The Myth: Tales of Ancient Persia! Kings! Princes! Heroes! Demons! Giant birds! Battles! Conquest! Divine kingly radiance! The grandest sweep of history!
The Book: Shahnameh, the Persian Book of Kings
The Author: Abolqasem Ferdowski, some time in the tenth century.
This text: a 2006 translation by Dick Davis.
Price: This one cost me $29.99 from Dymocks, and it was money well spent. Seems to be pricier on the internet, though.
So the Shahnameh is enormous fun. It covers the grand scope of the Persian empire, from its mythical beginnings to its fall to Arab conquest. The kings and heroes are magnificent characters, well drawn and vivid. There are champions of justice, dodgy viziers, kings foolish and wise, beautiful princesses, terrible demons, shifty wizards and treacherous siblings. It covers the whole world, including distant China, exotic India, and glamorous Rome, all ruled from Iran in the centre of the world.
The translation is a prose one and abridged, but it's mellifluous and engaging. This is such a beautiful book, with rough cut pages and lovely illustrations throughout.
There are three main periods covered by the Shahnameh: the mythic era, where kings spoke thirty languages and rode demons as horses; the heroic era, where the mighty, invincible Rostam defends Persia from every threat, including his own king's foolishness; and the historic era, from the reign of Sekander through to the fall of the Empire.
To start: the Mythic Kings.
Kayumars
The first man to ever become king of the world - and to glow with divine kingly radiance, the mark of the wise Persian king - is Kayumars, who rules from the mountains and teaches his people how to prepare food and how to make clothes out of leopard skins.
Kayumar's son, Siamak, is killed by the Black Demon, son of the Arch-demon Ahriman. Kayumars joins forces with his grandson Hushang on a mission of vengeance, with an army of fairies, leopards, wolves, tigers, birds, and domestic animals. Hushang defeats the Black Demon, and Kayumars fades from the world, leaving Hushang king.
Hushang
Hushang's reign is marked by the discovery of fire (he throws a piece of flint at a dragon, and it sparks as it bounces off) and, shortly afterwards, blacksmithing. He also invents irrigation and agriculture, and separates the beasts into domestic animals for farming and wild animals for hunting.
Hushang is a tireless, industrious king, but he eventually leaves the world.
Tahmures, the Binder of Demons
Hushang's son is Tahmures, known as the Binder of Demons. Tahmures teaches people how to shear sheep and weave wool, and how to train cheetahs for hunting, and how to breed chickens and hawks.
Tahmures is kept on the straight and narrow by his vizier, Shahrasb, who provides wise and careful advice. Because of this, Tahmures is purified of all evil and is able to bind Ahriman with spells, and ride him as a mount to tour the world. This makes all the other demons nervous, and they plot to overthrow him. They gather in a large army, led by the black demon - possibly the Black Demon, last seen being bifurcated by Hushang. Tahmures gets wind of this and is able to ambush them. He single-handedly defeats the entire army, subduing two-thirds with spells and a third with his huge mace. The demons beg for mercy, offering all their secrets. They teach him how to write - in thirty scripts - and he becomes suffused with knowledge, glowing like the sun.
He passes on this knowledge, and eventually leaves the world.
Jamshid
Tahmures is mourned greatly, but his son Jamshid has learned well and is a just and wise king. Jamshid spends fifty years inventing ways to make weapons and armour, and teaching his warriors. Then he spends another fifty developing the textile trade - spinning and weaving, dyeing and sewing. After that, another fifty years arranging his society, separating out the priests and the warriors and the farmers and the tradesmen, and teaching them their roles. Then he orders demons to build him public baths and a castle, and then spends another fifty years developing mining and gemcraft, perfumery, medicine and shipbuilding, revealing his secrets to his people as he goes.
In the end, Jamshid rules for three hundred glorious years, with no death or evil, and with everyone having their own personal demon-slave. But in the end he grows vain and arrogant, and loses his divine kingly radiance.
Zahhak the Demon King
While this is going on, the king of the Arabs, Merdas, has just sired a son, Zahhak. Merdas is pretty just and honest as Arabs go - he's no Persian, but he's not a bad guy. Zahhak, on the other hand, is ambitious and evil. The demon Eblis persuades him to murder his father and take his throne.
In secret, Eblis signs on as Zahhak's cook. Kuyamars taught people how to eat, but eating meat is not really a thing yet, so the menu of chicken and lamb kebabs, and veal cooked with saffron, rosewater, wine and musk, is pretty damn impressive. Zahhak offers him anything his heart desires. Eblis says he really just wants to nuzzle Zahhak's kingly shoulders.
Sure, says Zahhak, that's not at all weird.
Where Eblis's icky secretions touch each of Zahhak's shoulders, a snake erupts, and then Eblis vanishes. Zahhak spends a couple of years tormented by poisonous snakes biting him from his shoulders. Then Eblis turns up disguised as a wise man and convinces Zahhak that to pacify the snakes he needs to feed them a human brain every day. This seems to work regarding the snakes, but is less than effective in not ushering in a thousand year reign of terror.
Jamshid has lost his heavenly mandate at this stage and no longer glows with divine kingly radiance. Zahhak defeats him and moves in. He takes Jamshid's two sisters as concubines and advisors, and the aforementioned millennial reign begins.
Nine-hundred and some years later, Zahhak starts getting dreams of Feraydun the Persian, who is going to end his reign. The wise men of the court are extremely reluctant to tell their demon king that his time is up, but in the end they point out that everyone's reign ends someday, and that Feraydun - when he's born - will be motivated by the death of his father at Zahhak's hands, and also the death of the magical cow that raised him.
So Zahhak tries really hard not to kill any descendants of Persian kings and/or magic cows, and fails on both counts. The prophecy is fulfilled. Feraydun raises an army in India and invades while Zahhak is out of the palace. He takes the demon king's concubines as his queens, because they are thousand-year-old sorceresses and also beautiful and also he may not actually know they're his great-great-great-etc. aunts.
Zahhak's people turn against him and his army is defeated. Finally, he sneaks alone into the palace to murder his treacherous concubines, but is captured and imprisoned. Feraydun intends to murder him, but is advised by the angel Sorush to show mercy. Zahhak is therefore bound in chains in a cave for all eternity, with nails piercing his vital organs and his blood spilling on the floor.
Feraydun
Feraydun rules for five hundred years, guided by his ageless sorceress aunt/wives, 'and not a day was given over to evil.' He is well loved by his people, and not just because he isn't feeding their brains to his shoulders. His reign is mostly defined by his relationship with his three sons, Salm, Tur and Iraj. After observing his boys, he puts Salm in charge of the Western parts of the world, Tur in charge of China and the land of the Turks, and Iraj, the youngest, in charge of Iran, which is the important bit in the middle. Salm and Tur resent this. They murder Iraj and send his head to his father as a way of demonstrating how put out they are.
Iraj left his wife pregnant, and she gives birth to a daughter. Feraydun takes back the throne and raises Iraj's daughter, and then her son, who is called Manuchehr. (The daughter is not named, but the poet notes that she resembles her father closely.)
Salm and Tur hear of the birth of Manuchehr and are worried that he might take vengeance for the murder of his grandfather. They send an envoy to Feraydun laden with gifts, and offer to swear fealty to the boy. Feraydun suspects a ruse, and scornfully refuses. He tells the envoy that they are entirely correct: Manuchehr will indeed be coming in force to exact vengeance. The two evil brothers gather the entire forces of China and the West, and march on Persia in the hopes of getting in first. Manuchehr's forces smash through Tur's army and kill him, then after a series of battles Salm is also cornered and killed.
Feraydun places Manuchehr on the throne of Persia, and leaves the world.
Manuchehr rules well and wisely, but what's more interesting is what happens to the son of his vassal, Sam.
Next: The coming of Rostam.
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