"The rose with thy cheek would comparison shun";
'Asjadi continued--
"Thy glances pierce through the mailed warrior's johsun";[1]
and Firdousi, without a moment's hesitation, completed the quatrain--
"Like the lance of fierce Giv in his fight with Poshun."
The poets asked for an explanation of this allusion, and Firdousi
recited to them the battle as described in the _Shahnama_, and delighted
and astonished them with his learning and eloquence.
Mahmud now definitely selected him for the work of compiling and
versifying the ancient legends, and bestowed upon him such marks of his
favour and munificence as to elicit from the poet an enthusiastic
panegyric, which is inserted in the preface of the _Shahnama_, and forms
a curious contrast to the bitter satire which he subsequently prefixed
to the book. The sultan ordered his treasurer, Khojah Hasan Maimandi, to
pay to Firdousi a thousand gold pieces for every thousand verses; but
the poet preferred allowing the sum to accumulate till the whole was
finished, with the object of amassing sufficient capital to construct a
dike for his native town of Tus, which suffered greatly from defective
irrigation, a project which had been the chief dream of his childhood.
Owing to this resolution, and to the jealousy of Hasan Maimandi, who
often refused to advance him sufficient for the necessaries of life,
Firdousi passed the later portion of his life in great privation, though
enjoying the royal favour and widely extended fame. Amongst other
princes whose liberal presents enabled him to combat his pecuniary
difficulties, was one Rustam, son of Fakhr Addaula, the Dailamite, who
sent him a thousand gold pieces in acknowledgment of a copy of the
episode of Rustam and Isfendiar which Firdousi had sent him, and
promised him a gracious reception if he should ever come to his court.
As this prince belonged, like Firdousi, to the Shiah sect, while Mahmud
and Maimandi were Sunnites, and as he was also politically opposed to
the sultan, Hasan Maimandi did not fail to make the most of this
incident, and accused the poet of disloyalty to his sovereign and
patron, as well as of heresy. Other enemies and rivals also joined in
the attack, and for some time Firdousi's position was very precarious,
though his pre-eminent talents and obvious fitness for the work
prevented him from losing his post. To add to his troubles he had the
misfortune to lose his only son at the age of 37.
At length, after thirty-five years' work, the book was completed (1011),
and Firdousi entrusted it to Ayaz, the sultan's favourite, for
presentation to him. Mahmud ordered Hasan Maimandi to take the poet as
much gold as an elephant could carry, but the jealous treasurer
persuaded the monarch that it was too generous a reward, and that an
elephant's load of silver would be sufficient. 60,000 silver dirhems
were accordingly placed in sacks, and taken to Firdousi by Ayaz at the
sultan's command, instead of the 60,000 gold pieces, one for each verse,
which had been promised. The poet was at that moment in the bath, and
seeing the sacks, and believing that they contained the expected gold,
received them with great satisfaction, but finding only silver he
complained to Ayaz that he had not executed the sultan's order. Ayaz
related what had taken place between Mahmud and Hasan Maimandi, and
Firdousi in a rage gave 20 thousand pieces to Ayaz himself, the same
amount to the bath-keeper, and paid the rest to a beer seller for a
glass of beer (_fouka_), sending word back to the sultan that it was not
to gain money that he had taken so much trouble. On hearing this
message, Mahmud at first reproached Hasan with having caused him to
break his word, but the wily treasurer succeeded in turning his master's
anger upon Firdousi to such an extent that he threatened that on the
morrow he would "cast that Carmathian (heretic) under the feet of his
elephants." Being apprised by one of the nobles of the court of what had
taken place, Firdousi passed the night in great anxiety; but passing in
the morning by the gate that led from his own apartments into the
palace, he met the sultan in his private garden, and succeeded by humble
apologies in appeasing his wrath. He was, however, far from being
appeased himself, and determined at once upon quitting Ghazni. Returning
home he tore up the draughts of some thousands of verses which he had
composed and threw them in the fire, and repairing to the grand mosque
of Ghazni he wrote upon the walls, at the place where the sultan was in
the habit of praying, the following lines:--
"The auspicious court of Mahmud, king of Zabulistan, is like a sea.
What a sea! One cannot see its shore. If I have dived therein without
finding any pearls it is the fault of my star and not of the sea."
He then gave a sealed paper to Ayaz, begging him to hand it to the
sultan in a leisure moment after 20 days had elapsed, and set off on his
travels with no better equipment than his staff and a dervish's cloak.
At the expiration of the 20 days Ayaz gave the paper to the sultan, who
on opening it found the celebrated satire which is now always prefixed
to copies of the _Shahnama_, and which is perhaps one of the bitterest
and severest pieces of reproach ever penned. Mahmud, in a violent rage,
sent after the poet and promised a large reward for his capture, but he
was already in comparative safety. Firdousi directed his steps to
Mazandaran, and took refuge with Kabus, prince of Jorjan, who at first
received him with great favour, and promised him his continued
protection and patronage; learning, however, the circumstances under
which he had left Ghazni, he feared the resentment of so powerful a
sovereign as Mahmud, who he knew already coveted his kingdom, and
dismissed the poet with a magnificent present. Firdousi next repaired to
Bagdad, where he made the acquaintance of a merchant, who introduced him
to the vizier of the caliph, al-Qadir, by presenting an Arabic poem
which the poet had composed in his honour. The vizier gave Firdousi an
apartment near himself, and related to the caliph the manner in which he
had been treated at Ghazni. The caliph summoned him into his presence,
and was so much pleased with a poem of a thousand couplets, which
Firdousi composed in his honour, that he at once received him into
favour. The fact of his having devoted his life and talents to
chronicling the renown of fire-worshipping Persians was, however,
somewhat of a crime in the orthodox caliph's eyes; in order therefore to
recover his prestige, Firdousi composed another poem of 9000 couplets on
the theme borrowed from the Koran of the loves of Joseph and Potiphar's
wife--_Yusuf and Zuleikha_ (edited by H. Ethe, Oxford, 1902; complete
metrical translation by Schlechta-Wssehrd, Vienna, 1889). This poem,
though rare and little known, is still in existence--the Royal Asiatic
Society possessing a copy. But Mahmud had by this time heard of his
asylum at the court of the caliph, and wrote a letter menacing his liege
lord, and demanding the surrender of the poet. Firdousi, to avoid
further troubles, departed for Ahwaz, a province of the Persian Irak,
and dedicated his _Yusuf and Zuleikha_ to the governor of that district.
Thence he went to Kohistan, where the governor, Nasir Lek, was his
intimate and devoted friend, and received him with great ceremony upon
the frontier. Firdousi confided to him that he contemplated writing a
bitter exposition of his shameful treatment at the hands of the sultan
of Ghazni; but Nasir Lek, who was a personal friend of the latter,
dissuaded him from his purpose, but himself wrote and remonstrated with
Mahmud. Nasir Lek's message and the urgent representations of Firdousi's
friends had the desired effect; and Mahmud not only expressed his
intention of offering full reparation to the poet, but put his enemy
Maimandi to death. The change, however, came too late; Firdousi, now a
broken and decrepit old man, had in the meanwhile returned to Tus, and,
while wandering through the streets of his native town, heard a child
lisping a verse from his own satire in which he taunts Mahmud with his
slavish birth:--
"Had Mahmud's father been what he is now
A crown of gold had decked this aged brow;
Had Mahmud's mother been of gentle blood,
In heaps of silver knee-deep had I stood."
He was so affected by this proof of universal sympathy with his
misfortunes that he went home, fell sick and died. He was buried in a
garden, but Abu'l Kasim Jurjani, chief sheikh of Tus, refused to read
the usual prayers over his tomb, alleging that he was an infidel, and
had devoted his life to the glorification of fire-worshippers and
misbelievers. The next night, however, having dreamt that he beheld
Firdousi in paradise dressed in the sacred colour, green, and wearing an
emerald crown, he reconsidered his determination; and the poet was
henceforth held to be perfectly orthodox. He died in the year 411 of the
Hegira (1020 A.D.), aged about eighty, eleven years after the completion
of his great work. The legend goes that Mahmud had in the meanwhile
despatched the promised hundred thousand pieces of gold to Firdousi,
with a robe of honour and ample apologies for the past. But as the
camels bearing the treasure reached one of the gates of the city,
Firdousi's funeral was leaving it by another. His daughter, to whom they
brought the sultan's present, refused to receive it; but his aged sister
remembering his anxiety for the construction of the stone embankment for
the river of Tus, this work was completed in honour of the poet's
memory, and a large caravanserai built with the surplus.
Much of the traditional life, as given above, which is based upon that
prefixed to the revised edition of the poem, undertaken by order of
Baisingar Khan, grandson of Timur-i-Leng (Timur), is rejected by
modern scholars (see T. Noldeke, "Das iranische Nationalepos," in W.
Geiger's _Grundriss der iranischen Philologie_, ii. pp. 150-158).
The _Shahnama_ is based, as we have seen, upon the ancient legends
current among the populace of Persia, and collected by the Dihkans, a
class of men who had the greatest facilities for this purpose. There
is every reason therefore to believe that Firdousi adhered faithfully
to these records of antiquity, and that the poem is a perfect
storehouse of the genuine traditions of the country.
The entire poem (which only existed in MS. up to the beginning of the
19th century) was published (1831-1868) with a French translation in a
magnificent folio edition, at the expense of the French government, by
the learned and indefatigable Julius von Mohl. The size and number of
the volumes, however, and their great expense, made them difficult of
access, and Frau von Mohl published the French translation (1876-1878)
with her illustrious husband's critical notes and introduction in a
more convenient and cheaper form. Other editions are by Turner Macan
(Calcutta, 1829), J.A. Vullers and S. Landauer (unfinished; Leiden,
1877-1883). There is an English abridgment by J. Atkinson (London,
1832; reprinted 1886, 1892); there is a verse-translation, partly
rhymed and partly unrhymed, by A.G. and E. Warner (1905 foll.), with
an introduction containing an account of Firdousi and the Shahnama;
the version by A. Rogers (1907) contains the greater part of the work.
The episode of Sohrab and Rustam is well known to English readers from
Matthew Arnold's poem. The only complete translation is Il Libro dei
Rei, by I. Pizzi (8 vols., Turin, 1886-1888), also the author of a
history of Persian poetry.
See also E.G. Browne's _Literary History of Persia_, i., ii.
(1902-1906); T. Noldeke (as above) for a full account of the Shahnama,
editions, &c.; and H. Ethe, "Neupersische Litteratur," in the same
work. (E. H. P.; X.)