Indeed the Idols I have loved so long
Have done my credit in this World much wrong:
Have drown’d my Glory in a shallow Cup,
And sold my Reputation for a Song.

These lines are from Edward FitzGerald’s Victorian-era adaptation of Persian quatrains attributed to Omar Khayyám, published as The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (first edition, 1859). FitzGerald’s version is not a literal translation but a free, highly personal re-creation shaped by his own temperament and the mid-19th-century English literary climate. The speaker reflects in a confessional tone on past “idols” (cherished pursuits, attachments, or illusions) that have compromised worldly standing. The poem’s broader setting is a meditation on transience, pleasure, and the fragility of reputation—recurring themes that helped make FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát a cult favorite among later Victorian readers.

The quatrain laments how long-cherished “idols”—objects of devotion such as ambition, love, art, drink, or idealized beliefs—have harmed the speaker’s “credit” (social standing) and “reputation.” The imagery suggests a trade: genuine “glory” is drowned in a “shallow cup,” and reputation is sold cheaply “for a song,” implying self-betrayal and the hollowness of public esteem. In the Rubáiyát’s larger philosophy, this can read as both regret and critique: regret at having squandered one’s name on fleeting pleasures or illusions, and critique of a world where reputation is easily bought, lost, or exchanged for trivial satisfactions.