Informed Comment

Be happy, since once you’re upset 
it goes on forever–
as stars move into conjunction 
in the sky, it will go on.
The brick they will one day 
mold from your clay
will be lodged in the portico
of someone else’s palace.

Translated by Juan Cole
from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, [pdf] Whinfield 162

0 Retweet 20 Share 13 Google +1 4 StumbleUpon 1 Printer Friendly Send via email

Posted in Omar Khayyam, Uncategorized | 3 Comments | Print

§ 3 Responses to “Omar Khayyam (162) “Be happy, since once you’re upset it goes on forever””

• est says:

  

  01/19/2013 at 2:51 am

  -
  reincarnation, sure

  but it’ll take a
  billion ages or more

  don’t count on it.
  better to grasp

  this life, fully.
  when you consider

  all that it took,
  to get here
  -
• Susanna says:

  

  01/19/2013 at 8:23 pm

  THANKS. I really needed that reminder today.
  Helen sends me your translations on occasion. Today she hit my sorry spot.
• victor says:

  

  01/20/2013 at 5:07 pm

  the world of dew
  is a world of dew
  and yet, and yet (issa)

  thanks for these translations. maybe you could rig it so there’s an audio track of munir bashir & nouna el hana playing when you open the top page…?