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Medieval Sourcebook:
Omar Khayyam:
The Wisdom of the Supreme, c. 1120
All we see-above, around---
Is but built on fairy ground:
All we trust is empty shade
To deceive our reason made.
Tell me not of Paradise,
Or the beams of houris' eyes;
Who the truth of tales can tell,
Cunning priests invent so well?
He who leaves this mortal shore
Quits it to return no more.
In vast life's unbounded tide
They alone content may gain,
Who can good from ill divide,
Or in ignorance abide---
All between is restless pain.
Before thy prescience, power divine,
What is this idle sense of mine?
What all the learning of the schools?
What sages, priests, and pedants?---Fools!
The world is thine, from thee it rose,
By thee it ebbs, by thee it flows.
Hence, worldly lore! By whom is wisdom shown?
The Eternal knows, knows all, and He alone!
Source.
From: Charles F. Horne, ed., The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, (New York: Parke, Austin, & Lipscomb, 1917), Vol. VIII: Medieval Persia, p. 14
(Translated by E. H. Whinfield)
Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by
Prof. Arkenberg.
This text is part of the Internet
Medieval Source Book. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and
copy-permitted texts related to medieval and Byzantine history.
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© Paul Halsall, October 1998
halsall@fordham.edu
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