Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Omar Khayyam, Peter Avery, John Heath-Stubbs ISBN: 0-14-005954-7 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: June, 1989 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.58 (24 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Omar and the Spice Girls
Comment: "The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam" translated by Peter Avery and John Heath-Stubbs is available in two Penguin editions. This edition (ISBN 01400595447) comes in a larger format with 32 beautiful colored illustrations of Persian miniature paintings from the 16th and 17th century, and an essay on the history of the miniatures that points out the influence of Chinese painting on Persian graphic arts (an interesting subject in itself). The other edition is the Penguin Classics edition (ISBN 0140443843), which is identical to this edition but lacks the illustrations and the essay on Persian graphic arts. The illustrated, larger sized edition is definitely worth the slightly higher price, in my opinion.
A reader who is familiar with FitzGerald's classic "re-creation" - "translation" is a term that is too weak in this context - will be surprised at the defiant materialism of Omar Khayyam's quatrains in Avery's literal translation stripped of the poetic spark of FitzGerald's work.
For example, while the Victorian gentleman Edward FitzGerald chose to translate Omar Khayyam's praise of simple joys and poetry in his famous "A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, / A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread - and Thou / Beside me singing in the Wilderness - / Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!", Peter Avery gives us not only a more literal translation (#98) but also a much more worldly (and spicy) version of the same theme:
If chance supplied a loaf of white bread,
Two casks of wine and a leg of mutton,
In the corner of a garden with a tulip-cheeked girl
There'd be enjoyment no Sultan could outdo. (#234)
In his introduction, Peter Avery points out that the ruba'i (quatrain) was the favorite verse form among intellectuals, "those philosophers and mystics in eleventh- and twelfth-century Persia who were in some degree non-conformists opposed to religious fanatism, so that they have often been called Islam's free-thinkers." And a free-thinker Omar Khayyam was. He did not believe in the cardinal Muslim tenet of the resurrection of the body after death, and he suggested that drinking wine was better than worrying about abstruse religious theories and dogmas. In an instance that must have been particularly enraging for orthodox Muslims he turned the argument for future rewards in paradise on its head by thinking it through to its logical end:
They promise there will be Paradise and the houri-eyed,
Where clear wine and honey will flow:
Should we prefer wine and a lover, what's the harm?
Are not these the final recompense? (#88)
(the "houri-eyed" are beautiful girls, by the way)
In another slyly funny (and self-critical) quatrain, Omar Khayyam pushes his skepticism and blunt honesty even further:
A religious man said to a whore, "You're drunk,
Caught every moment in a different snare."
She replied, "Oh Shaikh, I am what you say,
Are you what you seem?"(#86)
Peter Avery's translations stress the worldly, materialistic side of Omar Khayyam, which is rooted in his conviction that nothing lasts but the joys experienced in the present moment. What I missed in Peter Avery's translations, though, was the joy Omar Khayyam must have felt when he created a new quatrain to remind himself to seize the day, to change his state of mind (that's a polite way of describing "to get drunk") or just to invent a polished metaphor or rhyme. FitzGerald captured this redeeming poetic beauty of Omar Khayyam's work so well that his rendition of the Rubaiyat remains a benchmark true to the spirit if not the letter of the Persian poet:
And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,
Lift not your hands to It for help - for It
As impotently moves as you or I.
(while Avery translates with the intention "to give as literal an English version of the Persian originals as readability and intelligibility permit":)
The good and evil that are in man's heart,
The joy and sorrow that are our fortune and destiny,
Do not impute them to the wheel of heaven because, in the light of reason,
The wheel is a thousand times more helpless than you. (#34)
Buy this edition for the invaluable introduction, for the contrast to FitzGerald's rendition, and quite simply to get a feeling for Omar Khayyam's blunt honesty; but do buy a book with FitzGerald's version, preferably the out-of-print edition with English novelist A.S. Byatt's introduction ("Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", ASIN 0965231240).
And lest anyone should think Omar Khayyam was only a frivolous, inebriated hedonist, here are two of my favorite quatrains from Peter Avery's and John Heath-Stubbs's book:
If the heart could grasp the meaning of life,
In death it would know the mystery of God;
Today when you are in possession of yourself, you know nothing.
Tomorrow when you leave yourself behind, what will you know? (#5)
It is we who are the source of our own happiness, the mine of our own sorrow,
The repository of justice and foundation of iniquity;
We who are cast down and exalted, perfect and defective,
At once the rusted mirror and Jamshid's all-seeing cup. (#211)
(Avery explains that to the Persian culture hero Jamshid or Jam was attributed a magic cup in which he could see time past, present and future and all the world, and by which like Joseph with his silver cup, he could divine (Genesis xliv, 4-5).)
Rating: 5
Summary: Raise your glass to the transience of life
Comment: Omar Khayyam (1048-1131) was a Persian mathematician whom we in the West know primarily as the poet of the Rubaiyat (literally: quatrains). In fact most people only know Omar Khayyam for the 101 individual quatrains translated and arranged by Edward Fitzgerald in 1859. Fitzgerald's work was more than an ordinary translation, one critic wrote, it was so inspired that some people believed it was an English poem with Persian allusions.
Omar Khayyam writes about the fragility and transience of life,
Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain - this Life flies;
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies. (#63)
and about the inspiration to be found in wine and friendship:
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow! (#12)
In his best moments he rises above what some critics saw as cynical lament and reaches an appealing state of amused resignation:
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same Door where in I went. (#27)
The world of Omar Khayyam - Islamic Persia in the eleventh century - demands some explanation to fully appreciate the poetry. Unfortunately, my edition (Peter Pauper Press, White Plains, NY, 1991) did not contain footnotes to the quatrains and only the shortest of introductions. Scholarly comment is often indicated for key words in poetry. Take the word "wine", for example. It is interesting to be reminded that the subject of wine was inflammable because wine and drunkenness were prohibited by the principles of Islamic law. However, "wine" can also be interpreted as a metaphor referring to spiritual or romantic intoxication.
Bottom-line: I recommend to enjoy this book with a glass of full-bodied Italian red wine of the sort the Italians like to call "wine for meditation."
Rating: 5
Summary: Ruba'iya't of Omar Khayya'm
Comment: Omar Khayya'm was known as the astronomer-poet of Persia. This work would be perfect for a collegiate literary course emphasizing multi-cultural aspects in classic world writings. This
poetry traverses many different cultural
perspectives. Here are some tantalizing samples:
"Now the New Year reviving old Desires,
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the White Hand of Moses on the Bough
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires."
Alongside these lines is a picture of a young lady strolling
in the countryside ostensibly searching for something or
someone in vain. The combination of the poetry and the
drawing provide the reader with much to ponder. Surprisingly,
the musings of a Persian writer make reference to Jesus
in a work written in the 12th century or thereabouts.
Let's look at another quatrain.
"And this I know: whether the one True Light,
Kindle to Love, or Wrath consume me quite,
One Glimpse of It within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright."
The writer praises the act of coming to the truth. Apparently,
he doesn't care whether or not it is arrived at in the Tavern.
Alongside is a penciled drawing of a drunk man raising a
glass of wine to the heavens.
Another quatrain addresses our futile attempts to change fate:
"Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits-and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire! "
The lines describe changing the scheme of things. If we could
change things, what would we put in place of the old and whose
desires would be placated? G-d gave us free will and the
individual and collective control over destiny. When things
go wrong, how can we blame G-d for the fateful turn. It is
man (person) who controls destiny through free will.
When free will goes awry, it is not G-d's fault. Rather,
unintended twists in the road are consequences of our own
choices devoid of influences by G-d or any deity.
Let's look at one final quatrain-just for measure:
"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! "
The author conveys the importance of enjoying a good day.
He asks that we not spoil celebration with worries about
the morrow or regrets about things that are done and cannot
be changed in any event. Relish the present-especially if it
is an enjoyable present because tomorrow is yet unborn,
uncontrollable and maybe irrelevant.
This work has stood the scrutiny of 800 or so years. It is
written thoughtfully and with a modicum of wit. I would
recommend reading it in order to explore an important
multi-cultural experience rarely enunciated in Western writings.
 |
Title: Bhagavadgita by Sir Edwin Arnold ISBN: 0486277828 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 12 October, 1993 List Price(USD): $2.00 |
 |
Title: Wine of the Mystic: The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: A Spiritual Interpretation, from Edward Fitzgerald's Translation of the Rubaiyat by Paramahansa Yogananda ISBN: 087612225X Publisher: Self Realization Fellowship Pub Pub. Date: July, 1994 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
 |
Title: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: A Critical Edition (Victorian Literature and Culture Series) by Edward Fitzgerald, Christopher Decker, Omar ISBN: 0813916895 Publisher: University of Virginia Press Pub. Date: February, 1997 List Price(USD): $49.50 |
 |
Title: The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran ISBN: 0394404289 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 12 September, 1923 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
 |
Title: Wisdom of the Buddha : The Unabridged Dhammapada by W. Max Muller ISBN: 0486411206 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 24 March, 2000 List Price(USD): $1.50 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
