Omar Khayyam

Omar Khayyam was an 11^th/12^th century Persian philosophical poet, astronomer and mathematician. He wrote many short poems some of which were translated and gathered together as if one piece by Edward Fitzgerald and termed by him a Rubaiyat. Khayyam advocated charity towards all and warned of the temporary nature and dangers of wealth – a message fitting to our times if ever there was one. He was not afraid to depart from orthodoxy and express doubt on fundamental issues – a hazardous pursuit in that part of the world then as now – though broad learning was greatly valued at that time in his culture.

The Rubaiyat has been one of my favourite poems all of my life. Oddly, I was introduced to this by my mother who in all other regards departed little from her standard religious creed. It clearly has a deep resonance with partly conscious and unexpressed uncertainties about life and its meaning. This speaks to my own condition and outlook and I have always turned to the poem if in need of  what I think of as ‘angry consolation’. If you read the whole, I think you’ll see what I mean by this expression.

I once had the good fortune to be able to refer to Khayyam’s mathematical work in an academic paper of my own and have had a lifelong interest in astronomy so I have these reasons too to connect with his great work. This, and Khayyam’s critical approach to riches and his view of their distribution I hope have found an echo in some of the pieces I’ve written and in my own political and moral philosophy. Here I want to share with you just three verses (not in order – they are verse 32, the famous verse 76 and verse 35). They speak profoundly of life and repay the investment of much thought.

Into this Universe and Why not knowing,

Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing,

And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,

I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

There was the Door to which I found no Key:

There was the Veil through which I could not see:

Some little talk awhile of ME and THEE

There was – and then no more of THEE and ME.