The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam | Page 3

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Rubaiyat of 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 two other pupils of mine own
age newly arrived, Hakim Omar Khayyam, and the illfated Ben Sabbah. Both were
endowed with sharpness of wit and the highest natural powers; and we three formed a
close friendship together. When the Imam rose from his lectures, they used to join me,
and we repeated to each other the lessons we had heard. Now Omar was a native of
Naishapur, while Hasan Ben Sabbah's father was one Ali, a man of austere life and
practise, but heretical in his creed and doctrine. One day Hasan said to me and to
Khayyam, "It is a universal belief that the pupils of the Imam Mowaffak will attain to
fortune. Now, even if we all do not attain thereto, without doubt one of us will; what then
shall be our mutual pledge and bond?" We answered, "Be it what you please." "Well," he
said, "let us make a vow, that to whomsoever this fortune falls, he shall share it equally

with the rest, and reserve no pre-eminence for himself." "Be it so," we both replied, and
on those terms we mutually pledged our words. Years rolled on, and I went from
Khorassan to Transoxiana, and wandered to Ghazni and Cabul; and when I returned, I
was invested with office, and rose to be administrator of affairs during the Sultanate of
Sultan Alp Arslan.'
"He goes on to state, that years passed by, and both his old schoolfriends found him out,
and came and claimed a share in his good
fortune, according to the school-day vow.
The Vizier was generous and kept his word. Hasan demanded a place in the government,
which the Sultan granted at the Vizier's request; but discontented with a gradual rise, he
plunged into the maze of intrigue of an oriental court, and, failing in a base attempt to
supplant his benefactor, he was disgraced and fell. After many mishaps and wanderings,
Hasan became the head of the Persian sect of the Ismailians,--a party of fanatics who had
long murmured in obscurity, but rose to an evil eminence under the guidance of his
strong and evil will. In A.D. 1090, he seized the castle of Alamut, in the province of
Rudbar, which lies in the mountainous tract south of the Caspian Sea; and it was from
this mountain home he obtained that evil celebrity among the Crusaders as the OLD
MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS, and spread terror through the Mohammedan world; and it
is yet disputed where the word Assassin, which they have left in the language of modern
Europe as their dark memorial, is derived from the hashish, or opiate of hemp-leaves (the
Indian bhang), with which they maddened themselves to the sullen pitch of oriental
desperation, or from the name of the founder of the dynasty, whom we have seen in his
quiet collegiate days, at Naishapur. One of the countless victims of the Assassin's dagger
was Nizam ul Mulk himself, the old school-boy friend.<1>
<1>Some of Omar's Rubaiyat warn us of