If there be any truth in these views (quite heretical, as I freely allow), to what does the Sháhnáma owe its great and,
Causes to which the Sháhnáma owes its popularity. indeed, unrivalled popularity, not only in Persia, but wherever the Persian language is cultivated? So far as Persia is concerned, national pride in such a monument to the national greatness—a greatness dating from a remote antiquity, though now, alas! long on the decline—has certainly always been a most potent factor. The Persian estimate, however formed, has naturally passed on to all students of Persian in other lands, whether in Asia or Europe, and was adopted as an article of faith by the early European Orientalists. In the case of later and more critical European scholars other factors have come into play, such as the undoubted philological interest of a book comparatively so ancient and so notoriously sparing in the use of Arabic words; the Classical or Hellenistic sentiment, which tends to exalt the genius of Aryan at the expense of Semitic peoples; and the importance of the contents of the book from the point of view of Mythology and Folk-lore. Yet, when all is said, the fact remains that amongst his own countrymen (whose verdict in this matter is unquestionably the most weighty) Firdawsí has, on the strength of his Sháhnáma alone (for his other poems are little known and still less read), enjoyed from the first till this present day an unchanging and unrivalled popularity against which I would not presume to set my own personal judgment; though I would remind European scholars that, if we are to take the verdict of a poet's countrymen as final, the Arabic poet al-Mutanabbí, Firdawsí's earlier contemporary (born A.D. 905, killed A.D. 965), who has been very severely handled by some of them, has on this ground a claim almost equally strong on our consideration.In the previous volume, or Prolegomena, of this work I gave translations of a good many passages of the Sháhnáma connected with the Legend of Ardashír, * showing how closely Firdawsí followed his sources, wherever these have been preserved to us; and I discussed at considerable length the scope and character of the Persian epic and the Sháhnáma (pp. 110-123). To these matters I have not space to recur here, and I will give but one more specimen in translation, namely, the opening lines of the celebrated Episode of Rustam and Suhráb (rendered familiar to English readers by Matthew Arnold's paraphrase), which is generally reckoned one of the finest passages in the Sháhnáma. The original text will be found at pp. 315-316 of the first volume of Turner Macan's edition, and in my rendering I have departed from the plan adopted in the Prolegomena of making alliterative blank verse the medium of my translation, and have endeavoured to imitate as closely as possible the rhyme and metre (mutaqárib) of the original.
“The story of Suhráb and Rustam now hear:
Other tales thou hast heard: to this also give ear.
A story it is to bring tears to the eyes,
And wrath in the heart against Rustam will rise.
If forth from its ambush should rush the fierce blast
And down in the dust the young orange should cast,Then call we it just, or unkind and unfair,
And say we that virtue or rudeness is there?
What, then, is injustice, if justice be death?
In weeping and wailing why waste we our breath?
Naught knoweth thy soul of this mystery pale;
No path shall conduct thee beyond the dark veil.
All follow their ways to this hungering door,
A door which, once shut, shall release them no more!
Yet perhaps thou shalt win, when from hence thou shalt roam
In that other abode to a happier home.
If Death's clutch did not daily fresh victims enfold
Our earth would be choked with the young and the old.
Is it strange if the flame of the ravenous fire,
Once kindled, should lead to a holocaust dire?
Nay, its burning outbursteth, once grant it a hold,
As tender twigs spring from some root strong but old.
Death's breath doth resemble such pitiless fire,
Consuming alike both the son and the sire.
E'en the young in the joy of their living must pause,
For, apart from old age, Death has many a cause.
Should Death bid thee fare to thy long home with speed,
And constrain thee to mount on pale Destiny's steed,
Think not that for Justice Injustice is sent,
And if Justice, then wherefore bewail and lament?
In Destiny's sight Youth and Age are as one;
Thus know, if ye want not Religion undone.
If thy heart is fulfilled with Faith's light, then I trow
That silence is best, for God's servant art thou.
Be thy business to supplicate, worship, obey,
And order thine acts for the Last Judgement Day.
In thy heart and thy soul hath the demon no lot,
Then to fathom this secret of God's seek thou not.
Seek now in this world of religion a share;
That alone will support thee when hence thou shalt fare.
Now hearken: the story of Suhráb I'll tell,
And the strife which 'twixt him and his father befell.”
It is sometimes asserted that the Sháhnáma contains practically
no Arabic words. This is incorrect: Firdawsí avoided
their use as far as possible in his Epic, because he felt them to
be unsuitable to the subject of his poem, but even in his time
many Arabic words had become so firmly established in the
language that it was impossible to avoid their use. The twenty-
Passing now to Firdawsí's remaining poetical works, we come next to his mathnawí on the romance of Yúsuf and
Firdawsí's Yúsuf and Zulaykhá. Zulaykhá (Joseph and Potiphar's wife). This legend, greatly expanded and idealised from its original basis, has always been a favourite subject with the romantic poets of Persia and Turkey, nor was Firdawsí (as Dr. Ethé has pointed out) the first Persian poet to handle it, Abu'l-Mu'ayyad of Balkh and Bakhtiyárí or Ahwáz having both, according to one manuscript authority, already made it the subject of a poem. These two earlier versions are otherwise quite unknown to us, while our knowledge of Firdawsí's version, which has luckily survived the vicissitudes of time, is largely due to Dr. Ethé's indefatigable industry. Though the book is but rarely met with in the East, a sufficient number of manuscripts (seven at least) exist in the great public libraries of England and France, one unknown to Dr. Ethé having been discovered by Dr. E. Denison Ross amongst Sir William Jones's manuscripts preserved in the India Office. The poem has been thrice lithographed in India and once in Persia, and we now have Dr. Ethé's critical edition, as well as the German metrical translation of Schlechta-Wssehrd (Vienna, 1889). Dr. Ethé, who is our chief authority on this poem, which he has made peculiarly his own, and which he has carefully compared with the much later versions of Jámí (A.D. 1483) and Nádhim of Herát (whereof the former is by far the most celebrated rendering of the Romance), thinks highly of its merit, which has generally been depreciated by Persian critics, who consider that Firdawsí wrote it when he was past his prime, and, moreover, somewhat broken by his disappointment about the Sháhnáma, and that the epic style and metre so successfully employed in the last-named poem were but little suited for romantic verse.The value of Firdawsí's lyric poetry, to judge by the specimens preserved to us in anthologies and biographies,
Firdawsí's lyric poems. appears to me to have been generally underrated. To Dr. Ethé's excellent treatises on this topic I have already alluded in a note (p. 131, n. 1 supra). Here I must content myself with two specimens, the first taken from the Táríkh-i-Guzída, * the second from 'Awfí's Lubáb: * —“Were it mine to repose for one night on thy bosom,
My head, thus exalted, would reach to the skies;
In Mercury's fingers the pen I would shatter;
The crown of the Sun I would grasp as my prize.
O'er the ninth sphere of heaven my soul would be flying
And Saturn's proud head 'neath my feet would be lying,
Yet I'd pity poor lovers sore wounded and dying,
Were thy beauty mine own, or thy lips, or thine eyes.”
Here is a rendering of the lines cited by 'Awfí:—
“Much toil did I suffer, much writing I pondered,
Books writ in Arabian and Persian of old;
For sixty-two years many arts did I study:
What gain do they bring me in glory or gold?
Save regret for the past and remorse for its failings
Of the days of my youth every token hath fled,
And I mourn for it now, with sore weepings and wailings,
In the words Khusrawání Bú Ṭáhir * hath said: