My 2020th Post, Legends of the Fall, and Blogging: What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

My 2000th blog post went up on 15 December.  Lots of things were going on, including taking care of a sick child, so I did nothing special for that occasion.  I have had in mind a post that I’ve wanted to do for some time, and since I didn’t do anything marking post 2000, I’ll make the post now as post 2020.  I used to like the old cartoon Sealab 2020 way back when, so that’s an interesting synch, anyway.  What the heck.

I had never thought to get into blogging.  Being of the tail end of the Baby Boom generation, I was well into my adulthood before the Internet started to become the phenomenon it is now.  I had had some experience with intranet BB’s and such in college, but not that much.  Even though I was a math major, at my university we still were doing things mostly the old fashioned way.  It wasn’t until the mid 90’s that I got an email address (long since defunct), and in the late 90’s that I started spending lots of time in cyberspace.

Tamám Shud

That is, “It is finished.”

The final “Rubá’í of the Day” went up this past Sunday.  However, I’ve been working behind the scenes to get the index updated.  I completed this just a few minutes ago, and I therefore direct you to the index for the “Rubá’í of the Day” series.  From there you can find all seventy-five verses of Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, and all five hundred of E. H. Whinfield’s version.

The “Rubá’í of the Day” series has been a labor of love for me, and I have greatly enjoyed posting it.  I hope you find it interesting and worthwhile, too; and if you have a taste for daily poetry, check out my ongoing “Daily Whitman” series, in which I’m publishing Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass in daily increments.  Farewell to Omar, greetings to Walt, and may you enjoy both!

To Celebrate the Completion of the Rubáiyát

 

A musical presentation based on the Rubáiyát, and a fitting way to send it off.  Enjoy!

Rubá’í of the Day

500

No longer hug your grief and vain despair,
But in this unjust world be just and fair;
And since the issue of the world is naught,
Think you are naught, and so shake off dull care!

 

تمام شد

 

THE END

Rubá’í of the Day

499
O wheel of heaven, what have I done to you,
That you should thus annoy me? Tell me true;
To get a drink I have to cringe and stoop,
And for my bread you make me beg and sue.

Rubá’í of the Day

498
If popularity you would ensue,
Speak well of Muslim, Christian, and Jew;
So shall you be esteemed of great and small,
And none will venture to speak ill of you.

Rubá’í of the Day

497
Hear from the spirit-world this mystery: 
Creation is summed up, O man, in thee; 
Angel and demon, man and beast art thou, 
Yea, thou art all thou dost appear to be!

Rubá’í of the Day

496
You, who in carnal lusts your time employ,
Wearing your precious spirit with annoy,
Know that these things you set your heart upon
Sooner or later must the soul destroy!

Rubá’í of the Day

495
Dame Fortune! all your acts and deeds confess
That you are foul oppression’s votaress;
You cherish bad men, and annoy the good;
Is this from dotage, or sheer foolishness?

Rubá’í of the Day

494
The Saki knows my genus properly,
To all woe’s species he holds a key;
Whene’er my mood is sad he brings me wine,
And that makes all the difference to me!