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| Fathers and Sons | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Stories from the Shahnameh
of Ferdowsi Volume II |
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Volume II of our series containing the major stories from the Shahnameh
opens and closes with tales of tragic conflict between a king and his
son: Prince Seyavash and Prince Esfandiyar are both driven from the court
by their foolish fathers to confront destiny and death in distant lands.
Interwoven with Seyavash's story is the tale of his stepmother Sudabeh's
lust for her young stepson, and of his escape from her tricks by the famous
trial by fire; Esfandiyar's story involves the last combat of the great
Rostam, a fight to the death which leads to Rostam's own demise at the
hands of his evil brother Shaghad. Between these two stories the reader
travels through a wondrous landscape of romance (Bizhan and Manizheh),
demons (the Akvan Div), heroic despair (the tale of Forud) and mystical
renunciation of the world (Kay Khosrow's mysterious last journey).
Choice Magazine
This splendid book is the second in a projected set of three volumes
that will recount all the major events of the Persian national epic, the
Shahnama or Book of Kings. Written in rhyming couplets by the poet Firdawsi
and completed in about 1010, the epic runs to more than 40,000 lines.
Volume 1, Ehsan Yarshater's The Lion and the Throne (CH, May'98), was
translated by Davis largely from an earlier Persian prose translation.
Davis translated the present volume directly from the original text and
presents it to the reader as a felicitous mixture of prose and verse.
Fathers and Sons begins where volume 1 left off, recounting the epic from
the legend of Seyavash to the death of Rostam, bringing to a close the
purely legendary part of Shahnama. Davis provides an informative introduction
as well as a translation that is a joy to read. This reviewer particularly
welcomed an increased amount of verse in this volume. Aimed at a wide
and varied audience, not exclusively academic, these volumes appeal to
the eye as well as the ear. Like its predecessor, this volume is beautifully
produced in every respect. Large academic and general libraries collecting
Middle Eastern literature and cultural history.
-- W. L. Hanaway, emeritus, University of Pennsylvania
Library Journal
This second volume of stories from the Persian national epic, Book of Kings” (Shahnameh, composed by the poet Ferdowsi between 980 and 1010 C.E.) is so beautifully produced and so exquisitely illustrated with 181 rare color miniature reproductions that it could be used for an art class. The stories themselves are fascination, as illustrated by the adventures of princes Seyavash and Esfandyar, whose respective fathers/kings push them to face the realities of life through extraordianry trials in faraway places. Probably the most famous story here, however, is not laden with violence but romance. It depicts the touching love story of Bizhan and Manizheh, who, like Romeo and Juliet, are the children of sworn enemies. In addition to the seven main sections, the useful introduction by translator Davis (Persian, Ohio State Univ.) gives some background to the Shahnameh and to Persian miniature art. A glossary of manes and their pronunciation as well as a guide to the illustrations providing provenance and other credits conclude the book. Highly recommended for all collections.
Introduction
The Legend of Seyavash
Forud, the Son of Seyavash
The Akvan Div 125 Bizhan and Manizheh
The Occultation of Kay Khosrow
Rostam and Esfandyar
The Death of Rostam
Appendices
Seyavash is Killed
Garsivaz and Gorui dragged him away from the army and the city to a wasteland
on the plain. Gorui took the dagger from Garsivaz, and when they had reached
the appointed place they threw the prince's mammoth body to the ground.
Knowing neither fear nor shame, they held a gold dish at his throat to
catch the blood and severed the head of that silver cypress tree. The
prince's head sank into endless sleep, never to awake. Gorui took the
dish to the place that Afrasyab had ordered, and emptied it. A wind rose
up, and darkness obscured the sun and moon; people could not see one another's
faces, and all cursed Gorui.
I turn to right and left, in all the earth
I see no signs of justice, sense, or worth:
A man does evil deeds, and all his days
Are filled with luck and universal praise;
Another's good in all he does-he dies
A wretched, broken man whom all despise.
Seyavash's palace resounded with lamentation; his slaves cut off their hair, and Farigis too cut her musky tresses and bound them about her waist and clawed at her cheeks' roses. Loudly she cursed Afrasyab, and when he heard her cries he ordered Garsivaz to drag her into the streets, and there to strip her and have her beaten, so that she would miscarry the seed of Iran, saying, "I want nothing to grow from Seyavash's root, neither a tree nor a bough nor a leaf; I want no scion from him worthy of a crown or throne."
FERDOWSI was born in Khorasan in a village near Tus, in 940. 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 of the seventh century. During Ferdowsi's lifetime this dynasty was conquered by the Ghaznavid Turks, and there are various stories in medieval texts describing the lack of interest shown by the new ruler of Khorasan, Mahmud of Ghazni, in Ferdowsi and his lifework. Ferdowsi is said to have died around 1020 in poverty and embittered by royal neglect, though confident of his and his poem's ultimate fame.
DICK DAVIS was born to English and Italian parents in 1945 and educated at King's College, Cambridge (B.A. and M.A. in English Literature). In 1970 while pursuing a career in poetry and literature and teaching in Greece he visited a friend in Iran. While there, he fell ill and was nursed to health by a Persian woman, whom he eventually married. Davis fell in love with the country as well, and stayed for eight years, learning Persian and teaching at the University of Tehran. After the revolution in 1979 the Davis family returned to England where he pursued his love of the Persian language, earning his Ph.D. in Medieval Persian Literature from the University of Manchester.
Since then, he has emerged as the foremost translator of Persian as well as having published numerous volumes of his own poetry to critical acclaim, including: Touchwood, A New Kind of Love, Devices and Desires, and Covenant. He is currently professor of Persian at Ohio State University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His other translations from Persian include the forthcoming Fathers and Sons: Stories from the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, Vol. II (Mage, 1999), Borrowed Ware (Mage, 1997), My Uncle Napoleon (Mage, 1996), The Legend of Seyavash (Penguin Classics, 1992), and with Afkham Darbandi, The Conference of the Birds (Penguin Classics, 1984). He has also written a groundbreaking analysis of the Shahnameh, Epic and Sedition.
The following represent only those books currently in print. If there is a title you feel we have overlooked please let us know.
Scholarly works concerning the Shahnameh include Epic and Sedition by Dick Davis, the translator of this volume and Poet and Hero in the Persian Book of Kings by Olga Davidson.
Other selections in translation include Mage's The Lion and the Throne, Stories from the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, Volume I and The Legend of Seyavash, both translated by Dick Davis and both In the Dragon's Claws and The Tragedy of Sohrab and Rostam translated by Jerome Clinton.
The only book-length biography of Ferdowsi is Ferdowsi: A Critical Biography by A. Shapur Shahbazi.
For the complete Shahnameh in Persian, there is a six-volume set in production, edited by Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh.
There are numerous out-of-print editions of translated Shahnamehs. The best way to find these is to search for them on one of the online book searches, such as Bookfinder or Alibris.
There is a dearth of web sites on the Shahnameh or Ferdowsi, this is all we could find. If you know of others please let us know.
Selected Translation (Warning, read below!)
There does exist on the web an English prose translation of selected Shahnameh
stories. The material at this site was apparently scanned in from Helen
Zimmern's book, which was published in 1882 in England. Be warned that
the language is, according to the translator, intentionally archaic. In
the preface the translator says that she has attempted to render the words
of Ferdowsi in the language of the age of Shakespeare and the English
Bible. Unfortunately, this has resulted in language that borders on the
ridiculous.
Shahnameh Learning
League
According to their mission statement, the Shahnameh Learning League is
"composed of individuals who are specifically interested in research
and study of Shahnameh; the great literature of Ferdowsi."
Shahnameh Miniatures
There a few miniatures from Shahnameh manuscripts also on the web. Of
course, the low-quality of the RGB images cannot compare what is available
on the printed page.
Books
of Kings
This is an audio CD from the musician ZaZa which was
inspired by the Shahnameh.
©Copyright Mage Publishers 1994-2003
