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| RUBAIYAT 151-200 |
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| 151 Let's drink wine. For drinking, perhaps, is the best I can do to ease fear of death gripping my breast. Lying on the green grass growing from the remains let us drink and trust Fate to take care of the rest. 152 All shall pass - from death yet none has found a cure. All you've managed to save would be wasted, for sure. While you're still alive give away all possessions For a generous man it is right to die poor. 153 By distress of an oyster a pearl is wrought, Need and hardship are the stuff of man's each deep thought. No matter how much is lost, soul's never empty It is filled with new wisdom that suffering brought. 154 Before emptying the cup of life of the last drop, let's drink the other with wine filled to the top. For who knows when fate will decide in its madness that the party is over and drinking must stop. 155 Before being born you have not needed a thing, now you are a puppet pulled by each need's string. Throw off the yoke of the insatiable body and regain the freedom to live like a king. 156 Those taken to Heaven or banished to Hell what's it like over there none have come back to tell. Neither sinner nor saint, nor rich, nor dirt poor shall return after bidding the last farewell. 157 If I could learn the rules of the murderous game Death is playing with us, I would welcome her claim. Life is given to man to discover its meaning, and to die never finding out its aim. 158 In the darkness forever we helplessly grope for some tangible traces of one more lost hope. Shed the light, Heaven, on why so many have vanished where are they, what's the meaning, when will all this stop? 159 An admirer is struck by the vessel's sight It is kissed by a passionate lover all night. But a mad potter who made this exquisite beauty breaks it into the shards out of ruthless spite. 160 It's a shame to waste life being always sad, to nurse a grudge forgetting the good times you've had. Drink before the string of the sweet harp has been broken, drink before of your cup there is not left a shred. 161 Off to the garden's shade just the two of us went to enjoy of good wine the flowery scent. How many sweethearts God, in his holy madness, to make the wine cups, we had drunk from, had spent? 162 Like the rotting trees, ready to fall, are the old. Aging puts on my face the spots of greenish mold. The four walls and the roof of my decrepit body shall collapse soon and leave my poor soul in the cold. 163 Among the cruel tyrants who greedily thirst for men's blood, sweat and tears the earth must be the worst. How many more hearts, bodies, souls and minds would be swallowed till it may finally burst? 164 Entrance, exit are two sides of the life-death door. What's behind each? With terror filled corridor. Happiness? Happy is who lived only a moment. While one never born must be so even more. 165 I'd have never come here if it were up to me. Yet, the hardship of life I do not try to flee. Given a choice, I would neither here nor there go, between being or nonbeing choose not to be. 166 The sky's hovering over the parched, thirsty land like a jug above a cup in the eager hand. Only it's not the red wine, the sky pours down but the men's purple blood drunk like water by sand. 167 Beauty of what I see is, indeed, exquisite: Colors, shapes, sounds, scents truly are infinite. But the spring of life will dry up, sooner or later; matters not how hard Khayyam tries to save it. . 168 I shall tell you a secret when no one hears: Allah kneads dough of flesh mixing pain and tears. Our misery has at the end no meaning: from the darkness man comes, suffers... and disappears. 169 Even if Venus gives you a passionate kiss, if you talk to a man wiser than Socrates, if a dancing girl is better than Terpsichore - it won't bring happiness, if your life is amiss. 170 The tyrannical sky crushes us everywhere, squeezing joy out of men's life, year after year... If we knew, beforehand, that to live is to suffer, to be born into this who would, really, care? 171 For men's mercy do not look in vain, my heart, nor for the truth where lying is the supreme art. In this world there is no cure from your pain: learn to live with it, or it will break you apart. 172 Pressed for oil, a rose would cry and inveigh: "For men's love of perfume why do I have to pay?" "The years of grief and tears", answers a nightingale, "is the price of the one sunny and happy day." 173 Fun and wine I used, being sober, to lack, till I saw a dead rose, all dried up and black. "Oh, poor soul!" I asked, "what had caused this destruction?" "Too much wine and fun" she had answered me back. 174 Seven heavens or eight? Count them if you must. Either will soon enough grind me into dust. What the difference if by worms I will be eaten, or devoured by wolves? Neither seems to me just. 175 In a tavern let's while away life, my friend. Dust of viziers and kings is a cup in your hand. All that seems to be strong, sound, stable, eternal is a desert mirage that dissolves into sand. 176 All shall pass, notwithstanding rank, fortune or fame. Not a trace will be left, at the end, not a name. Man is born, lives and dies. Does it, really, matter? Nothing changes. The world remains the same. 177 If a rascal and fool all the riches has got, born with a silver spoon, eats from a golden pot, while an honest man slaves for some bread and water, Is this what you call justice, my maker, my God? 178 It cannot be denied that man's burdensome lot is to have lust and hunger rule his every thought. After all, no one who has lived ever managed to resist the desires' relentless onslaught. 179 Don't waste time to learn what before was unknown! You can't take it with you - life is a short-term loan. What's the point of storing up wisdom on earth? Your best thoughts someone one day may call his own. 180 If I were most perfect, omnipotent God, instead of being man, weak and terribly flawed, I'd tear down at once the unjust, cruel heaven, and create the just one, where pure love is bestowed! 181 Cry or laugh, we shall all, in time, breathe our last. It is not a big deal, dust returning to dust. A clump of dirt and blood... Does it really matter to live or not to live if, one day, die we must? 182 One is caught by this life like a bird by a snare, tricked by hope and faith into grief and despair. And from this cage, that has no doors, to escape is as hard as from the never ending nightmare. 183 I do not wish to be called "the salt of the earth", nor "the light of the world" for all it is worth. I have finally learned of these words the true meaning: far from being a blessing, it's a bitter curse. 184 O, my fate! You are like the tyrannical king, while I am a stone flung by your sling. What was I born for, if in this despotic world I am too weak to change even the smallest thing? 185 The most beautiful women, the men of great wit must fall onto the ground like the ripen wheat. Woe is us! We shall rot without a purpose, good for nothing else, but for the earthworms to eat. 186 Wine now is the only joy I am left. How many more years of such life are still left? From the table-talks nothing remains, from wine the bad after-taste is the one thing that is left. 187 After you see me die like a dog in a ditch, don't cry, oh my friends: life was the real bitch. Instead, turn me into a jug filled with good wine, for my freedom, at last, have a drink on me, each! 188 Will I always kneel before idols, or not? Will I ever stand up to confront cruel God? Is it any use asking, if even when thinking, I am not sure I have time to finish my thought? 189 Though life is a phantom - be happy and glad; seized with passion, or drunken - be happy and glad. You've appeared for a moment - and then gone forever; so, just for this moment be happy and glad. 190 Call of tavern would me every morning exhort: "Don't sleep, fool! Wake up! Life of man is too short! Soon your mouth will be full of earth, fill it now with the earthly gifts of every kind and sort!" 191 It is better to drink wine, feeling its glee, than to mourn for the old days with nothing but tea. Sober mind imprisons my soul with chains, from its shackles a wine cup shall set me free... 192 Bring more wine, for water is making me sick. Overflown with years, I'm beginning to leak... It's a shame for a man, old as I, to stay sober: I am planning to drink till my very last kick. 193 Whether minutes or days - it's the same for the dead, whether water or wine, Shiraz or Bagdad. The new moon shall change into the full one, forever, after we've gone to sleep in the last, earthly bed. 194 You and wine for now should not stay apart. Drink alone, with friends, with a lovely sweetheart the red blood of the grapes; for the emerald heaven, making grey dust of men, turned into the great art. 195 Friends, whatever God gives - try to be happy with. Your portion, once measured, will never increase. Don't covet thy neighbor's wife, house or cattle, hunger not for what isn't, make use of what is. 196 Bring a ruby, imprisoned in the biggest jug - it is my dearest friend, let me kiss it and hug. Don't sit here, lamenting men's life fleeting nature - quickly bring, filled with life to the very top, mug. 197 I took to kissing lips, red as the reddest wine. I took to drinking juice of grapes, simply divine. Out of life I try to extract all the best right before death and I into one intertwine. 198 The spring earth, washed by rain, is once more sunlit... Once more the world's heart is beginning to beat. Drink and dance, and make love on the green, grassy ground. Wake up from the deep sleep the dead, covered by it. 199 At the sumptuous feast, in the circle of friends, I'll be drinking nonstop, till the day my life ends. I'll be drinking from the potter's finest creations till becoming myself clay in his able hands. 200 Let your heart fly away out the sadness cage... In the happiness book memorize every page! Drink, my friend, live as if nothing matters but passion! Die from the courage wounds rather than of old age... |
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