Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/398

 the topmost hill, and the great plain of Nishapur lay spread before our eyes. The * inverted bowl ' of the sky shone crys- tal clear,^ save for a bank of fleecy clouds that served to soften the jagged edges of the blue hills as they rose behind the plain and formed a background to the city. The soft trill of the Persian nightingale, the bulbul, crying to the rose, fell plain- tively on the ear ; ^ and the twitter of a choir of birds awoke the morning air, as they had done perhaps in the ' Bird Par- liament,' written by Omar's brother poet, Farid ad-Din Attar, with whose allegorical poem we are familiar also through Fitz- Gerald's abridgment.

The heavy rains — which had been unusually late for the season — had called forth a growth of ' tender green ' here and there along the sandy waste.^ A distant mirage floated for an instant before our vision, only to be transformed a moment later into what we discovered to be a far-off patch of mud incrusted with salt that looked 'like snow upon the desert's dusty face.'*

Khayyam in the two manuscripts, one Mass.], 1896 (abbreviated as tr. Th.),

reproduced by Eben Francis Thomp- as well as to the translation by John

son, Edward FitzGerald^s Buhdiydt Payne, printed for the Villon Society,

of Omar Khayyam^ with a Persian London, 1898 (abbreviated as P. ). Text, privately printed [Worcester, i FG. 1 ed. 62, 4 ed. 72, cf. Th. 52,

Mass.], 1907 (here abbreviated as P. 706, H-A. 134, In c/iarM cM ?as-ls«

Th.) ; the other, an edition by Edward nigun uftddah, ' this wheel (of heaven)

Heron-Allen, The RuhaHyat of Omar is like a bowl turned upside-down.' Khayyam, a Facsimile of the MS. in ^ FG. 6, cf. Wh. 174, P. 294, Th. 6,

the Bodleian Library, Translated and H-A. 67, bulbul ba-zabdn-i Pahlavi bd

Edited, 2ed., Boston, 1898 (abbreviated gul-i zard/farydd harni zanad kih mat

as H-A.). Reference has also been bdyad khvard, ' the nightingale calls in

made to the Persian text in Whinfield, the Pahlavi tongue to the yellow rose

The Quatrains of Omar Khayydm, to drink wine.'

London, 1883 (abbreviated as Wh.) ; » FG. 1 ed. 19, 4 ed. 20, cf. P. 61, to the commentary in Batson and Wh. 62, Th. 19, lit. ' each green (tuft, Ross, The BubaHyat of Omar Khay- har sabzah) that grows upon the mar- yam, New York and London, 1900 gin of the stream, thou mightest say is (abbreviated as BR.) ; and also to a grown from the lip of some angel- translation by E. F. Thompson, The faced one.'

Quatrains of Omar Khayyam Trans- * FG. 14 (16), cf. Th. 14, chu dar

lated from the Persian into English sahrd barf, ' like snow upon the

Verse, privately printed [Worcester, desert.'

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