New NaqqaliFortune Flies from Jamshid
Iran’s disaffected chiefs help enthrone the terror they seek as a remedy. The narrative closes Jamshid’s reign, then enlarges his fall into a meditation on the world’s deceptive favor.
The chapter in five texts
| Text | Chapter treatment and distinctive choices |
|---|---|
| F&R English | Twenty-seven couplets preserve Iranian participation in the takeover, the mixed army and Jamshid’s death. Concealment is recalled after the execution; the close turns toward worldly betrayal. |
| Moscow | Printed pp 49–50 supply the rebellion and capture, with the closing plea bracketed in the main-text area. The ring simile is explicit in the main narrative. |
| Mohl | Printed pp 33–34 include the closing prayer and the straw-attraction simile. The execution follows concealment in the Persian order. |
| Ganjoor | Twenty-eight couplets form sh4. English compresses claimants and execution, expands the hidden century and moves the concealment couplet after the killing. |
| Khaleghi | Printed pp 51–52 retain the political and mortal reversal. The final weary prayer is preserved below the chosen main text rather than silently lost. |
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
The political narrative is unusually sharp: rival claimants and Iranian allegiance help make Zahhak’s conquest possible. The English preserves those agencies and the combined army, keeping the fall from becoming a simplified opposition between two peoples.
The two-couplet capture-and-recollection unit needs a retrospective reading, which the note supplies. The close then changes register from royal history to the narrator’s distrust of the world. Contextual “amber” and the transmitted closing prayer show why an effective English choice can need explanation rather than revision.
Couplet commentary
Quoted text · evidence · interpretation1–4Rebellion has many claimants
Ganjoor j4 1–5; Mohl I p 33; Moscow I p 49; Khaleghi I p 51. Two claimant-and-army couplets combine in English 4.
The transition returns to Iran after the Arabian narrative. It brings together lost farr, crooked judgment, broken allegiance and armed competitors. The English’s concise compression maintains the multiplicity of contenders rather than suggesting an immediate unified transfer of power.
The chapter title’s flying fortune is a metaphor for abandonment. The verse itself describes a darkening reign and dwindling legitimacy, maintaining continuity with the earlier decline.
5–8Iranian chiefs invite the replacement
Ganjoor j4 6–9; Mohl I p 33; Moscow I p 49; Khaleghi I p 51.
The Iranian riders actively seek Zahhak and hail him king of Iran. The English preserves this agency. The takeover is therefore not narrated solely as an external assault on a politically passive country.
Dragon-visaged conveys the terror-laden epithet without requiring a literal dragon’s face in place of the human king already described with shoulder snakes. The text makes the new ruler dreadful before his invitation becomes coronation; the chiefs’ choice is part of the catastrophe.
9–13A mixed army and a constricted world
Ganjoor j4 10–14; Mohl I p 33; Moscow I p 49; Khaleghi I p 51.
Iranian and Arab forces are explicitly combined. The English retains that uncomfortable coalition and the transfer of throne, crown, treasure and army. The defeat is both military and institutional.
The source makes the world like a ring around Jamshid, an image of constriction. English 11 instead describes waning fortune dispelled by the march. The general pressure is preserved, while this particular circular image is not. It is a localized figurative substitution rather than an omitted campaign.
14–16A hundred years unseen and the Sea of Chin
Ganjoor j4 15–16; Mohl I p 33; Moscow I p 49; Khaleghi I pp 51–52. One Persian disappearance couplet expands into English 14–15.
The hundred-year interval belongs to the story’s monumental chronology. The English repeats concealment to give that duration room, then brings the king back into view in the hundredth year. It does not describe a second reign during the interval.
The Sea of Chin is retained as the poem’s distant eastern setting. Identifying a single modern coastline would claim more geographical precision than this passage supplies. The English omits the source’s renewed label of religious error at the reappearance; the prior account has already established the offense.
17–18Execution followed by a backward glance
Ganjoor j4 17–19; Mohl I p 33; Moscow I p 50; Khaleghi I p 52. The source places concealment before capture and sawing; English 17 combines capture and execution, then English 18 recalls concealment.
“Long … he kept concealed” followed by “Yet in the end” permits a retrospective reading after the execution. A reader should understand this as a backward glance over the failed refuge, not a second escape after death.
Sawing into two is explicit. “End to end” preserves the totality of sarasar without settling the precise anatomical direction of the cut. The source’s statement that the world was cleared of him is not independently reproduced; the English concentrates on the killing and inevitability of capture.
19–21Amber, straw and seven hundred years
Ganjoor j4 20–22; Mohl I pp 33–34; Moscow I p 50; Khaleghi I p 52. The source’s bijada draws straw; it also occurs earlier in a gem catalogue.
“Amber” follows the behavior of the object in this simile: straw is attracted to it. Carrying “garnet” mechanically from the earlier gem list would obscure the image. This is a strong example of context governing English word choice, with an explanatory note preserving the lexical distinction.
The reign’s seven hundred years and the earlier hundred years in hiding are transmitted narrative measures. They should not be silently combined into a freshly reconstructed total. The question of what greatness gained him turns the inventory of royal achievements into an inquiry about mortality.
22–26The world as a flattering betrayer
Ganjoor j4 23–27; Mohl I p 34; Moscow I p 50; Khaleghi I p 52.
Honey, soft speech, apparent affection and disclosed secrets personify the world as an intimate companion. The English’s “seeming like a friend” makes the relation readily audible while keeping the progressive betrayal.
The coda echoes Iblis’s method—pleasing words, confidence and concealed harm—without explicitly declaring the world identical to the devil. “Pride yourself” interprets the source’s rejoicing or taking delight in worldly favor. The final blood-filled heart preserves the physical severity beneath the sweetness.
27A weary prayer and its editorial statusMohl and Ganjoor main text · Moscow bracketed · Khaleghi apparatus
Ganjoor j4 28 and Mohl I p 34 include the final plea. Khaleghi I p 52 records it in the apparatus; it is outside that chosen main text. Moscow I p 50 prints the closing plea in square brackets within the main-text area.
The English ending has direct transmitted support. “Harsh embrace” interprets entanglement and suffering in the passing abode; it recalls the earlier promise of intimacy now exposed as harmful.
The voice is the narrator’s exhaustion with the transient world, not a last speech attributed to the executed Jamshid. Keeping speaker and story separate prevents the prayer from accidentally resurrecting him.