The Moving Finger Writes...

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Natural progression is the reason for what the world is today, the contributing reaction inputs of 7 billion people, what they are doing now, and the resulting cause and effect of what their ancestors did in their daily lives for the last ten thousand years. 7 billion people waiting for their next effect, myself included.

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@Rickoshay75,

The moving finger writes
And, having writ, moves on.
Not all your piety nor wit
Can cancel out a line,
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.

The Rubayat of Omar Khayyam
(quted from memory)

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@Lustig Andrei,

Lustig Andrei wrote:

The moving finger writes
And, having writ, moves on.
Not all your piety nor wit
Can cancel out a line,
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.

The Rubayat of Omar Khayyam
(quted from memory)

Thanks... I knew there was more but couldn't remember it.

Omar was probably the first person to relate with cause and effect as a philosophy. I'm still waiting for modern philosophers to embrace it, or just admit that it exists.

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@Lustig Andrei,

Close . . . as i recall it, though, it's a quatrain, four lines . . .

The moving finger writes, and, having writ,
Moves on. Nor all thy piety nor wit,
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.

Fitzgerald's first edition was criticized by "Orientalists" for being an inaccurate translation. So he published a second edition, which was a faultless translation, and dull as dishwater. In the third through fifth editions, he returned to his more poetic renditions (poetic in English), so that there is actually more than one version of each quatrain.

I think it's absurd to suggest that no one thought of this before Kayyam.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Close . . . as i recall it, though, it's a quatrain, four lines . . .

The moving finger writes, and, having writ,
Moves on. Nor all thy piety nor wit,
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.

Fitzgerald's first edition was criticized by "Orientalists" for being an inaccurate translation. So he published a second edition, which was a faultless translation, and dull as dishwater. In the third through fifth editions, he returned to his more poetic renditions (poetic in English), so that there is actually more than one version of each quatrain.

I think it's absurd to suggest that no one thought of this before Kayyam.

Going by the adage -- there is nothing new under the sun, I'm sure there were other versions by other people, but I wouldn't know how to find them. I did find avicenna, Omars teacher, but it was only about theology and paleontology.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Close . . . as i recall it, though, it's a quatrain, four lines . . .

The moving finger writes, and, having writ,
Moves on. Nor all thy piety nor wit,
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.

Fitzgerald's first edition was criticized by "Orientalists" for being an inaccurate translation. So he published a second edition, which was a faultless translation, and dull as dishwater. In the third through fifth editions, he returned to his more poetic renditions (poetic in English), so that there is actually more than one version of each quatrain.

I think it's absurd to suggest that no one thought of this before Kayyam.

More on Avicenna that does say he was a philosopher, and prolific writer, so maybe he was Omar's mentor. Omar probably found all of his quotes in Avicennas 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avicenna

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@Setanta,

Thnx for the emendation, Set. The poem, as we know it, is mostly Fitzgerald's not Omar Khyam's. I once owned a deluxe illustrated edition that included at least three different editions -- first, one from the middle, and the final. Interesting to compare some of the changes in methaphor that almost give some verses a different meaning.

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Those interested in "what is written" would have been entertained by the exploration of the theme in the movie "Lawrence of Arabia". (clips on Utube)

But as far as the philosophy of "causality" goes, it seems to have been displaced somewhat by "chaos theory" as far as our understanding of evolution is concerned.

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@fresco,

There is no conflict between both ideas, chaos theory just portraits complex causal chains...efficient cause is untouched.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

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@Lustig Andrei,

What i enjoy about Fitzgerald is that he attempts to translate the essence and the spirit of the poetry, rather than just a literal transliteration. He worked to preserve the meter . . .

Awake! For dawn into the bolw of night
Has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight
And lo, the hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's turret in a golden noose of light.

And he works to preserve the rhyme scheme (A, A, B, A) . . .

Oh to be beneath the bough
A book of verse a jug of wine a loaf of bread and thou
Beside me, singing in the wilderness
And wilderness were paradise enow.

Having no Farsi version, and unable to read Farsi, i cannot of course comment on the success of his effort. But it is alleged to be wonderful poetry in Farse, and Fitzgerald makes wonderful poetry of it in English.

(Quotes from memory, correct them who will.)

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

(Quotes from memory, correct them who will.)

From memory also, but I believe:

A book of verse beneath the bough,
A jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness.
Ah, wilderness were Paradise enow.

Eugene O'Neill used that last verse as inspiration for the title of his play Ah Wilderness. That's why I'mpretty sure I've got it right.

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@Lustig Andrei,

Lustig Andrei wrote:

Setanta wrote:
(Quotes from memory, correct them who will.)

From memory also, but I believe:

A book of verse beneath the bough,
A jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness.
Ah, wilderness were Paradise enow.

Eugene O'Neill used that last verse as inspiration for the title of his play Ah Wilderness. That's why I'mpretty sure I've got it right.

I've often wondered which was the best way to remember, by reading it or hearing it. In the 1957 movie, Omar Khayyam, Cornell Wilde quoted all of the ones you wrote about.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

There is no conflict between both ideas, chaos theory just portraits complex causal chains...efficient cause is untouched.

Causal chains may work for some, but not for me. Other than your last post that caused me to write this response, I barely remember the cause/effect leading up to it.

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The Moving Finger Writes...

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