The Rubaiyat: Quatrain LIV


I tell Thee this---When, starting from the Goal,

Over the shoulders of the flaming Foal
Of Heav'n and Parwin and Mushtari they flung,
In my predestin'd Plot of Dust and Soul.

This is the fifty-fourth quatrain of the FitzGerald's Rubaiyat. To say these lines are obtuse would be an understatement. I have not been able to gather my head around it. There is references to heavenly bodies like Mushtari, Parwin and the flaming foal of heaven. Here is my take. When starting from the Goal (an eventual demise or a fulfillment of something) and looking back and over there in the heavenly sky, lies these eternal bodies flying around and amidst all this my predestined life is playing out from the goal to the birth. If my goal/end is given and decided already so already has my entire life and its origins been. Even if I were to live backwards, these bodies would be flying around and so ignore them for they do not decide the destiny of man. Here dust and soul covers both the material and the supernal and use to 'plot' is used to manifest an intrigue on part of the One who has already decided.

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