Book A2The First Kings: Hushang

Hushang, a sovereign, prudent, just, and wise,Assumed the crown beneath the circling skies.

For forty years the heavens turned above,While wisdom ruled, and justice won men’s love.

He said: “Now all the Seven Climes are mine;Victorious, I rule by will divine.

By God’s command I gird myself to reign,With justice and with bounty in my train.”

He shaped the world and ordered all the land,And spread out justice by his guiding hand.

He first drew iron from the hardest stone,And taught the craft that men had never known.

With growing skill he fashioned tools for toil,The axe, the saw, the mattock for the soil.

He carved out channels where the streams might run,And watered all the fields beneath the sun.

Through cut and trench he tamed the water’s pride,And farr made light his labors far and wide.

As knowledge grew, men learned to sow the grain,Then reaped the harvest yielded by the plain.

Each labored for the bread his hands could earn,And each his proper task and station learned.

Before these arts, men lived on fruit alone,And leaves were all the clothing they had known.

The ancient rites of faith remained secure,And worship of the Maker still endured.

Through Hushang fire was struck from hidden rock,A secret gift that none could yet unlock.

Its radiance spread throughout the world entire;Now hear how Hushang first discovered fire.

One day he gained the mountain’s stony height,With several companions there in sight.

From far he saw a long black shape appear,Dark-bodied, swift, and drawing quickly near.

Its eyes were like two springs of flowing blood,While smoke poured from its mouth in choking flood.

He seized a stone and hurled it, swift and true,A kingly cast that split the dusk in two.

The monstrous worm escaped the flying blow;The stone struck rock and cast a fiery glow.

From shattered flint the leaping sparks broke through,And from that seed the earliest fire grew.

Thus stone on stone awoke the sleeping spark,And light leapt out and split the ancient dark.

The serpent lived, but from the stones that burned,The hidden secret of the fire was learned.

Then Hushang praised that radiance newly known,And marked it as a grace from God alone.

He thanked the Maker for that gift of light,And made the fire the heart of sacred rite.

“This radiance comes from God,” the monarch said;“The wise should honor what His grace has spread.”

That night he lit a blaze both broad and high,And stood with all his troops beneath the sky.

Then they all feasted, drinking the ruby wine,And named the feast of Sadeh by that sign.

Thus Sadeh kept Hushang’s remembrance clear;May kings like him arise from year to year.

He made the world more prosperous and glad,And men recalled the goodness that he had.

By God-given Glory and his royal grace,He marked Gur-e-Khar and deer of the chase.

The ox, the ass, the sheep he set apart,And taught men how to use them through their art.

Of beasts whose coats bore fine and useful hair,He took their skins and fashioned garments fair.

Of fox and ermine, squirrel, sable too,He learned which pelts were warm and strong and true.

Their skins he gave for garments warm and fine,To clothe mankind through craft and wise design.

He labored, gave, enjoyed what life could lend,And took his good name with him at the end.

In toil and thought his many years were cast,In arts and wonders, numberless and vast.

When better days beyond this life drew near,His royal throne remained when he left here.

The world will never bind itself to man,Nor bare its face within a mortal span.