Read The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever for Free Online Page A
Authors: Christopher Hitchens
compose such verse as shall earn your attention,
By long study amassed, and devised by delightful endeavour.
Please comprise these natures twain ’neath one appellation:
When I pass on, for example, to speak of the soul, how ’tis mortal,
Know that I speak of the mind as well, inasmuch as together
Both one single entity form, one composite substance.
Firstly, then, since I have shewn that ’tis rare, and composed of small bodies;
Shaped from much smaller atoms than fashion a liquid like water,
Atoms far smaller than those which constitute mizzling and smoke-clouds—
For it is nimbler by far, and a far feebler blow sets it moving,
Stirred as it is by the films which mist and smoke shed around them,
As for example when steeped in sleep we seem to see altars
Breathing forth flames of fire, and exalting their smoke to the heavens;
Doubtless from objects like these such films as I speak of are gendered.
Since too, when vessels are shattered, you see how in every direction
Gushes the liquid flood, and the contents utterly vanish;
Since once again the mists and the smoke are dispersed by the breezes;
Know that the soul, too, is scattered abroad, and dies much more quickly,
And is the sooner resolved back into its primary atoms,
Once it has quitted the limbs of a man and abandoned his body.
For when the body, which forms its receptacle, cannot contain it,
Being from any cause crushed, or by issue of life-blood enfeebled,
How can you think that the soul can by fluid air be encompassed?
How can the air, than our body more rare, be able to hold it?
From Book V
39
Next, having gotten them huts and skins and fire; and when woman
Mated with man shared a man’s abode; and when family duties
Therein were learnt; and as soon as they saw their own offspring arising;
Then ’twas that mankind first began to lose power of endurance.
Fire made their gelid frames less able to bear the cold weather
Out ’neath the open sky; their virility Venus exhausted:
Childrens’ caresses too easily sapped the proud spirit of parents.
Neighbours in those days, too, began to form friendly agreements
Neither to inflict nor receive any hurt, and asked for indulgence
Towards their women and bairns, as with cries and gesticulations
And in their stammering speech they tried to explain to each other
That it is meet and right that all should pity the helpless.
And although harmony could not be won in every instance,
Yet did the greater part observe the conventions uprightly;
Else long since would the human race have been wholly abolished,
Nor could their seed till this present day have continued the species.
From Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
A Paraphrase from Several Literal Translations by Richard Le Gallienne
O MAR K HAYYÁM
Medieval Persia also produced a long and beautiful poem satirizing the claims and practices of religion. Though Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) is best remembered for his warm recommendations of wine, women, and song (preferences that would land him in trouble in today’s Iran, as well) he was actually a very serious astronomer and mathematician who made many contributions to algebra, helped refine the calendar, and may have been an early proponent of the idea that the earth revolved around the sun.
Khayyám clearly doubted that god had revealed himself to some men and not to others, especially in light of the very obvious fact that those who claimed to interpret the revelation were fond of using their claim in order to acquire and wield power over others in this world. He was not the first to notice this aspect of religion, but he was among the wittiest.
The most celebrated translation of his immortal Rubáiyát into English was done by Edward Fitzgerald, but the verses as rendered by Richard Le Gallienne are sometimes better at conveying the pungency that underlies the ironic charm of these quatrains.
The bird of life is singing on the bough
His two eternal notes of “I and Thou”—
O!
By long study amassed, and devised by delightful endeavour.
Please comprise these natures twain ’neath one appellation:
When I pass on, for example, to speak of the soul, how ’tis mortal,
Know that I speak of the mind as well, inasmuch as together
Both one single entity form, one composite substance.
Firstly, then, since I have shewn that ’tis rare, and composed of small bodies;
Shaped from much smaller atoms than fashion a liquid like water,
Atoms far smaller than those which constitute mizzling and smoke-clouds—
For it is nimbler by far, and a far feebler blow sets it moving,
Stirred as it is by the films which mist and smoke shed around them,
As for example when steeped in sleep we seem to see altars
Breathing forth flames of fire, and exalting their smoke to the heavens;
Doubtless from objects like these such films as I speak of are gendered.
Since too, when vessels are shattered, you see how in every direction
Gushes the liquid flood, and the contents utterly vanish;
Since once again the mists and the smoke are dispersed by the breezes;
Know that the soul, too, is scattered abroad, and dies much more quickly,
And is the sooner resolved back into its primary atoms,
Once it has quitted the limbs of a man and abandoned his body.
For when the body, which forms its receptacle, cannot contain it,
Being from any cause crushed, or by issue of life-blood enfeebled,
How can you think that the soul can by fluid air be encompassed?
How can the air, than our body more rare, be able to hold it?
From Book V
39
Next, having gotten them huts and skins and fire; and when woman
Mated with man shared a man’s abode; and when family duties
Therein were learnt; and as soon as they saw their own offspring arising;
Then ’twas that mankind first began to lose power of endurance.
Fire made their gelid frames less able to bear the cold weather
Out ’neath the open sky; their virility Venus exhausted:
Childrens’ caresses too easily sapped the proud spirit of parents.
Neighbours in those days, too, began to form friendly agreements
Neither to inflict nor receive any hurt, and asked for indulgence
Towards their women and bairns, as with cries and gesticulations
And in their stammering speech they tried to explain to each other
That it is meet and right that all should pity the helpless.
And although harmony could not be won in every instance,
Yet did the greater part observe the conventions uprightly;
Else long since would the human race have been wholly abolished,
Nor could their seed till this present day have continued the species.
From Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
A Paraphrase from Several Literal Translations by Richard Le Gallienne
O MAR K HAYYÁM
Medieval Persia also produced a long and beautiful poem satirizing the claims and practices of religion. Though Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) is best remembered for his warm recommendations of wine, women, and song (preferences that would land him in trouble in today’s Iran, as well) he was actually a very serious astronomer and mathematician who made many contributions to algebra, helped refine the calendar, and may have been an early proponent of the idea that the earth revolved around the sun.
Khayyám clearly doubted that god had revealed himself to some men and not to others, especially in light of the very obvious fact that those who claimed to interpret the revelation were fond of using their claim in order to acquire and wield power over others in this world. He was not the first to notice this aspect of religion, but he was among the wittiest.
The most celebrated translation of his immortal Rubáiyát into English was done by Edward Fitzgerald, but the verses as rendered by Richard Le Gallienne are sometimes better at conveying the pungency that underlies the ironic charm of these quatrains.
The bird of life is singing on the bough
His two eternal notes of “I and Thou”—
O!
Similar Books
Five Parts Dead
Tim Pegler
The Hen of the Baskervilles
Donna Andrews
Angel Stations
Gary Gibson
Wings of Lomay
Devri Walls
Through the Fire
Donna Hill
My Texas Sweetheart (book one)
Pauliena Acheson
Can't Shake You
Molly McLain
Cheri Red (sWet)
Charisma Knight
Charmed by His Love
Janet Chapman
A Cast of Vultures
Judith Flanders