Notes · Book A1The First Kings: Kioumars

A1.1The Greatness of Kioumars and the Envy of Ahriman

Kioumars, the first king, rules from the mountains in leopard skins, and all creatures bow before him. Only Ahriman envies him, and his son plots against Kioumars’s own son, Siamak, until Soroush comes to warn the king.

Declares that Kioumars, before the rest, / First wore the Shah’s high crown: In Zoroastrian scripture Gayomard (Kioumars) is not the first king but the first man, the primal human from whose seed mankind springs. Ferdowsi’s sources turned him into the first king. The change is typical of the Shahnameh, which recasts Iranian myth as royal history.

When Aries held the sun at spring’s rebirth: The sun enters Aries at the spring equinox, the first moment of the Persian New Year (Nowruz). The first reign begins, fittingly, on the world’s first day.

Then blessed Soroush came in pari guise: Soroush (Avestan Sraosha, ‘Hearing’ or ‘Obedience’) is the Zoroastrian divinity who carries God’s messages. In the Shahnameh he plays much the role Gabriel plays in scripture, arriving at the turning points of the story.

A1.2Siamak and the Black Div

Siamak goes out bare-bodied to fight the Black Div, son of Ahriman, and is torn apart. Kioumars and all creation mourn him for a year, until Soroush commands vengeance.

He tore his liver-place with savage blow: The Persian is jigargāh, the region of the liver. In the Shahnameh, as in much of the ancient world, the liver, not the heart, is the seat of life and deep emotion. A blow there is a death-blow.

In turquoise robes the mourners formed their line: Blue robes, here turquoise, and black are the colors of mourning throughout the Shahnameh. This is the first death in the poem, and all creation mourns: birds and beasts join the procession to the mountain.

A1.3Hushang and Kioumars Fight the Black Div

Siamak’s son Hushang leads an army of peris, birds and beasts against the Black Div, kills him and avenges his father. Kioumars, his vengeance won, dies.

He gathered paris, leopards, lions bold: The first war in the poem is fought by an army of animals and spirits, not men. It is a glimpse of a world in which humans have not yet parted from the rest of creation.

The world from end to end is but a tale: The first of Ferdowsi’s many reflections on the passing world, which close his chapters like a refrain. The poet who spent thirty years on a book of tales reminds us that the world itself is one.