Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat: Quatrain I

A favorite of mine is Edward FitzGerald's translation? or perhaps a paraphrase? of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat. The problem is, simply--which version? FitzGerald published five editions, with the number of stanzas or quatrains ranging from 75 in the first edition to as many as 110 in the second. I've glanced through translations by others, and while they may be, as some have claimed, closer to the original, I find them much less interesting. Perhaps the best way would be to say that Fitzgerald's versions are inspired by Khayyam's.


One example of a variance occurs in the first quatrain:

First Edition Version

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.


Second Edition Version

Wake! For the Sun behind yon Eastern height
Has chased the Session of the Stars from Night;
And, to the field of Heaven's ascending, strikes
The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light.


Significant differences? The first seems more poetic while the second more prosaic, to me anyway. He's replaced "Morning in the Bowl of Night" with "the Sun behind yon Eastern height." In the first version, it is "Morning" that is active, having flung a stone, the Sun, which chases away the Stars while in the second, it is the appearance of the Sun, rising in the East, that chases the stars. The Sun changes from being employed by another in the first to being the actor in the drama.

In the first edition, we read of the "Hunter of the East," the Sun, which captures the Turret in a noose of light. The second also brings in the Sun, but this time it captures nothing, but simply strikes the Turret with a Shaft of light. But this does bring with it an echo of the "Hunter" of the first stanza with the reference to a Shaft, perhaps a spear used in hunting.

The first is a bit more complex, I think, for it begins with Morning who flings a stone (perhaps from sling carried by hunters and warriors?) that drives away the stars, and that stone then is revealed as the Sun, who becomes a hunter that uses a noose of light to capture the Sultan's Turret.

The second gives us the Sun that rises from Eastern heights, chases away the stars, and rising, strikes the Turret with a shaft of light. While to call the Sun's rays a shaft is probably more accurate, visually, the noose of light is more fanciful and suggests something that lasts longer than simply being struck by a shaft. The Sultan's Turret will be captured by the Sun all day, not just struck once in the morning.


While FitzGerald uses the second version for the remaining editions, I frankly prefer the first- a case of not fixing something that isn't broken.



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.