I once got hold of a literal translation of old Omar’s Rubaiyát, with the Persian text in parallel columns. An Indian scholar, a high-caste Brahmin, was good enough to give me his views on delicate and elusive bits in the original which had escaped the translator, and he read aloud the sonorous, smooth-flowing rhymes in a voice which was itself poetry. FitzGerald’s so-called translations appeared only as foot-notes here and there, at which in the beginning I wondered—but not later. The literal renderings, in prose, seemed bare and mean (although in themselves remarkable enough, all things considered) compared with the rich and varied imagery, the depth of thought and of feeling which the Irish poet had read into them. The Persian sounded beautiful, it is quite true, but what is sound, in such a case, compared with the meaning of the words! As regards the great masters of music, the sound is more than words can express, and their continued and inexhaustible charm lies in the fact that they lead on the imagination to fields where words are useless. In poetry, the thought is the key that unlocks the door of the imagination, and the music of it is only an adornment.
So, in the Japanese translations of the Chinese art of garden making, as in FitzGerald’s Omar, there is more of thought, of beauty, of richness, and fulness of aim and scope, than ever was dreamed of by the originators.
