July 1, 2007 |
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Kayumars & Hushang - from the "Shahnameh" by Abolqasem Ferdowsi (poetry)
Translated by Richard Jeffrey Newman
Kayumars, whose kingdom stretched
across the wide world, who wore
the world’s first crown and called his throne
the seat of law, setting it high
in the mountains, where his fortunes soared as well,
who clothed himself in animal skins,
an example for his people to follow,
and taught them the trees’ fruit was food—
this Kayumars reigned for three decades,
a shining sun spreading peace,
a glowing moon, full and tranquil,
rising high above a slender cypress.
All creatures, wild and tame, came
from each of the world’s corners to claim
his realm as refuge, revering him,
and in their reverence nurturing his splendor,
basking in the royal farr. This
is where in time religion’s rise began.
The source of all evil, Ahriman,
watched Shah Kayumars’ honor grow,
and jealousy took root in him, and rage,
and he called for the downfall of the world’s jeweled crown,
of Siamak especially, Kayumars’ son,
whose glory fanned the flames of Ahriman’s hatred,
who summoned his own son, the savage
Black Deev, to gather for battle
a force to rain ruin on Kayumars’ rule.
Sorush, our defense against the deevs,
flying seven times that night
around the earth, learned what Ahriman planned,
and appeared to Siamak, armored in leopard skin,
to warn him war was coming. The cuirass,
though, still did not exist, so the prince
led his soldiers boldly to the field
clothed only in skins as Sorush had shown him.
Siamak’s strength was great that day,
but the deev’s was greater still, and he halved
Siamak’s bones with his bare hands,
crushing the prince’s remains into dust.
News of Siamak’s death knocked Kayumars
to the ground, and he was joined as he mourned
by all who called his kingdom home:
the warriors who’d gone to fight, the wild
animals and the tame. On land, in the air,
wearing the blue of grieving, weeping in a world
veiled with sorrow, they suffered Siamak’s
absence till a year had passed and again
God sent Sorush, who summoned
Kayumars to revenge.
Kayumars charged
his grandson Hushang, whom he loved above all,
“When I muster the many who’ll fight for us,
they’ll march to battle the Black Deev
behind you, for the day of my death draws near.
At the power in your step, the ground will tremble
and our enemy, feeling it, will fill with fear.”
The paris (1) answered with Kayumars’ call,
the wolves and tigers, leopards and lions;
all the beasts of prey, all birds;
an army of animals, savage, domestic,
followed its general, proud, courageous,
whose grandfather Kayumars guarded the rear.
The Black Deev charged hard, dust rising
to blacken the sky as he advanced,
but the demons, when the armies met, met
defeat, their death-dealing talons dulled
by the beasts’ magnificent ferocity.
Hushang hurled himself at his foe
like a lion at its prey, pulling the deev
tight, in a grip like a vise, splitting
the demon down the middle, dividing
head from trunk, stripping the putrid
skin from its frame, giving Kayumars
on that great day victory and vengeance,
so he could leave the world content,
which he did, and the world’s glory died
a little when he went.
Then Hushang, wise
and righteous, flush with new-found power,
took the throne and crown as his own.
“I am lord,” he proclaimed, “of the seven climes,
obeyed by all, and I, obeying God,
I, generous, just, will rule them.”
One day, as Hushang made his way
with some companions towards the mountains,
a long black snake, blood-filled bowls
for eyes and sun-darkening smoke
for breath, charged hard at his party.
The king took the creature’s measure,
watched calmly as it approached, then reached
for a stone he hurled with a hero’s strength.
The monster dodged the Shah’s attack
and the stone broke open on a boulder,
sending sparks shooting through the air.
The fiend escaped, but fire was found
hidden in that rock’s heart, and Hushang
gave thanks to God for granting that gift.
The pyre he built that night blazed
mountain-high, and he issued this mandate:
“Fire is divine; the wise will worship it.”
Then he and his people circled the flames
lighting the feast he’d laid out for them,
and they drank wine, and gave the name
Sadeh to their celebration.
Hushang studied
the stone, learned the science of separating
iron from ore, and to work the iron,
creating the blacksmith’s craft, crafting
axes, saws, mattocks—all manner
of tools for his subjects to use. Then Hushang
devised a duct to draw water from the river
and fertilize the plains, where people
before had eaten only fruit,
and leaves were the only clothes they wore,
and they stored nothing to feed their future.
He taught them to turn the soil,
to sow and to reap, and each one raised
his status by staking a claim to land
he could make fertile and farm. Then Hushang
sent the beasts that men would hunt,
like the onager and the deer, out to where
they could be hunted, and he kept the cows
and sheep, the donkeys, all domestic
creatures where he and his people needed them.
He killed and skinned the swiftest animals—
their skin was warm: the fox, the ermine,
the marten, the sable—and from their pelts
fashioned clothing for his kingdom. The farr
illuminating Hushang’s soul thus lifted
his subjects’ lives above the drudgery
that had been their lot. |
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Richard Jeffrey Newman, a poet, essayist and translator, is the author of The Silence Of Men (CavanKerry Press, 2006), a book of his own poetry, and two books of translations from classical Persian literature, Selections from Saadi’s Gulistan and Selections from Saadi’s Bustan (both from Global Scholarly Publications, 2004 and 2006 respectively). He has been publishing his work since 1988, when the essay “His Sexuality; Her Reproductive Rights” appeared in Changing Men magazine. Since then, his essays and poems have appeared in Salon.com, The American Voice, The Pedestal, Circumference, Prairie Schooner, ACM, Birmingham Poetry Review and other literary journals. His work has been anthologized in Access Literature (Thomson Wadsworth, 2005) and his poetry has been translated into Dutch. Currently, he is translating selections from the Shahnameh, the Persian national epic, which will also be published by Global Scholarly Publications; and he has collaborated with Professor John Moyne on a new Rumi anthology, A Bird in the Garden of Angels, which is forthcoming from Mazda Publishers. Richard Jeffrey Newman, Literary Arts Director for Persian Arts Festival, sits on the advisory board of The Translation Project, is listed as a speaker with the New York Council for the Humanities. He is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Nassau Community College in Garden City, New York, where he coordinates the Creative Writing Project. To learn more, please visit his website, www.richardjnewman.com. |
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