Pipe-lights and Peccadilloes: Omar Part 4

[Edward Fitzgerald to W. H. Thompson]

To W. H. Thompson

Market Hill, Woodbridge.

Dec. 9/61.

My Dear Thompson,

The MS. came safe to hand yesterday, thank you: and came out of its envelope like a ray of old times to my eyes. I wish I had secured more leaves from that old 'Butcher's Book' torn up in old Spedding's rooms in 1842 when the press went to work with, I think, the last of old Alfred's best. But that, I am told, is only a 'Crotchet.' However, had I taken some more of the pages that went into the fire, after serving in part for pipe-lights, I might have enriched others with that which AT himself would scarce have grudged, jealous as he is of such sort of curiosity. I have seen no more of Tannhauser than the Athenaeum showed me; and certainly do not want to see more. One wonders that men of some genius (as I suppose these are) should so disguise it in imitation: but, if they be very young men, this is the natural course, is it not? By and by they may find their own footing.

As to my own peccadilloes in verse, which never pretend to be original, this is the story of Rubaiyat. I had translated them partly for Cowell: young Parker asked me some years ago for something for Fraser, and I gave him the less wicked of these to use if he chose. He kept them for two years without using: and as I saw he didn't want them I printed some copies with Quaritch*; and, keeping some for myself, gave him the rest. Cowell, to whom I sent a copy, was naturally alarmed at it; he being a very religious man: nor have I given any other copy but to George Borrow, to whom I had once lent the Persian, and to old Donne when he was down here the other day, to whom I was showing a passage in another book which brought my old Omar up.

*In 1859, Fitzgerald, out of his own pocket, had Quaritch print up 250 copies of his translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. They did not sell very well at all and Quaritch began to remainder them in his bargain bin for as low as a penny. The story goes that Swinburne picked one up and passed it on to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and from there (1861) it began to garner attention from the literary circles and beyond. Of the original 250 copies, only 50 seem to be in existence. Oh, for a penny pamphlet. . . . the first edition now goes for perhaps upwards of $30 to $40 thousand! [Pepys]

-from The Letters of Edward Fitzgerald (London: Macmillan, 1901 ) vol. 2

Fitzgerald's Omar Part 3

[Edward Fitzgerald to Edward Byles Cowell]

To E. B. Cowell.

88 GT. PORTLAND ST.,

LONDON,

Jan. 3/59.

My Dear Cowell,

. . . .I am almost ashamed to write to you, so much have I forsaken Persian, and even all good books of late. There is no one now to 'prick the sides of my intent'; vaulting ambition having long failed to do so! I took my Omar from Fraser [? Parker], as I saw he didn't care for it; and also I want to enlarge it to near as much again, of such matter as he would not dare to put in Fraser. If I print it, I shall do the impudence of quoting your account of Omar, and your apology for his free thinking: it is not wholly my apology, but you introduced him to me, and your excuse extends to that which you have not ventured to quote, and I do. I like your apology extremely also, allowing its point of view. I doubt you will repent of ever having showed me the book. I should like well to have the lithograph copy of Omar which you tell of in your note. My translation has its merit: but it misses a main one in Omar, which I will leave you to find out. The Latin versions, if they were corrected into decent Latin, would be very much better. . . .

I have forgotten to write out for you a little quatrain which Binning found written in Persepolis; the Persian tourists having the same propensity as English to write their names and sentiments on their national monuments.

-from the Letters of Edward Fitzgerald (London: Macmillan and Co., 1901) vol. 2

Fitzgerald's Omar Part 2

[Edward Fitzgerald to Edward Byles Cowell]

Merton Rectory

September 3/[18]58.

My Dear Cowell,

. . . Now about my studies, which, I think, are likely to dwindle away too. I have not turned to Persian since the spring; but shall one day look back to it: and renew my attack on the 'Seven Castles,' if that be the name. I found the Jami MS. at Rushmere: and there left it for the present: as the other poem will be enough for me for my first onslaught. I believe I will do a little a day, so as not to lose what little knowledge I had. As to my Omar: I gave it to Parker* in January, I think: he saying Fraser **was agreeable to take it. Since then I have heard no more; so as, I suppose, they don't care about it: and may be quite right. Had I thought they would be so long however I would have copied it out and sent it to you: and I will still do so from a rough and imperfect copy I have (though not now at hand) in case they show no signs of printing me. My translation will interest you from its form, and also in many respects in its detail: very unliteral as it is. Many quatrains are mashed together: and something lost, I no doubt, of Omar's simplicity, which is so much a virtue in him. But there it is, such as it is. I purposely said in the very short notice I prefixed to the poem that it was so short because better information might be furnished in another paper, which I thought you would undertake. So it rests.

*J. W. Parker, editor of Fraser's Magazine.

**Hugh Fraser, co-founder of Fraser's Magazine

-from the Letters of Edward Fitzgerald (London: Macmillan and Co., 1901) vol. 2

Lighter shadows among the shades

[Edward Fitzgerald to Edward Byles Cowell]

London
May 7 /[18]57.

My Dear Cowell,

Owing partly to my own stupidity, and partly to a change in the India Post days, my last two letters (to you and wife) which were quite ready by the Marseilles Post of April 25th will not get off till the Southampton Mail of this May 10. Your letter of March 21 reached me three days ago. Write only when you have leisure and inclination, and only as much as those two good things are good for. I will do the same. . .

Well, I have not turned over Johnson's Dictionary for the last month, having got hold of Aeschylus. I think I want to turn his Trilogy into what shall be readable English verse; a thing I have always thought of, but was frightened at the chorus. So I am now; I can't think them so fine as people talk of: they are terribly maimed; and all such lyrics require a better poet than I am to set forth in English. But the better poets won't do it; and I cannot find one readable translation. I shall (if I make one) make a very free one; not for scholars, but for those who are ignorant of Greek, and who (so far as I have seen) have never been induced to learn it by any translations yet made of these plays. I think I shall become a bore, of the Bowring order, by all this translation: but it amuses me without any labour, and I really think I have the faculty of making some things readable which others have hitherto left unreadable. But don't be alarmed with the anticipation of another sudden volume of translations; for I only sketch out the matter, then put it away; and coming on it one day with fresh eyes trim it up with some natural impulse that I think gives a natural air to all. . .

When in Bedfordshire I put away almost all books except Omar Khayyam!, which I could not help looking over in a paddock covered with buttercups and brushed by a delicious breeze, while a dainty racing filly of W. Browne's came startling up to wonder and snuff about me. 'Tempus est quo Orientis Aura mundus renovatur, Quo de fonte pluviali dulcis Imber reseratur; Musi-manus undecumque ramos insuper splendescit; Jesu-spiritusque Salutaris terram pervagatur.' Which is to be read as Monkish Latin, like 'Dies Irae,' etc., retaining the Italian value of the vowels, not the Classical. You will think me a perfectly Aristophanic old man when I tell you how many of Omar I could not help running into such bad Latin. I should not confide such follies but to you who won't think them so, and who will be pleased at least with my still harping on our old studies. You would be sorry, too, to think that Omar breathes a sort of consolation to me! Poor Fellow; I think of him, and Oliver Basselin, and Anacreon; lighter shadows among the shades, perhaps, over which Lucretius presides so grimly.

Thursday, June 11. Your letter of April is come to hand, very welcome; and I am expecting the MS. Omar which I have written about to London. And now with respect to your proposed Fraser paper on Omar. You see a few lines back I talk of some lazy Latin Versions of his Tetrastichs, giving one clumsy example. Now I shall rub up a few more of those I have sketched in the same manner, in order to see if you approve, if not of the thing done, yet of

(Letter breaks off abruptly at the end of the page.)

June 23. I begin another Letter because I am looking into the Omar MS. you have sent me, and shall perhaps make some notes and enquiries as I go on. I had not intended to do so till I had looked all over and tried to make out what I could of it; since it is both pleasant to oneself to find out for oneself if possible, and also saves trouble to one's friends. But yet it will keep me talking with you as I go along: and if I find I say silly things or clear up difficulties for myself before I close my letter (which has a month to be open in!) why, I can cancel or amend, so as you will see the whole process of blunder. I think this MS. furnishes some opportunities for one's critical faculties, and so is a good exercise for them, if one wanted such! First however I must tell you how much ill poor Crabbe has been: a sort of paralysis, I suppose, in two little fits, which made him think he was sure to die: but Dr. Beck at present says he may live many years with care. Of this also I shall be able to tell you more before I wind up. The brave old Fellow! he was quite content to depart, and had his Daughter up to give her his keys, and tell her where the different wines were laid! I must also tell you that Borrow is greatly delighted with your MS. of Omar which I showed him: delighted at the terseness so unusual in Oriental Verse. But his eyes are apt to cloud: and his wife has been obliged, he tells me, to carry off even the little Omar out of reach of them for a while. . . .

-from The Letters of Edward Fitzgerald (London: Macmillan and Co., 1901) vol. 1