چون عمر بسر رسد چه بغداد و چه بلخ
پیمانه چو پر شود چه شیرین و چه تلخ
می نوش که بعد از من و تو ماه بسی
از سلخ به غرّه آید از غرّه به سلخ
Dashti, quatrain 48, p. 252
chon ‘omr besar rasad che baghdaad o balkh
peymaane cho por shavad che shirin o che talkh
mey nush ke ba‘d az man o to maah-e basi
az salkh be ghorre az ghorre be salkh
Forughi-Ghani, quatrain 53, show this "inversion":
چون عمر بسر رسد چو شیرین و چه تلخ
پیمانه چو پر شود چه بغداد و چه بلخ
cho ‘omr besar rasad che shirin o che talkh
peymaane cho por shavad che baghdaad o balkh
When life ends whether it's sweet or bitter,
when the cup fills up whether at Baghdad or Balkh?
And sour or sweet, why fuss since life shall fly,
At Balkh or Baghdad—why care where we die?
Drink wine, for silv'ry Moon will keep its beat
From full to new long after you and I.
Saidi, quatrain 10
Whether at Naishápúr or Babylon,
Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.
FitzGerald, Stanza VIII, 4th ed.
Some FitzGeraldiana:
Arberry (Romance, 116) and Heron-Allen (p. 18-19) claim that FG was influenced by Nicolas in his choice of Naishápúr (Nicolas, quatrain 105, had written, in the second line, چه نشاپوُر و چه بلخ. And Whinfield, who also has نشاپور:
When life is spent, what's Balkh or Nishapore?
What sweet or bitter, when the cup runs o'er?
Come drink! full many a moon will wax and wane
In time to come, when we are here no more.
Whinfield, quatrain 134
Heron-Allen continues by translating lines three and four from Nicolas' quatrain 18. This is to demonstrate that Nicolas' rendition had a direct influence on FitzGerald's third line: Whether our Sākī holds the neck of the bottle in his hand,/Or the soul of wine oozes over the rim of the cup.
For FitzGerald's fourth line, Heron-Allen believes that FitzGerald used the Calcutta MS 377, the first two lines which H-A translates: At the moment when I flee from destiny,/And fall like the leaf of the vine, from the branch.
In The Romance of the Rubaiyat, Arberry relates FitzGerald's use of Latin for his first translations of Khayyaam. Arberry referred to FG's Latin style as "lazy Latin" (p.58). I think these "rough drafts" were useful in building a foundation for FitzGerald's English renditions. We have this very stanza in Latin (Arberry, 59) with my translation below it:
Sive Babylonem, sive Bagdad apud, Vita ruit,
Sive suavi, sive Vino Poculum mordaci fluit:
Bibe, bibe: nam sub Terra posthâc non bibendum erit;
Sine vino, sine Sáki, semper dormiendum erit.
Be it Babylon or Baghdad, so life goes,
And the Cup with Wine sweet or biting flows.
Drink up—in the Ground there's no time for bibbling,
Sans Wine, Sans Server, it's perpetual sleeping.
Translation & Discussion of the quatrain: 1. When life comes to the end, whether (in) Baghdad or whether (in) Balkh? -- be sar rasidan = to come to the end; che ... che, I read as coordinating, "whether ... or", however, che may also mean "when", وقتیکه , "when in Baghdad or Balkh". Either way of course conveys the meaning. و /"o" here is یا , "or". What does it matter: Baghdad, Balkh (or Nishapur) -- live in the west or east but when life is over...? Saidi (238-239) has notes on Baghdad and Balkh, the importance of these two cities, gems of the west and east. Nishapur may have found its way into MSS as the city of Khayaam's birth and death and where he spent most of his life. Khayyaam may not have gone to Baghdad, but he was in Balkh according to Nizami (of Samarqand), where one evening Khayyaam was said to have regaled Nizami and others with the prediction that flower-blossoms would twice yearly shower his grave at Nishapur (see E.G. Browne, Literary History of Persia, 2. 246-247).
2. When the cup is full, whether/when it's sweet or bitter 3. Drink wine, since after me and after you (there will be) many moons/phases of the moon) 4. They will come/stretch from the waning moon to the new moon, from the new moon to the waning moon -- both salkh and ghorre are from Arabic. salkh literally is the "stripped down month", the end of the month where the moon is "gone" and ghorre is the splendor of the new moon. Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon on ghorre: "the night, of the month, in which the new moon is first seen ... likened to the ghorre (blaze) on the forehead of a horse." So, salkh is the last day of the lunar month, ghorre is the first day of the lunar month, salkh's "opposite".