Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings PDF
Preview Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings
PENQUIN CLASSICS SHAHNAMEH was born in Khorasan in a village near Tus, in 940 . ABOLQASEM FERDOWSI CE His great epic the Shahnameh, to which he devoted most of his adult life, was originally composed for the Samanid princes of Khorasan, who were the chief instigators of the revival of Persian cultural traditions after the Arab conquest. During Ferdowsi’s lifetime, the Samanid dynasty was conquered by the Ghaznavid Turks. Legend has it that Ferdowsi’s lifework was not appreciated by King Mahmud of Ghazneh. He is said to have died around 1020 in poverty and embittered by royal neglect, though confident of his poem’s ultimate fame. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, is Emeritus DICK DAVIS Professor of Persian at Ohio State University. His other translations from Persian include Borrowed Ware: Medieval Persian Epigrams, The Legend of Seyavash, Vis and Ramin, Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz, and, with Afkham Darbandi, The Conference of the Birds. PENGUIN BOOKS An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC 375 Hudson Street New York, New York 10014 penguin.com First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2006 Published in Penguin Books 2007 This expanded edition published 2016 Copyright © 1997, 2000, 2004, 2016 by Mage Publishers Introduction copyright © 2006 by Azar Nafisi Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader. Originally published in three volumes entitled The Lion and the Throne, Fathers and Sons, and Sunset of Empire by Mage Publishers, Washington, D.C. Illustrations provided by Dr. Ulrich Marzolph from his archive of Persian lithographed book illustrations in Goettingen, Germany. eBook ISBN 9781101993231 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Names: Firdawsåi, author. | Davis, Dick, 1945– translator. Title: Shahnameh : the Persian book of kings / Abolqasem Ferdowsi ; translated by Dick Davis ; foreword by Azar Nafisi. Other titles: Shåahnåamah. English Description: New York : Penguin Books, 2016. | Series: Penguin classics Identifiers: LCCN 2015045006 | ISBN 9780143108320 (paperback) Subjects: | BISAC: POETRY / Epic. | POETRY / Ancient, Classical & Medieval. | POETRY / Middle Eastern. Classification: LCC PK6456.A13 D3813 2016 | DDC 891/.5511—dc23 Cover art: (detail) Siyavush Plays Polo before Afrasiyab, Qasim ibn ‘Ali, c.1520–30. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of Arthur A. Houghton, Jr. / Image source. Art Resource, NY. Version_1 This translation is dedicated to Mohammad and Najmieh Batmanglij, with my gratitude and affection. CONTENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR TITLE PAGE COPYRIGHT DEDICATION FOREWORD BY AZAR NAFISI INTRODUCTION A NOTE ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS THE FIRST KINGS THE DEMON-KING ZAHHAK THE STORY OF FERAYDUN AND HIS THREE SONS THE STORY OF IRAJ THE VENGEANCE OF MANUCHEHR THE TALE OF SAM AND THE SIMORGH THE TALE OF ZAL AND RUDABEH ROSTAM, THE SON OF ZAL-DASTAN THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR BETWEEN IRAN AND TURAN ROSTAM AND HIS HORSE RAKHSH ROSTAM AND KAY QOBAD KAY KAVUS’S WAR AGAINST THE DEMONS OF MAZANDERAN THE SEVEN TRIALS OF ROSTAM THE KING OF HAMAVERAN AND HIS DAUGHTER SUDABEH THE TALE OF SOHRAB THE LEGEND OF SEYAVASH GIV BRINGS KAY KHOSROW AND FARIGIS TO IRAN FORUD, THE SON OF SEYAVASH THE AKVAN DIV BIZHAN AND MANIZHEH THE DEATH OF PIRAN THE DEATH OF AFRASYAB THE OCCULTATION OF KAY KHOSROW ROSTAM AND ESFANDYAR THE DEATH OF ROSTAM THE STORY OF DARAB AND THE FULLER SEKANDAR’S CONQUEST OF PERSIA THE REIGN OF SEKANDAR THE ASHKANIANS THE REIGN OF ARDESHIR THE REIGN OF SHAPUR, SON OF ARDESHIR THE REIGN OF SHAPUR ZU’L AKTAF THE REIGN OF YAZDEGERD THE UNJUST THE REIGN OF BAHRAM GUR THE STORY OF MAZDAK THE REIGN OF KESRA NUSHIN-RAVAN THE REIGN OF HORMOZD THE REIGN OF KHOSROW PARVIZ THE STORY OF KHOSROW AND SHIRIN THE REIGN OF YAZDEGERD GLOSSARY OF NAMES INDEX OF HEADINGS FOREWORD BY A N ZAR AFISI I have two books in front of me. One is the galley for Dick Davis’s Shahnameh, The Persian Book of Kings; the other is a much thinner book, designed for young readers and on its cover, above a Persian miniature painting of men on horses, is written in Persian: Selections from Shahnameh, by Ahmad Nafisi. In his introduction to this selection, my father mentions that the idea for this book goes back to the time he started telling stories from Persia’s classical literature, beginning with Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, to my brother and me when we were no more than three or four years old and later to our children. My father always insisted that Persians basically did not have a home, except in their literature, especially their poetry. This country, our country, he would say, has been attacked and invaded numerous times, and each time, when Persians had lost their sense of their own history, culture and language, they found their poets as the true guardians of their true home. Citing the poet Ferdowsi and how, after the Arab invasion of Persia, he rescued and redefined his nation’s identity and culture through writing the epic of Persian mythology and history in his Book of Kings, my father would say, We have no other home but this, pointing to the invisible book, this, he would repeat is our home, always, for you and your brother, and your children and your children’s children. Thus it was that like so many other Persian children my brother and I and later our children grew up with the Shahnameh and in the kingdom of imagination our father had created for us. Rostam, Tahmineh, Seyavash, Bizhan and the other fictional characters in Ferdowsi’s stories became our brothers and sisters, cousins and neighbors. Ferdowsi’s devoted readers throughout the centuries rewarded him by creating their own legends around him. When I was a married woman with children of my own, my father, in the same manner he used when I was a small child, would tell my children of the conflict between the noble poet Ferdowsi and the fickle king, Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi. Dick Davis
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