The secret of life is only known to a handful of happy souls who live on Mount Olympus, and gaze down on the rest of us mere mortals. Socrates. Diogenes the Cynic. Lao Tzu. Buddha. Montaigne. Spinoza. These happy few, these band of brothers. What do they feel, when they look at the rest of us losers and no-hopers, striving in vain to attain the heights of wisdom that they have reached? Do they feel contempt? I doubt it . Pity and compassion? Perhaps occasionally. Indifference? Much of the time. But most of all I would say they are amused by us and our foolish antics.
One such demi-god, one who belongs to the elect group of those who know the secret of life, is the Muslim poet Omar Khayyam, who lived in Persia from 1048-1131 AD. The below fragments of his poetry are taken from Peter Avery’s superb contemporary translation. I would ignore the Edward Fitzgerald translation:
They say lovers and drunkards go to hell,
A controversial dictum not easy to accept:
If the lover and drunkard are for hell,
Tomorrow Paradise will be empty.
What of your entering and leaving the world?
A fly appeared, and disappeared.
Many like you come and many go,
Snatch your share before you are snatched away.
Drink wine, you will lie long enough under the ground,
Without companion, friend or comrade.
Take care you tell no one this hidden secret,
‘No lily that withers will bloom again’.
Drink wine, this is life eternal,
This, all that youth will give you:
It is the season for wine, roses and friends drinking together.
Be happy for this moment – it is all life is.
Though you may have lain with a mistress all your life,
Tasted the sweets of the world all your life;
Still the end of the affair will be your departure –
It was a dream that you dreamed all your life.
My rule of life is to drink and be merry,
To be free from belief and unbelief is my religion:
I asked the Bride of Destiny her bride-price,
“Your joyous heart” she said.
I need a jug of wine and a book of poetry,
Half a loaf for a bite to eat,
Then you and I, seated in a deserted spot,
Will have more wealth than a Sultan’s realm.
Rise up my love and solve our problem by your beauty,
Bring a jug of wine to clear our heart
So that we may drink together
Before wine-jugs are made of our clay.
The year’s caravan goes by swiftly,
Seize the cheerful moment:
Why sorrow, child, over tomorrow’s grief for friends?
Bring out the cup – the night passes.
If we don’t clap hands together as one,
We cannot tread down sorrow with our feet in joy:
Let us go and be happy before the breath of dawn –
Many a day will break when we breathe no more.
When the drunken nightingale found his way into the garden
He discovered the face of the rose and the wine-cup laughing;
He came to whisper in my ear excitedly,
“Seek out these, life once gone cannot be sought again”.
No comments:
Post a Comment