Omar Khayyam · Rubaiyat · FitzGerald 1859

Verse by Theme

رباعیات

75 quatrains. 27 obsessions. Mortality, time, beauty, defiance — the ideas Khayyam returned to again and again, across a thousand years and a single glass of wine.

راز

Mystery

37 quatrainsKhayyam

The universe offers no answers. Khayyam finds this almost comforting.

“Now the New Year reviving old Desires,”

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پذیرش

Acceptance

34 quatrainsKhayyam

Not surrender — a clear-eyed peace with what cannot be changed.

“But come with old Khayyam, and leave the Lot”

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سرنوشت

Fate

32 quatrainsKhayyam

The turning wheel that even wisdom cannot stop or steer.

“With me along some Strip of Herbage strown”

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مرگ

Mortality

32 quatrainsKhayyam

Khayyam stares at death without flinching — and finds it clarifying.

“Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky”

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ناپایداری

Impermanence

27 quatrainsKhayyam

Nothing lasts. The potter's clay was once a king. The meadow, a grave.

“And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before”

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زمان

Time

27 quatrainsKhayyam

The relentless forward motion of hours, seasons, and centuries.

“Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night”

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سرکشی

Defiance

23 quatrainsKhayyam

Against doctrine, against despair — a refusal to pretend certainty.

“But come with old Khayyam, and leave the Lot”

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می

Wine

21 quatrainsKhayyam

The cup as symbol, sacrament, and honest pleasure all at once.

“Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky”

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کیهان

Cosmos

19 quatrainsKhayyam

Stars, spheres, the indifferent machinery of the sky.

“Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai”

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آزادی

Freedom

18 quatrainsKhayyam

The only liberty available: how you hold the hours you are given.

“And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before”

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زیبایی

Beauty

15 quatrainsKhayyam

Roses, faces, wine — the acute awareness that lovely things vanish.

“Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night”

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لذت

Pleasure

13 quatrainsKhayyam

The argument for presence — this moment, this garden, this breath.

“But come with old Khayyam, and leave the Lot”

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طبیعت

Nature

11 quatrainsKhayyam

Garden, rose, nightingale — Persian poetry's oldest vocabulary.

“Iram indeed is gone with all its Rose,”

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کنجکاوی

Curiosity

10 quatrainsKhayyam

Questions asked without expectation of answer — and asked anyway.

“Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd”

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اکنون

Present

10 quatrainsKhayyam

The only tense Khayyam trusts. Yesterday is dust; tomorrow, rumour.

“Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring”

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خرد

Wisdom

10 quatrainsKhayyam

What the scholars miss and what the tavern-keeper knows.

“Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd”

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عشق

Love

9 quatrainsKhayyam

Desire and loss woven into one, rarely separated.

“And David's Lips are lock't; but in divine”

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Continuity

8 quatrainsKhayyam

The dead become the earth; the earth becomes the cup; the cup holds wine.

“Iram indeed is gone with all its Rose,”

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Loss

6 quatrainsKhayyam

Grief without consolation — honest, undecorated.

“Lo! some we loved, the loveliest and the best”

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Solitude

6 quatrainsKhayyam

The desert, the empty cup, the man who stopped expecting answers.

“Now the New Year reviving old Desires,”

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Justice

5 quatrainsKhayyam

The scale that the universe has never once balanced.

“Oh Thou who didst with Pitfall and with Gin”

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نوزایی

Renewal

5 quatrainsKhayyam

Nowruz, spring, the tulip returning from last year's blood.

“Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night”

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بهار

Spring

4 quatrainsKhayyam

The season that proves the Persian calendar right about the year.

“Now the New Year reviving old Desires,”

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Desire

3 quatrainsKhayyam

What the heart asks for that the world rarely grants.

“Now the New Year reviving old Desires,”

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Ruins

3 quatrainsKhayyam

Empires become dust. Even the dust forgets the names.

“Iram indeed is gone with all its Rose,”

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Dawn

2 quatrainsKhayyam

First light as both beginning and reminder that the night has ended.

“Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night”

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Night

2 quatrainsKhayyam

The hours when the questions come and the distractions fall away.

“And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,”

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About the Rubaiyat

Omar Khayyam wrote the Rubaiyat in 11th-century Persia — hundreds of four-line verses circling the same questions: the brevity of life, the silence of the afterlife, the consolation of beauty. Edward FitzGerald's 1859 English translation made them famous in the West.

How the themes work

Each of the 75 quatrains carries one or more themes — the ideas that dominate it. A verse on mortality may also be a verse on beauty. A verse on wine is almost always a verse on time. The themes are not separate rooms; they are different windows into the same building.

Today's verse

Each day the Persian Calendar surfaces one quatrain, chosen by the date. Every morning in Iran, a new day begins with a verse that has waited a thousand years to be read today.

Read today's verse →