Notes · Book B7The Fight of the Seven Warriors

B7.1Rostam and the Seven Warriors Go Hunting

At a feast at Nawand, Giv proposes a hunt in Afrasiab’s own preserves. Rostam and the champions hunt across the Turanian border for a week, with Guraza as lookout. Afrasiab sends thirty thousand men to trap them, and Rostam, warned, calls for more wine.

Let us invade Afrasiab’s hunting ground: A royal hunting park was a king’s private preserve, and hunting in it was a deliberate insult. The Old Iranian word for such a walled park, pairidaēza, passed through Greek into English as ‘paradise’.

While Sarakhs stood beyond, a distant sign: Sarakhs is a real town, now on the border between Iran and Turkmenistan. The raid is set in the borderlands east of Ferdowsi’s Tus, where Iran and ‘Turan’ really did meet.

B7.2Rostam Battles the Turanians

Giv rides to hold the bridge, but Afrasiab’s army has already crossed. Rostam and the champions charge. Afrasiab sends Piran with ten thousand men, and Rostam cuts them down until Afrasiab thinks of retreat.

Then Afrasiab called Piran Viseh out: Piran, son of Viseh, is Afrasiab’s chief counselor and general, and one of the most humane figures in the poem. He will become the friend and protector of Siavash, and he dies at last in single combat with Gudarz (II, C3.39).

B7.3Pilsam Battles the Iranians and Alkus’ Battle

Piran’s brother Pilsam unhorses Gorgin and holds off four champions until Piran protests and Rostam drives him away. Alkus then fells Zavareh, taking him for Rostam, but Rostam lifts Alkus from the saddle on his spear, and the seven champions rout the Turanians.

What fame is gained when four assail but one: Piran appeals to the rule of honorable single combat, which the Iranians have let slip in the dust. The rule matters a great deal in the poem, and later a whole campaign is settled by a series of paired duels.

Then Pilsam fled before the dragon’s chase: Pilsam escapes here, but not for long. In the war to avenge Siavash, later in this volume, he meets Rostam again and is killed.

Like Nahid and Hormoz in heaven’s height: Nahid is the planet Venus and Hormoz is Jupiter. In Middle Persian the planets bore the names of old divinities: Anahid, the goddess of waters, and Ohrmazd, the supreme God himself.

Upon his saddle lay a Tuzi shroud: Tūzī cloth, usually explained as a fine linen named after Tavvaz in Fars, was a luxury textile. As a shroud carried on the saddle, it is an ominous touch just before Alkus meets Rostam.

B7.4Afrasiab Flees the Battlefield

Rostam pursues Afrasiab and casts his kamand, but the king ducks free and escapes across the river. Two-thirds of his army is lost. The Iranians gather the spoils, report that none of their chiefs fell, and return to Kavus after two more weeks of hunting.

He ducked beneath it and escaped ahead: Afrasiab has a genius for escape; Rostam has already had him by the belt once and lost him. His run of luck lasts until very late in the poem, when the hermit Hom finally seizes him.

There sword and khaftan, helm and jewels gleamed: The khaftān was a padded, quilted coat worn with armor. The word passed through Turkish into many languages, and English ‘caftan’ is usually traced to it.