Quatrain 14 emphasizes how short life is, even with all the good things the earth offers us (of which we should take advantage while we can).
XIV.
- The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes — or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face
Lightning a little Hour or two — is gone.
Arberry identifies the original, to which FitzGerald has been fairly faithful, as no. 271 in the Calcutta manuscript. This quatrain does not appear to have been reprinted on the internet until now. He edited it slightly:
ای دل همه اسباب جهان ساخته گیر
دنیا همه سر بسر ترا خواسته گیر
وانگاه برویی آن چو در صحرا برف
روزی دو سه بنشسته و بر خاسته گیر
My fairly literal blank verse version of this one is as follows:
Dear heart, accept the world with its trappings
The whole wide world is yours if you want it;
but you will sit on it, like desert snow,
for two or three days, and then you’ll be gone.
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Dew is more often used as a symbol of impermanence in classical Persian poetry than snow, though we do find some other instances of it. In his Diwan of Shams-e Tabriz, the great mystic Jalal al-Din Rumi says,
مانند برف آمد دلم، هر لحظه میکاهد دلم
My heart came like snow; every moment it diminishes, my heart.
In his spiritual philosophy putting away ego and carnal desires is the path to union with the divine, and he compares this dwindling away of the self to melting snow. The heart, or self, wants to merge with the divine, in his philosophy.
That spiritual use of the image of snow is very different from this stanza attributed to Khayyam, since it is secular-minded and gloomy and doesn’t believe in an afterlife, or probably even God.
Snow also shows up as an obstacle to warriors fighting, in the epic of Abo’l-Qasem Ferdowsi, the Shahnameh or book of kings. I know a lot of outsiders may not associate Iran with snow, but it can snow heavily in the north of the country. I remember in the early 70s when a heavy snowfall in Tehran caused the roof of the airport to collapse. And there are ski slopes near Tehran.
One of the ancient heroes whose tale is told by Ferdowsi is Isfandiyar, a crown prince whose armor and diamond arrow-heads make him all be invincible. He was a great supporter of the Persian prophet Zarathrustra (whom the Greeks called Zoroaster) and his religion, which was the religion of most of Iran, Iraq and parts of what is now Central Asia and Pakistan in ancient times. Isfandiyar fought many battles against supernatural creatures and other heroes but met a tragic end, like Achilles, because there was one place on his body he was vulnerable.
Detail. “Isfandiyar’s Sixth Course: He Comes Through the Snow”, Folio 438r from the Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Shah Tahmasp; Author Abu’l Qasim Firdausi; Iranian Painting attributed to ‘Abd al-Vahhab, ca. 1525–30: Opaque watercolor, ink, silver, and gold on paper Metropolitan Museum. Public Domain.
The Met explains, “After three days and nights of ceaseless snow and terrible cold, everyone in Isfandiyar’s army turned to prayer. Instantly the clouds blew away, and they gave thanks to God. Here, Isfandiyar’s followers prepare for the storm, warming themselves beside campfires and securing their tents. Most scenes in the Shahnama have no reference to weather. Either the sun shines or the stars twinkle in the sky. Here, however, the artist successfully conveys the sense of the beginning of a heavy snowfall against a gray sky.”
So here is another meaning of snow in Persian poetry: an obstacle in life’s warfare.
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For more commentaries on FitzGerald’s translations of the Rubáiyát, see
FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: Commentary by Juan Cole with Original Persian
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