'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam' translated by Edward Fitzgerald

Book Review by Rehan Qayoom

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is one of my favourite titles. Not least, because I have been fortunate enough to have read it in the Persian original. Edward Fitzgerald's translation of Khayyam into English remains undoubtedly the best available.

Omar Khayyam wrote many theses on astronomy and mathematics. He was even famous in his time for creating a perfect calendar without the leap year. His 'rubais' (quatrains) were not well-known in his lifetime and he did not emerge as a great Persian poet until Fitzgerald first published his translations in 1859. 

Khayyam's quatrains possess the headiness of the Sufi debates prevalent during his times (1048-1122). In one quatrain, he asks why, if the vine is forbidden, is it allowed to exist. The main arguments of the Rubaiyat however concern the mortality of life and the destiny of man. His teaching is simply to enjoy life while we can:

"The bird of time has but a little way to fly - and lo! The bird is on the wing. Ah, my beloved, fill the cup that clears, today of past regrets and future fears: tomorrow, why tomorrow I may be, myself with seven thousand years."

Our worldly hopes are depicted as snow upon the desert's face, which glistens an hour or two, then disappears into eternity:

"I sometimes think that never blows so red, that rose as where some buried Caesar bled, that every hyacinth the garden wears, dropt in its lap from some once lovely head."

Khayyam's poetry surpasses time, because it speaks to the fragility of man; he stands out among the poets of the East, and his influence stretches out to those of the West. The debate over man and his destiny, the bonds and freedoms of morality and religion, remain attractively questioned by poets of our age.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is a must-read for all lovers of literature.