CAMELOT FANTASIES

http://emotional-literacy-education.com/classic-books-online-a/rubai10.htm



This the complex work of Omar Khaymam that is translated by Edward Fitzgerald.

It is fascinating and sublime poetry. It is quite long so I will post it in several posts:






The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam
 by Edward Fitzgerald
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
 from the Encyclopedia of the Self
 by Mark Zimmerman



 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 ill-
 fated 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 school-
 friends 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>