FitzGerald's version of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat is one of the glories of English poetry. It has contributed more phrases and common quotations to the language, relative to its size, than any other piece of literature - including the Bible and Shakespeare. "A flask of wine, a book of verse, and thou"... "The Moving Finger writes; and having writ // Moves on"... and so on.
FitzGerald came out with five editions of the Rubaiyat (the fifth being posthumous), with 75 four-line stanzas in the first edition, then tinkering with it for the rest of his life: adding another 30 stanzas, subtracting again, and constantly modifying words, phrases and punctuation. The first edition has several things in its favour: succinctness, and the fire and integrity of the original effort.
And of the hundreds of editions that have been published since, my two favourites are: for the lushness, the one illustrated by Edmund Dulac; and, for the background and insights, the one with an introduction by Dick Davis and published by Penguin in 1989.
In this particular Penguin edition (there have been several others), FitzGerald's first edition and fifth edition are given in full, together with complete listing of all the other variations found in the intervening versions. But - FitzGerald's Rubaiyat only being 300 or 400 lines, depending on the version - all of that barely takes up 50 pages. Dick Davis' introduction, almost as long, was presumably commissioned to make this a saleable book. And it is his introduction that gives it its full value.
Davis covers the life and what can be known of the personality of Omar Khayyam and - in conjunction with a review of FitzGerald's life, personality, agnosticism and guarded homosexuality - the attraction, almost identity, that FitzGerald felt for him. He also investigates and approves the depth of FitzGerald's translation skills, and analyses his use of rhyme scheme and meter to heighten the sense of inevitability in the work.
Perhaps the most intriguing thought to come from the Introduction is that the sensual illustrations of half-naked women, so common in our collection of Rubaiyats, are all wrong. From both linguistic and cultural clues in both the Persian and the English, it appears that the Saki, the young cup-bearer, the Thou of the flask of wine and book of verse, should be an attractive young male with his first moustache starting to grow in. In other words, and despite my preference for Dulac, FitzGerald's version of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam would perfectly support lush, ornate, gay illustrations.
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Reviews with images
Wonderful product with beautiful illustrations
I sometimes think that never blows so redThe rose as were some buried Cæsar bled;That every Hyacinth the garden wearsDropt in its lap from some once lovely headI originally ordered this because I learned about the mysterious case of the Somerton man. "tamám shud" was printed on a scrap of paper found months later in the fob pocket of the man's trousers. The scrap had been torn from the final page of a copy of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. I thought I would get some minimalistic paper back book but instead got an amazing, beautiful copy with fantastic illustrations.
Top reviews from other countries
Amazon Customer
A book of verse - an old friend.
Reviewed in Australia on August 18, 2018