New NaqqaliZahhak and His Father
A just father’s generosity frames a son’s seduction. The decisive action is an oath made before its demand is known, followed by consent to a murder performed by another.
The chapter in five texts
| Text | Chapter treatment and distinctive choices |
|---|---|
| F&R English | Fifty-eight couplets develop the seduction, oath and parricidal conspiracy, then carry the next temptation’s opening into the chapter close. |
| Moscow | Printed pp 43–46 preserve the oath, refusal, consent and pit. The no-assistance instruction is supported in the apparatus; the main text has an attendant carrying a lamp. |
| Mohl | Printed pp 28–31 give fuller pre-oath persuasion and additional instructions. The lamp remains affirmative, differing from the English negative. |
| Ganjoor | The forty-five-couplet sh2 is followed here by the first five couplets of sh3. The digital boundary precedes the English boundary; the six extra persuasion couplets have no counterparts in its poem body. |
| Khaleghi | Printed pp 45–48 retain the central action, while the fuller persuasion and assistance instructions appear below the main text. Parentage is insinuated by the narrator, not established as fact. |
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
Dialogue carries the pressure. The successive bargains preserve Zahhak’s initial reluctance and later responsibility, while the father’s everyday generosity makes the betrayal personal. The additional persuasion has printed support and gives the oath a credible dramatic setting.
The main reservation is local and concrete: the lamp’s negative reverses the inspected sources. That difference is recorded without treating it as a collapse of the episode’s fidelity. The mother-secret aside is also kept within its proper evidential limits rather than converted into a new fact about the plot.
Couplet commentary
Quoted text · evidence · interpretation1–7Mardas and the economy of generosity
Ganjoor j2 1–7; Mohl I pp 28–29; Moscow I pp 43–44; Khaleghi I pp 45–46. English 5 and 6 reverse the digital order.
The spear-bearing desert community introduces Mardas as just, devout and generous before Zahhak’s rise. His thousandfold livestock and freely available milk make beneficence concrete. “Arid land” develops the desert setting; it does not add a separately named territory.
The English includes camels, which are not separately listed in the inspected passage, and does not reproduce the detail of pure or devout maidens assigned to milking. These are local inventory and household details. The governing action—wealth made available to people in need—remains intact.
8–13Biwarasp and the ten thousand horses
Ganjoor j2 8–13; Mohl I p 29; Moscow I p 44; Khaleghi I p 46.
The poem itself explains biwar through the numerical traditions it calls Pahlavi and Dari. The English correctly presents this as an inherited explanation in the narrative rather than a new etymological discovery. The golden horse gear links the name to conspicuous royal wealth.
The Persian character sketch includes moral impurity as well as daring and rashness; the English initially emphasizes impulsiveness, allowing corruption to emerge through action. Riding occupies two parts of night and day in the source. “Often” generalizes that proportion, while the distinction between royal display and hostility remains.
14–21Friendship as the first disguiseFuller seduction supported
Ganjoor j2 14–15 introduces Iblis as a seeming well-wisher. Mohl I p 29 continues with six couplets of credulity and enticing speech before the oath; Khaleghi I p 46 records this expansion in the apparatus.
The additional English space has a textual basis. It makes seduction progressive: agreeable speech, surrendered judgment, the tempter’s pleasure and a promise of exclusive knowledge. This is narrative psychology carried by transmitted material rather than an invented explanatory sermon.
Iblis is the same tempter later named Ahriman in the episode. The shifts of name and guise need not be flattened into one repeated English label. The speaker at English 18 is momentarily implicit: “He saw the youth” refers to Iblis, who recognizes Zahhak’s capture.
22–29The oath before the proposal
Ganjoor j2 16–23; Mohl I pp 29–30; Moscow I pp 44–45; Khaleghi I pp 46–47.
The order is the mechanism of the trap. Zahhak promises secrecy and obedience before hearing what obedience will require. Iblis then recasts the father’s continued life as an obstacle to a son’s rightful greatness.
The English’s house, wealth, station and crown preserve the movement from domestic impatience to universal ambition. A flattering promise is not a narrator’s endorsement of Zahhak’s fitness. Clear alternating speeches keep that difference available without intrusive labels.
30–35Refusal turned into coerced consent
Ganjoor j2 24–29; Mohl I pp 29–30; Moscow I p 45; Khaleghi I p 47.
Zahhak’s first response is pain at his father’s blood and an express refusal. Preserving that resistance gives the decision moral weight: he is neither innocent of the proposal nor a mechanically willing killer from the outset.
Iblis makes the oath a bond around the neck and threatens humiliation while the father remains honored. “In his despair” interprets the source’s snare; it should not excuse the ensuing consent. The final request for instructions is the point at which the prince joins the plan.
36–37Who performs the murder?
Ganjoor j2 30 promises that Iblis will devise the remedy. Mohl I p 30 adds instructions that Zahhak remain silent and that no assistant is needed. The addition is also recorded in the Moscow I p 45 and Khaleghi I p 47 apparatuses.
The additional instruction supports the English’s division of labor: Iblis constructs the trap while Zahhak authorizes the aim and withholds disclosure. Moral complicity does not depend on the son personally digging the pit.
The quoted Persian shows the securely legible first added couplet rather than supplying a speculative transcription of the following line. The English’s no-aid and silence clauses are both supported by that first couplet.
38–40The garden, ablution and the lampLocal reading difference
Ganjoor j2 31–33; Mohl I p 30; Moscow I p 45; Khaleghi I p 47. All four inspected main texts say that a servant carried a lamp with Mardas (ببردی چراغ), rather than that no servant did.
The garden and private washing prepare the devotional journey before dawn. “Out of sight” reasonably renders the privacy of nehofteh. The negative “No servant bore a lamp” reverses the inspected reading and cannot be defended from these four main-text presentations.
The reversal does not alter the hidden pit’s agency or the murder’s outcome, but it changes the scene’s lighting and attendance. The note preserves the English and records the discrepancy for the author; it does not invent a variant or quietly amend the poem.
41–45The concealed pit and broken fortune
Ganjoor j2 34–37; Mohl I p 30; Moscow I pp 45–46; Khaleghi I pp 47–48. One Persian death couplet expands into English 44–45.
The covering is brush or rubbish arranged over the excavation, followed by the smoothing of the path. The English’s leafy screen makes the garden trap visually immediate without changing the method. The darkness belongs to the time of the visit; it does not require the lamp’s absence.
“His royal fortune turned” draws out the source’s overturned or fallen fortune immediately before the fatal fall. A second couplet lets the broken back and death register distinctly. The expansion slows the action at its irreversible moment.
46–49Affection and responsibility
Ganjoor j2 38–41; Mohl I p 30; Moscow I p 46; Khaleghi I p 48.
The source’s “cold breath” is a figure for harshness toward the son. “Never spoken coldly” carries that idiom naturally and is more useful here than a literal anatomical image. Care, joy and gifts establish how radically the conspiracy violates the father’s conduct.
The English names the son’s role as joining the plot, matching hamdastan. The sage-source formula is retained as the narrator’s account of transmission; it is not modern corroboration of the event.
50–53The mother’s secret: an insinuation, not a finding
Ganjoor j2 42–45; Mohl I p 30; Moscow I p 46; Khaleghi I p 48.
The maxim says that even a bad son made lion-like would not dare a father’s blood, then hints at a hidden matter to be sought with the mother. This is a polemical insinuation about parentage. It does not establish that the mother planned the murder, nor prove that Mardas was not Zahhak’s father.
The English’s conditional phrasing leaves the matter open. “Where the truth may lead” preserves inquiry rather than supplying a verdict. The coronation that follows is a political result, not moral approval; gain and loss describe the authority Zahhak now exercises.
54–58A chapter boundary inside the temptation
Ganjoor j3 1–5, placed here at the end of English A4.2; Mohl I pp 30–31; Moscow I pp 46–47; Khaleghi I p 48.
The first successful bond becomes the basis of a second. Iblis explicitly offers universal dominion in exchange for renewed obedience. The promise that beast, person, bird and fish will serve him echoes the wide sovereignty of the earlier culture kings while changing its moral foundation.
Ending with a new disguise creates an effective hinge. Ganjoor starts its third section earlier, but the English has not omitted that opening; it places it before the next chapter’s kitchen scene. Digital and English section counts therefore cannot be compared without this boundary adjustment.