LES RIJBAIYAT D'OMAR KHEYYAM.
Les Rubaydt d'Omar Kheyydm. Traduits en Vera Francais by Fernand Henry. (J. Maissonneuve, Paris.)—M. Henry ' has triinslated Edward FitzGerald, not Omar Khayyam. He is per- fectly well aware of the difference between the two things, and is evidently convinced that the work that he has accomplished is worth doing, and that the other is not. " FitzGerald," as he happily puts it, "a fait sur Omar le travail de l'abeille : ii a butine sa fieur ; il a extrait et s'est assimile le meilleur de son sue?' He has rendered quatrain by quatrain, in similar metre, with one concession to the inexorable laws of French verse, for- bidding, as they do, the existence of unrhymed lines. What is in the English stanza a blank line (the third) is made to rhyme with lines in the following stanza. The change has added greatly, it need hardly be said, to the translator's labour: It is not easy for an English critic to measure accurately M. Henry's success ; we can say, at least, that he is almost always vigorous, and always clear :— " With me along the strip of Herbage "Vie= avec mot sur Is bande
strown de Pre That just divides the desert from Separant le desert de rendroit the sown, laboure, Where name of Slave and Suiten 01 le nom de Sultan, d'Esclave est is forgot— sans usage, And Peace to Nahm4d on his golden —Et Paix au grand Mahmoud cur Throne 1 son Trona dore
"'Cu Volume de Vera h lire WM rOmbrage,
Un Broc de Vin, un Pain—et dans cet Ermitage
Toi, tout aupres de moi, chantant quelque refrain—
Du Paradis un tel Desert semit rimage 1" A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilder- ness—
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise snow 1"
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