OMAR KHAYYAM, a Persian poet, mathematician, and astronomer, was born at Nishapur, in Khorasan, about A.D. 1050 and died about 1125. Khayyam means “the Tent-maker,” and it is probable that Omar maintained himself by the craft until the sun of fortune rose for him. He was in youth a pupil of the most famous philosopher of Khorasan; he and two of his fellow-students entered into a compact that if either of them rose to fortune he should share it with the others. Nizam-ul-mulk, one of the three, became in time Vizier of the mighty Alp Arslan, and his successor, Malek, son and grandson of Togrul Beg, the Tartar founder of the Seljouk dynasty. He devoted himself to study, especially of astronomy, and when vizier undertook to reform the confused Mohammedan calendar, Omar was one of those to whom the work was confided. The result of their labors is thus described by Gibbon; “The reign of Malek was illustrated by the Gelalaan era; and all errors, whether past or future, were corrected by a computation of time which surpasses the Julian and approaches the accuracy of the Gregorian style.”

Of his Rubaiyat “Stanzas,” only one manuscript, written at Shiras in 1640, exists in England ; it contains one hundred and fifty-eight quatrains, the first, the second, and fourth lines usually, though not invariably, rhyming together. About two thirds of this manuscript was translated into English by EDWARD FITZGERALD in 1872. A superb edition of this translation was published in 1884 at Boston, in a large folio volume, profusely illustrated by Elihu Vedder; the illustrations occupying some ten times as much as space as the text. If we could conceive of the Greek Anacreon and the Roman Lucretius combined onto one being, we should have something like the Persian OMAR KHAYYAM. Of him and his poem, Mr. Fitzgerald says:

“Having failed of finding any Providence but destiny, and any world but this, he set about making the most of it, preferring rather to soothe the soul into acquiescence with things he saw them than to perplex it with vain disquietude after what they might be…I have arranged Rubaiyat into a sort of Ecloque, with perhaps a little less than the equal proportion of the ‘Drink and make merry,’ which recurs over-frequently in the original. Either way, the result is sad enough. Saddest, perhaps, when most ostentatiously merry; more apt to move the sorrow than anger toward the old Tent-maker, who, after vainly endeavoring to unshackle his steps from destiny, and to catch some glimpse of tomorrow, falls back upon today (which has outlasted so many tomorrows) as the only ground he has got to stand upon, however, slipping from under his feet.”

Mr. Vedder arranges the quatrains somewhat differently from Mr. Fitzgerald, whose order we follow:

Selections from the “Rubaiyat”

I

Wake! for the sun who scattered into flight

The stars before him from the field of Night,

Drives Night along with them from Heaven, and strikes

The Sultan’s turret with a shaft of Light.

II

Before the phantom of False-Morning died,

We thought a Voice within the Tavern cried,

“When all the Temple is prepared within,

Why nods the drowsy worshipper outside?”

III

And as the cock crew, those who stood before

The Tavern shouted, “Open, then, the door!

You know how little time we have to stay,

And once departed, may return no more.”

XLI

Perplexed no more with Human or Divine,

To-morrow’s tangle to the winds resign,

And lose your fingers in the kisses of

The Cypress-slender minister of Wine.

XLII

And if the Wine you drink, the lip you press,

End-in what all begins and ends-“Yes!”

Think, then, you are Today and Yesterday

You were-Tomorrow you shall be not less.

XLIII

So when the Angle of the darker Drink

At last shall find you at the river-brink,

And Offering his cup invite your Soul

Forth to your lip to quaff-you shall not shrink.

XLIV

Why, if the Soul can fling the dust aside

And naked on the air of Heaven ride,

Were not a shame-were not a shame for him

In the clay carcass crippled to abide?

XLV

‘Tis but a tent where takes his one-day’s rest

A Sultan to the realm of death addrest,

The sultan rises, and the dark Ferbash

Strikes, and prepares it for another guest.

XLVI

And fear not lest Existence, closing your

Account and mine; should know the like no more

The Eternal Saki from the bowl has poured

Millions of bubbles like us-and will pour.

XLVII

When You and I behind the veil and past,

Oh! but the long, long while the World shall last,

Which of our coming and departure heeds

As the Seven Seas should heed a pebble cast.

XLVIII

A moment’s halt – a momentary taste

Of Being from the well amid the waste –

And lo! the phantom caravan has reached

The nothing it set out from. Oh, make haste!

XLIX

Would you that spangle of Existence spend

About the Secret – quick about it, friend!

A Hair, perhaps divides the False and True,

And upon what, prithee, does life depend?

L

A Hair, perhaps, divides the False and True;

Yes; and a Single letter the clew –

Could you but find it – to the Treasure-house,

and, peradventure, to the Master, too;

LI

Whose secret Presence through Creations’s veins

Running, quick-silver-like, eludes your pains.

Taking all shapes from Fish to Moon,

They change and perish all – but He remains

LII

A moment guessed, then back behind the fold.

Immured for darkness, round the Drama rolled,

Which, for the pastime of Eternity,

He does Himself conclude, enact, behold.

LIII

But if in vain down on the stubborn floor

Of Earth, and up to Heaven’s unopening door

You gaze today, while You are – You, how then

To-morrow You, when shall be You no more?

LIV

Waste not your hour, nor in the vain pursuit

Of This and That endeavor and dispute;

Better be jocund with fruitful Grape

Than sadden after none – or bitter fruit.

LV

You know, my friends, with what a brave carouse

I made a second marriage in my house;

Divorced old barren Reason from my bed,

And took the Daughter of the Vine to spouse.

LVI

For Is and Isn’t with rule and line.

And Up-and-down by logic I define,

Of all that one should care to fathom, I

Was never deep in anything but Wine.

LVII

Ah! But my computation, people say,

Reduced the Year to better reckoning. Nay,

T’was only striking from the calendar

Unborn tomorrow and dead Yesterday.

LVIII

And lately by the Tavern-door agape

Came shining through the dark an Angel-shape

Bearing a vessel on his shoulder; and

He bade me taste of it: and t’was the Grape!

LIX

The Grape, that can with logic absolute

The two-and-seventy jarring sects confute;

The sovereign Alchemist that, in a truce

Life’s leaden metal into gold transmutes.

LXIII

Oh, threats of Hell and hopes of Paradise!

One thing at least is certain – this life flies;

One thing is certain, and the rest is Lies;

The flower that once has blown forever dies.

LXIV

Strange, is it not, that of the myriads who

Before us passed the door of Darkness through,

Not one returns to tell us of the road,

Which to discover we must travel, too?

LXV

The revelations and devout and learned,

Who rose before us and as prophets burned,

All are but stories which, awoke from sleep,

They told their fellows, and to sleep returned.

LXVI

I sent my soul through the Invisible,

Some letter of that After-life to spell;

And by and by my soul returned to me,

And answered, “I myself am Heaven and Hell.”

LXVII

Heaven’s but the Vision of fulfilled Desire.

And Hell the Shadow of a soul on fire.

Cast on the darkness into which ourselves.

So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.

LXVIII

We are no other than a moving row

Of magic Shadow-shapes that come and go

Round with this sun-illuminated lantern, held

In midnight by the Master of the Show;

LXIX

Impotent Pieces of the game He plays,

Upon his checker board of Nights and Days,

Hither and thither moves and checks and mates

And one by one back in the closet lays.

LXX

The Ball no questions makes of Ayes and Noes,

But right or left; as strikes the Player, goes;

And that he that tossed you down into the filed,

He knows about it all – He knows, He knows.

LXXX

The moving Finger writes – and having writ,

Moves on; nor all your piety and wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half of line,

Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.

LXXXI

And that unveiled bowl they call the sky,

Whereunder crawling, cooped, w elive and die,

Lift not your hands to it for help – for It

As impotently rools as you or I.

LXXXII

With the first clay they did the last man knead,

And there of the last harvest sowed the seed;

And the first morning of Creation wrote

What the last dawn of Reckoning shall read.

XC

What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke

A conscious Something to present the yoke

Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain

Of everlastink penalties if broke!

XCI

O thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin

Beset the road I was travel in,

Thou wilt not with predestined evil round

Enmesh, and then impute my fall to Sin!

XCII

O Thou, who Man of baser earth didst make,

And even with Paradise devise Snake,

For all the sin wherewith the face of Man

Is blackened, Man’s forgiveness give – and take!