In Our Time - Shahnameh of Ferdowsi

Episode Date: December 13, 2012

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the epic poem the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, the 'Book of Kings', which has been at the heart of Persian culture for the past thousand years. The poem recounts a legendary history of Iran from the dawn of time to the fall of the Persian Empire in the 7th century and serves, in a sense, as a creation myth for the Persian nation. The Shahnameh took Ferdowsi thirty years to write and, consisting of over 50,000 verses, is said to be the longest poem ever written by a single author. Laced with tragedy, Ferdowsi's epic chronicles battles, romances, family rifts and Man's interior struggle with himself. Although the stories may not always be true they have a profound resonance with Iranians even today, and the poem has been referred to as both the 'encyclopaedia of Iranian culture' and the identity card of the Persian people. With:Narguess Farzad Senior Fellow in Persian at SOAS, University of LondonCharles Melville Professor of Persian History at Pembroke College at the University of CambridgeVesta Sarkhosh Curtis Curator of Middle Eastern Coins at the British Museum Producer: Natalia Fernandez.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk forward slash radio 4. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, over 1,000 years ago in 1010 AD, the Persian poet Fadoci finished, finished writing his epic poem,

The Chamonet or Book of Kings. It had taken him 30 years to complete and consisting of some 50,000 verses it's the longest poem ever written by a single author. Fiddoz's aim was to narrate the history of the world from a Persian perspective, from the beginning of time up until the Arab conquest in the 7th century

and to preserve the myths and legends of days gone by. It's a sweeping masterpiece full of battles and bloodshed, kings and queens, love and hate, heroes and villains, but the Chamonais is more than just a storybook, more than just a poem. Indeed, it's sometimes described as the Encyclopedia of Iranian culture and the identity card of the Persian people.

Today, the Chamoné occupies a place at the heart of Iranian culture, proof that its themes, message, and symbolism are just as resonant in the 21st century as there were a millennium ago. With me to discuss the Chamonair Fadoci are Vesta Sajaj Kirtis, curator of Middle Eastern coins at the British Museum, Charles Melvin, Professor of Persian History

at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Pembroke College, and Nagas Vazard, senior fellow in Persian at Soas, the University of London. Besta Zahoskirtis, before we go into the detail of the Jhmane, can you give us a sense of what kind of place 10th century Persia was? A very interesting place, I would say, because this was the time when local dynasts all over Persia or Iran in the south, in the centre, in the north, and in the northeast,

created a national identity for themselves, And this is where the setting of the Shah Namae comes in. Because at the time of the Shahnameh, the Samanids were ruling over northeastern Iran and what is also Central Asia and northern Afghanistan. And these Sarmamonids were very keen to revive the Persian language, Persian traditions and Persian history, and even created an ancestry for themselves, which linked them to these.

Sassanian kings of pre-Islamic Persia. So it's a flourishing time for Persian poetry, Persian literature, and we also have at this time the sort of emergence of poets, both male and I must say female poets in this area. And new Persian has developed out of the middle Persian of the Sassanian period. So a wonderful, interesting and vibrant people. period we have. Was there a sense in which it was an occupied country, the Arabs had taken over, Islam had swept in at the end of the 7th century, and so that's a few centuries before Fadozzi started to write. Was there a sense that they were fighting against a few hundred years on, quite remarkably, an occupation? It is remarkable, but A, the Islamization of the

country did not happen at once. The Arabs came in, but they left often local governors in the country and also local rulers in the area. And then a lot of areas actually converted quite late to Islam and kept their Zoroastrian faith going. But it is interesting and actually remarkable of Iran that this revival happened because when you look at it, it's the only country in the whole region that has retained its identity and its language, the Persian language. What do we know about Fidesu's own background? Quite a bit. We know, for example, from another poet, Nizami Arousi, who came from Samakant,

and he visited Ferdosi's tomb about 100 years later that Ferdosi came from a background of landed gentry. The name Ferdosi is a poetic name. It comes from the Persian Paradis of Ferdos, meaning paradisal. He was married. He had two children. He lost his son when he was in his 20s, and Ferdosi actually in the Shah Narmé writes about him, about his sorrow. He started writing this epic around the age of 30, in his 30s he was. And it says that it took him 25 years to, in his own words, to build this tall palace, verse that no wind or rain could destroy, and indeed it hasn't.

So it took him 25 years, he went to the court of the Sultan, and that was the end. Charles Melvin, what did he hope to achieve in writing the Chamonet? Well, I think, as Vesta just mentioned, he was a product of his time. This is a time when perhaps the familiarity with Persian kind. customs and traditions may have been hanging on, but in threat of dying out, as people converted more and more, Arabic culture became more and more acceptable at court. And there was a background. I mean, we know that there were other shahnamas written beforehand in prose.

People had been collecting these stories. So I think his main aim was to pull all this stuff together, and particularly since a lot of it was from oral sources and some written sources, which we really have very little idea about. to preserve it in poetry. And I think he had the idea that these things would be retained much better in poetry. This is something of a literary topos, but we see it reflected later in other chroniclers, for instance,

who have a prose chronicle, and they think the only way to really preserve this and to make it alive is to put it into verse. So I think it was partly an antiquarian, an academic exercise, simply of drawing together all this material. but of course it wasn't simply a nostalgic look back. I mean, I'm absolutely convinced that there was a programme of, well, reasserting Persian cultural values, but also this great ethical and didactic intention about rulership,

about what makes good government, and setting up some sort of an ideal for rulers. And this must be seen in the context of his own time as well, which was very turbulent really in terms of changing dynasties. so on. So I think it's partly a book of education and political ethics as well as just using these stories to recall the ancient

past. So in brief and perhaps rather crudely, he, a few centuries on, was saying, no, we are still Persian, this is our culture, this is what we're going to hold on to, despite your attempt to convert us, which has been quite successful in some areas, we're going to go back to what we were and hold on to it, and I am

going to give you the material with which you can do that. I'm not sure about go back to where we were before. I mean, I think it's a mistake to think that he and really almost anybody else by the early 11th century were seriously thinking of overthrowing the whole of the Islamic. No, I didn't mean that. I mean, interestingly, he was doing it culturally, wasn't it?

Yes. I think it's mainly a language, but also the customs, you know, because obviously with a new religion, you get new festivals and new... ceremony, new ritual. And he was really reasserting the importance of the ancient Persian customs, obviously particularly no ruse, the New Year thing, celebration, but also the discovery of father, the Sadei festival and so on. So I think it's saying we mustn't forget this stuff. We don't necessarily have to think it's even superior to what we've got now, but it's partly

so memorize it, I think. You talk about early efforts being made to do with this. There's one particular effort that had been made, and he appropriated. quite a bit about the man had started and he'd been killed by one of his slaves but there were three or four thousand lines or something like two or three thousand lines left and he seems to have taken those on board also from the notes

he seems to have gone and interviewed people checked his sources quite carefully the historical thing insofar as every king mentioned was a king that can be corroborated and so on well you see we don't really know almost anything except what's in the poem itself whether he was actively

going around. I slightly have the feeling that people were coming to him, but I'm not, there's no evidence either way. He was certainly collecting material. He may have gone around in a relatively limited scope in Chorasan, which is where his base was. I think it's important to remember he wasn't at court. He wasn't an official poet. He was a man working for love of this material on his own estate at home, and he really didn't have any resources other than his own wealth. And he was given a tax break by the local governor who was appreciative of what he was doing. But beyond that, we really hardly know anything about it. He mentions some names, but they're probably secondhand.

I mean, they're not necessarily people who talk to himself. So he was collecting this stuff from a variety of sources. But when, insofar as you can test it, does it stand up to the tests that you apply? Well, when we have a written source based on similar materials to the materials he was using, it's clearly the same origin, yes. But that's probably the written material, though. The trouble is there's obviously no surviving oral material. So the other written sources that have the same stories that Ferdasi has,

they're more or less, you can tell that they come from the same origin. Would the people he was talking to or talking to him or coming to him to talk to him, would they be talking in Persian? Well, I imagine so, yes. So the language would have persisted, as it were? Yes, this is, as best to say, is the great thing. I mean, Persian, obviously people went on speaking Persian, whether how many Arabs or anybody else come, the Turks, it doesn't matter, but as a literary language,

to come out again as a vehicle for literature, this is the remarkable thing, really, that it was revived really by Ferdosi and his contemporaries. Nagas Vazard, Charles has alluded to this, but can you tell us a bit more of the style and format that he adopted? Absolutely. The poem, as you mentioned, is a very long single author. narrative. It's over 50,000 rhyming couplets. So there's

a rhyme scheme which may not appeal to British people who don't value rhyme in poetry so much, but this is a cornerstone of Persian, classical poetry. And there is a metrical rhythm

to it, which lends itself for all sorts of occasions, for describing battle scenes, for romances, for banquets, hunting, etc. And it also helps the audience to memorize this poem, which was crucial for its longevity

and passing it on. It is twice as long, if not longer than Odyssey and Iliad and the Odyssey put together. And Ferdosi is really a master, craftsman, of the language. Although

this metrical system, so the fixed number of, you know, long and short syllables. You can see that a battle scene when it's described for example, you give you an example. Can you read in Persian? Absolutely. For example, he describes a hand-to-hand combat and if you listen to it,

Zadash barzamin, barbikir, a very fast, you know, exchange of blows. However, for example, when one of the heroes is, you know, Rostam's son is slayed and you suddenly feel the language is almost mourning. with this and the syllables become longer Kero on a-madin-pich

K'omad-maro. They're sort of almost really whining sound to it. And so can you tell us anything more about the construction is in rhyming couplets? The couplets, we think of rhyme and couplets, we'd probably think of Alexander Pope but they're not quite like that, are they? They're not like that. I mean, it's

imagine, you know, 50,000 verses and the Persian gives you enough opportunity is not to repeat this rhyme. So you have, you know, these lines of So you have A, A, B, B, etc. So, for example, if I tell you, you know, Tavana bovad, her kedana no, bavad,

Zedaniš dele Pyr, borna bavad. And then the next line will have another rhyme. What would the next line be? Well, I mean, for example, you know. Very unfair, isn't it? No, no, no, no, for example. No, no, no, I can say, you know, Basi Rangch borneged in Salaulsi,

I jam zentee car, bide, so you had, you know, Bovat, Bavat, par si, Farsi, and so on, and so on. and so on and so forth, all the combination of, you know, 32 letters of the alphabet, so you have lots of room to play with. And there's a break in the middle of the line, wasn't it? Absolutely. So each line is divided into two equal weighting. So if you like, you sort of have 11 syllables, a pause,

and then the next 11 syllables, and both, you know, the final syllables of each 11 will rhyme. Does he play around with this at all? Does he stick to it strictly? He has to stick to it strictly. This is non-negotiable, so the meter is fixed. But there is room for maneuver within there to lend it. It's almost like follows your heartbeat.

If you are excited and you're relating, for example, a message obviously is faster. If you are leaning back enjoying a banquet and, you know, sipping your wine and admiring the beautiful beings around you, then it's more leisurely. but still within a fairly controlled parameter. Is Fidoci trying deliberately to bring back into common usage, words that may have dropped out and dropped away? Is it searching in the recesses of the past of the language? Well, again, it's hard to say.

Of course, we have, you know, middle Persian sources, and what do I mean by that? Persian is one of the few languages that you can see this development, that, you know, we understand, obviously, you know, Shah Nomi is a thousand years old, and we have no problem understanding it. And going back further to 6th century, 7th century, the words were common words that literate, you know, the elite obviously used. Perhaps he has borrowed words from a couple of centuries earlier, which would be middle person.

But most of the vocabulary is what would have been... used. Thank you. Broadly speaking, if you can, any more, anytime you want to code,

please do it. Well, I think myself in the listeners can't hear enough of it. So, and Bester,

it's brutally divided into three parts. Myths, heroes in history. Can you tell us about the part that deals with the myths, the

first part, please. The first part starts with the first man, who is a cave dweller, the human being who hunts,

who collects animals and then gradually tames animals. So we have a series of personalities. Then we come to the first ruler who introduces religion. It's a very important point. And then you talk about Zoroastrianism. And you have the ruler who introduces Zoroastrian traditions and festivals. The ruler king par excellence in the mythological section, and of course is Jamshed, who is the same as the Verdi Kiima.

And he introduces the throne, he introduces religion. He also introduces the Iranian New Year, the Nooruz, who is to this date celebrated on 21st of March. But as it often happens in the Shah Narmé, the king becomes too full of himself, he becomes too arrogant, and he starts to see himself as the absolute power. And that's when evil strikes. That's when the symbol of kingship, the Farre Izadi, abandons him. Is it a foolish question to say, have we any idea of dates when Zoroastrianism came in

and not when the first man was created in the cave? But when religion began to enter into the minds of these people, Are we actually just saying, look, this is the past, this is our deep past, and leave it at that? He doesn't give us any dates, and he certainly covers thousands of years in the mythological section. But we can certainly say that the time when religion did come into the lives of the Persians is probably sometime around the 6th century BC. This does not mean that Zorasta himself lived around that time, because some people say he was. was around 11, around 1,000 BC, some people say around 6th century BC, but probably the introduction of religion, that's the time, 6th century BC.

Charles Melville, there's myths and then we go to the legends. Could you tell us about one or two of the most, well, one, to start with, of the most significant ones? This is probably for most people the core of the poem, really, because this is where the great famous stories come, the stories of the heroes in the K.R. There are many, many stories, aren't there? Many stories, really.

But one of the most famous is the one of Rustam and Sohra, where the father kills the son by mistake. But I think the most important one, really, is the story of Siar Vush, who is a young prince, and he's brought up by Rustam, the hero, out of the court. And he comes back to court, and of course he's a sort of paragon of virtue. He's beautiful, handsome, strong, all the rest of it,

with all the princely virtues. And his father rather foolishly suggests he go into the harem and choose a wife. And the king's own wife, who's called Sudarbe, of course, immediately fancies him and thinks that really she is for him. And he's a very innocent young man, and this is the key to the whole tragedy, really, that he runs away. And his father keeps sending him back, like jokes, you have to do it three times, really,

and then you get the punchline, and he rejects her, essentially. I mean, you can see we're already in the sort of Potiphar's wife, the Yusufon Zelaka, sort of thing. And she accuses him of raping her. and he then has to go through an ordeal by fire to prove his innocence and he rides his horse through this great Coohi Arteche, this great mountain of fire with everybody watching. Of course, he emerges unscathed. But as you can imagine, things at court are fairly difficult after that.

So he is sent off on a campaign to fight the traditional enemy, the Turanians, across the oxus. And he goes and he makes a peace with them. And his father, this foolish king, K. Carv, vuss insists that they don't respect the peace but carry on fighting because they're winning. And he feels that he can't go back on his word because he's a man of honor. And so he goes over to the enemy. And of course this is potentially a moment of enormous significance

because this could be east and west, as it were, getting together and all the ancient feuds finished. And he's welcomed at court. He marries Afra al-Siyarb's daughter. This is the ruler of Tehran. But then we get another very significant thing, which is the in Persian political history and not just in Iran, you get the sort of backbiting and the slanders at court. People start getting jealous of him.

They say he's not what he seems. He's after your throne. What are you doing? Welcoming this Iranian prince into Tehranian territory and so on. And the result is that he's killed. But he's killed in a very interesting way because he has a sort of premonition that he's going to his death when he answers the summons to court.

And he's slaughtered, really. like an animal with his throat being cut and the blood falling into a dish. And why this is important is, first of all, he's a complete innocent. So we get into the whole narrative of martyrdom, which is a very powerful strand in a Persian religious psychology, I would say. But also this idea that he somehow knew he was doing it. There's almost a sacrificial element. And why this is particularly interesting is because we have exact,

the same sort of paradigm in Shiite Islam, which is the main Iranian form of Islam, with the martyrdom of Hussein, who's murdered, he's an innocent, Ali, who's basically politically naive, more or less, I wouldn't say necessarily an innocent, but, you know, like this. So it's a very, a very important parable, I think, that explains a lot about other things in Persian culture. That's only one of about six stories. I was able to devote a day on Brady or just to having these stories. Yes. I was looking forward to Rostam

and it's horrible the way of it. I don't think we have time with that, but that was wonderful. Right. Nagasar Fazade, can you draw parallels between the stories in the Chamonet and Western tradition? Yes, I think

perhaps they do come from certain sources which have fed through so many of our cultures that, you know, there are some of them are biblical stories, Old Testament, the stories that perhaps Hellenic civilizations shared with, you see them earlier in Babylonian stories, etc.

There's always... They're swirling around that area, right? Very much so. And there are, you know, these themes like immortality, the battles between good and evil, kings and heroes, or it could be, you know, fathers and sons, and father and son could be the divine and the king, the ruler and the ruled.

There's always trying to somehow get a... as close to immortality as you can. But of course, you know, you can't sell that. So you have the, you know, Achilles, for example, that he was, when he was dipped in the holy water, and it's where his nanny held it. So that's his soft spot. Well, in Persian version...

So that was his heel. He's a heel rather, yes, absolutely. And in the Persian version, for example, you have Espandior, who is, as a baby when he was bathed in his water. But what do babies do, close their eyes? Obviously, he's weak spots where his eyes, and that's where it would lead to his downfall. And there are, you know, selling your soul to the devil. And of course, there will be payback time.

You know, he will want his due and a bit more. Romances, infidelity, whether it is to your society. So there are these universal themes. And of course, also what my colleague, Andrew George, has often been on this program. There's always a baby in the basket, too, you know, this theme of, you know, Moses. as there was every, you know, Superman even in modern times, they recur. Noble born, but rather lowly brought up,

and of course they will return to reclaim their, you know, birthright. Yes, there's that book about there are only seven stories. Yes, yeah. Anyway, back to you for a moment, Charles, were the stories of romance, aren't there in this epic? Yes. Can you give us one small, shorter? A very short one.

Well, my favourite is the story of Bijian and Manizet. There are other romances. I have to say women are mainly cardboard characters. They're just there to produce an air on the whole. But this is a nice story. It's a kind of Romeo and Juliet type of thing. We have a young Iranian prince called Bijan who goes off to slaughter some wild beasts. His companion gets jealous and he wants to sort of trick him

and he says you ought to go and see the beautiful princess Manuja, who is the Turanian princess who happens to be in camping grounds nearby. He lies under a tree. all insoucian, and she spots him and sends her nurse over to summon him to her tent. So she's a sort of non-Islamic sort of woman, a sort of powerful lady doing what she wants to do. They have three days of joy together in the encamping ground, and then she drugs him and takes him back to her palace in enemy territory. And he wakes up and he's pretty frightened by this.

I have to say the romance could easily have been over for him at that point. But they go on having fun since there's no alternative. And then, of course, this is spotted and he's arrested and he's about to be hung up when the wise advisor says, I wouldn't do that because the Iranians will be coming to get him and, you know, this will provoke yet another war. And so he's incarcerated in a pit. It's a bit like Pyramus and Phisbee in the wall. And then the Mnizier is also kicked out of the palace and she feeds him through a crack into his pit.

And anyway, word gets back to Rustam, the hero from Iran. and he goes to Tehran disguised as a merchant, and Manizier meets him and leads him back to where the pit is, and of course he pulls him out, and then there are some excellent battles, and they all get back happily ever after. And I think that's an important point, too, because so many stories end in tears, really, but this is from a different tradition.

I think it comes from the Parthian storytellers, and it seems to be slightly out-of-kilt with some of the other legends. Anyway, it is a genuine romance. or it's a light interlude, I should say, between all the fighting. Buster, could you then take us to the final section, which is about history? Yes, it starts with the Sasanian dynasty, that is from 2-24 AD, and finishes with the Islamic conquest of Iran

and the death of the last Sasanian emperor in 651. And it gives us a very accurate list of kings about their rules, about their deeds, And it is basically here, as in the heroic section, as well as in the mythological section, it's all about keeping Iran, the idea of Iran, the territory of Iran intact. This is the theme that goes through the Shah Nameh and is also very evident in the last section when all these different kings are talked about. And the important point is for every single ruler that in order to have the symbol of power, the glory of God,

he has to be a legitimate ruler. The minute that the gods or God realize that he is either lying or he is not telling the truth, the divine glory abandons. It's called the Book of Kings, and is he instructing kings, in this. He's setting examples to the rulers of the time. And

it is also a eulogy of the traditions of the pre-Islamic kings. And it is definitely a sort of book that tells the rulers how to behave. To what extent, Marcus, is this based on fact?

Charles has mentioned it. It's a bit worried about there being any solid basis for this. Are you as worried as he is? Yes. I think, you know, we like to think, I mean, I speak as an Iranian, and I'd like to think it's absolutely accurate. You know, he tells our story as it was. But I think, I mean, Charles is much better placed as a historian.

That, no, I think, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, the other parallel documents don't, you know, it's a fictional version of real history of Iran, perhaps. Best are shaking your head. No putting up the whole thing. I don't agree. I mean, I find. very accurate, obviously, like every poet, like every epic, there is an extent of exaggeration.

And we Iranians always love to exaggerate everything. But it is extraordinary how accurate is descriptions of kings when it particularly comes to the historic period. And also, don't forget, the whole mythological period, the heroic period that is pushed in between is the description of the Parthian period from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD. So it's very, very important. And he does provide, you know, to some extent,

an accurate record. I think for the Sasanian period, it's recognised to be accurate history in the sense that the kings are in the right order and he's going through the rulers in the dynasty, and this is supported by their coins and things that to know is much better than me. But the point is he's not trying,

to write a history. I mean, it really is didactic. You know, every ruler comes to the throne, as best I mentioned, they're trying to set out a blueprint, but they have this throne speech about what they're going to do. I'm going to, like a compact, I'm going to rule with justice, I'm not going to violate anybody's families and all these sort of oppressions that happen. And the other important point is that the ruler, it's a bit like Alexander and Aristotle. Every ruler has to have a wise vizier. And they have these questions, I mean, almost insanely boring actually. Great chunks of the Shah army are given over to these sort of question and answer.

What do you do if you want to be a good ruler? Do you do this? And then the vizier Bozov Mertre comes along and gives his speech. They have six of these sessions. And it's really educational. I mean, it's all about wisdom, practical politics, ruling justly

and effectively. So although it's history, it's history used as an example. You know, it's drawing on history for the present time or as a motto. He's not going through events. I mean, there's no chronological sense. There's no, we have a Nushiavan going off

and conquering Antioch at some point. There's obviously a historical fact, but there are no dates on this. He's not going through the events of any reign. So it's not history in that sense. Now, I guess, how is it received? Well, there are many accounts of this story, but obviously Shahnorm has started being put together

during the summer needs. But by the time, 30 years later, Ferdosi had finished his book and was ready to present it to the monarch. There was a new king on the throne, the Ghaznavi, so Sultan Mahmoud. And there are many accounts that say that originally Sultan had promised him that for every line he would give him a gold coin, so 60,000 gold coins. Ferdousi had many enemies in the court. So when he came to present a book, legend has it that a minister made sure that he

received 60,000 silver coins. Ferdosi was greatly insulted. But one, within hindsight, we have to look that perhaps imagine David Cameron having to pay for something that was commissioned by Gordon Brown. I mean, he may not be jumping up and down saying, why do I want...

I think there's nowhere to go. So there are probably politics involved and the court here. So anyway, legend has it that Ferdosi was so insulted that he went to the bathhouse and ordered some drinks all round and gave them money to those who were there.

Of course, the Sultan heard of this was furious, and Ferdos he went into his hiding. By the time, people actually told Sultan Mahmoud that this is good stuff, you know, you really ought to put your name to this, and it will immortalise your reign.

He sent to make amends, and legend has it that as the caravan of gold and silver and spices and, you know, silk, arouse, indigo, especially, arrived the cortege taking

Ferdoz's body out of his city, left. So he never saw this. They say that he died a poor man, although he didn't start life being poor. I mean, he was a landed gentry. But that's the account we have.

So Charles Marlman, this great poem, The Chamon, seems to have taken some time to find its place and its audience. I think there's evidence that it was obviously survived for afterwards, even though it didn't get a great reception perhaps at court.

But other poets were aware of it. We find references to it scattered. We know that some of the palaces of the rulers had scenes from the Shah Name on their palace walls. So it's there, but it's hidden in some way. Why did it take off as it were, excuse me, sorry about this. Why did it take off as it were in the 13th century?

Well, this is a very important point because it's associated with the coming of the Mongols, which ostensibly you'd think would be culturally disastrous, and a lot of Iranians think it was the end of civilization after the Arab invasion. But in fact, the Mongols were coming from Inner Asia. They were barbarian. They were completely outside the pale, as it were, and they needed to be educated, and this is absolutely critical thing.

And some of the Persian bureaucrats, especially a man called Giovanni, first of all, he wrote a chronicle of the Denghis Khan's invasions, liberally filled with quotations from the Shah Narmie and using it as a sort of paradigm for the Iranians and the Turanians of the past. But they were educating the rulers into, you know, you've conquered Iran, they've sort of wrested it away from the Arab world and the Islamic world. What are you going to do with Iran as an ancient empire and sort of putting back into their minds the idea that now you're ruling an Iranian empire?

And for this, the Shah Name became the book. and suddenly after really this long period, of course, as I say, we've got evidence it obviously existed, but there are no physical evidence, no physical remains. The earliest manuscript dates from 1217. It's 200 years after Ferdasi wrote right at the beginning of the Mongol Pid. And the second one, which is in the British Library, it's the first complete copy, is dated 1276, which is exactly the date that Giovanni was operating as the vizier, as the minister, and building this great palace in tactical.

Suleiman, quotations from the Shah Narmé all over the tiles. So there's no doubt at all that it's really being used as the primary tool to sort of massage the Mongols into the sort of acceptable shape to be Iranian rulers. It's wonderful, isn't it? Yeah, it's fantastic. The book turns the Mongols round and brings them very much on those who've kept preserving pre-Islamic time. So as it was 600 years on, they've won again and they're putting it through. Vesta, can you tell us, can you take that story on? So we have the Mongols being educated into Persian by the Sharmine.

The Sharmine then is a book really does enter into Iranian life, daily life, and then into Iranian art. I was given a wonderful softback edition of it, but full of most wonderful illustrations. So it encouraged the development of visual. its first time. Absolutely. And certainly with the arrival of the Safavids in the 16th century,

you have these productions of magnificently illustrated Shah Names and the glorification of ancient Persia. Then in the late 18th century, for example, when the Gajars come to power, they also look back and they use the Shah Nome as the epic that tells us, all about Persian pre-Islamic customs and traditions. And it sort of continues.

And to this day, I think the Shahnaume has kept its relevance. A, it really, for us Iranians, is the book that has saved the Persian language. It has created new artistic genres. As Charles said, for example, you have wall paintings, you have ceilings painted with scenes from the Shahnaamee. And also what we need to remember is that the Shah Nama'amé is recited by literate and illiterate people. So people who couldn't read and write could stand there and recite verse after verse stories of the glorious past. And also during the Iran-Iraq War in the 80s, verses from the Shahnaame were often recited on the radio by people. It's one particular verse that I have to think of,

show Iran Naboshat, Tanemann Mabod. If there were no Iran, then my body would not exist. I mean, you may think it's very nationalistic. For us, Iranians, it's very patriotic. Can we tell us, excuse me, we've had quite a bit there about the Iranian identity, I guess, but what about the linguistic inheritance? Yes, I think,

The language of the Shah Named, the Dari, which of course you associate with the language in Afghanistan, but that's Dhar, the doors of the palace, the high Persian. So it really exists as an encyclopedia of Persian, you know, linguistic gymnastics, if you like, as well as a glossary of all the words we have. In the 13th century, it certainly started this Iranian effect. to create dictionaries, if you like, and books of reference. And in that sense, you know, it continues. It defies, as Vesta said, literacy.

You do not have to be literate to know and be proud to recite works of verses out of the Shah Nome. These are played in Passion Place, for example, and recited publicly. So linguistically, it remains the High Persian, the court person. that it was, but it has common currency. It is taught, well, now is, of course, just after the revolution, it was removed from the school curriculum,

but it's come up, yes, Charles is. It is slightly archaic, though. It's all very well saying everyone knows it, but it's like saying everyone in England knows Chaucer. It's not quite the same. It's closer, but I mean, a lot of these words are actually not in common use, are they? I mean...

Yeah, well, if you want to fight, Iranians who insist on not using Arabic, and I have to say, you know, there are as many Arabic words in Persian that is French and English. You can't remove that. But you will try to find a Persian equivalent and there it is in the Sharmé. You're absolutely right.

You know, we don't talk like the Shahname. But it's not as far removed. And Vesta looks at there. She does talk at the Shanao. No, no, no. I just want to say we don't talk like the Shahname. But it is extraordinary how we are at ease with the Shahname. You wouldn't be with Chaucer. No, no. It's not an exact power.

The fact that I can just remember verses and don't laugh, but I do read the shahnomys sometimes before I go to bed. But it's very easy, it's very pleasant. And for those of us particularly who work on ancient Iran, it's an absolute must. It's a simple word. As on past Namiram, that man zende am couldn't have as simple as sense. I will not die for I am alive.

This is what he said when he submitted. This is, this guarantees my immortality. And that word, you know, I can use that, you know, just losing it backgammon. Well, it's true. I didn't really mention this. But I think it wasn't, I think he wanted to make a name for himself. He was very conscious right from the beginning. I'm going to do this and my name will live on.

And of course, he ends that way too. This great monument I've built and it's on his monument. That's not. That's barfkan dams, khakhine, bolland, that as bade and baron I built a high palace that will never disappear, no rain, no wind will destroy it.

I mean, what better than that. That's confidence, isn't it? Yes, yeah. Wow. And was proved right, a thousand years on, this is still... But it means it was a self-conscious act. You know, he knew what he was doing.

It wasn't just I'm writing this nice poem. He was writing for posterity. An agenda. But we really have no more facts than... His end is as much a myth as the myths he writes about himself, isn't it? The great baggage strain of indigo, gold, gold, jewel, coming towards his house

as his cortege leaves the house. Yeah, this is just another wonderful literary topos to create the sort of idea that the ruler has to patronise the poet because they're mutually dependent and if the relationship breaks down, there's a disaster. I mean, the ruler needs the poet, the poet needs the ruler.

Tiny Vesta. Interesting how 100 years later people went to his tomb as a pilgrimage. Well, thank you all very much. Thank you, Vesta, Sir Hosh Curtis, Charles Milville, and I guess Fahzad. Next week we'll be talking about the stock market crash in the 18th century, the South Sea bubble. Thanks for listening. There are many more Radio 4 arts and discussion programs to download for free. Find these on the website at BBC.com.com.uk.

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