Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/397

 CHAPTER XVII

NISHAPUR, THE HOME OF OMAR KHAYYAM

♦ Sultan and slave alike have gone their way With Bahram Gur, but whither none may say,

Yet he who charmed the wise at Nishapur Seven centuries since, still charms the wise to-day.'

— Thomas Bailet Aldrich, On Omar Khayyam.

The sun had not yet risen to 'scatter the stars from the field of night ' as we scurried along in our four-horsed vehicle on the final stage of our pilgrimage to the Home of Omar Khayyam.^

Even though it was the last day of May, there was a sharp chill in the early morning air. A dull haze lingered on the horizon after ' the phantom of false dawn ' — the subh-i Jcdzih — had died away, and it still partly shrouded the winding road that led upward over a pass across the hills before reaching ancient Nishapur.^ Dawn broke as we reached the crest of

1 This chapter, descriptive of our Kadamgah, both from photographs by visit in May, 1907, was written in that Captain J. W. Watson, year and was ready for publication 2 x^e allusion to the ' false dawn ' Sept. 1, 1908, but was held back till {suhh-i kdzib, or durugh), as con- now. Since that time my friend Major trasted with the ' true dawn ' (subh-i P. M. Sykes has visited Nishapur, sddik, or rdst), is familiar to all ac- in 1908, and published an interest- quainted with that phenomenon in the ing article entitled A Pilgrimage to East. FitzGerald poetically renders the Tomb of Omar Khayyam, in the the idea in his first edition (verse 2) magazine Travel and Exploration, 2. by 'Dawn's Left Hand,' and more 129-138, London, September, 1909. literally in the fourth edition (verse 2) I am indebted to his courtesy and to by 'the phantom of false morning.' that of Mr. Eustace Reynolds-Ball, The references given in the notes be- editor of the magazine, for the kind low are to these editions (FG. 1, 4) permission to reproduce a picture of unless otherwise designated. Through- the approach to the Shrine of the out I have compared FitzGerald's ver- Imam-zadah Mahruk and the view of sions with the Persian text of Omar

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