Perhaps the most famous verse of Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat, and with good reason
- it is hard to think of any way in which it could possibly be improved. That’s one of the things I most like about short poems, actually - at their best, they can attain a self-contained, gemlike perfection¹ that longer pieces are hard-pressed to match, and the Rubaiyat definitely take their place among the best of the breed.

Indeed, today’s poem has attained an almost proverbial status quite independent of its Biblical origins (see Notes) - while ‘the writing on the wall’ is definitely from the Bible, the image of a Moving Finger has, IMHO, been popularised far more by Fitzgerald’s verse.

Notes

‘Rubaiyat’ (singular ‘rubai’) is simply the name for the verse form (Arabic ‘ruba`iyat, singular ‘ruba`iyah’, a quatrain)

The full title of Fitzgerald’s translation (or adaptation, if you prefer) is ‘The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam’. The individual rubai are untitled, of course; I’ve just followed the standard practice of using the first line as the title. Also, since we’ve set a precedent, I’ve continued to list the author as Khayyam rather than Fitzgerald.

Today’s quatrain is based on a passage from the Old Testament, specifically Daniel 5. Quoting sections from the King James Version:

(5:1) Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. (5:2) Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein. (5:3) Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. (5:4) They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. (5:5) In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. (5:6) Then the king’s countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another. (5:7) The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. And the king spake, and said to the wise men of Babylon, Whosoever shall read this writing, and shew me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. (5:8) Then came in all the king’s wise men: but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof.

and later on

(5:23) But hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified: (5:24) Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written. (5:25) And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. (5:26) This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. (5:27) TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. (5:28) PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians. (5:29) Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made a proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. (5:30) In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain.

Biography

There’s an ex.html

Some excerpts

As one who found the freest current for his delicate and impressionable genius in the translation and adaptation of the works of others, Edward FitzGerald stands as far aloof from the ordinary activities of the literature of his day as his life was remote from that of the world in general.

[…]

Of work which was entirely original, FitzGerald left little. The charming verses, written at Naseby in the spring of 1831 under the influence of “the merry old writers of more manly times,” and printed in Hone’s Year-Book under the title The Meadows in Spring, were thought, at their first appearance, to be the work of Charles Lamb and were welcomed by their supposed author with good-humoured envy. Diffidence of his own powers and slowness in composition prevented FitzGerald from rapid publication. It was not until 1851 that the dialogue Euphranor appeared, a discourse upon youth and systems of education set in the scenery of Cambridge, amid the early summer flowering of college gardens and “the measured pulse of racing oars.” Its limpid transparency of style was not achieved without an effort: in 1846, when FitzGerald was writing it, he alluded to his difficulties with the task in a letter to his friend Edward Cowell, and its ease and clearness, like those of Tennyson’s poetry, appear to have been the fruit of constant polish and revision.

Links

  We've run a couple of pieces on the Rubaiyat as a whole (with excerpts):
    poem #162, poem #342.

While the quatrains are wonderful poems in their own right, they take on a whole new dimension when read in the context of the complete Rubaiyat. See

http://www.arabiannights.org/rubaiyat/index2.html

There’s a searchale KJV at http://www.concordance.com/bible.htm

— Martin