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Title: The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam (Penguin Classics)
ISBN: 0140443843
Author:
Omar Khayyam
Publicate Date: 1981-12-17
Publish: 1981-12-17
List Price: $11.00
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $3.94
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.56
Amazon Merchant Price: $9.35
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1: not bad
A little repetitive...
No point in worrying... enjoy life at the moment... can't control birth or death so lets get drunk and make love
But pretty.
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2: Wine of Wisdom & Understanding
I'm new to the Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam, but I must say I throughly enjoyed this translation. It's great for reading alone, reading aloud and discussing with good philosophically-minded friends.
To sum up the feelings of this book, I shall use some quotations from other media I enjoy. Here we go:
"Seize the Day" (Dead Poet's Society)
"Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you shall die" (The Bible)
"From dust you are, and dust you shall return" (Genesis, The Bible)
That's pretty much the gist of the poem, written in a style that evokes the Bible book of Ecclesiastes, which is not surprising. They are both written by old, disenchanted men nearing the end of their lives. The only difference is one is a disenchanted Jewish King (Solomon of Ecclesiastes) and the other (Omar Khayyam) is a disenchanted Moslem thinker and astronomer. It's very interesting to note the parallels.
I'd recommend this book and this very literal translation to those who are questioning the meaning of life. It's worth every penny...
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3: An essential read for multi-cultural studies
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is almost certainly the most widely known work by an Islamic writer. It is the only non-western piece of literature that I was required to read when in high school and I recently re-read this version. Like most historical pieces, it is difficult to understand without additional knowledge of the historical context. Khayyam was a Persian poet, mathematician and astronomer, which means he was as educated as the times allowed. The Rubaiyat was written in about 1120 C. E. and is in the form of quatrains or four-line rhymes.
As a poem, the flow is smooth and the imagery deals with the lot of what human life is. The fourteenth quatrain is:
Ah, 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!
with clear imagery regarding death, which is a consistent theme throughout. Other quatrains deal with how we cope with life, and how we deal with the difficult questions of our existence. Quatrain 74 is
Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare;
To-morrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair:
Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why:
Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.
describing how little we know about the consequences of our journey through life.
The deep imagery of the poems requires that you read it slowly and several times. Like the best of poems, the passages are often open to multiple interpretations, which increases the level of interest. I hope that the high schools in my area still require the eleventh grade English classes to read this poem, understanding it is truly within the purview of multicultural studies.
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4: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
I collect this work in different formats. This particular book is very good. I recommend everyone reading the Rubaiyat at least once in their lifetime. It is an excellent poetic examination of Man's purpose and Man's relation with God. One can appreciate the Rubaiyat only for its beautiful poetic images or explore it over and over for its deeper philosophical nuances. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is ever a delight no matter how you prefer it.
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5: Illustrated Editions Company Review
There are so many editions of Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat translations that have been published, with many being limited editions. Several of these rose to highly collectible status, especially those with tipped-in color plates by Dulac, Pogany or Arthur Szyk. These necessarily set them apart from other more textual editions.
This review has specifically to do with the Illustrated Editions Company 1938 printing. Physically, at 11 1/2" x 8" it is rather long and wide, almost completely black, except for a red illustration of a mosque on the cover, and thin.
I give 4 Stars only because it is not the first Fitzgerald edition, but a 20th century reprint. Beyond that, this is the most excellent of editions. The Illustrated Editions Company version has the first and last Fitzgerald translations.
This book is powerful and sacred. Reading it will invoke a shamanic experience-- you will be there, as Omar uses the wine metaphor to teach the value and ephemeral substance of life. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is essential metaphysics. The note and comment that open this edition are key to understanding why the Illustrated Editions Company is above all the rest, even other collector editions, of which I own several. It is the care and quality of the edition that sets it apart, certainly not anything distinguished about its content. This is my favorite edition of all. The tipped in color plates by Hamzeh Abd-ullah Kar are authentic Persian fantasy, and reading each carefully printed verse on the heavy, slightly glossy parchment is a religious experience. There is something qualitatively different about reading the Illustrated Editions Company version.
I can't find much else about this copy on the net, but there is one site that shows a copy remarkably similar to the one which I am using to base this review. I see no evidence that the title letters were ever gilt, although whenever the book goes up for auction the owners usually say the gilt is worn from the letters. This can't be true of all these copies, especially for a printing as late as '38, so I'm inclined to believe there never was any gilt lettering. I have seen other far less well preserved editions from earlier periods that have almost fully retained their gilt. The gems are between the boards, in this case.
The comment by Edward Heron-Allen is itself a collectible piece of literature, though he wrote only one paragraph. Truly an edition which can only be enjoyed by the reverential Rubaiyat enthusiast.
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