Not So Innocent

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 299, 16 March 1945, Page 8

Not So Innocent

A DE LUXE edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is the sort of thing most people think of as a suitable birthday present for a maiden aunt. The

recipient puts it in the bookcase, admires the binding, but seldom reads it except in snatches. I imagine that if the maiden aunt ever really got down to reading Omar he would be put on the banned list as one of the most pessimistic, materialistic, hedonistic youth-corrupters of all time. The reason for his innocent popularity must be the flowery oriental-

ism with’ which Fitzgerald clothed his Rabelaisian quatrains. How often do we hear good churchgoers quoting "A book of verses underneath the bough" as an example of the simple life? Yet in its four lines it demands everything the average sensual man requires to make life happy: wine, women and song for the body; and poetry to delight the inteltect; for the soul, nothing, Omar’s philosophy being expressed in the line, "The rose that once has blown forever dies." Similarly the setting of some of the quatrains, "In a Persian Garden," by Liza Lehmann, similarly disguises the grim message in pseudo-Persian music which, for delicacy of style and decora-~ tive effect, reminds one of the super editions mentioned above. It was presented from 4YA in records by Dora Labette, Muriel Brunskill, Hubert Eis dell, and Harold Williams, a combination which for the purpose could scarcely be bettered.