New NaqqaliZal Proudly Writes His Father
The grandfather reads the new feat as proof of inherited nature. A short family exchange closes the youth’s first adventures before the aging king’s last words reopen the question of what truly endures.
The chapter in five texts
| Text | Chapter treatment and distinctive choices |
|---|---|
| F&R English | Nineteen couplets retain the intergenerational reply and transition back to the king. |
| Moscow | Appendix X ends on p 272 with the exchange and return to Manuchehr’s narrative. |
| Mohl | Pp 188–189 give the family correspondence and the lion-fosterage comparison. |
| Ganjoor | No counterpart to this letter in the captured sequence; the digital narrative has already moved directly from Sahm’s visit toward the final counsel. |
| Khaleghi | The below-main-text continuation at pp 280–281 retains the exchange with explicit variant readings. |
Parallel text
English left · Mohl Persian reference right. Ganjoor has no counterpart to this chapter. Local w3–w6 numbers identify the Mohl reference; the digital transcription was checked against the printed passage and obvious transcription errors corrected. Full printed witnesses are linked in the notes.
Mohl digital transcription aid ↗
Narrative and poetic form
The English closes the youthful cycle through recognition rather than adding another spectacle. The independent reading keeps the grandfather’s inheritance argument in his own voice and allows it to coexist with the epic’s substantial account of foster care.
Couplet commentary
Quoted text · evidence · interpretation1–6The report reaches another generation
Mohl carries Zal’s message and gifts, Sahm’s joy, a springlike feast, a reward for the envoy and a new reply. The same exchange is preserved in Moscow Appendix X and Khaleghi’s below-main-text continuation.
The English keeps the information moving through a family rather than repeating a single triumphant voice. “Good and ill” preserves the conventional scope of a full report; it does not establish that the letter contains a modern moral self-critique absent from its praise.
7–13A lion fostered elsewhere remains a lionAncestry as a speaker’s explanation
Sahm’s comparison imagines a lion-cub reared under human care that becomes formidable when its teeth grow. The Mohl sequence makes paternal inherited quality decisive; the critical records preserve variants in the fosterage imagery.
The English spells out the conclusion as courage derived from Zal. This is the grandfather’s genealogical explanation, not modern genetic proof. It has a productive tension with A7: Zal’s own fosterage demonstrated that nurture by another kind could preserve life and provide knowledge. Inherited valor does not make that care irrelevant.
14–19A letter closes; the royal story resumes
The answer is sealed and delivered, Zal rejoices, the world’s hope rises from earth toward Aries, and the narrator turns toward Manuchehr’s counsel.
The English retains the narrator’s hinge rather than inventing another deed before the royal death. The sweep toward Aries is cosmic praise. It is not a date for the letter or a new astrological chart calculated for Rostam.