“With me along some Strip of Herbage Strown:” Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:10

The tenth quatrain in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám continues the theme of the irrelevance of political power to happiness, which lies instead in love. The Persian originals make clear the meaning here, which is a little cryptic in FitzGerald’s rendering.

X.

With me along some Strip of Herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown,
    Where name of Slave and Sultán scarce is known,
And pity Sultan Mahmud on his Throne.

The previous stanza asked the reader to “leave” the ancient Iranian kings and heroes, and to “heed them not.” Here, we “pity” Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni on his throne because he does not have the lover that Khayyam has, whom he has to sneak out to meet beyond the cultivated land of the village where no one will see them.

A. J. Arberry (Romance of the Rubáiyát, 199) points out that the phrase “Strip of Herbage” is obviously a translation of the Persian “Lab-i kisht,” the “edge of cultivated land.” FitzGerald in his notes says that he saw it a lot in the poetry.

This phrase occurs in the first two lines of the Bodleian manuscript no. 25 (my 24):

در فصل بهار اگر بتی حور سرشت
پر می قدحی دهد مرا بر لب کشت

I translated it non-literally as

“If an earthly angel offered me a cup of wine
as we two sat along the river bank in spring . . .”

transliteration:

dar fasl-e bahār agar botī hūr-seresht
por mey qadahi dahad marā bar lab-e kesht

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Edward Heron-Allen suggested that the second two lines come from second two lines of a poem in the Bodleian manuscript, no. 155 (my 154):

و آنکه من و تو نشسته در ویرانی
عیشی بود آن، نه حد هر سلطانی

This poem talks about two lovers planning a picnic, saying if we could get hold of a loaf of bread, some lamb kebabs and some wine,

“and we were snuggling in the wilderness–
we’d put to shame the pomp of any court.”

transliteration:

va ān keh man o to neshesteh dar virānī
ʿīshī bovad ān, na ḥadd-e har solṭānī

So that is why Mahmud is to be pitied — his magnificent court cannot measure up to the simple pleasures of a humble meal eaten by two lovers who can then snuggle with one another, away from prying eyes.

“The Lovers,” by Riza-yi ‘Abbasi (Iranian, ca. 1565–d. 1635), dated 1039 AH/ 1630 CE, Isfahan. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Mahmud is not mentioned by name in these particular originals, but he was an epic figure in Persian poetry whom FitzGerald would have met with in his reading in this literature, including no. 92 of the Calcutta manuscript of the Rubaiyat, as I discussed here.

For more commentaries on FitzGerald’s translations of the Rubáiyát, see

FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: Commentary by Juan Cole with Original Persian