The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1859)
Published in 1859, the same year as Darwin's Origin of Species, the Rubaiyat, in addition to being great poetry, is a key signpost on the road to the abandonment of God by Western Civilization. After meager initial sales, the poems were passed around by such figures as Richard Burton, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, Robert Browning, William Morris & Swinburne and the praise from these men lead to it's becoming a bestseller.
FitzGerald, was born on March 31, 1809 in Suffolk. He married
unhappily and escaped from his marriage by devoting himself to translating
Omar Kayyam's poetry. Kayyam was a Persian mathematician and astronomer,
born in Persia on May 18, 1048. The rubaiyat are sort of like haiku
in that they were not really the product of poets, they were mostly written
by Persian intellectuals.. They are two line stanzas, split in two
again. The first, second and last lines rhyme; the third is unrhymed.
FitzGerald was captivated by Kayyam's work, but in translating them, he
made them very much his own, rather than slavishly reproducing them word
for word:
VII
25 Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
26 The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
27 The Bird of Time has but a little
way
28 To fly--and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.
XI
41 Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
42 A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse--and Thou
43 Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
44 And Wilderness is Paradise enow.
XXIII
89 Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
90 Before we too into the Dust descend;
91 Dust into Dust, and under Dust,
to lie,
92 Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans End!
XXVI
101 Oh, come with old Khayyám, and leave the Wise
102 To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
103 One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
104 The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.
XXXIV
133 Then to this earthen Bowl did I adjourn
134 My Lip the secret Well of Life to learn:
135 And Lip to Lip it murmur'd--"While you live
136 Drink!--for once dead you never shall return."
XXXVII
145 Ah, fill the Cup:--what boots it to repeat
146 How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
147 Unborn TO-MORROW, and dead YESTERDAY,
148 Why fret about them if TO-DAY be sweet!
XXXIX
153 How long, how long, in infinite Pursuit
154 Of This and That endeavour and dispute?
155 Better be merry with the fruitful Grape
156 Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.
XLIX
193 'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
194 Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
195 Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
196 And one by one back in the Closet lays.
LI
201 The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
202 Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
203 Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
204 Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
These resulting poems reflect the atheism of the two men and are pretty much nihilist, existential and decadent. But they struck an immediate chord with the dissipated intellectuals of FitzGerald's time and have naturally retained their appeal in our Godless age. Moreover, as A.S. Byatt writes, "FitzGerald's verse is insidiously memorable. It sings in the mind, controlled by its steady rapid rhythm and its strong, emphatic, reiterated rhyme, which in turn is made mysteriously open by the one unrhymed line in each verse." The end product is some of the most memorable poetry of all time. And the final one reproduced above, "The Moving Finger writes", is one of the most quoted poems in the English language.
This is a work worth knowing, both for its beauty and because of the
influence of the malignant message it conveys, which sadly has become the
ethos of the age--Carpe Diem!
(Reviewed:)
Grade: (C)
