If you give wine
to a
mountain,
you will
set it
dancing;
those
who
find fault
with wine
have something
wrong with
them.
I’ll never repent
of my wine,
for it
educates
the soul.
Translated by Juan Cole
from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, [pdf] Whinfield 186
What does this man mean when he says “wine”? Could it really be the wine that we are familiar with?
Many Sufi or mystic poets of the medieval Middle East used ‘wine’ to mean knowledge or experience of God.
the ‘Omar Khayyam’ poems probably just mean, wine.
interesting that they used wine as the term. what made them use that instead of anything else? It really gives you a good insight into the world and atmosphere of the time.