Dreaming...

II.

"Dreaming when Dawn’s Left Hand was in the Sky

I heard a voice within the Tavern cry,

‘Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup

Before Life’s Liquor in its Cup be dry.’"*

 

 

Omar Khayyam was born in Naishapur in 1048 and died in 1131. He lived in Persia, nowadays Iran, and observed the Muslim faith. His family name ‘Khayyam’ means ‘maker of tents’ but it is unlikely that Omar came from such humble beginnings; like people today with the name ‘Smith’, the name is most likely a holdover from times long ago.

Edward FitzGerald wrote a short biographical piece about Omar Khayyam as a preface for his translation; however much of the information it contains is fanciful – more idealised than true. He lays out a tale of three scholars agreeing upon their graduation to seek high positions and to share their good fortune with whichever of those members of the triumvirate whose fortunes had served them ill. In this story, one scholar joins the court of the Caliph and becomes a respected Vizier; another becomes a radical defender of Islam, becoming the Old Man of the Mountain of Crusader lore, the reclusive leader of the Hashishin, the infamous Assassins. The third scholar – Omar Khayyam – approaches the Vizier and reminds him of their promise: nervous as to what kind of favour he might ask of him, the Vizier agrees to keep his word. To his surprise, Omar asks only for a place in the Court to study, enough coin to keep himself in food, books and ink, and a quiet place to think. This is, of course, a pretty little tale without much substance.

What is known about Omar Khayyam is that he was something of a polymath, a master of many disciplines. He was a mathematician and an astronomer and a philosopher; he wrote poetry and discussed theology. His discourse attracted a large body of followers who became his dedicated students, and it is to them that we owe our knowledge of Omar and of his poem.

Omar toyed with notions of Sufism, the mystical expression of Islamic dogma. He felt that a connexion with God should be personal and direct: an ecstatic relationship. Unfortunately, given his elevated position as a court astronomer, he wasn’t able to openly follow these notions of worship; rather, he had to tread the orthodox line of the current political regime.

Omar wrote treatises on mathematics that still survive today. As part of a larger group of astronomer-mathematicians – a kind of Medieval ‘think-tank’ – he helped to throw off the Julio-Claudian calendar and replace it with a more accurate version that was only surpassed by the one which we use today. Sadly for him, his unorthodox views of religion leaked out and he was forced to move from city to city avoiding the hot water of the eternal Sunni/Shi’ite divide.

Omar had a habit of writing quatrains of verse during his classes, after setting the students an exercise to pore over. Often he threw these fragments away, after wrestling with the verse form; unknown to him, his faithful students would scavenge for these snippets and collect them into long scrolls of verses. These became smuggled documents, shared between like-minded devotees, and owning them could be a reason to face serious punishment. None of these collections was identical to another: some had dozens of verses; others had hundreds; some of these, almost assuredly, were not even written by Omar. One such collection made it as far away from Omar’s homeland as Kolkata in India, where it was purchased for the Bodleian Library in Oxford, recorded as the ‘Calcutta Manuscript’. This is the source of Edward FitzGerald’s translation.

How heretical was Omar? Well it’s a matter of degree and perspective. His views on religion were seen as racy by the Powers That Were and he definitely suffered for his faith. He wrote to an acquaintance Kwajah Nizami:

“My tomb shall be in a spot where the north wind may strow roses upon it”

This may seem innocuous enough but, in the hardline Shi’ite faith which prevailed at the time, only God has knowledge of the future and claiming access to such information spoke of, at worst, traffic with demonic forces or, at least, hubris. Either way, it was enough to set Omar on an exile’s path. Ironically (or not, depending), Omar Khayyam was buried in a grove of rose bushes.

Today he is commemorated as Iran’s greatest poet.

*****

*Dawn’s Left Hand refers to the time of day just before morning, traditionally the moment when a white thread and a black one can be visually differentiated. The Left Hand of Dawn is therefore a false dawn. FitzGerald noted the way in which Omar’s thoughts seem to follow the course of a single day: “He begins with Dawn, pretty sober and contemplative, then, as he thinks and drinks, grows savage, blasphemous, etc., and then sobers down into melancholy at nightfall.”