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) Orrin C. Judd

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