tags: #Shahnameh #Iran #History #Books #Literature

In my mind, there is something inherently pleasing about a concordance. To those who know me, this is perhaps not a surprising revelation. After all, as a child I spent more time than most thumbing through dictionaries, reading entries at random. We also had a copy of Strong’s Concordance (i.e., The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible), which, while an admittedly overwhelming tome, nevertheless served as a point of continual attraction to me. I will readily admit to having a narrow scope of interests with respect to Strong’s, but the mere fact that an exhaustive index of words used in the King James Bible existed fascinated me, and I made frequent use of it.

As I have progressed (slowly, alas) with my reading of Shahnameh, it occurred to me that some elements occur with enough frequency that one might wish to examine them in a broad manner. The idea arose from a particularly evocative conception of vengeance (or revenge) that appears within a number of other phrasings. If we look at the Warner and Warner translation, Volume 1, Chapter 65, V.98 (simply abbreviated V.98 to use the W&W verse numbering convention) we come across lines like this:

thus our tears
May wash the tree that springeth of revenge

This imagery recurs, but not often. Still, it caught my attention, despite the numerous mentions of vengeance or revenge. At first, I was going to try to catalogue such peculiar turns of phrase that I encountered in my epic readings. (Another example from Homer is the description of the sea as “wine-dark”, which I find just as peculiar a description as the above treatment of vengeance.) But I quickly realized while searching through the Warner and Warner text of Shahnameh that the ancient Persians were a vengeful lot. Perhaps they are no more so than any other ancient or modern humans, and perhaps the number of instances of revenge have more to do with the multigenerational scope of Shahnameh. After all, the closest work of such scope I can think of is the Old Testament, specifically the books of Chronicles and Kings (Book of Kings is the literal translation of Shahnameh, for what it’s worth). Whatever the reason, vengeance is a recurring topic in Shahnameh, and while it probably doesn’t make the same frequency of appearances in other epics, I suspect it, like many other recurring themes of humanity, does show up.

And so, I have begun a concordance of epic themes. Whether I have the stamina to finish it is another thing entirely, but it is now in progress regardless. I have started this concordance with the term “vengeance”, and will round it out with “revenge” and “avenge” before training my sights on other topics. For now, it is limited to Shahnameh, but I hope to expand it.

Note on methodology: I am trying where possible to preserve entire independent clauses and sentences. The result is not always perfect, since there are some unresolved punctuation questions in my sources, and it occasionally creates longer entries than may be strictly warranted, but the effect is to present enough context to evaluate the usage.

Without further ado, here is a partial concordance of the word “vengeance” in Shahnameh.

Vengeance

See also: Revenge, Avenge

• Shahnameh, V.16: When one year had passed thus the blest Surush / Was sent by God; he greeted Gaiumart / And said: “Lament no more, control thyself, / Do as I bid, collect thy troops and turn / Thy foemen into dust, relieve earth’s surface / Of that vile div and thine own heart of vengeance.”

• Shahnameh, V.16: The famous Shah looked up and cursed his foes, / Then, calling by the highest of all names / Upon his God, he wiped his tears away / And prosecuted vengeance night and day.

• Shahnameh, V.17: The days of Gaiumart had reached their close / When he achieved this vengeance on his foes;

• Shahnameh, V.68: And if I shall refuse my heart will feel / His vengeance — not a matter for a jest / From one who is the monarch of the world;

• Shahnameh, V.81: If then his worthless head shall be discrowned, / Earth rescued from his sway, and thou wilt give him / Some corner of the world where he may sit / Like us in anguish and oblivion — well / Else will we bring the Turkman cavaliers / And eager warriors of Rum and Chin — / An army of the wielders of the mace — / In vengeance on Iran and on Iraj.

• Shahnameh, V.86: Live we in joy together and thus safe / From foes: I will convert their vengeful hearts: / What better vengeance can I take than that?

• Shahnameh, V.87: Two hearts were full of vengeance, one was calm / Thus all three brothers sought their royal tents.

• Shahnameh, V.94: The Shah rejoiced because she was with child, / Which gave him hope of vengeance for his son, / But when her time was come she bore a daughter, / And hope deferred hung heavy on the Shah.

• Shahnameh, V.96: He summoned all his paladins and nobles, / Who came intent on vengeance for Iraj, / And offered homage, showering emeralds / Upon his crown.

• Shahnameh, V.100: And we will drench with blood, both leaf and fruit, / The tree sprung out of vengeance for Iraj.

• Shahnameh, V.100: Next for their pleading that ‘the Shah must wash / His heart from vengeance, and forgive our crime, / Because the sky so turned o’er us that wisdom / Was troubled, and affection’s seat obscured:’

• Shahnameh, V.105: I will don a coat of Ruman mail / To leave no part exposed, and then in quest / Of vengeance on the battlefield will send / The dust of yon host sunward.

• Shahnameh, V.106: The men of name marched mailed, with massive maces, / All bold as angry lions and all girded / For vengeance for Iraj;

• Shahnameh, V.106: That pair of murderers with a huge array / Set forth intent on vengeance and drew up / Their host upon the plain:

• Shahnameh, V.108: This will be Ahriman’s own fight, / A day of martial deeds and vengeance-seeking.

• Shahnameh, V.120: These chiefs are elephants, / Both terrible, both girt, both bent on vengeance.

• Shahnameh, V.121: The Iranian host, / Though clogged by killed and wounded on the plain, / Pursued apace, while Minuchihr, all wrath / And vengeance, cast his fleet white charger’s mail / And pressed on till within the foemen’s dust

• Shahnameh, V.123: Seek brotherhood / And use it for a charm, put off from you / The implements of war, be wise and pure / In Faith, secure from ill, and banish vengeance.

• Shahnameh, V.130: hereafter we / Will put our hand upon the scimitar, / And in our vengeance desolate their realm.

• Shahnameh, V.166–167: I will seek God and pray Him, / With all the instancy of devotees, / To wash all opposition, wrath, and vengeance / From both their hearts, and if He hearkeneth / Thou shalt become my wife before the world.

• Shahnameh, V.190: My conduct shall acquit the Shah of vengeance.

• Shahnameh, V.233: Youth as thou art / Thou hast no peer in stature, Grace, and valour; / So ere thy spreading fame shall thwart thine action / Take vengeance for the blood of Nariman.

• Shahnameh, V.234: None issued forth / And none went in, but though the gate was shut / So long the foe lacked not a stalk of hay, / And Sam forewent his vengeance in despair.

• Shahnameh, V.238: Pack all the best, / Then fire the hold in vengeance.

• Shahnameh, V.241: I took on Salm and on the brutal Tur / Due vengeance for my grandsire — great Iraj — / I cleansed the world of its iniquities / And built me many a city, many a fortress;

• Shahnameh, V.249: With zeal, he bragged before his sire with loins / Girt up and vengeance in his heart:

• Shahnameh, V.249: Now whatsoe’er my grandsire left undone / Of vengeance-seeking, fight, and stratagem, / Is left for my sharp sword to execute.

• Shahnameh, V.249: Afrasiyab, high-wrought and full of vengeance, / Went forth and opening the treasury / Abundantly equipped his warriors;

• Shahnameh, V.250: Thou know’st what Salm and valiant Tur endured / Through that old wolf and sworder Minúchihr, / And yet Zadsham, my grandsire and our king, / Whose helmet touched the circle of the moon, / Ne’er spake a word of such a war, or read / The book of vengeance in the time of peace.

• Shahnameh, V.262: When Shah Naudar was well bemused he went / Behind his curtains, meditating vengeance, / And those brave chiefs — the Íránian cavaliers — / Departed in disorder from the court / To assemble at the quarters of Karan, / With eyes like winter-clouds;

• Shahnameh, V.265: Go with a valiant host / Well furnished, and take vengeance for the lost.

• Shahnameh, V.273: This done he marched from Dahistan to Rai, / Hid earth beneath his cavaliers and made / His chargers sweat, assumed the royal crown, / Bestowed a liberal largess of dinars, / And played as monarch of Iran his part / With thoughts of war and vengeance in his heart.

• Shahnameh, V.274: The grasses on these fields and fells are hanging / Their heads in shame before the sun while we / Ask vengeance, mourning as it were a father, / In whom the stock of Faridun survived, / While earth was servant to his horse’s shoe.

• Shahnameh, V.275: The The Iranians are upon the march for vengeance

• Shahnameh, V.275: I will not take other order / So that my brother may not turn upon me / In vengeance.

• Shahnameh, V.299: Now wheeling to the left, now to the right, / And seeking to wreak vengeance on all sides, / He made earth mountain-like with slain, astounding / The bravest Turkmans.

• Shahnameh, V.306: he hath assumed the crown / And flung the gates of vengeance wide again.

• Shahnameh, V.309: On this I say that feuds should not endure / For ever, and if vengeance for Iraj / Was owing it was wreaked by Minuchihr.

• Shahnameh, V.327: They have burnt up our cities and inflamed / Our vengeance by the outrage.

• Shahnameh, V.332: Thy part is now to saddle Rakhsh and seek / For vengeance with the world-allotting sword.

• Shahnameh, V.366: Full of vengeance, / And in hot blood, he came before the Shah

• Shahnameh, V.390: I and mine are girt for vengeance.

• Shahnameh, V.405: He gave a paladin the letter sealed, / Who reached the monarch of Turan and Chin / In haste, first kissed the ground and did obeisance, / And after compliments gave him the letter / Which, when Afrasiyab had read it, filled / His head with vengeance and his heart with rage.

• Shahnameh, V.467: Why waste thy heart / In vengeance?

• Shahnameh, V.499–500: From sunrise till the shadows grew they strove / Until Suhrab, that maddened Elephant, / Reached out, up-leaping with a lion’s spring, / Caught Rustam’s girdle, tugged amain as though, / Thou wouldst have said, to rend the earth, and shouting / With rage and vengeance hurled him to the ground, / Raised him aloft and, having dashed him down, / Sat on his breast with visage, hand, and mouth / Besmirched with dust, as when a lion felleth / An onager, then drew a bright steel dagger / To cut off Rustam’s head

• Shahnameh, V.554: If I perforce must lose it / In vengeance for the wrong which I have … suffered, / Command … I am resigned.

• Shahnameh, V.567: None will seek vengeance if I fight him not

Note: This is part of a series of posts dealing with the reading of one sacred/epic work per month in 2017. See below for more information on what I’m doing and how to follow along. 2017 Sacer-Epic Reading Journey

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tags: #Books #Shahnameh #Literature #Iran #History

Illustration of Kay Kavus. Source: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kayanian-v

A recurring motif in Shahnameh is the struggle of generational succession and the effect, especially at the royal scale, of those successions. A multi-generational sacred or epic work can’t really avoid this as a by-product, of course: the Bible itself contains numerous such examples as it details the reigns of the various Israelite kings. In contrast to other works I’ve read that deal with generational succession in some way, Shahnameh concerns itself with the ebb and flow of fortunes that are tied to an individual king’s attitudes, the answer to the overwhelming question: will the son be like the father?

English has a few proverbs that have the same implication as the title. Wiktionary suggests:

• apple does not fall far from the tree

• chip off the old block

In childhood, we grow to see ourselves as distinct from our parents, a new thing capable of whatever our dreams can conceive. This reaches a critical point in adolescence, our springboard into the wide world. From here, we gather together the imparted wisdom, the lived examples, and what we think of as our own unique ideas and issue forth, to fly or fall as far as our desires and efforts allow. Looking back now, I suppose the most surprising thing was not that the proverb was almost always true, but that exceptions to it ever arose. Overall, my experience is that the proverb is true more than it is not.

Ferdowsi begins his account of Kay Kavus’s war against the demons of Mazanderan with a brief discussion on the potential effect of differences in priority between father and son. Kay Kavus was a king who actively rejected the lessons of his father, Kay Qobad, as well as the kings before him. One region of the world, called Mazanderan, was the home of demons and sorcerers, a place that was notoriously difficult to conquer. Up to this point, the Persians had an unwritten rule not to conduct military adventures there, since it was a wasted effort (Warner & Warner):

Yet they attempted not Mázandarán —
The home of warlock-dívs and under spells
Which none hath power to loose; so give not thou
Men, wealth, and money to the winds.

Kay Kavus’s insistence on claiming the wealth of Mazanderan was a serious break with precedent, irrational even, and he acted against all of the advice of his chieftains.

Here is Ferdowsi, with his assessment. It’s worth having in both the Warner & Warner verse translation and in Davis’s prose translation.

W&W:

If ever mortal injury befall
A fruitful tree, when it hath waxen tall,
Its leaf will fade, its root become unsound,
Its head begin to bend toward the ground;
And when the stem is snapped off at the root
‘Twill yield its station to some fresh young shoot,
Resign thereto the garden’s burgeoning
And all the lamp-like lustre of the spring;
But if, my friend! an evil shoot should rise,
Let not the good root suffer in thine eyes.
So when a father leaveth to his son
The world, and showeth him the course to run,
If he shall flout his father’s regimen
Call him no longer son but alien.
He that abandoneth his teacher’s path
Deserveth every evil that he hath.
This ancient hostelry is fashioned so
That thou canst not distinguish top from toe,
And he that wotteth of its evil way
Doth well to quit it with what speed he may.

Davis:

If a noble tree grows tall and is then damaged in some way, its leaves wither, its roots weaken, and its summit begins to droop; and if it snaps, it must give way to a new shoot that, when spring comes, will bud and blossom like a shining lamp. If a sickly branch grows from a good root, you should not curse the root for this. In the same way, when a father cedes his place to his son and acquaints him with the secrets of life, if the son then brings shame on his father’s name and glory, then call him a stranger, not a son. If he slights his father’s example, he deserves to suffer at the hands of fate. This is the way of the ancient world, and you cannot tell what will grow from a given root.

The effect of this departure from precedent was disaster in the form of Kay Kavus’s capture at the hands of the div (demons), and he received an object lesson in the precise reasons his forbears had avoided conquering Mazandaran.

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tags: #Books #Literature #Shahnameh #Iran #History

I’ve almost completed my reading goal for the third day of Shahnameh (which I’m balancing with daily readings of War and Peace, following Brian E. Denton’s daily devotional and mediation series), and I have some initial thoughts. The most immediate impression is also the most superficial, and that’s Dick Davis’s treatment of the subject. In making my selection for an edition to read, I admit I wasn’t looking closely. I might not have selected the Penguin Classics edition had I known it was almost entirely paraphrased prose. Still, there aren’t many English editions to choose from, and I don’t see any in my cursory scan through Amazon that also attempt to preserve the poetic structure in any way. I guess I had hoped for a slightly different approach from Davis’s delivery, which nonetheless is regarded as definitive in terms of English translations of Shahnameh. Since I am incapable of reading Persian or Farsi (for which many editions exist), Davis and his blend of prose and poetry must suffice.

Digging into the material itself, delivery method aside, I was quickly confronted with a tapestry of narratives pinned on a body of assumed knowledge, knowledge I don’t exactly possess. I’m not sure Davis bears much responsibility for this, except in his curious omission of footnotes and endnotes. I skipped the introduction, which was perhaps unwise, seeking instead to sink or swim in the material according to my own abilities. On second thought, though, I do blame Davis, who made the decision to begin his narrative with the ascendance of Kayumars (also transliterated Kaiumers and Gaiumart), the first shah of the world, skipping entirely Ferdowsi’s exordium and the explication of the world’s cosmology. Some of this appears to merit mention in Davis’s introduction, but at present I am unable to say precisely how much.

Perhaps the cosmology isn’t that important. I’m open to others’ viewpoints on this. But consider for a moment the following, taken from the English translation available on the Zoroastrian Heritage site, which does consider this material important (translation by Warner & Warner, about whom more below):

The first thing needful for thee is to know
The sum of primal elements which He,
Who maketh all things, made from naught to show
The greatness of His own supremacy.
Those elements are fourfold; at their birth
No time elapsed and labour had no share;
Fire shone above, and in the midst were air
And water; underneath was dusky earth.
Fire was the first its virtue to unfold;
About it moisture ceased and dryness came;
Then fire where’er it failed made way for cold,
And moisture followed cold.

Do we simply assume that this view of the world’s creation was shared among ancient peoples, in Persia and elsewhere? I suspect evidence would contradict such an assertion. Or do we assume that modern sensibilities (noting that Davis’s translation appears to have been published in 1997) would reject a “four elements” cosmology? Whatever his reasons, Davis has extracted only the pre-Islamic components of the text for presentation, despite the text having only been set down to paper in post-Islamic Iran.

If you are curious and want a fuller rendition of the work, Arthur and Edmond Warner penned a nine volume translation in English that includes the entire exordium and cosmology. The Zoroastrian Heritage site includes selections from Warner & Warner, but their complete text is online at the Packard Humanities Institute, as well as the Internet Archive (link is to Vol. 1). I will be relying on these as supplemental reading for the Penguin Classics edition, in part to try to capture the essence I described above in my excoriation of the idea of rendering an epic poem into prose.

Detail of “The Representative of Humanity” by Rudolf Steiner and Edith Maryon, 1922. Public Domain.

In reading through the omitted portions, however, there are more assumed details that are not explained simply by reading the exordium and cosmology. Who is Ahriman, and from where did the Div originate? Why do they prey on Man? For these, we need some background in Zoroastrian belief, but I am not yet up to the task on this matter, as the faith itself is wholly unfamiliar to me, its relation to Second Temple Judaism, Christianity, and Islam notwithstanding. Ferdowsi’s audience no doubt possessed the relevant background knowledge to make sense of these cosmic forces, which seems to have humanity occupying some space between the spenta mainyu and the angra mainyu, which are roughly spirits of creation and destruction, respectively. It will take me a bit more time to investigate this.

In the next portion of this series, I hope to look a little closer at the goings-on, the particular episodes recounted in the early portion of the work. There are some mild surprises, especially for the casual historian. Stay tuned!

Note: This is part of a series of posts dealing with the reading of one sacred/epic work per month in 2017. See below for more information on what I’m doing and how to follow along.

2017 Sacer-Epic Reading Journey

++++ Like what you just read? You can subscribe to new posts on this blog via any ActivityPub platform (Mastodon, Pleroma, etc.) at @aaron@www.aaronhelton.com or via RSS at https://www.aaronhelton.com/feed

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