Omar Khayyam (338) “Who’ll hear the secret?”

Posted on 10/27/2012 by Juan Cole

Where is an intimate 
                  friend 
                who’ll hear the secret 
                                from me straight out–
            of what human beings 
     have been 
               from the moment they began?
        They 
                  are    
                          born   
                                of toil 
         and molded 
               from 
     the clay of sorrow.
They wander the world for a time, 
                      then 
                                set 
                                           off.

Translated by Juan Cole
from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, [pdf] Whinfield 338

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§ One Response to “Omar Khayyam (338) “Who’ll hear the secret?””

  • lungta/mike says:
    10/27/2012 at 1:11 am

    the Aleut natives
    of the Aleutian islands
    have no word for “death”
    the closest they come is a phrase
    that roughly translates as
    “done visiting this place”