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Title: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Author: Omar Khayyam

Translator: Edward Fitzgerald

Posting Date: July 10, 2008 [EBook #246]
Release Date: April, 1995

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM ***

Produced by Judy Boss, and Gregory Walker

RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM

By Omar Khayyam

Rendered into English Verse by Edward Fitzgerald

Contents:

Introduction.
First Edition.
Fifth Edition.
Notes.

Introduction

Omar Khayyam, The Astronomer-Poet of Persia.

Omar Khayyam was born at Naishapur in Khorassan in the latter half of
our Eleventh, and died within the First Quarter of our Twelfth
Century. The Slender Story of his Life is curiously twined about that
of two other very considerable Figures in their Time and Country: one
of whom tells the Story of all Three. This was Nizam ul Mulk, Vizier
to Alp Arslan the Son, and Malik Shah the Grandson, of Toghrul Beg the
Tartar, who had wrested Persia from the feeble Successor of Mahmud the
Great, and founded that Seljukian Dynasty which finally roused Europe
into the Crusades. This Nizam ul Mulk, in his Wasiyat--or
Testament--which he wrote and left as a Memorial for future
Statesmen--relates the following, as quoted in the Calcutta Review,
No. 59, from Mirkhond's History of the Assassins.

"'One of the greatest of the wise men of Khorassan was the Imam
Mowaffak of Naishapur, a man highly honored and reverenced,--may God
rejoice his soul; his illustrious years exceeded eighty-five, and it
was the universal belief that every boy who read the Koran or studied
the traditions in his presence, would assuredly attain to honor and
happiness. For this cause did my father send me from Tus to Naishapur
with Abd-us-samad, the doctor of law, that I might employ myself in
study and learning under the guidance of that illustrious teacher.
Towards me he ever turned an eye of favor and kindness, and as his
pupil I felt for him extreme affection and devotion, so that I passed
four years in his service. When I first came there, I found t