{"id":8018,"date":"2009-06-18T09:47:32","date_gmt":"2009-06-18T16:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8018"},"modified":"2009-06-18T09:47:32","modified_gmt":"2009-06-18T16:47:32","slug":"life-imitates-art-irans-opposition-and-ferdowsis-shahnameh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8018","title":{"rendered":"Life Imitates Art: Iran's Opposition and Ferdowsi's Shahnameh"},"content":{"rendered":"

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), <\/em>part of which I am in the process of translating. I will include my translation at the end of this post.<\/p>\n

Written by Abolqasem Ferdowsi in the 10th century, Shahnameh <\/em>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 7th 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 <\/em>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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.)
\n<\/p>\n

No One Knows the Secret Heaven Holds<\/h2>\n

Fear of Feraydoun fixed itself
\nfirmly in Zahhak\u2019s head, harrowing
\nhis thoughts, bending his back beneath
\nits weight, wrenching his words from everything
\nbut the fate foretold by Zirak. Zahhak
\nsat on his ivory throne, his turquoise
\ncrown upon his royal brow,
\nand he called to his court from throughout his kingdom,
\nthe prince of each province to promise him loyalty.
\n\u201cYou are wise men,\u201d he said to them,
\n\u201cand you\u2019ve heard the world hides from me
\nthe enemy in whose hands my fate waits.
\nHe may appear unworthy of fearing,
\nbut I won\u2019t assume he\u2019s weak. I want,
\ntherefore, to raise the fiercest army,
\nmy demons marching beside your men,
\nfor me to leave into battle against him.
\nApprove, therefore, this proclamation. Confirm
\nthat as your commander I\u2019ve sown nothing
\nbut seeds of righteousness and spoken only truth.
\nSign here so all can see
\npursuit of justice is my sole concern.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trembling with fear, the assembled men,
\nknowing they couldn\u2019t say no and live,
\nsigned their names to Zahhak\u2019s lies,
\nwhen a man demanding justice marched
\ninto the palace. The princes made a place
\nfor him to sit. \u201cAt whose hands,\u201d
\nthe serpent king asked, \u201chave you suffered
\nso much that you dare to seek me out?\u201d
\nStunned to be hearing the king himself,
\nhitting his head with his fists, the man
\ncalled out, \u201cI am Kaveh! I have come,
\nyour highness, to protest injustice thrust
\nto the hilt like a knife many times
\ninto my heart. If what I\u2019ve heard here
\nis true, if you pursue only justice,
\ngrant me relief from this great grief
\nrooted in my soul. Show the righteousness
\nyou claim as yours, and raise your good name
\nto the heavens! The hurt blackening
\nmy days, your majesty, comes mostly
\nfrom you! You say you will not stand
\nfor the smallest offense committed against me,
\nbut you never hesitate to harm my sons.
\nOf my eighteen young ones only one
\nis left. Allow him to live, I beg you.
\nKeep my soul, my king, from the cruel
\nand endless torture I would endure
\nif you feed your serpents his flesh. Tell me,
\nwhat have I done to deserve his death?!<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if I\u2019m innocent, don\u2019t build my guilt
\nfrom false accusations. This misfortune fills
\nmy mind with misery, murders the hope
\nchildren should be when you reach old age!
\nInjustice has a middle and a limit,
\nand so it has logic. Charge me, and judge me,
\nif you have charges to bring, or don\u2019t butcher my child!
\nI\u2019m a simple blacksmith, innocent
\nof any wrong against you, yet you,
\nbreathing fire, burn my life!
\nA dragon-king is still a king,
\nobliged to provide justice. Sire,
\nyour kingdom stretches across the seven climes.
\nWhy should this fate fall here to me?
\nExplain yourself! Plead your case
\nbefore us now. Bring some sense
\nto why my son, from among
\nall your subjects, must satisfy those serpents
\nwith his brains. Submit your words to the world
\nand let the world judge your worth!\u201d<\/p>\n

Zahhak sat back, gasping,
\nwordless, eyes wide with wonder,
\nfearing Kaveh\u2019s furious courage.
\nScheming to win the blacksmith\u2019s support,
\nhe ordered the boy restored to his father,
\nlavished Kaveh with kindness,
\nand commanded him to commit his name
\nto the praise the declaration proclaimed.
\nThe blacksmith read from beginning to end
\nand turned to the elders assembled there:
\n\u201cYou\u2019ve made yourselves this Devil\u2019s minions,
\ndivorced in your hearts from heaven! It\u2019s hell
\nyou look to now, bowing to this beast.\u201d<\/p>\n

He rose, enraged, to his full height,
\ntore the proclamation to pieces
\nhe stomped into the ground, then stormed
\nwith his son out into the street.<\/p>\n

The gathered nobles sought to soothe
\nwhat they assumed was Zahhak\u2019s wounded
\npride, \u201cO great and powerful prince
\nof princes! King of kings! The cool
\nbreeze dares not blow above you
\non the day you muster your men for battle.
\nYet this foul-mouthed Kaveh calls you out,
\nas if his status equaled to yours,
\ngrinding our covenant into the ground,
\nrejecting your right as ruler
\nto his obedient submission. Swollen with scorn,
\nhis head and heart fury-filled,
\nhe\u2019s gone to forge with Feraydoun
\nan alliance against you. We won\u2019t accept this!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cListen to this<\/em>,\u201d Zahhak insisted.
\n\u201cSee how strange things sometimes are:
\nAs soon as Kaveh spoke, there seemed
\nto rise between us a mountain of iron,
\nand when he hit his head with his hand,
\nthe apparition shattered, foreshadowing
\nwhat only time will tell. No one
\nknows the secrets Heaven holds.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}