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 …