The poet, after justifying in his prelude the ways of God to man in the matter of early death, tells how Rustam, in the course of one of his hunting expeditions to Túrán, marries Tahmína, the daughter of the king of Samangán. Rustam returns to Írán and is subse­quently informed by Tahmína, who has remained at Samangán, that she has borne him a son—Suhráb. In after years Suhráb joins the host of Afrásiyáb in an invasion of Írán in the hope of meeting his father, who has been misled by Tahmína into forming a false estimate of their son's person and prowess. After a series of tragie mi??adventures father and son meet in single combat with fatal results.

The story of Suhráb is purely episodie, it might be omitted from the present reign without any apparent solution of continuity, and it is the only tale in the whole Sháhnáma that is at all familiar to the English reader. It has been translated into English at least twice, and has been retold according to Western ideas by Matthew Arnold, who has also followed the incorrect account of the episode given in Sir John Malcolm's ‘History of Persia,’ i. 27, note, where Tahmína is represented as having informed Rustam that she had given birth to a daughter. The improbability of the story may thus be lessened for the English reader, but to the Oriental eye it is the very improbability that makes it so impressive, as being an illustration of the working out of destiny which frustrates the best intentions, over-rides all obstacles, and makes mankind the puppets of its will. There is no trace of this story in Pahlaví literature as at present known to us.

§ 8. White Castle, known also as Mount Sipand,*

probably is identical with the Spe??tódáta of the Zandavasta*

and the Spendyád mountain of the Bundahish.*

It was the scene of the death of Narímán, Rustam's great-grandfather, of Rustam's second exploit,*

and of the defeat and death at the hands of Káran of the Túránian hero Bármán,*

who, it is worth noting, has reappeared as if nothing had happened.*

Similarly Kulbád reappears.*

We are here introduced to a female warrior—Gurdáfríd—the only one in the poem, with the exception of Gurdya, the strong-minded and courageous sister of Bahrám Chubina. Gurdya, how­ever, does not appear on the scene till the Sháhnáma is near its end. As for Gurdáfríd, she merely crosses Suhráb's path for a moment and nothing more is heard of her. This seems to show that the story of Suhráb was, like the rest of the Sháhnáma, based on existing materials. If Firdausí had invented the story himself it is almost inconceivable that he should not have made more of the relations between Suhráb and Gurdáfríd.*