Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 1859
translated by Edward Fitzgerald, 1859 and subsequent editionsillustrated by Edmund Sullivan
Paul B. Laub, 11 February 2001
More than two decades ago, I first came upon these verses. Jane, my first girlfriend, recited several to me and told me that, in his day, Omar was a famed mathematician and astronomer. How strange that an astronomer should feel cooped and trapped beneath the starry sky, I thought. Wasn't knowledge and science supposed to liberate?
That inverted Bowl we call the Sky Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die, Lift not thy hands to It for help -- for It Rolls impotently on as Thou or I. -- verse LII, first ed.
The appeal of Edward Fitzgerald's The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam lies in its frank and somber recognition of Life's smallness against transience and forces unknown. Perhaps the old astronomer simply recognized what Albert Camus later called the "benign indifference of the universe", against which the answers of religion failed to suffice.
There was a Door to which I found no Key: There was a Veil past which I could not see: Some little Talk awhile of Me and Thee There seemed -- and then no more of Thee and Me. -- verse XXXII, first ed.
In place of that, Omar, or shall I say Fitzgerald, sought solace by enjoying what he could in the fleeting present moment and, when necessary, dulling its pain with a jug of wine.
Ah! my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears To-Day of past Regrets and future Fears -- To-morrow? -- Why, To-morrow I may be Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years. -- verse XX, first ed.
The Rubaiyat must have been quite scandalous in Victorian England of 1859. Or maybe not. That year also saw first publication of an even more scandalous book, Charles Darwin's The Origin of the Species. Even living fully in this life and in this world was precarious. Omar or Fitzgerald knew that fortunes made one year are gone by the next,
The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon Turns Ashes --- or it prospers; and anon, Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face Lighting a little Hour or two -- is gone. -- verse XIV, first ed.
and that days are wasted in regret for what once was, or once was not,
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring The Winter Garment of Repentance fling: The Bird of Time has but a little way To fly -- and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing. -- verse VII, first ed.
That all of this interpretation is mere speculation I discovered shortly after Jane read me the verses. Seeking more, I turned to Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (15th ed., 1980). To my surprise, I found additional verses but not Omar. The "Omar Khayyam" entry in the table of contents takes one to Edward Fitzgerald, 1809 - 1883, on page 516. Fitzgerald's translation is said to be quite a liberal one, so much so that the resulting verses are as much a product of the translator as of the translated. That explains the entry in Bartlett's. To get a sense of the variability of translation, one need only compare the different editions of Fitzgerald's own translation. The verses are differently worded and arranged, some are present in one or some but not all of the editions. Omar Khayyam wrote quatrains, or four line verses, in Persian. Each such verse is properly called a "rubaiyat" and was complete in itself. Fitzgerald translated and arranged the individual rubaiyat, collecting them into The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. About this task, Fitzgerald wrote in his Introduction, that the rubaiyat are
independent stanzas, consisting each of four Lines of equal, though varied, Prosody; sometimes all rhyming, but oftener (as here imitated) the third line a blank [that is, not rhyming with the others] ... As usual with such kind of Oriental Verse, the Rubaiyat follow one another according to Alphabetic Rhyme -- a strange succession of Grave and Gay. Those here selected are strung into something of an Eclogue, with perhaps a less than equal proportion of the "Drink and make-merry" which (genuine or not) recurs over-frequently in the Original.
Clearly, Fitzgerald's hand is felt at least through his arrangement of the verses. I might end the review here, except that the historical figure of Omar Khayyam intrigues me. Though much transformed, might the historical Omar still lurk in the verses? One of Khayyam's greatest contributions was improvement of the calendar, a job done so well in the 12th century that the present day calendar is not substantially better. Fitzgerald alludes to this:
Ah, my Computations, people say, Reduce the Year to better reckoning? -- Nay, 'Twas only striking from the Calendar Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday. -- verse LVII, fifth ed.
The Historical Omar Khayyam
Omar Khayyam was born in 1048 in Naishapur in Khorassan of present day Iran and died in either 1123 or 1131. The name "Khayyam" suggests that his father was employed as a tentmaker. In his lifetime, Omar's learning was renowned in the Arabic world. Although his primary contributions were in algebra and in astronomy, his teachings included philosophy, law, and other topics. His life also included a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1092.
Editions in Print
Several editions of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam are in print, the most common being Fitzgerald's first and fifth editions. Because more than 75 years has elapsed since its first appearance, the text of The Rubaiyat is now in the public domain and is found below and elsewhere on the internet.
Far more difficult to come by are the original illustrations by Edmund Sullivan. These illustrations complement the text particularly potently. Below are links to several of these illustrations scanned from my copy (published by Illustrated Editions Company, New York City, in the late 1930s or early 1940s). One of them has found its way into popular culture. It is the skull wearing a garland of roses, adopted in ca. 1970 as the symbol of the legendary rock band, The Grateful Dead. (The symbol's selection is hardly accidental. Some of the band's songs from that era -- such as Wharf Rat -- are strongly reminiscent of Fitzgerald's verse. So too are the lives of Deadheads, the band's loyal fans.)
Complete text of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Selected illustrations by Edmund Sullivan for Fitzgerald's first edition Links on Omar Khayyam