Quatrain 31
Quatrain 31 of 75
“Up from Earth's Centre through the seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,
And many Knots unravel'd by the Road;
But not the Knot of Human Death and Fate.”
Reflection · Winter
The seven gates are the Platonic planetary spheres — the astronomer's universe, the one Khayyam navigated with real instruments and real mathematics. He rose through them, in dream or imagination or the long ascent of a lifetime's inquiry, and on the Throne of Saturn — the outermost planet, the coldest and most distant — he sat and unravelled knots. Many knots. But not the Knot of Human Death and Fate.
In winter, on the Throne of Saturn — that cold outer seat of knowledge — this verse is the most honest thing in the Rubaiyat. The smartest person you know has sat where Khayyam sat and come back with the same report: I unravelled many things, and that one I could not. The winter accepts this.