Notes · Book A7The First Kings: Manuchehr

A7.1The Crowning of Manuchehr

After a week’s mourning Manuchehr is crowned. He proclaims a reign of justice and faith, and war on the wicked. Sahm pledges to take the burden of battle on himself, recalling his line of champions from Garshasp to Nariman.

By day Barzin-fire burns before your view: Azar Burzin-Mehr was one of the three great sacred fires of Sasanian Iran, the fire of the farmers, kept in Khorasan. The others were Azargashasp (see A7.4), the warriors’ fire, and Azar Farnbagh, the fire of the priests.

From Garshasp down to Nariman of fame: Garshasp is the Avestan hero Keresaspa, the dragon-slayer destined to kill Zahhak at the end of time (A5.9). In the Avesta, Sama is his family name and nairi-manah, ‘manly-minded’, one of his epithets. Later tradition turned these into separate generations: Garshasp, Nariman, Sahm.

Whoever stands outside this Faith and way: Manuchehr speaks as a defender of the faith as well as a king. The idea that kingship and religion are twins, each needing the other, was Sasanian political doctrine, and Ferdowsi will put it in Ardashir’s mouth later in the poem (III, D7.10).

A7.2The Strange Birth of Zal

Sahm’s wife bears a beautiful son whose hair is snow-white. Ashamed, and fearing the child is the offspring of a Div, Sahm has him left on Mount Alborz. The Simorgh swoops down to take him for her chicks, but pity moves her and she raises him.

They laid him on the mountain, turned away: The abandoned child who survives to greatness is an old story: Cyrus the Great in Herodotus, Romulus and Remus, Paris of Troy. Zal is the Persian version, and his nurse is the strangest of all.

The Simorgh there had built her lofty nest: The Simorgh is the Avestan saēna bird and the Pahlavi Senmurw, which nests in the tree of all seeds in the middle of the cosmic sea. In the Shahnameh she is wise, benevolent and all but divine. Two centuries later Attar made her the goal of his Conference of the Birds, playing on si morgh, ‘thirty birds’.

There stood Mount Alborz, rising toward the sun: Alborz is the Avestan Hara Berezaiti, the world-mountain round which the sun and stars turn. The name now belongs to the real range north of Tehran, where Damavand stands (A5.9), but the poem’s Alborz is still half mythical.

A7.3Sahm Dreams of His Son

Dreams rebuke Sahm, and his priests urge him to find his son. At Alborz he prays for a way up. The Simorgh names the youth Dastan, gives him a feather to summon her, and carries him down. Sahm repents and names him Zal-e-Zar.

I named you Dastan for your father’s guile: Dastān means ‘trick, ruse’, a reproach to Sahm fixed in his son’s name. The same Persian word also means ‘story’, and Zal will become the poem’s great strategist and teller of counsel.

Take one of my own feathers with you still: The feather is a promise the poem keeps. Burned in need, it will bring the Simorgh to Rudabeh at the birth of Rostam in A9.1, and to Rostam himself in his fight with Esfandiyar (II, C8.25).

Its summit reached Simak in heaven’s span: Simāk is the Arabic name of two bright stars, Spica and Arcturus. The nest reaches all the way to them.

Sahm named him Zal-e-Zar before them all: Zāl means ‘white-haired, old’, a fitting name for a child born gray. The meaning of zar is debated: it may be ‘gold’ or another word for ‘old’. Ferdowsi uses Zal and Dastan interchangeably for the rest of the poem.

A7.4Manuchehr Hears of Zal

Manuchehr sends his son Nohzar to welcome Sahm, who hurries to court with Zal. The king marvels at the youth and asks for his story, and Sahm tells of the dreams, the nest, and the Simorgh returning his son.

Nohzar was one; Zarasp the other name: The first appearance of Nohzar, Manuchehr’s successor, whose short and unhappy reign follows. His name goes back to the Avestan Naotara. His sons Tus and Gostaham will be leading figures in the wars to come.

Like Azargashasp upon the field of fame: Azargashasp was the sacred fire of warriors and kings, kept at Shiz in Azerbaijan, where its ruins, now called Takht-e Soleyman, still stand. Sasanian kings went there on foot to pray before war. See A7.1 on the three great fires.

He knows but bird and mountain, nest and sky: Zal is the wild man who must be taught to live among people, a figure as old as Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Unlike Enkidu, he arrives already speaking and wise, having been schooled by the Simorgh.

A7.5Zal Returns to Zabulistan

The court astrologers foretell a great future for Zal. Manuchehr loads Sahm with gifts and grants him a charter over Kabul, Hind, Sind and Zabul. Sahm returns home, and Sistan is decked like paradise to greet him and his son.

From Fish below to Moon’s revolving sphere: In Persian cosmology the earth rests on a bull, and the bull on a fish. ‘From the Fish to the Moon’ (az māhi tā māh) means ‘from the bottom of creation to the top’. The rhyme makes it a favorite phrase of Persian poets.

As they drew near Nimruz, the tidings spread: Nimruz, ‘midday’, means the South, and it is the poem’s other name for Sistan, the land of Sahm’s house. Sistan itself comes from Sakastan, ‘land of the Sakas’, the Scythian people who settled there. Many scholars think the Rostam legends came from them.

Then Manuchehr composed a charter fair: The royal charter of investiture (manshur) was a real instrument of power in Ferdowsi’s day. Sultan Mahmud himself received one from the caliph in Baghdad, which confirmed his rule over Khorasan.

A7.6Sahm Gives the Kingdom to Zal

Ordered to campaign against Mazandaran and the Gorgasaran, Sahm entrusts Zal to his elders and gives him Zabul. Zal begs to go with him but is sent back. He takes the throne and studies with sages until his wisdom and beauty are famous.

Against Gorgasaran I now must go: The name is read both ways: gorg-saran, ‘wolf-heads’, and kargas-saran, ‘vulture-heads’. Either way they belong with the dog-headed and other monstrous peoples that ancient and medieval travelers placed at the edges of the world.

To march on Mazandaran, spear and shield: Mazandaran in the Shahnameh is the land of the Divs. Its location has been argued over, and it is not simply the Caspian province of that name (see A6.1). Kay Kavus’s disastrous invasion of it, and Rostam’s Seven Labors on the way to rescue him, come later in this volume.

For though his hair was white as camphor’s thread: The white hair that disgraced the infant becomes the sign of the sage. Zal, old from birth, lives through reign after reign as the poem’s wise elder and counselor of kings.