poetry

Translated by Juan Cole From the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Tonight, who brought you, tipsy, here to me? From there beneath the veil, whose hand brought you? –to one on fire because of your absence– one like a sirocco; who brought you here? (Whinfield 2) ( revised) N.B.: In April of 2020, Bloomsbury/ I. B. […]

Archaeology

In Ancient Greek Thought, Plagues Follow on Bad Leadership

By Joel Christensen | – In the fifth century B.C., the playwright Sophocles begins “Oedipus Tyrannos” with the title character struggling to identify the cause of a plague striking his city, Thebes. (Spoiler alert: It’s his own bad leadership.) As someone who writes about early Greek poetry, I spend a lot of time thinking about […]

How to Write Rubaiyat

Edward FitzGerald’s translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was a worldwide publishing phenomenon from about 1880 until the 1970s, and is still beloved by many readers. Rubaiyat is actually a plural, meaning “quatrains.” The singular would be ruba’i, with a long a and “a” long “i.” The word is from the Arabic root for […]

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam on the New Year

Trans. Edward FitzGerald (1859) | – IV Now the New Year reviving old Desires, The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires, Where the White Hand Of Moses on the Bough Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires. VII Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling: The Bird […]

poetry

What the Witty, Irreverent, Sensual Poetry of Ghalib can Teach Americans

Love-crazed yet craving life. I worship fire./ But recant when lightning finds me out.

Omar Khayyam on New Year

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Trans. Edward Fitzgerald I. Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight: And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light. II. Dreaming when Dawn’s Left Hand was in the Sky I […]

For World Poetry Day, Verses Straight From Persia’s Heart

By Salam Aleik | ( GlobalVoices.org) | – – How might someone in Tajikistan, the only Persian-speaking republic in the former Soviet Union, describe a beautiful and lively night spent in the company of family and friends? Perhaps he or she would use the word dilafruz, which literally means ‘firing the heart’. Azerbaijani folk art […]

Iran

The Five Pillars of Iran: Poetry of Protest