Quatrain 58
Quatrain 58 of 75
“Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And who with Eden didst devise the Snake;
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken'd, Man's Forgiveness give—and take!”
Reflection · Spring
Give and take — this is the most audacious line in the Rubaiyat. Man's Forgiveness give: the God who made us from base earth and devised the snake in Eden owes humanity forgiveness for everything that followed. And take: we, in our baser-earth condition, also extend forgiveness to the Creator for the situation He put us in. This mutual forgiveness is Khayyam at his most radical and his most human.
In spring this verse has an Edenic quality — the garden is opening, the snake is in the design from the beginning, the base earth is sending up its new green shoots. The forgiveness asked and given is a spring forgiveness: reciprocal, generous, acknowledging the whole situation.