Notes · Book A5Zahhak’s Tyranny and the Uprising of Kaveh

A5.1The Evil Customs of Zahhak

Zahhak rules for a thousand years. He takes Jamshid’s two daughters, Shahrnaz and Arnavaz, and each night two young men are killed to feed his serpents. Two pious men, Armayl and Garmayl, become his cooks and save one youth in every pair, from whom the Kurds descend.

One, Shahrnaz, was veiled and passing fair: The two women are ancient. In the Avesta the hero Thraetaona (Fereydoon) prays for victory over the dragon so that he may carry off its two beautiful wives, whose names are the forerunners of Shahrnaz and Arnavaz.

From that same stock the Kurdish tribes descend: Ferdowsi’s story of the origin of the Kurds. It has a modern echo: the Kurdish celebration of Nowruz (Newroz) is told as the anniversary of Kawa the blacksmith’s rising against the tyrant Dehak, the Kaveh and Zahhak of the next chapters.

A5.2Zahhak Dreams of Fereydoon

Forty years before his end, Zahhak dreams of three warriors, the youngest of whom strikes him with an ox-headed gorz and drags him to Damavand. After three days of terrified silence, the Mobad Zirak tells him that Fereydoon, not yet born, will overthrow him to avenge a father and a cow.

An ox-head gorz held ready in his hand: The ox-headed gorz (gorz-e gāvsar) is Fereydoon’s weapon and, after him, the emblem of the Iranian heroes. The ox-head recalls the cow Barmayeh who nursed him, and perhaps an older link between Fereydoon’s family and cattle (see A5.3).

Mobadan lips went dry, their faces wet: The terrified dream-interpreters, afraid to speak and afraid to stay silent, are a set-piece of ancient Near Eastern story. Compare Daniel before Nebuchadnezzar. Only Zirak finds the courage.

A5.3The Birth of Fereydoon

Fereydoon is born. Zahhak’s men kill his father, Abtin, and his mother, Faranak, hides the child with the herdsman of the wonderful cow Barmayeh. When rumor spreads, she carries him to a holy man on Mount Alborz. Zahhak kills the cow and burns their house.

A wondrous cow, Barmayeh, grazed the plain: Barmayeh, with a coat of every color like a peacock’s, may be a memory of a very old tradition. In the Pahlavi texts, Fereydoon’s ancestors carry names ending in -gāw, ‘cow’, as if the family’s wealth and identity were bound up with cattle.

Fereydoon’s father, Abtin: Abtin is Avestan Athwya, whose name the Avesta links with the preparing of haoma, the sacred drink, and whose son Thraetaona (Fereydoon) slew the dragon.

A5.4Fereydoon Questions His Mother

At sixteen, Fereydoon comes down from Alborz and asks his mother who he is. She tells him of his father’s murder and the killing of Barmayeh. He burns for vengeance, but she warns him that Zahhak is still too strong.

Of Kayanian stock, noble and grand: Strictly speaking the Kayanian dynasty lies far in the future (Book B). Ferdowsi often uses kayāni loosely to mean simply ‘royal’.

Who drinks youth’s wine sees none but self; his mind: Faranak’s advice about the intoxication of youth is the first of many warnings the poem’s young heroes receive and, more often than not, ignore.

A5.5Zahhak and Kaveh the Blacksmith

Zahhak makes his nobles sign a testament to his justice. Kaveh the blacksmith, whose sons have been taken for the serpents, bursts in, tears up the document and raises his leather apron on a spear as a banner. Fereydoon adorns it as the Kaviani standard and has the ox-headed gorz forged.

I once had sons; eighteen in number born; / Now one remains: Kaveh has lost seventeen sons to the serpents. It is the most concrete image of tyranny in the poem: one man’s family consumed a son at a time.

Derafsh-e Kaviani rose to fame: The Kaviani banner was real: it was the royal standard of the Sasanian kings, covered in jewels. When the Arabs captured it at the battle of Qadisiyya (c. 636), it was cut up and shared out as spoil. Many scholars think its name originally meant ‘the royal (kavi) banner’ and that the story of the blacksmith grew up to explain it. If so, it is one of the best stories ever invented to explain a word.

He tore the lying scroll from end to end: The scroll attesting to the tyrant’s justice, signed by frightened nobles, is a strikingly modern touch: tyranny wants not only obedience but a signed testimonial. The poem’s first act of rebellion is a document torn in half.

With compass Fereydoon drew on the ground / An ox-head gorz: Fereydoon designs his own weapon, drawing it on the ground for the smiths. The hero as engineer is part of the civilizing theme of these early reigns.

A5.6Fereydoon Battles Zahhak

Fereydoon marches on an auspicious day. When the river-keeper refuses him boats, he and his army swim their horses across the Tigris and reach Zahhak’s city, Gang Dezh-Hokht, the Holy House. He rides straight through the palace gate.

Not even one mosquito may go by: The river-keeper’s line is a proverbial flourish. The tyrant’s orders are so strict that not even a gnat may cross without a pass.

Toward Bait al-Muqaddas then they drew: Bait al-Muqaddas, ‘the Holy House’, is the Arabic name for Jerusalem. Ferdowsi identifies Zahhak’s capital with it, which makes the Arab tyrant’s seat the holy city of the western faiths.

On Khordad’s day he joyfully made way: Khordad is both a month and a day of every month, named for the divine being of wholeness and health. Iranian kings chose auspicious days for great undertakings, and Fereydoon is no exception.

A5.7Fereydoon Sees the Daughters of Jamshid

Fereydoon smashes Zahhak’s talisman, kills the Divs in the palace and takes the throne. He cleanses Jamshid’s daughters of the tyrant’s sorcery, and Arnavaz tells him Zahhak has gone to Hind, where he bathes in a vat of blood to cheat the stars.

He bathes his head and body in that gore: Zahhak’s blood-bath is the most gruesome of his attempts to escape his fate, and the most futile. The Shahnameh repeatedly teaches that what the stars foretell cannot be outrun.

A talisman rose towering toward the sky: A talisman (telesm) in the Shahnameh is a magical construction that protects a place. Breaking it is the first act of any hero who storms a sorcerer’s stronghold.

A5.8Fereydoon and the Minister of Zahhak

Zahhak’s steward Kundrav bows to the new king and serves at his feast, then rides by night to warn his master. Zahhak insists the stranger is merely a guest, until Kundrav describes what the ‘guest’ is doing with Zahhak’s wives.

If this is guesthood, call it so today: The exchange between Zahhak and Kundrav is the first comic scene in the Shahnameh. The tyrant refuses to hear bad news, and the steward, who has already changed sides, takes relish in spelling it out.

Like one hair cleanly pulled from kneaded dough: The image survives as a Persian idiom: to pull something out ‘like a hair from dough’ means to do it cleanly and without resistance.

A5.9Fereydoon Binds Zahhak

Zahhak climbs into his palace by kamand and attacks, but Fereydoon strikes him down with the ox-headed gorz. Soroush forbids the killing. Fereydoon restores the order of warriors and craftsmen, then carries Zahhak to Mount Damavand and chains him in a bottomless cave.

Then Soroush cried, “You must not strike him dead: Why must Zahhak live? In Zoroastrian belief the dragon Azhi Dahaka stays chained in Mount Damavand until the end of time. Then he will break free and be slain at last by the hero Garshasp (Avestan Keresaspa). Soroush is protecting the order of the world’s final days.

He brought Zahhak to Damavand, the peak: Damavand, the great volcanic peak north-east of Tehran, is the highest mountain in Iran. The image of a monster chained inside a volcano is found across the Indo-European world. Compare Prometheus chained to the Caucasus, and the Norse Loki bound until the end of days.

Fereydoon was not born of angel kind; / Nor musk nor ambergris in him combined: Among the most quoted lines of the Shahnameh: ‘Fereydoon was not an angel, nor was he made of musk and ambergris. He won that goodness by justice and giving: practice justice and giving, and you are Fereydoon.’ The political lesson is Ferdowsi’s: kingship is earned by conduct, not by birth or magic.