Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai
 Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day,
 How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
 Abode his destined Hour, and went his way

Nothing particular to say about today’s poem - I just liked the image of the world as a caravanserai, with Night and Day (or Life and Death if you prefer) as its doors.

The theme is a common one - it has played itself out in several variations across most of the world’s great works, including the Bible, Shakespeare, and indeed in the Rubaiyat itself; however it has not suffered for that, and has indeed produced a number of haunting analogies and images.

[Speaking of which, if anyone can provide me a fuller reference to the one about life being like a bird passing brielfy through a lighted room before returning to the outer darkness whence it came, I’d be grateful.]

Notes

Freely translated by Edward Fitzgerald; stanza 17 from the 5th edition

Caravanserai: A kind of inn in Eastern countries where caravans put up, being a large quadrangular building with a spacious court in the middle.

– OED

Links

poem #545 has a biography of
Fitzgerald and a number of other Rubaiyat links.

‘Caravanserai’ is another of those wonderfully evocative words that conjures up entire realms and stories. For something in the same vein, check out the Silk Road theme we ran a while back: Poem #504, Poem #506, Poem #509,
Poem #513, Poem #515, Poem #518 and Poem #526 - yes, it was a long theme but a beautiful one.

And if anyone can find or scan in pictures of a caravanserai, do send in a link.

Afterthought

Having spent a happy half-hour or so rereading all four editions of the Rubaiyat, I can recommend it - the second and fourth editions have a few hidden gems that are lost if you concentrate on the outer two.

— Martin