I've got two versions of the Rubaiyat - the famous one by Edward Fitzgerald and another from the late 1970s by Peter Avery and John Heath-Stubbs which calims to be "near literal". The Fitzgerald version is more of an individual poem inspired by the original. I'll have a look at this new translation (it's very short - only 24 poems out of Khayyam's 235?!) and compare it to Avery/Heath-Stubbs' "literal" version. My first thought of the new one is that it's got some archaic writing going on and getting in the way of the thoughts e.g. "Thou art fragrance dewed and set to high...". For a modern translator to feel the need to do this... mmm... makes me suspicious and annoys me slightly. And does the translator have any knoweldge of Persian, or were they working from other translations? Also, I've no way of knowing which verse is which (a similar problem with Fitzgerlad's - you can't match original to "translation" in many cases) **************** Edit - this seems to be the by the same person who claimed Godel got it wrong. I'm tempted to believe this post is self-promotion then. **************** Edit edit - also the ISBN number doesn't seem to be real. Perhaps I mis-typed it. **************** Edit edit edit - Please see my comment to iwnit's answer. I presumed that the Rubaiyat in question was Khayyam's.

I think it is old fashioned Australian humor... 1) "Ruba'iyat or rubaiyat (Arabic: رباعیات) (a plural word derived from the root arba'a meaning 'four') means "quatrains" in the Persian language. Singular: ruba'i (rubai, ruba'ee, rubayi, rubayee). The rhyme scheme is AABA, i.e., lines 1, 2 and 4 rhyme. This verse form was popularized in Edward FitzGerald's translation of the collection of Persian verses known as the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. In fact, Rubaiyat is a common shorthand name for this collection. VII Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling: The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing. Fitzgerald’s translations became so popular in the 1800’s that several American humorists wrote parodies, including The Rubaiyat of Ohow Dryyam, The Rubaiyat of A Persian Kitten, The Rubaiyat of Omar Cayenne and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Jr.. In longer poems built in rubaiyat rhyme scheme, the convention is sometimes extended so that the unrhymed line of the current stanza becomes the rhyme for the following stanza. I.e., the scheme is extended to AABA BBCB CCDC, etc.. This is sometimes called, naturally, "interlocking rubaiyat". The structure can be made cyclical by linking the unrhymed line of the final stanza back to the first stanza: ZZAZ. These more stringent systems were not, however, used by FitzGerald in his Rubaiyat; it would have been particularly difficult for him to achieve this effect since the order and number of stanzas in his translation were not stable. A prime use of the interlocking Rubaiyat in modern English poetry is "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruba%27iyat 2) "THE RUBAIYAT OF SALAH AL-DIN IBN BIN DEEN OF KUNNYPORE BY C DEAN GAMAHUCHER PRESS WEST GEELONG VICTORIA AUSTRALIA 2008 inside front cover painting by the Iranian artist sarkis katchadourian" http://gamahucherpress.yellowgum.com/books/poetry/THE%20RUBAIYAT.pdf This is the title given to this work. It is not a new translation, it is a new parody. 3) "A Persian poem caused a number of wonderful parodies by Americans. It was the Rubaiyat (which means ‘a collection of quatrains’, which are four line verses) by Omar Khayyam." "Omar wrote the poem many centuries ago, but it wasn’t until the mid-1800’s that Edward Fitzgerald translated it. For some reason, it became crazily popular. Maybe its exotic tone, flowery phrases, praise of wine and acceptance of life’s futilities were to blame." "Talented humorists couldn’t resist producing parodies of the Rubaiyat. The parodies ranged from silly to enchanting to extraordinarily clever. We are including four examples here." Source and further information: http://www.oldfashionedamericanhumor.com/rubaiyat-parody.html This time it seems to be an Australian parody... 4) About the original work, the source of the parody. Rubayiat means nothing else than "quatrains", but this one is so well known, that if you are talking about *The* Rubayiat, many will understand this one: "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Persian: رباعیات عمر خیام) The Rubáiyát (Arabic: رباعیات) is a collection of poems, originally written in the Persian language and of which there are about a thousand, attributed to the Persian mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyám (1048 – 1123). "Rubaiyat" (derived from the Arabic root word for 4) means "quatrains": verses of four lines." "The nature of a translation very much depends on what interpretation one places on Khayyam's philosophy. The fact that the rubaiyat are a collection of quatrains - and may be selected and rearranged subjectively to support one interpretation or another - has led to widely differing versions. Nicolas took the view that Khayyam himself clearly was a Sufi. Others have seen signs of mysticism, even atheism, or conversely devout and orthodox Islam. Fitzgerald gave the Rubaiyat a distinct fatalistic spin, although it has been claimed that he softened the impact of Khayyam's nihilism and his preoccupation with the mortality and transience of all things. Even such a question as to whether Khayyam was pro- or anti-alcohol gives rise to more discussion than might at first glance have seemed plausible." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubaiyat_of_Omar_Khayyam Text of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, A Paraphrase from Several Literal Translations: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Rub%C3%A1iy%C3%A1t_of_Omar_Khayy%C3%A1m_%28Le_Gallienne%29 A short check shows that even if there could be some similarity in the wine thematic, it is a completely different text. In the original text, there is no mention of the words: "Samarkand" "orange" "gazelle" "pink". 5) This Wikipedia page gives some credibility to that parody, putting it at the same level as the original text: "Rubaiyat may refer to: Ruba'iyat, a form of Persian poetry Rubáiyát a compilation album Rubaiyat Haque (born 1987), cricketer Rubaiyat a poem by the Persian poet SALAH AL-DIN IBN BIN DEEN called The Rubaiyat" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubaiyat But there is no further information linked to the name of the supposed Persian author. (You will also not find much about him on the internet!) 6) Some information about the author of the original Rubáiyát, Omar Khayyám (one of the greatest poets of the world literature, by the way): "Ghiyās od-DÄ«n Abul-Fatah Omār ibn IbrāhÄ«m Khayyām NishābÅ«rÄ« (Persian: غیاث الدین ابو الفتح عمر بن ابراهیم خیام نیشابوری) or Omar Khayyam (Nishapur, Persia, May 18, 1048 – December 4, 1131) was a Persian poet, mathematician, philosopher and astronomer who lived in Persia. His name is also given as Omar al-Khayyami. He is best known for his poetry, and outside Iran, for the quatrains (rubaiyaas) in Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, popularized through Edward Fitzgerald's re-created translation. His substantial mathematical contributions include his Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra, which gives a geometric method for solving cubic equations by intersecting a hyperbola with a circle. He also contributed to calendar reform and may have proposed a heliocentric theory well before Copernicus." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khayy%C3%A1m 7) There is an interesting novel about Omar Kayyam: "Samarkand is a historical novel by a Lebanese author about the mythical original manuscript of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, following it from 11th century Persia when Khayyam wrote it, to 20th century Iran when the fictional American protagonist of the story recovers it, only to lose it aboard the Titanic. The novel provides much historical information (both mythic and true) about both periods in which the action of the novel takes place." Source and further information: http://susanhecht.com/Reviews/MaaloufSamarkand.html