“Now will I make full answer that thou mayst
Repeat my words in public. They will serve
As my memorial when I am gone—
A truthful statement of my case—and thou
Wilt know, when I reveal my grief and travail,
That all my treasures were derived from toil.
Thou speakest in the first place of Hurmuzd,
His anger with me, and those bygone days:
My father's wrath against us was aroused
By slanderer's words and thus confusion came.
When I had learned what occupied his thoughts
I left Írán by night, avoiding roads.
He sought my death by poison; I perceived
No antidote but flight and so I fled,
And was not taken in the net of bale.
I heard that ill had come upon the Sháh,
And quitted Barda' when the news arrived.
That knave Bahrám Chúbína with his troops
Opposed us on the battlefield. I fled
From him too on the day of fight that I
Might fall not in his clutches. Afterwards
I came a second time and bravely fought,
My troublous fortune passed away and all
The realm that I had lost returned to me.
My contest with him was no brief affair;
The whole world were spectators of the strife.
By the command of God who multiplieth
His benefits on us, and is the Guide
In good and ill, Írán and Turkistán*

Submitted and Bahrám Chúbína's plans
Were foiled. Released from war with him I hasted,
First, to take vengeance for my father's death.

Bandwí and Gustaham, my mother's brothers,
Men that had not a peer in any land,
Had risked their lives for me and were all mine
In love as well as kinship, but there were
My father's death and mine own grief thereat;
I was not sluggish to avenge his blood.
I lopped Bandwí both hand and foot for he
Had made the Sháh's place dark, while Gustaham,
Who disappeared and sought some distant nook,
Was slain all unawares by my command:
Those murderers' lives and aims all came to naught.
Next, as to what thou said'st of thine own case,
Of thine own strait confinement and affairs;
It was to keep my sons from evil deeds
That would recoil upon themselves. Ye were
Not straitly bound in prison, not misprized,
And had no harm to fear. I did not then
Treat you with scorn but held my treasury
At your disposal, acting as the Sháhs
Had done before, not idly or without
A precedent. Chase, minstrelsy, and polo—
All that befitteth chiefs—were yours at will,
With hawks and cheetahs, jewels and dínárs.
Your so called prison was a palace where
Ye lived in joy. I dreaded thee moreover
Through what the readers of the stars had said.
That was the cause of thine imprisonment
That thou mightst do us naught of injury—
The very injury that thou art doing.
I never parted with thy horoscope
Till I had sealed and given it to Shírín.
When I had reigned for six and thirty years,
And thou past doubt amidst such pleasant days
Gav'st all the matter to the wind, although
Much time had passed o'er us, there came to thee
A letter out of Hindústán but not
Without my cognizance. The chief of Rájas
Sent us a letter, jewels, divers stuffs,
An Indian scimitar, white elephant,
And all that I could hope for in the world,
And with the scimitar was gold brocade
With all varieties of gems uncut.
To thee the letter was on painted silk;
So when I saw the Indian script I called
An Indian scribe, a fluent, heedful speaker,
Who when he read the Indian Rája's words
Wept for the letter ran: ‘Live joyfully
For thou art worthy both of joy and realm,
And on the day of Dai in month Ázar
Thou wilt be king and ruler of the world.
Thy sire will reign for eight and thirty years,
For so the stars ordain. Good times will shine
Upon thee; thou wilt don the crown of greatness.’
These words have been fulfilled to me to-day,
But we should wash not from our hearts affection.
I was aware that fortune had decreed
That when thy throne had gained its brilliancy
Mine only portion would be toil and pain,
And that my bright day would be turned to gloom;
But as I gave, had Faith, made friends, and loved
I did not lour by reason of that letter.
I gave it, having read it, to Shírín,
And pondered much upon it. In her keeping
Are both the letter and the horoscope,
And no one great or small is ware thereof.
If thou wouldst see it make request of her;
Thou haply mayst regard it more or less.
I wot that seeing it thou wilt repent,
And seek to heal the past. For what thou said'st
Of bonds and of imprisonments, and how
We have done others hurt, 'tis this world's way,
And that of former chiefs and kings of kings,
And if thou know'st it not speak with an archmage;
He will enlighten thee thereon and tell thee:—
‘'Tis ill to keep God's enemy alive.’
Those that were in our prison were mere dívs
Complained of by the righteous. Neither bloodshed
Nor utter harshness ever was our trade.
I shut up criminals and did not hold
Of small account wrongs done by them to others;
But now I hear that thou hast freed these men—
Men worse than dragons—and for this thou art
A sinner guilty both in word and deed
In God's sight. Now that thou art lord be prudent,
And if thou know'st not how consult the wise.
Forgive not those that vex thee though thou hopest
For wealth through them, and what can better bonds
For one in whom thou seest naught but harm?
In talking of my wealth thou hast not shown
Good sense and wisdom. We have never asked
For more than toll and tax. When these were paid
If any were still rich, though men might say
That they were foes and miscreants of the seed
Of Áhriman, we thought of God and passed
Such matters lightly by. From Him I had
The crown and throne, and they have cost me dear.
The Maker of the world, the righteous Judge,
Hath willed this change of fortune. In the world
His will is paramount, so when He would
Our minishment we seek not for addition.
We sought to please our Judge, but by our toils
Have not evaded His apportionment,
And when He asketh me I will tell all.
That Questioner is wiser than thou art,
And one more potent in all good and ill.
The miscreants that stand before thee now
Are not thy friends or kin, and what they say
Of me that also will they say of thee
Before thy foes. They are but slaves of gold
And silver: thou wilt find in them no helper.
They have possessed thy heart and there instilled
Each fault of mine. Such words as these are not
In thy philosophy and will not profit
Those miscreants' minds, but I have uttered them
For my foes' sake that they who read this letter,
Writ in the ancient tongue, may know that lies
Lack lustre even from the mouths of Sháhs.
'Twill be too a memorial in the world,
A consolation to the man of wisdom,
And after our decease whoe'er shall read
These words of ours will learn our policy.
I gathered armies from Bartás and Chín,
And everywhere appointed generals,
Then made attacks upon mine enemies
Till none dared raise his head. When they were
scattered
Our treasuries were all filled. The whole land toiled
For us, and from the sea so many gems
Were brought us that the shipmen grew aweary.
Plain, sea, and mountain, all were mine. Now when
The treasury of drachms had been expended
The coffers were refilled with new dínárs,
With precious stones and royal jewelry,
As well as clothes and implements of war,
And when our crown was twenty-six years old
Our treasuries were rich with many gems.
I struck a new die for my drachms and turned
To joy and merriment. That year when I
Had ta'en account I found the total sum
Ten million of dínárs. Paidáwasís,*

In Persian reckoning, I spent and squandered.
Each purse contained twelve thousand in dínárs,
And those thus spent were royal, while besides
The tribute and dínárs from Hindústán,
The realm of Rúm and land of sorcerers;
Besides from every province gifts and tribute
From all the sovereigns and potentates;

Besides New Year and Autumn offerings,
The gifts of horses and of fair-faced slaves;
Besides cuirasses, helmets, axes, swords,
Which every one sent to us liberally;
Besides musk, camphor, sables, beaver-skins,
Red weasels' and white wolves', our subjects all
Set suchlike loads upon their beasts and sought
Our court in haste; none was recalcitrant.
Abundant toil of all sorts have we spent
To amass a treasure—one additional
To those known as Khuzrá and as 'Arús,*

Reserved by me against an evil day.
We long discussed what name the hoard should have,
And in the end we called it Bád Áwar.*

Thus in my six and twentieth year of reign
Heaven till the eight and thirtieth favoured me;
My chieftains were all safe, my foes all quaked,
And now I hear that thou art sovereign—
An evil juncture this for all the world,
Which reft of pleasure must perforce be mute.
Thou wilt make earth calamitous, fulfilled
With suffering and profitless. Moreover,
Those same injurious persons that surround thee,
And are the Light*

of thy dark nights, will give
Thy throne up to the wind that thou mayst not
Enjoy the world. Were there with thee a sage,
So that thy darkened mind might be illumed,
Thou wouldst not do amiss in giving gifts
So that thy wealth might reach the poor. My son,
Whose days are few, whose wisdom is but scant!
Solicitude will rob thy soul of joy.
This know, that these our treasures are thy stay;
The opportunity is in thy grasp.
They are the appanage of royalty;
A world that is all moneyless is lost.
A pauper Sháh will be unjust, and he
Whose hand is empty hath no strength or worth.
Without the means of largess he by all
Will be declared a fraud and not a Sháh.
Moreover, if thy riches reach thy foes,
And all the idols come to Brahmans' hands,
The worshippers will turn from God, thy name
And fame be spurned. If thou art treasureless
Thou wilt not have an army, and thy subjects
Will hail thee not as Sháh. The dog is good
At begging bread, but if thou fillest him
He threateneth thy life. Again, thou said'st
About my strategy that I have stationed
The troops along the roads, and blamest me
Through ignorance, not knowing gain from loss.

The answer is that by my toil I gathered
My splendid treasures, captured foreign cities,
And shattered all my foes that we might sit
Without vexation, toil, or injury
In peace upon the pleasant throne. I scattered
My horse about the frontier, and (to show
The difference 'twixt the worthless and the worthy)
When thou recall??st the troops from every side
The foe will see the road clear, for Írán
Is like a garden in the jocund Spring,
Whose happy blossoms never fail to flower,
A garden of pomegranate and narcissus,
Of apples and of quince; but when the orchard
Becometh void of men the enemy
Will root up all the marjoram and snap
All branches of pomegranate and of quince.
Írán's walls are its troops and gear of war,
Its thorns all arrows on its battlements,
And if in wantonness thou flingest down
The garden-wall the garden is as waste,
As sea or upland. Cast not down its wall
Or thou wilt break the Íránians' hearts and backs,
For then will raid and ravage, horsemen's shouts,
And all the incidents of war ensue.
Expose not thou our children, wives, and land
To trouble: let but one such year elapse,
And sages will describe thee as a fool.
Now I have heard that thou dost give high place
To men unworthy. Know that Núshírwán,
Son of Kubád,*

recorded in his Letter
Of Counsel that whoe'er doth give his arms
To foes doth give himself to slaughtering,
Since, when he asketh back those arms for use,
The enemy will fight.*

As for the message
Of Cæsar, which hath made thee call me heartless,
And self-willed, thou recallest not the facts;
Thy words were prompted by some counsellor.
As for my tyranny and his good faith,
Canst thou discern good faith from tyranny?
Receive mine answer, thou of little wit!
But let me say withal, as is but right,
Thou art the plaintiff and the witness too—
A thing no man of wisdom would allow.
When Cæsar washed off from his face the dust
Of bale he chose me as his son-in-law
For valour's sake. Whoever walketh not
The earth for ill, and hath some share of wisdom
Within him, knoweth that Bahrám Chúbína
Began the feud and that the Íránians
Took sides with him. The Rúmans did not triumph
O'er him; the drifting sand can not bind fast
The mountain! But in that fight God vouchsafed
To aid me, and the armies of the world

Were naught to me. The Íránians have heard
Of those events, and thou shouldst hear from them.
As for myself, I did whate'er I could,
Upon the day of fight, for Niyátús
With kindness and with magnanimity,
But have not reckoned that day's recompense,
And Farrukhzád will tell thee just the same:
Look not upon the world with boyish eyes.
Gashasp, who was our treasurer, can tell,
And that good archimage, our minister,
That I bestowed upon the Rúman troops
A hundred thousand purses from our treasures.
I gave to Niyátús a thousand nuggets,
With earrings and red gold. Each nugget's weight
Was as a thousand treasury-miskáls
I reckoned. I bestowed on him withal
Fine watered pearls that experts had found flawless,
And every one worth thirty thousand drachms
To jewellers, and five score noble steeds,
Selected from my stables—fifty saddled,
The others very choice, housed in brocade,
Mates for the wind upon the waste. I sent
All these to Cæsar with my thanks withal.
For what thou said'st about the Cross of Christ,
That bit of old wood flung among my treasures—
A matter of no loss or gain to me—
Thou hast been listening to some Christian's talk.
I mused that one like Cæsar, great and mighty,
Surrounded as he is by learnéd men—
Philosophers and potentates and priests—
Should call one that was executed God!
While as for this dry, rotten wood, if this
Mere useless Cross were God 'twould be Urmuzd.
Whose name we give to every month's first day,
And would have vanished from our treasury
As Christ himself departed from the world.
Again for what thou said'st: ‘Make thine excuse,
Amend thy conduct and ensue God's path,’
I answer: ‘May the two hands of Kubád,
His feet and lips and tongue rot! It was God
Who placed the crown upon my head: I took,
And revelled in the gift. I have returned it
Since He demanded it. What next I wonder?
To Him will I confess, not to a boy
Scarce able to distinguish good and ill.’
All that God doth is welcome unto me
Though I have seen much woe and bitterness.
For eight and thirty years have I been Sháh,
And none among the kings hath been my peer.
He that bestowed this world on me may give
Another but will have no thanks of mine!
I will pronounce a blessing on the realm:—
‘May earth be ever teeming with the wise.’
So long as God shall help and succour us
None will dare curse.”

Then said he to Kharrád:—

“O Memory of the great ones of the world!
Say to that foolish and impetuous boy:—
‘The lustre of our countenance is dimmed:
Farewell to thee for ever. As for me,
May all our converse be henceforth with sages.’
As for yourselves, illustrious messengers,
Ye Persians eloquent and eminent!
To both of you I also bid farewell.
Say nothing but the words that ye have heard.
I give my blessing to the world at large,
Which we have looked on as a passing thing.
All mother-born must die—whome'er thou hast
In mind—Khusrau Parwíz back to Kubád.
So too Húshang, Jamshíd, and Tahmúras—
To all the world the founts of fear and hope—
Whom dív and beast acknowledged, passed and died
When their day ended. Farídún, the blest,
Who banned ill, close or open, from the world,
And stayed Zahhák the Arab's hand from evil,
Scaped not by bravery the clutch of fate.
So was it with Árish whose arrow's flight
Was one farsang;*

victorious Káran,
The capturer of cities; Kai Kubád,
Who having come from Mount Alburz became
Through manhood world-lord over all the folk,
And built himself a world-famed house of crystal,*

Adorned with lustrous pearls and gates of gems.*

So was it with Káús, that man of might,
Who took the world by skill and policy,
He that adventured toward the sky above,
Unwitting of the processes of time;
So too with Siyáwush, that lion famed,
Who slew two tigers in his youthful days,*

And built Gang-dizh*

with toil but gat therefrom
No treasure. Where are now Afrásiyáb,
The Turkman king, whose semblance e'en in dream
None seeth; where Rustam, Zál, Asfandiyár,
Whose fame is their memorial with us;
Gúdarz and his choice sons, three score and ten,
Those cavaliers upon the riding-ground,
And lions of the fray; where Kai Khusrau,
The noble lion-man who in the fight
Made lions prisoners; and Sháh Gushtásp,
The convert to ‘The Good Faith,’ he by whom
Grace was renewed; where went renowned Sikandar,
Who overturned the world, and where Jámásp,
Who shone in astrologic lore more brightly

Than Sol or Venus? Where is that famed Sháh,
Bahrám Gúr, matchless in his strength and courage?
No Sháh was like him in munificence;
The turning heaven dared not to touch his head.
Where is that Sháh, my grandsire, bright of soul
Who ruled the world as Kisrá Núshírwán?
Where are the seven and forty world-lords?*

Gone
Is all their work, gone are the Great and Wise,
The warrior-horsemen and the men of lore,
These passing those in prowess and those these
In years? They all have left this spacious world,
Left palace, hall, and riding-ground. Midst Sháhs,
Though some were older far, I had no peer.
I walked the world for good and ill, and held
The evil day aloof. 'Twas mine to traverse
Full many a ruggéd path and sweep away
Full many a foe. My treasures fill all lands;
Where earth and water are my toil is seen.
When with me too the world shall cease, and all
The nobles' hopes grow dim, with my son also
The throne will not abide, for he will quit it,
And all his fortune end. What time the angel
That taketh souls approacheth I shall say:—
‘Take my soul gently.’ I will clear my heart
By penitence, and freedom from offence
Shall be my breastplate. Well have men of wisdom,
Good, veteran, learned, declared: ‘If wakeful fortune
Decline one must expect fears manifold,
And he whose day of greatness hath gone by
Is foolish if he asketh its return.’
This is my message to the world, to mean
And mighty too: ere long the Sháh and all
His famous troops will fall to slaughtering
Each other and fling fire on field and fell;
Then sires will fall by sons and sons by sires;
Our enemies, the people that discoursed
Of evil deeds and chilling words, will pay
The smart when we are gone and not for long
Enjoy the world. Since rule and greatness end
With me what reck if Lion or another
Shall have the sway?”

Ashtád and brave Kharrád,

Son of Barzín, those sages, when they heard
The message of that leader, were heart-pierced,
And smote their heads. Both sorrowed for their
words;

They buffeted their faces, rent their robes
In grief, and scattered dust upon their heads.
Those ancients fared forth from his presence, weeping,
In anguish, with their hearts all arrow-points.
With furrowed faces and in sore distress
They went before Shírwí and every whit
To that man brainless and incompetent
Detailed the message that the Sháh had sent.