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Omar Khayyam"The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam"
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1100A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Finality of Death
In Verse 23, the speaker of “The Rubaiyat” advises the reader to make the most of their time, “Before we too into the Dust Descend; / Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie, / Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer and—sans End!” (Lines 90-92). The carpe-diem (seize the day/live for the now) guidance of the verse is all-too familiar and dates all the way back to ancient Roman poet Horace; however, it is not the real point of the epigrammatic verse. The actual revelation of the verse is not that humans return to death, ashes to ashes and dust to dust, but that they lie in this dust without wine, song, singing, or even an end. In other words, there is no afterlife, no glory, no voices from the beyond, just the radio silence of death.
The verse captures an essential theme of “The Rubaiyat,” which would have been heretical in its time and for many successive centuries; in the contemporary era it continues to be discomfiting for many. The finality of death implies that life may be meaningless, which is a question “The Rubaiyat” brings up again and again, but most strikingly in the metaphor of the cruel potter molding a pot only to smash it. Why make a thing when it has to be destroyed? What is the point of living a good life if destruction is so final? After all, nothing changes the course of physics, the effect of a cause, or happenstance, not piousness or intelligence or pity. Khayyam or the reader cannot cancel a Word of the dictate of fate, let alone “half a Line” (Line 103). It is a bleak conundrum. The text’s courage lies in accepting this conundrum without offering any one definite answer.
An interesting aspect of death’s finality, which the text often brings up, is that it is egalitarian. It did not spare even Jesus, who “from the ground Suspires” (Line 16), or the legendary Rustam, the mightiest of Iranian paladins or holy warriors, or Jamshyd, one of the greatest of Iran’s legendary shahs or kings. Perhaps the only consolation the text offers for the conundrum of human fate is that death comes for Sultan and Slave alike. In Verse 10, the speaker pities Sultan Mahmud (Mahmud of Ghazni, who ruled Afghanistan from 998-1030 AD) because he bore the burden of kingship even when it was all bound to end in the finality of death. Thus, it is implied that ordinary folk can draw consolation from the limits of earthly power. Further, the text does not even chase the popular idea that art, glory, or fame grants immortality. The speaker may still be speaking of Moses and Mahmud, but the fact is both are dead. A dead person cannot enjoy their own fame. As the speaker notes in Verse 26: “One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies; / The Flower that once has blown for ever dies” (Lines 103-04). Note the descriptor of “ for ever” before “dies,” as if underscoring the finality of death. Though the scattered flower may return to earth and feed new life, it in itself, as it existed, is gone irrefutably, the poem emphasizes.
Some critics have read a mystical strain in the verses of “The Rubaiyat” as well as hints of the soul and the afterlife. However, though the verses do from the very onset suggest that human life is transformed to create more life, it must be noted that this mostly refers to the body and not the soul. In fact, “The Rubaiyat” mentions the soul only in a few verses, and the only verse in which it is suggested that humans have a soul is Verse 54, where the speaker suggests fate has granted him a “predestin’d Plot of Dust and Soul” (Line 216). The question of what happens to the soul once the dust of the body is scattered is not pursued further; implying that perhaps the soul too mingles in the atoms of nature. At the poem’s end, the speaker exhorts the reader to pour a cup of wine over his grave, his plot of dust. While the request may seem at odds with the text’s theme of absolute death—why would the speaker require a libation of wine if his existence has been erased—it refers more to the speaker’s love of wine than anything else. Further, while the idea of offering wine to the dead is common in Greek and Christian beliefs, in Islam such a notion would be haram or sacrilegious. Thus, the speaker could simply be expressing irreverence, suggesting that he cares so little for heavenly rewards that this subversive earthly rite is welcome.
The Importance of Seizing the Day
If there is no life after death, then relishing every moment of earthly existence is a natural corollary. Thus, seizing the day forms one of the most prominent themes in “The Rubaiyat.” The poem begins with the cry “Awake!” (Line 1) because even a moment of the newly-dawned day cannot be wasted. The tossed stone of the sun has put “the Stars to Flight” (Line 2), and now sunlight is dappling the highest minars or towers of the king’s palace. The use of the metaphor of flight in this verse immediately creates a sense of a race; time is flying and so must the speaker. The imagery flight recurs throughout the poem and is linked with the swift passage of time, with time represented as a bird in flight (“Bird on the Wing”; Line 28), Life described as flying (Verse 26), and humans depicted as “Wind along the Waste, / I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing” (Lines 115-16). With the awareness of time’s passage so acute, one must make the best of each moment. Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat places the poem in the tradition of carpe-diem verse, in which a speaker often advocates that one makes merry while they can, since one’s lifespan is finite. The term carpe diem itself is drawn from Roman poet Quintus Horace’s (65-8 BCE) epigram: “carpe diem quam minimum credula postero” (“seize/capture the day, trusting as little as possible in the next one.”).
The irrevocable and speedy flight of time could fill an intelligent, self-aware person with pessimism, as it does the speaker often in the poem, especially in lines such as these from Verse 33:
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 (Lines 129-32).
Even the heavens can best offer the hope of a “blind understanding.” In this case, the human is like an insect trapped under an upturned cup (Verse 52).
However, the poem suggests that having a pessimistic attitude does not equal inaction. In fact, the only antidote to pessimism is to live in the now and immerse oneself in the wine of present experience. This experience is not the second-hand wisdom gained from doctors and saints, but the experience of being with the things that matter: nourishing nature, food, wine, and loving company (Verse 11). The exhilaration of an animating moment of love or wrath is the closest one comes to “the one True Light” (Lines 221-22). Thus, the poem’s emphasis is on motion, animation, and action, rather than an abandonment of life. Further, one must seize the day and seek loving company because love is the one constant. In the poem’s final verse (Verse 75), the speaker significantly refers to his beloved as the constant moon which never wanes. Therefore, one must let the heavenly moon (representing metaphysical abstraction) be, live in the moment, and capture the immediate beauty of being with one’s earthly moon (loved ones).
Realism as Faith
One of the most important themes of “The Rubaiyat” is the questioning of traditional religious ideas, such as belief in a soul, an afterlife, and the existence of a benign, just God. The poem often uses cutting observations, irony, and dark humor to explore this theme, such as in Verse 57:
Oh, Thou who didst with Pitfall and with Gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not with Predestination round
Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin? (Lines 225-28).
Here, pitfalls and sin refer to traps and snares, as if God has set up humans to be tricked by inventing the idea of sin in the first place. The logic of the verse is that if God created sin, humans are predestined to err; why, then should humans be punished for erring? In other verses, the speaker of “The Rubaiyat” extols the religion of wine, symbolizing abandonment and realism. In yet others, such as in Verse 23, he emphatically dismisses the idea of heaven and an afterlife:
Oh, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust Descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer and—sans End! (Lines 111-14).
Here, the phrase “dust into dust” evokes a common burial prayer. The finality of the phrase is accompanied by the hope of the afterlife. Yet in Verse 23, the speaker untethers death’s finality from that hope.
Despite the unorthodox opinions expressed in the verses, the poem as a whole suggests renegotiating ideas of faith rather than abandoning them altogether. For one, questions of true and false faith are central to “The Rubaiyat,” with the speaker (often gently, but sometimes harshly) mocking believers, philosophers, and clergymen for their misguided notions. The one true faith worth keeping is that of the Grape found in Verse 43, which “can with Logic absolute / The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute” (Lines 169-70): The 72 sects may refer to the many Islamic sects, or the number of religions in the world. Further, according to the Hadiths (the sayings of prophet Muhammad), 72 sects or denominations are bound for Hell. Thus, the speaker may be mocking the idea that despite the multiplicity of religions, none have been able to answer the riddle of life and death. However, wine with its intoxicating properties may offer answers which would confuse even scholars or offer answers which evade religion. But what does this faith of the wine actually imply?
In Fitzgerald’s interpretation, it implies a literal, epicurean devotion to wine; while mystical interpretations suggest the faith is a desire to mingle with a divine reality, like a drop into a full goblet. Yet, neither of these interpretations consider the full range of Persian philosophy, or Khayyam’s beliefs. Wine does function as a metaphor in the text, but it is the metaphor for a different kind of faith. And that faith is one rooted in realism, and the search for truth. The text’s truth does not lie in metaphysics or even science, as the speaker notes in Verse 40 when he describes reason as old and barren. Even reason is flawed because it assumes it has all the answers; the speaker’s faith acknowledges that the only answer is that there is none. Thus, the poem inverts the theme of wine as something that clouds judgement. In “The Rubaiyat,” wine opens doors and rends veils; it is associated with the one True Light that is glimpsed more in the tavern than in the place of worship (Verse 56). Even when the speaker talks of escaping the world in wine, he keeps returning to the real world of flowers, shops, potters, taverns, and doctors. Thus, the poem questions the notion that faith be necessarily abstract or metaphysical. Faith can also be a questing spirit and an admission of one’s own limits.
