The Rubaiyat: Quatrain XXXIV

This quatrain has puzzled me, mainly because of the phrase "secret Well of Life" which appears in the first and second editions. However, it disappears by the fifth edition. Perhaps FitzGerald has learned that it puzzles other readers also.


First Edition: Quatrain XXXIV

Then to this earthen Bowl did I adjourn
My Lip the secret Well of Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur'd--"While you live
Drink!--for once dead you never shall return."



Second Edition: Quatrain XXXVIII

Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn
I lean'd, the secret Well of Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur'd--"While you live,
Drink!--for once dead you never shall return."



Fifth Edition: Quatrain XXXV

Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn
I lean'd, the Secret of my Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur'd--"While you live
Drink!--for once dead you never shall return."


The basic elements are the same in all three: (1) a bowl or urn (2) from which he expects to learn a secret, about life it appears, and (3) the secret--drink, for he "never shall return.' This, of course, is neither secret nor new. The poet has already expressed this several times in different ways in previous quatrains: "The Flower that once has blown forever dies" is just one example.

Several changes have occurred over the five editions. The earthen bowl of the first edition becomes the earthen Urn in the second and fifth editions. "Earthen" suggests dirt or clay, especially since it is pottery. In Genesis we are told that God made Adam out of clay-- and in the Christian funeral service we hear "dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return." That the Bowl or Urn speaks to him, lip to lip, hints, that possibly this clay bowl had once been part of a human being. The bowl or urn image appears again in the two following quatrains and again alludes to this possibility.

The "secret Well of Life" in the first two editions becomes "the Secret of my Life" by the fifth edition. According to my dictionary, a "well" could also be "a source to be drawn upon, as a well of information." That could refer to the "Well of Life," for he, therefore, would be trying to learn the secret source of life. However, in the fifth edition, he seems to have given up on learning the secret source of life and hopes only to learn the secret of his own life. Regardless of whether he seeks the source of life in general or just the secret of his own life, he gets the same answer--"While you live/Drink!--for once dead you never shall return."

The poet has now tried sages and saints, the heavens, and now the earth, but never gets the answer he wants; it's either a blind understanding, if any understanding at all, or eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow comes death, and no return.