Empire: World History - 112. Ferdowsi: How One Poet Saved Persian Civilisation

Episode Date: January 9, 2024

After the Arab conquest, Persia was turned upside down. Patronage went to Islam as opposed to Zoroastrianism. The official language of state was now Arabic. Even the very nature of the state changed; for 1,000 years Persia had been the centre of imperial power, dominating those around it. Now it was ruled by others. But, what it was to be Persian was not lost. The language, the art, the civilisation survived. And then the turn of the 10th century Ferdowsi revived it with his mighty epic poem, the Shahnameh. Listen as William and Anita are once again joined by Vesta Sarkosh Curtis to discuss Ferdowsi and the Shahnameh. For bonus episodes, ad-free listening, reading lists, book discounts, a weekly newsletter, and a chat community. Sign up at https://empirepod.supportingcast.fm/ Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: [e-mail] Goalhangerpodcasts.com Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Jack Davenport + Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpower.com. And welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William Durhampool. And very, very excitingly, because we love her on this podcast. We're joined by Vesta Sarkoche Curtis, author, and honorary director of the British Institute of Persian Studies to discuss, and we are very excited

about this too, the Book of Kings, the Shahnemeyer. And it's a, I mean, it's not, to call it a book, it's really doing it a disservice, isn't it, William? Well, Vesta, you reply to that. You're the proud Persian. What does the Book of Kings? What does the Shandameh mean to a Persian? Well, first of all, is hello to everybody. The Book of Kings means an awful lot to us, I mean, it is an epic that really revives all the pre-Islamic traditions, all the ancient Iranian traditions, but it also revives the language. To me personally, it's like my Bible. I love it. I love it.

I read it. I consult it. It's a source of information. The language is beautiful. It's not difficult. It's not difficult. and it consists of 55,000 double verses. It's in poetry and the most beautiful language that you can imagine.

And often presented in the most gorgeous, sumptuous, illuminated manuscripts. Absolutely. I mean, the illuminated manuscripts begin in the 14th century and they become more and more elaborate. And each story has many illuminations and images and you can sort of imagine how the people or the heroes looked like, how the animals were, how the demons were. It really is the most magnificent and beautiful book that I can imagine.

I was commissioned last year by Sotheby's, the auction house to write an essay on a page of the Houghton Shandameh that came up for auction last year. Yes. One of the most beautiful images of all Persian art. Describe it. Describe what it looked like? It was the moment that Rushdam recaptures the horse that's been taken away by the Akman Div. And the horse is grazing on a hillside.

And the artist has filled in every little area with the most gorgeous detail. You can see the sleeping shepherds. You can see the different colour of the different horses grazing on this mountainside. It's everything that's most gorgeous. about the highest period of Persian art, just early Safavid period. Well, I think we should really put this into context, Willie, because it's been such a long time since we covered Persia. And we've all been on our Christmas holes.

We've been on our Christmas holes, but we've also been on the high seas with the Christmas ships mini-series, which you've been so kind about. Thank you so much for all your lovely comments. It was just a joy to sort of do that. It was a very good idea. It was very nice. Whose idea was it? Whose idea was it?

I can't remember who was it? Okay. It was my idea. But anyway, we may do some more themed mini-series in the future because you've responded so well. So watch this space. But, but, but, but, William, could you remind us where we were in the story, the history of Persia,

before we took our little diversionary break? So Persian history is really sort of divided in two. And our Christmas break was partly designed around the fact that there is a very clear cleavage in the middle of Persian history, art and civilization. And that, of course, is the arrival of Islam. Before the arrival of Islam, you have the whole extraordinary story that we did in the first few episodes of the Achaemenids who built Pacepolis, Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, the whole rivalry, growing rivalry with the various Greek states. And finally, the arrival of Alexander, extinguishing that

and Pespolis disappearing into the sands. And then you have a very great. have a period when you have the rise of a group of people called the Parthians, followed by the Sussanians. And the Sussanians very nearly rebuild an empire on the scale of their accumulated predecessors. The Sassanian Empire is the great rival of Rome. It stretches all the way from Uzbekistan to the middle of Turkey. It's a hugely powerful force, and it's the only force in the world that defied Rome. Rome, you know, as we know, cut. right through civilization after civilization, taking over the whole of Gaul and Britain and the whole of North Africa and all the Middle Eastern states that it destroyed like the Ptolemy's in Egypt,

but they couldn't take on the Persians. And over a period of four or five hundred years, this rivalry goes backwards and forward. Sometimes it's the Romans and the ascendancy. Usually, it's the Sassanian Persians. And they inflict many. crushing defeats on the Romans and on one occasion even take an emperor prisoner and use him to build roads and bridges for the rest of his life poor guy. And then you have, and this is what we did just before Christmas, this extraordinary last great war of antiquity. And this is the moment that the great lovers who are celebrated in later poetry, Cusro and Shireen, are in charge of Persia, Shireen is a Christian. Kusro invades the Middle East and captures the true crossfire.

He goes to Jerusalem and brings the true cross back to Sotesophon, his capital. And then you have this struggle with Heraclius, who's the Byzantine emperor, which ultimately the Byzantines win. And at the end of a 30-year-long war, both the Sasanian Persians and the Byzantines are completely exhausted. And then something happens that no one anticipates. The Arab tribes who have been small-time traders in the desert of what's now, Saudi Arabia, the Hajaz unite under a new leader, Muhammad, and under him and his successor, Abu Bakr, they burst out of the Hajaz and take first Palestine, then Syria, then Persia.

and Persia, which has been for a thousand years, an imperial power invading other people's territories and taking tribute from other people and forcing other people to do what it wants, suddenly finds the boot on the other foot. And they are occupied by some Arab tribes, a small warrior elite of Arabs are occupying the country. But more specifically, the patronage of the state is now directed to a new religion, Islam, and, away from the old Zoroastrian faith, which is in rapid decline, and the official language of government becomes Arabic. So although ordinary people still speak the Persian language in the streets, there is suddenly no court sponsoring literature, rewarding poets writing in Persian. And Persian

almost disappears from the face of the earth as a literary, as a state-backed language. And what we're going to tell the story of today is the extraordinary story of the return of Persian, and particularly the great poet Faddaozy, whose Shahnamei is not just one of the great poems of world history. It is a sort of one work revival strategy for the Persian language. I mean, that's an excellent summary of what happened before we went off on our ships. Vesta, let me ask you this. I mean, this is a really good thumbnail sketch that William's just given us. How terrible was this for the Persian psyche, if you like, civilization, culture? Because they've not just been conquered militarily. They've had this, as William describes it, this imposition of another language, another religion, another way of living. Well, it is, it's quite drastic. I mean, everything changes, but it doesn't mean that the language disappears. And even the religious, religion continues for a few centuries in certain parts of the country. It's just that the official language becomes Arabic and it's an alien language. It's not Persian. It's not Iranian.

Does that happen immediately? I mean, do a few Persian officials carry on in the ruins of Sotisiphan? Oh, they do. They do. Absolutely. They do continue. And also the impact and influence of Persian officials at the various courts, and particularly under the Abbasids, you know, in the 8th, 9th century, is enormous, enormous. I was talking at the end of the last series about the Barma kids, the different generations of Barma Kid Viziers from Nowbaha in Balk. Yes. And the Barma kids, of course, are very interesting because they may have been Buddhist. Absolutely. They were hereditary.

rectors of Nabaha. Can I ask, I mean, how I'm just really interested to know how even the discipline of remembering these verses, of keeping these verses, of holding the imagery in your head can survive, when you've got a new religion that doesn't believe in iconography, that doesn't like, you know, the imagery and certainly despises the old religions of old Persia. I would say the sort of ban on imagery is a later development, even in Islam. You don't have that at the very beginning of the Islamic era. And you find the Umayyads in their palaces privately in Jericho and so on, not only having images, but having nudity and images of quite sort of bucolic and bacchic imagery.

So it sort of comes later, but you also have to bear in mind that in different parts of Iran, local dynasties continued. And particularly the northeast of Iran, Hora-San, northern Afghanistan, becomes sort of the region where the Persian language and Persian culture continues under a dynasty called the Sarmarnids. These were kings, local kings, who prided themselves of descending from the Sasanian pre-Islamic dynasty. And they encouraged the Persian language, Persian poetry, and the link to the pre-Islamic past. And the Samanids are what, the 10th century, a 9th century? Ninth century.

And it is at this time, it is under the Samanids that the whole revival of Persian language begins with poets like Rudaki of Samarkand and Ferdossi from Tuss near Mashat in northeast and Iran because Ferdosi starts his epic, the Shah Nameh or Book of Kings, under the Sarmonyz. Well, now you've mentioned Ferdorsi. I want to know, I mean, who is he? Where is he born? What is his life? What's his origin story, as we like to say on this podcast? Well, we know about Ferdosi, interestingly, from other Persian poets. And already about hundred years later, Nizami Arousi gives an account of the life of Ferdosi. Ferdosi, the poet of the Shahname, came from a noble land-owning family in Nishabur,

which is near Mashat, in Tuss, in northeastern Iran. And he began his composition of the Book of Kings in the 10th century, and he himself refers again and again to his sources. There were other stories, there were other book of kings. He also relies heavily on an oral tradition that is passed on to him, as he says himself by wise men and priests. Vesta, just fill that out a bit because 200 years have passed now since the death of the last Sasanian Yazga the 3rd. Yes. 651 is the date. A long time has passed between, what, 940 is the birth of Fadozi?

It's sort of 930s, yeah. 930. In those 200 years, what has happened to the Persian language? Is it only spoken by peasants? No, I think Persian was spoken. The administrative language became Arabic. You see, if it had disappeared completely and was only spoken by, you know, farmers, then he couldn't have revived.

And also, when we talk about Ferdosi's origin as a Dihkan, it's not a farmer. It's a landowner nobility. So he came from a very educated background. So what is the nature of the Arab conquest? Is it a few sort of camps of military warriors who seize the land? Or is it just paying taxes to people far away? Well, they do send their governors to the various places. There's no question about it. We have, for example, documents. We have coins minted in the names of the new Arab governors. But even that in itself is quite interesting because for several decades, they even mint coins in the way that the Sasanians did with the image of the Sasanian coin. They even use the language. I always think of what's happening in Damascus at this time, which is in the Byzantine end of the new conquest, where you have someone like the future St. John Damascene continuing in the administration. He's a Byzantine. He's a Christian. He will become one of the great Christian saints. He will retire to the monastery of Marsaba now on the West Bank. But in his youth, he's in the streets with the young Caliph messing around, having a good time. And very much part of it. Would you have found...

young Persian ability mixing with the Arab or ear elite? I would say so, yes, definitely. And also advising them. I mean, we have to bear in mind and remember that when the conquerors came, they did not have the expertise. They did not have the professionals. So the Persians, the Iranians, produced this expertise and supported them. And a lot of them actually of the Persians changed their names.

So many officials that we come across with Arabic names are in fact ethnic Persians. Ah, interesting. Oh, how interesting. So getting back to Ferdorsi himself, would he have considered himself a proud Persian? What would he have considered himself to be? Oh, he would have considered and he does consider himself as an Iranian. You know, Ferrucci has this phrase that has become the sort of slogan of Iranians and the patriotic movement

and it says so Iran naboshat Taniman Mabad if there is no Iran then I won't exist I mean you can't put it more beautiful than that So little wonder that he's become one of those many

icons that we've been talking about lately for the counter Ayatollah revolution Absolutely and you know at the beginning of the revolution the Shah Nama was banned Actually formally banned Formally banned but people did

not take any notice. And they continued, there was a huge interest, actually, in the Shah army, perhaps more than before the revolution. And in 1989, the Islamic Republic actually celebrated his millennium. So, I mean, this is Iran for you. These are the Persians. If you can't beat it, join it, okay, I suppose so. Can we talk about the man himself? So, I mean, was there any indication in Ferdorsi's childhood, you know, is this this landowning family, that he was going to become a scholar of such repute? Well, I think he was destined to become that because of the background, because he was born and brought up in an educated milieu in Horasan in northeastern Iran under the Samanids. And this dynasty of the Samarites, they really supported Persian tradition. Persian history and Persian literature.

In the last episode, we were talking about Kusro and how at the beginning of his reign, he had to flee from Baram Chubin, who was this general that kicked about. The Samanids claimed descent from Baram Chubin, didn't they? Yeah, absolutely. So they were instrumental in reviving, as I said, the Persian language. And it's, I mean, at this time, under the Samanids, you have Rudaki and you have also So the woman poet Rabé, also in modern day Afghanistan, who writes poetry, composes poetry in Persian. So it's a revival.

Right. Women were recognized as poets in this time. Yes, yes, yes. And celebrated as such. Yes, yes. Well, that's very interesting. Do we know at what point in his life he sits down and says, and what is the motivation to write the Shahnameh? What happens to Ferdhazi?

I think he says that he came across many sources. and he mentions them. For example, he talks about the Namibostan, the ancient book. Do we know what that was? What was the Namibustan? We know through a sort of introductions, prefaces in Shahnames, that there were few other Shahnames, but none of them were in poetry.

They were in prose, except about thousand double verses by a poet called, called Dariri, who is mentioned by Ferdosi. So he was surrounded by all this literary tradition, and the beauty of Ferdosi is that he mentions and acknowledges these sources. And is there a sense in which what he's doing is unusual only because he's writing it down rather than keeping it in an oral tradition, or is there a literary written tradition,

other examples of which other than Rudaki and so on have been lost? Well, Dariri, if we take Dariri, there was a written tradition, but he was murdered very young, Dariri, so he couldn't complete his work. But the fact that he put it in poetry, that is very important. And he himself, again, if I may read, it says, Barafkandam Zanazm, Kachi, Boland, so I created, I built a very tall palace, which will not. be destroyed by rain or wind.

May I just say the translation is beautiful, but when you read it in the original, it's even more beautiful, even though I don't understand what it means until you translate it. And persons, when they read Fadoz, go into a sort of trance, there is a rhythm to it that gets, yeah. Absolutely. And you know, the nice thing about Ferdocis is that, A, you know, people enjoyed, and a lot of people, particularly, sort of 60, 70 years ago, who couldn't read or write. in the villages, they could recite Ferdosi.

People may not understand or the names of the other poets that you've talked about may not be familiar, but I've heard Ferdorsi many times compared to the Homer of the East. I mean, is that, do you think, a fair comparison? And secondly, I mean, is the structure of his writing similar to, say, the Iliad or the Odyssey? It is actually, it is similar and it's also fair. There is only one big difference, and that is Ferdon. Ferdosi does not cover just one generation. Ferdosi covers the entirety of the ancient Persian period.

Over 400 years, 500 years. Homer is a tradition rather than an individual. Well, you get the impression that Fadosi is very much an individual writer with his own style and a biography and a life, a birth date, a death date. Yes. And all these different stories, they are absolutely. Absolutely beautiful. I mean, to come back to the story of Rostam's horse, Rachsh. Rachsh. And Rachsh means shiny, luminous. The painter made the horse incredibly luminous. It's in gold and silver.

And the whole story, how Rostam discovers while hunting this horse. And when he finally catches the horse, he puts his hand on the back of it. of the horse to see if it sort of sinks or not because Rostam was a very large, big hero. He was the hero of all heroes. And the horse doesn't move. So he takes on this horse and the horse becomes a companion. Rach is not just a horse. Rachsh is an animal, is a companion. He's almost a divine, divine creation who helps Rostam.

And it's almost a love affair, isn't it? Because when he loses him, he's totally distraught. And he can't eat, he can't do anything until he finds Raksh again. Yes. And Rachsh protects him. He protects him from the demon, the deef, he protects him from the lions. He's always there to help and protect Rostam. How does it compare to the Indian tradition, which is often oral?

I've worked with Bopas in Rajasthan who know epics by heart. Yes. And they passed it on from generation to generation. Was Fadozi ever memorized in the way that the Mahabharat or the Ramayana was memorized? I would think so, yes, because you have storytellers in the Iranian tradition. You have storytellers who recite these stories in front of audiences. With pictures? With pictures.

And you have, of course, the so-called, not so-called, but you have the coffeehouse paintings of the 19th century and late 18th century where different scenes of the Shah Narmé appear, and during the recital, they sort of served as backdrop. So if you were in the Salmonid court or the Gazznavid court, would you imagine that people would be of an evening rather than turning on the telly and watching Netflix, that they would be summoning Fadozzi or the oral storyteller, putting up a picture, showing it with a stick or a finger? I mean, I love this idea of the show and tell, that there's actually, there's actually, There's an image behind it as well, which means he would have to be a talented orator as well as a talented poet. He would have to be. And also we know that in the, for example, Sassanian at the time of Hosro II,

there were very famous storytellers and singers, minstrels. Hosro himself had two very famous minstrels who performed at his court. And this is a very ancient tradition that goes back actually to the first century AD under the Parthians. Okay. When we talk about Fidorsi, I mean, I just want to understand exactly a bit more about him. I mean, did he have a religion? Would he have been a Muslim convert at this time? He is Muslim and he is a Shiite. And he does make references to Imam Ali. So he is not a Zoroastrian. But what is disappointing for him is that when he competes, pleads his epic in 1010 and presents it to the new ruler, who is now Sultan Mahmoud of Ghaznay.

The Gazznavids have now come to power. Who is considered a very, very dark name in India. Yeah, he is, I mean, the Sarmonids are now defeated by this Turkic tribe, Gznavite. Sultan Mahmoud disappoints Ferdosi. He does not reward him with gold. coins that Ferdosi was expecting. Sultan Mahmoud doesn't like the fact that in the Shah Nama, the Turks are the enemies of the Iranians, the Persians. And they are very much throughout, aren't they? They're very much the baddies. So it's not a huge surprise that he wasn't thrilled.

But I think what we, again, what I have to add here, that the equation of Iran and Turkish tribes is a much later thing. Originally in the ancient stories that have a very pre-Islamic, in a way, Zoroastrian origin, Tehran is an Iranian land. It's much, much later, Turan is equated with Turkish land.

Right. And just on the Shana me itself, I mean, we should, I mean, you said it's sort of a 400-year span of history. Yes. You know, it's not, it's more ambitious than Homer. could ever be. Okay. But is it historic or does it divert from the true history of the Persian people

dramatic there? I mean, just talk us through some of that because Alexander does figure in the Shanameh. Which are those sort of big episodes of history? And how close are they? And Kusra, as you say, and Shireen, who we talked about with a great pleasure. Actually, it covers much more than 400 years. Rostam lives for 400 years. But it starts really with. the mythological past. And the beauty of this part of the Shahna Mait is that it corresponds to the most ancient myths of the Zoroastrian texts, the Yashd. So you can actually find names in the Zoroastrian scriptures and in the Shahna Mare about this mythological beginning, the sort of appearance of first man who wears a leopard skin.

Then you have King Jamshed or the Yema, the Indian Yema, who introduces religion and kingship, but then he becomes very full of himself and conceited and is punished by God and loses his kingly glory. And yet there's no mention of Cyrus, of Darius or Xerxes. The greater Caymanid kings are forgotten. No, but not. by name, not by name, but some people believe that perhaps some of the kings that are celebrated

in the sort of early part may have really been echoes of Cyrus and Darius. But it's also largely because the sort of historical part or the history of Iran was rewritten by Zoroastrian priests in the 6th and 7th century AD. So a much more stronger emphasis was put on the Avesan background than the Iqueminate Persian background. Right. So, I mean, Darius, Saras not named, but Alexander is, Secanda is, but it's a kind of a very interesting, different kind of story. Now, tell us what does the Shahname say about Sekander?

Alexander is turned into a semi-Iranian in the Sharname. he becomes related to the king, the last Persian king, Dara, the third. And there is a reason for that. I mean, Alexander in the Iranian tradition couldn't have become the legitimate king of kings of Iran, because he was not Iranian. He could not have been the holder of the kingly glory that God, Ahura Mazda, the Zoroastrian wise lord, would offer and hand over to the king of kings. So in order to, in a way, make the situation plausible, he was turned into a half Persian.

I love that. And he's a very noble figure, isn't he? He comes to the dying dara and gives him succour and... Yes. Is he a man or is he sort of semi-divine? Does he give him godlike qualities as well, this second to Alexander? He's very much just a mortal who does great. But a noble mortal and an exemplary mortal.

Yeah. Vesta, what is the significance of the fact that he's so hostile to the Arabs and not obviously, although you say he's a Shia, he's not obviously an enthusiast for Islamic history? Absolutely not. I mean, he is very anti-Arab, very anti-Arab. That's so interesting. I mean, you know, sometimes a bit uncomfortably. Like what?

I mean, give us some examples of where you're cringing. We can't see that. on an audio format. Well, he does refer again and again that the Arabs destroyed everything, that the Arabs ruined the language. And there are actually references also that he makes about, sort of unpleasant. I don't want to go into that. No, but how interesting and how significant.

And how interesting that you feel as uncomfortable, it must have been, yeah, must have, must have been, pretty bad. 200 years had passed since the conquest, and yet this, this is, Obviously a very raw-war wound. Very much so. Very much so. And also, there is this story of Zahak, the usurper, who comes to the throne after the rule of Jamshed or Yima. And he introduces a period of darkness into the history of Iran. And he has made a pact with Ahreman or the devil.

And two snakes come out of his shoulders. and every day he has to feed young men to these snakes, but he's described as an arrow. Do you know what? It's a good point to take a break. Well, I was going to say, eating snakes, eating serpents, eating men. It's never a good point to take a break. But we will anyway.

Join us after the break when we hear more from our excellent guest, Vestas, our course, Curtis, and more about this extraordinary book, the Sharnameh. Welcome back. So just before the break, we were talking about sort of, the heavy and almost, I mean, it feels to me almost like the Greek myth imagery of serpents eating men and tributes. I mean, how much of the Hellenistic is kind of influential, or how much of this is a mix of different invasions, incursions, and the history of Persia itself? I don't think there is actually, not in the Shah Nama, you can't find, there aren't that

many Hellenistic features there. It's sort of very much a tradition where, you know, evil things are associated with insects and snakes. Then, of course, you have the demons from various stories like the thieves. These are people that are presented as the enemies of Iran. I mean, the main story within the Shah Name is the fire. between good and evil Iran and its opponents. And all the heroes have one task, and that is to save and protect Iran. And of course, the most important hero,

the Jahan Pahlavan, the hero of the world, is Rustam. Tell us more about Rustam. So those who don't know, I mean, both of you have been discussing Ristram because you know, but who is he? What is his story and why is he so important? Oh, he is the hero who,

lives in the Shah Nama for 400 years. He is the hero that survives many kings and he helps kings and he protects the frontiers of Iran. He is the son of Zal and Rudaabe. And it's very interesting how he comes to this world, how his father, Zal, was brought up by a legendary bird. When Zal is born, he is completely white. He may have been an albino, we don't know. And the father is shocked to see this baby. And he says, I don't want to have anything to do with this and abandons the baby. The baby is then rescued by the legendary Seymourg, a bird that takes Zol up to the Albor's mountains

and brings up Zal as its own baby son. And then the father of Zal has a dream that his son is somewhere in the mountains being brought up by a bird, legendary bird, and the father decides that time has come, he's done a terrible thing, and he has to go and rescue his child. So he goes to the top of the Albuhr's mountains and sees this bird and ask the bird to return his son to him. Eventually, Rostam is returned and something magic happens. Zal tells, or Simurk, the bird, tells Zal, if you are ever in trouble, light my feather. And he gives him a few feathers. And I will come to your rescue.

Time passes. Zal and Rudaabe. Zal marries Rudaubé and they expect a child. and the child is Rostam. But because he is so big, a natural birth is impossible. And there are actually illuminations. There are beautiful paintings where Rudabe is lying there, you know, and she is in pain. And her husband takes a feather and brushes it onto her tummy.

Because the bird appears and says, oh, she needs a C-section. she needs to be cut up. Wow. And Rostom comes out and Ferdosi describes how he is a beautiful infant but like an elephant. Like an elephant. Hence the C-section. Hence the C-section. So the story of Rostam is magnificent.

He continues to grow up. He becomes a very famous hero. And he moves continuously from one part of the country to the other. Fighting off the Turanians. Turanians, yes. And his most famous enemy, Afrasia. Afrasyab is the embodiment of everything that is anti-Iran. Anti-Iran.

And then there is the story that, of course, Rostam goes to Samangan, which is in modern-day Afghanistan. and he meets the daughter of the king of Kabul, falls in love, and then spends a night with her. And before he leaves, he gives her an armlet and says, if you ever become pregnant or have a child of mine, if it's a boy, use this as an omelet on his arm and if it's a girl, put it in her hair. And Rostam moves away from Samangangar and gives birth to a child, to a son called Sohrab. And of course, Matthew Arnold has this wonderful poem of Sohraub and Rostam, which deals exactly with this story. And now you've got to finish that story. What happens? Yes. Well, I was going to say, can you read a little bit of it in Persian and then finish the story?

because I'd love to hear what this epic poem sounds like in its original language, if it's at all possible. Yes, what is very moving is the end of this story, because Rostam decides to go to Iran and find his father. But both the Iranians and the Turanians are not very keen that these two people should meet, particularly the Turanians, the eastern enemies, they're worried that Sohrab would go to the enemy, and they would lose the battle against Iran. So he goes out with his horse, and every time he asks about Rostam, nobody gives him really clear answers. And then he meets Rostam on the battlefield,

because Rostam is also not told that his son is coming to find him, and these two start fighting with each other. And Rostam eventually wounds or inflicts a heavy wound on Sohra. And as he's lying there on the ground, he says, wait till my father finds out that you have killed me. And Rostam says, well, who is your father? And he says, it's Rostam. And Rostam cries and is. He's just beyond himself.

And then, Rostam says, in Persian, "'Konon gert to in a-a-haw-hye-shawee, "'Bechon shab, and in darky-shabee, "'bechahat him as to, peder-kine of me, "'ch, that's baleen of me. "'Chorostam, shenied, this shokan gyrrish, "'ch, jahon, pish of his tier-dard-hast. "'He says, Sohraub says,

"'There's no point in you crying. Even if you become a fish and disappear into waters, my father will come and take revenge when he sees that my pillow is made of earth, of the ground. And Rustam, when he sees that, the whole world turns black in front of him. And then he says, well, open your tunic. So Herob opens his tunic. He sees the armlet.

So he knows it's true and he's killed his own son. Yeah, yeah. And Fadousi lost his son, didn't he? There's a lament. Yes. And this is like an unusual thing because it is so very personal, you know, it comes out of the stories of kings and the stories of legend. It's absolutely magnificent.

It's painful. It really is painful. I mean, the whole story. It's beautiful. And yes, it probably reminded Ferdosi of his own son. Maybe we'll read a little. William, you and I, and then maybe we'll read a little, William, you and then maybe will hear Vest to do some of it in the original Persian. Now that I'm more than 65 years old,

it would be wrong of me to hope for gold. Better to heed my own advice and grieve that my dear son is dead. Why did he leave? I should have gone. But no, the young man went and left his lifeless father to lament. I longed to overtake him. When I do, I'll say, I should have quit the world, not you. And in your going, my beloved boy, You left your father destitute of joy. You were my help in adversity. Why now I'm old have you abandoned me? Did you perhaps find younger friends who led you from my side to travel on ahead?

At 37, his unhappy heart despaired and he was ready to depart. When difficulties came, he'd always shown me kindness. Now he's left me here alone. He went while grief and grief. bitter tears remain, and inward suffering and heartfelt pain. He's gone into the light, and he'll prepare a place of welcome his dear father there. So many years have passed, and surely he is waiting there impatiently for me. May God illuminate your soul, my son, and wisdom keep you safe where you have gone. That's Dick Davis's translation of Faddao's lament for his own son.

Yeah, what did happen to his son? What did happen to Fadhaas he said? We don't know what happened, but he died. He probably died of an illness, yes. How does the Shana may conclude? I mean, where does it take us up to? Well, Rustam dies. Rostam is killed by his half-brother. Again, you know, you have all the time the sort of forces of goodness and evil. And his half-brother, Shahad, builds a pit full of arrows and daggers and swords. and somehow lures Rostam into the pit together with Rakhs. And Rachsh tries to warn Rostam not to go near the pit. Rach, the horse.

The horse, yeah. And then they fall into the pit and Rostam is so much wounded that he can't survive. But at the very end, he manages to hit out on his brother and kill him, the half-brother. And that's how this Shoshnami finishes. And what is the origin of the story of Rustam? Is it an oral tradition? Is it from the Zoroastrian tradition? Where does its roots lie?

No, interestingly not. It's not. And we think, I mean, Rostam himself, or Ferdozi, C, describes him as a king of Sistan, which is southeastern Iran, Afghanistan. He describes him as a Sagsi, as a Sarkar, a Scythian. I mean, these are Iranian people. who live in eastern Iran. And he is a local king there.

Interestingly enough, his name does not appear in the Avestan scriptures. And it is thought that he comes from an eastern Iranian tradition, not actually at all related to Zoroastrian heroes. Interesting. It's interesting because I know so many Zoroastrians who call their children Rustom. So many Russians and Anahitas and Gustavs and yeah. Yeah, very important figure actually amongst the Zoroastrians and Parsis. The poetry is so moving.

I mean, the translation was moving when you read it to just the lilting nature of the sound is so transporting. So when he delivers the shana me, do people immediately recognize his genius? Is he, I mean, is he glorified and does he bathe in the glory of his work? No, he does not. I mean, certainly. the people who should have glorified his work, the ruler, Sultan Mahmoud of Ghazne, does not appreciate it. And he goes back to his hometown of Tews, really upset and very discouraged. He gives away the silver coins.

He regards it as such a paltry payment. He knew how much his work was worth. Yes. And Sultan Mahmoud is then convinced by his courtiers and his... nobles, that this is really a very important piece of work. And when he sends out an envoy to find Ferdosi, Ferdosi has died. Oh my goodness. So he dies. He dies without his work being recognized. Well, he doesn't, yes, he doesn't realize, he doesn't realize how he is going to be loved and cherished. Can I just read some of the lines of, you know, that reaction he had to the silver coins

rather than the gold coins. Because it is actually, it's glorious. It's in the shana me. I mean, he's pissed off and he writes, he writes exactly how he feels. After 65 years had passed over my head, I toiled ever more diligently with greater difficulty at my task. I searched out the history of kings, but my star was a laggard one. Nobles and great men wrote down that I had written without paying me. I watched them from a distance, as if I was a hired servant of theirs. I had nothing from them, but their congratulations. My gallbladder was ready to burst with their congratulations. Their purses of hoarded coins remained closed and my bright heart grew weary at their stinginess. I love it. It's funny because it's, Mechmanu Ghazni is someone who's hated both in the Indian tradition

and in the Persian tradition. In India, he's hated for destroying temples in Persia. He's hated for not rewarding Ferdousie with what his work was worth. So Vesta, who tells the story of poor Fandauzi not being paid for his work or already getting pathetic silver coins? Later poets. Later poets, like I mentioned, Nizami Arousi. They describe this and we know that from various sources. I've seen beautiful miniatures again of Ferdozzi walking away from the gates of Mehmed's Palace. That must be from Nizami.

Yeah. So, I mean, we've covered the poor death of Ferdorsi. And I mean, it's such a tragic end and just not what he's. he deserved. Was his funeral at least? You know, was it held with great reverence? Or even then, he was not really, not really, even his death wasn't recognized. No, no, he didn't have a great funeral. In fact, we know that his tomb was actually attacked and destroyed for a while. But again, Nazami Arusi in the early, very beginning of the 12th century, says that his tomb was rebuilt and it became a site of pilgrimage for Iranians. So at the time of his death, no, he definitely wasn't

celebrated. And we should say that when he died, he died in Tabaristan on the southeast coast of the Caspian. And he did have a Persian chief named Ispabud? Yes. Who looked after him in his old age. Yes. And the story about Mahmoudou Ghazni, there's this lovely moment when someone actually quotes a verse from Fadozzi. And Mammuz looks up and says, oh, that's wonderful. who wrote that. And it's that point that he realizes what he's done wrong and offers 60,000 gold dinars. And the messenger goes to find him and the news comes. He's just died. And it's too late. Yeah, yeah, too late. Let's talk about the resurgence of both the Persian language, the Persian culture and Ferdosi himself. Tell us a little bit about when that happens.

Well, this happens with with Ferdosi, because with his Shah Nameh, he starts a new tradition. And there are various other books about heroes, about kings, that are produced after Ferdosi and from the 13th, 14th century onwards. And the Mongols, of course, seized on this idea of kingship in order to legitimize their rule and produced magnificent Shahnames, illustrated Shahnames, in Iran. The Ilkanids in Tabriz, particularly. Ilkanids of, yeah, absolutely, yes. So he really started a tradition that continued right through to the 19th, early 20th century under the Khadjars. We should also say that something very important happens also in the Mongol period. The initial Mongol invasions, which are catastrophic for Khadrasan, where the Persian language is being preserved and the flame is being kept.

alive, produces this wave of refugees. Today, in our own time, we've seen what happened in Syria during the war, and Syria is a small country, and these refugees have flooded across the Mediterranean, have entered Turkey and so on. The same happens on a much, much greater scale with Genghis Khan. And all these persons, speakers, Rumi, for example, flees to Anatolia, but many flee to the New Delhi Sultanate, which has just been founded in North India. And this is like a bridgehead. It's very fragile. It's got no culture. It's just a bunch, rather like the American West in the kind of 1850s. And this sudden surge of Persian speaking, highly educated. Persian excellence washes up. Persian excellence. Come here and you find suddenly in sort of the 1240s, 50s, this blossoming of Persianate.

culture in the Delhi Sultan. It had previously been a very Philistine and very rough and tumble warrior world. And you have the first great madrasas opening up in Delhi at Hauskars. And Persian becomes the language of diplomacy and literature in India. And by the Mughal period in the 16th and 17th, there are more books being written in Persian in India than in the old Iranian lands. It is only the British conquest in the 1830s that ends that Persian tradition and nips it in the bud. Yeah, absolutely, yes. Then you get also in with the Safavids, when the Safavids re-establish Iran, as in the sense of nation state, a country named Iran, not just a land of the Persians, a place

where the Persian language and Persian culture is kept alive, but the Safavids bring back the geography of Iran. And they reach for the Shah Namae as a national text, don't they? Absolutely. And you have magnificent illustrated Shah Names, produced at Tabriz, in Ghazvin. Shah Tamas, particularly, arguably the greatest of all the shahnames. And in Herat as well. And the great, great school. But they bring, I think the Safavids bring the best of the scribes and the painters from Herat. They mix them with the best of the vest of the painters in Tabriz. They bring them together in one place and the result of the Shahnameh of Shatamas, which is to Persian art of that period, what Ferdousi is to,

it's the great masterpiece. We will leave it in your hands on how to actually leave this wonderful epic and emotional story, Vesta. What are the lines that we should be left with? I think I would like to finish off with the beginning of the Shahname and Ferdot's words, which are equally moving as all the other stories. And to me, it's quite significant that he starts off in praise of God, but he uses the Zoroastrian terms of the Lord of Wisdom, right? He says, Be name of Godavand de Jahn and Chirat,

kazin'bara endishe barna gharat. Godawand Naum and Godawand Jai Chhavand Ruzi de her Rahnamai

says in the name of the Lord of both wisdom and mind This is Ahura Mazda It's lovely And it is perfect

To nothing sublime Can thought be applied The Lord of whatever is named or assigned A place in the Sustainer of All And the guide I think I'd like to

finish off here. It can't be more beautiful. I can't think of a better way. Well, you've brought us full circle and so beautifully and so elegantly. Vesta, thank you so much. And with that, my pleasure. That's it from Empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William Duremberg.