Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

It is a flash from the stage of non-belief to faith,
There is no more than a syllable between doubt and certainty:
Prize this precious moment dearly,
It is our life's only fruit.

I had a palm size edition of Edward Fitzgerald's translation. He changed his translation over the years and there are big differences between some of the different published editions. Reading this, the Avery translation, was a shock because none of the verses were recognisable. At first I found myself like Pnin hankering after a wayward translation because it had its own strange music.

Nobody has known anything better than sparkling wine
Since the morning star and the moon graced the sky:
Wine-sellers astonish me because
What can they buy better than what they sell?

I'm not sure if Fitzgerald knew Persian, but in any case Avery's intention was to write a literal translation. Avery in the introduction is generous towards Fitzgerald's translation, which is well known and much loved. When it comes to translating poetry what the ill-tempered might call inaccuracy can be creativity, a reinvention of the original in an alien language which has its own foreign rhythm.

The year's caravan goes by swiftly,
Seize the cheerful moment:
Why sorrow, boy, over tomorrow's grief for friends?
Bring out the cup - the night passes.

Rereading what struck me was how repetitive many of the verses were. Some seem like variations of each other and the effect of reading them a little similar to reading Pascal's ±Ê±ð²Ô²õé±ð²õ. The themes are the impermanence of life, the unknowability of the future and afterlife, the enjoyment of the present moment and Dust Thou Art, and Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return. A pie chart illustrating Khayyam's poetic impulses would not need many slices.

How long shall I grieve for what I have or have not,
Over whether to pass my life in pleasure?
Fill the wine-bowl - it is not certain
That I shall breathe out again the breath I now draw.

Khayyam was a mathematician, astrologer and philosopher. The attribution of verses to his name was made only after his death. Some were also attributed to other writers and it seems that only one four line verse can be reliably thought to have actually been composed by Khayyam (and this because Ata-Malik Juvaini tells us that some of the survivors of the sack of Baghdad recited it in his history of the Mongol conquests). I suppose our ignorance over the authorship only proves the poet's point about the impermanence of life.

These few odd days of life have passed
Like water down the brook, wind across the desert;
There are two days I have never been plagued with regret for,
Yesterday that has gone, tomorrow that will come.