The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 4

Omar Khayyam was born at Naishapur in Khorassan in the latter half of our Eleventh, and died within the First Quarter of our Twelfth Century. The Slender Story of his Life is curiously twined about that of two other very considerable Figures in their Time and Country: one of whom tells the Story of all Three. This was Nizam ul Mulk, Vizier to Alp Arslan the Son, and Malik Shah the Grandson, of Toghrul Beg the Tartar, who had wrested Persia from the feeble Successor of Mahmud the Great, and founded that Seljukian Dynasty which finally roused Europe into the Crusades. This Nizam ul Mulk, in his Wasiyat--or Testament--which he wrote and left as a Memorial for future Statesmen--relates the following, as quoted in the Calcutta Review, No. 59, from Mirkhond's History of the Assassins.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 97

And strange to tell, among that Earthen Lot Some could articulate, while others not: And suddenly one more impatient cried-- "Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?"

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 115

And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before The Tavern shouted--"Open then the Door! "You know how little while we have to stay, And, once departed, may return no more."

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 40

And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before The Tavern shouted--"Open then the Door. You know how little while we have to stay, And, once departed, may return no more."

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 10

"His Takhallus or poetical name (Khayyam) signifies a Tent-maker, and he is said to have at one time exercised that trade, perhaps before Nizam-ul-Mulk's generosity raised him to independence. Many Persian poets similarly derive their names from their occupations; thus we have Attar, 'a druggist,' Assar, 'an oil presser,' etc.[2] Omar himself alludes to his name in the following whimsical lines:--

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 14

Thus far--without fear of Trespass--from the Calcutta Review. The writer of it, on reading in India this story of Omar's Grave, was reminded, he says, of Cicero's Account of finding Archimedes' Tomb at Syracuse, buried in grass and weeds. I think Thorwaldsen desired to have roses grow over him; a wish religiously fulfilled for him to the present day, I believe. However, to return to Omar.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 100

None answer'd this; but after Silence spake A Vessel of a more ungainly Make: "They sneer at me for leaning all awry; What? did the Hand then of the Potter shake?"

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 170

And lately, by the Tavern Door agape, Came shining through the Dusk an Angel Shape Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and He bid me taste of it; and 'twas--the Grape!

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 207

And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel, And robb'd me of my Robe of Honor--Well, I wonder often what the Vintners buy One half so precious as the stuff they sell.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 228

(XVIII.) Persepolis: call'd also Takht-i-Jam-shyd--THE THRONE OF JAMSHYD, "King Splendid," of the mythical Peshdadian Dynasty, and supposed (according to the Shah-nama) to have been founded and built by him. Others refer it to the Work of the Genie King, Jan Ibn Jan--who also built the Pyramids--before the time of Adam.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 235

(XXXI.) Saturn, Lord of the Seventh Heaven.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 159

When You and I behind the Veil are past, Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last, Which of our Coming and Departure heeds As the Sea's self should heed a pebble-cast.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 151

And not a drop that from our Cups we throw For Earth to drink of, but may steal below To quench the fire of Anguish in some Eye There hidden--far beneath, and long ago.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 190

What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke A conscious Something to resent the yoke Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain Of Everlasting Penalties, if broke!

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 112

And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on The Grass, And in Thy joyous Errand reach the Spot Where I made one--turn down an empty Glass!

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 225

(X.) Rustum, the "Hercules" of Persia, and Zal his Father, whose exploits are among the most celebrated in the Shahnama. Hatim Tai, a well-known type of Oriental Generosity.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 184

And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky, Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die, Lift not your hands to It for help--for It As impotently moves as you or I.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 123

With me along the strip of Herbage strown That just divides the desert from the sown, Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot-- And Peace to Mahmud on his golden Throne!

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 63

Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies; One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies; The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 160

A Moment's Halt--a momentary taste Of BEING from the Well amid the Waste-- And Lo!--the phantom Caravan has reach'd The NOTHING it set out from--Oh, make haste!

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 224

I am not sure if the fourth line refers to the Red Rose looking sickly, or to the Yellow Rose that ought to be Red; Red, White, and Yellow Roses all common in Persia. I think that Southey in his Common- Place Book, quotes from some Spanish author about the Rose being White till 10 o'clock; "Rosa Perfecta" at 2; and "perfecta incarnada" at 5.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 91

I tell Thee this--When, starting from the Goal, Over the shoulders of the flaming Foal Of Heav'n Parwin and Mushtari they flung, In my predestin'd Plot of Dust and Soul

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 259

"There was one odd Fellow in our Company--he was so like a Figure in the 'Pilgrim's Progress' that Richard always called him the 'ALLEGORY,' with a long white beard--a rare Appendage in those days--and a Face the colour of which seemed to have been baked in, like the Faces one used to see on Earthenware Jugs. In our Country- dialect Earthenware is called 'Clome'; so the Boys of the Village used to shout out after him--'Go back to the Potter, Old Clomeface, and get baked over again.' For the 'Allegory,' though shrewd enough in most things, had the reputation of being 'saift-baked,' i.e., of weak intellect."

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 53

Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day, How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp Abode his Hour or two, and went his way.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 27

No doubt many of these Quatrains seem unaccountable unless mystically interpreted; but many more as unaccountable unless literally. Were the Wine spiritual, for instance, how wash the Body with it when dead? Why make cups of the dead clay to be filled with--"La Divinite," by some succeeding Mystic? Mons. Nicolas himself is puzzled by some "bizarres" and "trop Orientales" allusions and images--"d'une sensualite quelquefois revoltante" indeed--which "les convenances" do not permit him to translate; but still which the reader cannot but refer to "La Divinite."[8] No doubt also many of the Quatrains in the Teheran, as in the Calcutta, Copies, are spurious; such Rubaiyat being the common form of Epigram in Persia. But this, at best, tells as much one way as another; nay, the Sufi, who may be considered the Scholar and Man of Letters in Persia, would be far more likely than the careless Epicure to interpolate what favours his own view of the Poet. I observed that very few of the more mystical Quatrains are in the Bodleian MS., which must be one of the oldest, as dated at Shiraz, A.H. 865, A.D. 1460. And this, I think, especially distinguishes Omar (I cannot help calling him by his--no, not Christian--familiar name) from all other Persian Poets: That, whereas with them the Poet is lost in his Song, the Man in Allegory and Abstraction; we seem to have the Man--the Bon-homme--Omar himself, with all his Humours and Passions, as frankly before us as if we were really at Table with him, after the Wine had gone round.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 175

Of threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise! One thing at least is certain--This Life flies; One thing is certain and the rest is Lies; The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 122

Well, let it take them! What have we to do With Kaikobad the Great, or Kaikhosru? Let Zal and Rustum bluster as they will, Or Hatim call to Supper--heed not you.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 125

Some for the Glories of This World; and some Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come; Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go, Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 180

We are no other than a moving row Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held In Midnight by the Master of the Show;

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 35

[Footnote 6: Professor Cowell.]

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 88

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 218

"The sudden approach and rapid advance of the Spring," says Mr. Binning, "are very striking. Before the Snow is well off the Ground, the Trees burst into Blossom, and the Flowers start from the Soil. At Naw Rooz (their New Year's Day) the Snow was lying in patches on the Hills and in the shaded Vallies, while the Fruit-trees in the Garden were budding beautifully, and green Plants and Flowers springing upon the Plains on every side--

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 173

Why, be this Juice the growth of God, who dare Blaspheme the twisted tendril as a Snare? A Blessing, we should use it, should we not? And if a Curse--why, then, Who set it there?

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 211

Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits--and then Re-mold it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 197

Then said a Second--"Ne'er a peevish Boy Would break the Bowl from which he drank in joy; And He that with his hand the Vessel made Will surely not in after Wrath destroy."

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 209

Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield One glimpse--if dimly, yet indeed, reveal'd, To which the fainting Traveler might spring, As springs the trampled herbage of the field!

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 9

"When the Malik Shah determined to reform the calendar, Omar was one of the eight learned men employed to do it; the result was the Jalali era (so called from Jalal-ud-din, one of the king's names)--'a computation of time,' says Gibbon, 'which surpasses the Julian, and approaches the accuracy of the Gregorian style.' He is also the author of some astronomical tables, entitled 'Ziji-Malikshahi,' and the French have lately republished and translated an Arabic Treatise of his on Algebra.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 99

Another said--"Why, ne'er a peevish Boy Would break the Bowl from which he drank in Joy; Shall He that made the Vessel in pure Love And Fansy, in an after Rage destroy!"

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 146

Then of the THEE IN ME who works behind The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find A lamp amid the Darkness; and I heard, As from Without--"THE ME WITHIN THEE BLIND!"

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 176

Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through, Not one returns to tell us of the Road, Which to discover we must travel too.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 96

Listen again. One Evening at the Close Of Ramazan, ere the better Moon arose, In that old Potter's Shop I stood alone With the clay Population round in Rows.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 161

Would you that spangle of Existence spend About THE SECRET--quick about it, Friend! A Hair perhaps divides the False from True-- And upon what, prithee, may life depend?

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 127

And those who husbanded the Golden grain, And those who flung it to the winds like Rain, Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd As, buried once, Men want dug up again.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 240

(XLIII.) According to one beautiful Oriental Legend, Azrael accomplishes his mission by holding to the nostril an Apple from the Tree of Life.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 248

(LX.) Alluding to Sultan Mahmud's Conquest of India and its dark people.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 119

Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring Your Winter garment of Repentance fling: The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 80

The Grape that can with Logic absolute The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute: The subtle Alchemist that in a Trice Life's leaden Metal into Gold transmute.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 219

'And on old Hyems' Chin and icy Crown An odorous Chaplet of sweet Summer buds Is, as in mockery, set--'--

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 46

But come with old Khayyam, and leave the Lot Of Kaikobad and Kaikhosru forgot: Let Rustum lay about him as he will, Or Hatim Tai cry Supper--heed them not.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, passage 147

Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn I lean'd, the Secret of my Life to learn: And Lip to Lip it murmur'd--"While you live, "Drink!--for, once dead, you never shall return."