Good evening and welcome to boring books for bedtime. I hope tonight's installment provides all the boredom your busy brain needs to quiet down and let you get some sleep for once. So lie back,

adjust your volume. Take a nice deep breath.

And off we go.

This evening we're reading a classic of Persian literature

written in the 12th century. The Rubiot of Omar Khayam, rendered into English verse by Edward Fitzgerald

in 1851. Let's begin.

Omar Khayam, the astronomer poet of Persia.

Omar Khayam was born at Nyshippur in Cora San in the latter half of our 11th and died within the first quarter of our 12th century.

The slender story of his life is curiously twined about that of two other very considerable

figures in their time and country, one of whom tells the story of all three.

This was Nizam U Mulk, Vizier to Al-Barslan the son,

and Malik Shah, the grandson of Togr Begg, the Tartar, who had rested Persia from the feeble successor of

Mamud the Great, and founded that Seljukian dynasty which finally roused Europe into the Crusades. This Nizam almuk, in his Waziat or Testament, which he wrote and left as a memorial for future statesman relates the following as

quoted in the Calcutta Review number 59 from Mir Khan's history of the Assassins.

One of the greatest of the wise men of Cora son was the Amam Muwafak of Nyshipper,

a man highly honored and reverenced, may God rejoice his soul. His illustrious years exceeded

85, and it was the universal belief that every boy who read the Quran or studied the traditions in his presence

would assuredly attain to honor and happiness.

For this cause did my father send me from Tous to Nyshippur with Abdus 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 favor and kindness,

and as his pupil I felt for him extreme affection and devotion, so that I passed four years in his service.

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