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    Omar Khayyam

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    shakri78
    This document summarizes the oldest known manuscript containing poems by Omar Khayyam. It describes a 14th century Persian anthology compiled by Badr al Djanjarmi that contains 13 quatrains by Omar Khayyam, making it the earliest manuscript source for his works. The document includes translations of some of the quatrains. It also provides context on Omar and includes a portrait of the Persian poet Sa'di, who was a near contemporary of Omar.

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    Omar Khayyam

    Uploaded by

    shakri78
    147 views2 pages
    This document summarizes the oldest known manuscript containing poems by Omar Khayyam. It describes a 14th century Persian anthology compiled by Badr al Djanjarmi that contains 13 quatrains by Omar Khayyam, making it the earliest manuscript source for his works. The document includes translations of some of the quatrains. It also provides context on Omar and includes a portrait of the Persian poet Sa'di, who was a near contemporary of Omar.

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    This document summarizes the oldest known manuscript containing poems by Omar Khayyam. It describes a 14th century Persian anthology compiled by Badr al Djanjarmi that contains 13 quatrains by Omar Khayyam, making it the earliest manuscript source for his works. The document includes translations of some of the quatrains. It also provides context on Omar and includes a portrait of the Persian poet Sa'di, who was a near contemporary of Omar.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf
    147 views2 pages

    Omar Khayyam

    Uploaded by

    shakri78
    This document summarizes the oldest known manuscript containing poems by Omar Khayyam. It describes a 14th century Persian anthology compiled by Badr al Djanjarmi that contains 13 quatrains by Omar Khayyam, making it the earliest manuscript source for his works. The document includes translations of some of the quatrains. It also provides context on Omar and includes a portrait of the Persian poet Sa'di, who was a near contemporary of Omar.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    OLDEST

    KNOWN MANUSCRIPT

    OF OMAR'S WORK

    'i |

    f -.

    -q

    Ancient

    Persian

    Book with Earliest from Omar

    Known

    Manuscript

    Page ofManuscript Quatrains fromOmar

    HAT did the original manuscript of the ' Rubaiyat,'" the wor-k of Omar Khayyam made famous by Ed ward Fitzgerald, look like? The answer cannot be given with precision, because the original Persian manuscript of the poem is not known to exist. There is, howvever, an old Persian book inmanu script inwhich is to be found an extract from the " Rubaiyat" of Omaar, and this is the oldest known manuscript frag ment of the poem. The illustrations of a book and of a page of manuscript, whThich accompany this article, are of this ancient Persian volume and of a page in it bearing

    six quatrians of Omar. The bookwas written by Badr al Djanjarmi, who col lected the works of two hundred Per sian poets andmade an anthology which he called "The Friends of the Liberial Minded in the shape of Fine Poems." The writing was done about i336 A. D. and is therefore the earliest known manuscript which contains Omar's verses. There are thirteen quatrains altogether most of which are not known to have been published before. A literal translation of several of the quatrains has been made by Professor Abraham Yohannan, of Columbia Uni
    vr\T -sity.

    236

    THE LOTUS MAGAZINE

    The wvorld was not made Do not the Sages There You are many

    thus solely

    for you!

    also tenant it? come and go,

    like you who

    are simply a piece

    in the game.

    Why

    should you and I fret with

    idle grief,

    Because The

    w,e cannot add one day to life? to me,

    truth is, it seems

    That out mum (wax),w\e cannot make mim (letter M).

    Behold Then

    the tulips bathe it is meet

    in the rains of Nauruz! in vine. show today,

    to malke thy ablution such a beautiful

    The grass which makes Tomorrow

    from thy dust will grow.


    Persian Poet, Sa'di, Nearly Contemporary with Omar

    A drop of water mingles

    with

    the sea,

    An atom of dust joins the earth. Thy coming A bubble into the world, what is it?

    that appears and disappears.

    Arise

    old Sage of ages from the ground! scattering Say "Do the dust! thou gently,

    See that youth Give him counsel. 'Tis Qai Kubad's

    What did Omar look like? That, again, we may not know precisely. But here is a portrait of Sa'di, themost popular writer of Persian literature, who was born about sixty years after Omar's death. Any portrait of Omar would be "traditional," and as the Sa'di portrait is "traditional," it may be said to represent the popular con ception of a poet at that time. This portrait of Sa'di was painted by Beh zad, the "Raphael" of Persia.
    Sa'di was born about I I84 A. D. and

    and Parwiz' brain finely ground."

    This

    vault through w\hich w\e come and go, its beginning or end will show\.

    Neither

    No one has explained Whence

    the secret as yet, or whence our going.

    is our coming

    was educated at Bagdad, the city which forms the romantic background of "The Arabian Nights." He traveled as a Der vish for thirty years through many lands, and when over seventy years of age re turned to his native city and resumed the literary work which he had begun in the days of his youth.

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