If My Coming Had Been Up to Me
Omar Khayyamخیام
گر آمدنم به خود بدی، نآمدمی
If my coming had been up to me, I would not have come;
ور نیز شدن به من بدی، کی شدمی
and if going were up to me, when would I ever go?
به زان نبدی که اندر این دیر خراب
Would anything have been better than this: in this ruined old inn
نه آمدمی، نه شدمی، نه بدمی؟
never to come, never to go, never to be at all?
A note for readers
A quatrain on being born and dying without being asked. Almost the same quatrain is also found among the rubais in the Divan of Sanai, a reminder of how freely these poems passed between poets and why the attribution of the Rubaiyat to Khayyam is debated.
More poemsشعرهای دیگر
مرغی دیدم نشسته بر باره طوس
در پیش نهاده کله کیکاووس
I saw a bird perched on the ramparts of Tus,
with the skull of Kay Kavus set down before it.
A Bird on the Walls of Tus
یکی قطره باران ز ابری چکید
خجل شد چو پهنای دریا بدید
A drop of rain fell from a cloud;
it was ashamed when it saw the breadth of the sea.
A Drop of Rain
ابتدای کار سیمرغ ای عجب
جلوه‌گر بگذشت بر چین نیم‌شب
The beginning of the Simorgh’s story, how wonderful:
in all his splendour he passed over China at midnight.