poetry

In Quatrain no. 23 in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, we find an explicit denial of the afterlife. This denial is repeated throughout the poetry, and it surely was one of the more challenging themes in this poetry for Victorian Britain and the United States. Of course, […]

Iran

“And we, that now make merry in the Room:” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:22

Juan Cole

Quatrain no. 22 in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám again invokes the image of the way the living are walking atop those who lived and died before them, leaving them alone in the “room” of the world. The departed dead are dressed in blooms, i.e. flowers grow […]

Omar Khayyam

“And one by one crept silently to Rest:” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:21

Juan Cole

Stanza 21 of the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám continues with the theme of the shortness of life and the finality of death, but introduces new emotions, of grief for lost loved ones and nostalgia for the past. These poignant lines have sometimes made me cry. We get […]

Iran

“Ah, my Belovéd, fill the Cup that clears:” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:20

Juan Cole

Stanza no. 20 in in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám celebrates wine as a means of escaping lingering shame and the dread of an unknown future. It is about, as the hippies used to say in the 1960s, “being here now,” with a little help from a mind-altering substance. […]

Omar Khayyam

“From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen:” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:19

Juan Cole

With no. 19 in in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, the theme turns away from the glory of kings as a flash-in-the-pan to the impermanence of life for everyone. One of the tropes common in the subsequent poems, already used in no. 18, is that we are clay and […]

Iran

“The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled:” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:18

Juan Cole

Stanza 18 in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is the last in the series that emphasizes the impermanence of royal glory and it transitions to a subsequent set of meditations on the transitory character of life itself XVIII. I sometimes think that never blows so red The Rose as […]

Iran

“They say the Lion and the Lizard keep the Courts:” Edward FitzGerald’s the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:17

Juan Cole

Quatrain 17 of the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám continues the theme that kingly glory quickly fades. XVII. They say the Lion and the Lizard keep The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep: And Bahrám, that great Hunter — the Wild Ass Stamps o’er his Head, and he […]

Omar Khayyam

“In this batter’d Caravanserai:” FitzGerald’s translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:16

Juan Cole

Revised. Quatrain 16 in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám underlines that life is fleeting for everyone, even the rich and powerful, and even for monarchs. FitzGerald was an “entrepreneurial Radical” in Victorian terms, who disliked the aristocracy and favored the republican form of government for newly established […]

Iran

“And those who husbanded the Golden Grain:” FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:15

Juan Cole

Stanza 15 of the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám has for its theme a denial of the afterlife and resurrection. XV. And those who husbanded the Golden Grain, And those who flung it to the Winds like Rain, Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn’d As, buried once, Men want […]