This week we reach the mid-point of the Rubaiyat, which emphasises the pointlessness of arguing and ruminating over unknowable facts and urges us to enjoy our lives, especially if that enjoyment includes “the Daughter of the Vine.”
You know, my Friends, how long since in my House
Omar Khayyam (1048—1131), translated by Edward Fitzgerald (1809—1883)
For a new Marriage I did make Carouse:
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.
Poem 305. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, First Edition (Quatrains 31 to 45)
XXXI.
Up from Earth’s Centre through the seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,
And many Knots unravel’d by the Road;
But not the Knot of Human Death and Fate.
XXXII.
There was a Door to which I found no Key:
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little Talk awhile of ME and THEE
There seemed—and then no more of THEE and ME.
XXXIII.
Then to the rolling Heav’n itself I cried,
Asking, “What Lamp had Destiny to guide
Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?”
And—“A blind understanding!” Heav’n replied.
XXXIV.
Then to this earthen Bowl did I adjourn
My Lip the secret Well of Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur’d—“While you live,
Drink!—for once dead you never shall return.”
XXXV.
I think the Vessel, that with fugitive
Articulation answer’d, once did live,
And merry-make; and the cold Lip I kiss’d
How many Kisses might it take—and give.
XXXVI.
For in the Market-place, one Dusk of Day,
I watch’d the Potter thumping his wet Clay:
And with its all obliterated Tongue
It murmur’d—“Gently, Brother, gently, pray!”
XXXVII.
Ah, fill the Cup:—what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn TO-MORROW and dead YESTERDAY,
Why fret about them if TO-DAY be sweet!
XXXVIII.
One Moment in Annihilation’s Waste,
One moment, of the Well of Life to taste—
The Stars are setting, and the Caravan
Starts for the dawn of Nothing—Oh, make haste!
XXXIX.
How long, how long, in infinite Pursuit
Of This and That endeavour and dispute?
Better be merry with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.
XL.
You know, my Friends, how long since in my House
For a new Marriage I did make Carouse:
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.
XLI.
For “IS” and “IS-NOT” though with Rule and Line,
And, “UP-AND-DOWN” without, I could define,
I yet in all I only cared to know,
Was never deep in anything but—Wine.
XLII.
And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,
Came stealing through the Dusk an Angel Shape,
Bearing a vessel on his Shoulder; and
He bid me taste of it; and ’twas—the Grape!
XLIII.
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.
XLIV.
The mighty Mahmud, the victorious Lord,
That all the misbelieving and black Horde
Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul
Scatters and slays with his enchanted Sword.
XLV.
But leave the Wise to wrangle, and with me
The Quarrel of the Universe let be:
And, in some corner of the Hubbub coucht,
Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee.
This set of quatrains continues to express the narrator’s disdain for the world’s preoccupation with causes and effects and expands on the idea that all that analysis can be dispensed with in favour of enjoying the moment, preferably with a glass in hand.
Quatrain thirty-one imagines rising from Earth through the heavens to sit on the throne of Saturn (presumably Fitzgerald’s substitution of the ancient Greek father of the gods for a figure from Persian mythology), solving many knotty problems in the process but never finding any clue leading to the answer to the great question of Life, the Universe and Everything.
The next quatrain represents this problem as a door without a key or an veil that conceals the truth: faced with these impenetrable obstacles, we have only small talk to offer each other before the inevitable end.
Frustrated, the narrator cries aloud, asking Heaven what illumination it has so that people might find their way to the truth in the darkness of ignorance, but the only answer he receives is that unquestioning faith is all the illumination anyone needs.
Returning to Earth—“to this earthern Bowl did I adjourn”—to look for the secret of life, he continues the metaphor of a bowl by imagining sipping wisdom from it, though the only maxim he derives from it is the same he has heard everywhere else: “While you live,/Drink!—for once dead you never shall return.”
This response inspires him to believe that “the Vessel” that responds thus must contain the soul of a long-dead merry-maker, and that the cold lip of the bowl (and metaphorically the lip of the merry-maker) may have given and taken many kisses, meaning that many will have drunk from it.
Developing the idea of ceramic reincarnation, he imagines a potter in the market-place working the clay into a new shape as it beseeches the artisan to be gentle in an indistinct murmur.
The next three quatrains starting with number thirty-seven repeat the key message clearly: don’t worry about yesterday and tomorrow since we can make the most of today. We have “One Moment in Annihilation’s Waste”—an all-too-brief existence against the vast sweep of universal history—and our birth has marked the point where “the Caravan/Starts for the dawn of Nothing”, so we should waste no time on bootless mysticism and philosophical meanderings—“infinite Pursuit/Of This and That endeavour and dispute”—it is better to revel and drink wine than to engage in such dry and unprofitable strivings.
In the next three quatrains, we hear the narrator tell us of how he discarded a fruitless search for purpose “Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed” in favour of a full cup of wine: “took the Daughter of the Vine to spouse.” His ultimately unsuccessful efforts to define Life through geometry and mathematics “with Rule and Line,/And, ‘UP-AND-DOWN’ without, I could define” were less profound than the insights gained from drinking: “I…was never deep in anything but—wine.” He credits the divine intervention of an angel for this realisation: by bringing a quantity of wine “He bid me taste of it; and ‘twas—the Grape!”
He goes on to extol the merits of wine: it is proof against the squabbling of the countless disparate interpretations of life and its meaning “with Logic absolute/The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute”—he likens it to an alchemist that instantly transforms the mundane lead of life into golden moments of joy. Like “The mighty Mahmud” with “his enchanted Sword” it carries all before it and “the misbelieving and black Horde/Of Fears and Sorrows” is routed or slain.
The last quatrain for this week signals a change of tone which will develop in the next sequence: it encourages us to leave the wizards and sages to their endless disputes, retire to a quiet corner and join our narrator in mocking the existence that likewise mocks us all, accepting that true knowledge of the universe and its purpose is a sham and wasted effort in the face of our short lives.
This sequence of quatrains expresses the dissatisfaction we feel with those who claim to have exact knowledge of the meaning of life but who have little more idea than the next philosopher or demagogue and it is quite clear in conveying the “Carpe Diem” message of the poem.
I like the way Fitzgerald expresses this, particularly in quatrains XXXVIII: “One Moment in Annihilation’s Waste” and XL: “Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed/And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.”
Links
- Listen to Phil Holland’s performance on YouTube.