The Rubáiyát Of Omar Khayyám

Omar, son of a tentmaker (Khayyam), was born at Nishapur in the latter half of he eleventh century, and died early in the twelfth century. He was a deeply learned man who followed his own convictions. He evolved a concept of life which was basically mystic: he preached the moral purity of the contemplative life; he struggled to master the eternal, the good, the beautiful. And he set down his newly found convictions in a series of quatrain.