But when the poem was completed, after thirty years'
labor, the king, instigated by the slanders of the jealous prime minister,
sent to the poet sixty thousand silver instead of gold dirhems. The
enraged poet threw the silver to his attendants and fled from the country,
leaving behind him an insulting poem to the sultan. He spent the remainder
of his life at Mazinderan and Bagdad, where he was received with honor,
and in his old age returned to Thus to die. Tradition relates that Mahmoud
at last discovered the villainy of his minister, and sent the gold to
Thus. But the old poet was dead, and his daughter indignantly refused the
money. Mahmoud then applied the sum to the improvements of the town so
long desired by Firdusi.
The Shah-Nameh is written in the pure old Persian, that Mohammed declared
would be the language of Paradise. In its sixty thousand couplets are
related the deeds of the Persian kings from the foundation of the world to
the invasion by the Mohammedans; but it is of very little value as a
historical record, the facts it purports to relate being almost lost among
the Oriental exaggerations of the deeds of its heroes.
The only complete translation in a foreign language is the elaborate
French translation of Julius Mohl.
The Shah-Nameh is still popular in Persia, where it is said that even the
camel drivers are able to repeat long portions of it.
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