Notes · Book B4The War with Mazandaran

B4.1The Reign of Kay Kavus, His Sitting upon the Throne, and His Intent to March to Mazandaran

The poet reflects on good trees and crooked shoots. Kay Kavus, rich and proud, is enchanted by a Div disguised as a minstrel who sings of Mazandaran, and resolves to conquer it. The alarmed nobles send for Zal, who sets out to counsel the Shah.

But if that shoot be crooked, harsh, or wild: The prologue introduces Kavus as the crooked shoot of a good tree. He is the Avestan Kavi Usan, and Zoroastrian tradition already remembered him as a king of overreaching pride who tried to storm heaven itself. Ferdowsi keeps that story for B6.9. Kavus is the most exasperating king in the Shahnameh, rash, vain and yet somehow always rescued.

A hidden Div approached the chamberlain’s side: Once again the Devil comes in disguise and offers a king what he wants. Iblis came as a cook (A4.3); this Div comes as a minstrel with a barbat, the short-necked lute from which the Arabic oud descends. Minstrels were powerful figures at the Persian court, and in the Sasanian part of the poem the great singer Barbad has the ear of a king.

May Mazandaran ever honored be: The Div’s song of Mazandaran is one of the famous lyrics of the poem. But which Mazandaran is meant? The poem’s land of Divs and sorcerers is hard to square with the green Caspian province where Sari and Amol stand (B1.11). Many scholars think the name once belonged to a distant, half-fabulous country and was only later attached to the Caspian coast.

Through Dey and Bahman, Azar, Farvardin: Azar, Dey and Bahman are the months of late autumn and winter, and Farvardin is the first month of spring. The Persian months are named after Zoroastrian divine beings: Azar is Fire, Dey the Creator, Bahman ‘Good Mind’, Farvardin the fravashis, the guardian spirits. In Mazandaran, the minstrel sings, the winter months are as green as spring.

There Tus, Giv, and Gudarz stood nearby: Gudarz, son of Keshvad, and his son Giv head the most loyal family in the poem, and Giv’s son Bijan will be the hero of a famous romance in Volume II (II, C2). Their names seem to echo the Parthian period: a Greek inscription at Bisotun names a Parthian king ‘Gotarzes son of Gew’, that is, Gudarz son of Giv.

B4.2Zal Counsels Kay Kavus

Zal warns Kay Kavus that no earlier king ever marched on Mazandaran, land of Divs and sorcery. Kavus, claiming to surpass Jamshid and Fereydoon, dismisses him and leaves Zal and Rostam to guard Iran. Zal submits, and Giv and the chiefs escort him on his way.

Both Jamshid and Fereydoon, all concede: Kavus’s boast that he surpasses Jamshid should alarm any reader who remembers A4.1: Jamshid lost his farr for exactly this kind of pride. Ferdowsi does not need to comment.

Were Kavus not our Shah, I would say no: Giv’s aside states one of the poem’s great tensions: the heroes owe loyalty to the throne even when the man on it is a fool. Kavus will test that loyalty again and again in this volume, with Rostam after the death of Sohrab and with his own son Siavash.

B4.3Kay Kavus Ventures to Mazandaran

Kavus leaves Milad to guard Iran and marches to Mazandaran. Giv sacks a city of dazzling wealth, but the king of Mazandaran summons the White Div, who blinds the Shah and his army with sorcerous darkness, takes them captive and sends their treasure to the king.

The city seemed an idol-temple decked: Botkhāneh, ‘idol-house’, is a stock image in Persian poetry for a place full of beautiful faces. The word bot, ‘idol’, is usually derived from ‘Buddha’, a memory of the Buddhist temples that once stood in eastern Iran and Central Asia.

Rizvan washed pomegranate blooms with rain: Rizvan (Arabic Ridwan) is the angel who keeps the gate of Paradise in Islamic tradition. Ferdowsi’s imagery moves easily between the pre-Islamic world of his story and the Muslim world of his audience.

The Shah lay blind beneath the darkened sky: The blinding of Kavus and his army sets the terms of Rostam’s journey. The cure, when it comes at the end of his labors, will be the White Div’s own blood.

O barren willow, Shah of swollen pride: The fruitless willow (bid-e bi-bar) is a proverbial Persian image for something tall and handsome that yields nothing, a sharp insult to a king who has everything but sense.

B4.4Kay Kavus Writes to Zal and Rostam

The blinded Kavus sends word to Zal, admitting his folly. Zal sends Rostam to rescue him by the shorter and more dangerous of two roads. Rostam swears to destroy the Divs, puts on his Babr-e Bayan and rides off on Rakhsh while Rudabeh weeps.

No wise man walks to Hell on foot below: A proverbial turn of phrase: to walk into Hell on one’s own feet is to court disaster knowingly. Rostam uses it with grim humor, and then goes anyway.