Notes · Book A6The First Kings: Fereydoon

A6.1Fereydoon Gains the Throne

Fereydoon takes the throne on the first day of Mehr and founds the feast of Mehrgan, then reigns justly for five centuries. His mother Faranak gives thanks with secret alms and sends him royal gifts, and he tours his lands before settling at Kus.

Thus Mehrgan took its root in joyful cheer: Mehrgan, the great autumn festival, is named for Mehr (Avestan Mithra), the divinity of covenants and of light. In the Zoroastrian calendar it falls on Mehr day, the sixteenth of the month of Mehr, in early October. Al-Biruni records the tradition that it marks Fereydoon’s victory over Zahhak. With Nowruz it was one of the two great feasts of the Persian year, and the court poets of Ferdowsi’s day wrote Mehrgan odes for their patrons.

From Amol toward Tammisheh then he came: Amol and Tammisheh lie in the green Caspian lowlands of old Tabaristan, today’s Mazandaran province. Tammisheh is usually placed towards its eastern end, near Gorgan. Fereydoon’s court will stay in this country for the rest of his reign (see A6.26). It should not be confused with the Div-haunted Mazandaran that the heroes invade in B4–B5.

A6.2Jandal Goes to Yemen

When his three sons are grown, Fereydoon sends the shrewd Jandal to find three sisters as their brides. Jandal finds them at the court of Sarv, king of Yemen. Sarv dreads losing his daughters and consults his chiefs, but finds their advice useless.

Where Sarv the Shah possessed a noble name: Sarv means ‘cypress’, the poem’s standing image of upright youth (see A0.11). It is an apt name for the father of three tall daughters. Fereydoon has just overthrown one Arab king, and now he seeks brides from another: the poem’s Iran is bound to the Arab south by marriage as well as by war.

A6.3The King of Yemen Answers Jandal

Sarv agrees to the marriages on condition that the princes come to Yemen first. Fereydoon sends them off, warning that Sarv will seat his daughters in a misleading order and ask which is the eldest, and he tells them the answer.

And afsun fit for counsel and foresight: Afsun is a spell or charm. The princes carry protective magic as well as advice, which will save them in A6.5. Fereydoon is a master of such lore, and he will shape-shift in A6.6. In Zoroastrian tradition Thraetaona (Fereydoon) was also a healer, and later Persian charms against sickness still called on his name.

The youngest of the sisters leads the line: The riddle of the seating, in which a father tries to confuse suitors about the order of his daughters, is an old folk-tale test. Fereydoon wins it not by divination but by good intelligence: he knows the trick in advance and simply tells his sons the answer.

A6.4Fereydoon’s Sons Go to Yemen

Yemen welcomes the three princes with jewels, musk and wine. At the feast Sarv presents his daughters in a misleading order and asks which is which, but the princes answer correctly, and he has to agree to the three marriages.

They scattered jewels with saffron in their way: Showering honored guests with coins, jewels and saffron was a Persian custom of welcome, called nesār. It was also practiced at weddings and coronations, and it appears again and again in the poem whenever a hero or a bride arrives.

A6.5Sarv Tests Fereydoon’s Sons

Sarv, a sorcerer, raises a killing frost over the sleeping princes, but their farr and their father’s charms protect them. Beaten, he hands over his daughters with rich dowries, complaining that daughters are raised only to leave.

Both son and daughter hold an equal place: Sarv laments that the man with no daughters is fortunate. The narrator steps in at once to correct him: a worthy child is a joy, son or daughter alike. The aside matters in a poem whose women, from Faranak to Rudabeh and Tahmineh, are often wiser than its men.

A6.6Fereydoon Tests His Sons

Fereydoon meets his returning sons disguised as a dragon. The eldest flees, the second draws his bow, and the youngest orders the beast away. The king names them Salm, Tur and Iraj accordingly, names their brides, and reads in their horoscopes a war to come.

He took the form of dragon, vast and dire: A neat irony: the slayer of the dragon Zahhak (A5.9) now takes a dragon’s shape himself. Kings who can change their form are rare in the Shahnameh, and the scene reminds us that Fereydoon belongs to the age of magic.

So Salm, from safety, is the name I draw: Fereydoon’s explanations of the names are folk etymology (Salm from salāmat, ‘safety’). The names themselves are very old. The Avesta names the peoples Airya, Tuirya and Sairima. Airya is Iraj, whose name shares its root with ‘Iran’; Tuirya gives Tur and Turan; and Sairima, Salm, has sometimes been linked with the Sarmatians. The story explains how the peoples of the world came to be divided.

Fair Sahi went to Iraj, his to wed: The brides’ names are Persian: Arezu means ‘desire’, Mah-e Azadeh ‘noble moon’, and Sahi ‘straight, upright’, the stock epithet of the cypress (sarv-e sahi), fitting for a daughter of Sarv. Canopus (Soheyl), the bright southern star that rises low over Arabia, is proverbially ‘the Yemeni Canopus’. It is the right star to bow to a princess of Yemen.

For Iraj Cancer rose beneath Moon’s ray: The astrology is textbook: Jupiter rules Sagittarius, the Sun rules Leo and the Moon rules Cancer. The cautious Salm gets the Archer, the fiery Tur the Lion, and Iraj the watery, changeable sign of the Moon, under which his father reads disaster.

A6.7Fereydoon Divides the Realm

Fereydoon divides the world in three: Rum and the West go to Salm, Turan and Chin to Tur, and Iran with the plain of spearmen to Iraj. Each prince takes his throne, and for a time the brothers rule in peace.

Rum and Khavar made one great western share: Khāvar here means the West. The Middle Persian word behind it meant ‘sunset’, and Ferdowsi keeps the old sense, but in later Persian khāvar came to mean the East, and readers have been confused ever since. Its partner, the word for ‘sunrise’, survives in the name Khorasan, Ferdowsi’s own province in the east.

Fereydoon split the world in three by right: This division is the mythical root of the whole Shahnameh. The feud between Iran and Turan that begins with Iraj’s murder will run through reign after reign. Medieval Muslim historians noticed the likeness to Noah dividing the earth among Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Acclaimed him Lord of Iran, Iran-khodāy: Khodāy meant ‘lord, sovereign’ before it came to mean ‘God’ in modern Persian. The Sasanian royal chronicle, the ultimate ancestor of Ferdowsi’s sources, was called the Khwadāy-nāmag, the ‘Book of Lords’.

A6.8Salm Grows Envious

As Fereydoon ages, Salm resents that the youngest brother has been given Iran. He sends word to Tur, who flares up at their father’s ‘fraud’, and the two brothers meet in secret to plot.

Its roots drink blood, its bitter branches stand: The tree of vengeance, planted with blood and bearing bitter fruit, is the image that holds this whole story together. It returns in A6.10, A6.16, A6.18 and A6.25. Later, in B9.55, it takes literal form: a plant springs from the spilt blood of Siavash.

O Shahanshah of Turks and Chin, live long: Ferdowsi calls Tur’s people Turks, as everyone in his day did. The Turanians of the Avesta, however, were not Turks but Iranian-speaking nomads of the northern steppes. The identification reflects Ferdowsi’s own world, where Turkish dynasties, including the Ghaznavids, now ruled Iranian lands.

A6.9Salm and Tur Send a Message to Their Father

Salm and Tur send a Mobad to Fereydoon demanding that Iraj be stripped of the crown, or armies from Rum, Chin and Turan will destroy him. The envoy is awed by the old king’s palace and presence, and fearfully delivers the message.

He thought, “This eyvan must be heaven’s sphere: The eyvān is the great vaulted hall, open at one end, that is the signature of Persian architecture. The most famous example, the Taq-e Kasra at Ctesiphon, the Sasanian capital, still stands in part.

I bear no guilt.” The Shah said, “Speak it all.”: The envoy’s fear is a convention with a basis in practice: a messenger carrying insults to a king needed an assurance that he would not be blamed for them. Fereydoon grants it at once. The poem’s good kings honor envoys, and its bad ones do not.

A6.10Fereydoon Answers His Sons

Fereydoon sends back a stern reply, swearing that his division was just and warning his sons of God’s judgment. He urges Iraj to prepare for war, but Iraj chooses to go to his brothers unarmed and make peace. Fereydoon reluctantly lets him go.

Reach first for breakfast’s cup before they do: The advice has the ring of a proverb: eat your enemy for breakfast before he makes his supper of you. Fereydoon, who knows his sons, urges a pre-emptive strike. Iraj’s refusal is noble, and it proves fatal.

How did this world reward great Jamshid’s fame: Iraj draws the lesson of Jamshid’s fall (A4.1, A4.4) that the poem itself keeps drawing: no crown lasts, so why kill for one? He is the first of the Shahnameh’s innocent princes whose deaths set off long wars. Siavash will be the greatest of them.

A6.11Iraj Goes to Meet His Brothers

Fereydoon writes asking the elder brothers to receive Iraj kindly. Iraj rides to them with a few companions, and their troops are so taken with him that they whisper that he alone deserves the crown. Salm, jealous, persuades Tur that Iraj must die.

And Iraj’s name ran softly through the train: The soldiers’ admiration is what seals Iraj’s fate. Ferdowsi understands the politics exactly: a rival loved by your own army cannot be allowed to live, however little he wants the throne.

A6.12Iraj Is Slain

Tur demands to know why the youngest should rule. Iraj gives up all claim to the crown and begs for peace, but Tur strikes him with a golden chair, stabs him and cuts off his head. The brothers send it, packed in musk, to Fereydoon.

Do not harm the ant that bears its grain: The couplet behind this line, ‘Do not harm the ant that carries grain: it has a life, and life is sweet’, is one of the most loved in Persian. Sa’di quotes it in the Bustan, with warm praise of ‘Ferdowsi of pure birth’. It is not found in every manuscript of the Shahnameh.

He seized the heavy chair of beaten gold: The first murder of a brother in the poem, and readers of Genesis and the Qur’an will think of Cain and Abel. The weapon is pointed: Tur strikes Iraj down with a golden seat, a piece of the royal furniture they are quarreling over.

With musk and ambergris they filled the head: The embalmed head, sent to the father as a message, will be answered in kind: Manuchehr sends Tur’s head to Fereydoon in A6.22 and raises Salm’s on a spear in A6.25.

A6.13Fereydoon Receives the Tragic News

Fereydoon and his army ride out to welcome Iraj, but meet a messenger bearing his head in a golden casket. The king falls from his horse, burns Iraj’s garden, and prays to live until an avenger rises from Iraj’s line.

And stained the Arab horses mourning-blue: On the colors of mourning, see A1.2. The welcoming parade becomes a funeral procession: the drums are blackened, the horses dyed, and the king and army walk on foot with dust on their heads.

Let one renowned from Iraj’s seed arise: The prayer states the law of blood vengeance that governs the Shahnameh: the avenger should be of the victim’s own blood. Fereydoon will wait a generation and more for its answer, and the whole of the next chapters is its fulfilment.

A6.14A Daughter Is Born to Iraj

Fereydoon finds that Iraj’s beloved, Mah-Afarid, is pregnant. She bears a daughter, not the hoped-for avenger. The girl grows up the image of her father, and Fereydoon marries her to his nephew Pashang.

Through Iraj’s shabestan he made his way: The shabestān, literally ‘night-place’, is the women’s quarters of a palace. The same word later came to name the covered prayer-hall of a mosque.

Mah-Afarid appeared, a maid of grace: Mah-Afarid means ‘moon-created’. Ferdowsi bridges the gap between Iraj and Manuchehr with a daughter and a grandson. Other traditions, reported by Tabari among others, set several generations between them.

A6.15The Birth of Manuchehr

Iraj’s daughter bears a son. Fereydoon, blinded by weeping, regains his sight when he holds the child, whom he names Manuchehr. He raises him in splendor, gathers arms and treasure, and calls the champions of Iran together for vengeance.

And gave his darkened eyes restoring light: An old father blinded by grief for a lost son, whose sight returns with news of the son’s line: Ferdowsi’s readers would have thought of Jacob, whose sight is restored by Joseph’s shirt in the Qur’an (Sura 12).

And Manuchehr his name was then renowned: The Avestan form is Manushchithra, usually explained as ‘of the lineage of Manush’. In the Pahlavi tradition Manush is a mountain, the place of his birth.

With bows from Chakh and khadang arrows laid: Chakh (more often written Chach) is the old name of the Tashkent region, famous for its bows. Khadang is a hard wood, often identified with white poplar, prized for arrow-shafts; in poetry the word came to mean the arrow itself.

And Sahm, Nariman’s son, of fearless zeal: The first appearance of Sahm, whose son Zal is born in A7.2 and whose grandson will be Rostam. On his ancestry, see A7.1.

A6.16Salm and Tur Hear of the Young Heir

Alarmed at the young heir’s rise, Salm and Tur send an envoy to Fereydoon with rich gifts. They blame fate, ignorance and the Div for the murder, and offer to serve Manuchehr if he will come to them with an army.

Let heaven also bear a share of blame: The brothers’ plea lists three excuses: fate, their own ignorance and the Div. The poem is endlessly interested in how far fate excuses a crime, and Fereydoon will answer that it does not (A6.18).

Each courtier added some yadgar rare: Yādgār means ‘keepsake, memorial’. The same word gives the title of the Pahlavi Ayādgār ī Zarērān, the ‘Memorial of Zarir’, whose story Daqiqi’s verses in Volume II retell (II, C6).

A6.17Fereydoon Receives a Message from Salm and Tur

Fereydoon receives the envoy in full state, with Manuchehr crowned beside him. The envoy flatters the old king and delivers the message, dressing up the murder in excuses and offering treasure as the price of blood.

Then rubbed his face upon the earth, bowed down: Prostrating before the king was the core of Persian court ceremony. The Greeks called it proskynesis and found it shocking, and Alexander caused a scandal among his Macedonians when he tried to introduce it.

A6.18Fereydoon Answers His Sons

Fereydoon rejects the plea: the murderers will meet Manuchehr only on the battlefield, and no treasure can buy a son’s blood. The envoy reports the splendor of Iran’s court, and Salm and Tur, alarmed, gather their armies and march on Iran.

Shall I sell a crowned son’s head for gold: Blood-money (khun-bahā), a payment to the victim’s kin in place of vengeance, was an accepted custom across the Near East. Fereydoon refuses it with contempt: a king’s son is not for sale.

Their alchemy will make the outcome clear: Kimiyā is ‘alchemy’, but in Persian the word also means a clever stratagem. Manuchehr will use it in both senses in the war to come (A6.22, A6.23). The word came through Arabic from the Greek chēmeia.

A6.19Manuchehr Marches for Vengeance

The enemy crosses the Jihun, and Fereydoon sends Manuchehr out with Gharan in the van. The vast army marches from Tammisheh with its elephants. Tur taunts Manuchehr as a king born of a daughter, and Manuchehr vows to take his head.

This side of Jihun, armed for battle here: The Jihun is the Oxus, the Amu Darya. Throughout the Shahnameh it is the frontier between Iran and Turan, and to cross it is an act of war.

Two thirds of a farsang, marching side by side: The farsang is the old Persian parasang, which the Greek historians Herodotus and Xenophon used to measure the roads of the Persian Empire. It was the distance walked in about an hour, roughly six kilometres.

Though Iraj left a daughter as his heir: Tur’s taunt is that a claim through a daughter is no claim. The poem disagrees: royal descent through women matters again and again, most of all with Kay Khosrow, grandson of Afrasiab through his mother Farangis.

A6.20Manuchehr Attacks the Army of Tur

On the eve of battle a herald promises heaven to the fallen and glory to the victors. At dawn the armies clash, and Iran’s young king wins the day. Shaken, Salm and Tur turn to plans for a night attack.

From karnay blast and wailing karnay sound: The karnāy is a long straight trumpet of brass. It is still played in Central Asia, especially in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, at weddings and festivals.

Shall reach bright heaven, cleansed of sin and healed: The herald’s promise that the fallen go straight to paradise, cleansed of sin, is set in the ancient past. Its language, however, would have sounded familiar to Ferdowsi’s Muslim readers.

A6.21Manuchehr Brings Vengeance

Warned of Tur’s planned night raid, Manuchehr leaves Gharan in command and lies in ambush with thirty thousand men. Tur finds the Iranians ready, is trapped and flees. Manuchehr spears him from the saddle and cuts off his head.

When night comes down, we launch a sudden raid: The night raid (shabikhun, a word often glossed as ‘night-blood’) is a recurring tactic in the Shahnameh. It usually fails, because the other side has scouts, and it is seldom the choice of the poem’s heroes.

And left his flesh for beasts of field to claim: Justice is exact. Tur beheaded Iraj and left his body to the beasts (A6.18), and now he is beheaded and left to the beasts himself.

A6.22Fereydoon Receives News from Manuchehr

Manuchehr writes to Fereydoon of three days’ fighting and Tur’s death, and sends Tur’s head, promising that Salm will follow. The envoy is ashamed to bring a son’s head to his father, but Fereydoon only prays for Manuchehr.

Then sent a swift hiyun out like the blast: The hayun is a racing camel, the courier’s mount. The head of Iraj reached Fereydoon the same way, on a dromedary (A6.13).

A6.23Gharan Takes the Castle of the Alanons

Manuchehr foresees that Salm will retreat to the sea-fortress of the Alanons. Gharan goes ahead with Tur’s signet ring, poses as Tur’s envoy and is let in, then signals Shirviyeh. The fortress is stormed and burned, and its garrison slaughtered.

Gashasb and I will go this darkened night: Gashasb is not Garshasp, the Avestan dragon-slayer of Sahm’s line (A7.1), nor the brief king Garshasp who follows Zav (B2.1), but a champion of Manuchehr’s army who rides beside Sahm and Gharan through this war. The names look alike in English but are distinct people.

The Alanons fortress will become his stay: The name recalls the Alans, a steppe people who lived north of the Caucasus. Where exactly the poem’s sea-fortress stood is unknown. Placing Salm’s last refuge near the Caucasus fits the western half of the world that was his share.

And Homa’s wing casts royal shade on all: The homā is the bird of royal fortune. Legend says that anyone its shadow falls on will become a king.

Now hear the speaking dehqan’s warning art: Ferdowsi often names his authority as ‘the dehqan’, the keeper of old Iranian lore (see A0.8). Here the dehqan’s voice turns to a lesson of its own: trust no stranger’s word, and check the signet.

A6.24Kakouy Attacks the Iranians

Kakouy, grandson of Zahhak, comes from Gang Dezh-Hokht with a hundred thousand riders to support Salm. Manuchehr faces him himself. After a long duel he lifts Kakouy from the saddle by his belt, hurls him to the ground and kills him.

Kakouy, Zahhak’s grandson, bore command: Zahhak’s line has survived in his old capital, Gang Dezh-Hokht (A5.6), and it now takes its own revenge on Fereydoon’s house. The tyrant is chained in Damavand, but his family has not forgotten.

He caught fierce Kakouy by the warrior’s belt: Seizing an enemy by the belt and lifting him from the saddle is the champion’s decisive move in the Shahnameh. The belt (kamar) stands for a warrior’s strength and honor. Later, in B3.2, Rostam lifts Afrasiab in the same way, but the belt breaks.

Manuchehr came, his Indian sword held high: Indian steel was the most prized in the medieval world, and ‘Indian sword’ is a stock phrase for the finest blade.

A6.25Manuchehr Fights Salm and Slays Him

Salm flees to the sea but finds no ships. Manuchehr overtakes and kills him and raises his head on a spear. The leaderless army pleads that it fought under orders, and Manuchehr pardons the soldiers and sends them home.

If thorns it bears, you planted every seed: The tree of vengeance (A6.8) has come to fruit, and the fruit is Manuchehr himself. Iraj’s grandson stands before his murderer as the harvest of his crime.

Our ruler’s order brought us to this ground: The soldiers’ plea, that they came because they were ordered to, is accepted. Manuchehr draws the line between the guilty kings and their men. The poem’s best kings are merciful to the defeated.

A6.26Fereydoon Receives the Head of Salm

Manuchehr reports his victory and returns with the treasure of the Alanons fortress. Fereydoon comes out on foot to greet him, entrusts him to Sahm, prays to be released from life, and crowns Manuchehr with his own hand.

From Gilan’s sea, a black cloud swept the plain, / And marched toward Sari: Gilan and Sari lie on the Caspian coast, and Sari is still the capital of Mazandaran province. The men of Gilan and neighboring Daylam were famous soldiers in Ferdowsi’s own century: the Buyid dynasty rose from among them.

And laid it in Sahm’s palm, a trust to bear: Here begins the alliance on which the poem rests: the kings of Iran rule, and the house of Sahm, Zal and Rostam fights for them. It is a partnership that will be strained almost to breaking.

Now take me to the other world, set free: The old king prayed to live until his son was avenged (A6.13). That prayer answered, he asks for the next.

A6.27The Death of Fereydoon

Fereydoon turns from the throne, grieving over the heads of all three sons, and dies. Manuchehr builds him a royal tomb with throne and hanging crown, and mourns him for a week with the whole city. The poet reflects on the world’s faithlessness.

An ivory throne they set beneath the crown; / Above the seat the royal crown hung down: The crown hung above the throne recalls the Sasanian court. Arab historians describe the Sasanian crown as so heavy that it was suspended on a chain above the king’s head.

Good name and righteousness are all that stay: A good name (nām) is the only immortality the Shahnameh promises its heroes. It is what Rostam fights for, and what Ferdowsi hoped his poem would win him.