Before They Make Pitchers from Our Dust

No. 191

Rise, O beauty, for the sake of our hearts,
Solve all our troubles with your graceful arts.
Bring us a pitcher of wine for the day,
Before they make pitchers from our dust, as life departs.^* 

Philosophical Reflection

This quatrain opens with an invocation — not merely to a beloved, but to vitality itself. “Rise, O beauty” is Khayyam’s way of calling upon whatever lifts the human heart from heaviness: companionship, joy, presence, or even the poetic muse. The plea “for the sake of our hearts” reflects his belief that the inner life requires nourishment; without it, thought sinks into worry and decay.

The second line shifts from invocation to request: solve our troubles “with your graceful arts.” The emphasis is not on conquest but on gentleness. Khayyam sees life’s burdens as softened, not eliminated, by beauty, kindness, and human connection. This mirrors a recurring theme in his philosophy: that affliction comes from the structure of the world, but solace comes from one another.

The final couplet carries the poem’s central force. The pitcher of wine symbolises wakefulness, not indulgence — a call to drink deeply of existence before it becomes impossible. His warning is stark: one day the clay of our bodies will be shaped into vessels for someone else. This transformation from living form to lifeless object distils Khayyam’s view of mortality more vividly than any abstraction.

This quatrain belongs to Time & Impermanence, with strong echoes of Meaning & Doubt. It challenges the reader to reconsider procrastination and the illusion of endless time. The wine becomes a metaphor for conscious living; the beloved becomes a symbol for whatever restores vitality; and the clay pitcher becomes the fate awaiting every human form. In this interplay of tenderness and inevitability, Khayyam argues that the only wise response to transience is presence — a life fully tasted before it becomes soil.

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Footnote

* Source: Tarabkhaneh, Homaei no. 191, translated by Kam Austine for the book Philosophy in Verse

Related Treatises: On the World and the Duty (رساله فی الکون و التکلیف), On the Universals of Being (رساله در کلیات وجود)
Internal Themes: #Impermanence #Mortality #Presence

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Published as part of the Philosophy in Verse Series — under “Time & Impermanence.”