Firdusi is sometimes
called the Homer of the East, because he describes rude heroic times and
men, as did Homer; but he is also compared to Ariosto, because of his
wealth of imagery. His heroes are very different from those to whom we
have been wont to pay our allegiance; but they fight for the same
principles and worship as lovely maids, to judge from the hyperbole
employed in their description. The condensation of the Shah-Nameh reads
like a dry chronicle; but in its entirety it reminds one of nothing so
much as a gorgeous Persian web, so light and varied, so brightened is it
by its wealth of episode.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE SHAH-NAMEH.
Samuel Johnson's The Shah-Nameh, or Book of Kings (in his Oriental
Religion, Persia, 1885, pp. 711-782);
E. B. Cowell's Persian Literature, Firdusi (in Oxford Essays, 1885, pp.
164-166);
Elizabeth A. Reed's Persian Literature, Ancient and Modern, 1893, pp.
214-283.
STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE SHAH-NAMEH.
The Shah-Nameh, Tr. and abridged in prose and verse with notes and
illustrations, by James Atkinson, 1832;
Abbreviated version taken from a Persian abridgment, half prose, half
verse; The Epic of Kings, Stories re-told from Firdusi, by Helen
Zimmern, 1882.
THE STORY OF THE SHAH-NAMEH.
Kaiumers was the first King of Persia, and against him Ahriman, the evil,
through jealousy of his greatness, sent forth a mighty Deev to conquer
him.
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