The Rubaiyat

11/13/05 – 11/19/05

By C. Zaitz

A long time ago there lived a poet-astronomer named Omar Khayyam. He was born in Persia (present day Iran) in 1048. His list of accomplishments were long since he was a scientist, astronomer, mathematician, philosopher and poet. He made a new calendar that was better than the Julian and almost as good as the Gregorian calendar. He made contributions to algebra and astronomy, but he is famous for his poetry, especially the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. I wanted to share a few verses of this beautiful poem with you. Rubaiyat is a word that means “quatrains” referring to the four line verses of the poem. The rubaiyat were most famously translated by a 19th century scholar/poet named Edward Fitzgerald, and it’s his version I’m quoting. You might be familiar with this one:
“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!”
How romantic! This is how the rubaiyat begins:
“Wake! For the Sun who scatter’d into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night
Drives Night along with them from Heav’n, and strikes
The Sultans Turret with a Shaft of Light.” What a beautiful image of the sunrise scattering the starlight away and the first sunbeam striking the turret with its light. Here’s my favorite:
"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.”
Omar Khayyam seems to be reminding us not to wail to the stars for help- they just slowly roll by, winking and twinkling at us.

When you are outside this week, you can imagine the stars winking at you, but the planets will not seem to wink at all. Bright Venus watches us unblinkingly from her perch in the western sky at dusk, and Mars boldly stares down from his more eastern high ruddy throne in the sky. The planets give us steady light because the twinkling of starlight caused by the movement of earth’s atmosphere doesn’t bother the stronger light we get from our neighbors Venus and Mars. They are much closer to us than any star in the night sky, and therefore they give us more light, though it is only reflected from the sun.
I like to think that when we look at that inverted bowl we call the sky, we can all be poet/astronomers! All it takes is a little appreciation of its beauty, and with such a view of planets and stars, it’s easy!
Until next week, my friends, enjoy the view!