Omar Khayyam the Writer and Poet
Omar Khayyám is famous today not for his scientific accomplishments, but for his literary works, about a thousand four-line verses he is believed to have written. Around a hundred of them were translated into English by Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883) and published as The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (rubáiyát means "quatrains").
Other people have also published translations of some of the verses, but Fitzgerald's is the best known. Some people find this quite unfortunate, since Fitzgerald's translation is wildly inaccurate. In fact, Fitzgerald himself referred to his work as "transmogrification". In particular, Fitzgerald gave the Rubayyat a distinct atheistic spin. Others see Fitzgerald's translation of the work as being closer to the true spirit of the poems. Khayyam himself clearly was not an atheist, but a Sufi, and a devout Muslim, though perhaps in somewhat anorthdox way for his time. (For a good alternative to Fitzgerald's translation, consider one by Robert Graves and Ali-Shah. )
Perhaps the most famous of the verses (Fitzgerald's XII in his 5th edition [1], a reworking of XI in his 1st edition) is:
- "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!"
Another well-known verse (Fitzgerald's LI in his 1st edition) is: