Quatrain 46
Quatrain 46 of 75
“For in and out, above, about, below,
'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.”
Reflection · Winter
The Magic Shadow-show — Khayyam's image of existence as a lantern-play, a shadow theater performed in a box whose candle is the actual sun. This is not a dismissal of existence as illusion; it is an accurate account of what we are: patterns of light and shadow, figures cast by the sun's light on the surface of a spinning world, appearing for a moment in the show and then gone.
In winter the sun is farthest from the Earth's northern face and the shadows are longest, most obviously shadows. The figures are cast long across the cold ground, present and moving and clearly, undeniably, shadows.