Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Paperback)

by Edward Fitzgerald (Translator) "EDWARD FitzGerald undertook the study of Persian in 1853 when he was about forty-four years of age..." (more)
Key Phrases: first draught, The Flower, Fitz Gerald, One Moment (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
1899. This volume contains an English rendering in quatrains of the first, second and fifth editions of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat, together with notes indicating the minor variants found in the third and fourth editions.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Kessinger Publishing (August 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0766176673
• ISBN-13: 978-0766176676
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,096,005 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars unknown famous writer, July 27, 2006

By	Green Frog Shelters "froggy57" (Tacoma, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Omar has contributed so many phrases to us that for the most part, people are unaware of their origin.
"Eat drink and be merry."
"The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on. nor all thy piety, nor all thy wit, can lure it back to cancel half a line of it." Nothing ever written captures the inexorable one way march of time better than that single sentence by this master. But is it Fitzgerald, or is it Omar? What the hell... who cares?
Just wallow drunkenly in the rapture of his prose. Only Rumi approached this writing. But wait.. was it Barks, or was it Rumi? LOL.
Few books, excepting perhaps the Bible, have so many exquisitely crafted and picaresque sentences in them. A little tid bit from the book, unrelated to his prose:
The word Assassin, was associated with the life and times of Omar and two boy hood friends of his.
If you have not read this book, I envy you. You have before you, a stunning feast of prose by an unknown famous writer. Two of them. Omar and Fitzgerald. Although at one time Fitzgeralds star was burning bright.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A poem to be enjoyed , January 18, 2006

By	Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

My knowledge of the Rubiyat came from reading it in Poetry Anthologies .The hypnotic rhythms , the combination of life- philosophy and striking poetry seemed to naturally lead to the memorization of many stanzas.
There is the 'seize the day' enjoy life now, ' a jug of wine a loaf of bread and thou/ kind of hedonism. There is also a certain skeptical and realistic attitude which as I understand created problems for Omar Khayyam in a Muslim society.
How I wonder is this treasure of world - literature taken, or perhaps censored in the radical Islamic Iran of today.
In any case Fitzgerald's is one of the great translations of world- literature one of those cases, some experts say, in which the translation surpasses the original.
A poem to be enjoyed .

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars one of the greatest works of poetry in the world, April 30, 2004

By	Diane C. Rogers "Ramachandran" (del mar, california United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"We are no other than a moving row
of magic shadow shapes that come and go,
'round with the sun-illumined lantern held,
at midnight by the master of the show.

But pieces of the game he plays
upon this chequer-board of nights and days,
and hither and thither moves and checks and slays,
and one by one, back in the closet lays."

Khayyam's Rubaiyat is a great work of amateur philosophy, as well as being one of the literary greats of all time. It combines a deeply poetic, resounding tone with ideas and images so vivid and sophisticated that one has to admire the genius of the work. Khayyam's view of the world runs back and forth, from religious to agnostic to atheistic. His central thesis, though, remains the same, that man's time on earth is limited, and he should drink the wine of fulfillment while he can, before it's too late.

"The moving finger writes, and having writ,
not all thy piety nor wit,
can lure it back to cancel half a line,
nor all thy tears can wash away a word of it."