Hurmuzd, on succeeding to the throne, makes fair pro­mises but soon belies them and puts to death his father's ministers. Afterwards, perturbed by a prophecy, he re­pents, and two stories are told of his even-handed justice. War breaks out and Bahrám Chúbína comes upon the scene. He is appointed commander-in-chief and defeats the Turks under King Sáwa and his son Parmúda, but after having been shamefully insulted by the Sháh he rebels—a course strongly opposed by his sister Gurdya. He contrives to make Hurmuzd suspicious of his own son Khusrau Parwíz who escapes. Hurmuzd is dethroned and blinded, and Khusrau Parwíz returns.

Hurmuzd (Hormisdas IV., A.D. 578-590) may not have been so black as he has been painted but his reign, to say the least of it, stands in melancholy contrast to that of his father whose precepts he disregarded, whose system of administration he did his best to overturn, whose trusted ministers he put to death, and whose practice of personally leading his troops he made no attempt to emulate.* He had the good fortune to possess a general at once brave, able, and apparently quite loyal whom he treated with the basest and most insolent ingratitude, wrecking his own reign thereby and inflicting many wounds upon his country. The romantic history of that general, as told in the Sháh-náma, is one of the finest passages in the poem, and the poet was fortunate in having such to lay before his readers as he was nearing the end of his great undertaking.*

§ 2. Mákh, the marchlord of Harát, who seems to have been known as Khurásání in accordance to Persian custom in such matters, appears to be the father of, or identical with, one of the four compilers of the prose Sháhnáma for Abú Mansúr which Firdausí used as his chief authority. In the Introduction to the present Translation the name of this particular compiler is given, in accordance to the text of C., as Táj son of Khurásání of Harát* but according to Nöldeke* the Táj is quite uncertain.

§ 3. Núshírwán had based his system of administration upon the nobility. We have seen in a characteristic anec­dote how he refused to consult his own convenience by accepting a loan of money from a shoemaker.* Hurmuzd, not having his father's ability, found the system irksome and consequently was inclined to favour the lower at the expense of the higher orders. Accordingly later on we have two stories of his even-handed justice.* A justice, how­ever, which is said to have put to death 13,600 of the nobility and priesthood, and imprisoned or degraded many others in the course of a few years is somewhat suspect.*

Burzmihr seems to be identical with Búzurjmihr who, we were told at the end of the last reign,* died within a month of Núshírwán. According to Mas'údí Búzurjmihr survived to be the chief minister of Khusrau Parwíz who after thir­teen years of reign disgraced him and treated him even worse than Núshírwán is said to have done on one occasion,* the two accounts no doubt being variants of the same story. Firdausí tells us that one of the three scribes was young,* and that Búzurjmihr was a youth at his lessons when he first attracted Núshírwán's attention,* He need not have been an old man at the time of that Sháh's death. The probability is, however, that he was executed along with other ministers by Hurmuzd as the text seems to imply.

§ 5. The account in the Sháhnáma and in Oriental his­torians of these wars seems much exaggerated. The war with Rúm was nothing new; it had been going on from the days of Núshírwán and was not specially active at the moment. The Arab and Khazar invasions require further confirmation and the latter, it may be suggested, was merely a patriotic invention to cover up an unfortunate incident that befell the Persians South of the Caucasus after the con­clusion of the war with the Turks (p. 76). This last war has generally been taken to have been waged between the Persians and the Khán who was a relation by marriage of Hurmuzd and would be certain to bring great forces into the field. It appears, however, that Sáwa is merely the Persian form of “Chao-wou”—the name given in Chinese official reports of the period to the princes of small states on the Oxus that were more or less subject to the Khán who does not appear to have been concerned in the matter at all.*

§ 6. In the story of Mihrán Sitád's embassage as given in the Sháhnáma the prophecy is limited to the outcome of the marriage of Núshírwán with the Khán‘s daughter.* It afforded, however, a convenient starting-point for the Romance that gathered round the heroic personality of Bahrám Chúbína and the reference to him was interpolated accordingly.

§ 7. Bahrám Chúbîna, whose story and that of his sister Gurdya extend through the rest of this and far into the succeeding reign, had been marchlord of Rai and governor of the North, apparently, under Núshírwán.* He con­tinued to hold the same posts under Hurmuzd.* He was a native of Rai, sprung from a race of marchlords and army-chiefs, a Mihrán, and is said to have been descended from Gurgín* —all important indications to the student of the Sháhnáma. Rai was the traditional seat of Arsacid power.* Shápúr of Rai, an army-chief, who was called in by Kubád to overthrow Súfarai of the race of Káwa, also was a Mihrán and descended from Mihrak.* The Mihrán clan played an important part in Sásánian times and the name often recurs.* Gurgín, son of Mílád, was the villain of the story of Bízhan and Manízha.* The point is this. The words Mílád, Mihrak, and Mihrán are closely allied, probably mere variants, are reminiscent of Parthian times and under the Sásánian Dynasty represent the vanquished Arsacid element.* That element recovered sufficiently to exercise much political power as in the case of the Mihráns.

A Ruhhám of that stock is said to have been influential in placing Pírúz upon the throne.* If they could not be kings themselves they aspired to be king-makers and ministers. There was rivalry between them and families of purer Íránian stock, and the Sháhs, as in the instance given above, availed themselves of it to serve their own ends. Such rivalry, however, was a subsidiary matter; the great an­tagonism between Arsacid and Sásánian, though latent, still persisted and is indicated plainly enough in the course of the story of Bahrám Chúbína.

Nöldeke's account of that story, which is a blend of history and romance, is briefly as follows. It was compiled in Pahlaví shortly before the end of the Sásánian Dynasty, about the beginning of the reign of Yazdagird III., A.D. 632, and was translated into Arabic by a certain Jabala bin Sálim of whom nothing more is known save that he was “the writer of Hishám” who can be no other than the Arabic historian Hishám Ibn Al-Kalbí. Hishám died about A.D. 820. The story thus became known to the Muham-madans and was woven into the general presentment of Sásánian history.* We may add that Tabarí, who was born some eighteen years after Hishám's death and died A.D. 923, gives the historical nucleus of the story in his history. The redactor of his work into Persian (A.D. 963) states that as his Arabic authority has not given the life of Bahrám Chúbína in its entirety he gives it from the book of the history of Persia where he found it more com­plete. * This version agrees very closely with Firdausí's. Both are derived from the Persian Book of Kings in one or another of its later forms. Which the redactor of Tabarí used we cannot say, but Firdausí, we may assume, used the modern Persian prose Sháhnáma of Abú Mansúr* for which a new translation of the story had been made from the original Pahlaví.* This may account for the difference in some of the proper names that exists between Firdausí's version and that in the Persian Tabarí. In this and some other respects the latter is of decided help to the under­standing of the former. Attention will be called to such matters in subsequent notes.

It is evident that the redactors of the Pahlaví original into Arabic or Persian took good care to leave little re­pugnant to Muhammadan Faith or morals. Even the state­ment in Tabarí and its Persian version that Gurdya was the wife as well as the sister of Bahrám Chúbína* disappears in Firdausí.

Yalán-sína—a prominent character in the Romance—is called Mardánsháh in the Persian Tabarí. He was the brother* and a firm supporter of Bahrám Chúbína. Another brother—Gurdwí—took the opposite side and remained loyal to Khusrau Parwíz. The sympathies of Gurdya, Bahrám Chúbína‘s sister, though she associated with him till his death, were also legitimist.

§ 8. Here we have another instance of a Mihrán in high office.* Probably he was the successor of Ízid Gashasp, the scribe, who had been put to death by Hurmuzd early in his reign* and is to be carefully distinguished from the general of the same name in Bahrám Chúbína's army, which is not always done in the text of C.*

In the Persian Tabarí the purveyor of sheep's heads is said to have been naked and Bahrám Chúbína to have speared two of the heads one of which fell back into the tray. The interpretation was that he would have to deal with two kings of whom one would be killed while the other would be restored to his royalty. The nudity signified that Bahrám Chúbína would revolt.*

According to the Persian Tabarí, Hurmuzd, on hearing of the invasion of Sáwa Sháh, sent Kharrád, son of Barzín, with an escort to him to delay his advance while the ex­pedition under the command of Bahrám Chúbína was being got ready. The envoy managed to keep Sáwa at Balkh for a whole year.*

Faghfúr, or Faghfúr of Chín, hitherto in the Sháhnáma a dynastic title, here appears as the name of the younger son of Sáwa perhaps to add to the latter‘s importance. In the Persian Tabarí the governor of Khurásán takes the part here played by Faghfúr.*

§ 12. In the Persian Tabarí Bahrám Chúbína has the dream while dozing on horseback after having been engaged in arraying the troops all night, and in the same authority bars the road of retreat with five hundred horse,* while the only sorcery is in connexion with the dream.

According to Tabarí* the shot that slew king Sáwa was one of three that gave renown to archers in Persian story. The others were that of Árish* and that of Súfaraí who in the war undertaken to avenge Pírúz shot at a chief in the van­guard of Khúshnawáz and pierced his horse's head with an arrow. The chief was taken prisoner by Súfarai who sent him back to Khúshnawáz with instructions to report the matter, and Khúshnawaz was so impressed that he sued for peace.* Neither of these instances is mentioned in the Sháhnáma though it celebrates in a famous passage Rustam's shot in the fight with Ashkabús* and Bahrám Gúr's skill in archery.*

Bahrám, the son of Siyáwúsh, had married a niece of Bahrám Chúbína.*

§ 14. The episode of the garden is not in the Persian Tabarí.

§ 17. The above remark applies to the quarrel between Bahrám Chúbína and Parmúda, and to the former's retention of some of the booty.

The Persian Tabarí makes Mardánsháh (Yalán-síná), not Ízid Gashasp, conduct the Khán, the other prisoners, and the booty to Írán.*

§ 18. The Sháhnáma here seems to confuse Ízid Gashasp with the scribe of that name executed by Hurmuzd.* It is clear from the Persian Tabarí* that the person consulted by the Sháh about Bahrám Chúbína was his confidant and minister Áyín Gashasp who in the Persian Tabarí is named Yazdánbakhsh. Ízid and Yazdán both mean God which also caused confusion and when it became hopeless the form Áyín Gashasp was adopted to get out of the difficulty.

§§ 19-21. The definite accusation of withholding some of the booty made by the archscribe (Mihrán) against Bahrám Chúbína is absent in the Persian Tabarí which merely gives the vague insinuation of the minister Yazdánbaksh which rouses suspicion in Hurmuzd's mind and causes him to send Mardánsháh back to the commander-in-chief with a chain, distaff-case and cotton, and an insulting letter.* A similar insult is recorded to have been offered by the Empress Sophia to the exarch Narses when he was superseded and bidden return to his place among the maidens of the palace where a distaff should again be placed in his hand.*

The treatment of Bahrám Chúbína by Hurmuzd, though foolish enough in any circumstances, was not quite so un­reasonable and motiveless as it appears to be in the accounts of oriental writers. In A.D. 589 after the successful conclusion of Bahrám Chúbína's expedition Hurmuzd conceived the idea of renewing the Lazic war which his father had abandoned in A.D. 562,* and sent Bahrám Chúbína to conduct the cam­paign. That chief, however, was defeated by the Romans in a battle on the Araxes and his disgrace followed.*

§ 22. Here for once the Sháhnáma seems to join hands with Western Romance. The Adventure, mutatis mutandis, reads as if it had been taken bodily from some mediæval romance of chivalry.

According to the Persian Tabarí both Kharrád, son of Barzín, and the archscribe were present on the occasion.*

§ 23. Here again there seems to be some confusion in connexion with Ízid Gashasp. He is identified with the archscribe in the heading. Moreover he is pursued, captured, and brought back to Bahrám Chúbína, who lets him off very easily, because he is wanted for service with that paladin. In the Persian Tabari both the fugitives make good their escape to Hurmuzd.* That version does not know of Ízid Gashasp, who is mentioned, however, in Tabarí.*

§ 24. In the Persian Tabarí Bahrám Chúbina sends Hur-muzd twelve thousand hangers with bent points to represent all his twelve thousand troops.*

Bahrám Chúbína is here described as the son of Gashasp. Tabarí makes him the son of Bahrám-Gushnasp,* the Persian version of Bahrám,* and Mas'údí of the nickname—Chúbín.*

§ 25. Ízid Gashasp is regarded as dealing with both sides because of the malicious speech that he is represented to have made about Bahrám Chúbína.*

The debate is not in the Persian Tabarí.

§ 26. The letter to the Khán is not in the Persian Tabarí.

Historically Bahrám Chúbína issued coins in his own name but apparently not in that of Khusrau Parwiz.*

§ 27. The authorities differ as to whether Gustaham was imprisoned as well as Bandwí. The Oriental say both, the Greek Bandwí only,* which makes the revolt more intelligible.