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The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Omar Khayyam (rendered into English by Edward FitzGerald)

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Founder connections

  • Dee HockReported daily consultation
    Harriet Rubin’s original 2007 report describes Hock keeping the Rubaiyat open for daily consultation in his library. His translation and edition are not identified; this record offers FitzGerald’s English rendering.
    Source

Summary

This collection presents Edward FitzGerald’s English verse rendering of quatrains associated with Omar Khayyam. Its speakers consider the passing of time, desire, uncertainty and the limits of worldly achievement through recurring images of wine, gardens and vanished rulers.

The available text includes both the first and fifth versions of FitzGerald’s rendering. Differences between them invite close reading. This English literary work should not be treated as a word-for-word account of every Persian original or as a single settled philosophical system.

  • SourceThe Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam — checked content · Title/translator; First Edition and Fifth Edition sections, especially reflections on time, worldly ambition and mortality.

Why read it Our view

Read a few quatrains slowly and compare how they handle ambition, pleasure and mortality. Ask how a line changes when read beside the next one or in another version. Poetry can sharpen attention to what matters without supplying a rule for every decision.