751. “The rightful king”; lit., “the new king.”
752. “The superscription.” Sar-i nāma means literally “the outside of the letter” where the superscription would be. Sar-nāma is “the superscription”.
Or possibly, sar-ī nāma means here simply “the superscription”, the iẓāfat being restored met. caus.
753. i.e., it had a cover of brocade-work, and was bright inside with words of wisdom.
754. “The picture-room of (His) good gifts”; i.e., the universe, the scene of His generosity.
755. i.e., the creating of the universe was a difficulty which He alone had power to overcome.
756. i.e., He has sealed the universe by the duty of the praise of Him.
757. Zamīn-u zamān, “the earth and time,” signify, according to Meninsky, “the universe,” but the separation of the two in the second hemistich prevents such a rendering. One might translate, “space and time.”
758. i.e., Bahrām.
759. “Ill-advised contention”; lit., “raw contention.”
The usurper means that he is not likely to suffer loss or damage from what he calls the raw or crude contention of an inexperienced person like Bahrām. (For Kisrá, see Note 701.)
760. i.e., I was always to be considered fortunate.
761. Lit., “But the Persians by force and shame aroused my zeal by their zealous kindness.”
762. i.e., only the person who is a foe to selfish desires can be a friend to the people of the world.
763. i.e., a world to be governed by unselfish care is not your world.
764. Lit., “with the headache of the world.”
765. Lit., “that the business, perchance, might have been my business”; i.e., that my business might have been simply attending to my own business, and not to that of others.
I.O. MS. 1168, and the B. ed. of 1328 read, without rhyme, in both hemistichs, kār, “occupation, business.”
Most of the I.O. editions have, in the first hemistich, yār, “friend.”
One might suggest kār in the first hemistich, and yār in the second, but this is not really necessary.
766. See Note 526.
767. i.e., it would be useless to seek to cultivate ground so barren and worthless.
768. “To strike cold iron” means to do something useless.
769. He means probably that he does not approve of the tone of the letter, but appreciates the good advice in it.
Or the sense may be that whilst he approves the good advice generally there are reasons why it does not fit his particular case.
Instead of pand-gūyanda-rā, “the speaker of advice,” we might read, pand-i gūyanda-rā, “the advice of the speaker.”
770. i.e., I would not condescend to seek possession even of the whole world.
771. “Throughout”; lit., “in vein and skin.”
772. Lit., “I am excusable for sin not committed.”
773. Lit., “after the dead”; i.e., after a person is dead. A well-known proverb.
774. The argument in this and the preceding distich seems to be that intelligence shows that the mischief of calumny arises from the readiness with which it is heard, and that when the hearer is essentially bad he exaggerates the calumny when reporting it. The moral is apparently that it is an evil thing to listen at all to calumny. I am taking the reading of I.O. MS. 402 and the I.O. B. ed. The B. ed. of 1328 varies a little from these, but has the same sense.
The other I.O. editions read,
Guftan-ash bad, shanīdan-ash bad-tar ast:
“His speaking is evil, his hearing is worse,” but the sense, I think, is not so good.
775. Lit., “is up to the time of action.”
776. This I take to be the most probable meaning of the rather enigmatical hemistich,
The only other sense I can see is,
“I will rejoice in what the (present) time may (now) offer,” but this, I think, is less satisfactory.
777. Ān kunam k’-az khudāy dāram sharm.
778. Gunāh, “offence, sin,” is used here in the sense of qi‘āb, “acts deserving punishment,” the opposite of savāb, “acts worthy of reward.”
779. Lit., “opinions were taken, given, or compared”; rāy-hā shud rāst.
780. The Zoroastrian mūbids or priests in earlier times formed an ecclesiastical council consulted by the king in religious questions. In later times they were also vazīrs or ministers, as we gather generally from Persian writers and also from the dictionaries. (See also Note 1,950.)
781. i.e., “you are really king.”
782. The name of Gushtāsp (Vistaspa, Hystaspes) is associated with Zoroaster in the Zend Avesta, and Western authorities generally make them contemporaneous. The difficulty is to find even approximately the date of Gushtāsp. According to Oriental accounts this king was the fifth of the second or Kayānian dynasty of Persia, but it is useless to seek his date from Oriental sources of information.
Professor Duncker concludes that Vistaspa and Zoroaster lived in about 1000 B.C., but from the evidence he puts forward one might be induced to agree with those authorities who make the date some hundreds of years earlier. Professor Jackson, of Columbia University, an eminent authority, thinks Zoroaster flourished during the Median supremacy and died about 583 B.C.
783. The Kais; i.e., the kings of the Kayānian dynasty.
784. Bahman, the grandson and successor of Gushtāsp. He is supposed to have been Artaxerxes Longimanus, Ardashīr-i Darāz-dast.
785. Dārā, i.e., Darius; presumably the opponent of Alexander.
786. Siyāmak was the son of Kayūmars the first king of the first or Pīshdādian dynasty of Persia.
787. Ardashīr, the grandson of Bābak, generally called Ardashīr-i Bābakān, was the first king of the Sāsānian dynasty of Persia.
788. Kayūmars, the first king of the first or Pīshdādian dynasty of Persia.
789. Lit., “which may suffer that covenant to be discharged.”
790. He means that they owed allegiance to him, and not to the usurper, and should therefore not have pledged themselves to the latter.
791. Jamshīd or Jam, the fourth king of the first or Pīsdādian dynasty of Persia. (See Note 1,377.)
792. Lit., “my dominion of inheritance is (both) the black and the white”; i.e., my inherited dominion is all things and all people; or, more particularly, Arabs and Persians.
793. i.e., he has given up his crown and throne; his spirit is in heaven, and his body is in the earth.
This simply adds to the assertion in the preceding distich— that the crown and throne are merely symbols—the assertion that they are also only transitory possessions. (Cf. the next distich.)
It is possible, however, to explain the second hemistich as meaning that he who is essentially a king is exalted to the sky and governs the whole earth; he has no need of the ordinary, visible insignia, the crown and throne. This, however, does not harmonize so well with the next distich, though it may do so with the succeeding one.
794. Afrīdūn, the sixth king of the first or Pīshdādian dynasty of Persia.
795. i.e., the mere symbols have not remained.
796. i.e., an insidious usurper has made puny efforts to hold me off.
797. i.e., Bahrām, a formidable opponent.
798. The terms “ant” and “gnat” are used in depreciation of the usurper.
799. i.e., the comparatively weak usurper can make himself prominent only until a formidable opponent like Bahrām appears.
“Trumpet”; lit., “white shell,” sapīd-muhra, a shell which was sounded as a trumpet.
800. i.e., so long as the usurper has only puny opponents he, not much more powerful himself, may think he is achieving great deeds.