Join Tessa Gratton and me as we read the Shahnameh by Abolqasem Ferdowsi. We’re using the Dick Davis translation (Penguin Classics).

This week: The Reign of Hormozd

Synopsis: “Hormozd begins by killing all his advisors, and spends his reign fighting against enemies and then his own ambitious champion Bahram Chubineh.”

TG:  I didn’t hate this section! It started off poorly, with Hormozd making clear what kind of king he was going to be by killing off all his advisors (in pretty imaginative ways)– a bad one. There were no women mentioned at all in the first 45 pages of the section either. Women are just absent entirely (but for the prophecy that Hormozd would have his eyes put out by his wife. Hormozd himself is just one more uninteresting, terrible king, and not very wise on top of that.

HOWEVER, I am very interested in Bahram Chubineh. He’s introduced as a Rostam character, but without the details that made me actively dislike Rostam–there are no magical horses to be mean to.

I almost liked Bahram, even, since he seemed like a pretty cool guy, within the context of this story, who was raised up by the king and lived up to it. I loved the fact that he had his dream about being defeated, but went to war anyway, for the right reasons. He faced terrible odds, and even his own doubt, and bravely led himself to success. (It was disappointing to find out the dream was sent by a magician, instead of being a dream from God

Once he began to fall from grace (at least in the eyes of the narrative and the king), I was even more interested because of the very blatant classism. All the conflict between Bahram and Hormozd can be traced to the fact that Bahram is not nobility, and no matter what great deeds he accomplishes, he still is not good enough to be on level with the king or even his defeated enemy Parmoudeh, and certainly unworthy of Seyavash’s earrings. I’d have been pissed at Parmoudeh, too, if he ignored me like he ignored Bahram. (I wonder what Seyavash would’ve said about Bahram, though.)

We did finally get some women affecting the story, who weren’t (yet) killed in terrible ways, though I have a bad feeling about Bahram’s sister. The others are the old woman astronomer and the Evil Sorceress, who sounds pretty great. Of course, once she put ambition in Bahram’s head, she just sort of vanished….

And speaking of women: DAMN sending Bahram the spindle and women’s clothes was cold. But also speaks to the really dangerous sexism that’s become so apparent in the last hundred or so pages of the Shahnameh. I don’t think that would have worked or even occurred to anyone during Rostam’s time.

I’m glad they’re still hanging on to Seyavash’s belt.

Gordiyeh advises her brother Bahram not to aspire to the Persian throne. Bahram sits in the center with four people around him, one his sister as she speaks.

KE:  I also quite enjoyed this section although I have to admit that I was thrilled that Hormozd was immediately identified as a king of “evil nature” since I knew it meant I was allowed to cheer for all his bad decisions rather than being meant to admire him as with the awful Kesra. Once Bahram Chubineh was introduced I perceived a likely conflict, and because by now I have grown tired of the repetitive nature of the man problems (and the constant championing of a hierarchical, patriarchal, authoritarian inequality as the most just and right system) I was hoping that it would all kind of fall apart. Of course it doesn’t — it never quite does — but at least there were set backs and entertaining conflict. And we are left with a rare cliffhanger of an ending, with Hormozd blinded (although not by a woman as we were promised, so I’m sad about that).

Like you I was amused by the blatantly sexist gift of the spindle and women’s clothing as an insult. It follows the path of the recent chapters with respect to women (I can’t see this as being done in an earlier section; it would just have seemed childish).

This section also has a sense of realism in the ways wars are fought or avoided. At first many people are marching on Persia but Hormozd’s advisors figure out how to deal with each one except Savad Shah. The long standing enmity toward the Turks remains. I guess the Chinese Turks aren’t really the Chinese? I wonder if they are the eastern steppe tribes? I’m not sure. It would be interesting to find an article that tries to identify who these various groups might have represented, especially since the place names are consistent.

But my favorite episode in this section was with Parmoudeh (not even his dad’s favorite son; a classic case of the younger son being the favorite and thus crown prince, while the less favored son manages to survive the catastrophe). Because I am petty, I enjoyed his petty treatment of Bahram Chubineh trying to get back into his good graces by ignoring him and refusing all his efforts to make nice. Parmoudeh’s final comment “Go back, you have tired yourself out enough” is classic.

Next week: The Reign of Khosrow Parviz

Previously: Introduction, The First Kings, The Demon King Zahhak, Feraydun and His Three Sons, The Story of Iraj, The Vengeance of Manuchehr, Sam & The Simorgh, The Tale of Zal and Rudabeh, Rostam, the Son of Zal-Dastan, The Beginning of the War Between Iran and Turan, Rostam and His Horse Rakhsh, Rostam and Kay Qobad, Kay Kavus’s War Against the Demons of Manzanderan, The Seven Trials of Rostam, The King of Hamaveran and His Daughter Sudabeh, The Tale of Sohrab, The Legend of Seyavash Pt. 1, The Legend of Seyavash Pt. 2, The Legend of Seyavash Pt. 3, Forud the Son of Seyavash, The Akvan Div, Bizhan and Manizheh, The Occultation of Kay Khosrow, Rostam and Esfandyar Pt. 1, Rostam and Esfandyar Pt. 2, The Story of Darab and the Fuller, Sekander’s Conquest of Persia, The Reign of Sekander Pt. 1, The Reign of Sekander Pt. 2, The Death of Rostam, The Ashkanians, The Reign of Ardeshir & Shapur,  The Reign of Shapur Zu’l Aktaf, The Reign of Yazdegerd the Unjust, The Reign of Bahram Gur, The Story of Mazdak, The Reign of Kesra Nushin-Ravan