می خور تو در آبگینه با ناله چنگ

 

ایام زمانه از کسی دارد ننگ
کو در غم ایام نشیند دلتنگ
می خور تو در آبگینه با ناله چنگ
زان پیش که آبگینه آید بر سنگ

Time scorns the man who, grieving, sits forlorn,
And mourns the passing days from dusk to morn.
Drink wine in crystal, while the harp-strings sing—
Ere crystal fall and shatter on the stone.

Abstract — the message of the Rubai

The quatrain carries one of the central philosophical impulses associated with Khayyam: Time is indifferent to human sorrow, and life is too fragile to be spent mourning what cannot be recovered.

The opening is almost a rebuke. The man who sits deltang—heavy-hearted and distressed by the passage of time—is presented as somehow being in conflict with Time itself. The irony is powerful: we suffer because time passes, yet Time itself does not suffer.

The second half turns this recognition into the familiar Khayyamian response: drink, listen to music, and experience the present moment while it is still available. The ābgīneh (crystal/glass vessel) is particularly important. It is beautiful precisely because it is fragile.

The final image transforms the entire quatrain:

“Ere crystal fall and shatter on the stone.”

The crystal can be read as a metaphor for life itself. Before the inevitable collision with mortality, enjoy the wine, music, companionship and consciousness of the present.

The deeper philosophical structure

Time → sorrow → awareness of mortality → enjoyment of the present → inevitable destruction

This is not simply a command to drink wine. The wine can be understood literally, but also symbolically—as the intensity of being alive. The harp represents beauty and music; the crystal represents the delicacy of existence; the stone represents the unavoidable finality of death.

And that is where the verse becomes distinctly Khayyamian:

Do not waste the brief interval between birth and death grieving over the fact that the interval is brief.

There is also a subtle existential paradox here: the awareness that everything will break is precisely what makes the present moment precious.

Note: I would distinguish this translation from claiming it is literally a translation of FitzGerald's wording. It is an English rendering inspired by FitzGerald's characteristic Victorian-rubaiyat cadence and imagery, while preserving the Persian quatrain's underlying meaning.