New NaqqaliFereydoon Sees the Daughters of Jamshid
Breaking the palace’s spell brings Fereydoon to women whose captivity has damaged their freedom and understanding. Recognition and testimony now supply the knowledge needed to confront the absent king.
The chapter in five texts
| Text | Chapter treatment and distinctive choices |
|---|---|
| F&R English | Forty-five couplets reorder the women’s damaged condition before purification, retain their coercion testimony and let Arnavaz disclose the tyrant’s whereabouts. |
| Moscow | Printed pp 69–71 preserve the talisman, throne, women’s recognition and blood-bath report. The reports remain distinct from a new direct scene of Zahhak abroad. |
| Mohl | Printed pp 50–52 explicitly connect the talisman’s breaking with the ox-head gorz and retain the women’s religious and personal restoration. |
| Ganjoor | Sh10 has 43 couplets. English moves the intoxication-like condition earlier and the lament later, while expanding the mixed blood into two couplets. |
| Khaleghi | Printed pp 75–79 retain washing, guidance, fear-constrained submission and the report of the attempted blood remedy. Main-text form and local variants remain distinguishable. |
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
Putting the women’s condition before cleansing creates an intelligible cause-and-response sequence. The later account of coerced submission guards against reading their captivity as willing collaboration.
The chapter’s knowledge arrives through speech. The father and cow are named again for the women’s benefit, while Zahhak’s blood-bath and wanderings reach the hero through their report. Preserving those changes of speaker keeps analysis from confusing testimony with a second enacted scene.
Couplet commentary
Quoted text · evidence · interpretation1–6Breaking the talisman and occupying the seat
Ganjoor z10 1–5; Mohl I p 50; Moscow I p 69; Khaleghi I pp 75–76.
The talisman is associated with a dedication other than the World-Ruler’s name. The English puts its false religious orientation before the breaking; Mohl explicitly supplies the blow of the ox-head gorz. Male Divs and the seizure of the royal seat remain distinct actions. The Kayanian cap completes the outward succession, while farr gives it the translation’s royal vocabulary. The act is not yet the final capture of Zahhak.
7–12Purification after coerced instruction
Ganjoor z10 6–9; Mohl I p 50; Moscow I pp 69–70; Khaleghi I p 76. English places the women’s condition before washing, drawing z10 9 ahead of 7–8.
The changed order gives a clear cause and response: captivity has damaged the women’s understanding; washing and guidance follow. The physical washing of heads and cleansing of souls are related but distinguishable acts. The source’s idol-worshipping upbringing is rendered as false belief. This is the narrative’s religious framework, not an invitation to blame captives for choosing their captivity. English “all things vile” in A5.1 should be read beside this account of imposed teaching.
13–18Tears, the family-tree question and a dangerous lair
Ganjoor z10 10–16; Mohl I p 50; Moscow I p 70; Khaleghi I p 76. English 18 recalls the suffering described earlier in z10 14.
Narcissus and red rose identify eyes and cheeks; the English unfolds the image while preserving both flowers. The branch-and-fruit question seeks lineage and identity, not botany. Entering the lion’s resting place expresses the danger of the usurpation. The reordered lament makes the women’s account culminate in the grief Zahhak has caused, maintaining their testimony as the speech’s center.
19–25The father and nurse-cow named again
Ganjoor z10 17–23; Mohl I p 51; Moscow I p 70; Khaleghi I pp 76–77.
Fereydoon begins with unstable kingship before naming the two losses. The repeated cow-story is purposeful: the women learn why this particular opponent has come. Patterned silk translates the cow’s ornamental body into an accessible visual comparison. The stated intent to kill Zahhak is the hero’s present intention; the later command of Soroush will stop it. The commentator should not retroactively erase that initial resolve.
26–31Recognition and the language of coercion
Ganjoor z10 24–28; Mohl I p 51; Moscow I pp 70–71; Khaleghi I p 77.
Arnavaz recognizes the foretold liberator. The women say that fear of destruction compelled their submission. The source’s bitter formulation that the snake-companion calls them his mates is generalized into an unwilling life beside serpents. The English protects the essential distinction between external subjection and free consent, while omitting that particular wordplay about marriage and the snakes.
32–38A conditional promise and an absent tyrant
Ganjoor z10 29–37; Mohl I p 51; Moscow I p 71; Khaleghi I pp 77–78.
Fereydoon’s promise is conditional on heavenly support, preserving a limit to his confidence. The women disclose Zahhak’s journey toward Hind and a proposed thousand innocent beheadings. That thousand belongs to the attempted countermeasure against prophecy, not to the nightly ration of the two snakes. The quoted prediction and the tyrant’s discomfort explain why the palace is vulnerable now.
39–41Blood-bathing as a failed attempt to reverse fate
Ganjoor z10 38–39; Mohl I p 51; Moscow I p 71; Khaleghi I p 78.
Blood from domestic and wild animals and from men and women goes into one vessel. The English gives this a two-couplet accumulation before naming the bath, preserving its indiscriminate violence. “To void the fate” conveys the intended reversal of the astrologers’ omen. The account does not say that this rite succeeds; its place in the surrounding flight and agitation points the other way.
42–45The snakes keep the king moving
Ganjoor z10 40–43; Mohl I pp 51–52; Moscow I p 71; Khaleghi I p 78.
The shoulder-snakes cause continuing distress and travel from country to country. The women expect a return soon because he cannot remain long anywhere. The English preserves this practical information after the ritual horror. Arnavaz’s disclosure and Fereydoon’s listening close the chapter as an exchange of knowledge, not a new omniscient scene of the bath.