by Omar Khayyám, Edward FitzGerald
This book was presented by my grandmother (my father's mother), Myra Joyce (known as Joyce) Frost (nee Moore), to her grandmother (my great, great grandmother) Minnie Shields (nee Hampshire) on the occasion of Minnie's birthday. It's unclear what year the book was given to Minnie, but we can work ou...
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor WitShall lure it back to cancel half a Line,Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it. Khayyam struck me as a man with a love-hate relationship with the old vino, which sort of implies that perhaps he wasn’t the strictest Musl...
Omar Khayyam (Ghiyāth ad-Dīn Abu'l-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm al-Khayyām Nīshāpūrī: 1048 - 1131), born in Nishapur, educated in Samarkand and professionally active in Bukhara, was a brilliant mathematician, astronomer and philosopher who wrote poetry during the last years of his life,(*) when, after his...
This is the poetry of Omar Khayyam, a Persian poet and scientist who lived from 1048-1131. He actually wrote one of the most important treatises on Algebra before modern times. The very name "Ruba'yat" actually comes from an Arab word for "four" and refers to the quatrain structure and the title was...
Ah, but my Computations, People say, Have squared the Year to human compass, eh? If so, by striking from the Calendar Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday.The origin of YOLO.
I just can't get into poetry. I see that nearly 3,000 ratings average 4+ stars for this book. So I must be in the minority.I will give credit to Omar Khayyam for having the guts to praise drinking wine while living in a Muslim society (about 1000 years ago). How did he get away with that? Maybe ...
This isn't the edition I read. The strongest convention is to package FitzGerald's first and fifth editions together; they form an interesting contrast.
I kept thinking about the Rubaiyat last week while I was translating Zep's Happy Sex. I understand that Fitzgerald's translation is extremely non-literal, and almost amounts to a new poem - there is a nice piece by Borges discussing this unusual collaboration between two poets from different culture...
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