Welcome to Story Chat!

I know - the e-verse is drowning in blogs, especially writers' blogs.  So why add one more? I'm hoping I can offer a different, broader perspective on living the writer's life - one based not just on the eternal 'me', but on the thousand year old philosophy of my favorite philosopher, Omar Khayyam.

So, as we'd say back home: c'mon in.  Take your shoes off (well, in the summer, anyway). Set a spell.  Let's talk story....

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 Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light


I've often been amazed at how many readers find the opening quatrain of the Rubiyat confusing.  I'd love to see your take on it.  What do you think?  How does it affect you?  Share your ideas?

Hugs

Comments

  1. Welcome to the blogger world, Bonnie! Will be sure to follow!

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  2. This looks like an excellent blog Bonnie - congratulations!
    I have loved the Fitzgerald version of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam ever since I first heard it as a child. It is as much a work of English as Persian poetry because the translation was made for its poetry more than its literal meaning. I can't read through to the last verse without tears forming in my eyes. So wise and so beautiful:

    Alas that youth should vanish with the rose,
    That life's sweet scented manuscript should close
    The bird that once in the branches sang,
    Is gone, and wither flown again - who knows.....

    The moving finger writes and having writ moves on
    Nor all your piety nor wit
    Can lure it back to cancel half a line
    Nor all your tears wash out one word of it

    Apologies if they are not word perfect as they are from memory.

    This first verse is not that hard to understand. The 'stone' is the sun and it is also the 'hunter in the east' shedding its early rays over the turret of the sultans palace.
    E.M. Swift-Hook.

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    Replies
    1. BLESSINGS on thee, E.M.Swift-Hook! What a thrill (though somehow not a surprise) to discover you are a fellow Fitzgerald fan! I think we both quoting from the 3rd edition. To my way of thinking, that's the best - and I think I've read 'em all.

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  3. Yay! Glad it's working for you. You can make it as fancy or as simple as you want!

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  4. Khayyam is special for me. Forgive me quoting from my memoir 'How Blue is My Valley' but you'll see why:-
    November roses will always remind me of my 18th birthday and the special card my mother bought me, with roses on it and Omar Khayyam’s words inside:-

    ‘Look to the Rose that blows about us – ‘Lo,
    Laughing,’ she says ‘into the world I blow:
    At once the silken tassel of my Purse
    Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.’

    I never planted roses when I was younger, because their beauty was so short-lived and the bushes didn’t earn their keep in my garden. I have changed my mind. Beauty, even if only for a day, is still treasure and I have learnt to accept the thorns and the time to scatter petals. I have also grown to love sentimental old Fitzgerald’s version of Khayyam:-

    ‘And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass
    Among the Guests Star-scattered on the Grass,
    And in thy joyous Errand reach the Spot
    Where I made one – turn down an empty Glass!’
    Tamam shud
    It is completed.

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