Page:Quatrains of Omar Khayyam (tr. Whinfield, 1883).djvu/47

Rh grotesque humour often loses its savour in an English replica. The translator is often tempted to elevate a too grovelling sentiment, to "sharpen a point" here and there, to trick out a commonplace with some borrowed modern embellishment. But this temptation is one to be resisted as far as possible. According to the Hadís, "the business of a messenger is simply to deliver his message," and he must not shrink from displaying the naked truth. A translator who writes in verse must of course claim the liberty of altering the form of the expression over and over again, but the substituted expressions ought to be in keeping with the author's style, and on the same plane of sentiment as his. It is beyond the province of a translator to attempt the task of "painting the lily." But it is easier to lay down correct principles of translation than to observe them unswervingly in one's practice.

As regards subject matter, Omar's quatrains may be classed under the following six heads:—


 * I. Shikáyat i rozgár—Complaints of "the wheel of heaven," or fate, of the world's injustice, of the loss of friends, of man's limited faculties and destinies.
 * II. Hajw—Satires on the hypocrisy of the "unco' guid," the impiety of the pious, the ignorance of the learned, and the untowardness of his own generation.
 * III. Firákíya and Wisálíya—Love-poems on the sorrows of separation and the joys of reunion with the Beloved, earthly or spiritual.