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editions of the Rubdiydt are reprinted in the first volmne on opposite pages comparatively arranged, and Mr. Kemey sup- plemented FitzGrerald^s notes with a series of his own notes ^^giving references from Fitz- Gerald^s Rubdiydt to the originals as pub- lished by Nicolas, Paris, 1867, and Mr.

Whin- field'^s English version, printed in 188S, with occasional literal renderings in the form and metre of the originals.^ The number of the [90] AND OMAR KHAYYXm quatrains rendered by Mr. Kemey is exactly fifty. This edition might possibly be termed the Fifth, but as it varies from the Foiurth only by correcting her's to hers in the fourth line of the sixth stanza, in omitting three commas (xxiii, line 1, and we, that; xxv, 2, stare,; Ixv, 4, comradeSy and), in printing in the fourth line of R. xciii reputation for Repu^ tation; and in evidently misprinting such a cloud for such a clod in the third line of the thirty-eighth, it may be safely considered as the same as the Fourth.

The Fifth then is that text which is included in the three-volume edi- tion edited by Dr. Aldis Wright of Trinity Collie, Cambridge, to whom FitzGrerald left a tin box containing various Utenuy remains and among other things a copy of the Fourth Edi- tion with a few verbal changes.

He had also the first draught of the Third Edition, which varies slightly fix>m that printed. [81 ) FITZGERALD The present edition, which, so ftr as texts are oonoemed, may be regarded as definitive, con- tains the reprint of the First, Second and Fifth, carefully compared with the originals.

The vari- ants of the first draught of the Third are taken from Dr. Wright^s edition. The editor has com- pared line for line and word for word the Third and Fourth Editions with the Kemey and Wright reprints and has noted one or two interesting variants hithertx) not detected.

No pains have been spared to make the work abso- lutely accurate, and thus the reader has all of FitzGrerald^s work on the Rubdiydt in con- venient shape for reference and compariscm. Stu- dents of Omar will of course still require the Multivariorum Edition in which about thirty versions in English, French, Grerman and Italian are represented, and the literal translation by Edward Heron-Allen of the Bodleian MS., which, together with a transliteration, is repro- [«] AND OMAR KHAYYAM duoed in one noble volume full of the richert Omarian lore.

But FitasGerald has thousands of votaries and the present edition, it is believed, attains the high-water mark of beauty and oon- venienoe* Nathan Haskell Dole. Boikm, Aug. SI, 1898. [9S] OMAR KHAYYAm THK ASTRONOMER-POET OF PERSIA BY EDWARD FITZGERALD I OMAR KHAYYAM was bom at NaishA- pur in Khoiassdn in the latter half of our Eleventh, and died within the First Quar- ter 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 Countiy: one of whom tells the Story of all Three. This was Nizto ul Mulk, \izyT to Alp Arslan the Son, and Malik Shah the Grandson, of Toghrul B^ the Tartar, who had wrested Persia fix>m the feeble Successor of [25] OMAR KHAYYAM Mahmud the Grieat, and founded that Selji Dynasty which finally roused Europe into the Crusades.

This Niztoi ul Mulk, in his Wasi^ai — or Teskaneni — which he wrote and left as a Memorial for future Statesmen — relates the fU- lowing, as quoted in the Calcutta Review^ No. 59, fix>m Mirkhond^s History of the Assassins. ^^ ^One of the greatest of the wise men of Kho- ^rassdn was the Imdm Mowafiak of Naishiipur, a ^man highly honoured and reverenced, — may ^God rejoice his soul; his illustrious years ex- 'oeeded 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 honour and happiness.

For <this cause did my father send me from Tus to ^Naishdpur 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 [96] THE ASTRONOMBR-POBT OF PERSIA ^favour and kindness, and as his pupil I felt 'for him extjeme affection and devotion, so that *I passed four years in lus service.