The poet, inspired by his theme and conscious of his genius, retells an ancient tale thus:—

Giv and Tús, while hunting, find and quarrel about a damsel. The matter is referred to the Sháh, who marries her himself. From this union springs Siyáwush, who is brought up by Rustam and afterward returns to his father's court, where Súdába, one of his father's wives, tempts him in vain and then accuses him falsely. He clears himself by ordeal and saves his accuser's own life, which had been adjudged forfeit for her wickedness. In time she is restored to favour, and Siyáwush, to escape her wiles, leads an army against Afrásiyáb, who, terrified by a dream, sues for peace. The terms granted by Siyáwush are rejected by the Sháh, and Siyáwush, his honour touched, goes over to Afrásiyáb, by whom he is well received and whose daughter Farangís he marries, having previously married Jaríra, the daughter of Pirán. He attains to great dignities, but incurs the envy of the king's brother, Garsíwaz, by whom he is done to death. His wife Farangís is protected by Pírán and gives birth to Kai Khusrau, with whose childhood the story ends.

Firdausí, as we may gather from his prelude, thought highly of his version of this tragic story, which, unlike that of Suhráb, is not a pure episode, but leads directly, though by a long road, to the chief epic climax. It also affords a good example of the poet's treatment of his subject-matter. Various legends are combined with curious results. For instance, the legend of the birth of Siyáwush from a grand-daughter of Garsíwaz is not allowed to militate against or to modify other legends in which ancestor and descendant meet on equal terms, in the full vigour of manhood, as strangers ignorant of their blood-relationship, as enemies, as villain and victim. Such instances are the surest guarantee that the poet is drawing on epic sources and not on his own imagination. The story further shows how needful it is for a reader of the Sháhnáma mentally to supply for himself the element of time. The account of Súdába's infatuation for Siyáwush*

reads as if it were a matter of a few days, weeks, or months at most. It is only from a chance remark of hers that we learn that the affair had been going on for seven years!

The temptation of Siyáwush by Súdába, on which so much turns, will suggest many a parallel to the reader.

It should be mentioned, however, that Súdába's pretext for inviting Siyáwush to visit her—the suggested marriage of one of her daughters to him—was a legitimate one to a Zoroastrian.

Súdába's daughter would be Siyáwush's half-sister, and next-of-kin marriages, as they were called, were not only permitted but regarded as a sacred duty by the Magi.*

Súdába, with the wit of a woman much in love, hit upon a perfectly legitimate motive, and Kai Káús accepted it, as we see, without the least suspicion.

Siyáwush appears as Syávarshána in the Zandavasta, where he is several times mentioned in connection with his murder by Garsíwaz and Afrásiyáb, and the vengeance exacted for it by Kai Khusrau, who, we are told, “prevailed over all; he put in bonds Frangrasyan and Keresavasda, to avenge the murder of his father Syávarshána.”*

Here, as in other cases, the leading motives of the Sháhnáma origi­nate in the Zandavasta.

§ 49. The poet in his description of Gang-dizh perhaps had in his mind the famous stronghold of Kalát-i-Nádirí, which lies about thirty miles to the north of Mashad and not far from the poet's own birthplace, but he follows his authorities, which look at matters from a point of view west of the Caspian, and describes Gang-dizh as being beyond the sea accordingly. Tradition seems to place it in Khárazm. In the Zandavasta we read of “the castle Khshathró-saoka, that stands high up on the lofty, holy Kangha.”*

In the Díná-í Maínóg-i Khirad, a Pahlaví treatise, Siyáwush is described as the founder of Kangdez, and Kangdez itself is described as lying to the east, on the frontier of Airán-végó.*

In the Bunda-hish it is described as being in the direction of the east, “at many leagues from the bed of the wide-formed ocean towards that side.”*

Now the learned Abú Raihán Muhammad, more commonly known in the west as Albírúní, was a native of Khárazm and wrote a history of that country. His account is nearly all lost, but in another work of his he tells us that the Khárazmians dated the colonisation of their country from the year 980 before Alexander, i.e. from the fourteenth century B.C., and that ninety-two years later the incursion of Siyáwush took place. From this time onward they were governed by monarchs of his race down to the days of king Áfrigh—a man of evil reputation—who built himself a fortress on the outskirts of the city of Khárazm, or made additions to an existing fortress, called Alfír, in the year 616 of the era of Alexander, i.e. toward the end of the third century A.D. This Alfír, Albírúni tells us, was built of clay and tiles, and consisted of three forts, one inside another, and all of equal height. Rising above the whole were the royal palaces. Alfir could be seen at a distance of ten miles or more. It was broken and shattered by the Oxus, and was swept away piece by piece every year, till the last remains of it had disappeared by the year 1305 of the era of Alexander, i.e. toward the end of the tenth century A.D.*

It is evident from this account that Alfir was in process of construction or enlargement in the very century in which the Zandavasta was being compiled. The Khárazmians had racial affinities with the Íránians, and the epithet “holy” applied to Kangha in the Zandavasta evidently points to the fact that they were Zoroastrians as well. It may be therefore that the Khshathró-saoka of the Zandavasta, the Kangdez of the Pahlaví texts, the Alfir of Albírúní, and the Gang-dizh of the Sháhnáma all represent one and the same place—the palace-fortress of the ancient capital of Khárazm. Khárazm is, of course, the modern Khiva, and Gang-dizh means the fortress (dizh) of the land of Kangha.

§ 58 seq. In the account of the birth and youth of Kai Khusrau we have in essentials the same story as that told by Herodotus*

some fifteen centuries earlier. Astyages, the king of the Medes, had a daughter Mandane. He had a dream about her which he told to Magi who were learned in such matters. Their interpre­tation of it alarmed him, and as the safest course in the circum-stauces he married his daughter to an unambitious Persian of good family named Cambyses. Soon after Astyages had another dream about Mandane. He again consulted the dream-interpreters, who told him that his daughter's son would supersede him on the throne. In consequence of this prognostic he sent for Mandane, who was dwelling among the Persians, and had her closely guarded. When her son Cyrus was born, Astyages summoned Harpagus, a member of the royal house and a most loyal liege, and ordered him to take the child from Mandane, to kill it, and to bury it. Harpagus, in great distress, carried off the child, who was ready clad in funeral weeds, to his own home, but told his wife that nothing should induce him to make away with the infant himself, for they were akin to each other. Accordingly he sent for one of the herdsmen of Astyages, whose herds were pastured on the mountains north of Ekbatana, in the direction of the Euxine—a tract frequented by wild beasts—and bade him expose the child on some desolate spot that it might soon perish. Now, it so happened that the herdsman's wife had lately had a still-born babe, and when she saw Cyrus she persuaded her husband to expose the dead and allow her to keep the living child. The son of Mandane thus grew up in the house of the herdsman, and his royal birth soon began to assert itself. His playmates chose him for their king, and he used to hold mock court among them. At length an incident brought the matter to the ears of Astyages, who questioned the herdsman and was exceed­ingly wroth with Harpagus. The interpreters of dreams, however, declared that no further danger was to be apprehended from Cyrus, as the dream had been sufficiently fulfilled by his election to king­ship by his playfellows. Accordingly Astyages sent him back to Persia to his parents Cambyses and Mandane. Subsequently Cyrus, incited by Harpagus, rebelled and overthrew Astyages.

In the Sháhnáma we have Afrásiyáb for Astyages, Farangís for Mandane, Siyáwush for Cambyses, Khusrau for Cyrus, and Pírán for Harpagus, while, if the view be correct that the so-called empire of the Medes was in reality the empire of the Manda,*

one important discrepancy between the Greek and Persian accounts is removed, for Astyages, Mandane, and Harpagus become Túránian instead of Median, and are thus brought into line with Afrásiyáb, Farangís, and Pírán, their representatives in the Shábnáma.