The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: Second Edition, Quatrain LXVIII

This is another of the quatrains that Edward FitzGerald added to the Second Edition of his version of the Rubaiyat.  It's a familiar theme, one brought out previously and linked to the quatrain preceding this one.



SECOND EDITION:  QUATRAIN LXVIII

The Revelations of Devout and Learn'd
Who rose before us, and as Prophets burn'd,
    Are all but Stories, which, awoke from Sleep
They told their fellows, and to Sleep return'd.




FIFTH EDITION: QUATRAIN LXV

The Revelations of Devout and Learn'd
Who rose before us, and as Prophets burn'd,
    Are all but Stories, which, awoke from Sleep,
They told their comrades, and to Sleep return'd.



Aside from the comma added at the end of line three and the change from "fellows" to "comrades,"  the Fifth Edition is identical to the Second.  The comma may simply be a correction wherein the printer missed it in the Second Edition.   Perhaps there is an emotional connection to others suggested by "comrades" and possibly lacking in "fellows" is the reason for the change.   I do not see that it makes any great change in the overall point of the quatrain.

Those "Revelations" refer back to the previous quatrain, to the claims of what lies ahead for us after death.  As the Poet has mentioned in previous quatrains, nobody really knows what follows, if anything, death. That those "Stories" are told after the Devout and Learn'd Prophets have awakened from sleep suggest that they may simply be dreams.  But, the wide-spread acceptance of these Stories tells us that many people prefer dreams to uncertainty.