Bruce Gioia on sun 16 jul 00
Scanning my small library (here),
I chanced upon a forgotten
beautiful leather bound 1901 edition of
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
(astromoner-poet, Persia, 11th century)
translated by Edward Fitzgerald
There are a number of references to the pot and potter.
Before you delete I'll start with a short one...
_____________________________
For in the market-place, one dusk of
day,
I watch'd the potter thumping his wet
clay:
And with its obliberated tongue
It murmur'd- "Gently, Brother, gently,
pray!"
_____________________________
Kuza- Nama
As under cover of departing day
Slunk hunger stricken Ramazan away
Once more within the Potter's house alone
I stood, surrounded by the shapes of clay.
=20
Shapes of all sorts and sizes, great and small,
that stood along the floor and by the wall;
And some loquacious vessels were
and some listened perhaps, but never talked at all.
Said one among them-"Surely not in vain
"My substance from the common earth was ta'en
And to this figure moulded, to be broke,
"Or trampled back to shapeless earth again.
Then said a second- Ne-er a peevish boy
"Would break the bowl from which he drank in joy;
"Shall he that made the vessel in pure love
Will surely not in after wrath destroy"
After a momentary silence spake
Some vessel of ungainly make;
"They sneer at me for leaning all awry:
"What! did the hand of the potter shake?"
Whereat some one of the loquacious lot-
I think a sufi pipkin- waxing hot-=20
"All this of pot and potter- tell me then,
Who is the potter, pray, and who is the pot?"
"Why," said another, "Some there are who tell,
"Of one who threatens he will toss to hell
"The luckless pots he marr'd in making- pish!
"He is a good fellow, and twill all be well."
"Well" murmur'd one" Let he who so make or buy
"My clay with long oblivion is gone dry:
"But fill me with the old familiar juice,
"Methinks I might recover by and by."
So while the vessels one by one were speaking,
The little moon look'd in that all were seeking:
and then they jogged each other, "Brother! brother!
"Now for the potters shoulder-knots a-creaking!"
___________________________
One more for those still here...
By "Jami"
Salaman and Absal
Preliminary invocation
Oh Thou, whose spirit through this universe,
In which thou dost involve thyself diffused,
Shall so perchance irradiate human clay
That men, suddenly dazzled, lose themselves
In ecstacy before a mortal shrine
Whose light is but a shade of the Divine;
Not till the beauty through the cheek
Of Laila smite doth she inflame Majnun (eastern lovers)
(snip)....
very long poem
so i'll end it here...
hope it was worth the while
Bruce
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