Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Mm

... comes from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a collection of poetry, and here's where the case goes from strange to downright bizarre.

Police eventually locate a copy of the book that appears to be connected to the scrap of paper, and inside the book, a series of letters.

A possible code.

Taman Shud translates to The End from Persian to English, which really wasn't a clue in and of itself.

However, this piece of paper was found to be from a very rare edition of a book of poetry called The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and the last two words from that book are the words Taman Shud.

Even more mysterious, when the pathologist who performed the autopsy said that he suspected that the unnamed man had died from poisoning, Somehow, and this too, how it came about is shrouded in mystery as well.

The police appealed to the public and located what seemed to be the book the scrap of paper came from, which was found on the man.

I've read Ernest Hemingway and Kipling and also The Shooting of Dan McGrew, and plenty of detective stories too.

And just to show you what a broad guy I am, I've also read The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

Do you think that a fellow with his reading so graded could have learned so little as to be dissuaded from a main objective? Why, don't make me giggle.

I'd feel a lot better if you wouldn't wiggle that gun so.

It means it is ended or it is finished and it was quickly identified as the very last words.

The final phrase of a famous old book of poetry, the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a 12th century collection of Persian verse about appropriately enough, living well because life is fleeting and death comes for us all.

The scrap had been physically torn from the final page of a copy of that book.

So now the police have a new job, find the book that this scrap was torn out of.

And astonishingly, they do.

A local man comes forward and says that, around the time of the death, he'd found a copy of the Rubaiyat tossed into the back seat of his car, parked near the beach.

He'd thought nothing of it.

And when they check it, the final TAMAM SHUD has been torn from the last page and the tear matches the scrap in the dead man's secret pocket exactly.

But then suddenly there's this explosion that sends you reeling back into time and back to the site of your very last failed mission, the reason why you were fired, which was a mission on board the Titanic.

For this mission, you were supposed to track down a very special artifact that was hidden somewhere on board, which is a book covered in jewels called The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

Listen, when you find The Rubaiyat, knock on my door.

Now, as a kid, I never finished this game.

[laughs] And I think I just spent a lot of time clicking through all the different rooms of the Titanic.

Honestly, still a great experience.

But I will tell you something else that I did not know back then, which is that The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is a real book.

There really was this fabulous jewel-encrusted edition of The Rubaiyat that went down with the ship.

B. Whittaker and Rex Lowenberg, Chester, Philipson and Golder, 1907 This edition has 53 quatrains, printed on one side of the leaf only, and is limited to six sets.

There is a dedication, A Deux Amis, F.E.M. Part 1 Introduction It is now a matter of no little difficulty to write an introduction to the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

To each separate edition has been prefixed an introduction telling, in various ways, the same facts concerning his life and works.

Every conceivable theological point has been discussed with more or less amplitude.

Grainger, for the ones who get it done.

Section 1 of A Second Rubaiyat Miscellany This is a LibriVox recording.

All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.

For further information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Algie Pugg Section 1.

reproach me not and vainly say why idly thus from day to day let every good pass by thy door nor swell by industry thy store i answer labour toil and pain prudence wit foresight all is vain travels are useless some succeed but others but to failure lead fate rules the miser counts his heaps and fortune crowns him while he sleeps the wisdom of the supreme all we see above around is but built on fairy ground all we trust is empty shade to deceive our reason made tell me not of paradise or the beams of houri's eyes who the truth of tales can tell cunning priests invent so well he who leaves this mortal shore quits it to return no more in vast life's unbounded tide they alone content may gain who can good from ill divide or in ignorance abide all between is restless pain before thy prescience power divine what is this idle sense of mine What all the learning of the schools, What sages, priests, and pedants, Fools, the world is thine, From thee it rose, by thee it ebbs, By thee it flows.

Hence worldly law, by whom is wisdom shown, The eternal knows, knows all, and he alone.

End of section Section 2 of A Second Rubaiyat Miscellany.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

KiplingAnd also the Shooting of Dan McGrew, and plenty of detective stories too.

And just to show what broad guy I am, I've also read The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

Do you think that a fellow with his reading so greated could have learned so little as to be dissuaded from the main objective? Why, don't make me giggle.

I'd feel a lot better if you wouldn't wiggle.