McCarthy, E. H. Whinfield (whose translations are used in this sketch),
and others. There are also Hungarian and Norwegian versions, and
an edition in the original has been published in St. Petersburg.
The modernness of Omar's spirit, his view of the world, half pessi-
mistic and half defiant, his good humor and good cheer, his wit and
bonhomie, all make him appeal to a very wide circle of nineteenth-
century readers. They find in him echoes of their own doubts and
questionings; they too look upon the universe as the plaything of a
Fate which they cannot pretend to explain or change; and they too
somehow complacently feel that the Power above them “is a good
Fellow” who will not without cause damn them to the Prophet's Hell.
At the same time they recognize the claims of the perfect life.
Well sings old Omar in more serious mood,--
Or else some critic of the Mollah brood, -
«In all this changing world whereat I gaze,
Save Goodness only there is nothing good. ”
Nendeter
## p. 8549 (#157) ###########################################
OMAR KHAYYÁM
8549
RUBÁLYÁT
I
WAK
AKE! for the Sun, who scattered into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heaven,
and strikes
The Sultán's Turret with a Shaft of Light.
II
Before the phantom of False morning died,
Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,
«When all the Temple is prepared within,
Why nods the drowsy Worshiper outside >>
III
And as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted “Open then the Door!
« You know how little while we have to stay,
And once departed, may return no more. ”
IV
Now the New Year reviving old Desires,
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the WHITE HAND OF Moses on the Bough
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.
V
Iram indeed is gone with all his Rose,
And Jamshyd's Seven-ringed Cup where no one knows;
But still a Ruby kindles in the Vine,
And many a Garden by the Water blows.
VI
(C
And David's lips are lockt; but in divine
High-piping Pehleví, with «Wine! Wine! Wine!
Red Wine! ” – the Nightingale cries to the Rose,
That sallow cheek of hers ť incarnadine.
VII
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter - and the Bird is on the Wing.
## p. 8550 (#158) ###########################################
8550
OMAR KHAYYÁM
VIII
Whether at Naishápúr or Babylon,
Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,-
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.
IX
Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say:
Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?
And this first Summer month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobád away.
х
Well, let it take them! What have we to do
With Kaikobád the Great, or Kaikhosrú ?
Let Zál and Rustum bluster as they will,
Or Hátim call to Supper-heed not you.
-
XI
With me along the strip of Herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultán is forgot -
And Peace to Mahmúd on his golden Throne!
XII
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
XIII
Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come:
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!
XIV
Look to the blowing Rose about us — "Lo,
Laughing,” she says, “into the world I blow,
At once the silken tassel of my Purse
Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw. ”
## p. 8551 (#159) ###########################################
OMAR KHAYYÁM
8551
XV
And those whọ husbanded the Golden grain,
And those who flung it to the winds like Rain,
Alike to no such aureate Earth are turned
As, buried once, Men want dug up again.
XVI
The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face,
Lighting a little hour or two- is gone.
XVII
Think, in this battered Caravanserai
Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultán after Sultán with his Pomp
Abode his destined Hour, and went his way.
XVIII
They say the Lion and the Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:
And Bahrám, that great Hunter - the Wild Ass
Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.
XIX
I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Cæsar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.
XX
And this reviving Herb whose tender Green
Fledges the River-Lip on which we lean-
Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows
From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!
XXI
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
To-Day of past Regrets and future Fears:
To-morrow! - Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Seven thousand Years.
## p. 8552 (#160) ###########################################
8552
OMAR KHAYYÁM
XXII
For some we loved, the loveliest and the best
That from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest,
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to rest.
XXIII
And we, that now make merry in the Room
They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom,
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend — ourselves to make a Couch — for whom?
XXIV
Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and
sans End!
XXV
Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare,
And those that after some To-MORROW stare,
A Muezzín from the Tower of Darkness cries,
«Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There. ”
XXVI
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discussed
Of the Two Worlds so wisely - they are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scattered, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.
XXVII
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 wherein I went.
XXVIII
With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;
And this was all the Harvest that I reaped –
"I came like Water, and like Wind I go. ”
## p. 8553 (#161) ###########################################
OMAR KHAYYÁM
8553
XXIX
Into this Universe, and Why not knowing,
Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.
XXX
What, without asking, hither hurried Whence?
And, without asking, Whither hurried hence!
Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine
Must drown the memory of that insolence !
XXXI
Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate:
And many a Knot unraveled by the Road;
But not the Master-knot of Human Fate.
1
XXXII
There was the Door to which I found no Key;
There was the Veil through which I might not see.
Some little talk awhile of Me and THEE
There was- and then no more of Thee and Me.
1
XXXIII
Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that mourn
In flowing Purple, of their Lord forlorn;
Nor rolling Heaven, with all his Signs revealed
And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn.
XXXIV
Then of the THEE IN ME who works behind
The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find
A lamp amid the Darkness; and I heard,
As from Without-"THE ME WITHIN THEE BLIND! »
XXXV
Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn
I leaned, the Secret of my Life to learn;
And Lip to Lip it murmured « While you live,
Drink! - for once dead, you never shall return. ”
-
## p. 8554 (#162) ###########################################
8554
OMAR KHAYYÁM
XXXVI
I think the Vessel, that with fugitive
Articulation answered, once did live,
And drink; and Ah! the passive Lip I kissed,
How many Kisses might it take-and give!
XXXVII
For I remember stopping by the way
To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay:
And with its all-obliterated Tongue
It murmured - Gently, Brother, gently, pray! ”
(C
-
XXXVIII
And has not such a Story from of Old
Down Man's successive generations rolled
Of such a clod of saturated Earth
Cast by the Maker into Human mold?
XXXIX
And not a drop that from our Cups we throw
For Earth to drink of, but may steal below
To quench the fire of Anguish in some Eye
There hidden — far beneath, and long ago.
XL
As then the Tulip for her morning sup
Of Heavenly Vintage from the soil looks up,
Do you devoutly do the like, till Heaven
To Earth invert you — like an empty Cup.
XLI
Perplext no more with Human or Divine,
To-morrow's tangle to the winds resign,
And lose your fingers in the tresses of
The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine.
XLII
And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,
End in what All begins and ends in — Yes;
Think then you are TO-DAY what YESTERDAY
You were — TO-MORROW you shall not be less.
## p. 8555 (#163) ###########################################
OMAR KHAYYÁM
8555
XLIII
So when that Angel of the darker Drink
At last shall find you by the river-brink,
And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul
Forth to your Lips to quaff - you shall not shrink.
XLIV
Why, if the Soul can Aling the Dust aside,
And naked on the Air of Heaven ride,
Were't not a Shame - were't not a Shame for him
In this clay carcass crippled to abide ?
XLV
'Tis but a Tent where takes his one day's rest
A Sultán to the realm of Death addrest;
The Sultán rises, and the dark Ferrásh
Strikes, and prepares it for another Guest.
XLVI
And fear not lest Existence, closing your
Account, and mine, should know the like no more;
The Eternal Sákí from that Bowl has poured
Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour.
XLVII
When You and I behind the Veil are past,
Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last,
Which of our Coming and Departure heeds
As the Sea's self should heed a pebble-cast.
XLVIII
A Moment's Halt - a momentary taste
Of Being from the Well amid the Waste-
And Lo! - the phantom Caravan has reached
The Nothing it set out from - Oh, make haste!
XLIX
Would you that spangle of Existence spend
About THE SECRET — quick about it, Friend!
A Hair perhaps divides the False and True-
And upon what, prithee, may life depend?
## p. 8556 (#164) ###########################################
8556
OMAR KHAYYÁM
L
A Hair perhaps divides the False and True;
Yes; and a single Alif were the clue —
Could you but find it — to the Treasure-house
And peradventure to THE MASTER too;
LI
Whose secret Presence, through Creation's veins
Running Quicksilver-like, eludes your pains;
Taking all shapes from Máh to Máhi; and
They change and perish all - but He remains:
LII
A moment guessed – then back behind the Fold
Immerst of Darkness round the Drama rolled
Which, for the Pastime of Eternity,
He doth Himself contrive, enact, behold.
LIII
But if in vain, down on the stubborn floor
Of Earth, and up to Heaven's unopening Door,
You gaze TO-DAY, while. You are You – how then
TO-MORROW, when You shall be You no more ?
LIV
Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit
Of This and That endeavor and dispute;
Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.
LV
You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse
I made a Second Marriage in my house;
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.
LVI
(
For “Is” and “IS-NOT » though with Rule and Line
And “UP-AND-DOWN » by Logic I define,
Of all that one should care to fathom, I
Was never deep in anything but — Wine.
## p. 8557 (#165) ###########################################
OMAR KHAYYÁM
8557
LVII
Ah, but my Computations, People say,
Reduced the Year to better reckoning ? -Nay,
'Twas only striking from the Calendar
Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday.
LVIII
And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,
Came shining through the Dusk an Angel Shape
Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and
He bid me taste of it; and 'twas — the Grape!
-
LIX
The Grape, that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute;
The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice
Life's leaden metal into Gold transmute;
LX
The mighty Mahmúd, Allah-breathing Lord,
That all the misbelieving and black Horde
Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul
Scatters before him with his whirlwind Sword.
LXI
Why, be this Juice the growth of God, who dare
Blaspheme the twisted tendril as a Snare ?
A Blessing, we should use it, should we not?
And if a Curse — why, then, Who set it there?
LXII
I must abjure the Balın of Life, I must,
Scared by some After-reckoning ta'en on trust,
Or lured with Hope of some Diviner Drink,
To fill the Cup— when crumbled into Dust!
LXIII
Oh, threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain - This Life flies;
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies:
The Flower that once has blown forever dies.
## p. 8558 (#166) ###########################################
8558
OMAR KHAYYÁM
LXIV
Strange, is it not ? that of the myriads who
Before us passed the door of Darkness through,
Not one returns to tell us of the Road,
Which to discover we must travel too,
LXV
The Revelations of Devout and Learned
Who rose before us, and as Prophets burned,
Are all but Stories, which awoke from Sleep
They told their comrades, and to Sleep returned.
LXVI
I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell;
And by-and-by my Soul returned to me,
And answered, «I Myself am Heaven and Hell:)
LXVII
Heaven but the Vision of fulfilled Desire,
And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire,
Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,
So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.
LXVIII
We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
In Midnight by the Master of the Show;
LXIX
But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
LXX
The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Here or There as strikes the Player goes;
And He that tossed you down into the Field,
He knows about it all- He knows-HE knows!
## p. 8559 (#167) ###########################################
OMAR KHAYYÁM
8559
LXXI
The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
LXXII
And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,
Whereunder crawling cooped we live and die,
Lift not your hands to It for help — for It
As impotently moves as you or I.
LXXIII
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And there of the Last Harvest sowed the Seed;
And the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.
LXXIV
YESTERDAY This Day's Madness did prepare;
TO-MORROW's Silence, Triumph, or Despair:
Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why;
Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.
LXXV
I tell you this — When, started from the Goal,
Over the flaming shoulders of the Foal
Of Heaven Parwin and Mushtari they flung,
In my predestined Plot of Dust and Soul
LXXVI
The Vine had struck a fibre; which about
If clings my Being — let the Dervish flout:
Of my Base metal may be filed a Key
That shall unlock the Door he howls without.
LXXVII
And this I know: whether the one True Light
Kindle to Love, or Wrath-consume me quite,
One Flash of It within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright.
## p. 8560 (#168) ###########################################
8560
OMAR KHAYYÁM
:
LXXVIII
What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke
A conscious Something to resent the yoke
Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain
Of Everlasting Penalties, if broke!
LXXIX
What! from his helpless Creature be repaid
Pure Gold for what He lent him dross-allayed -
Sue for a Debt he never did contract,
And cannot answer — Oh the sorry trade!
LXXX
Oh Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not with Predestined Evil round
Enmesh, and then impute my Fall to Sin!
LXXXI
Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And e'en with Paradise devise the Snake:
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blackened – Man's forgiveness give - and take!
*
LXXXII
As under cover of departing Day
Slunk hunger-stricken Ramazan away,
Once more within the Potter's house alone
I stood, surrounded by the Shapes of Clay.
LXXXIII
Shapes of all Sorts and Sizes, great and small,
That stood along the floor and by the wall:
And some loquacious Vessels were; and some
Listened, perhaps, but never talked at all.
LXXXIV
Said one among them . “Surely not in vain
My substance of the common Earth was ta’en
And to this Figure molded, to be broke,
Or trampled back to shapeless Earth again. ”
## p. 8561 (#169) ###########################################
OMAR KHAYYÁM
8561
LXXXV
Then said a Second — “Ne'er a peevish Boy
Would break the Bowl from which he drank in joy;
And He that with his hand the Vessel made
Will surely not in after Wrath destroy. "
LXXXVI
.
After a momentary silence spake
Some Vessel of a more ungainly Make:
«They sneer at me for leaning all awry:
What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake ? »
LXXXVII
1
.
Whereat some one of the loquacious Lot -
I think a Súfi pipkin — waxing hot-
“All this of Pot and Potter - Tell me, then,
Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot ? »
1
LXXXVIII
“Why,” said another, « Some there are who tell
Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell
The luckless Pots he marred in making Pish!
He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well. ”
1
LXXXIX
>>
« Well," murmured one, “Let whoso make or buy,
My Clay with long Oblivion is gone dry;
But fill me with the old familiar Juice,
Methinks I might recover by-and-by. ”
XC
So while the Vessels one by one were speaking,
The little Moon looked in that all were seeking:
And then they jogged each other, “Brother! Brother!
Now for the Porter's shoulder-knot a-creaking! ”
c
XCI
Ah, with the Grape my fading life provide,
And wash the Body whence the Life has died,
And lay me, shrouded in the living Leaf,
By some not unfrequented Garden-side.
XV-536
## p. 8562 (#170) ###########################################
8562
OMAR KHAYYÁM
XCII
That e'en my buried Ashes such a snare
Of Vintage shall Aling up into the Air,
As not a True-believer passing by
But shall be overtaken unaware.
XCIII
Indeed, the Idols I have loved so long
Have done my credit in this World much wrong:
Have drowned my Glory in a shallow Cup,
And sold my Reputation for a Song.
XCIV
Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore — but was I sober when I swore ?
And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My threadbare Penitence apieces tore.
XCV
And much as Wine has played the Infidel,
And robbed me of my Robe of Honor — Well,
I wonder often what the Vintners buy
One half so precious as the stuff they sell.
XCVI
Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the branches sang,
Ah whence, and whither flown again, who knows!
XCVII
-
Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield
One glimpse - if dimly, yet indeed revealed,
To which the fainting Traveler might spring,
As springs the trampled herbage of the field!
XCVIII
Would but some winged Angel ere too late
Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate,
And make the stern Recorder otherwise
Enregister, or quite obliterate!
## p. 8563 (#171) ###########################################
OMAR KHAYYÁM
8563
XCIX
Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits — and then
Remold it nearer to the Heart's Desire!
*
C
Yon rising Moon that looks for us again
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;
How oft hereafter rising look for us
Through this same Garden -- and for one in vain!
CI
And when like her, O Sakí, you shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scattered on the Grass,
And in your joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made One — turn down an empty Glass!
Version of Edward Fitzgerald: fifth edition.
ADDITIONAL RUBÁIYÁT
[These are verses from earlier editions which Fitzgerald either transformed
or dropped in others, and one which he never included in his « Eclogue »
scheme; but which seem too beautiful or too quaint not to be given. ]
I
Opening Verses of the First Edition
WAKE! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:*
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.
A
Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
“Awake, my little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its cup be dry. ”
*« Flinging a Stone into the Cup was the signal for «To Horse! ) in the
Desert. » -- FITZGERALD.
## p. 8564 (#172) ###########################################
8564
OMAR KHAYYÁM
1
II
Stanza xxxvii. of the First Edition
AH, fill the Cup: what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday,
Why fret about them if To-day be sweet?
III
Stanza lxiv. of the First Edition
Said one,— «Folks of a surly Tapster tell,
And daub his Visage with the Smoke of Hell:
They talk of some strict Testing of us — Pish!
He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well. ”
»
IV
Stanza xiv. of the Second Edition
WERE it not Folly, Spider-like to spin
The Thread of present Life away to win -
What? for ourselves, who know not if we shall
Breathe out the very Breath we now breathe in!
V
Stanza lxv. of the Second Edition
IF BUT the Vine- and Love-abjuring Band
Are in the Prophet's Paradise to stand,
Alack, I doubt the Prophet's Paradise
Were empty as the hollow of one's Hand.
11
VI
Verse given among Fitzgerald's notes to the (Rubáiyát,' but not included in
the body of the text
BE of Good Cheer: the Sullen Month will die,
And a young Moon requite us by-and-by:
Look how the Old one, meagre, bent, and wan
With Age and Fast, is Fainting from the Sky!
## p. 8565 (#173) ###########################################
8565
ALEXANDER KIELLAND
(1849-)
LEXANDER KIELLAND, one of the foremost of the living authors
of Norway, belongs in Norwegian literature to the genera-
tion subsequent to Björnson, Ibsen, and Lie, the three great
names that most readily recur among the contemporary writers of
his native country. In point of fact, he has very little in common
with them or their predecessors, but in many ways inarks a new
tendency in the literature of Norway, which in its most recent devel-
opment owes not a little to his incentive. In this attitude he and
his immediate contemporary Arne Garborg
though direct antitheses in some respects,
here stand together,— an intermediate devel-
opment between the oldest and the newest
phases of that extraordinary literature that
has attracted to it the attention of the
world.
Kielland was born in 1849, in Stavanger,
Norway. His father was a ship-owner and
merchant of abundant means and social
position, as had been his ancestors for gen-
erations before him. At the University of
Christiania he studied law, which however
he never practiced, although he duly took ALEXANDER KIELLAND
his examination at the end of the course.
Instead he chose at the outset a business career; and bought a brick
and tile factory at Malk, near Stavanger, which he managed with
ability until 1881, when it was sold to a stock company.
His first literary work saw the light under these conditions. His
career began with a series of short stories, which appeared anony-
mously in the Christiania Dagblad. These first tales, with others
written subsequently, went to make up the material of his first two
books, Novelletter) (1879), and Nye Novelletter» (1880).
Several winters spent in Paris, and the study of modern French
literature, established the characteristic tendency of his genius. Many
of his novelettes and short stories are so essentially French in method
and manner, that except for their environment they might equally
well have been the product of French soil. To associate him with
Daudet is natural and inevitable; for in his point of view and treat-
ment of material he most resembles that great master of short stories.
## p. 8566 (#174) ###########################################
8566
ALEXANDER KIELLAND
1
!
Kielland's use of the Norwegian language is a revelation, and it
flows from his pen in incisive and often sparkling sentences. No one
ever before has used the language as he uses it. In his hands it is
a medium of the utmost clarity, and transmits every delicate shade of
meaning. It lends itself readily to translation, but very little has as
yet found its way into English. “Garman and Worse' has been trans-
lated by W. W. Kettlewell (London, 1885), Skipper Worse by the
Earl of Ducie (London, 1885), and William Archer has translated a
number of short stories which have been published under the title of
(Tales of Two Countries) (1891).
Kielland's first novel, Garman and Worse) (1880), demonstrated his
seriousness of purpose. It is a social study of bourgeois life in the
towns of the western coast of Norway, and treats of types of char-
acter with which the author has all his life been familiar. Inevita-
bly it is autobiographical, particularly in the incidents of the boyhood
of Gabriel Garman. A faithful picture of the life of a small Nor-
wegian town, it is full of clever satire and humorous delineation.
Discontent with existing social conditions ramifying in various
directions is the psychological element in most of Kielland's novels.
Kielland's second novel, Laboring People (1881), is the pathology as
well as the psychology of vice, and treats of the corrupting influence
of the upper classes upon the lower. The horrors of the subject are
not disguised; and from this book it may be understood why Georg
Brandes, in his brilliant essay upon Kielland, should trace in his
writings the influence of Balzac and Zola. In point of structure and
composition 'Skipper Worse ranks among the best of his novels; and
here as always there is the suggestion of Daudet, for the theme of
the story—a study of Pietism in Norway - is similar to that of
(L'Évangéliste. His strength and earnestness are nowhere better
exemplified than in this psychological study.
Kielland's development has been uniform and steady, and his
recent work shows an immense increase in power. His later books
all indicate the trend of his socialistic tendency. (Snow) is a protest
against blind orthodoxy. The wintry Norwegian landscape is sym-
bolical of the icy fetters of tradition, but there is a hint and promise
of spring. In Jacob, however, pessimism settles like a heavy fog,
rayless and dispiriting. It is a revolt against senseless optimism and
poetic justice, and a plea for what he believes to be reality. Kiel-
land's characteristic is the spirit of liberalism in politics, ethics, and
religion. Of aristocratic social connections, a conservative by birth
and education, Kielland is the champion of democracy. So outspoken
is he, indeed, that the government itself, through a committee ap-
pointed to investigate his claims to the customary literary pension,
has protested against a literature opposed to the prevailing moral
## p. 8567 (#175) ###########################################
ALEXANDER KIELLAND
8567
A
and religious ideas of the nation,” and refused to sanction his writ-
ings by granting the stipend petitioned by his friends. As a com-
pensation, his popularity with the people is unbounded; and in spite
of the frowns of the government, he has virtually remained master
of the field.
1
AT THE FAIR
From (Tales of Two Countries. )
Copyright 1891, by Harper & Brothers
I"
seau
+
T was by the merest chance that Monsieur and Madame Tous-
came to Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the early days of
September.
Four weeks ago they had been married in Lyons, which was
their home; but where they had passed these four weeks they
really could not have told you. The time had gone hop-skip-
and-jump: a couple of days had entirely slipped out of their
reckoning; and on the other hand they remembered a little sum-
mer-house at Fontainebleau, where they had rested one evening,
as clearly as if they had passed half their lives there.
Paris was, strictly speaking, the goal of their wedding journey,
and there they established themselves in a comfortable little
hôtel garni. But the city was sultry, and they could not rest; so
they rambled about among the small towns in the neighborhood,
and found themselves one Sunday at noon in Saint-Germain.
« Monsieur and Madame have doubtless come to take part
in the fête ? » said the plump little landlady of the Hotel Henri
Quatre, as she ushered her guests up the steps.
The fête ? They knew of no fête in the world except their
own wedded happiness; but they did not say so to the landlady.
They soon learned that they had been lucky enough to drop
into the very midst of the great and celebrated fair which is held
every year, on the first Sunday of September, in the Forest of
Saint-Germain.
The young couple were highly delighted with their good hap.
It seemed as though Fortune followed at their heels, or rather
ran ahead of them, to arrange surprises. After a delicious tête- .
à-tête dinner behind one of the clipped yew-trees in the quaint
garden, they took a carriage and drove off to the forest.
In the hotel garden, beside the little fountain in the middle of
the lawn, sat a ragged condor which the landlord had bought to
## p. 8568 (#176) ###########################################
8568
ALEXANDER KIELLAND
08
amuse his guests. It was attached to its perch by a good strong
rope. But when the sun shone upon it with real warmth, it fell
a-thinking of the snow-peaks of Peru, of mighty wing-strokes
over the deep valleys- and then it forgot the rope.
Two vigorous strokes with its pinions would bring the rope
up taut, and it would fall back upon the sward. There it would
lie by the hour, then shake itself and clamber up to its little
perch again.
When it turned its head to watch the happy pair, Madame
Tousseau burst into a fit of laughter at its melancholy mien.
The afternoon sun glimmered through the dense foliage of the
interminable straight-ruled avenue that skirts the terrace. The
young wife's veil fluttered aloft as they sped through the air, and
wound itself right around Monsieur's head. It took a long time
to put it in order again, and Madame's hat had to be adjusted
ever so often. Then came the relighting of Monsieur's cigar, and
that too was quite a business,- for Madame's fan would always
give a suspicious little Airt every time the match was lighted;
then a penalty had to be paid, and that again took time.
The aristocratic English family which was passing the summer
at Saint-Germain was disturbed in its regulation walk by the
passing of the gay little equipage. They raised their correct
gray or blue eyes; there was neither contempt nor annoyance in
their look — only the faintest shade of surprise. But the condor
followed the carriage with its eyes until it became a mere black
speck at the vanishing-point of the straight-ruled interminable
avenue.
« “La joyeuse fête des Loges” is a genuine fair, with ginger-
bread cakes, sword-swallowers, and waffles piping hot.
evening falls, colored lamps and Chinese lanterns are lighted
around the venerable oak which stands in the middle of the fair-
ground, and boys climb about among its topmost branches with
maroons and Bengal lights.
Gentlemen of an inventive turn of mind go about with lan-
terns on their hats, on their sticks, and wherever they can possi-
bly hang; and the most inventive of all strolls around with his
sweetheart under a great umbrella, with a lantern dangling from
each rib.
On the outskirts, bonfires are lighted; fowls are roasted on
spits, while potatoes are cut into slices and fried in drippings.
Each aroma seems to have its amateurs, for there are always
As the
## p. 8569 (#177) ###########################################
ALEXANDER KIELLAND
8569
-
1
people crowding round; but the majority stroll up and down the
long street of booths.
Monsieur and Madame Tousseau had plunged into all the fun
of the fair. They had gambled in the most lucrative lottery in
Europe, presided over by a man who excelled in dubious witti-
cisms. They had seen the fattest goose in the world, and the
celebrated flea, “Bismarck," who could drive six horses. Further-
more they had purchased gingerbread, shot at a target for clay
pipes and soft-boiled eggs, and finally had danced a waltz in the
spacious dancing-tent.
They had never had such fun in their lives. There were no
great people there—at any rate, none greater than themselves.
As they did not know a soul, they smiled to every one; and
when they met the same person twice they laughed and nodded
to him.
They were charmed with everything. They stood outside
the great circus and ballet marquees and laughed at the shouting
buffoons. Scraggy mountebanks performed on trumpets, and
young girls with well-floured shoulders smiled alluringly from the
platforms.
Monsieur Tousseau's purse was never at rest; but they did
not grow impatient of the perpetual claims upon it. On the
contrary, they only laughed at the gigantic efforts these people
would make, to earn perhaps half a franc, or a few centimes.
Suddenly they encountered a face they knew. It was a young
American whom they had met at the hotel in Paris.
"Well, Monsieur Whitmore! » cried Madame Tousseau gayly,
"here at last you've found a place where you can't possibly help
enjoying yourself. ”
“For my part,” answered the American slowly, “I find no
enjoyment in seeing the people who haven't money making fools
of themselves to please the people who have. ”
"Oh, you're incorrigible! ” laughed the young wife. But I
must compliment you on the excellent French you are speaking
to-day. ”
After exchanging a few more words they lost each other in
the crowd: Mr. Whitmore was going back to Paris immediately.
Madame Tousseau's compliment was quite sincere. As a rule
the grave American talked deplorable French; but the answer he
had made to Madame was almost correct.
It seemed as though
it had been well thought out in advance --as though a whole
-
## p. 8570 (#178) ###########################################
8570
ALEXANDER KIELLAND
series of impressions had condensed themselves into these words.
Perhaps that was why his answer sank so deep into the minds of
Monsieur and Madame Tousseau.
Neither of them thought it a particularly brilliant remark;
on the contrary, they agreed that it must be miserable to take
so gloomy a view of things. But nevertheless his words left
something rankling. They could not laugh so lightly as before;
Madame felt tired, and they began to think of getting homewards.
Just as they turned to go down the long street of booths in
order to find their carriage, they met a noisy crew coming up-
ward.
“Let us take the other way,” said Monsieur.
They passed between two booths, and emerged at the back of
one of the rows. They stumbled over the tree-roots before their
eyes got used to the uncertain light which fell in patches between
the tents. A dog which lay gnawing at something or other rose
with a snarl, and dragged its prey further into the darkness
among the trees.
On this side the booths were made up of old sails and all sorts
of strange draperies. Here and there light shone through the
openings, and at one place Madame distinguished a face she
knew.
It was the man who had sold her that incomparable ginger-
bread — Monsieur had half of it still in his pocket.
But it was curious to see the gingerbread-man from this side.
Here was something quite different from the smiling obsequious-
ness which had said so many pretty things to her pretty face,
and had been so unwearied in belauding the gingerbread — which
really was excellent.
Now he sat crouched together, eating some indescribable mess
out of a checked pocket-handkerchief - eagerly, greedily, without
looking up.
Farther down they heard a muffled conversation. Madame was
bent upon peeping in; Monsieur objected, but had to give in.
An old mountebank sat counting a handful of coppers, grum-
bling and growling the while. A young girl stood before him,
shivering and pleading for pardon; she was wrapped in a long
waterproof.
The man swore and stamped on the ground. Then she threw
off the waterproof and stood half naked in a sort of ballet cos-
tume. Without saying a word, and without smoothing her hair
## p. 8571 (#179) ###########################################
ALEXANDER KIELLAND
8571
10
or preening her finery, she mounted the little steps that led to
the stage.
At that moment she turned and looked at her father. Her
face had already put on the ballet simper, but it now gave place
to a quite different expression. The mouth remained fixed, but
the eyes tried for a second to send him a beseeching smile. The
mountebank shrugged his shoulders, and held out his hand with
the coppers; the girl turned, ducked under the curtain, and was
received with shouts and applause.
Beside the great oak-tree the lottery man was holding forth
as fluently as ever. His witticisms, as the darkness thickened,
grew less and less dubious. There was a different ring, too, in
the laughter of the crowd; the men were noisier, the mounte-
banks leaner, the women more brazen, the music falser — so it
seemed at least to Madame and Monsieur.
As they passed the dancing-tent the racket of a quadrille
reached their ears. “Great heavens! - was it really there that
we danced ? ” said Madame, and nestled closer to her husband.
They made their way through the rout as quickly as they
could; they would soon reach their carriage,- it was just be-
yond the circus marquee.
It would be nice to rest and escape
from all this hubbub.
The platform in front of the circus marquee was now vacant.
Inside, in the dim and stilling rotunda, the performance was in
full swing.
Only the old woman who sold the tickets sat asleep at her
desk. And a little way off, in the light of her lamp, stood a
tiny boy.
He was dressed in tights, green on one side, red on the other;
on his head he had a fool's cap with horns.
Close up to the platform stood a woman wrapped in a black
shawl. She seemed to be talking to the boy.
He advanced his red leg and his green leg by turns, and
drew them back again.
At last he took three steps forward on
his meagre shanks and held out his hand to the woman.
She took what he had in it, and disappeared into the dark-
ness.
He stood motionless for a moment, then he muttered some
words and burst into tears.
Presently he stopped, and said, “Maman m'a pris mon sou! ”
and fell to weeping again.
## p. 8572 (#180) ###########################################
8572
ALEXANDER KIELLAND
-
18
T
anovanced
is liter
one of les
ble real
berarise
e origin
The w
He dried his eyes and left off for a time, but as often as he
repeated to himself his sad little history — how his mother had
taken his sou from him — he was seized with another and a bit.
terer fit of weeping.
He stooped and buried his face in the curtain. The stiff,
wrinkly oil painting must be hard and cold to cry into. The
little body shrank together; he drew his green leg close up
under him, and stood like a stork upon the red one.
No one on the other side of the curtain must hear that he
was crying. Therefore he did not sob like a child, but fought
as a man fights against a broken heart.
When the attack was over, he blew his nose with his fingers,
and wiped them on his tights. With the dirty curtain he had
dabbled the tears all over his face until it was streaked with
black; and in this guise, and dry-eyed, he gazed for a moment
over the fair.
Then: “Maman m'a pris mon sou” — and he set off again.
The back-sweep of the wave leaves the beach dry for an
instant while the next wave is gathering. Thus sorrow swept
in heavy surges over the little childish heart.
His dress was so ludicrous, his body so meagre, his weeping
was so woefully bitter, and his suffering so great and man-like-
But at home at the hotel — the Pavillon Henri Quatre, where
the Queens of France condescended to be brought to bed — there
the condor sat and slept upon its perch.
And it dreamed its dream — its only dreamits dream about
the snow-peaks of Peru and the mighty wing-strokes over the
deep valleys; and then it forgot its rope.
It uplifted its ragged pinions vigorously, and struck two sturdy
strokes.
