Edward FitzGerald's The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

One of the books I've been reading lately is Edward FitzGerald's The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.  Recently, I finished the actual Rubáiyát, but I still have about half a book's worth of notes and "critical responses" to wade through.  I noticed one minor point though, and I thought I would note that, at least.

In the introduction, FitzGerald explains that "The original Rubáiyát... are independent Stanzas, consisting each of four Lines of equal, though varied, Prosody, sometimes all rhyming, but oftener (as here attempted) the third line suspending the Cadence by which the last atones with the former Two."  Basically, the usual rhyme scheme is AABA.

In the first edition (which is what my copy follows), stanza LXIII, located amongst a string of stanzas about clay pots, reads:

None answer'd this; but after Silence spake

A Vessel of a more ungainly Make:

"They sneer at me for leaning all awry;

What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?"

The AABA rhyme scheme emphasizes the incongruity of that "awry."  The other lines all rhyme with each other ("spake," "Make," and "shake"), but the third line stands out in the same way that this particular pot is ostracized because of its form.

Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

I recently finished reading Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in The Norton Introduction to Literature (fifth edition).  I noticed a detail in Act II, Scene 2 that may be significant.  After Puck applies love-in-idleness to Lysander's eyes, Helena notices him and says, "Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake," and Lysander replies, "And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake" (II.ii.102-103).  This section of the play is written in verse, so it's not unusual that Lysander's line rhymes with Helena's, but I think it may be significant that the resulting couplet is formed by two characters.  Helena is the first living thing that Lysander sees when he wakes up, and because of the love-in-idleness, he becomes enamored with her.  That his first line after waking rhymes with hers indicates his desire to be with her.  He complements her poetically in the same way that he wants to complement her romantically.

I feel I must admit, though, that earlier in this scene, a line of Demetrius's dialogue rhymes with a line of Helena's.  She says, "O wilt thou darkling leave me?  Do not so," and he replies, "Stay, on thy peril!  I alone will go" (II.ii.86-87).  Because Demetrius is not at all interested in Helena, however, this instance of rhyming dialogue between two characters doesn't carry this extra meaning.

Edward Johnson's "Poem for Thomas Hooker"

Near the end of last year, I started reading the Heath Anthology of American Literature again, after having set it aside for four years.  Recently, I've been reading a section titled "A Selection of Seventeenth-Century Poetry."  One of the poems is "Poem for Thomas Hooker" by Edward Johnson.  I noticed a slew of Biblical allusions (appropriate since Hooker was a "Puritan preacher and theologian"), and since the anthology doesn't cite any of them, I thought I'd note them here.

Here's the poem:

Come, Hooker, come forth of thy native soile:

    Christ, I will run, sayes Hooker, thou hast set

My feet at large, here spend thy last dayes toile;

    Thy Rhetorick shall peoples affections whet.

Thy Golden Tongue, and Pen Christ caus'd to be

    The blazing of his golden truths profound,

Thou sorry worme its Christ wrought this in thee;

    What Christ hath wrought must needs be very sound.

Then looke on Hookers workes, they follow him

    To Grave, this worthy resteth there a while:

Die shall he not that hath Christs warrier bin;

    Much lesse Christ Truth, cleer'd by his peoples toile.

Thou Angell bright, by Christ for light now made,

    Throughout the World as seasoning salt to be,

Although in dust thy body mouldering fade;

    Thy Head's in Heaven, and hath a crown for thee.

"Christ, I will run, sayes Hooker, thou hast set / My feet at large" seems to be a reference to Isaiah 52:7:  "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns.'"  The same idea also appears in Romans 10:15:  "And how are they to preach unless they are sent?  As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!"  The poem may also incorporate Hebrews 12:1 ("let us run with endurance the race that is set before us").

"Thou sorry worme" bears some resemblance to Psalm 22:6:  "But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people."

"Thou Angell bright, by Christ for light now made, / Throughout the World as seasoning salt to be" contains two elements from the Sermon on the Mount.  In successive verses (13 and 14) in Matthew 5, Jesus says, "You are the salt of the earth" and "You are the light of the world."

The lines "Although in dust thy body mouldering fade; / Thy Head's in Heaven, and hath a crown for thee" include multiple allusions.  "Although in dust thy body mouldering fade" could refer either to "for you are dust, and to dust you shall return" in Genesis 3:19 or the similar "All are from the dust, and to dust all return" in Ecclesiastes 3:20.  As in the poem ("Thy Head's in Heaven"), Christ is called "the head" in 1 Corinthians 11:3 and Ephesians 5:23.  The "crown for thee" could refer either to Revelation 2:10 ("Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life") or James 1:12 ("Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him").

Les Misérables, Part One, Book One, Chapter IV

On 1 January, I started re-reading Les Misérables but in a different edition from what I've read before; this is a different translation (by Julie Rose) and unabridged.  I recently read Chapter IV of Book One, Part One (getting through the introduction took some time), and I realized that some of Monsieur Myriel's behavior has Biblical precedent.

The narrator explains:

A tragic event occurred in Digne.  A man had been condemned to death for murder.  It was some poor unfortunate who was not quite literate, but not completely illiterate; he had been a tumbler working the fairs as well as a public letter-writer.  The trial was the talk of the town.  The day before the date set for the condemned man's execution, the prison chaplain got sick.  A priest was needed to attend the prisoner in his last moments, so they went for the local curé.  Apparently this curé refused, saying, "That's not my problem.  Not my job.  Besides, I don't want anything to do with that circus monkey.  I'm sick, too.  And anyway, it's not my place." 

When the bishop [Monsieur Myriel] was told of this response he said, "The reverend father is right.  It's not his place, it's mine." 

And with that, he sped off to the jail, rushed to the cell of the "circus monkey," called him by his name, took his hand and talked to him.

Monsieur Myriel's "call[ing] him by his name" is a significant detail.  The primary purpose may be simply to illustrate the contrast between Monsieur Myriel and the curé (one is compassionate where the other is rudely dismissive), but there's also an echo of the Good Shepherd discourse from John 10, specifically part of verse 3:  the shepherd "calls his own sheep by name."  Myriel cares for the man in the same way that the Good Shepherd cares for his sheep.

That Myriel goes to visit the man in prison at all is also an example of the behavior that Jesus commends in Matthew 25, where He describes the final judgement and says, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world... [for] I was in prison and you came to me."

Later in the chapter, the narrator explains that "Widowed or orphaned families didn't have to ask, he [Myriel] came of his own accord."  Here again, Myriel follows examples from the Bible.  In the Old Testament, the widowed and orphaned are often mentioned as those who need to be cared for.  Psalm 146:9 says that the LORD "upholds the widow and the fatherless."  In the New Testament, James writes that "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this:  to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world" (James 1:27).  This is exactly what Monsieur Myriel does.

The Canterbury Tales: The Pardoner's Tale

I've been re-reading The Canterbury Tales lately, but this is the first time I've read this specific edition.  Last year, I found The Norton Critical Edition of The Canterbury Tales at a Half Price Books in Kansas.  I recently re-read The Pardoner's Tale, and I was puzzled by these lines:

I yow assoile [absolve], by myn heigh power -

Yow that wol offre - as clene and eek as cleer

As ye were born.

What the Pardoner is describing is not actually a sufficient absolution.  Because of original sin, everyone has an inherited guilt even when he's born.  (Psalm 51:5:  "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.")  No one is born "clene and... cleer."

Earlier in the tale, the Pardoner explains that his main motivation is money:  "For myn entente is nat but for to winne, / And nothing for correccioun of sinne."  He's not genuine in his position, and therefore it seems doubtful that his absolutions would carry any benefit, so he may mean exactly what he says:  he will "absolve" you, but you will still be as filthy and sin-stained as before.  He uses "clene and... cleer" ironically.

There's also the simple possibility that he doesn't understand these religious matters properly and he fully believes both that his all-consuming avarice can sit well alongside his occupation and that the absolution he offers will indeed cleanse the penitent.

---&---

In his prologue, the Pardoner says that his theme is "Radix malorum est Cupiditas."  In The Norton Critical Edition, there's a footnote for this that reads, "Avarice (the love of money) is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10)."  This is not entirely accurate.

The Pardoner's Tale and 1 Timothy 6:10 both have genitive plurals ("malorum"); it's "of evils."  The Norton also pulls in "all" from 1 Timothy 6:10 ("radix enim omnium malorum est cupiditas" in the Vulgate, ῥίζα γὰρ πάντων τῶν κακῶν ἐστιν ἡ φιλαργυρία in the Greek) without making it clear that this is not present in what the Pardoner says.  "Radix malorum est Cupiditas" is simply "Avarice is a root of evils," not "Avarice is a root of all evils."