Sunset of Empire

Stories from the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, Vol. 3

By Abolqasem Ferdowsi

2003

First Published

4.25

Average Rating

552

Number of Pages

16H51M

Audio Length

Among the masterpieces of world literature, perhaps the least familiar to English readers is the Persian Book of Kings (Shahnameh, in Persian). This prodigious national epic, composed by the poet Ferdowsi between 980 and 1010, tells the story of ancient Persia, beginning in the mythic time of Creation and continuing forward to the Arab-Islamic invasion. With our third and final volume of stories from the Shahnameh we move from mythology and legend to romanticised history. of Macedon's conquest to the Arab invasion of the seventh century C.E. are reflected in the stirring and poignant narratives of Ferdowsi, the master poet who took on himself the task of preserving his country's great pre-Islamic heritage. We see vast empires rise and fall, the rule of noble kings and cruel tyrants, the fortunes of a people buffeted by contending tides of history. Larger than life individuals are vividly depicted—the impulsive, pleasure-loving king Bahram Gur, the wise vizier Bozarjmehr, the brave rebel Bahram Chubineh, his loyal defiant sister Gordyeh, and many others—but we also see many vignettes of everyday life in the villages and towns of ancient Persia, and in this part of the Shahnameh Ferdowsi indulges his talent for sly humour much more than in the earlier tales. end of an era is recorded and Ferdowsi and his characters look with foreboding towards an unstable and fearful future. Breathtaking miniatures from the finest Persian Shahnameh manuscripts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many of them published here for the first time, heighten the emotional impact of the text.

Avg Rating

4.25

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

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4 STARS

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3 STARS

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2 STARS

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1 STARS

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Author

Abolqasem Ferdowsi

Author · 15 books

Abolqasem Ferdowsi (Persian: ابوالقاسم فردوسی), the son of a wealthy land owner, was born in 935 in a small village named Paj near Tus in Khorasan which is situated in today's Razavi Khorasan province in Iran. He devoted more than 35 years to his great epic, the Shāhnāmeh. It was originally composed for presentation to the Samanid princes of Khorasan, who were the chief instigators of the revival of Iranian cultural traditions after the Arab conquest of the seventh century. Ferdowsi started his composition of the Shahnameh in the Samanid era in 977 A.D. During Ferdowsi's lifetime the Samanid dynasty was conquered by the Ghaznavid Empire. After 30 years of hard work, he finished the book and two or three years after that, Ferdowsi went to Ghazni, the Ghaznavid capital, to present it to the king, Sultan Mahmud. Ferdowsi is said to have died around 1020 in poverty at the age of 85, embittered by royal neglect, though fully confident of his work's ultimate success and fame, as he says in the verse: " ... I suffered during these thirty years, but I have revived the Iranians (Ajam) with the Persian language; I shall not die since I am alive again, as I have spread the seeds of this language ..."