This Old Caravanserai
Omar Khayyamخیام
این کهنه رباط را که عالم نام است
This old caravanserai whose name is the world,
و آرامگه ابلق صبح و شام است
the resting place of the piebald horse of morning and evening,
بزمی ست که وامانده صد جمشید است
is a feast left over from a hundred Jamshids,
قصریست که تکیه گاه صد بهرام است
a palace that was the leaning-place of a hundred Bahrams.
A note for readers
A quatrain on the world as a wayside inn where even kings stay only a night. Jamshid and Bahram are kings of Iranian legend and history, and the piebald horse is the alternation of day and night. Another version, in the second part of the corpus, ends ‘a grave that is the sleeping place of a hundred Bahrams’; as with all the Rubaiyat, attribution to Khayyam is uncertain.
More poemsشعرهای دیگر
یک عمر می‌توان سخن از زلف یار گفت
در بند آن مباش که مضمون نمانده است
One could speak for a lifetime of the beloved’s tresses;
do not fret that there are no themes left.
A Lifetime on the Beloved’s Tresses
بلبلی برگ گلی خوش رنگ در منقار داشت
و اندر آن برگ و نوا خوش ناله‌های زار داشت
A nightingale held in its beak a rose petal of lovely colour,
and with that petal and its song it made sweet, piteous laments.
A nightingale held a rose petal
ستاره ای بدرخشید و ماه مجلس شد
دل رمیده ما را رفیق و مونس شد
A star shone out and became the moon of the gathering,
became friend and companion to our startled heart.