above pictures taken at Abercrombie Caves, NSW
The Rubaiyat: Quatrain XLI
For "Is" and "Is-not" though with Rule and Line
And "Up-and-down" without, I could define,
I yet in all I only cared to know,
Was never deep in anything but--wine.
This is the forty-first quatrain of the FitzGerald's Rubaiyat. Another of similarly themed quatrain. This disdain for constant reasoning and analysis on the questions of human suffering and human condition at the expense of the real and material. All the logic, all the reasoning and countless and never ending discussion will not solve the questions that grapple the human mind. How to make sense of our lives? how to live it? Why are we here? What of death? The poet says that he understands the rules and logic. He is well versed with act of deducing and intelligent thought, but all he care about was the wine. He never cared to get deep into (to get to the bottom of) in anything other than the wine. The intoxication of the present, the joys of the material world, the elation of the sensual, the companionship of the fellow traveller, the agitation of the wine is worth living for and relishing for!
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