The Dehqan Gathers the Old Mobadan

From A0.8, Compiling the Shahnameh. It illustrates A0.8.9–18:

A0.8.9
In bygone days there lived, and spread, and grew,An epic cycle that the ancients knew.
A0.8.10
Scattered it lay in every Mobad’s hand,Each sage preserved a portion through the land.
A0.8.11
At last a Pahlevan of dehqan line,Brave, wise, and generous in his grand design,
A0.8.12
A seeker skilled in tracing ancient lore,Who searched the past and all its hidden store,
A0.8.13
Resolved to learn what truth might yet remain,And summoned aged Mobadan from each plain.
A0.8.14
He asked what annals told of crown and throne,Of heroes famed whose deeds were widely known,
A0.8.15
How once they held the world in ages past,And left it so diminished at the last.
A0.8.16
How fortune favored them in days of might,And how those days of valor passed from sight.
A0.8.17
The sages spoke of all the vanished years,Of kings and worlds, their triumphs and their tears;
A0.8.18
He bent his ear to every learned tongue,And from their words this present work was sprung.