Omar Khayyam - a life (14 page)
"But how, O master," objected the slave, "will I know if it be truly the Lord of Seven? 'Tis a strange name."
"He will tell thee whence thou comest."
"
Wah!
That is magic."
The slave felt curious about his message, and he opened the paper often to look at the two words. Since they appeared very much like any other two words, he was reassured; still he took some pains to find a mullah who could read, in order to make certain there was no curse attached to the words.
"Sa'at shud"
the mullah read aloud, "The hour hath come. Or, the time of commencement hath arrived. What is there to fear in this?"
After his shoulder was bandaged, Omar kept to his room. Isfizari, who looked in at his door once, reported that he seemed to be writing on small slips of paper. Some of the papers lay on the floor.
In the observatory, Mai'mun labored upon the unfinished calculation. Without Omar, he could get nothing done. The map was inaccurate and the list of Greek astronomers meant nothing to him. After trying some experiments of his own without result, he abandoned the observatory.
He did not return until the night when Isfizari told him that the lamp in the workroom was lighted, although none of the assistants was in the tower. Hastening thither, the old astronomer found Omar kneeling at the low table, engrossed in the manuscript of Ptolemy.
"The point we seek is west of Asia Minor," he said. "I am sure of that, now."
Mai'mun's heart sank. "But west of there is only the sea,"
Omar nodded.
"Alas, our search is useless."
"Nay, 'tis near the end. For on the land there were many cities in the ancient days. On the sea there were few." Omar was studying the list of the astronomers, crossing out one name after the other. Finally his pen paused.
"The island of Rhodes," he murmured. "Hipparchus of Rhodes fixed the position of a thousand stars."
The lips of the old astronomer moved soundlessly. Through his thin veins ran a fever hotter than the lust of a miser or the hunger of an explorer. They were on the verge of discovering a secret of science hidden for nine centuries.
"Ay," he cried, "and Ptolemy wrote down those thousand and eighty stars of Hipparchus in his
al magest
. If it be true— if it be true!"
"I think it is," said Omar carelessly. "Now we must verify these tables for Rhodes, the city of Rhodes, and the year one hundred and thirty-four before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth."
"Let each of us do it—working apart." Mai'mun was fearful and yet eager for a share of the glory of discovery.
For three days they labored, sleeping little, the savant of Baghdad scarcely taking his tired eyes from the pages before him, while Omar worked swiftly between long spells of musing. They ate sparingly, late at night and in the morning. Until Omar stretched his uninjured arm and laughed.
"Enough. It is enough."
"Nay, it is little," objected Mai'mun, because it appeared to him that he had only made a beginning of the task. But when their calculations were compared, he flushed and made strange sounds in his throat.
"By the Kaaba, by the waters of Zem-zem—it is so. Avi-cenna himself would declare it so—and he never suspected. Oh, Khwaia Omar!" He seized the Tentmaker in his arms and caressed him. "Now we have accurate tables, Khwaja Omar. As Ptolemy himself used these tables of Hipparchus of Rhodes, we can use them."
Mai'mun wished to go and sit in the courtyard; he longed to expound the momentous discovery to his disciples, to taste again the delight of the moment—even to visit his colleagues of the academy in Nisapur and to gossip about it with them. But to this Omar would not consent.
"Already," he explained, "the masters of the Ulema say it is forbidden to measure time, and we are aided by evil spirits here in the House of the Srars. What would they say if they knew we were using the tables of an infidel Greek? Wait until our work is done and presented to the Sultan."
"True, Khwaja Omar. Once a Hanbalite threw a blazing torch into the tower, crying out upon us. And of nights we watch the gnomon, for a crowd from the mosque stoned it while you were in Aleppo. We must put the seal of discretion upon the lips of confidence."
He did not understand how Omar could turn at once to new labor. He did not know that when Omar's mind wandered from the tables, it passed into a distant region where a girl lay dying, moaning and clinging to his arms.
It was a shadowy limbo, that, by the rushing river under the burning sun. At times he could dwell in imagination with Yasmi when her eyes were bright, and she smiled, tossing back the flood of her dark hair. But more often there was the river and the pain.
"He labors," said Isfizari once, "as if he wished never to cease. And then he sits alone with his wine."
"He has a strange power," answered Mai'mun with the importance of one who knows whereof he speaks, "and that is his way. If he fail not in strength of mind, he will outdo the labor of Ptolemy."
But Jafarak, having the pitilessly clear understanding of a cripple, went to sit of nights with the Tentmaker. Crouching down by his friend, he watched the shadows cast by the lamp flame flickering upon the wall. He made no jests at such a time. "When Alp Arslan, my master, went out of this world," he ventured, "I wept an ocean of tears and was comforted. Yet the wine in that cup doth not make thee weep, O Tent-maker."
Omar stared at the cup within his hand. It was old silver, inlaid with lapis lazuli. "When you can't sleep, you can be drunk. It is better than searching yourself to find out what you are and why you are—you."
"Yet it brings no contentment."
"It brings forgetfulness. See, Jafarak, how this cup holds the secret of alchemy. For one measure of it will trounce a thousand cares. Drink of it and you will reign upon a golden throne like Mahmoud's, and you will hear music sweeter than that which came from David's lips. . . . Tell me, would the man who made this cup fling it down to shatter it to bits?"
"Nay—God forbid."
"Then what love fashions a fair human body, and what wrath destroys it?"
From the floor Omar picked up a crumpled sheet of paper, and tossed it to Jafarak. The jester smoothed it out, and, turning it to the light, saw that it was a rubai of four lines written in Persian in the astronomer's clear hand.
This caravan of life in mysteryMoves on. O Saki, bring the cup to me—The cup of laughter while the night goes by—And look not for the dawn that is to be.
"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.