New NaqqaliThe Reign of Tahmuras
Forty-eight couplets retain the crafts, virtuous minister, Ahriman as mount, Div war and acquisition of writing, with an elegiac close.
The chapter in five texts
| Text | Chapter treatment and distinctive choices |
|---|---|
| F&R English | Forty-eight couplets retain the crafts, virtuous minister, Ahriman as mount, Div war and acquisition of writing, with an elegiac close. |
| Moscow | The apparatus supplies the two additional battle images and closing alternatives; these are not all main-text couplets. |
| Mohl | Shidasp, the opposed hosts and both final addresses to the world directly support distinctive English choices. |
| Ganjoor | Forty-six couplets provide the principal reference. English compression of the minister and expansions elsewhere conceal simple count-based comparison. |
| Khaleghi | The main text retains the first final protest to the world; the second is in the apparatus. Shahrasp differs from the English’s Mohl-supported Shidasp. |
Parallel text
English left · Persian right. Ganjoor is the reference except where a row names a printed source. Select a number to open the relevant note. G identifiers distinguish digital sections across chapter boundaries.
Narrative and poetic form
Forty-eight couplets retain the crafts, virtuous minister, Ahriman as mount, Div war and acquisition of writing, with an elegiac close.
The narrative turns mastery into learning: the defeated enemies possess a useful art and mercy makes it available. Apparatus support protects the fuller battle and ending from being misclassified as invention, while the name variants remain visible.
Couplet commentary
Quoted text · evidence · interpretation1–6The Div-binder’s royal program
Ganjoor tahmoores 1–7; Moscow I p 36; Mohl I p 22; Khaleghi I p 35. English 2 combines accession and the summoning of the mobads.
The inherited royal task is both ethical and practical: clear evil, restrain the Divs, release useful things from concealment. The English keeps these promises distinct even while compressing the accession.
Gorz gives the announcement a culturally specific emblem of force, though Ganjoor’s declaration lists crown, treasure and army rather than separately naming the mace there. The mace is explicit later in the battle. The English moves that emblem forward rather than adding a new weapon to the story.
7–10Wool, weaving and useful animals
Ganjoor tahmoores 8–10; Moscow I p 36; Mohl I p 22; Khaleghi I p 35. The source’s clothing-and-spreadings couplet expands into English 8–9.
The English turns a compact statement of coverings and floor furnishings into visible manufacture: thread, garments and rugs. The additional space explains the craft’s stages without altering the achievements attributed to Tahmuras.
Grass and barley retain the feeding of swift animals, while the source also names straw. “Under rein” infers service and control from this broader domestication passage; it does not imply that every named predator in the next section is ridden.
11–17Lynx, cheetah, birds and the cock
Ganjoor tahmoores 11–17; Moscow I pp 36–37; Mohl I p 22; Khaleghi I pp 35–36. The cock is associated with the sounding of a drum; the text then treats the birds’ useful qualities and gentle handling.
Lynx for siyah-gush and cheetah for yuz preserve meaningful distinctions among the trained animals. The English gives their capture a humane emphasis in “human touch no longer woke their fear,” whereas the Persian more directly says they came into bonds through contrivance.
The cock’s watches of the night make its time-marking function explicit. The source connects its crow with a drum signal but does not separately enumerate nocturnal watches. This is an explanatory development of usefulness, not a new craft. The command for warm, gentle voices is closely retained.
18–19Praise follows mastery
Ganjoor tahmoores 18–19; Moscow I p 37; Mohl I p 22; Khaleghi I p 36. The creator gives humans authority over animals and shows the way.
The translation retains the corrective to a purely self-sufficient royal achievement: the capacity to command creatures occasions gratitude to their maker. It does not turn the king himself into the object of prayer.
The English’s “through all our days” and “constant praise” extend the injunction temporally. They serve the speech’s devotional cadence while the source supplies the fundamental relation between human capacity and divine gift.
20–24Shidasp is a supported name
Mohl I p 23 reads Shidasp. Ganjoor tahmoores 21, Moscow I p 37 and Khaleghi I p 36 print Shahrasp/Shahresp. English 20–23 compress the five-couplet portrait in Ganjoor 20–24; English 24 combines its moral instruction and royal purification in 25–26.
The English name is supported by Mohl and should not be corrected merely to match the digital form. The alternatives belong in the textual record rather than being treated as two different ministers.
The fasting day and wakeful prayer define the minister’s moral authority. General esteem and restraint of evil are redistributed in the English portrait, which leads naturally to Tahmuras’ purified royal farr. That causal movement is retained despite fewer English couplets.
25–28Ahriman as mount and the Div rebellion
Ganjoor tahmoores 27–30; Moscow I p 37; Mohl I p 23; Khaleghi I p 36. The king binds Ahriman by afsun, rides him, and later faces assembled Divs.
The English preserves the extraordinary action rather than explaining it away as a merely figurative victory over temptation. Ahriman becomes a controlled mount; the Divs’ subsequent resistance threatens the king’s crown and farr.
The narrative distinguishes Ahriman from the Black Div leading the later army. Nor does the repeated title Black Div prove that this is the individual killed by Hushang. The English can retain the repeated designation without inventing a resurrection or an unstated genealogy.
29–36Two extra battle images have print support
Ganjoor tahmoores 31–36; Moscow I p 37, especially apparatus note 13, records the darkened air/eyes and the opposed hosts of fire, smoke and Divs versus royal warriors. Mohl I p 23 includes the opposed-hosts image; Khaleghi I p 37 apparatus records related additions.
English 33 and 35 are not unsupported simply because Ganjoor has no separate couplets for them. The apparatus makes the obscured atmosphere and balanced armies available as transmitted narrative imagery. Their editorial location remains visible in the paired display.
The English expands the darkened air and troubled eyes into a sky-and-earth spectacle. The core function is the same: sorcerous tumult is answered by ordered royal force. The account’s vividness is grounded in a fuller transmitted battle, while the commentary avoids promoting every recorded addition to the editors’ main texts.
37–38Two-thirds bound and the rest struck down
Ganjoor tahmoores 37–38; Moscow I p 38; Mohl I p 23; Khaleghi I p 37. The proportion two-thirds is explicit.
The English preserves the division between magic used to bind and the heavy mace used against the remainder. Its “died” makes the result of being laid low by the mace more explicit than the basic verb past kardan alone.
The following wounded, bound captives belong to the surviving host. The sequence should not be read as claiming that the slain remainder subsequently petitions for mercy. Keeping the proportions clear makes the action coherent without changing the English.
39–41Mercy in exchange for knowledge
Ganjoor tahmoores 39–41; Moscow I p 38; Mohl I p 23; Khaleghi I p 37. The plea for a new art expands into English 39–40; release and attachment to the king compress into English 41.
The bargain changes the king’s relation to his enemies. Their usefulness becomes a reason to preserve life, and concealed skill must be made public. The English keeps this exchange explicit rather than presenting writing as a spontaneous royal invention.
“Yield the knowledge” emphasizes the condition of mercy. Persian 41 additionally describes the released Divs seeking or accepting a bond with the king. The English conveys compelled service through the bargain but does not separately state that affiliation.
42–44Nearly thirty kinds of writing
Ganjoor tahmoores 42–44; Moscow I p 38; Mohl I pp 23–24; Khaleghi I p 37. Writing, kindled knowledge, nearly thirty forms and the six named traditions are source elements.
“Nearly thirty” preserves the source’s qualification. Roman, Farsi, Arabic, Chinese, Sughdian and Pahlavi name traditions of writing in the poem’s mythic account; the passage is not a claim to a modern comparative history of script invention.
The English’s survival of thought across years explains writing’s power rather than translating a separate Persian assertion about time. It develops the source’s kindling of knowledge into a clear consequence for human memory. The list’s altered order does not change its members.
45–46The reign and its remembered labor
Ganjoor tahmoores 45–46; Moscow I p 38; Mohl I p 24; Khaleghi I p 37. Thirty years and the survival of the king’s efforts close the narrative.
The heading gives a thirty-year reign, while the source wording around az in bishtar invites care about temporal attachment. The English follows the reign’s received duration without turning the phrase into a new numerical chronology.
The works remain when the worker departs. That ending places the crafts, the conquest and writing within the same pattern of mortal achievement already established for the earlier kings.
47–48Two closing couplets outside Ganjoor
Mohl I p 24 prints both addresses to the world. Khaleghi I p 37 retains the first in the main text and records the second below it. Moscow I p 38 records closing alternatives in the apparatus. Ganjoor ends at the remembered labor.
The English close is textually supported. The world first nurtures what it intends to reap, then raises a person to heaven’s height and suddenly gives him to the dust. The translation preserves both the protest and the fall in scale.
“Do not caress” interprets nurture as misleading favor; “doomed to fall” anticipates the second image. The expansion is a strong elegiac closure to a king defined by productive arts. Its existence in Mohl and differential status elsewhere are more useful than treating the digital endpoint as decisive.