Rereading Omar Khayyam

Recently I reread the quatrains of Omar Khayyam. Unfortunately, in the English-speaking countries Ghiyās od-Dīn Abol-Fath Omār ibn Ebrāhīm Khayyām Neyshābūri mostly known through Edward Fitzgerald’s re-created translation of his quatrains (rubaiyat), which is quite far from the true spirit of the rubaiyat and based perhaps only on tenth part of the extant quatrains. In fact, the poetic heritage of this mathematician, philosopher, astrologer and poet of XI-XII cc. contains many true gems for a devotee of the spiritual evolution as well as for an astrologer.

The Lord has judged so, and there is no judgement over Him.
His decision no never turns into yes.
Perhaps, some possible thing is not existing, by chance.
But impossible one will never exist at all.

The first two lines of this quatrain can be taken as a typical example of Muslim fatalism. And the last lines concern with the common medieval classification of things. There are three kinds of things 1) necessary; 2) possible; 3) impossible. The necessary thing exists or happens anyway. The possible thing can exist or can happen, but may not exist and not happen as well. The impossible thing doesn’t exist and never can happen.

These last two lines reminded me the words from the medieval Latin version of Ptolemean Centiloquium (translated from the Arabic version). The later Renascence version (translated from the Greek version) does not have these words:

…and these judgements I give you, are the middle between the necessary and the possible. For I say, you must find these judgements between the necessary and the possible; and this is by means of that, which considers the nature of things and the operation of the stars.

We have to take into consideration the operation of the stars, and the nature of things as well, i.e. not only pure astrological testimonies, but also the circumstances of this world. And so often modern astrologers are afraid of necessary things, they invent various tricks trying to escape inevitable events, they do their best to find something unusual, marvellous and miraculous in almost every chart. They prefer to search from the possible toward the impossible, but not the necessary…

And Omar Khayyam again:

The Creator has already planned what you will eat tomorrow.
You can’t eat not up, but you can’t get a second helping as well.
Don’t be enticed by the non-existent [the impossible].
And don’t be captivated by the necessarily existent [the necessary].

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