Mortality

Death and mortality are constant themes throughout the Rubáiyát. Much of the verse can regarded as an extended rumination on the nature of human mortality, steeped in paradox and inexplicability. The references to death begin right away. In the second quatrain of the Rubáiyát the narrator recounts, “Before phantom of False morning died” (2), which is followed in the fourth quatrain by references to bygone prophets in the figure of Moses and Jesus, who, “from the ground suspires” (4). This sets the tone for the verse that follows, which discusses expired rulers buried in the ground fertilizing the foliage that the living fleetingly enjoy.

One locus of the Rubáiyát’s fixation on mortality is the sheer bafflement of human reason it enacts. That everything will turn to dust and human beings have only a brief glimmer of earthly delights, the compulsion towards...