The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam -- Omar Khayyam

Continuing the 'translations' theme:

(Poem #750) The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough, A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse--and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness-- And Wilderness is Paradise enow. "How sweet is mortal Sovranty!"--think some: Others--"How blest the Paradise to come!" Ah, take the Cash in hand and waive the Rest; Oh, the brave music of a distant Drum! -- Omar Khayyam

 Translated by Edward FitzGerald.
 From FitzGerald's first edition, published in 1859.

 "FitzGerald's Rubaiyat" - the name says it all, really, so intertwined are
the English translation and the Persian original. This is surely the
canonical example of a poem whose popularity owes as much to its translator
as to its author, and for good reason: although not as faithful to the
letter of the original as some other versions, FitzGerald's masterpiece is
justly celebrated for its thematic unity, its command of atmosphere, and
above all, its sublime choice of phrasing.

thomas.

[Other translations]

Here's FitzGerald's second edition:

 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!

 Some for the Glories of This World; and some
 Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
 Ah, take the Cash, and let the Promise go,
 Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!

        -- Omar Khayyam / Edward Fitzgerald

FitzGerald completed three more versions of the Khayyam's Rubaiyat before
his death in 1883. In the same year, Edward Whinfield published a more
comprehensive translation, of which these are the corresponding verses
(numbered 79, 84, 452, 94 and 108 respectively):

 Some wine, a Houri (Houris if there be),
 A green bank by a stream, with minstrelsy;---
 Toil not to find a better Paradise
 If other Paradise indeed there be!

 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!

 Give me a skin of wine, a crust of bread,
 A pittance bare, a book of verse to read;
 With thee, O love, to share my lowly roof,
 I would not take the Sultan's realm instead!

 Did He who made me fashion me for hell,
 Or destine me for heaven? I can not tell.
 Yet will I not renounce cup, lute, and love,
 Nor earthly cash for heavenly credit sell.

 They preach how sweet those Houri brides will be,
 But I say wine is sweeter---taste and see!
 Hold fast this cash, and let that credit go,
 And shun the din of empty drums like me.

        -- Omar Khayyam / Edward Whinfield

Yet another version is Arthur Talbot's, completed in 1908; here are his
quatrains 40, 149, 34 and 42, respectively:

 Whether my destin'd fate shall be to dwell
 Midst Heaven's joys or in the fires of Hell
 I know not; here with Spring, and bread, and wine,
 And thee, my love, my heart says "All is well."

 Give me a scroll of verse, a little wine,
 With half a loaf to fill thy needs and mine,
 And with the desert sand our resting place,
 For ne'er a Sultan's kingdom would we pine.

 Men talk of Eden's Houris and their charms;
 To maids of Earth I drink and sing my psalms.
 Hold fast Life's cash; if Time be in thy debt
 How pleasant is the distant call to arms!

 If in thy heart the seed of Love is plac'd,
 No day of all thy life can run to waste;
 Whether for God's approval thou dost strive,
 Or on the joys of Earth hast set thy taste.

        -- Omar Khayyam / Arthur Talbot

Here's an extract from Richard Brodie's Anagrammatic Rubaiyat (more about
which later):

 A Poem, and Trees a-blowing in a Wind.
 A Brew I'll drink -- base Needs of other Stuff
 Ignore. Ah see here how we do behave;
 Indeed for us a Song is just enough

        -- Omar Khayyam / Edward FitzGerald / Richard Brodie

And finally, here's Wendy Cope's transcription of Strugnell's Rubaiyat:

 Here with a Bag of Crisps beneath the Bough,
 A Can of Beer, a Radio - and Thou
 Beside me half asleep in Brockwell Park
 And Brockwell Park is Paradise enow.

 Some Men to everlasting Bliss aspire,
 Their lives, Auditions for the heavenly Choir:
 Oh, use your Credit Card and waive the Rest -
 Brave Music of a distant Amplifier!

        -- Omar Khayyam / Jason Strugnell / Wendy Cope

[Links]

http://www.fitzgeraldsrubaiyat.com/ is an excellent resource for those
interested in the translator's art; it charts the progress of FitzGerald's
translation of Rubaiyat through several editions, and has a very neat
verse-by-verse comparison of FitzGerald, Whinfield and Talbot. Most
impressive of all, it offers (as a work in progress) Richard Brodie's
anagrammatic paraphrase of the Rubaiyat, a poem whose every stanza is a
perfect anagram of the corresponding one in FitzGerald's original. Check it
out!

Incidentally, Richard Brodie is the co-author, with Mike Keith, of "The
Anagrammed Bible", an anagrammatic paraphrase of three complete books of the
Old Testament (King James Version). And Mike Keith's name has been mentioned
before on the Minstrels, for his insanely brilliant constrained version of
Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven", [broken link] http://users.aol.com/s6sj7gt/mikerav.htm

Jeff Kelley's Kellcraft Studio,
http://www.kellscraft.com/rubaiyatcontent.html the Poet's Corner,
[broken link] http://www.geocities.com/~spanoudi/poems/rubaiya1.html and the ELF's
Rubaiyat site, http://www.arabiannights.org/rubaiyat/index2.html have a
wealth of Rubaiyat-related information - annotations, critiques,
FitzGerald's prefaces, and so on.

And finally, Minstrels links: we've dipped into FitzGerald's Rubaiyat
several times before; see poem #162, poem #342, poem #545 and poem #654.
Also don't miss out Wendy Cope's parody (attributed to that
all-too-impressionable South London poet, the Bard of Tulse Hill, Jason
Strugnell), poem #587.

[Moreover]

Some interesting snippets from the sites mentioned above:

FitzGerald's Rubaiyat was not a translation as such. The Rubaiyat
manuscripts contained over 400 quatrains. FitzGerald translated some
literally, some loosely, combined others, and added some of his own
composition though in the spirit of the Persian original. In addition,
FitzGerald arranged the verses so that they seem to have a certain cohesion,
though the original quatrains were independent and related only in tone. A
more literal translation was undertaken by Robert Graves in the 1970s.

        -- Bob Blair, [broken link] http://www.geocities.com/~spanoudi/poems/rubaiya1.html

While Whinfield and Talbot do not exhibit the same consistent, memorable
sublimity of expression as does Fitzgerald, they can serve to illuminate the
latter's monumental achievement of sifting and sorting through the
hodge-podge that is the original Persion collection, consisting not only of
Khayyam's verse, but of subsequent poets as well, selectively extracting and
recombining from this diverse assortment, a beautifully coherent and
naturally flowing creation.

        -- Richard Brodie, http://www.fitzgeraldsrubaiyat.com/

Parting -- Li Po

Yesterday's poem leads into this week's theme, translated poetry:

(Poem #749) Parting Green mountains rise to the north; white water rolls past the eastern city. Once it has been uprooted, the tumbleweed travels forever. Drifting clouds like a wanderer's mind; sunset, like the heart of your old friend. We turn, pause, look back and wave, Even our ponies look back and whine. -- Li Po

Translated by Sam Hamill.

Quite a few poets have essayed their own translations of Li Po's poem.
Here's the inimitable Ezra Pound:

 "Parting"

 Blue mountains to the north of the wall,
 White river winding about them;
 Here we must make separation
 And go out through a thousand miles of dead grass.

 Mind like a floating wide cloud,
 Sunset like the parting of old acquaintances
 Who bow over their clasped hands at a distance
 Our horses neigh to each other
 as we are departing.

        -- Ezra Pound

And here's his Imagist colleague Amy Lowell:

 "Parting"

 Clear green hills at a right angle to the North Wall,
 White water winding to the East of the city.
 Here is the place where we must part.
 The lonely water-plants go ten thousand li;
 The floating clouds wander everywhither as does man.
 Day is departing--it and my friend.
 Our hands separate. Now he is going.
 "Hsiao, hsiao," the horse neighs.
 He neighs again, "Hsiao, hsiao."

        -- Amy Lowell and Florence Ayscough

My favourite translator, though, is Sam Hamill; there's something about his
style - simple, unaffected, yet intensely evocative, which resonates with my
idea of what Li Po's marvellous poems _should_ be like. Hamill's 1993
anthology "Endless River: Li Po and Tu Fu, A Friendship in Poetry" is
especially ecommended.

I'm told that Vikram Seth has some exquisite translations of Li Po, Tu Fu
and Wang Wei in his anthology "Three Chinese Poets"; I haven't read them
myself, though. Several other translations of this particular poem can be
found on Ken Hope's impressive website, at
[broken link] http://www.northshore.net/homepages/hope/LiboLeaving.html

thomas.

[Links]

Once again, let me plug Ken Hope's pages dedicated to Li Po [1], which are
part of his large and very comprehensive poetry website [2]. I especially
recommend the Story of the Yellow Crane [3], which, although it has no
direct connection with Li Po, is very beautiful. Also not to be missed is
Hope's own introductory essay on Li Po [4], an essay which brims over with
enthusiasm and delight.

[1] [broken link] http://www.northshore.net/homepages/hope/LiBoPoems.html
[2] [broken link] http://www.northshore.net/homepages/hope/KHpoetry.html
[3] [broken link] http://www.northshore.net/homepages/hope/yellowcrane.html
[4] [broken link] http://www.northshore.net/homepages/hope/Libointro.html

Li Po has featured on the Minstrels before; check out
  Poem #70, "The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter"
  Poem #504, "About Tu Fu"
  Poem #683, "To Tu Fu from Shantung"
all of which can be found on the Minstrels website,
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/

[On the theme]

Spare a thought for translators: they have to balance painstaking
craftsmanship with original expression; insightful criticism with deep and
abiding sympathy for the works they criticize; poetic licence with faithful
tribute. If the poet is the bold and innovative composer of symphonies, the
translator is the maestro who conducts them, bringing his own interpretation
to the concert hall while taking care never to obscure or misrepresent the
creative genius behind them. It's a hard task, and a thankless one; how many
translators can _you_ name? This week's theme attempts to redress the
balance by highlighting some poems (and poets) who've benefited from having
wonderful translators. As usual, if you have any suggestions you'd like to
share with the rest of the list, do write in.

Be Near Me -- Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Guest poem submitted by Vikram Doctor:

(Poem #748) Be Near Me You who demolish me, you whom I love, be near me. Remain near me when evening, drunk on the blood of the skies, becomes night, in its one hand a perfumed balm, in the other a sword sheathed in the diamond of stars. Be near me when night laments or sings, or when it begins to dance, its steel-blue anklets ringing with grief. Be here when longings, long submerged in the heart's waters, resurface and when everyone begins to look: Where is the assassin? In whose sleeve is hidden the redeeming knife? And when wine, as it is poured, is the sobbing of children whom nothing will console - when nothing holds, when nothing is: at that dark hour when night mourns, be near me, my destroyer, my lover, be near me. -- Faiz Ahmed Faiz

translated by Agha Shahid Ali.

I don't find Urdu poets very easy reading (in English, unfortunately I don't
read Urdu). I'm intrigued and attracted to them by the extravagance of their
emotions, the intensity of their images. Perhaps it's translation, perhaps
it's their frequent use of the ghazal, hardly the easiest of form of poetry
to understand, but I often find it hard to figure out what's going on.

The exception is Faiz. He's one poet who manages to balance deep emotion, as
in this poem, with more complex issues of life and politics. (He has also
been lucky in having an exceptionally good translator in Agha Shahid Ali). I
have no particular sympathy for Faiz's Marxist politics, at least as
expressed by politicians, but with Faiz you get the feeling that his views
spring from a deep, passionate engagement with humanity, a concern for
people, a love of life that one cannot help connecting to. Perhaps Marxism
would have been more successful if it had had more poets like Faiz.

This poem though is not one of his political ones, but one just focusing on
love. I was going to say it's a simple poem, but perhaps it's not, since the
Beloved in this poem is both the one he loves and the one who he feels will
destroy him. It's a hugely extravagant and intense poem, but Faiz's skill
prevents it from going over the top.

Vikram.

[Moreover]

Vikram's friend Vicente has some interesting comments to add:

There may in my view be more connection between "Hispanic" poets (Latin
American and Spanish/Portuguese), and Indian poets than meets the eye,
particularly but not exclusively the Northern Indian poets with strong
influences from the Mughal, Arabic and Islamic traditions. And even the
explicitly Hindu poets were not uninfluenced by the Islamic forms, nor were
they uninfluenced in turn. The southern coasts also share this influence,
due to the maritime Arab trade routes, which brought Kerala and Tamil Nadu
into contact with these same poetics (and had some influence no doubt in
reverse also).

The link is of course Islamic Spain, which lasted 500 years up to the
1490's, and the influence of Arab/Islamic forms in Al-Andaluz or Andalucia.
If you listen to the ancient Saetas of Seville, or the Cante Jondo (Deep
Song) of Granada, you could be forgiven for thinking you are listening to
the bitter sweet music and lyrics directly reflected in this poem by Faiz.
Here I am talking about the "real" saetas that can still be heard sung in
the streets of Seville during Holy week. The flamenco of today, or the pop
flamenco of The Gypsy Kings, are only a poor reflection.

The imagery of the oasis and desert (water and thirst, abundance and loss,
youth and age), the symbology of flowers, death and love, blood and revenge,
the sound of birds, the reverie of wine and the impermanence of all earthly
phenomena, are all the stock in trade of Spanish Andalucian poetics, and
continue in the contemporary "Andalucian" music of Morocco.

The pogrom against Jews and Muslims by Their Catholic Majesties Isabella and
Ferdinand (Los Reyes Catolicos) also served to disperse Andalucian music
across the whole globe. There are Sephardic Jewish songs, variations of
which can be found in Spain, Morocco, Egypt, Iraq, Bombay, Cochin, Burma,
and Shanghai. Last year, I was telling a Jewish elder in Cochin about a
particular Sephardic song I like about domestic violence and choice in
marriage, which I have heard in Ladino (the Medieval Spanish and Hebrew
creole of Sephardic Jews), and lo and behold a version was known in the
Keralan creole of the Cochin Jews. Similarly, an old man of Vypin (Vypeen)
sang another song "Shingly Nona" to me two years ago which is a mix of
Keralan dialect and corrupted Portuguese [1].

The Granadan poet Federico Garcia Lorca was strongly influenced by the cante
jondo tradition, and did much to revitalise it, and his poetry, although
reflective of the surrealist (and Republican) trends of his time, is
recognisably within the broad stream in which Faiz also sits. Following the
"discovery" of the Americas in 1492, these streams of influence traveled
west, and can be felt amongst not only poets like Octavio Paz,
Pablo Neruda and Vicente Huidobro, but also novelists.

Vicente.

[1] http://www.terravista.pt/ilhadomel/1899/cochimpoema1.html has several
versions of this poem, in different languages/dialects.

The Player Piano -- Randall Jarrell

Guest poem submitted by Sunil Iyengar:

(Poem #747) The Player Piano I ate pancakes one night in a Pancake House Run by a lady my age. She was gay. When I told her that I came from Pasadena She laughed and said, "I lived in Pasadena When Fatty Arbuckle drove the El Molino bus." I felt that I had met someone from home. No, not Pasadena, Fatty Arbuckle. Who's that? Oh, something that we had in common Like -- like -- the false armistice. Piano rolls. She told me her house was the first Pancake House East of the Mississippi, and I showed her A picture of my grandson. Going home -- Home to the hotel -- I began to hum, "Smile a while, I bid you sad adieu, When the clouds roll back I'll come to you." Let's brush our hair before we go to bed, I say to the old friend who lives in my mirror. I remember how I'd brush my mother's hair Before she bobbed it. How long has it been Since I hit my funnybone? had a scab on my knee? Here are Mother and Father in a photograph, Father's holding me.... They both look so young. I'm so much older than they are. Look at them, Two babies with their baby. I don't blame you, You weren't old enough to know any better; If I could I'd go back, sit down by you both, And sign our true armistice: you weren't to blame. I shut my eyes and there's our living room. The piano's playing something by Chopin, And Mother and Father and their little girl Listen. Look, the keys go down by themselves! I go over, hold my hands out, play I play -- If only, somehow, I had learned to live! The three of us sit watching, as my waltz Plays itself out a half-inch from my fingers. -- Randall Jarrell

Maybe because Jarrell was such an impulsive critic and essayist, he was all
the more careful to conceal the logic of his characters in poems such as
this one. Not to say that the logic of the narrator in "The Player Piano" is
obscure, only that we are lulled by a sort of pastoral until the fifth
stanza, when remorse infiltrates the poem. Considered to be his last before
Jarrell died -- in 1965, sideswiped by a car while strolling down a lonely
North Carolina lane --  "The Player Piano" begins with a charitable couplet:
"I ate pancakes one night in a Pancake House/Run by a lady my age. She was
gay." The generous tone is suggested not by the parenthetical, if halting,
remark, "She was gay," but by the short phrase that precedes it: "Run by a
lady my age."

This identification with other human beings, those who share a collective
memory, becomes the narrator's redemption. The reference to Fatty Arbuckle
and Pasadena is not so much a throwback to Jarrell's California childhood as
it is a clutching after a common likeness. The question that the narrator
asks herself, "Fatty Arbuckle/Who's that?" suggests a mischievous joy in the
"something that we had in common," something from which the reader might
feel temporarily excluded. Fishing for specimens of that "something," the
narrator trots out, a bit awkwardly, "the false armistice," or the calm
between the wars. Then follows the quaint example of "piano rolls." But the
armistice, or rather its falseness, lingers in the reader's mind and will
erupt later in the poem.

Confidences are exchanged between the narrator and the pancake lady. The
former shows her grandson's picture, a gesture that supports her
characterization of an earlier life, and her new acquaintance boasts a
modest enough accomplishment: "She told me her house was the first Pancake
House/East of the Mississippi." The combination of this provincial detail
("Pancake House") with the panoramic image, "East of the Mississippi,"
heralding the next stanza, is a quality to be admired in Jarrell's work
generally. The narrator goes home -- home to her hotel, she can't resist
adding -- and hums what sounds like a faded show tune, until we are lurched
into the present tense with "Let's brush our hair before we go to bed,/I say
to the old friend who lives in my mirror." Here our attention is commanded
not by the simple declarative sentence, nor by the substitution of "we" for
"I" in the first line, launching a new stanza, but of course by the
startlingly accurate metaphor of "the old friend who lives in my mirror."
I've never heard it used before, and it captures the sense of buried life,
an alternative existence, which the narrator invokes with the seemingly
innocent questions: "How long has it been/Since I hit my funnybone? had a
scab on my knee?"

The less said about the last three stanzas, the better. The narrator is old
and wise enough to absolve her parents from any blame in her upbringing,
after seeing them in a photo; as with the mirror, she wants to go beyond the
picture -- through the picture -- to identify with the lives therein. As for
the domestication of the armistice in Line Two, Stanza Six, and the
imperative, "Listen," in the first line of the final stanza -- what
commentary is needed? The "piano rolls" from five stanzas back resurfaces in
the titular theme, the player piano: "Look, the keys go down by themselves!"
The grown-up narrator, not the little girl sitting with her parents, holds
her fingers a "half-inch" from the keys. At the same time, she laments,
reminiscent of Kafka or Rilke: "If only, somehow, I had learned to live!"
Yet one cannot imagine many poets saying this outright, nor extracting the
fullest force of sincerity that Jarrell does. The final line evokes the
close at hand, yet unattainable; a virtual reality, one that will not submit
to the speaker's control. In closing, and with dubious relevance, I quote
the poem "Here" by Philip Larkin, of whom I am gratified to learn that
Jarrell approved: "Here is unfenced existence:/Facing the sun, untalkative,
out of reach."

Sunil.

Dead Man's Dump -- Isaac Rosenberg

Guest poem submitted by Nick Grundy:

(Poem #746) Dead Man's Dump The plunging limbers over the shattered track Racketed with their rusty freight, Stuck out like many crowns of thorns, And the rusty stakes like sceptres old To stay the flood of brutish men Upon our brothers dear. The wheels lurched over sprawled dead But pained them not, though their bones crunched; Their shut mouths made no moan, They lie there huddled, friend and foeman, Man born of man, and born of woman; And shells go crying over them From night till night and now. Earth has waited for them, All the time of their growth Fretting for their decay: Now she has them at last! In the strength of her strength Suspended - stopped and held. What fierce imaginings their dark souls lit? Earth! Have they gone into you? Somewhere they must have gone, And flung on your hard back Is their souls' sack, Emptied of God-ancestralled essences. Who hurled them out? Who hurled? None saw their spirits' shadow shake the grass, Or stood aside for the half-used life to pass Out of those doomed nostrils and the doomed mouth, When the swift iron burning bee Drained the wild honey of their youth. What of us who, flung on the shrieking pyre, Walk, our usual thoughts untouched, Our lucky limbs as on ichor fed, Immortal seeming ever? Perhaps when the flames beat loud on us, A fear may choke in our veins And the startled blood may stop. The air is loud with death, The dark air spurts with fire, The explosions ceaseless are. Timelessly now, some minutes past, These dead strode time with vigorous life, Till the shrapnel called 'An end!' But not to all. In bleeding pangs Some borne on stretchers dreamed of home, Dear things, war-blotted from their hearts. A man's brains splattered on A stretcher-bearer's face; His shook shoulders slipped their load, But when they bent to look again The drowning soul was sunk too deep For human tenderness. They left this dead with the older dead, Stretched at the cross roads. Burnt black by strange decay Their sinister faces lie, The lid over each eye; The grass and coloured clay More motion have than they, Joined to the great sunk silences. Here is one not long dead. His dark hearing caught our far wheels, And the choked soul stretched weak hands To reach the living word the far wheels said; The blood-dazed intelligence beating for light, Crying through the suspense of the far torturing wheels Swift for the end to break Or the wheels to break, Cried as the tide of the world broke over his sight, 'Will they come? Will they ever come?' Even as the mixed hoofs of the mules, The quivering-bellied mules, And the rushing wheels all mixed With his tortured upturned sight. So we crashed round the bend, We heard his weak scream, We heard his very last sound, And our wheels grazed his dead face. -- Isaac Rosenberg

(1890-1918)

Ok - one or two comments - in isolation, there are parts of this poem I find
rather irritating - but there are some lines in there I absolutely adore.
 "Earth has waited for them,
  All the time of their growth
  Fretting for their decay:"
is really ghoulish, and reminds me slightly of the start of '1 Henry IV',
where the earth is described in similar terms -
 "No more the thirsty entrance of this soil
  Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood."
Thata also ties in reasonably nicely with the "old sceptres" a few lines up,
too - "Who hurled them out? Who hurled?".

Nick.

[Biography]

        born Nov. 25, 1890, Bristol, Gloucestershire, Eng.
        died April 1918, France

British poet and painter killed in World War I.

Rosenberg first trained to be a painter, winning several prizes at the Slade
School of Art, London. He enlisted in the British Army in 1915 and is best
known for his 'trench poems', written between 1916 and 1918, which showed
great imaginative power and originality in imagery. His Collected Works,
with a foreword by Siegfried Sassoon, first appeared in 1937; an edition by
Ian Parsons including poetry, prose, letters, paintings and drawings, was
published in 1979.

        -- EB