Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and the Salaman and Absal of Jami — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Rs —_______—___—____ >a $6 : THE ASTRONOMER-POET OF PERSIA, Vil “ Omar Khayy4dm also came to the Vizier to claim the share; but not to ask for title or office. ‘The ‘oreatest boon you can confer on me,’ he said, ‘is to ‘let me live in a corner under the shadow of your ‘fortune, to spread wide the advantages of Science, ‘and pray for your long life and prosperity.’ The Vizier tells us, that, when he found Omar was really sincere in his refusal, he pressed him no further, but granted him a yearly pension of 1200 mithkdls of | gold, from the treasury of Naishapur. “At Naishapir thus lived and died Omar Khayyam, ‘busied,’ adds the Vizier, ‘in winning ‘knowledge of every kind, and especially in Astro- ‘nomy, wherein he attained to a very high pre- ‘eminence. Under the Sultanate of Malik Shah, he ‘came to Merv, and obtained great praise for his ‘proficiency in science, and the Sultan showered ‘favours upon him.’ “When Malik Shah determined to reform the | calendar, Omar was one of the eight learned men employed to do it; the result was the Jaldli era (so called from Jalal-u-din, one of the king’s names)—‘ a computation of time,’ says Gibbon, ‘which surpasses the Julian, and approaches the accuracy of the Gregorian style.’ He is also the author of some astronomical tables, entitled Ziji-Malikshahi,” and a GOMmGooOoksnco