the Persian book of kings or Shahnameh a narrative in verse, the longest poem by a single author,
about 50,000 couplets or lines.
Written a thousand years ago, it’s the most important work of Persian language and literature.
It chronicles 6,000 years history of Iran from the myth of creation to 650 AD when the Arab Muslims invaded Persia.
Sometimes called the bible of Persian people, it’s not a religious text like the bible or the Quran.
It’s mainly about kings, battles, heroes, myths and tales that have passed down orally
for generations before Ferdowsi complied them into a single book.
You can watch my other video summary of it.
In this video I will tell you ten things I love about Shahnameh.
One: Graveyard of Kings Shahnameh meaning the book of kings, but when
you read from start to finish it gives you a sense of perspective on the futility of life.
Kings come and go.
It’s a cemetery where all the powerful, the good and the bad kings turn into dust, void and nothingness.
Only their name remains.
Ferdowsi says:
Whether our lot is vile or glorious Fortune has never shown her face to us.
But, king or commoner, we know that we Must leave this earth soon for eternity.
No man has an abiding foothold here And, good or bad, our lives will disappear.
Homer’s epics are mostly about one man’s life, but Ferdowsi has created a time-lapse
history of thousands of years and hundreds of characters where time flows river a torrent.
Good times always come to end too quickly.
Parents are unable to lead their children in the right way as they are often not able
to find the right path themselves.
Shahnameh depicts the ugly side of politics, so in a sense, indirectly, it’s a critique
of kingship and authorities.
In the beginning of Shahnameh, Ferdowsi’s myths and tales have a moral clarity, in black
and white terms, but in later sections as he get closer to his own era, things become
somewhat ambiguous and blurry.
I guess a tale travelled from a long ago is refined with every telling and generation,
while recent tales are still hard to figure out.
Or perhaps it mirror Ferdowsi’s own life.
Clarity of youth gives way to ambiguity of old age and pessimism.
Ferdowsi’s aim was to preserve Persian language and culture but intentionally or unintentionally
exposed the nature of human life and ugly world of kingship and politics.
Instead he favours the collective wisdom, not one man’s will.
Two: One man’s dedication It’s remarkable that Ferdowsi took up the
challenge of writing the most complete book of kings that took up his entire adult life.
He says I suffered plenty in the past 30 years to build a high palace out of words that no
wind or rain can destroy it.
What is amazing is that all the verses have the same consistency.
The metres are fixed.
Three decades and 60,000 verses he stayed put within the confines of 10 or so syllables.
He didn't live in a court like many other poets of the time.
He wrote it at home without any tangible financial reward, only he was given tax break by the
local authority.
He didn't enjoy it as in the latter part of Shahnameh he starts complaining about old
age, illness, poverty and the death of his son.
Despite all that, he didn't give up, which shows incredible dedication.
Three: Artistic beauty For Persian speakers the beauty of Ferdowsi’s
poem, its musicality, lyricism are apparent but for non-speakers unfortunately it’s
mostly lost.
The poem changes based on the mood, atmosphere of the scene.
During battles the poems are packed with action and noise and suspense and but during romantic
courtship, it takes a dramatic tone.
At the end of each battle Ferdowsi offers commentary, to give a sort calm perspective
on life, a kind of voice of reason to teach moral lessons to the future generation.
One of the most tragic scene in Shahnameh is the death of Sohrab at the hand of his
own father, Rostam.
Here the poem describes the overwhelming grief of Rostam, a father’s worst nightmare.
Ferdowsi himself lost a son, whom he mentions in Shahnameh.
I think the way he describes the death of Sohrab must have come from his own grief as
a father.
There is a legend that Ferdowsi would sit in a dark room with a small hole for light.
In the dark he would visualise the battles first, before turning those actions in verse.
His stories are packed with imagery and clarity.
With no pictures, people relied on words.
There are times we don't know who is winning a battle as dust is rising to obscure our
view.
Very clever device to create drama and suspense.
His storytelling is very fluent like running water that ripples to create beautiful melodies
and gets better towards the middle as his skills improve.
Four: Storytelling Persian literature is very rich with poetry,
the giants such as Hafiz, Khayyam, Rumi and Saadi mainly focused on the poetry.
But Ferdowsi focused on the narrative and only uses poetry to enhance storytelling.
In that sense Ferdowsi is unique.
Later Nizami followed in his footsteps to write his own narrative poems such as Laili
Majnun.
Ferdowsi’s language is very evocative, uses hyperbole, exaggeration to bring a scene to
life, which some say Iranians are very good at exaggerating thing.
Ferdowsi uses crazy metaphors that turn a simple realistic scene into mythical.
Reading it in translation, some parts might feel a bit flat, some words are repeated a
lot.
The cypress tree and musk, moon, rosewater, Chinese brocade, Indian sword, seem to be
the staple of Ferdowsi, which appear a bit cliched.
But Shahnameh was written in verse precisely to be performed by a storyteller and easily
memorised as most people could neither read or write back then.
In fact in Iran and other Persian speaking countries, professional Naqqali, or storyteller
still do a dramatic performance of the tales for an audience, often with music.
When you see someone performing, those repeated words enhance attention and focus.
Shakespeare is more enjoyable if performed on stage.
The same is true about Shahnameh.
Five: Nobody is perfect Despite adhering to the idea of good and evil,
in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh nobody is perfect.
Good kings and bad kings stray from their lines.
Bad kings have some redeeming qualities and good kings give in to follies.
In a sense humans are all flawed.
Ferdowsi says that an animal can recognise its offspring, but Rostam the greatest man
fails to recognise his son Sohrab due to greed and selfishness.
For Ferdowsi legacy is the most important thing for one’s life:
“Oh world, from end to end unreal, untrue, No wise man can live happily in you—
But bless’d is he whose good deeds bring him fame;
Monarch or slave, he leaves a lasting name.”
Six: Rostam’s autonomy Rostam comes the closest to be the real protagonist
of Shahnameh.
The Ultimate hero, he’s a soldier coming from a border-patrolling family in the service
of the Iranian kings.
He lives in a border town, Sistan, today south-western Afghanistan, a somewhat desolate and desert
area.
This allows him an independence that is very unique.
He rescues numerous Iranian kings and princes.
Every time someone attacks Iran, he is called to help.
But despite being a soldier for the king, he doesn't follow Iranian kings blindly.
He is often the king-maker as his swords is a seal and his helm a crown.
In a sense he is an independent hero-king who symbolises the independence of the people.
Kingship is somewhat divine while Rustam represents the people.
Almost like a democratic force.
Nobody is able to defeat him, except his own family.
His half-brother, Shoghad, deceives him into a pit and kills him.
Seven: Shahnameh’s universal appeal Shahnameh was loved by almost everyone who
invaded Persia since the 11th century.
The Mongols, the Turks, The Uzbeks and later Iranian dynasties.
All the subsequent kings naturally felt a connection because it is a book of kings but
also Shahnameh for artistic beauty.
The stories are mesmerising and masterfully rendered by Ferdowsi.
The tales are of universal themes such as family.
The failure of fathers to safeguard their sons is prominent.
Rostam kills his son, Seyavush and Esfandyar are both kicked out of palace by their own
fathers.
Seyavush’s tragic tale also mirror the Shia Muslim notion of martyrdom by Imam Hussein.
Rostam was killed by his brother.
Unfortunately some nationalists claimed Shahnameh as their own, grabbing it too tightly that
some associate Shahnameh as a propaganda, which it is absolutely not.
It’s a work of art that belongs to humanity as a whole.
Eight: Lack of clear religious intervention While Shahnameh is not a secular text, it
is not a religious text either.
For the most part it’s a very human centred narrative poem, focused on the human follies,
tragedies.
God remains in the background, while humans take centre stage.
What’s interesting is that Ferdowsi incorporated another poet, Daqiqi’s description of Zoroastrian
religion while acknowledging that Daqiqi’s poetry was of sub-standard quality to his
own.
Perhaps Ferdowsi had little interest in religion himself.
Islam is mentioned in passing despite Muslims ruling the region for 200 years.
It’s like someone writing the history of modern Iran and failing to write a chapter
or two on the Islamic revolution of 1979.
Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh has no afterlife, despite his own name meaning of paradise.
Punishment, hell and paradise are absent.
Kings turn into dust and void, only their good or bad names stay on.
It’s ultimately a book about human nature, the good, the sublime the bad and the terrible.
We cannot blame some divine powers but ourselves for our own tragedies and follies.
Nine: Shahnameh’s Tales It’s impossible not to mention its amazing
stories.
There are as many as in One Thousand and One night.
The most famous one is that of Rostam, Sohrab, Seyavush and Esfandyar.
Most of the tales are tragic, the cruelty of time, the injustice of fate.
In Persia there was a religion called Zurvanist that worshipped time as god.
The view that in the face of time everything is meaningless.
My favourite tale is Zal and Rudabeh.
They couldn't be different.
Zal was born with white hair like an old man so his father Sam abandons him and a mythical
bird Zimurgh raises him on a clifftop.
In Kabul he meets Rudabeh, a princess the granddaughter of the evil king Zahak.
Zal’s white hair and Rudabeh’s long hair.
Rudabeh offers him her long hair to climb up the palace wall, Zal is a gentleman, refuses
as it would be painful.
In Grim’s fairytales The prince has no problem using Repunzel’s hair as a rope to climb
up.
They get married despite all the differences.
The result is Rostam, the hero of Shahnameh.
Rostam was too big so he was born through C-section and in Persian it is known as rostamina
and both baby and mother survive, which is wonderful.
In the olden time C-section was only used when the mother was already dead.
Ten: Artwork The artwork or illustrations are absolutely
beautiful.
The kings and rulers who came after Ferdowsi all commissioned their own illustrated copies
of Shahnameh.
As a result we have many versions of Shahnameh artwork and illustrations.
The most famous one is the Shah Tahmasep Shahnameh that was given as a gift to the Ottoman Sultan
Selim II in 1568 by the Safavid King Shah Ismail.
Unfortunately it has been broken down into separate pages.
In 2011 one page of it was sold for 12 million dollars.
Another famous one is the Great Mongol Shahnameh, the oldest surviving edition from the 14th
century, it is also broken up into separate pages and sold to different people.
Baysonghor Shahnameh was illustrated in 1430 in Herat, now in a museum in Iran is a complete
version.
I hope to have enough cash to buy an illustrated copy of Shahnameh one day.
That’s 12 million dollars per page.
When Ferdowsi finished his project he wrote:
"I've reached the end of this great history And all the land will fill with talk of me:
I shall not die, these seeds I've sown will save
My name and reputation from the grave, And men of sense and wisdom will proclaim,
When I have gone, my praises and my fame."
Thank you, Ferdowsi.
And thank you for watching.