Or this:
“Think of this world as modelled at your whim,
Perfectly trimmed for you from east to west;
Yet know yourself a snowdrift on the sand
Heaped for two days or three, then thawed and gone”
Trans. Omar Ali-Shah (1921 - 2005)
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Posted by on 09/10 at 08:08 PM
Yes Arjay, the Ali-Shah version is more genuine to the source of the message. Fitzgerald’s translation work here is dubious.
Posted by Kingsley on 09/14 at 05:49 PM
Fitzgerald’s Persian is certainly questionable - in fact he could be accused of blatant invention. Certainly he took unbelievable liberties with the text.
Despite all that though - especially if we are merely talking of art, creativity and emotion - he has occasional flashes of artistic beauty.
Posted by segovius on 09/14 at 07:03 PM
Snow Upon The Desert
From Fitzgerald’s translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: