第七章
第3段
For more than thirty years the shadow and glory of a great Eastern figure has lain upon our English literature. Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam concentrated into an immortal poignancy all the dark and drifting hedonism of our time. Of the literary splendour of that work it would be merely banal to speak; in few other of the books of men has there been anything so combining the gay pugnacity of an epigram with the vague sadness of a song. But of its philosophical, ethical, and religious influence which has been almost as great as its brilliancy, I should like to say a word, and that word, I confess, one of uncompromising hostility. There are a great many things which might be said against the spirit of the Rubaiyat, and against its prodigious influence. But one matter of indictment towers ominously above the rest—a genuine disgrace to it, a genuine calamity to us. This is the terrible blow that this great poem has struck against sociability and the joy of life. Some one called Omar "the sad, glad old Persian." Sad he is; glad he is not, in any sense of the word whatever. He has been a worse foe to gladness than the Puritans.
三十多年來，一位東方偉大人物的陰影與光榮籠罩著英國文學，費茲傑羅（Edward Fitzgerald）對歐馬海亞姆（Omar Khayyam，又譯：奧瑪．珈音）的翻譯，把焦點放在這時代所有幽黯飄渺享樂主義中，那比死還堅強的酸楚之情上。對其作品文學風采的讚揚，不過僅是錦上添花。天下人間少有能將醒世寯語的開朗好辯跟頌歌內的模糊憂傷，結合得如此之好的作品。雖然如此，我還是不得不對他作品內與文采幾乎同等優異驚人的哲學、倫理、宗教影響力，多說幾句話，而我坦白承認，我的評論徹底充滿敵意。對於魯拜集（Rubaiyat）所傳達出的精神，對於其巨大的影響，可從許多方面來批評。但其中一項控訴如惡兆般，遠比其他更為不祥：這是詩作之不幸，而我們也跟著災殃。這偉大的詩集敵視人世間的感情與喜悅，實在是令人難以承受的打擊。有些人稱歐馬為「悲傷、歡愉的老波斯人」，他的確悲傷，但無論從人間哪一種定義來看，他都不歡愉。比起波斯人，他是歡樂愉悅更大的敵人。
4
A pensive and graceful Oriental lies under the rose-tree with his wine-pot and his scroll of poems. It may seem strange that any one's thoughts should, at the moment of regarding him, fly back to the dark bedside where the doctor doles out brandy. It may seem stranger still that they should go back to the grey wastrel shaking with gin in Houndsditch. But a great philosophical unity links the three in an evil bond. Omar Khayyam's wine-bibbing is bad, not because it is wine-bibbing. It is bad, and very bad, because it is medical wine-bibbing. It is the drinking of a man who drinks because he is not happy. His is the wine that shuts out the universe, not the wine that reveals it. It is not poetical drinking, which is joyous and instinctive; it is rational drinking, which is as prosaic as an investment, as unsavoury as a dose of camomile. Whole heavens above it, from the point of view of sentiment, though not of style, rises the splendour of some old English drinking song—
"Then pass the bowl, my comrades all,
And let the zider vlow."
一沈思優雅的東方人躺在玫瑰樹下，身旁放著他的酒瓶與詩卷。倘若有人將這幅景象與醫生在診間配給白蘭地給病人的灰暗畫面相連，那應會讓人感到奇怪。如若將這與倫敦溝渠街上衣衫襤褸手搖酒瓶的流浪漢相連，那就更怪了。但偉大的哲思以邪惡的連結將這與那棵樹相連。歐馬海亞姆的豪飲是不好的，但不是因為大量飲酒。那是不好的，而且相當不好，是因為那是帶有醫療效果的豪飲。那是一個心情鬱悶的人因悲傷而飲酒。他飲酒這舉動封閉了宇宙，而非開啟世界的門。那不是充滿詩意的飲酒，如果是，那會是愉快與自發的；而是理性算計下的飲酒，因此就跟投資一樣無聊，跟一劑洋甘菊一樣無味。出於人性情感所發出的歡呼，雖不具優雅文采，但譜出英式的古老飲酒歌：
「遞給我酒呀，我的同胞，
讓酒四灑呀！
（譯註：原文為let the zider vlow，後兩個字不知是什麼。zider推測可能為cider，vlow推測可能是blow，至此翻譯已經進入偵探推理的階段了。）」
5
For this song was caught up by happy men to express the worth of truly worthy things, of brotherhood and garrulity, and the brief and kindly leisure of the poor. Of course, the great part of the more stolid reproaches directed against the Omarite morality are as false and babyish as such reproaches usually are. One critic, whose work I have read, had the incredible foolishness to call Omar an atheist and a materialist. It is almost impossible for an Oriental to be either; the East understands metaphysics too well for that. Of course, the real objection which a philosophical Christian would bring against the religion of Omar, is not that he gives no place to God, it is that he gives too much place to God. His is that terrible theism which can imagine nothing else but deity, and which denies altogether the outlines of human personality and human will.
"The ball no question makes of Ayes or Noes,
But Here or There as strikes the Player goes;
And He that tossed you down into the field,
He knows about it all—he knows—he knows."
這飲酒歌從歡樂的人口中唱出，表達真正珍貴事物的價值，頌揚兄弟情誼與喧鬧，慶賀窮人那短暫可貴的娛樂。當然，那些對於歐馬作品中道德精神更為義正嚴辭的指責，一如往常，都相當虛假、幼稚。一個我曾閱讀過其作品的評論者，竟愚蠢到稱呼歐馬為無神論者與物質主義者。一個東方人幾乎不可能是這兩者間的任一個，畢竟東方對於形上學了解得太過透徹。當然，一個具哲學大腦的基督徒能用於反對歐馬宗教的真正理據，絕不是他不信神，而是他太相信神。他的神學思想是那種除了神之外無法想像任何其他事物，並且完全否認人類本性與人類意志的糟糕神學。
「皮球不懂問是非，是東是西球員定；祂將你拋擲入世，知曉萬事萬物一切。」（譯註：這是取自魯拜集裡的詩句）
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