Friko's World: Omar Khayyam

Tuesday, 19 May 2009

Persian poet, mathematician and astronomer, Omar Khayyam, was born on the 18th May 1048.

One of the best known quatrains of his Rubaiyat is one of the most beautiful love poems ever written and often quoted.:

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,

A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and Thou

Beside me singing in the Wilderness -

And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

Vagabonde20 May 2009 at 14:58
It was the 961st birthday of Omar Khayyam and it is a holiday in his home town of Neyshabour. They have a beautiful monument for him there, look at Meead’s blog, he has a photo of it: http://portlanddailyphotos.blogspot.com/2009/05/961st-birthday-anniversary-of-omar.html.
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Meead20 May 2009 at 19:52
Thank you so much for this post, your visit and comment. This poem is really beautiful.
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Margaret Pangert22 May 2009 at 02:05
That was a wonderful find for this date! and I love the wild billowy sky with the shades of blue to accompany it!
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Comments are good, I like to know what you think of my posts. I know you'll keep it civil.

Still, if you must pray for something,

if at every shrine you offer

the entrails and holy chitterlings

of a white piglet,

then ask for a healthy mind in

a healthy body,

demand a valiant heart for which

death holds no terrors,

that reckons length of life as the

least of the gifts

of nature, that’s strong to endure

every kind of sorrow, that’s anger-free, lusts for nothing,

and prefers

the sorrows and labours of

Hercules to all

Sardanapulus’ downy cushions and

women and junketings.

What I’ve shown you, you can

bestow on yourself: there’s one

path, and only one, to a tranquil

life - through virtue.

Fortune has no divinity, could we

but see it: it’s we,

we ourselves, who make her a

goddess, and set her in the heavens.

Juvenal