The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-02-23
A Syrian Omar
By CONSTANCE MURRAY GREENE

l. LtISrniydt OF Abul-Ala, comes
from Ameen Rihani, the author of The
Book of Khaled, who has selected the
quatrains from three volumes of the
works Of the Syrian poet. For those who
cling to a childish haze concerning Assyr-
ians and Syrians, we would add that
while the Assyrian comes down like
Wolf on the fold, the Syrian, at least this
particular one, has tread like Omar
Khayyam. Therein lies the chief interest
of the Luzumiyat, unfair as it may be, in
view of the fact that Abu1-Ala died at
about the time Omar was born.
So marked and farreaching is the re-
semblance, that we might almost bring
ourselves TO the belief that in Omar
Khavyam was recreated the soul Of
Abu'l-Ala, with subtle changes, notable
among them the casting off of the tenets
of prohibition, and substitution of
fatalism for stOicism. But perhaps the
greatest difference is in translators. The
path of a poet who completes with Fitz-
gerald is necessarily thony, and we can
not say of the Luzumiydt as Charles
Eliot Norton did of the Rubdiydt, that at
is the work of poet inspired by poet,
with all the merit of an original produc-
ton; not copy but reproduction; not
o translation, but the redelivery Of
poetic inspiration"
Failing to find the souls supremacy
asserted to the extent credited to Abul-
Ala by his Rihani, we are inclined to view
more enthusiastically the creed of the
tentmaker. At least Omar, with his
riotous rules of conduct, by no means
followed in a course said to have been
singularly mild, offered alienation for
such gloom as devoured his predecessor.
1t would seem strange to find greater
pessimism in the expression of the poet
to whom the grave was not so definitely
the goal, were it not for the fact that,
blinded and disfgured by smallpox, he
was forced to lead life of almost soli-
tary confinement.
"Methinks l am thrice-imprisoned-ask
not me
OF news that needs no telling
BY loss of sight, confinement in my house
And this vile body for my spirits
dwelling"
he means in another poem than this, and
for his own epitaph he wrote,
"This wrong to me was by my father done,
But never by me to any one"
While Omar, with grim and delightful
humor, merely states,
"Had l charge of the matter / would not
have come"
Sometimes the Lu-umiydt is amazingly
modern. Quite possibly Oliver Herford
or William Rose Benet might offer this
quatrain,
"The Earth then spake: MY children
silent be;
The same to God the camel and the flea:
He makes mess of me to nourish you,
Then makes mess Of you to nourish
me-"
A wholly delightful and original ex-
PLANTATION of Abu'l-Ala's creed, so con-
trary to that of loyal Suf's, has been
offered by young scholar and poet
among them who asserts that most of the
irrelgious opinions found in the Lu-umi-
yat were forced upon the poet by the rig
orous system of rhyming he adopted.
"The Rhyme then is responsible for the
heresies of Abu'l-Al Mr.. Hihani ex-
claims, "Allah be praised" Thus they
attempt to combat the influence Of one
whom they have judged too strong an
enemy to Mohammedanism to be given
the world without explanation.
No two verses offer more striking
example of the singular resemblance