Quatrain 61 -- FitzGerald I

خورشید کمند صبح بر بام افگند

کیخسرو روز مهره در جام افگند

می خور که منادیِ سحرگه‌خیزان

آوازهٔ اشرابوا در ایّام افگند

  Heron-Allen, 1-2, Calcutta MS 134
          (Heron-Allen wrote منادئ -- modified > منادیِ ) 

khorshid kamand-e sobh bar baam afgand
keykhosrow-e ruz mohre dar jaam afgand
mey khor ke monaadi-ye sahargahkhizaan
aavaaze-ye eshrabu dar ayyaam afgand

 
The sun has thrown the lassoo of dawn over the roof,
The emperor of the day has thrown the bead in the cup:
Drink wine! for the herald of dawn arising
has flung the cry 'Drink!' into the days.

Arberry, The Romance of the Rubáiyát, 192 (& 137)

Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sult
án's Turret in a Noose of Light.
FitzGerald, Stanza I, 1st ed.          

(with FitzGerald's note: 'Flinging a Stone into the Cup was the Signal for "To Horse!" in the Desert')

Curiosity over the source of Stanza I caused me to post this quatrain. Four matters of interest have surfaced: First is the very question of "inspiration" for FitzGerald in this stanza.  Second is an informative footnote by Ali Dashti on the Persian quatrain above.  Third is a discussion of this custom of "flinging a stone" or mohre/مهره into a cup: what's involved.  Finally there is a brief note on transcription of the quatrain.

  • Was quatrain C 137 the inspiration for FitzGerald's 1st stanza?  The answer is "yes, in part" as viewers will read below. Although the Calcutta MS was apparently the only manuscript available to FitzGerald for this quatrain, there are others which contain this quatrain. Some differ. Dashti, for example, in the fifth edition of دمی با خیام  (dami baa khayyaam) instead of منادی has مؤذن/moazzen (p. 264, quatrain 13). This quatrain is, for Dashti, khayyaamic, but not one that makes the top seventy-five-likely-genuine-quatrain list. Heron-Allen states that the Calcutta MS was the "inspiration" for FitzGerald's rendition; Arberry (p.137) avers that C 137 "is the original of Stanza I." ‌But Arberry notes that in line 4, the copyist had written:

âwâza-yi sh.r.bû w.z aiyâm afkand ... instead of âwâza-yi ishrabû dar aiyâm afkand

Arberry continues, "In the end FitzGerald abandoned the second half of this quatrain and made his Stanza I out of the first half only." Here is also what Arberry has to say about the first beyt: "C 137 is the original of Stanza I, and it is interesting to speculate how differently FitzGerald might have translated this quatrain if the copyist had transcribed it correctly, and if he himself had read it correctly. The phrase Kai-Khusraw-i rûz  ('the Emperor of the Day') beginning the second line was misread as kanjrû-yi  rûz (so FitzGerald annotated the margin of the transcript); FitzGerald then looked into the dictionary and found the word ganjar ('rouge'); so he conjectured the meaning 'Rouged-faced Day', suggesting to him utimately, for his first edition, the lines:

Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night/Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight..."

It occurs to me that FitzGerald, having found ganjar -- no such word as kanjrû -- may have thought "homerically" of rosy-fingered dawn! I found ganjar/ganjaar in Steingass where it's defined as 'rouge' (and so in Dehkhoda, loghatnaameh, with attribution to the important 17th century dictionary, farhang-e rashidi). Since FitzGerald looked it up, it would have appeared in Francis Johnson's 1852 dictionary (A Dictionary Persian, Arabic and English).

FitzGerald's correspondence, a letter to Cowell in June of 1857, reveals FitzGerald's struggles with this quatrain especially lines 2 and 4 (Terhune 2.280-281).  It is puzzling from the June 1857 letter, where FitzGerald clearly writes کیخسرو روز, keykhosrow(-e)ruz, why Cowell would not have explained this allusion to him. He may have, but there is no acknowledgment of it.

FitzGerald continues to be troubled by this stanza (he refers to it as "the infernal Stanza I") and asks Cowell in mid-1872 for help with it (Terhune 3.356-357 & 3.360-361). If not specifically this stanza, Cowell must have offered advice on some of the stanzas (Terhune 3.363) which were to be included in the third (1872) edition. It is worth noting, however, that from 1859 until his death, Stanza I is the only stanza FitzGerald turns to Cowell to ask for advice; that is, the only stanza we know of from the Terhune collection. Granted that FitzGerald was perplexed by this quatrain, he likely set his course in the years preceding the 1859 edition; in January, 1864, he writes Cowell (Terhune 2.510) that he is "too lazy to turn Dictionaries over now; and indeed had some while ceased to expect much to turn up from them."

To return to FitzGerald's misread of keykhosrow(-e)ruz.  Did FitzGerald's poetic sense and imagination lead him to stop trying to look further in favor of creating his own material?  Although FitzGerald from his dictionary would have found mohre dar jaam afgand: "x" threw the pebble in the cup, and although this translation suited his note to the Stanza, i.e., flinging a stone in the cup was the signal in desert life to mount up, because he has misread keykhosrow(e)-ruz he is led to create the Stanza in its present form as Arberry rightly notes.  Further, in his letter to Cowell (Terhune 2.280-281), he says that "it would have been pretty if one could construe" 'The Sun throws Day--or Day throws the Sun--into the Cup of Heaven as a Signal for Night's retreat'. And FitzGerald has construed it in this manner in the second and subsequent editions as viewers will see at the very end of this posting.

I think it is evident from this letter and all the editions, including one proof and the two revises, set out in the final section of this post, that he has worked in this fashion on this very idea.

  • Ali Dashti's note on the quatrain, quatrain 13, footnote 1, p. 264:
    رباعی زیباست. استعاره‌های بیت اول آن را                          
    از سبک خیام که به سادگی موصوف است، دور می‌کند؛
    ولی طنز بیت دوم که مؤذن هنگام سحر برای روزه‌گیران
    .‌ندای «اشرابوا» در می‌دهد، لطیف و به خیام نزدیکش می‌کند      

"This is a charming quatrain.  The figurative expressions in the first couplet put it at odds with the style of Khayyaam which is characterized by straightforwardness of expression.  But the satire in the second couplet, when at dawn the muezzin announces to the fasting "Drink!" is witty and right at the core of Khayyaam."

Elwell-Sutton adds this to the note: " the muezzin at daybreak calling on the fasters to drink (by a somewhat irreverent use of a Koranic phrase) ..."  (In Search of Omar Khayyam, 203, footnote 5). 

This "somewhat irreverent use" likely refers to Quran, 2.187. Prescriptions for the Fast during Ramadan are given where fasters may eat and drink (اشربوا/eshrabu) until the white thread becomes distinct to you from the black thread at the dawn.  In our quatrain, the fasters simply fast overnight - while they sleep! 

  • مهره / mohre , and sources for "flinging a stone into the cup " 

There are three excellent articles on source and meaning, with attached comments, in the weblog Omar Khayyam Rubaiyat (OKR): October 15, 2012, December 11, 2012 and March 13, 2013 . It seems from the research presented here that FitzGerald's only written resource for which there is evidence of this custom is his dictionary. That is, his 1852 Johnson (A Dictionary, Persian, Arabic and English) as recorded in his letter to Cowell, June, 1857, Terhune 2.280-281. I am excerpting, in a very compressed fashion, from the weblog articles in these first four paragraphs, except where I bracket my own notes.

FitzGerald also writes to Cowell in the same letter "you must remember how often we have read about the Stone in the Cup, etc."  Although the stone-in-cup custom was mentioned by Heron-Allen and Nicholson, neither give sources for this reference. In addition, the 2012  OKR article mentions Cowell's apparent annotation of his own copy of Richardson's 1829 dictionary (Dictionary of Persian, Arabic and English). Here Cowell refers to the stone's possible twofold use -- dropping a stone in a cup as a signal and 'striking a bell on the elephant's back' also to signal.

Cowell also cross-referenced mohre,  with its several uses, to Vullers' Lexicon Persico-Latinum, two volumes, the second published in 1864, which volume contains the headword مهره. [See the brief article on Vullers in the German Wikipedia with bibliography.] Most of the evidence for Cowell-Vullers is found in the December 11, 2012 post in OKR. By the way, the contributors to the OKR articles searched in vain for attributions of this stone-in-cup practice in various early sources and travel accounts.

 

********* 

At this point, I wondered if the Shahnameh was the literary source.  After all, it is Keykhosrow who has "flung" the mohre, and add to it that Vullers' interest lay in this epic poem.  Vullers' work on the Shahnameh included a collection of exemplary and instructive passages, a chrestomathy, in fact, titled just that: Chrestomathia Schanamiana (1833) and three volumes firdusii libri regum, published in Leiden, 1877-1884. (The third volume was published by students and Samuel Landauer, who had worked with Vullers.)  Vullers' libri regum, his Book of Kings would have interested Cowell because, according to Ehsan Yarshater, this new edition of Vullers was the most notable of the editions of the Shahnameh in the nineteenth century (Ehsan Yarshater's English "Introduction" to volume 1 of Jalal Khaleghi-Motlagh's edition of the Shahnameh - 1988, p. vii).

It may be helpful to turn to the work Cowell had cross-referenced, Vullers' Lexicon Persico-Latinum Etymologicum and his entry: مهره (mohre). In Vullers, especially p. 1242. 2, we see two items of interest to our discussion. First, there is the reference without literary attribution to either throwing a mohre into a cup/jar/urn or possibly the striking of a jar/urn attached to the back of an elephant with a mohre. Secondly, there is this (excerpted) quote from the Persian lexical source, برهان قاطع /borhaan-e qaate‘ compiled and edited in English by Thomas Roebuck in 1818: "they say in the time of the Kayanian dynasty [from Key Qobad to Dara or Darius] that it was the customary practice to attach a fine and strongly made vessel to the flank of an elephant and when the king mounted a finely fashioned mohre was flung into the vessel. It made a mighty sound and everybody then knew it was time for them to mount up."  Again, this explanation is made without reference to a literary work. 

The KeyKhosrow-e ruz in our quatrain may refer to the action taken by KeyKhosrow on a particular campaign day. This custom, however, may be simply legendary. Absent archaeological evidence, we will do well to enjoy the image and not worry ourselves over the execution. Yet what follows is my attempt to worry just a little!

A preliminary search of the Shahnameh does reveal this action of KeyKhosrow (from Khaleghi-Motlagh's edition of the Shahnameh, 3. 19. 376-379):

یکی مهره در جام بر دست شاه       به کیوان رسیده خروش سپاه

چو بر پشت پیل آن شه نامور        زدی مهره در جام و بستی کمر

نبودی به هر پادشاهی روا           نشستن مگر بر درِ پادشا

از آن نامور خسرو سرکشان        چنین بود در پادشایی نشان

yeki mohre dar jaam bar dast-e shaah
be keyvaan raside khorush-e sepaah
cho bar posht-e pil aan shah-e naamvar
zadi mohre dar* jaam o basti kamar
nabudi be har paadshaahi ravaa
neshastan magar bar dar-e paadshaa
az aan naamvar khosrow-e sarkashaan
chonin bud dar paadshaai neshaan

* variant bar (against) in Leningrad MS

The king held a bell-urn, mohre inside,
cheers of his armies reached the skies.
When this worthy king mounted elephant,
he'd strike
mohre on bell and fasten his belt.*
For those in his sway it was thus prescribed
that all would assemble at court-gate side.
Worthy Khosrow, unyielding over this,
'twas custom and way in this realm of his.

*or drop/throw mohre into cup or urn! (discussion below)

And compare this passage, Khaleghi-Motlagh 2.384.79-84, "Revenge for the death of Siawash" -- داستان کین سیاوخش 

 کنارنگ با پهلوان هرکه بود               چو زان گونه آواز رستم شنود

همه برگرفتند یکسر خروش               تو گفتی که میدان برآمد به جوش

از ایران یکی بانگ برشد به ابر           تو گفتی زمین شد کنام هزبر

بزد مهره بر پشت پیلان به جام            سپه تیغ کین برکشید از نیام

برآمد خروشیدن گاودم                       دم نای سرغین و رویینه‌خم

جهان شد پر از کین افراسیاب              به دریا تو گفتی به جوش آمد آب

kanaarang baa pahlavaan harke bud    
cho zaan gune aavaaz-e rostam shenud
hame bargereftand yeksar khorush    
to gofti ke meydaan baraamad be jush               
az iraan yeki baang barshod be abr       
to gofti zamin shod konaam-e hezabr
bezad mohre bar posht-e pilaan be jaam                 
sepah tigh-e kin barkeshid az niyaam  
baraamad khorushidan-e gaavdom     
dam-e naay-e sarghin o ruyinekhom
jahaan shod por az kin-e afraasiyaab          
be daryaa to gofti be jush aamad aab

 
Each leader and his bravest men
when they heard this cry from Rostam,
a shout as one voice all men raised
the field, you'd say, was a fevered rage.
The cry of Iran went high as the sky
on earth, lions in prides seemed ready to vie.
On bells aboard elephants,
mohres were struck
the sword of revenge from sheaths now plucked:
trumpets blared and pipes were shrill,
kettledrums thrummed, Afraasyaab to kill,
the world full-bent on paying a score,
seas seemed to boil, cool waters no more. 

* it appears that the leaders in the first line performed this action as there were a number of elephants (pilaan)

Khaleghi-Motlagh has a note for line 82, "that is, the sound of the bell (zang) signals the army to move"; he also cross- references, 1.271.1528, where Sâm has come to see Rostam.  And Zâl at the approach "strikes the mohre on the bell"

What has started as a pebble in a cup has migrated to the striking of a bell (thought a possibility by Cowell). Khaleghi-Motlagh's note just above has zang/"bell", and this meaning is reinforced by the headword, mohre (14) and its cross-reference to jaam (9) in Anvari's dictionary, farhang-e bozorg-e sokhan, where under mohre the definition is "a tool/device struck on a jaam -- urn/cup". But bell is likely meant. For under jaam, we find a description of the mohre as encased in a frame of sorts.  The mohre then would refer not to a roundish object like ball or stone but to a kind of striking implement to be placed in a jaam, a vessel-shaped bell.  The vessel-bell with mohre inside will be attached to the back/saddle of the elephant. Passages from the Shahnameh, the two preceding lengthy passages with their translations and transcriptions support this conclusion. My renditions reflect this usage.

Yet this notion of bell & mohre is not conclusive!  Dehkhoda, in his encyclopaedia-dictionary, loghatnaameh, in these two lengthy references to Ferdowsi understands mohre dar/bar jaam zadan as throwing the mohre into either a metal vessel or jaam: the verbs rikhtan and afkandan, the latter will be familiar to visitors to this site from our quatrain's keykhosrow-e ruz mohre dar jaam afgand.  We also find in Dehkhoda the reference from borhaan-e qaate‘ with the same "hearsay" evidence we have translated above from Vullers' Lexicon. The borhaan-e qaate‘ is quite likely the chief resource for the dictionaries used by FitzGerald and Cowell. Vullers calls it "the best and most complete as all Persianists would agree". Steingass follows suit, it appears, as he has: muhra dar jâm afgandan "to throw the pebble into the cup (a signal for mounting on horseback)" -- of interest, farhang-e bozorg-e sokhan shows no such use for afk(g)andan.

Evidence then points to the Shahnameh as the source for this "stone/pebble in a bowl" event that FitzGerald has ascribed to a nomadic or desert custom. We see from our two examples from the Shahnameh and Khaleghi's cross-reference to Sâm's visit to Rostam, that this procedure could be both "military" and ceremonial. Perhaps dropping a mohre into a jaam is one method of announcing an event as Dehkhoda seems to understand it. As has been said, it was the case as Cowell and others before and after him thought. Cowell seemed to know that "striking a bell" was an alternative.  In "ball-dropping/throwing" there would not be so much noise -- it wouldn't be like a bell-- and this would seem to have a significance that needed explanation.

Bell-striking is supported by two excellent sources, Khaleghi-Motlagh and the farhang-e bozorg-e sokhan. In the absence of archaeological or other definitive information, it is impossible to know how what appears to be a primitive custom was carried out. But this ceremony, however it was executed, seems meant to inform, announce or prepare for an important happening. It reveals a potential literary source for FitzGerald's elusive note.

  • Two items on the transcription of the quatrain:

A useful reference for the metrics of the quatrain, as mentioned before, is to be found  by selecting  "Prosody" under the Menu for this weblog.

First, Heron-Allen writes منادئ - what did he mean by this, I wondered: a glottal stop and so, monaadaa? Or possibly by ئ he intended monaadaa-ye?  Whinfield writes منادیّ - so, monaadi-ye.

 I asked Connie Bobroff her opinion on this line and she responded: "Concerning line 3, here's my take: I think it had been the custom to write منادئ when منادیِ was really meant." And so I have modified the line to read monaadi-ye (منادیِ)

And second, in line 3, note that sahargahkhizaan (سحرگه‌خیزان) is a compound adjective = "the rising of the time of morning" -- "the herald of dawn arising" as Arberry has it.

-----------------------------------------------

The following are FitzGerald's first and subsequent editions including the 1872 proof and the two 1872 revise stanzas. The source is Decker 119 (Edward FitzGerald, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: A Critical Edition, University Press of Virginia, 1997):  

Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And, Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultán's Turret in a noose of Light. (1859, 1st ed.)

Wake! For the Sun behind yon Eastern height
Has chased the Session of the Stars from Night
And, to the field of Heav'n ascending, strikes
The Sultán's Turret with a Shaft of Light. (1868, 2nd ed.)

Wake! For the Sun before him into Night
A Signal flung that put the Stars to flight;
And, to the field of Heav'n ascending, strikes
The Sultán's Turret with a Shaft of Light. (1872 p)

Wake! For the Sun before him into Night
A Signal launched that put the Stars to flight;
And, to the field of Heav'n ascending, strikes
The Sultán's Turret with a Shaft of Light. (1872 r1)

Wake! For the Sun who scatter'd into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes
The Sultán's Turret with a Shaft of Light. (1872 r2)

Wake! For the Sun who scatter'd into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes
The Sultán's Turret with a Shaft of Light. (1872 3rd ed.)

Wake! For the Sun who scatter'd into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes
The Sultán's Turret with a Shaft of Light. (1879 4th ed.)

Quatrain 60

 

گردون نگری ز قدّ فرسودۀ ماست

جیحون اثری ز اشک پالودۀ ماست

دوزخ شرری ز رنج بیهودۀ ماست

فردوس دمی ز وقت آسودۀ ماست

Hedaayat, quatrain 142

gardun negari ze qadd-e farsude-ye maast
jeyhun asari ze ashk-e paalude-ye maast
duzakh sharari ze ranj-e bihude-ye maast
ferdows dami ze vaqt-e aasude-ye maast

Our world is worn-weary like us,
and the Jayhun flows with tears we have shed,
Hell, our sparks of anguish held in vain,
Heaven, a pause in time we've gained.

Translation & Discussion of the quatrain:   1. Heaven/the world is an example of our worn out body -نگر= نمونهnegar = nemune  (Anvari, 8.7953, citing this very line) and قدّqadd , body, here not in the "fair'' form as in Hafez, usually "stature"; e.g., Khanlari, 174.9: به قد و چهره هرآن کس که شاه خوبان شد -- "everyone who, by visage and stature, has become king of beauties ..." 2. The Jeyhun/Jayhun (Amu Darya/Oxus) the trace/result/flow of our tears made pure -- see Saidi, note 99, p. 252 on the Oxus. This river-name at least in classical Persian was coupled with the verb کردن = kardan with the meaning of tear up, weep or cause a flood. So tears may be expected when the Jeyhun is mentioned; however, the tears in the context of this roba`i are plentiful and contribute to the flow of this great river. That they are "made pure" or "strained" or "filtered" (the participle پالوده / paalude may refer to tears of the heart filtered through the eyes or the catharsis weeping often produces). This river is now usually called the Amu Darya (with various spellings) and owes its source to the junction of the Panj and Vakhsh rivers at the southwestern tip of Tajikistan where Tajikistan borders Afghanistan. The Greeks and Romans called it the Oxus. I don't how long the name Jeyhun persisted, and it may be called by this name even today in some areas of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. I suppose it's accurate to say that in this "Nile to Oxus" region, the Nile and Oxus were the principal rivers, the Oxus navigable for over half its 1,500 or so miles and was, as some traveler-historian had referred to it in its olden days, "the highway of nations." The Jeyhun would have been well-known to Persians. One trading route, one of the Silk Road routes, crossed the Jeyhun between Bukhara and Marv on the way to Nishapur ... and just east of Bukhara was Samarqand (both Bukhara and Samarqand then large and prosperous cities) 3. Hell the sparks of our pain in vain -- calls to mind -- "the pain in vain" the final mesraa of the source-quatrain in weblog Quatrain 36 (Quatrain 36 devoted to FitzGerald's famous stanza, "The Moving Finger writes"  LXXI, 4th ed.)  

زین پیش نشان بودنیها بوده است

پیوسته قلم ز نیک و بد ناسوده است

در روز ازل هر آنچه بایست بداد

غم خودن و کوشیدن ما بیهوده است

Heron-Allen, 107, from Ouseley 31 and Calcutta 87

zin pish neshaan-e budanihaa budast
payvaste qalam ze nik o bad naasudast
dar ruz-e azal har aanche baayest bedaad
gham khordan o kushidan-e maa bihudast

What was to be was written long ago,
the restless pen spared nothing good or bad.
The first day it set down the rules of life,
our pouting, trying harder -- what a waste of time.

and line 4. Paradise a moment of our time made free (of pain, toil, strife)

And FitzGerald, not in the first edition but appearing in editions two, three and four:

Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire,
And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire,
Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,
So late emerg'd from, shall so soon expire.
Stanza LXVII, 4th ed.

Heron-Allen (101-103), offers Ouseley 33 and Calcutta 90 as FitzGerald's sources for the quatrain below, where only the first mesraa varies, gardun kamari az tan-e farsude-ye maast which Heron-Allen translates, "The heavenly vault is a girdle (cast) from my weary body":

گردون کمری از تن فرسودۀ ماست

جیحون اثری ز اشک پالودۀ ماست

دوزخ شرری ز رنج بیهودۀ ماست

فردوس دمی ز وقت آسودۀ ماست

 

Neither Dashti nor Forughi-Ghani include this roba`i.  It occurs in Nicolas (90) and Saidi has a slightly different reading in each line of the first bayt: ز عمر /ze ‘omr (-e) in the first mesraa and ze cheshme-ye aalude-ye, ز چشم آلودهٔ in the second.  Saidi's rendering:

The world is but a belt of fading years,
The Oxus but the trace of running tears;

And Hell is but the spark of futile toil,
And Paradise a flash of fleeting cheers.
Saidi, quatrain 122 (see Aminrazavi, p. 122)

 

Quatrain 59

هنگام صبوح ای صنم فرخ‌پی

برساز  ترانه‌ای و پیش آور می

کافکند به خاک صد هزاران جم و کی

این آمدن تیر مه و رفتن دی

Dashti, quatrain 34, p. 250

hangaam-e sabuh ey sanam-e farrokhpey
barsaaz taraanei o pish aavar mey
kafkand be khaak sad hazaaraan jam o key
in aamadan-e tir mah o raftan-e dey

O Lightsome Love, 'tis time for dawn-draught, pray,
The goblet fetch and sing a song, be gay;
The endless round of  Teer and Dey has flung
A hundred thousand Jams and Keys on clay.

Saidi, quatrain 6

Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say;
Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?
And this first Summer month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobád away.
FitzGerald, stanza IX, 4th edition

(see below for Arberry's discussion of FitzGerald's sources and treatment of this stanza)

Translation & Discussion of the quatrain:

1. Time for the morning drink, o love whose entry is auspicious ... فرخ‌پی/farrokpey connotes more than "lightsome" (nimble footed/agile); it is a compound adjective, "possessing a blessed, auspicious footstep/entry." The narrator addresses the beloved, who will bring the morning drink with auspicious gait, welcomed as a harbinger of good fortune by the speaker and any others who may be present.  The epithet seems formulaic (there is farkhondepey as well with the same meaning and possibly there are other auspicious "-peys"). There is importance and significance attached to the person who first enters, a first-footer whose ingress will usually be favorable, and as here, entry accompanied by the auspicious first-cup of the day. Saidi has a note on the morning drink, the صبوح /sabuh. He says that having an early morning cup was the custom in pre-Islamic times and its preservation in later times, for revelers at least, represented a freedom from religious prohibition (see note 9, p. 237; cf. weblog Quatrain 45) 2. Sing a song and bring the wine 3. Hurled to earth a hundred thousand Jams and Keys... for Kayqobad and Jamshid, see weblog Quatrains 15 and 24 respectively (and Saidi's note 69, p. 248 for Kayqobad and note 66, p. 247 for Jamshid 4. This coming of the month of Tir and the going of Dey...again, see Saidi's note 10 and 11, pp. 237-238 on Tir and Dey. The month Tir ushering in summer, roughly from June 22 to July 22. The month of Dey begins winter, 22 December (see Hazhir Teimourian's translation of weblog Quatrain 53 for this cycle, "May to December, December to May")

I end this segment, Quatrains 41-59, with FitzGerald as we are approaching the year 2009, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edward FitzGerald and the 150th anniversary of the publication of the first edition of his Rubáiyát.  Here is a summary of Arberry's note on this stanza and FitzGerald's sources (Arberry, Romance... pp. 144-5; 198: Arberry says (198) the source of the first half of this stanza was the first bayt of C(alcutta) 518:

ازآمدن بهار واز رفتن دی
اوراق وجود ما همی گردد طی

az aamadan-e bahaar vaz raftan-e dey
awraaq-e vojud-e maa hami gardad tey

With the coming of Spring and the departing of December all the leaves of our existence are being rolled up (Arberry)

And coupled with the second bayt (as Dashti also records it), taken from C 497

کفکند به خاک صد هزار جم و کی
این آمدن تیرمه و رفتن دی

kafkand be khaak sad hazaar jam o key
in aamadan-e tirmah o raftan-e dey

 For to earth has flung a hundred thousand Jams and Kais this coming of April [sic] and departing of December (Arberry)

FitzGerald, according to Arberry (144-5) "misread dai ('December') as ('yesterday') despite the requirement of the rhyme, and was therefore puzzled by bahâr ('Spring')Accordingly he introduced the idea of 'today' ('with the Day', 'Morning', 'Each Morn') ... "  'With the day' occurs in the 1st edition and 'Morning' in the 2nd. See also Terhune 2. 289.  Decker, p. 127, has the comparative texts of all editions.

Quatrain 58

در کارگه کوزه‌گری کردم  رای
در پایۀ چرخ دیدم استاد به پای
می‌کرد  دلیر کوزه را دسته و سر
ازکلهٔ پادشاه و از دست گدای

Dashti, quatrain 39, p. 251    

dar kaargah-e kuzegari kardam raay
dar paaye-ye charkh didam ostaad be paay
mikard delir kuze raa daste o sar
az kalle-ye paadshaah o az dast-e gedaay

Watchful while in a potter's shop,
I saw the master work his wheel.
Bold handle-arms and heads he made,
heads from kings, arms from beggars.

Translation & Discussion of the quatrain:
1.  In the shop of a potter I closely watched ... the verb, رای کردن/raay kardan, often means to form a plan, decide, be intent on something, and in this context I think that it means to have in mind to observe closely  2. I saw the master stand at the treadle of the wheel... theword "treadle'" as the Persian پایه/paaye means "stairstep" and this treadle is likely, a raised platform, perhaps circular, with a lever mechanism attached to the column which turns the platform and arm-like vertical device on which the clay is shaped.  "Wheel" refers to the entire apparatus.  I have not been able to find information on Persian pottery wheels so this description is tentative. 3.  He was making, intrepidly, the handle and head for the pot... The master craftsman goes boldly ahead using the clay-remains of all animate creatures who have passed this way before -- quite naturally without regard as we see in the final mesraa‘ for social distinction  4.  From the head of a king and hand of a beggar

 

Quatrain 57

ای کاش که  جای آرمیدن بودی

یا این ره دور را  رسیدن بودی

کاش از پسِ صد هزار سال از دل خاک

چون سبزه امید بردمیدن بودی

Dashti, quatrain 18, p. 247

 

ey kaash ke jaa-ye aaramidan budi
yaa in rah-e dur raa rasidan budi
kaash az pas-e sad hazaar saal az del-e khaak
chon sabze omid-e bardamidan budi

Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield
One glimpse--if dimly, yet indeed reveal'd,
To which the fainting Traveller might spring,
As springs the trampled herbage of the field!
FitzGerald, XCVII, 4th ed (not in 1st ed)

Ah, would there were a place wherein to rest--
An end at last to long road manifest--
That aft' a hundred thousand years, a hope
To spring as springs the herbage from earth's breast!
Saidi, quatrain 124

If I could find a place to rest...
Or a stop to this weary road,
If hope would blossom ever
like flowers from the deep earth's core.

Translation & Discussion of the quatrain:
1.  Wish there were place for resting ... ای کاش که/ey kaash ke is followed by the past tense of the verb with the conditional marker ی/i > budi.  2. Or were there ending for this long road ... the continuation of the hope expressed in the first line.  3.  Were there after a hundred thousand years out of the heart of the earth - how to address such a staggering number of years?  The speaker may believe it will take "forever," 10 times the ultimate 10,000 years for hope to spring forth again (10,000 years as "the upper limit of the decimal series," Annemarie Schimmel, The Mystery of Numbers, Oxford, 1993, 278). Other editors, compilers, translators, such as Forughi-Ghani (163), Hedaayat (22), Whinfield (442) and the robai likely consulted by FitzGerald (Heron-Allen, 141-3) read in the 3rd line, از پی/ az pey-e (صد ). There is no substantial difference in meaning from az pas-e sad hazaar saal. In rendering از دل خاک/az del-e khaak I am reminded of Yeat's "from the deep heart's core" from his "Lake Isle of Innisfree".  4.  Like greenery, would there be the hope of blossoming/’greening’ ever more ...

FitzGerald includes his stanza above in the last six stanzas of his poem as the day-traveler/speaker winds down in resignation and acceptance that this life will not be a paradise on earth, a garden paradise or "civilized" civilization (see Michael Hillmann's analysis, especially pages 56-60 in Iranian Culture).  To counter the criticism that FitzGerald does not render Khayyaam accurately yet catches the spirit of Khayyaam's quatrain, this very stanza does both. It is to my mind a marvelous rendition and close to the letter of the Khayyaam-poem.

 

Quatrain 56

تا کی غم  این خورم که دارم یا نه

وین عمر به خوشدلی گذارم یا نه

درده قدح باده که معلومم نیست

کاین دم که فروبرم  برآرم  یا نه

Dashti, quatrain 55, p. 254

taa key gham-e in khoram ke daaram yaa na

vin  ‘omr be khoshdeli gozaaram yaa na

dardeh qadah-e baade ke malumam nist

kin dam ke forubaram baraaram yaa na

Why worry whether wealth I have or not,
And life in happiness shall end or not--

Come, fill the cup; for 'tis unknown to me
The breath inhaled shall be exhaled or not.
Saidi, quatrain 80

Shall I still sigh for what I have not got,
Or try with cheerfulness to bear my lot?
Fill up my cup! I know not if the breath

I now am drawing is my last, or not!
Whinfield, quatrain 411

Translation & Discussion of the quatrain:
1.  How long shall I be caught up in grief over this:  'I have got or haven't got?'  Some this  autumn morning are entangled by what they have or haven't got, let's say money; however, for the speaker it's also possible that possessions and a host of other life-sustaining matters as well are meant.  "Entangled" (or "ensnared") by worry or sadness conveys the import of غم خوردن/gham khordan.  2.  And shall I live this life with hopeful heart or not?  I think that خوشدلی/khoshdeli means not so much a happy heart but a heart that has hope.  Whinfield's take "Or try with cheerfulness to bear my lot" gives a different interpretation.  The speaker asks two simple questions commonly asked, in this first bayt: will I have what I wish or not, and will I be happy or not?  The khayyaamic will not hear of these future fears -- never mind that no one could speak to them -- and the speaker now turns in this last bayt to what he can speak to, that is, the present and the uncertainty of the next breath.  3. Give me a cup of wine since it's not clear to me ... درده /dardeh = ده/deh.  4.  That the breath I take in I'll let out or not ... the speaker might also remind us (see Dashti, quatrain 57 and this weblog, Quatrain 16):

Life scorns him
who sits sorrowing
over the days of his life.
Let the lyre wail and lament--
you sit and drink a glass of wine

before your glass goes smashing on the rocks.

Consider Hafez (ghazal 160, Khanlari, bayt 8):
مطربا مجلس انس است غزل خوان و سرود
چند گویی که چنین رفت و چنان خواهد شد

motrebaa majles-e onsast ghazal khaan o sorud
chand gui ke chonin raft o chonaan khaahad shod

Poet, the love-gathering is here,
recite a ghazal.

How long will you keep saying,
it happened like this and will happen like that?

Quatrain 55


      آن قصر که بر چرخ  همی‌زد پهلو 

  بر درگه او شهان نهادندی رو 

دیدیم که بر کنگره‌اش فاختهای

بنشسته همی‌گفت که کو کو کوکو

Dashti, quatrain 31, p. 249


aan qasr ke bar charkh hamizad pahlu
bar dargah-e u shahaan nehaadandi ru
didim ke bar kongoreash faakhtei
benshaste hamigoft ke ku ku ku ku*

From that royal palace which once rose to the sky
monarchs in splendor faced the world.
But on its turrets I have seen a ring-dove seated,
cooing, cooing over and over: where, where?

Michael Hillmann, Iranian Culture, 51

The Palace to Heav'n his pillars threw,
And kings the forehead on his threshold drew--
I saw the solitary Ringdove there,
And "Coo, coo, coo," she cried; and "Coo, coo, coo." 

FitzGerald, Stanza XX, (2nd edition only)

That palace vied with heaven to heaven surpass
with kings on display in court and pomp.

Perched high on a turret, we saw a dove ,
 coo-coo her refrain, gone where, gone where ?

* ku, which is the sound of cooing, also means "where" in Persian!

Translation & Discussion of the quatrain:
1.  That palace which rivalled heaven ... the sense here is that this great palace, quite likely the palace at Ctesiphon, during its existence seemed to rival heaven ("tall as the skies" and magnificent). hami is a verbal prefix denoting habitual past action.  The usage is classical and so is the suffix in "2" (nehaadandi) which also serves the same purpose as hami. 2.  In its court kings used to appear ... I am translating رو نهادندی/ ru nehaadandi "used to show up/be in attendance/present themselves (show their face)"; ru nehaadandi may also mean ؛to do homage؛ by extension of its literal meaning.  The verbal suffix, ی/i, indicates repetitive action -- kings came there over a long period of time (and see Hillmann, Iranian Culture, 51 and Hedaayat, ترانه‌های خیام /Taraanehaa-ye Khayyaam, 46 -- where Hedaayat asks whether this very quatrain was not the inspiration for (the 12th century Persian poet) Khaaqaani's qaside, Ayvaan-e Madaayen, "The Palace at Ctesiphon", which Michael Hillmann translates in his Iranian Culture, 48-50.  We saw upon its turret(s) a ring-dove 4. Perched (who) kept cooing, ku, ku, ku, ku -- as the footnote above, the Persian "ku" also means "where".
My weblog entry, Quatrain 55, is included in the Update to weblog Quatrain 24.  I quote Michael Hillmann's comment also found in this Update: "As Khayyām sees it, if the all-powerful Iranian emperors Jamshid and Bahrām were unable to remain in the world for longer than their appointed time, then more ordinary mortals should be that much more certain of their own mortality and insignificance." [This goes for the Sasanian dynasts at Ctesiphon as well.] Michael Hillmann, Iranian Culture, 56. 

 

 

 

 

Quatrain 54

برمفرش خاک خفتگان می‌بینم
 
در زیر زمین نهفتگان می‌بینم

تا چشم به صحرای عدم می‌نگرد

نا آمدگان و رفتگان می‌بینم 

Dashti, quatrain 10, p. 245    

bar mafrash-e khaak khoftegaan mibinam
dar zir-e zamin nahoftegaan mibinam
taa cheshm be sahraa-ye  ‘adam minegarad
naa aamadegaan o raftegaan mibinam
 


A lot of sleepers on the Earth I see,
And many more beneath the earth I see;
When I behold the Desert of Inane,
A vast crowd of unborn and dead I see.

Saidi, quatrain 116

On earth's green carpet many sleepers lie,
And hid beneath it others I descry;
And others, not yet come, or passed away,
People the desert of Nonentity!

Whinfield, quatrain 317

Translation & Discussion of the quatrain:
1.  On earth's carpet I see the sleepers ... Perhaps the speaker means those here on earth who have gone to sleep by losing the "trail of wisdom" in their reckonings, computations and speculations (cf. Dashti, quatrain 7, which is in weblog Quatrain 34)  2.  Under the earth I see the hidden  3.  As long as my eye(s) view the wasteland of non-existence ... "non-existence" (عدم/ ‘adam) reminds me of the final mesraa of the quatrain (see the 2nd part of weblog Quatrain 35) in which we, the chess pieces or puppets, after our performance on the board/stage of life have again gone into our box of "non-existence"-- رفتیم بصندوق عدم یک یک باز/raftim besanduq-e ‘adam yek yek baaz 4. I see the not-come and the gone ... ''not-come" of course means the unborn who, are themselves in this "box of non-existence" -- and who will be "sleepers" once awake to life if they lose the trail of wisdom.

 

 

Quatrain 53

در کار‌‌گه کوزه‌گران رفتم دوش

دیدم دو هزار کوزه گویای خموش

این کوزه بدان کوزه ممی‌گفت به جوش

کو کوزه‌گر و کوزه‌خر وکوزه‌فروش

Dashti, quatrain 42, p. 251

dar kaargah-e kuze garaan raftam dush
didam do hazaar kuze guyaa-ye khamush
'in kuze bedaan kuze hamigoft be jush
ku kuzegar o kuzekhar o kuzeforush
 

In the warehouse of the potters last night
two thousand pots spoke out their silence...
this one to that one swelling and seething:
'Where 's potter and buyer -- and where's the seller?'

 

در کار‌‌گه کوزه‌گران رفتم دوش

دیدم دو هزار کوزه گویای خموش

ناگاه یکی کوزه بر‌آورد خروش

کو کوزه‌گر و کوزه‌خر و کوزه‌فروش

Saidi, quatrain 104


dar kaargah-e kuzegaraan raftam dush
didam do hazaar kuze guyaa-ye khamush
naagaah yeki kuze baraavard khorush
ku kuzegar o kuzekhar o kuzeforush

I saw at a potter's shop one dusk of day,
Two thousand voiced but silent pots of clay;
One vessel then on sudden cried aloud:
"Where are they--potter, seller, buyer--pray?"
Saidi (104)  

Note on variants:
The last line of this quatrain reads the same in Dashti and Saidi (above) as well as in Forughi-Ghani (117), Hedaayat (73) and Whinfield (283).  In the first line, Forughi, Hedaayat and Whinfield agree with Saidi's reading کوزه‌گری, kuzegari -- 'a potter' ; Hedaayat has budam instead of raftam.  In the second line, Forughi, Hedaayat and Whinfield read: گویا و خموش, guyaa o khamush - "speaking and silent"; Forughi and Whinfield, along with Saidi above, have identical third lines.  Hedaayat has instead:  هر یک بزبان حال با من گفتند, har yek bezabaan-e haal baa man goftand -- "every one spoke to me like they would speak if they could speak" or does it simply mean they spoke to the point, to the emotion or sentiment felt?

Translation & Discussion of the quatrain:
1.  In the warehouse of the potters I went last night 2.  I saw two thousand pots speakers of silence -- I believe this means that they broke their silence by speaking out -- they emerged from silence, they spoke be zabaan-e haal,  in language and sentiment which speaker and hearer of this quatrain would know the pots would have expressed 3.  This pot to that pot said over and over on the boil/This pot to that pot spoke at the boiling point ... 4. Where is the potter and the buyer and the seller -- I emphasize 'and' since the conjunction و/o is in this mesraa uncharacteristically "long" and will receive emphasis, which to my untrained ears, ironically links the three together, sarcastically may be a better word -- the potter, the seller and buyer who in the end are all broken under the march of fate.  I am curious about Hazhir Teimourian's rendering of this quatrain (I have just received his Omar Khayyām: Poet, Rebel, Astronomer, Sutton Publishing, 2007):


To a potter's shop did I go last night,
To my eyes his art made a soothing sight.
Suddenly murmured a tall jug of clay:
'May to December, December to May!"


What does he mean 'May to December, December to May!'?  The expression "six of one, half dozen of another" first comes to mind: it's all the same, these three will all pass out of existence.  Quatrain 59 in this weblog corroborates the cycle of ceaseless repetition: "The endless round of Teer and Dey has flung/A hundred thousand Jams and Keys on clay" (Saidi, quatrain 6 quoted in weblog  Quatrain 59).  Is it likely that the "ku-repetitions" in the last line of weblog 55 will remind the viewer (they remind me) of the fate of  "Jams and Keys" , in which the lone ring-dove coos her refrain "where/ku have all past kings and heroes gone ... gone where, gone where ?"

And at last, FitzGerald:

Whereat some one of the  loquacious Lot--
I think a Súfi pipkin--waxing hot--
"All this of Pot and Potter--Tell me then,
"Who makes--Who sells--Who buys--Who is the Pot?"

FitzGerald, stanza LXXXVII, 4th ed. 

FitzGerald in his note on this stanza (4th ed) remarks on the "relation of Pot and Potter to Man and his Maker" in world literature. 

This stanza as previous kuze stanzas we have quoted are part of a kuze sequence in FitzGerald.  Iran Hassani Jewett unfolds the arrangement and changes throughout FitzGerald's editions (Edward FitzGerald, 109-111--see full citation in bibliography). Both of FitzGerald's MS sources apparently concur with the text of Saidi's above (Arberry, Romance... 228). 

And this thought:
'These ceramics are like our life: colorful, fragile yet robust, full of hidden meaning yet easily understood (especially if we let a few years pass by ...), sweet and pure, simple and fraught with mystery.  Like each of us, an unrepeatable miracle of creation.  Man made of clay and ceramics made of clay: surely there is reason for this, and if we stop to think for a moment, this is something we have always known.'
(Persian Ceramics: From the 9th to the 14th Century, Giovanni Curatola ed., Skira, Milan, 2006, p. 23)

 

 

 

 

Quatrain 52

جامی است که عقل آفرین می‌زندش
صد بوسه ز مهر بر جبین می‌زندش
این کوزه‌گر دهر چنین جام لطیف
می‌سازد و باز بر زمین می‌زندش

Dashti, quatrain 32, p. 247


jaamist ke aql aafarin mizanadash
sad buse ze mehr bar jabin mizanadash
in kuzegar-e dahr chonin jaam-e latif
misaazad o baaz bar zamin mizanadash

Said one among them"Surely not in vain
My substance of the common Earth was ta'en
And to this Figure, molded, to be broke,
Or trampled back to shapeless Earth again."

FitzGerald, stanza LXXXIV, 4th ed.
(LXI, 1st ed.)

A vase there is that Wisdom does adore,
And imprints on its cheeks kisses galore;
Behold the Master Potter of the World

Such a vase He makes, then breaks it on the floor!

Saidi, quatrain 36

Translation & Discussion of the quatrain: Note that the texts of Forughi-Ghani (115), Hedaayat (43), Saidi (36), and Whinfield (290) are the same. Visitors to the site will wish to compare this quatrain with weblog quatrains 2 and 4.

1. There is a cup/vase that reason praises 2. It (reason) delivers out of love a hundred kisses to its (the vase's) brow. 3. This/the potter of eternity such exquisite vases 4. Creates and hurls them back to the ground.  

By reason or 'Wisdom' in the first line, the speaker means the ability to reason, to see and consider all the angles of an argument or proposition.  It is "good sense" or judgment that informs the reader/listener that this vase is well-made, worthy of praise.  And so, it is worthy of receiving hundreds of kisses upon its brow (done so with love). As in weblog quatrain 2, the cup or vase has "parts" which correspond to parts of the human body.  From what follows, it becomes obvious that the analogy is intentional - the "Potter makes lovely vessels like this" -- where the literal meaning of chonin, "like this", is effective.  All the lovely cups/humans are returned to the clay whence they came.

Lines one, two, and four conclude with zanadash.  Often, like kardan, zadan/zan is used idiomatically with nouns. The pronoun suffix -ash (3rd person singular) is, in the first line, dependent on aafarin "reason makes praise of it".  In the second, jabin, "its brow"; and the fourth mesraa‘ , -ash is the direct object of zadan, throws/hurls/dashes/breaks it.

 

 

 

Quatrain 51

 

مرغی دیدم نشسته بر باره‌ٔ توس
در پیش نهاده کله‌ٔ کیکاوس
با کله همی‌گفت افسوس افسوس
کو بانگ جرسها و چه شد نالهٔ کوس

Dashti, quatrain 33, p.250

morghi didam neshaste bar baare-ye tus
dar pish nehaade kalle-ye keykaaus
baa kalle hamigoft ke afsus afsus
ku baang-e jarashaa o che shod naale-ye kus


I saw a bird perched on the walls of Tus
Holding before it Kei Kavus's skull;
And to this skull it cried, 'Alas! Alas!
Where now the sound of bells, the roll of drums?'

Elwell-Sutton, In Search of Omar Khayyam, quatrain 33, p.192

Compare this quatrain to weblog Quatrain 24, which appears as an "Update":

آن قصر که بر چرخ  همی‌زد پهلو 

بر درگه او شهان نهادندی رو 

دیدیم که بر کنگره‌اش فاخته‌ای

بنشسته همی‌گفت که کو کو کوکو

Dashti, quatrain 31, p. 249

aan qasr ke bar charkh hamizad pahlu
bar dargah-e u shahaan nehaadandi ru
didim ke bar kongoreash faakhtei
benshaste hamigoft ke ku ku ku ku*

From that royal palace which once rose to the sky
monarchs in splendor faced the world.
But on its turrets I have seen a ring-dove seated,
cooing, cooing over and over: where, where? 

Michael Hillmann, Iranian Culture, 51

That palace vied with heaven to heaven surpass
with kings on display in court and pomp.

Perched high on a turret, we saw a dove ,
 coo-coo her refrain, gone where, gone where ?
*

*ku, which is the sound of cooing, also means "where" in Persian!

The Palace to Heav'n his pillars threw,
And kings the forehead on his threshold drew

I saw the solitary Ringdove there,
And "Coo, coo, coo," she cried; and "Coo, coo, coo."

FitzGerald, Stanza XX, 2nd edition only

"As Khayyām sees it, if the all-powerful Iranian emperors ... were unable to remain in the world for longer than their appointed time, then more ordinary mortals should be that much more certain of their own mortality and insignificance." Michael Hillmann, Iranian Culture, 56

Along these lines, as in Quatrain 24, a couplet of  Hafez (ghazal 343.5, Khanlari, Qazvini, 351.6):

کی بود در زمانه وفا جام می بیار

                  تا من حکایت جم و کاووس ‌کی کنم

 

key bud dar zamaane vafaa jaam-e mey biyaar

taa man hekaayat-e jam o kaavus-e key konam

               When was life ever faithful?

          Bring a cup of wine

                             and let me tell you the story of Jamshid and Key Kavus.

 

Translation & Discussion of the quatrain: I will let Elwell-Sutton's translation suffice since it is fairly literal.   In the final line, Elwell-Sutton translates ناله‌ٔ  کوس,"the roll of drums", appropriate as a sound of a musical instrument and a sound of sadness and lamentation as it generallly connotes especially so in this context.  Tus was a town in Khorasan, say, 40 kilometers north of Mashhad, destroyed in the late 14th century C.E.  Tus was the birthplace and burial place of Ferdowsi. To suit the pre-historic context, it will have existed before historical times.  Key Kaaus, Key Kavus (usually "Kay"), was the mythical king and son of Key-Qobad.  To my knowledge he had no legendary connection to Tus.  More detailed information about Key Kavus given in this article, Encyclopaedia Iranica online.

 

 

 

Quatrain 50

افلاک که جز غم نفزایند دگر
ننهند به جا تا بربایند دگر
ناآمدگان اگر بدانند که ما
از دهر چه می‌کشیم نایند دگر

Dashti, quatrain 32, p.249

aflaak ke joz gham nafazaayand degar
nanhand be jaa taa berobaayand degar
naa‌-aamadegaan agar bedaanand ke maa
az dahr che mikeshim naayand degar

The world above adds nothing but pain,
it does not give before it takes again.
If the unborn world had ways to know
how this world makes mortals suffer so,
none ever would come to earth again.

Heaven multiplies our sorrows day by day,
And grants no joys it does not take away;
If those unborn could know the ills we bear,
What think you, would they rather come or stay?

Whinfield, quatrain 240

Translation & Discussion of the quatrain: دگر, degar, is a key word in this quatrain (دیگر > دگر , digar > degar, the long vowel is shortened. The shortening of long vowels is a frequent poetic device, poetic license, so to speak.  Obviously it makes a difference to the meter, but it may in origin be only a language variation, let's say a shift in sound from long to short, rather than a convention for the sake of meter (metri causa).  Note that here degar is not an adjective but an adverb which means something like "in addition", "else", "again", "further"... we will explore this further line by line by highlighting translations of degar below:

1. The celestial bodies,orb/the skies,sky, (aflaak is the plural of falak), which add nothing else except pain/suffering/add nothing in addition to pain/suffering (fazaa is the present stem of fozudan, an alternate form of afzudan, afzaa. 2. They put nothing in place before/until they take away again - nanhand --nanehand, with suppression of "e" metri causa. 3. If the not-having-come ones/the unborn were to believe/know for a fact/realize 4. what we suffer in the worldaz dahr che  mikashim), there would be no coming again - naayand is possibly the negative na + the verbal noun aayand, "not-coming". Here, perhaps for meter's sake, na-aayand > naayand.  Elision occurs.  Or is it na + the verb in the 3rd person plural?  We might expect نیایند , nayaayand, but here we have, more simply, نایند , naayand.

A tack to take, on the other hand, is to get what you can while here, as in this previously posted quatrain 11:

بر چشم تو عالم ار‌چه می‌آرایند
مگرای بدان که عاقلان نگرایند
بسیار چو تو  روند و بسیار آیند
بربای نصیب خویش کت بربایند

Dashti, quatrain 66, p. 255 (& Forughi-Ghani 69)

bar cheshm-e to aalam arche miaaraayand
magraay bedaan ke aaqelaan nagraayand
besyaar cho to ravand o besyaar aayand
berbaay nasib-e khish kat berbaayand

Though they bedeck the world to catch your eyes,
Be tempted not as never are the wise;
so many like you come, so many go

You'd better get your share before life flies.

Saidi, quatrain 111

Quatrain 49

 

گویند که فردوس برین خواهد بود
وانجا می ناب و حورِعین خواهد بود
گر ما می و معشوق گزیدیم چه باک
چون عاقبت کار چنین خواهد بود

Dashti, quatrain 53, p. 253 , 5th ed.

guyand ke fardows-e barin khaahad bud
vanjaa mey-e naab o hur-e ‘in khaahad bud
gar maa mey o ma‘shuq gozidim che baak
chon ‘aaqebat-e kaar chonin khaabad bud

They say: "There will be Paradise Supreme
where wine is pure and houris reside."
If we take wine and lovers here
why should we bother, what to fear?
The pleasures we seek in the here and now
are just the ones we'll enjoy up there.

گویند بهشت و حورِعین خواهد بود
وانجا می و شیر و انگبین خواهد بود
گر ما می و معشوق گزیدیم رواست
چون عاقبت کار چنین خواهد بود

Dashti, quatrain 35, 1st ed.

guyand behesht o hur-e ‘in khaahad bud
vanjaa mey o shir o angabin khaahad bud
gar maa mey o ma‘shuq gozidim ravaast
chon ‘aaqebat-e kaar chonin khaahad bud

They say: "Paradise will have large-eyed beauties
and wine will be there, milk and honey too."
If we take wine and lovers here
to us that only seems seems right;
since what we'll find when we reach there
is what we're having on earth.

The composition of the second quatrain (Dashti's first edition) is similar to Forughi-Ghani (87) and Hedaayat (88) - Whinfield as well (185).  Here is Elwell-Sutton's translation of Dashti's quatrain 35. The same text apparently appeared in his second edition, which Elwell-Sutton uses. At some point Dashti must have settled on the quatrain first quoted here (quatrain 53, my fifth edition):

They say there will be lovely maids in Heaven,
And wine as well, and milk, and honey sweet.
Then we are right to seek out wine and beauty,
For these are planned for us in that life too.

Elwell-Sutton, In Search of Omar Khayyam, quatrain 53, p. 196

They say "In Heaven Houris come to greet,
And rivers flow with honey pure and sweet."
'Tis meet we worship then our wife and wine,
For in the end with wife and wine we meet.

Govinda Tirtha, X. 85
(in the third line, in stead of gozidim, "we choose" or "take"
Tirtha has parastim, پرستیم, "we worship")

Translation & Discussion of the quatrain:   Reading this quatrain I think of Mark Twain, who quipped in reference to piety and suppression of  pleasures, that if there is so much to enjoy in Heaven, why should mankind forswear all earthly pleasures.  Mehdi Aminrazavi (pp. 245-246) remarks ... 'it is not surprising that he [Twain] found in Khayyam what FitzGerald had found earlier - a familiar voice of discontent and a refusal to give in to the urge to make sense of it all.'

1. They say there will be Paradise above/on high/supreme/majestic - ke introduces indirect speech which I have made direct. برین, barin is an adjective, whose -in suffix is akin to other adjectives denoting position or time such as avvalin, "first." It can be simply "high" or it can be used "superlatively" = "highest" 2. And there will be pure wine and houris with large-eyes - hur-e ‘in.  hur is literally "white", a plural of the adjectives, ahwar (masc.) and hawraa' (fem) -- the "white ones" -- here feminine plural of course to designate houris who will have lovely white skin and the whites of their eyes will contrast with black irises; ‘in is feminine plural (the singular is eynan), women with large, lovely eyes.  This construction can be understood as two nouns, grammatically joined but coordinate in meaning, hur, women with pale skin and white eyes and ‘in, women with beautiful large eyes.  Or ‘in can be an adjective qualifying hur -- "women with pale skin and white eyes having large and beautiful eyes" (see farhang-e bozorg-sokhan, 5.5133).  I prefer the latter and would welcome viewer-comments.  Three times at least the phrase appears in the Qur'an: 44.54, 52.20, 56.22.  The Qur'an likely furnishes the pattern for Persian hur-e ‘in.  This "formula" is like a Homeric epithet, I am thinking of "ox-eyed", boôpis  (βοῶπις), beautiful, large eyes, a formula reminding the reader to visualize paradisal and beautiful maidens with large eyes of a sharp, black-white contrast. 3. If we choose wine and sweethearts what worry/fear (should there be)? 4. since the end product will be like this --  this means the same there as we propose doing/are doing here on earth.  عاقبت کار, ‘aaqebat-e kaar is idiomatic, like the English idiom, "in the final analysis" or "at the end of the day"

 

 

Quatrain 48

 

ای بس که نباشیم و جهان خواهد بود
نی نام زما و نی نشان خواهد بود
زین پیش نبودیم نبد هیچ خلل
زین پس چو نباشیم همان خواهد بود

Dashti, quatrain 11, p. 246

ey bas ke baashim o jahaan khaahad bud
ni naam ze maa o ni neshaan khaahad bud
zin pish nabudim nabod hich khalal
zin pas cho nabaashim hamaan khaahad bud

The world will long be, but of you and me
No sign, no trace for anyone to see;
The world lacked not a thing before we came,
Nor will it miss us when we cease to be.

Saidi, quatrain 132

When You and I behind the Veil are past,
Oh but the long long while the World shall last.
Which of our Coming and Departure heeds
As the Sea's self should heed a pebble-cast

FitzGerald, stanza XLVII, 4th ed.

The world will last long after my poor fame
Has passed way, yea, and my very name.
Aforetime, ere we came, we were not missed;
When we are dead and gone, 'twill be the same.

Whinfield, quatrain 150

 

Translation & Discussion of the quatrain: 1.  Oh/Amazing, the long time that we are not here and the world will exist  -- ey bas registers wonderment at this amount of time 2. Neither our name/recognition nor sign of us/no trace of us will be here - in other contexts, naam o neshaan will mean "reputation", say, the reputation a poet might enjoy.  It is a formulaic expression. 3.   Before we were not here there was no loss/no difficulty (i.e., nothing was wrong) 4. Later, when we are not here, it will be the same

Heron-Allen, pp. 74-75, suggests that Nicolas' quatrain 123 -- the same Persian text as Dashti's -- ( Les quatrains de Khèyam, Paris, 1867) influenced FitzGerald's stanza XLVII.  Viewers will note that FitzGerald did not compose this stanza for his first edition of 1859 but composed it for the second edition of 1868 and it remained, with only the last line altered, in subsequent editions.  In the autumn of 1867, FitzGerald had received a copy of Nicolas' 'French Omar' and had ordered a copy for Cowell (Terhune 3. 53).  Nicolas' edition of 464 quatrains (from a Tehran 1857 lithograph) gave FitzGerald a text for adding quatrains to his 2nd edition, although as his correspondence from 1867 shows, he took issue with Nicolas for the latter's mystic or Sufi interpretation of many of the quatrains published in Les quatrains de Khèyam.

 

Quatrain 47

از آمدنم نبود گردون را سود
وز رفتن من جاه و جلالش نفزود
وز هیچ کسی نیز دو گوشم نشنود
کاین آمدن و رفتنم از بهر چه بود

Dashti, quatrain 20, p.247

az aamadanam nabud gardun raa sud
vaz raftan-e man jaah o jalaalash nafzud
vaz hich kasi niz do gusham nashnud
kin aamadan o raftanam az bahre che bud


My coming brought no profit to the sky,
Nor does my going swell its majesty;
Coming and going put me to a stand,*
Ear never heard their wherefore or their why.

Whinfield, quatrain 176  

What gain did Heaven get from making me?
What kudos did it earn from my demise?
Yet I have never heard from anyone
Why I was brought here, and why taken away.

Elwell-Sutton, In Search of Omar Khayyam, quatrain 20, p. 190

* put me to a stand = caused me to be perplexed, unable to sort things out

Translation & Discussion of the quatrain:  1.There was no profit to the sky/celestial sphere/the universe from my coming 2. and from my going its (the sky's) importance/honor and majesty were not increased - the verb is (na) + fozudan (=afzudan).  3. From no one also did my two ears hear -- the verb is shonudan, an older form of shanidan 4. "This coming and going of mine for what reason was it?" The function of ke (+in), that is, کاین, is to introduce a question indirectly, the question posed by "hear (what?)" in the preceding line.  
Several quatrains, beginning with the first quatrain in this weblog, raise the perplexity throughout the quatrains attributed to Khayyaam, this frequent theme of "why".  These are questions we ask, but they should not be a sticking point.  Serious as they may be, Khayyaam apparently did not mean for them to be a place either for depression or for easy answers  (on this, see Aminrazavi, 122-126).  There is a choice for most of us, a choice to live a life that has meaning for us. Remember these words:


حالی خوش باش و عمر بر باد مکن


haali khosh baash o omr bar baad makon
"be happy just now -- do not throw your life away (toss it to the winds)"

Quatrain 46


اجرام که ساکنان این ایوانند

اسباب تردد خردمندانند

هان تا سررشتۀ خرد گم نکنی

کانان که مدبرند سرگردانند ِ

Dashti, quatrain 7, p, 245

 

ajraam ke saakenaan-e in ayvaanand
asbaab-e taraddod-e kheradmandaanand
haan taa sar-e reshte-ye kherad gom nakoni
kaanaan ke modabberand sar gardaanand

The heavenly spheres which in this domain reside,

Have bewildered the wise, thinking far and wide;

Behold and don't lose the trail of wisdom,

For the price of wisdom is to reel to every side.

Aminrazavi, 188

 

The stars, who dwell on heaven's exalted stage,

Mock the prognosticators of our age;

Take heed, hold fast the rope of mother wit,

Those augurs all mistrust their own presage.

Whinfield, quatrain 214

Translation & Discussion of the quatrain: This quatrain first appeared under my weblog Quatrain 34, without discussion (see also quatrain 44). I find that I read more into this quatrain than what is there, perhaps with justification, although I resist the temptation to shape certain quatrains to my sense of meaning. The quatrain says:

  • study of the universe has the potential for leading the wise astray
  • remember to hold on to wisdom -- don't set aside sound principles of investigation
  • those who manage information do go astray

The last point seems to be supported by Aminrazavi in his translation: For the price of wisdom is to reel from side to side. And Whinfield (as he said "a hit at the astrologers"): Those augurs all mistrust their own presage. I think, however, that the speaker here is referring to those who manage (modabber) incorrect data; this is not simply a statement that all the information-controllers or "the wise" go astray. Avery and Heath-Stubbs (quatrain 9) translate modabber as Powers That Be. Their final line reads: Since the Powers That Be themselves are in a spin. Who are these "Powers That Be"? The speaker in my opinion is saying:

  • knowledge-speculators (kheradmandaan), hem and haw, go back and forth and waver in their pursuit of knowledge and are indecisive in their findings (taraddod-e kheradmandaanand). The reference here is to astronomical pursuits, but other "bodies" of knowledge could also apply
  • these kheradmandaan have lost the place, have lost the thread of knowledge; they have set aside fundamental principles so that they will fail to see all sides of the problems they explore and the arguments contained within the problems (sar-e reshte-ye kherad gom...)
  • they have gone astray/are bewildered because they spend their time managing (modabberand) the bits and pieces, the "loose ends" as it were, the scattered threads of knowledge.

In his chapter "Khayyam and Sufism," Aminrazavi (135-136) summarizes from Khayyaam's On the Knowledge of the Universal Principles of Existence (Risâlah dar ‘ilm kulliyât-i wujûd) several categories of "seekers of the truth." One type (item 2, 135-136) is that of "Philosophers and sages who have relied on discursive reasoning to know the principles of logic ... they ... have not remained faithful to the conditions of logic and have become helpless with it."
Here is the line-by-line translation: 1. The heavenly bodies which are inhabitants of this sky -- ایوان/ayvaan is "sky" here, "heavenly palace"; by ajraam (the plural of jerm) the poet refers to the heavenly bodies, the ajraam-e aasmaani 2. Are suitable subjects for the indecision of the wise/pundits/philosophers -- asbaab- here "furnishing the resources" so it seems to me; just a statement of fact and I believe, a statement without bias -- that is, other scientific pursuits may well be asbaab-e taraddod 3. Careful not to lose the source of the thread of wisdom/careful not to lose the foundation of wisdom 4. Since those who are managing (bits and pieces of wisdom, having lost the thread of wisdom) go astray/are at loose ends

The stars and planets in the skies

allow the wise to fantasize;

hold on to Wisdom as your guide

schemers suffer schematicide.

modabber here has a negative connotation which supports the notion of "managers in error"-- maybe even schemers but not all of the kheradmand are of this type. Or maybe, after all, our speaker is saying "you know how it is with managers, they get baffled, confused, bewildered." I also see from Anvari (farhang-e bozorg-e sokhan) that modabberaan (= modabberann-e falak), refers to those planetary "stewards of the sky" -- the group of seven spheres. Could our earthly stewards who go astray be themselves "in orbit?"

Quatrain 45

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 ...

 

 

Quatrain 44

چون چرخ  به  کام  یک خردمند نگشت

تو خواه فلک هفت‌شمر خواهی هشت

چون باید مرد و آرزوها همه هِشت

چه مور خورد به گور و چه گرگ به دشت

Dashti, quatrain 46, p. 252

chon charkh be kaam-e kheradmand nagasht

to khaah falak haftshemar khaahi hasht

chon baayad mord o aarezuhaa hame hesht

che mur khorad be gur o che gorg be dasht

The Sphere of Heaven turns not for the wise,
Whether you reckon the skies seven or eight.
The craving body must die, so let it go
To the ant in the grave, or to the desert wolf.

L.P Elwell-Sutton, In Search of Omar Khayyam, quatrain 46, p. 195

The sky revolves to please itself
not to the whims of the wise,
so number the spheres seven or eight,
your choice in celestial size.
All of us die,
our hopes left behind,
and plans perish too,
eaten by ants if we lie in our graves,
by wolves if we die in the field.

Translation & Discussion of the quatrain: 1. Since the sky/universe/wheel (literally) has not turned to the desire of the wise -- the "wise" are the knowledge-managers who lose "the trail of wisdom" as in the quatrain below (quoted in full under quatrains 34 and 46 in this weblog):

The heavenly spheres which in this domain reside,
Have bewildered the wise, thinking far and wide;
Behold and don't lose the trail of wisdom,
For the price of wisdom is to reel to every side.

Mehdi Aminrazavi, 188 (the quatrain is Dashti's, no. 7, p. 245)

In our quatrain, chon charkh, etc., the wise may well forget their mortality, the same mortality that even the famous and powerful could not escape.
2. Choose the spheres (falak) the seven-number or choose the eight(-number); haftshemar is a compound adjective "being the seven-number".  More simply "whether you number the spheres seven or eight". Let the pundits choose one scheme or the other! The reference is to the heavenly spheres conjectured by Ptolemy in his he megale syntaxis (Almagest, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almagest ). The Wikipedia article is a good reference.  Briefly, there are seven spheres, which house moon, sun and five planets.  The order is Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn.  The reference to eight spheres is the allowance of an eighth sphere for fixed stars, stars which rise and set but appear to keep their same positions. I don't know whether this eighth sphere is ptolemaic or a later addition but the Wiki article attributes eight to Ptolemy 3. Since we all must die/it is necessary to die and (it is necessary to) leave hopes/wishes entirely (hame) behind. The verb heshtan means here "to dismiss" or "leave aside" and we have an elegant word-play with hasht in the second mesraa. Whether the ant eats us in the grave or the wolf on the plain

 

Quatrain 43

این کوزه چو من عاشق زاری بوده‌ است
در بند سر زلف نگاری بوده‌ است
این دسته که بر گردن وی می‌بینی
دستی است که در گردن یاری بوده‌ است

Dashti, quatrain 44, p.252

in kuze cho man aasheq-e zaari budast
dar band-e sar-e zolf-e negaari budast
in daste ke bar gardan-e vey mibini
dastist ke dar gardan-e yaari budast

A love like me was this jug, in snare
Of beauty's tousled tresses long and fair;
The handle 'round its neck you see was once
The hand tht fondly twined her lovely hair.

Saidi, quatrain 99

The jug did once, like me love's sorrows taste,
And bonds of beauty's tresses once embraced.
This handle, which you see upon its side,
Has many a time twined round a slender waist!

Whinfield, quatrain 32 

I think the Vessel, that with fugitive
Articulation answer'd, once did live,
And merry-make: and the cold Lip I kiss'd,
How many Kisses might it take
—and give!
FitzGerald, stanza XXXV, 1st ed

This jar was once a gallant Tsar, I swear,
Who laid so eclipsed by his lady's hair;
Ah! even now the handle at his neck
Is ever curling round to clasp
—the air!
Govinda Tirtha, V.19

Translation & Discussion of the quatrain:  1. This jug like me was a lover distraught/wasting away -- zaar has both meanings.  Tirtha may have been invited by the sound to write Tsar! 2.  It was chained to the tresses of some beauty -- dar band-e sar-e zolf-e negaari is a fastening of no escape.  As in Yeats, where the speaker succumbs to love ("Brown Penny"); I am looped in the loops of her hair ... 3. This handle you see on its neck -- وی , vey, is the 3rd person pronoun او , u. 4. Is the hand which was on the neck of a sweetheart.  

There is little variation in the texts of Forughi-Ghani and Hedaayat

Aminrezavi (118) quotes Saidi's translation, which he introduces by saying: "Khayyam uses the imagery of a jug to expound upon the phenomenon of death, perhaps because the clay from which a jug is made symbolizes recycled bodies of our ancestors"  (see also Quatrain 14 in this weblog).  He continues: "Yet the primary function of a jug is to contain water which itself is the symbol of life."  FitzGerald's rendition superbly expresses life and death as does this quatrain attributed to Khayyaam.

This jug once lived as lover distraught,

 tress-bound like me to some sweetheart.

See how her neck the handle conjoins,

hand on the neck of the one he  loved

 

Quatrain 42

امروز ترا دسترس  فردا  نیست 

واندیشۀ فردات  بجز سودا نیست 

ضا یع مکن این دم اردلت بیداراست

کاین  باقی عمررا بقا  پیدا نیست

      Hedaayat, quatrain 135

emruz toraa dastras fardaa nist
vandishe-ye fardaat bejoz sowdaa nist
zaaye makon in dam ar delat bidaar ast
kin baaqi-ye  ‘omr raa baqaa peydaa nist

To-day is thine to spend, but not to-morrow,
Counting on morrows breedeth nothing but sorrows;
Oh! squander not this breath that heaven hath lent thee,
Nor make too sure another breath to borrow!
Whinfield, quatrain 30

 
Today, tomorrow is not within your reach,
To think of it is only morbid:
If the heart is awake, do not waste this moment --
There is no proof of life's continuance.
Avery, Heath-Stubbs, quatrain 135

 
Today is here but not tomorrow
thinking 'tomorrow' will make you sad.
If your heart is game, seize this moment
what lies ahead, who knows about that? 

 

Translation & Discussion of the quatrain:Today is at hand/accessible to you, tomorrow is not 2.  And the thought of tomorrow is nothing but sadness for you -- I think the 2nd person pronoun appended to fardaa(t), can be taken either with  "thinking" - your thinking of tomorrow, or with "sadness".  The latter is stronger. 3.  Do not waste this moment if your heart is awake  -- quatrain 56, Dashti, reads: ... ار دلت شیدا نیست, ar delat sheydaa nist, "if your heart is not distraught/crazed"  (ار, ar = اگر, agar). 4. Since for this remainder of life  continuing on/continuance is not established/a certain thing -- Dashti has بها, bahaa "price" or "value" instead of بقا , baqaa, "continuance'": no value has been placed on what's left in this life , that is, the value is placed in today and no estimates exist for tomorrow, so what value is there in thinking about or living for tomorrow.  
In its carpe diem theme, the quatrain is reminiscent of quatrain 9 on this weblog.

And Hafez (160.5, Khanlari & 164.5, Qazvini): 

ای دل ار عشرت امروز به فردا  فکنی

         مایهٔ  نقد  بقا را  که  ضمان خواهد شد       

ey del ar ‘eshrat-e emruz be fardaa fakani / maaye-ye naqd-e baqaa raa ke zamaan khaahad shod

Heart, if you postpone 'til tomorrow

the pleasure life gives today

who will provide the treasure

to live the rest of your life?

(literally, who will guarantee the cash for the rest of your life)