Ferdowsi

Great thinkers would emerge centuries later, writing in Persian or deeply influencing the Islamic world.

Poets like Ferdowsi, for example, preserved the memory of the ancient kings in epic works such as the Shahnameh, keeping the story of ancient Persia alive.

Thus, even while embracing Islam, Persian civilization found a unique way to integrate the new without completely abandoning the old.

In the centuries that followed, the region underwent countless transformations.

So then they tried to co-opt them.

They removed, you know, poetry of Ferdowsi or Saadi, you know, from the novel's table and replaced it with the Quran, for example.

So they tried to Islamize these expressions of Iranian nationalism rather than.

giving up on attempting to start them out.

Who will say a poem in the garden of the manfa garden in front of the house? Free from my purpose, from my absence, and from my life.

Free from the worship of yesterday, from the earthly Ferdowsi.

Free from my clothes, and from my language.

I bear witness that I am free and alive when I am born.

He trusted himself too much.

The story comes from the Shahnameh, the Book of Kings, the great Persian epic written by the poet Ferdowsi around the time of the 11th century.

It's one of the masterpieces of world literature, preserving centuries of Persian legend and history.

And where the Greeks warned about the dangers of pride through queens like Cassiopeia, the Shahnameh explores a different kind of flaw, ambition without wisdom.

The eagles weakened, the throne lost altitude, and the king who had risen so triumphantly came back to Earth considerably faster than he'd intended.

He crashed in the forests of Gilan, battered, exhausted, and stranded far from his court until, once again, Rostam had to come rescue him.

If you're noticing a pattern here, so was Ferdowsi.

Kay Kavus survived the ordeal.

Hence it can hardly be wondered at that as his learning accumulated, his practice dissolved, until at the very moment when he had attained the zenith of his celebrity, he had also reached the nadir of his fortunes.

There being no chair of Sanskrit in any of his native universities, and no demand anywhere for the only mental wares which he had to dispose of, we should have been forced to retire into genteel poverty, consoling ourselves with the aphorisms and precepts of Ferdowsi, Omar Khayyam, and others of his Eastern favourites, had it not been for the kindness and liberality of his half-brother, William Farintosh, the Laird of Branksome, in Wigtownshire.

This William Farintosh was the proprietor of a landed estate, the acreage which bore, unfortunately, a most disproportional relation to its value, for it formed the bleakest and most barren tract of land in the whole of a bleak and barren shire.

As a bachelor, however, his expenses had been small, and he had contrived from the rents of his scattered cottages and the sale of the Galloway nags which he bred upon the moors not only to live as a laird should, but to put by a considerable sum in the bank.

Thus it is said by wise men, Verily, war begins in words.

And the poet Ferdowsi has said, A mere word is the cause of warfare.

Another verse illustrating this point at issue is, The wound inflicted by the tongue is deeper than that inflicted by the sword.

Were one to ponder over the differences and schisms already spoken of which arose among the Christian peoples, creating different sects and schools, such as the Arians, Nestorians, Gnostics, and others, kindling the fire of terrible battlefields and violent calamities, he would clearly find from the testimony of authentic history that the principal and initial cause of such divisions and disasters was the difference of opinion between two religious doctors, which would result in discussion and controversy.

Was he really that strong? In the Shah Namir, daddy said, Rustam's strength is almost beyond anything we could measure.

Ferdowsi wasn't trying to tell us his weight or how many kilograms he could lift.

He was telling us that Rostam belonged to the world of heroes, where courage and danger become greater than we know in everyday life, and even a hero's mistakes can change the lives of many people.

Arvid considered this.

Now it is a place of hardship, suffering, and calamity, the dwelling place of the sharp-clawed dragon.

Ferdowsi, Shanamah.

Iran and the United States are once again at loggerheads.

And over the past 47 years, this isn't anything new.

Thanks so much.

I'm really happy to be here today.

I chose that selection from Ferdowsi's epic poem, Shanama, because it is one of the most important poems in Persian culture.

and really represents the embodiment of the cultural identity of Iran.

Recording by Annie Mars.

The story of Rostam and other Persian hero tales from Ferdowsi by Elizabeth D. Renninger.

This is a LibriVox recording.

All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.