Richard Jeffrey Newman

The con­nec­tion between lit­er­a­ture and pol­i­tics is always a dif­fi­cult one. Treat­ing pol­i­tics as if it were lit­er­a­ture, politi­ciz­ing lit­er­ary texts, are strate­gies that peo­ple use to advance agen­das that are fun­da­men­tally polit­i­cal, and often not progressive/egalitarian, in nature. Espe­cially in con­nec­tion with what is going on in Iran right now, when peo­ple are really dying and when the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment is doing every­thing it can to iso­late the entire nation of Iran so that it (the gov­ern­ment) can restore what it believes should be the (clearly repres­sive) order of things, to talk about life imi­tat­ing art, to read what is going on in Iran through the lens of Iran’s own lit­er­a­ture, has felt to me like a self-indulgent and gra­tu­itous intel­lec­tual exer­cise. Yet lit­er­a­ture, and in this case specif­i­cally poetry, also helps peo­ple give mean­ing to their lives; it can inspire, and it can con­nect us to some­thing larger than our­selves in ways that polit­i­cal feel­ings, not mat­ter how strongly felt and/or acted upon, often can­not. And so, pre­cisely because peo­ple are really dying in Iran – because I really do believe, along with William Car­los Williams, that peo­ple die every day for lack of what is found in poetry – and pre­cisely because there is so much at stake over there, and because Iran is a cul­ture that loves and reveres its poets, I have decided to write. Per­haps con­nect­ing the unrest in Iran not only to the spe­cific his­tory of the Islamic Repub­lic and the rev­o­lu­tion out of which that repub­lic was born – which most ana­lysts, rea­son­ably, are focus­ing on – but also to the Iran­ian cul­ture that is larger and older than both the Repub­lic and Islam, will make a dif­fer­ence. What that dif­fer­ence might be, and to whom, I have no way of know­ing, but I just don’t think it is mere coin­ci­dence that the cur­rent unrest finds echoes in a story Iran has been telling itself about itself for centuries: the tale of Kaveh and Zah­hak from the poem com­monly referred to as Iran’s national epic, Shah­nameh (Book, or Epic, of the Kings), part of which I am in the process of trans­lat­ing. I will include my trans­la­tion at the end of this post.

Writ­ten by Abolqasem Fer­dowsi in the 10^th cen­tury, Shah­nameh tells the story of the Iran­ian nation by telling the story of its kings, from the nation’s myth­i­cal begin­nings right up to the moment of the Mus­lim con­quest in the 7^th cen­tury CE. One of the themes that runs through the poem is the ques­tion of how to respond to an unjust ruler. The tale of Zah­hak and Kaveh is one of the nar­ra­tives that explores this theme. First, though, some back­story: Zah­hak is Shahnameh’s first evil king. Son of an Arab monarch named Mer­das, Zah­hak is seduced by Eblis (the devil in these sto­ries) into killing his father to assume the throne, and he is even­tu­ally cursed by Eblis with a ser­pent grow­ing out of each shoul­der, to which he must feed one human brain per night. In other words, he must kill two peo­ple a day in order to keep the ser­pents fed. so, as you might imag­ine, Zah­hak does not turn out to be a benev­o­lent ruler, and when he con­quers Iran – whose pre­vi­ous king, Jamshid, made him­self vul­ner­a­ble when he declared him­self a god and so lost the “real” god’s favor – Zahhak’s cru­elty kicks into high gear.

One night, Zah­hak has a dream that dis­turbs him. When he asks his advi­sors to inter­pret it, they say that the dream fore­tells his destruc­tion by a man named Fer­ay­doun, who will kill him and assume the throne. Zah­hak goes on a killing ram­page try­ing to hunt Fer­ay­doun down, and though he is unsuc­cess­ful, he does man­age to kill Feraydoun’s father. Finally, out of a kind of des­per­a­tion – and here is where, if you have not seen par­al­lels to what is going on in Iran until now, the par­al­lels start to get obvi­ous – Zah­hak sum­mons the prince of each province in his king­dom and asks them to sign their names to a procla­ma­tion assert­ing that he, as their leader, has only ever been con­cerned with jus­tice, right­eous­ness and spo­ken only the truth. He wants this pub­lic acknowl­edg­ment so that he can raise an army with which to defeat the neme­sis who is com­ing to chal­lenge him. The heads of the provinces, know­ing that their leader will kill them if they refuse to sign the procla­ma­tion, sign. It is at this point that Kaveh walks in, and from here I am going to let the poem speak for itself, because I think the par­al­lels to today’s sit­u­a­tion – a ruler afraid he will lose power, a rigged state­ment of approval, a (failed) attempt to appease the cit­i­zenry and oppo­si­tion marches – while not exact, need no fur­ther expla­na­tion. (The poem will appear in an upcom­ing issue of The Dirty Goat Mag­a­zine.)

No One Knows the Secret Heaven Holds

Fear of Fer­ay­doun fixed itself
firmly in Zahhak’s head, har­row­ing
his thoughts, bend­ing his back beneath
its weight, wrench­ing his words from every­thing
but the fate fore­told by Zirak. Zah­hak
sat on his ivory throne, his turquoise
crown upon his royal brow,
and he called to his court from through­out his king­dom,
the prince of each province to promise him loy­alty.
“You are wise men,” he said to them,
“and you’ve heard the world hides from me
the enemy in whose hands my fate waits.
He may appear unwor­thy of fear­ing,
but I won’t assume he’s weak. I want,
there­fore, to raise the fiercest army,
my demons march­ing beside your men,
for me to lead into bat­tle against him.
Approve, there­fore, this procla­ma­tion. Con­firm
that as your com­man­der I’ve sown noth­ing
but seeds of right­eous­ness and spo­ken only truth.
Sign here so all can see
pur­suit of jus­tice is my sole concern.”

Trem­bling with fear, the assem­bled men,
know­ing they couldn’t say no and live,
signed their names to Zahhak’s lies,
when a man demand­ing jus­tice marched
into the palace. The princes made a place
for him to sit. “At whose hands,”
the ser­pent king asked, “have you suf­fered
so much that you dare to seek me out?”
Stunned to be hear­ing the king him­self,
hit­ting his head with his fists, the man
called out, “I am Kaveh! I have come,
your high­ness, to protest injus­tice thrust
to the hilt like a knife many times
into my heart. If what I’ve heard here
is true, if you pur­sue only jus­tice,
grant me relief from this great grief
rooted in my soul. Show the right­eous­ness
you claim as yours, and raise your good name
to the heav­ens! The hurt black­en­ing
my days, your majesty, comes mostly
from you! You say you will not stand
for the small­est offense com­mit­ted against me,
but you never hes­i­tate to harm my sons.
Of my eigh­teen young ones only one
is left. Allow him to live, I beg you.
Keep my soul, my king, from the cruel
and end­less tor­ture I would endure
if you feed your ser­pents his flesh. Tell me,
what have I done to deserve his death?!

“And if I’m inno­cent, don’t build my guilt
from false accu­sa­tions. This mis­for­tune fills
my mind with mis­ery, mur­ders the hope
chil­dren should be when you reach old age!
Injus­tice has a mid­dle and a limit,
and so it has logic. Charge me, and judge me,
if you have charges to bring, or don’t butcher my child!
I’m a sim­ple black­smith, inno­cent
of any wrong against you, yet you,
breath­ing fire, burn my life!
A dragon-king is still a king,
obliged to pro­vide jus­tice. Sire,
your king­dom stretches across the seven climes.
Why should this fate fall here to me?
Explain your­self! Plead your case
before us now. Bring some sense
to why my son, from among
all your sub­jects, must sat­isfy those ser­pents
with his brains. Sub­mit your words to the world
and let the world judge your worth!”

Zah­hak sat back, gasp­ing,
word­less, eyes wide with won­der,
fear­ing Kaveh’s furi­ous courage.
Schem­ing to win the blacksmith’s sup­port,
he ordered the boy restored to his father,
lav­ished Kaveh with kind­ness,
and com­manded him to com­mit his name
to the praise the dec­la­ra­tion pro­claimed.
The black­smith read from begin­ning to end
and turned to the elders assem­bled there:
“You’ve made your­selves this Devil’s min­ions,
divorced in your hearts from heaven! It’s hell
you look to now, bow­ing to this beast.”

He rose, enraged, to his full height,
tore the procla­ma­tion to pieces
he stomped into the ground, then stormed
with his son out into the street.

The gath­ered nobles sought to soothe
what they assumed was Zahhak’s wounded
pride, “O great and pow­er­ful prince
of princes! King of kings! The cool
breeze dares not blow above you
on the day you muster your men for bat­tle.
Yet this foul-mouthed Kaveh calls you out,
as if his sta­tus equaled to yours,
grind­ing our covenant into the ground,
reject­ing your right as ruler
to his obe­di­ent sub­mis­sion. Swollen with scorn,
his head and heart fury-filled,
he’s gone to forge with Fer­ay­doun
an alliance against you. We won’t accept this!”

“Lis­ten to this,” Zah­hak insisted.
“See how strange things some­times are:
As soon as Kaveh spoke, there seemed
to rise between us a moun­tain of iron,
and when he hit his head with his hand,
the appari­tion shat­tered, fore­shad­ow­ing
what only time will tell. No one
knows the secrets Heaven holds.”

Tagged Iran

§ 18 Responses to Life Imitates Art: Iran’s Opposition and Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh (The Story of Zahhak and Kaveh)"

• Rob says:

  June 18, 2009 at 6:29 pm

  Thank you for shar­ing that story. What a pow­er­ful illus­tra­tion of the pas­sions run­ning deep within the human spirit for jus­tice and free­dom. As I remain glued to Twit­ter and var­i­ous blogs cov­er­ing the events in Iran, I, as an Amer­i­can Jew, have never been more hope­ful in my 30 years that peace and pros­per­ity is on the hori­zon for the mid­dle east.
• Matt Osborne says:

  June 18, 2009 at 7:19 pm

  I want to read this trans­la­tions when you’re finished.
• Iran, better days will come—though not yet | Michele Roohani says:

  June 18, 2009 at 7:57 pm

  […] These are star­tling moments in recent Iran­ian his­tory. Breath­tak­ing is the word that comes to mind with every new image out of Iran’s protests. A new tale of Zah­hak and Kaveh. […]
• Nadia Rad says:

  June 18, 2009 at 9:10 pm

  Dear Dr. Newman:

  Thank you for your love of Iran and Ira­ni­ans. Thank you for this amaz­ing arti­cle. I think I for­warded to every­one I knew. My grand­fa­ther mem­o­rized the entire Shah­nameh and we couldn’t scape his weekly per­for­mances.. .. good old days.

  Thank you for remind­ing us that there is a light at the end of the tun­nel. Left Iran in 82 and since then every 5 – 10 years our heart breaks by the events unfold­ing in Iran, by the fact that we can­not all our rel­a­tives. Every day is a reminder for us that how much we miss our home, our cul­ture, our true Iran­ian image around the world… gulued once again to the com­puter and hop­ing that let this time be different.

  Best wishes to the brave citzens of Iran.
  Nadia Rad
  Van­cou­ver, BC
• Richard Jeffrey Newman says:

  June 18, 2009 at 9:14 pm

  Nadia,

  Thank you for your kind words. I hope every­one you know in Iran is well, and I hope the end of what is going on now is an end that all Ira­ni­ans can embrace. And, like you, my heart goes out to the peo­ple who are there, putting their bod­ies on the line.

  Matt,

  The book should be out in the Fall or in early 2010. Thanks for the kind words.
• Fleurdamour says:

  June 18, 2009 at 11:35 pm

  Thank you for this fas­ci­nat­ing post. I am glad to see some­one insight­fully apply­ing the social lessons of Per­sian lit­er­a­ture to the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion. I’ve been Twit­ter­ing the past few days regard­ing my feel­ing that Attar’s Con­fer­ence of the Birds holds some impor­tant sym­bol­ism for the national iden­tity and unity that is assert­ing itself in the Iran­ian cit­i­zenry in this sit­u­a­tion. The myth­i­cal bird-king the Simorgh turns out to be the col­lec­tive of the thirty birds who suc­ceed at the dif­fi­cult process of attain­ment of self-development and self-rule, and I feel it’s a beau­ti­ful sym­bol from their own cul­ture for the Ira­ni­ans’ strug­gle. This pas­sage from Fedowski is also amaz­ingly appro­pri­ate, demon­strat­ing with the high­est art the high cost of main­tain­ing despotic power — a man loses his human­ity when he dom­i­nates other men, becom­ing like a poi­so­nous serpent.
• Aburjubur.com » Iran Election Live-Blogging (Thursday June 18) says:

  June 19, 2009 at 1:23 am

  […] it turns out, Eng­lish pro­fes­sor Rich New­man is in the process of trans­lat­ing the Book of Kings, and wrote a mov­ing post about how it ties into the cur­rent unrest: The con­nec­tion between lit­er­a­ture and pol­i­tics is always […]
• Lena says:

  June 19, 2009 at 4:04 am

  This is absolutely beau­ti­ful, and well-written. I am look­ing for­ward to this trans­la­tion, too. Is there any way to be noti­fied when it’s even­tu­ally published?
• Richard Jeffrey Newman says:

  June 19, 2009 at 10:12 am

  Thanks, Lena! Either send me an email and I will put you on my list. Or keep an eye out here and on my web­site, http://​www​.richard​jnew​man​.com.
• karen chase says:

  June 19, 2009 at 12:28 pm

  Thanks. What an impor­tant and fas­ci­nat­ing piece to read.
• Voice Of Silent says:

  June 19, 2009 at 12:58 pm

  Tanks a lot Mr.Newman for trans­lat­ing this big book of Iran­ian cul­ture…
  I am a Iran­ian girl that live in Tehran, and I see Fer­dowsi Ave. every day, but I have not enough time to read this book and Nice story in this
  and now I see some peo­ple in other coun­try love him and trans­late his sto­ries…
  This mov­ing show me that all the peo­ple can know king of Iran ==> Fer­dowsi
  really tanks.
  Best regards
  Ronika…Voice of Silent
• Global Voices Online » Iran:’Life imitates art’ says:

  June 19, 2009 at 1:47 pm

  […] all con­nected writes about Iran’s Oppo­si­tion and Ferdowsi’s Shah­nameh (The Story of Zah­hak and Kaveh). Cancel […]
• Bob Holman says:

  June 19, 2009 at 5:56 pm

  We need a read­ing of Iran­ian poets, poems. We need a show of sup­port for the Resistence. This piece and poem is what we need! And we need it live at the Bow­ery Poetry Club NOW! Thank you, Richard.
• Hamed Komeili says:

  June 20, 2009 at 5:41 pm

  Hi all
  My spe­cial thanks to my dear friend Mr.Newman. He is a lover of Iran. He is not iran­ian but I want call him an Iran­ian cit­i­zen. Because of his inter­ests in Iran and Iran’s art and soci­ety. Yes Richard our story is sim­i­lar to Kaveh and Zah­hak. I believe one day Iran will be free. And we will say hello to free world. We will touch the free­dom in our hands. Hope to hap­pend this mir­a­cle one day…
  Hamed
• Jamey Hecht says:

  June 26, 2009 at 11:27 pm

  I like your trans­la­tion here. When I was a teach­ing assis­tant to Olga David­son at Bran­deis, circa 1991, she taught selec­tions from the Shah­nameh and we had to use a pho­to­copy for a text because the only use­ful trans­la­tion she found was out of print (I don’t even know if was an anony­mous one, and being a trans­la­tor myself I take such ques­tions seri­ously). I didn’t know you were a Per­sian­ist but thgis sure is a good time to be one. (Triv­ially, is it a typo on line 17? Did you mean “lead” or “leave”? I don’t blame you if it is a slip – I’d rather leave an army than lead it).
• Bahman says:

  August 27, 2009 at 7:23 pm

  Lets hope that the story of Kaveh shall be played out in the streets of Iran and not the story of Rosatm & Sohrab. Where the strength of the youth is used by the two main pow­ers to futher their own goals and in the end betray and kill Sohrab. The story of Sohrab has been played time & time agian in the his­tory of Iran, yet there are very few exam­ples of Kaveh, how­ever this time the youth have somthing that Sohrab lacked and that is knowl­ege and wisdom.
• Fleurdamour says:

  June 19, 2009 at 4:35 am

  Oh, please excuse my typo — I made Fer­dowsi sound Polish!
• Richard Jeffrey Newman says:

  June 20, 2009 at 10:54 pm

  Hamed,

  Thanks for the kind words. Please share this, if you think it will help peo­ple, as far and wide as you like, and use my words, if you think they will help, in any way you like.