http://bactra.org/notebooks Cosma's Notebooks en http://bactra.org/notebooks/2004/03/02#omar-khayyam <P>Medieval Persian mathematician, astronomer and poet. In the modern world, he's most famous in the last capacity, largely thanks to the 19th century English translation of his <cite>Rubiyyat</cite> ("Quatrains") by Fitzgerald. My grandfather, who is himself a Persian poet, tactfully describes that book as "a classic of <em>English</em> verse, <em>inspired</em> by Khayyam"; it apparently bears very little relation to the actual <cite>Rubiyyat</cite>. I hope to someday learn enough Persian to judge for myself. --- The only other English translation of Khayyam I've found is by <a href="robert-graves.html">Robert Graves</a> (!), and is more than usually full of his <a href="goddess.html">Goddess</a>-nonsense, so I don't trust <em>that</em> either.