New NaqqaliThe Story of Zal and Rudabeh
Chapters
- A8.1 · Zal Visits Mehrab of Kabul68 couplets · 8 notes
- A8.2 · Rudabeh and Her Handmaidens72 couplets · 7 notes
- A8.3 · The Handmaidens Visit Zal92 couplets · 10 notes
- A8.4 · The Handmaidens Return44 couplets · 5 notes
- A8.5 · Zal and Rudabeh: A Secret Visit58 couplets · 7 notes
- A8.6 · Zal Seeks Counsel52 couplets · 6 notes
- A8.7 · Zal Writes to His Father54 couplets · 7 notes
- A8.8 · Sahm Seeks Counsel36 couplets · 6 notes
- A8.9 · Rudabeh’s Mother Is Not Pleased67 couplets · 7 notes
- A8.10 · Mehrab Is Not Pleased76 couplets · 7 notes
- A8.11 · Manuchehr Hears of Zal and Rudabeh37 couplets · 5 notes
- A8.12 · Sahm Comes to Manuchehr57 couplets · 6 notes
- A8.13 · Sahm Marches on Kabul57 couplets · 7 notes
- A8.14 · Zal Going as an Envoy before Manuchehr83 couplets · 9 notes
- A8.15 · Mehrab Storms before Sindokht39 couplets · 6 notes
- A8.16 · Sindokht and Sahm Come to an Agreement99 couplets · 10 notes
- A8.17 · Zal Goes with Letter before Manuchehr40 couplets · 6 notes
- A8.18 · The Mobadan Question Zal26 couplets · 6 notes
- A8.19 · Zal Answers the Mobadan34 couplets · 7 notes
- A8.20 · Manuchehr Approves of Zal46 couplets · 7 notes
- A8.21 · Manuchehr’s Answer to Sahm’s Letter49 couplets · 6 notes
- A8.22 · Zal Returns to Kabul, Sahm and Rudabeh76 couplets · 10 notes
About this commentary
Choice, counsel and the making of kinship
Twenty-two chapters, 1,262 English couplets and 155 commentary entries. All 2,524 English lines remain unchanged. A private attachment becomes a public settlement through messages, reciprocal vows, maternal diplomacy, royal examination and an eventual marriage.
Read the comparison method and source limits
F&R is an English verse translation; Moscow, Mohl and Khaleghi are edited Persian texts; Ganjoor is a digital presentation. These are five comparison texts, not five independent manuscript witnesses. Their agreement is not an independent manuscript vote.
Parallel blocks align by sense, not by equal counts. Every English couplet appears once in the reading text and is covered by one note. G m4–m24 identify Ganjoor’s Manuchehr sections 4–24 with permanent local couplet numbers. All 1,176 reference couplets are represented once. Five appear in source-only rows because they have no separate English counterpart: Tablet and Pen, two inventory couplets, a galloping arrow-shot and a regional supply list. Chapter boundaries differ between presentations.
Ganjoor’s poem body excludes modern prose summaries and reader comments. The additional printed Persian excerpts are selected anchors, not a complete transcription of every fuller passage. The display therefore does not claim to establish a new composite Persian edition or to make every English expansion a unique Persian couplet. Quoted spacing and orthography are lightly normalized.
Narrative extent and selected substantive readings were checked against the linked scans. Broad chapter consultation spans can overlap and are not exact editorial section boundaries. Main text, bracketed text and apparatus preservation remain different evidence types. The notes do not claim an exhaustive manuscript collation, complete apparatus transcription or external peer review. A cautious description of a critical presentation does not mean every line has been independently certified.
The analysis distinguishes reported prejudice from narrative fact, prediction from permission and an undertaking from its eventual fulfillment. It defends the English where evidence supports it and states local differences without rewriting the verse. Formal rhyme and pacing are considered through their narrative effects; this is not a new metrical or rhyme audit.
Principal findings. Mohl supports several fuller speeches, the hair kiss, Mai, the Indian zij and the final bride-crowning. Moscow’s brackets often preserve material rather than remove it. The notes also record an implicit limit on intimacy, shifts of speaker, an ornaments instruction reversed in English, inventory differences and the particular force of Sindokht’s plea for innocent people.
Evidence behind the comparison
Bibliography and consulted presentations
| Text | Edition and access |
|---|---|
| F&R English | Farzad and Rhonda Dibachi, Shahnameh, A8.1–A8.22, New Naqqali. Captured website text: 1,262 couplets / 2,524 lines. |
| Moscow | Ferdowsi, Shahnameh: Critical Text, vol. I, under E. E. Bertels. Moscow: Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1960. Consulted printed pp 155–235. Image number = printed page + 1. Bracketed passages and apparatus alternatives are not unqualified main-text agreement. |
| Mohl | Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, ed. Jules Mohl, vol. I. Tehran pocket reprint, Sherkat-e Sahami-ye Ketabha-ye Jibi with Franklin Publications, second printing 1354 SH. Consulted printed pp 121–175. This is the inspected Persian reprint, not the first Paris impression. PDF page = printed page + 4. |
| Ganjoor | Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, Manuchehr sh4–sh24. Captured poem-body count: 1,176 couplets across 21 digital sections. The English divides this narrative into 22 chapters. |
| Khaleghi | Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, ed. Jalal Khaleghi-Motlagh, vol. I. Tehran: Centre for the Great Islamic Encyclopaedia, sixth printing 1396 SH. Consulted printed pp 182–264. PDF page = printed page + 16. Main text and apparatus remain distinct; the next birth narrative begins at p 265. |
Alignment and coverage
All 1,262 English couplets and all 1,176 Ganjoor reference couplets are accounted for once. Five Persian couplets appear in source-only rows. Printed excerpts supply evidence for fuller material without creating a supposedly definitive composite Persian edition.
| Chapter | Scope | Reference distribution |
|---|---|---|
| A8.1 | 68 English / 63 G | m4 1–63 |
| A8.2 | 72 English / 65 G | m5 1–24; m6 1–41 |
| A8.3 | 92 English / 83 G | m7 1–83 |
| A8.4 | 44 English / 36 G | m8 1–36 |
| A8.5 | 58 English / 51 G | m9 1–51 |
| A8.6 | 52 English / 53 G | m10 1–53; includes one source-only theological couplet. |
| A8.7 | 54 English / 57 G | m10 54–110 |
| A8.8 | 36 English / 32 G | m11 1–32 |
| A8.9 | 67 English / 62 G | m12 1–62 |
| A8.10 | 76 English / 73 G | m13 1–73 |
| A8.11 | 37 English / 35 G | m14 1–35 |
| A8.12 | 57 English / 50 G | m14 36–85 |
| A8.13 | 57 English / 51 G | m15 1–51 |
| A8.14 | 83 English / 80 G | m15 52–131 |
| A8.15 | 39 English / 39 G | m16 1–39; includes two source-only inventory couplets. |
| A8.16 | 99 English / 92 G | m17 1–92 |
| A8.17 | 40 English / 37 G | m18 1–22; m19 1–14; m20 1 |
| A8.18 | 26 English / 26 G | m20 2–27 |
| A8.19 | 34 English / 33 G | m21 1–33 |
| A8.20 | 46 English / 43 G | m21 34–76; includes one source-only arrow action. |
| A8.21 | 49 English / 44 G | m22 1–44; includes one source-only supply list. |
| A8.22 | 76 English / 71 G | m23 1–25; m24 1–46 |
Textual findings and qualifications
| Passage | Finding | Record |
|---|---|---|
| A8.2.26–27 | Printed warning | Mohl p 125 supports the warning about praising men before women; Moscow p 160 brackets it. The Div language is not a literal diagnosis of possession. |
| A8.2.41 | Mai supported | Mohl p 126 supports Mai against Ganjoor’s Rai. |
| A8.2.53–55 | Fuller argument | Mohl pp 126–127 prints the preference analogies absent from the shorter Ganjoor reply. |
| A8.3.38–42, 78 | Voice and image redistribution | A narrator’s purpose becomes the women’s statement; a blocked-channel image becomes fate discourse; praise addressed to Zal becomes part of Rudabeh’s portrait. |
| A8.3.70 | Threat retained | Death under elephants is explicit Persian narrative, not an English invention. |
| A8.4.33–35 | A maid’s counsel reassigned | The English gives Rudabeh a message commission where Ganjoor gives a maid’s advice to her mistress. |
| A8.5.25 | Hair kiss supported | Mohl p 134 prints the kiss absent from the Ganjoor sequence. The ascent uses Zal’s own rope. |
| A8.5.42 | The limit on intimacy | Ganjoor and Mohl explicitly limit intimacy with the lion/wild-ass image; English retains kissing, embrace and wine but leaves that limit implicit. |
| A8.6.8–23 | Unrendered theological image | Ganjoor’s Tablet-and-Pen couplet appears as source-only. The English’s unpaired Creator statement is not a literal rendering of it. |
| A8.7.8 | Restoration generalized | Setting Zal on a golden throne becomes setting crowns on kings. |
| A8.10.22 | Parable relation | The source likens the tree to a child; English makes the child the Mobad’s listener. |
| A8.10.62 | Ornaments instruction reversed | Ganjoor and Mohl ask Rudabeh to remove ornaments. English tells her to put them on, changing the force of her subsequent adorned entrance. |
| A8.12–A8.14 | Fuller martial narratives | Mohl supports the expanded report and service narrative. Moscow brackets long portions; bracketed preservation is not deletion. |
| A8.13.28 | Innocence or supremacy | Ganjoor’s no-quarrel claim differs from English No equal. The complaint otherwise insists on innocence and unjust treatment. |
| A8.14.67, 83 | Public promise and a place seam | The English makes the known promise explicitly witnessed and follows a fuller Kabul/garden notice that leaves an itinerary seam. |
| A8.15.29–39 | Inventory differences | 30,000/300,000 coins; 30/60 horses; gold/silver harness; mules/camels. Two reference inventory couplets appear source-only. |
| A8.16.29–54 | The innocent population | Sindokht secures safe conduct before naming herself, then separates the people’s innocence from the rulers’ attributed guilt. |
| A8.17.29 | Indian zij supported | Mohl p 165 prints Indian tables against Ganjoor’s Roman designation. |
| A8.18–A8.19 | Six riddles; reordered answers | The Persian already answers the reaper last. Calendar numbers are schematic, and seasonal darkness should not be mistaken for six months without night. |
| A8.20.19–25 | A galloping shot condensed | One additional Ganjoor arrow action is shown as source-only. The field demonstration does not narrate the opponent’s death. |
| A8.21.24–27 | Sindokht credited | Mehrab explicitly attributes the favorable outcome to her judgment. |
| A8.22.2, 62, 76 | Fuller settlement variants | Mohl supports the forewarned welcome, Zal’s extra week after Sahm’s departure and the final crown for Rudabeh. |
Attribution and reuse
The English is reproduced for its authors’ requested project. Persian reference text and selected printed quotations are attributed locally. Scans and full modern apparatuses are linked rather than embedded. Publication-clearance qualifications recorded in the Prologue continue to apply.