Omar Khayyam - a life

by Harold Lamb

  "Alas," Jafarak sighed. Suddenly his wizened face brightened. "But write—write more verses. This is thy gift of tears!"

  A year passed. When the astronomers of the House of the Stars compared their findings anew, Mai'mun and Isfizari were pleased. Their timing of the sun agreed with their star time to an hour, as measured by the water clock.

  They were certain, then, that the year had 365 days, and also five or six hours. This was infinitely better than the moon calendar of Islam which made a year of 354 days. Astronomers in ancient Egypt, they knew, had devised a calendar of twelve months of thirty days each, with an additional five days of festival at the end of the year—365 days in all.

  " 'Tis another quarter of a day we must add to the days," Isfizari suggested. "What if we added a whole day every fourth year?"

  But Omar and Mai'mun reminded him that they were preparing a calendar not for four years or forty but for centuries. So they made observations for another year, to compare with the first. Tidings of their success drifted in to the mullahs of Nisapur, who preached against the star gazers who used infidel machines and talked with the spirits of the dead coming out of the graves of the cemetery.

  To this outcry Mai'mun paid little heed and Omar less. But the old astronomer knew that the Tentmaker was engrossed in a new calculation the nature of which Mai'mun could not guess—except for one thing. Having discovered that Ptolemy had relied on the wisdom of Hipparchus, Omar likewise had turned to the manuscripts of the savant of Rhodes. Now he was buried in study of a new kind.

  "It hath to do with the shadow shape of an eclipse. That is clear," Mai'mun confided to Isfizari. "Moreover, he is solving problems by hyperbolas which deal with infinite numbers."

  "May Allah the Compassionate befriend him." Isfizari, who was younger and bolder than Mai'mun, laughed. "Ordinary numbers twist my brain enough."

  "He is using the sifr* circle."

  *[Zero: the Islamic mathematicians of the eleventh century understood and used the sifr, zero, some centuries before medieval Europeans; but only a few of them had a vague conception that numbers could be negative as well as positive.]

  "The 'Emptiness?"

  "Ay, the circle beyond which is emptiness—the Greek zero. Yet that is not all. He said that beyond the sifr—beyond this emptiness—lie myriads of ghost numbers."

  Isfizari pondered, and shook his head blankly. "It sounds like the dream of some Greek. They were always dreaming of perfection and wrangling among themselves as to how it was to be had. And what good did it do them in the end? One of their khwajas, Ar-km—something or other they called him—he invented a way to move the earth, if he could find something to stand on outside the earth. And while he was dreaming he was slain by a common soldier during a battle. Then again in ancient time their greatest sultan, Iskander** conquered most of Asia. Ay, he planned to extend his dominion over the whole world; yet he died of drunkenness when he was little older than our Master Omar. His great amirs divided up the fragments of his empire, fighting among themselves. Now the champions of Islam have overthrown the Greeks. Nay, the dreaming of the Greeks did them little good."

  **[Alexander the Great.]

  "Master Omar saith that the ghost numbers exist. When he bringeth one in from beyond Emptiness, he taketh away the same from the positive numbers on this side the sifr."

  "Allah grant the mullahs do not hear of it."

  When Isfizari was alone with the younger assistants, he confided in them: "Proof of the Truth was drunk again. Ay, he rode an hyperbola up among the stars, and marshaled the ghosts of dead numbers."

  "Well, once at night he went down and sat among the graves. He had the keeper of the garden plant tulips by the deserted graves."

  The year passed to its end, the last records were made, and Omar and Mai'mun set themselves to the final task of selecting a proper fraction for the final day of their calendar. They had fixed the surplus interval as 5 hours 48 minutes and 45 seconds.

  This was a trifle less than one quarter of a day, and Mai'mun ventured the opinion that it was seven twenty-ninths. It was Omar who hit upon eight thirty-thirds.***

  ***[The estimate of the year accredited to Omar Khayyam by scholars is very nearly exact. It has an excess of only 19.45 seconds in the year, whereas the calendar we use today has an excess of 26 seconds.]

  "So," he said, "we shall add eight days during thirty-three years."

  Together they drew up a table of the years to present to Nizam al Mulk, who was waiting impatiently for their solution. Mai'mun and Isfizari in their robes of ceremony carried it to the Arranger of the World in Nisapur castle.

  And Nizam had a copy illuminated in gold and bound in a cover of scarlet silk embroidered with the likeness of a dragon. This he took himself to Malikshah.

  "O Lord of the East and the West," he vouchsafed, "by thy command thy servants have measured time anew, discovering all other measures to be false. Here, at thy wish, is the true tabulation of all future time. Here—I place it in the hand of authority—is the record of all the years to be while Allah permits men to endure upon the earth."

  Curiously, Malikshah scanned it. The embroidered dragon pleased him as much as the calendar, which he could not quite understand. But the Dragon was his sign, in the heavens, and the wise Omar Khayyam could interpret the omens of the heavens so that his rule would continue to be fortunate.

  "Good!" he announced. "Give robes of honor and chests of gold to the learned men who have labored in the House of the Stars. But to my astronomer give the small palace of Kasr Kuchik, in the hills."

  Nizam bowed, exclaiming under his breath—taking care that Malikshah should hear—upon the generosity of the Son of the Dragon. "Now it remains only to command that the evening before this vernal equinox the old calendar of the moon shall cease in all the lands of the Empire. That evening will begin the year One of the new era—thine era, which shall be called the Jallalian in accordance with thy name."

  The evening of that day, in the next Spring, when the hours of light and darkness were exactly equal, Malikshah ascended to the pavilion on the summit of the Castle tower, attended by his nobles.

  At the edge of the great plain the red sun was setting. On the flat house tops below them the people of Nisapur had spread carpets and hung lanterns, because that night was to be one of festival. The tinkling of guitars and the laughter of women rose out of the dusk—with the wailing of the criers who were proclaiming in the streets that the first hour of the new day approached.

  In a robe stiff with gold embroidery, Omar stood at the shoulder of the youthful sultan, who watched the sun dip into the dark line of the land. The sky was clear, except for a cloud bank high above the sun upon which the red glow turned to scarlet.

  "See," murmured a bearded mullah, "how Allah hath hung the banners of death in the sky."

  Heads turned toward him, but the Amir of Amirs cried out in a loud voice, "Behold, O Lord of the Universe, great King and Conqueror—behold, thy day begins."

  The last of the sun's rim sank out of sight, leaving the blood-stained sky empty and the earth dark beneath. A chorus of voices welled up from the streets and drums sounded in the courtyard beneath. Omar went to the parapet and looked down. Half visible in the dusk a water clock dripped unheeded. The falling drops marked the new time—but had time ever changed? The sun had been the same in the day of Jamshid and Kaikhosru.

  "Will the morning be favorable," Malikshah asked in his ear, "for gazelle hunting?"

  Omar repressed a smile. "I will examine the signs," he responded, "if your Majesty will give me leave to depart."

  He was glad to escape from the palace. When Jafarak searched for him late that night, he was sitting by the lighted lamp of the workroom in the House of the Stars—although every one else was at the festival in Nisapur. Omar still wore his heavy robe of honor.

  "Our Lord," the jester observed, "desires word about the omens for the hunt."

  Omar glanced up impatiently. "How is the wind?"


  "It is mild, from the south."

  "Then tell him that I have observed——nay, tell him to hunt where he will and fear not."

  "But the mullahs say the banners of death are hung i' the sky."

  "The priests! They prophesy evil because they are angered by the new calendar. Yet Malikshah will be as far from harm as he was yesterday."

  "Art certain, Master?"

  "Yes," said Omar with conviction.

  Still Jafarak hesitated. "I go. But wilt thou not come also to the palace where laughter and song go round. They are happy, in the palace."

  "And I—here." Omar looked up at him gravely: "Wilt see, O companion of my joy, what never man like to thee hath seen before?"

  Jafarak murmured assent, troubled and yet trusting. In loneliness and silence he had never been able to find joy. Omar rose, heedless of his stiff robe, and led the way to the tower stair. Through the darkness they climbed to the roof beside the great bronze globe.

  "Look up—what see'st thou, Jafarak?"

  "The stars. The stars in a clear sky."

  "Are they moving?"

  His head on one side, the jester considered. True, he could not see the star groups move, but he had not dwelt at the House of the Stars so long without learning that they rose and set like the sun and the moon. He could even tell by the bright point of Orion that the night was nearly half gone. "Verily, they move. Slowly, they circle the earth each day. I have seen that before."

  "And this earth of ours, what is it?"

  "A round ball, Master, like to this globe. 'Tis the center of all things, as Allah hath ordained, and it alone moves not. Mai'mun told me that."

  For a moment Omar waited. Down by the river night birds fluttered. An owl passed silently by them, and the cool wind stirred their faces.

  "Two years I have labored to see," Omar mused aloud, "and now I see. Look up, Jafarak, again. These myriad points of light, these everlasting stars, move not. Long before the ages of men, they were there, afar. Nay, beloved fool, it is this earth we stand on that moves. This round ball of ours turns upon itself once in a day and night. . . . Look up, and see the stars as they are."

  Suddenly Jafarak bent his head and shivered. "Master, I fear."

  "What is there to fear?"

  "The night changes. Thou hast spoken words of power. Meseems this tower moves." His trembling increased, and he clung to the parapet. "O Master, unsay the words! Or—or we will fall. I feel the tower moving, and we will fall."

  Omar cried out with exultation. "Nay, we will not fall The earth turns and we are safe. We fly through space among those other worlds which may be other, mightier suns, remote and unchanging. Dost thou see, and feel, Jafarak?"

  "Allah protect me!"

  His head hidden in his hands, Jafarak sobbed. Now he was sure that the master he loved had become mad. "I must go," he choked. "I must tell the sultan of his hunting."

  And he crept to the dark well of the stairs, blinded by his fear.

  The selling pillar in the alley of the slave sellers within the great bazaar of Nisapur, the seventh year of the new calendar of Sultan Malikshab.

  The crier stood up and beat upon a brass basin.

  "Bism'allah ar-rahman ar-rahim" he called, "In the name of God the Kind, the Compassionate, the door of bidding is opened. Give heed, ye buyers!"

  They sat crowded together, nobles, merchants, gentlemen farmers seeking stalwart plowmen, and pious Nisapuris who desired new handmaidens. For word had got about that new caravans of slave-stuff had come in from Syria where the glorious Sultan Malikshah had made fresh conquests.

  So large was the crowd that the dallal had to clear a space about the stone pillar, to place his first offering on the slab before the pillar.

  "Behold, O educated lords," he announced, "here is a Greek boy of some fourteen years, strong and with all his teeth, without sores or sickness of any nature, trained to play the lute and already circumcised as a Musliman. Who will say thirty dinars?" He looked about him. "Five and twenty dinars? Then make haste and say twenty, for that is less than the price of a Kurdish horse."

  Lifting an arm of the motionless boy, who had been stripped to the waist, the dallal turned him about slowly, to show his fair skin unblemished. But the vast quantities of young slaves brought into the markets recently had forced down prices. These captives must be sold to make way for others now on the road. The ribs of the Greek showed through his skin. He was half-starved, and wished only for food.

  "Verily," cried a stout Persian, "a horse is worth more. His strength is as water, he understands no word, and he will not serve at his age for a eunuch. Eleven dinars I will pay."

  "Eleven! By Allah, this infid——this young Moslem hath gentle blood in him. Say, is his price no more than the price of a cow? No more than eleven?"

  "Such a Greek as this will never bear spear-and-shield," cried another merchant. "Twelve."

  "Twelve and two dirhems."

  "Is this bidding or alms-giving?" shouted the dallal, who did not want the first offering to go at such prices.

  "Yes, it is charity," responded the stout Persian, "for these boys are selling in the Baghdad souk at less than ten. I say twelve and four."

  The boy was bought by a merchant for thirteen dinars and three silver dirhems. And an Abyssinian woman covered with bangles whispered to the girl who sat by her that they would go cheap.

  "Ai," she mourned, "and once a Sayyid bid three hundred gold for me."

  "O many-times-a-mother," the girl whispered back, "that must have been long ago."

  "The Turks are better than these," the Abyssinian went on, "who are merchants and palm lickers. Thou wilt never hear a hundred bid for thee, Ayesha."

  The girl Ayesha hugged her knees and considered. She had good teeth and a fine body, a bit too thin for the Persians' liking—she was an Arab of the banu's Safa from the black tents of the Hauran—and her skin was not as light as that of the Persian women, although not as dark as the Abyssinian's. If the merchants had only kept her for the private auction, some young noble might have fancied her.

  Unlike the experienced Abyssinian, Ayesha was not reconciled to her fate. The thought of being sold to a shopkeeper who would expect her to bake his bread and caress him at the same time filled her with silent fury. "O God," she prayed half-aloud, "may it not come upon my head!"

  " 'What? Well, you'll be sold for what you are. You don't get fruit from a willow tree." The Abyssinian combed the short hair over her forehead and smirked into a hand-mirror. "Listen now! Those two pockmarked Yamenites sold to a Jew for twenty dinars. What times—what times!"

  Ayesha had been sold once in Baghdad, and the fierce independence of the desert-born tormented her. From the edge of her veil she scanned the faces of the buyers and inwardly cursed them for street-born hagglers. Then she became utterly still.

  A horseman had drawn rein at the edge of the crowd—a man indifferent to the crowd. In the clasp of his turban's plume a great emerald gleamed. Evidently he was well-known, because heads craned toward him, and a guard muttered to another that here was the King's star gazer wandering after his wont.

  So, Ayesha thought, the newcomer must be an officer, a man of authority. True, he had a stern face with eyes like an eagle's under tufted brows; but he could not be much over thirty. Ayesha drew a long breath and rose to her knees.

  "Sit, woman," muttered the guard. "Thy turn is not yet."

  Instead Ayesha darted under his arm, and thrust her way through the nearest men. Swiftly as a frightened gazelle, she ran to the horseman and clutched his stirrup.

  "Protector of the Poor," she gasped, "give aid. I am from the high tent of a shaikh—my father was chieftain of the banu's Safa —" this was a lie— "and now, behold, O Amir of Amirs, they sell me with boys and drabs at the public post"

  Omar glanced down into dark eyes passionate with entreaty. He noticed the strength in her slim young shoulders, the curve of a fair throat. Ayesha had let her veil fall, and her lips moved imploringl
y. Inwardly she was praying that he understood her Arabic.

  Omar understood, but he was looking into eyes that made him think of Yasmi, after ten years.

  The dallal, pushing through the throng, caught her shoulder angrily. "Cease thy clamor—back to thy place, she-panther." To Omar he salaamed profoundly. "Do not take it ill, Khwaja. 'Tis a girl with the temper of one possessed."

  Ayesha still held fast to the stirrup, her cheek against his knee.

  "What is her price?" asked Omar. "No matter—I will pay a hundred gold."

  Scenting a good profit, the dallal turned to the crowd that had forsaken the dais to gather about them. "O believers, a hundred dinars is bid for this matchless girl with a waist slender as a cypress and a temper as gentle as a fawn's, who sings like a bulbul and banishes care from troubled minds." He caught the eye of a helper who had been placed among the merchants for just such a cue. "Who will bid more?"

  "A hundred and ten," cried the disguised helper.

  "Two hundred," said Omar. "I will take her with me now, dallal, and the money will be paid thee at my house."

  "The praise be to Allah," cried the startled auctioneer, who had not expected to get more than seventy pieces for a girl like this Arab. "O believers, what an open hand hath this chelabi, our revered master! What splendid taste! What munificence! Now is the singing slave Ayesha sold to Khwaja Omar for two hundred, and——" he decided that, the attention of the crowd being focussed on Omar, a little more gain could be had—"a poor twenty dinars, my commission, with only five for the mosque of the market. What generosity! Wilt have a litter, to carry hence this lovely singer? Wilt buy an African eunuch to guard her, for such a little price?"

  But Omar signed to the servant who followed him to dismount. Ayesha scrambled up into the vacated saddle with a gasp of relief—she had feared that something might make this lord repent of his bargain at the final moment. Obediently she bent her head, for Omar to draw the veil across her face. Now she was his.

  As the horses moved away she cast one triumphant glance over her shoulder at the Abyssinian slave with the bangles.