Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
XII
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread__and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
XIII
Some for the Glories of This World and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!
XXIII
And we, that now make merry in the Room
They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom,
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend--ourselves to make a Couch---for whom?
XXIV
Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans End!
XCVI
Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the Branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!.
XCVI
Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the Branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!.
Edward FitzGerald, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Grosset and Dunlap, no date
My copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is pocket-sized and quite old and worn; because I was a bookseller for a long time, the provenance of many of my books is unknown, but I probably picked it up on "bag day" at some big book sale.
That's not romantic, but I can imagine a much more idyllic beginning for it. Grosset and Dunlap began as book reprinters or rebinders in 1898. I would guess from the style and condition that this was an early 20th century printing that some earnest but less than wealthy young man bought to woo his sweetheart on a picnic..."A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou". That's the catch line of this classic, but what's it all about?
That's not romantic, but I can imagine a much more idyllic beginning for it. Grosset and Dunlap began as book reprinters or rebinders in 1898. I would guess from the style and condition that this was an early 20th century printing that some earnest but less than wealthy young man bought to woo his sweetheart on a picnic..."A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou". That's the catch line of this classic, but what's it all about?
Omar Khayyam (1048-1133) was a noted Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher and poet. "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" (a ruba'i is a four line quatrain specifically Persian, a rubaiyat is a collection of ruba'i) is not a narrative poem but a collection of epigrams or special insights. You could sum up the philosophy espoused in the poem as a directive to "Carpe Diem" or "Seize the Day" accompanied by the virtues of drinking wine. There are regular references to wine, jugs, urns, cups, bowls and grapes.
With that going for it, no wonder it has become one of the most widely known poems in the world, republished virtually every year from 1879 (the year of FitzGerald's fourth edition) to the present day, and translated into over eighty different languages.
FitzGerald described his work as "transmogrification". To a large extent, the Rubaiyat can be considered original poetry by FitzGerald loosely based on Omar's quatrains rather than a "translation" in the narrow sense. Some critics maintain that the poetic quality of FitzGerald's finished product exceeded that of Khayyám's original quatrains. In other words, Khayyám supplied the lumber, and FitzGerald built the house.
The concept of "carpe diem" might call to mind the scene in the 1989 movie, Dead Poets Society, where Robin Williams as a teacher at a boys' prep school inspired his students through poetry. I hadn't seen the movie in the theater, but when it came on television, I was enthralled. During a commercial break I rushed to my bookshelf and pulled out my old college text, Norton's Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1. (a modest 1,986 page book). I turned to Robert Herrick's "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time." There, next to the famous line, "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying" I had written--Carpe Diem--use time while you can.
Just like that, my 19-year old self had time-traveled 25 years into the future to give me a message, more pertinent than when I'd first penned it, --"seize the day"! Omar has come down from my neglected poetry shelf to reinforce it again.
"Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
"Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend..."
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