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Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.
Just one more little piece of information regarding the Rubaiyat.
A few years ago, one of the most beautiful editions ever of this work
appeared in the US. Almost immediately it came out, it received the coveted
Benjamin Franklin Award (gold medal) for its wonderfully artistic design.
The edition is called "Wine of the Mystic", with interpretations by P.
Yogananda. The title refers to a fact that Bob quoted from the Columbia
Encyclopedia below, namely: "The hedonism of his verse often masks his
serious reflections on metaphysical issues."
Though most people will be able to relate to and appreciate the beauty of a
quatrain such as the one above, still without the included interpretation
the meaning would probably be difficult to ascertain.
Amazon.com readers, too, awarded that edition the top rating of 5 stars.
Those of you listers who love poetry - or philosophy - be sure to have a
look at this beautiful edition of an immortal masterpiece.
My apologies for this off-topic post which is intended for the benefit of
those who are poetically (or philosophically) inclined...
Kind regards,
Michael Suesserott
Disclaimer: though you can see I am really enthusiastic about this book, due
to an unfortunate oversight neither Omar Khayyam nor his publishers pay me
any commissions.
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Bob Fulks [mailto:bfulks@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Gesendet: Friday, August 18, 2000 19:26
An: 'Omega List'
Betreff: Re: Neural Networks for trading
At 5:35 PM +0200 8/18/00, Michael Suesserott wrote:
> Indeed, indeed, repentance oft before
> I swore - but was I sober when I swore?
>
>Sorry, couldn't resist. How nice to find Khayyam quoted here.
<private message> wrote:
>OK - I will bite. I have heard the quotation before but cannot recall
>where or what the rest of it was. Could you help?
Time out for a culture break, I guess...
The quote is from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam. He was an
11th-century Persian poet and mathematician. There are many different
translations. The one I like best is:
The moving finger writes and having writ, moves on;
and neither piety nor wit can remove a line of it.
A more complete translation is:
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
Omar was quite a guy for his time, as described in the Columbia
Encyclopedia below - probably was an expert Persian trader, too.
The Rubáiyát was the source of many now-famous quotations:
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!
Seems appropriate for a list about trading systems...
Bob Fulks
----
Omar Khayyam
(käm´) (KEY), fl. 11th cent., Persian poet and mathematician, b.
Nishapur. He was called Khayyam [tentmaker] probably because of his
father's occupation. The details of his life are mostly conjectural,
but he was well educated and became celebrated as the outstanding
mathematician of his time. As astronomer to Sultan Malik Shah, he was
one of a group that undertook to reform the calendar. Their work led
to the adoption of a new era, the so-called Jalalian or Seljuk era,
beginning Mar. 15, 1079. Although he wrote a number of important
mathematical studies, Omar's fame as a scientist has been greatly
eclipsed in the West by the popularity of his Rubaiyat, epigrammatic
verse quatrains. The work was little known in Europe until the freely
paraphrased English translation of them was first published by Edward
FitzGerald in 1859. This influenced all subsequent evaluations of his
poetry, even among native speakers of Persian, where FitzGerald's
translation led to a new appreciation of his output. FitzGerald
omitted many of the quatrains (which were independent and
unconnected) and rearranged them into a unity expressing his
conception of Omar's philosophy; it is, however, impossible to
establish definitely that many of the nearly 500 quatrains attributed
to Omar are really his work. The hedonism of his verse often masks
his serious reflections on metaphysical issues. The verses have been
offered in literally hundreds of editions.
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