The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám · Chapter
LXXXIII explained
The chapter presents an allegory of vessels of various shapes and sizes, some talkative and some silent, suggesting a reflection on the diversity of human beings and their varying dispositions.
What happens
The chapter presents an allegory of vessels of various shapes and sizes, some talkative and some silent, suggesting a reflection on the diversity of human beings and their varying dispositions.
Themes in this chapter
The Potter and Clay Metaphor
The imagery of vessels of different shapes and sizes evokes the potter and clay metaphor, symbolizing the diversity of human forms and temperaments.
Key passages
“Shapes of all Sorts and Sizes, great and small, That stood along the floor and by the wall; And some loquacious Vessels were; and some Listen’d perhaps, but never talk’d at all.”
There were vessels of every kind, large and small, placed around the room; some were chatty, while others remained silent listeners.
This verse uses the metaphor of vessels to comment on human diversity and the spectrum of talkativeness and reticence.