Time doesn't march through history. It swoops. It soars. Sometimes it circles back upon itself, chasing its own tail. Anyone who considers history to be a linear progression should consider the curious case of Omar Khayyam, the Renaissance man of pre-Renaissance Persia.
Though Khayyam earned renown during his life as a mathematician and astronomer -- and was credited with reforming the Islamic Calendar (by which the Western Millenium is meaningless) -- his poetry was all but unknown, even in his own country, upon his death in 1131.
How, then, did it become the rage of England, more than 700 years later?
For this singularly strange twist in literary history, credit is due Edward FitzGerald, whose publication in 1859 of "the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" pushed beyond translation into the realm of creative collaboration, finding a spirit that resonated throughout Victorian England. The "Rubaiyat's" call to live today to its fullest, for death may come tomorrow, plainly struck a responsive chord -- and a resolutely modern one.
The Wine of Life Keeps oozing drop by drop
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.
In Persian poetry, the rubai (rubaiyat is the plural) is a quatrain with a rhyme scheme of AABA. Each stanza was intended to stand alone as an epigram, and it was the favored form of the intellectuals and free-thinking philosophers of Khayyam's day , who were opposed to what they perceived as the fanaticism of religious orthodoxy. Stressing the intimacy of experience in plain-spoken language, the rubai has been compared with the Japanese haiku.
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread -- and Thou
Though FitzGerald retained the sensusal invitation and the rhyme scheme of Khayyam's verse, his translation was more attuned to his own culture, sharing imagery with the Bible, and iambic pentameter with Shakespeare. Where wine was forbidden to Islamic fundamentalists and women were considered to be little more than chattel for breeding purposes (the "Rubaiyat" never mentions the gender of the lover to whom its endearments are addressed), FItzGerald's translation was embraced as a Dionysian ode to fleshly delight, a celebration of wine, women, and romance.
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
Today of past regrest and future fears.
The poems reinforced the suggestion that life is ephemeral, death eternal, and heaven and hell are whatever we make of our existence here.
Drink! for you know not whence you came, or why:
Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.
The "Rubaiyat" is known as the best known and best selling book-length poem in the English language. It has more than 200 editions. It serves as an inspiration to all writers who feel that they aren't "getting the credit for their writing they deserve" -- and that is ALL writers. Now if we can only be patient for 700 years!
