Chapter Four

Carpe Diem, Eschatology and Sensuality in Rubaiyat

Carpe Diem

Carpe diem is a phrase that comes from the Roman poet Horace, means literally

‘Pluck the day’, though it's usually translated as ‘Seize the day’. A free translation might be

‘Enjoy yourself while you have the chance’. This Latin phrase was used by the Roman

poet Horace to express the idea that we should enjoy life while we can. His full injunction,

"carpe diem quam minimum credula postero,” can be translated as “pluck the day, trusting as

little as possible in the next one,” but carpe diem alone has come to be used as shorthand for

this entire idea, which is more widely known as "seize the day." Carpe diem basically says

that enjoy all of the pleasures of the moment without concern for the future.

This term has been expressed in many literatures before and after Horace. It appears

in ancient Greek literature, especially lyric poetry, and it intersects with the teachings of the

Greek philosopher Epicurus and what would come to be known as Epicureanism. In English

literature it was a particular preoccupation of poets during the 16th and 17th centuries.

Among the Cavalier poets, Robert Herrick expressed a sharp sense of carpe diem in the first

stanza, one of the best-known examples is in the first stanza of Robert Herrick's "To the

Virgins, to Make Much of Time":

Then be not coy, but use your time,

And while ye may, go marry;

For having lost but once your prime,

You may forever tarry. (13-16)

Andrew Marvell, the most prominent of the Metaphysical poets, deployed the

sentiment through a lover’s impatience in “To His Coy Mistress”:

 Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapped power. (37-40)

Khayyam considers present time as the very precious moment for a man. If the person

utilizes each and every moment of the present, he may enjoy life with the intensity. In this

way, life becomes for a man a matter of hours not of years. The poet says that man cannot

grasp the purpose of existence or he cannot efface the past and mould the future to his own

way. So, what remains for a man is the present only. It is the only moment of time that really

belongs to him. The poet says –

“Ah, fill the Cup:---what boots it to repeat

How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:

Unborn To-Morrow, and dead YESTERDAY,

Why fret about them if TO-DAY be sweet!” (37)

Here, Omar seems to suggest that one should not think about the past and future but

only about Present. Make the most out of present before we die, before we mix with the dust:

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,

Before we too into the Dust descend;

Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie

Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, – and sans End! (23)

Also Omar suggests while you are alive drink wine for once if you are dead you will

never return:
 Then to this earthen Bowl did I adjourne

My Lip the secret Well of Life to learn:

And Lip to Lip it murmur’d – ‘While you live

Drink! – for once dead you never shall return’.” (34)

He also says that to go with him leaving the wise because one thing is certain that

today you are alive and tomorrow you have to die giving the example of a flower which once

blows someday it will be dead forever:

Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise

To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;

One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;

The Flower that once has blown for ever dies. (26)

This use of the flower as a symbol of the transience of human life recalls. Robert

Herrick uses similar imagery in his poem “To the Virgins, to make much of Time”:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today

Tomorrow will be dying. (1-4)

Robert Frost took on the subject carpe diem with his poem “Carpe Diem,” first

published in 1938. In it children are encouraged by a figure called age to:

“'Be happy, happy, happy,

And seize the day of pleasure.'” (9-10)

Also not being modern writer in old time also carpe diem used by many writers along

with Omar Khayyam in his Rubaiyat by using these lines in his verses.
 Eschatology

Eschatology is a belief concerning death, the end of the world, or the ultimate destiny

of humankind, the doctrine of the last things. It was originally a Western term, referring to

Jewish, Christian, and Muslim beliefs about the end of history, the resurrection of the dead,

the Last Judgment, the messianic era, and the problem of theodicy. In the history of religion,

the term eschatology refers to conceptions of the last things: immortality of the soul, rebirth,

resurrection, migration of the soul, and the end of time. These concepts also have secular

parallels—for example, in the turning points of one’s life and in one’s understanding of

death. Often these notions are contrasted with the experience of suffering in the world.

Eschatological themes thrive during crises, serving as consolation for those who hope for a

better world or as motivation for a revolutionary transformation of society.

Khayyam has been accused of believing in the transmigration of the soul and even

corporeal resurrection in this world. This is partially due to some of the inauthentic Rubaiyat

that have been attributed to him. Khayyam’s philosophical treatises indicate that he did

believe in life after death, and in this regard his views were in line with traditional Islamic

eschatological doctrine.

Khayyam the poet, however, plays with the notion of life after death in a variety of

ways. First, he casts doubt on the very existence of a life beyond our earthly existence;

second, he says that based on our very experience in this world, all things seem to perish and

not return. Some of his poems play with the idea of the transmigration of the soul. This is

more symbolic than actual; in numerous poems he tells us that we turn to dust and it is from

our dust that other living beings rise. Khayyam’s comments regarding the possibility of life

after death may well have been an indirect criticism of the orthodox jurists who spoke of the

intricacies of heaven and hell with certainty.

 The Rubaiyat casts doubt on Islamic eschatological and stereological views. Once

again the tension between Khayyam’s poetic and philosophical modes of thought surfaces;

experientially there is evidence to conclude that death is the end:

Behind the curtain none has found his way

None came to know the secret as we could say

And each repeats the dirge his fancy taught

Which has no sense-but never ends the lay (Whinfield 2001, 229)

In the Rubaiyat, Khayyam portrays the universe as a beautiful verse which reads:

“Before we too into Dust descend;

Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,

Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and sans End!” (23)

We came from dust and we will return to dust and we will lie under dust before our

death. Make the most of Life before you die, for when you do die, that is IT! Compare the

famous lines from Jacques’ speech on the Seven Ages of Man in Shakespeare’s play As You

Like It: 

“…Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion;

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." (Act II, Scene VII, lines 163 –166)

“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.” (46)

Omar also says that this world is nothing but like a magic show where we are played

in the box and in which phantom figures come and go, that means people comes and goes

from the world.

“And we, that now make merry in the Room

They left, and Summer dresses in new Bloom,

Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth

Descend, ourselves to make a Couch—for whom?” (22)

We today are likened to “Summer dresses in new Bloom” (flowers in bloom), who

will all too soon wither and die to make way for the next generation of flowers. “The Couch

of Earth” is like “the River’s Lip on which we lean” (19) – we live (lean) upon the Earth

before we are buried (descend) beneath it, to become part of the Earth on which future

generations live (lean).

While Khayyam does not explicitly deny the existence of life after death, perhaps for

political reasons and fear of being labeled a heretic, there are subtle references throughout

his Rubaiyat that the hereafter should be taken with a grain of salt. In contrast, in his

philosophical writings we see him argue for the in corporeality of the soul, which paves the

path for the existence of life after death. The irreconcilable conflict between Khayyam’s

observation that death is the inevitable end for all beings, and his philosophical reflections in

favor of the possibility of the existence of life after death, remains an insoluble riddle.
 Sensuality in Rubaiyat

Sensuality is defined as enjoyment of sensual pleasures, or is defined as a condition of

being pleasing to the senses. It is the state or quality of being sensual; fondness for or

indulgence in sensual pleasures. It is the enjoyment, expression, or pursuit of physical,

especially sexual pleasure.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam reveals the use of Sensuality. Basically these sensual

pleasures were representations of a deeper joy in Rubaiyat as depicted in the translated

version of Edward Fitzgerald. The Rubaiyat subtly evokes the alliance of scientific reasoning

with religious skepticism. At the same time, however, confounds the speaker's desire to

comprehend it in rational ways. Chaos generates an inexhaustible sense of wonder, and the

failure to glimpse Goďs design or benevolence fuels the longing for sensual pleasure.

Omar does not discard the pleasures and joys of life as just illusions. To him, the

irony is that the joys are short-lived. Thus, Omar opines just like the joys, human life also is a

short interlude of consciousness between the nothingness–before–Birth and the nothingness

after Death. So, everything on the earth is in a state of eternal Flux. The poet Says-

“Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the wise,

To talk; one thing is certain, that life flies;

One thing is certain, and the rest is lies;

The flower that once has blown for ever dies.” (26)

Shelley used similar imagery in his poem “Mutability” – his second poem of that title,

written in 1824:
 The flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow dies;

All that we wish to stay

Tempts and then flies.

What is this world's delight?

Lightning that mocks the night,

Brief even as bright. (1-6)

Throughout the quatrains, the speaker establishes intimate contact with diverse forms

of life - vines, nightingales, the woods, and, of course, the second-person addressee of the

poem.

And this delightful Herb whose tender Green

Fledges the River's Lip on which we lean –

Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows

From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen! (19)

Through a figurative use of fledging, the river turns into a young bird whose wing

feathers take the form of grass. The contact between humans, plants, and the animated river

suggests the intermingling of diverse life forms. The speaker, connecting intimately with

what he encounters through his senses, immerses himself in worldly attachments.

Similar theme echoed in the following lines from Shelley’s “Queen Mab” in Part II:

There’s not one atom of yon earth

But once was living man;

Nor the minutest drop of rain,

 That hangeth in its thinnest cloud,

But flowed in human veins; (211-215)

The diction in the verse in which the speaker emphatically denies an afterlife, for

example, is so perplexing that it undermines the very possibility of certainty:

And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,

End in the Nothing all Things end in - Yes –

Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what

Thou shalt be - Nothing - Thou shalt not be less. (47)

And if everything you do in this life, like the pleasures of Wine and Women, ends in

nothing, well, don’t worry, just think about it, you can’t be less than Nothing, so whatever

you do in this life, it can’t be worse than indulging in Wine and Women!

Thomas Jordan wrote a poem on enjoying life is “Coronemus nos Rosis antequam

marcescant”:

LET us drink and be merry, dance, joke, and rejoice,

With claret and sherry, theorbo and voice!

The changeable world to our joy is unjust,

All treasure's uncertain,

Then down with your dust! (1-5)

 The incomprehensible chaos portrayed by the speaker allows the Rubaiyat to

downplay one constituent element of secular humanism - rationalism - and foreground

another, the call to dignify the human body and its desires:

You know, my Friends, how long since in my House

For a new Marriage did I make Carouse:

Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,

And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse. (40)

Less predictable than the barrenness of reason here is its characterization as old.

Promising bodily pleasures, the daughter of the vine replaces the very entity of human

progress.

’Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days

Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:

Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,

And one by one back in the Closet lays. (49)

This quatrain reveals with striking clarity how the speaker manages to reconcile a

worldly outlook with the possible existence of the supernatural. If there is a transcendent

power, it is emotionally and intellectually so disconnected from those who exist within the

universe that its existence cannot mark everyday experience.

Beloved fill up a glass of wine which will clear past regrets and future fears, drinking

will remove all worries of past and future and thus he will enjoy with his beloved. The end of

the verse seems to mean something like ‘who knows what tomorrow may bring’:
 Ah! my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears

To-day of past Regrets and future Fears—

To-morrow?-Why, To-morrow I may be

Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n Thousand Years.(20)

Any reference to tomorrows and yesterdays almost inevitably recalls that famous

speech from Macbeth in Act 5, Scene 5:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. (22-26)

In the following verse we can see the worldly lust and sensual state where they are

making merry in a room:

And we, that now make merry in the Room

They left, and Summer dresses in new Bloom,

Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth

Descend, ourselves to make a Couch – for whom? (22)

What, without asking, hither hurried whence?

And, without asking, whither hurried hence!

Another and another Cup to drown

The Memory of this Impertinence! (30)

 Another and another cup of wine is drowning means he is drinking one after another

cup of wine. The “Impertinence” is the way we are buffeted along by Fate without

being asked and, all too often, without any choice in the matter. Following verse also talks

about repetition and also asking again to fill up the cup:

Ah, fill the Cup: – what boots it to repeat

How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:

Unborn TO-MORROW and dead YESTERDAY,

Why fret about them if TO-DAY be sweet! (37)

The Spring and the Rose, here used to signify fading youth. Like the love of rose and

nightingale we should cherish youth and be close. It seems to be the Bird of Youth, which,

once it leaves our branches, flies off to where nobody knows.

Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!

That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!

The Nightingale that in the Branches sang,

Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows?(72)

Shakespeare wrote of love and youth in the well-known love-song “O Mistress

Mine!” from Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 3:

What is love, 'tis not hereafter,

Present mirth, hath present laughter:

What's to come, is still unsure.

In delay there lies no plenty,

Then come kiss me sweet and twenty:

 Youth's a stuff will not endure. (7-12)

Andrew Marvell, of course, wanted more than just a kiss, in the poem “To his Coy

Mistress”. Were there time enough, he told her:

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest; (13-16)

In 74th verse “Moon of my Delight” is the Poet’s Beloved, she being constant, unlike

the Moon of Heaven, which waxes and wanes as the month goes by. He is comparing his

beloved with moon and calling her moon. Incidentally, it is an easily missed fact that the

rising Moon in this verse, at the end of the poem, pairs with the rising Sun in verse 1 at the

beginning, the whole poem thus effectively following the course of Omar’s musings through

a symbolic day, from Sunrise to Moonrise. 

Ah, Moon of my Delight who know'st no wane,

The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again:

How oft hereafter rising shall she look

Through this same Garden after me – in vain! (74)

In one of his famous rubais, Omar craves for a jug of wine, a book of verse and the

beloved’s presence with a song on her lips. This provides a clue as to how bliss may be

attained through the senses too. He says:

Here with a loaf of bread beneath the Bough

A Flask of wine, a Book of Verse- and Thou

 Beside me singing in the wilderness-

And wilderness is Paradise enow.” (11)

The wine that exalts man and frees him from the anxieties is meant here to raise him

from the mundane level of life. The book of verse represents the attainments of human

imagination. The beloved who is both the source and the object of love is one who

appreciated through the senses, elates and sublimates the feelings of the lover. According to

Omar, woman, wine and book- all these combined together can turn the moment of bliss into

eternity. According to Omar, Love is not merely a sensual enjoyment to satisfy lust. He

believes in the Platonic Love. In this state, there is no carving for the exclusive possession of

the beloved. The beauty of the beloved is considered as the light that illuminates the lover’s

life. Her very presence inspires and elevates the lover. Even her memory also sublimates and

raises the lover to the beatific vision of sweetness and light.