"The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam"

The beginning verse of the first version of Fitzgerald’s translation also contains one of its most famous metaphors:

Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night

Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:

And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught

The Sultán’s Turret in a Noose of Light (Lines 1-4).

These lines instantly bring up an image of a stone falling into a dark bowl, scattering stars and night, freeing up light. However, the metaphor works slightly differently from the visualization: The stone is the sun flung upwards into the inverted bowl of night and scatters away the stars. Both the image and metaphor are powerful, but the latter conveys an additional sense of velocity and momentum. The sun has set things in motion, and so must the speaker and his companion. According to Fitzgerald, the rite of flinging the stone in the cup was “the Signal for ‘To Horse!’ in the Desert,” that is, for journeys and hunts to begin. Thus, sunrise signals that the day’s steed should take off. (Beautiful as the metaphor is, some experts say that it may be fabricated—a corresponding expression does not occur in the original rubai in Persian.)

In the second couplet, the sun is now the “hunter of the east” (Line 3) and has lassoed the king’s high tower or turret. Again, the visual image perfectly evokes early morning light touching the higher points of a building, while in the metaphorical sense the sun’s hunter is capturing its sleeping quarry, nudging it to wakefulness. The sun is also a symbol of time, hunting down humans, reminding them that there isn’t much time to waste. Often, metaphors recur in the text, each new mention adding more meaning to the previous idea: for instance, the sun is described as a “flaming foal” in Verse 54, an image which expands on the sense of time’s swift speed evoked by the sun metaphor in the first verse.

The first verse also contains an example of personification, a literary device which is prolific in “The Rubaiyat.” Morning “has flung” the sun into night’s bowl, awakening the day. In the second verse, dawn is personified to have a “Left Hand in the Sky” (Line 4; according to Fitzgerald’s notes, the left hand of dawn refers to the phenomenon of pre-dawn light common in countries along the latitudes of modern-day Iran). In Verse 13, the generous rose throws her treasures into the garden, while in Verse 34, the wine goblet murmurs to the speaker “Lip to Lip,” the lip of the goblet being its rim.

Sometimes a metaphor is used once explicitly, but continues to feature in the text implicitly thereafter, as in the case of the caravanserai or inn (Verse 16). A metaphor for the world, the inn has alternating doors of day and night, symbolizing life and death. Thus, travelers enter and exit the caravanserai with speedy regularity, much like human beings are born and die in the world. Though the caravanserai is not mentioned again, the door—a metaphor for passage, as well as knowledge, or the lack thereof—becomes a stand-in for the inn. Such metonymic transference was common in Persian poetry, such as the bough for the tree, and Fitzgerald may be utilizing those conventions to good effect. In Verse 27, the speaker states that he visited many experts in philosophy but “[c]ame out by the same Door as in I went” (Line 108). The door here is a metaphor for understanding; in exiting by the same door he entered, the speaker implies that he did not learn anything new from the philosophers: No new door has opened for him. In Verse 32, the speaker conjures up the image of the door again, this time in conjunction with the veil; both metaphors in this context for the unknown. Significantly, now the locked door has no key. The speaker cannot access the knowledge hiding behind the door. However, in Verse 55, the speaker creates a key from his own base metal—representing a knowledge won from his own experience rather than learnt from others—and unlocks the door (the reality), which even learned Sufis cannot access.

The poem also contains a striking example of an extended metaphor in the Kuza-Nama, one which runs into several verses and tackles complex questions about the purpose of human existence and sin, as well as the true nature of God. In this extended metaphor, the potter’s shop is the world, the potter is the creator, and the pots of various shapes and sizes are the potter’s creations. Though made of clay, the pots’ chatter is a metaphor for humans who continue to seek answers despite their limitations. Some among the pots are mute, representing animals or docile humans. The more irascible pots represent the speaker’s likeness, who cannot fathom the potter’s intent when he destroys in rage what he creates like a “peevish Boy” (Line 245). In Verse 64, a talking pot goes as far as to link the creator with imagery also associated with the devil; however, he dismisses the idea of a malevolent creator with a “Pish!” in the same verse. Thus, the pot could represent humanity’s unwillingness to accept the absence of a benevolent God. However, it may also be that the pot is reassuring others that, despite appearances, God or destiny will ensure things turn out well in the end.

The poem’s many metaphors, similes, motifs, and symbols work together to create distinctive imagery redolent with nightingale, garden, rose, wine, clay pot, tavern, inn, stars, and crescent moon. In the literal sense, the imagery conveys Fitzgerald’s idea of early medieval Persia. Figuratively, the imagery illuminates many complex concepts from both Khayyam’s Persia as well as Fitzgerald’s Victorian milieu.

One of the more successful aspects of Fitzgerald’s translation is its retention of many allusions from the original Farsi (sometimes Fitzgerald even includes Persian allusions not included in the original) and some Persian words. In the process, he retains the freshness of the text and enriches its unique, distinctive imagery. The allusion to Jesus, Moses, and David in the same corpus as Jamshyd and Mahmud of Ghazni, as well as the 72 heretical sects of Islam, paints a vivid picture of Khayyam’s Persia in all its heterodox glory. Though the new Seljuq Turk rulers of the Persia of Khayyam’s times wished to impose an orthodox Islamic state in the region, Zoroastrian traditions were still alive, as were schools of Sufi philosophy and nihilism alike. It was a world where Jesus and Moses, considered prophets in Islam, were very much part of the popular imagination. For the Victorian reader, names such as Kaikobad and Rustom may have added to the exoticized appeal of “The Rubaiyat”; for the contemporary reader, they reflect the diverse cultural tradition as well as rich literary heritage of Khayyam’s Persia.

Kaikobad and Jamshyd were both legendary kings mentioned in the Shahnama, a history of Persia written by the poet Firdausi around 1000 AD. Rustom was a warrior, while Bahram, another king mentioned, was a historical ruler from the fifth century. These figures represent kingly power, physical strength, and earthly glory. However, because they almost always occur in the context of ruins and oblivion, the poem emphasizes that power amounts to nothing in the larger scheme of things. Verse 17 contains a particularly savage comment on the temporary nature of earthy power: “And Bahrám, that great Hunter—the Wild Ass / Stamps o’er his Head, and he lies fast asleep” (Lines 67-68). That Bahram, legendary for hunting animals, should now be stomped upon by the lowly ass shows the fickle nature of power.

Allusions to Biblical figures and prophets add a strain of mysticism to the verses; such as in the image of Jesus’s breath animating flowers in Verse 4. Of course, Fitzgerald also retains these allusions as they would be familiar to his Victorian audience. An interesting and covert system of allusions occurs in the text through Fitzgerald’s translation, which sometimes mirrors images and styles from the history of English poetry. For instance, with its last line beginning “Sans Wine, sans Song” (112), Verse 23 is close to these lines from the “all the world is a stage” speech in Shakespeare’s play As You Like It:

JAQUES. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion;

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything (2.7.166-69).

Similarly, Verse 53’s thesis that neither piety nor wit can cancel destiny’s diktat is reminiscent of these lines by 17th-century English poet Robert Herrick in “His Age”:

Ah, Posthumus! Our years hence fly,

And leave no sound; nor piety,

Or prayers, or vow

Can keep the wrinkle from the brow (Lines 1-4).

Such anachronistic allusions are typical of Fitzgerald’s translation and would have served to ground “The Rubaiyat” in the English poetic tradition for his Victorian readers.

The poem’s anachronisms are much debated. While the use of wholly British expressions such as “Pish!” adds a colloquial ease to the poem, it also can seem culturally appropriative. However, the aim of any good translation is never a reproduction but always a recreation. Fitzgerald could not have imported the rubais into English in pristine condition; he always knew he was writing an English poem based on the rubais. In that sense, the use of anachronistic expressions may be plain-spoken and amusing at best (“sorry scheme of things”; Verse 73) and awkward at worst (“take the Cash in hand and waive the Rest”; Line 51).