فصل گل و طرف جویبار و لب کشت
با یک دو سه اهل و لعبتی حورسرشت
پیش آر قدح که باده‌نوشان صبوح
آسوده مسجدند و فارغ ز کنشت
Dashti, quatrain 51, p. 253
fasl-e gol o tarf-e juybaar o lab-e kesht
baa yek do seh ahl o lobati seresht
pish aar qadah ke baadenushaan-e sabuh
aasude ze masjedand o faaregh ze kenesht
The season of the rose and now by stream and field,
companions dear at my side and playmate houri-sweet.
Bring on the wine, for those who toast the day
are scot-free of the mosque and any worship place.
در فصل بهار اگر بتی حورسرشت
یک ساغر می دهد مرا لب کشت
هر چند بنزد عامه این باشد زشت
سگ به ز من است اگر برم نام بهشت
Forughi-Ghani, quatrain 35
dar fasl-e bahaar agar boti hurseresht
yek saaghar-mey dahad maraa lab-e kesht
har chand benazd-e ‘aame in baashad zesht
sag beh ze man ast agar baram naam-e behesht
Now that it's springtime, out by open field,
should a houri of a sweetheart bring along some wine ...
'though this will seem so crude to all the folk we know,
'a dog by far is better than me
should Paradise enter my thoughts.'
Translation & Discussion of Dashti's quatrain: Some comments about the two quatrains. Dashti has included both in a section of look-alike quatrains (sixteen similar quatrains, pp. 179-184, رباعیهای مشابه ). The last mesraa‘ of each quatrain, however, ends with behesht not kenesht. But in Dashti's selected quatrains of which our (fifth edition) quatrain 45 is an example, he only includes quatrain 51 which ends with kenesht. Puzzling, for in the second edition, he ends in behesht! I know this because Elwell-Sutton based his In Search of Omar Khayyam on Dashti's second edition. Dashti rejects including the Forughi-Ghani version but at times does he favors kenesht and sometimes behesht? As Elwell-Sutton translates (quatrain 51, p. 195) this last couplet:
Bring out the cup, for we who drink at dawn
Care nothing for the mosque or Paradise.
Hedaayat's quatrain 119, fairly similar to Dashti's quatrain, ends with behesht. Without a MS tradition for Khayyaam, that is, a major edition listing all MSS, collections, editions, and copies, with variant readings, there can be no way of knowing how kenesht appeared (kenesht, by the way, is a place of worship for non-Moslems, chiefly for Jews, a synagogue).
1. The season of the rose both by the riverside and at the edge of the (sown) field - lab-e kesht, see Arberry, Romance ... pp. 199-200. Arberry believes FitzGerald's 'Strip of Herbage' in Stanza XI (4th ed) is taken from this phrase (this stanza along with XII are quoted in the weblog, Quatrain 22). Arberry (200) also thinks that the Calcutta MS (which very closely resembles the Forughi-Ghani we have here) is the source for the last line of Stanza XI, the famous:
And Wilderness is Paradise enow
2. With one or two or three close friends and a playmate of houri-nature - حورسرشت, hurseresht, is a compound adjective, possessive, "having the nature of a houri." Beauty and attentiveness both are meant. اهل, ahl, friends of close association, perhaps having the same spirit and taste as ahl-e del. 3. Bring forth the cup(s) since wine-drinkers of the morning drink - باده‌نوشان, baadenushaan is a compound noun, a tat purusha compound, (those) drinking wine = wine-drinkers 4. Are at peace and "free" from the mosque and untroubled by place of worship or synagogue -- the sense is a carefree religious immunity for the party fortified by the pleasures of the morning drink and by the enjoyment of the day ahead. They have no care for other observations.
A note about what I seem to be calling Forughi-Ghani's quatrain .... در فصل - be nazd-e ‘aame = "in the view of the general populace", so not actually "all the friends we know" but more likely "all those we don't know." But "all the friends we know" euphemistically ...