There appears to have been an earlier publication;: the poem contains a dedication to a certain Ahmad Khanlanjan, dated in our reckoning, Jan. 17, 999. B the final dedication was to the upstart Turkish conquer Mahmud of Ghazni, Allah-breathing Lord,' to who Firdausi brought the poem in hope of generous recor pense from a prince who posed as a patron of literatur The tale of his disappointment, of the bitter lampor on Mahmud which it called forth, and of Firdaus consequent persecution and exile, is too familiar to ne repeating here, where we are concerned only with th methods of his composition.

The Shahnama, like its source, comprises the whole (~ Persian history, from the earliest mythical times, whe kings reigned for over a thousand years each, to the Arai invasion and the death of Yazdagird III in 652 a.d. I consists of nearly sixty thousand couplets; that is to say it is about four times as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey. together; but the variation between different copies is so great that the exact length of the poem as it left Firdausi's hands is uncertain. It is written in rhyming couplets, all in one metre, υ— —

'Binám-i khudáwand-i ján u khirad,
Kazin bartar andisha bar nagzurad.'

variation of a single Short as the life of

So it begins; and so, without the syllable, it continues to the end. Persian poetry was when Firdausi began to write, this metre was already stereotyped for epic poetry. And we have singular evidence to show that not only the epic metre but the epic style was fixed before Firdausi. Though we possess, indeed, hardly any fragments of the earliest epic poetry, there is one remarkable exceptionthe thousand couplets of Daqiqi, which Firdausi has incorporated in the Shahnama. This he did, he tells us, at the request of Daqiqi's spirit, which appeared to him in a dream. Be this as it may, there can be no doubt that we have this fragment unaltered; for Firdausi takes pains, ungenerously enough, to contrast it with his own work, much to the advantage of the latter. Nöldeke,

* It is only fair to add that in another place, while deploring Daqiqi's dissolute life, Firdausi speaks with high praise of his poetical gifts.

who has given special attention to this point, feels no
doubt that, even when all allowance is made for our
necessarily inferior appreciation of verbal delicacies,
Firdausi's depreciation of his predecessor is exaggerated.
Had it not been, he says, for Firdausi's own statement, it
would never have occurred to anybody that Daqiqi's lines
were the murk of another hand. The fact being known,
Nöldeke can detect certain differences in style. Daqiqi
is more prosaic and less skilful in arrangement; he has a
fondres for certain mannerisms of expression; but these
diffraces hardly exceed those between different parts
of Firdausi's own work. It may, we think, be confidently
added that none of these inequalities approach in magni-
tade those between the better and worse parts of the
Had and the Odyssey. The style of the Shahnama is,
like the metre, uniform even to monotony.

It is, moreover, in one respect at least, an artificial and conventional style. The four centuries of Arabic literary domination had naturally affected in a profound this day a large proportion of the Persian vocabulary degree the literary, and even the vernacular Persian. To consists of Arabic words, at most very slightly disguised. It was the same in the tenth century; and the lyric poetry which has survived from that age shows as large a proportion as modern Persian of Arabic words-not far from fifty per cent. of the whole. This foreign element was plainly discordant in literature designed to glorify the national history during the millennia preceding the rise of Mohammedanism. The epic vocabulary was therefore consciously archaised, and the Arabic intruders far as possible expelled. Many Arabic words had ded struck root too deep to permit excision; but Da, and after him Firdausi, succeeded in reducing the propion to about five or six per cent., using, so far as possible, old Persian words which were doubtless more than half forgotten nine hundred years ago. opy of the Shahnama is often followed, like our Chauby a glossary of obsolete expressions. A modern

A native

ht the sonorous rhythm of a reciter; but, if pressed gentleman will, it is said, follow with intense at the meaning of a particular phrase, he is as likely as not to say, 'Well, I don't know exactly what it means; but in't it beautiful?' It must be confessed that the

Persian; with his exquisitely musical ear for rhythm, too apt to be carried away by the sounds, and to let t sense take care of itself; and Prof. Browne, who literary taste is attested by the admirable translation which adorn his book, plainly expresses his opinion the the Shahnama owes its reputation more to the sensuot majesty of the lines than to the variety or imaginatio of the ideas which they express.

The fact is that Firdausi, unlike any Greek poet, fe slavishly bound to reproduce his text in all its details, an suffered by this limitation. His close adherence to h sources is proved by the fortunate discovery, among th few remains of Pahlavi secular literature, of two historica novels, both, by a happy coincidence, dealing with episode. included in the Shahnama. They must have been incor porated in the prose Book of Kings, and so reached Firdausi at second-hand, for it is extremely unlikely tha he could read Pahlavi; yet such is the fidelity with which the tradition was handed down that every sentence is reproduced in the poem with a minimum of poetical adornment. Here is a brief specimen from the Karnamak' or 'Gests of Ardashir. King Papak (Pers. Babak) has had dreams which are interpreted by the sages to mean that his chief herdsman, Sasan, or one of his children, will attain to the lordship of the world.

'When Papak heard this speech, he dismissed every one, summoned Sasan before him, and asked him, "Of what family and stock art thou? Was any of thy fathers or forbears a ruler or a sovereign?" Then Sasan prayed Papak for indulgence and safety with the words, "Inflict not on me hurt nor harm." Papak agreed to this; and thereupon Sasan revealed to him his secret and who he was. Then Papak was glad, and said, "I will promote thee." Whereupon, at his bidding, a full royal dress was brought to him and given to Sasan, and he bade him put it on. Sasan did so, and at Papak's command he then strengthened himself with good and proper meals. Later, he gave him his daughter in marriage; and, when the time (according to the predestination of fate) was in accord, the girl forthwith conceived, and from her Artakshir was born.'

* Browne, i, 139. The Karnamak is supposed to have been written about 600 A,D,

'Babak let call the shepherd from the fold
Unto his presence through the fog and cold;
In haste be came, wrapped in his plaid of wool;
Of frost his plaid, of fear his heart was full.
Then Babak bade his folk forth from the hall;
Forth fared the counsellors, the servants all.
With gracious greeting Sasan then he met,
And called him nigh, and close beside him set.
Of birth, of parentage he asked the herd;
But he for fear sat still nor answered word.
At last he spake: "O King, ah well-a-day!
Beware lest thou thy herd to death betray!
Yet will I tell thee all at thy command,

If thou wilt swear, and pledge me hand in hand,
No evil and no ill despite to wreak,

Open nor secret, for the words I speak."

Thereat did Babak loose his tongue to swear,
And called on God the Bountiful to hear;
"No deed of ill, no despite shall be wrought;
To weal and great estate shalt thou be brought."
Then spake the youth and answered, "Verily,
Sasan, O King, and Sasan's son am I;

My grandsire Ardashir imperial,

Whom Bahman Long-arm † men by surname call,
The glorious son of Lord Isfandiyar,

Who Gushtasp's fame blazed through the world afar."
When Babak heard, with tears began to stream
His eyes that saw the vision of the dream.

Straightway he brought a princely garment forth,
A steed betrapped with gear of royal worth.
"Betake thee to the bath," he cried, "and wait
That they bring vesture fit for thy estate."
Apalace rich bedizened builded he,

And therewithin ordained his dwelling-place,
high he raised the lowly hind's degree),
With store of thralls to wait before his face,
And all the pomp of royal state bestowed,

With fair

ht Browne gives

raise; but in his second volume he expresses his dissatisfaction with it We have therefore ventured on an experiment in the ordinary heroit let, which lends itself admirably to line-for-line translation.

an ingenious and interesting translation in allite

Arterxes Longimanus.

+

Last, his own daughter gave he him to wed,
His heart's delight, crown of his kinglihead.
When o'er the lovely bride nine moons had run,
Was born, bright as the shining moon, a son.'

So far as the shepherd story is concerned, we i evidently dealing with pure fable, a fresh edition of t tale of Cyrus and Astyages. But the son mentioned the last line is a real historical person; he succeed Babak in 226 A.D. as Artakshir (Artaxerxes) Babaka he is known to us from his coins and inscriptions; waged war on equal terms with Alexander Severus; a he was father of the Shapur (Saporus) who defeated a captured the Emperor Valerian in 260 A.D.

This extract will show how Firdausi clothed the d bones of the old chronicles. That he invented an episodes himself is extremely improbable; all tends prove that his treatment of the historical material w the same throughout. What he added of his own consis chiefly of the personal part-his account of himsel including a remarkable passage of elegy on the deat of his son, his moral reflections on the mutability o earthly things, and his eulogies on King Mahmud, which in the end were so disastrously wasted.

It might be supposed that a work thus compose would show no inconsistencies in structure. This is however, not entirely the case; and Nöldeke has pointe out several joints not unlike those which are to be found in Homer. One of these is particularly instructive. A cardinal point in the legendary history of the strif between Iran and Turan is the murder of the Persiar prince, Siyawush, in Turan, and the revenge taken for it According to the Shahnama, the hero, Rustam, exacts th penalty; he marches to Turan, conquers and lays it wast up to the frontier of China, rules it for seven years, and then departs. But in the sequel all this is forgotten. The royal armies of Persia wage a long series of wars of ven geance, all of which assume that no penalty has been yet exacted, and that Afrasiyab has reigned undisturbed The explanation is obvious. According to the old Pahlav Khodainamak, the vengeance was taken by the king of Persia, Káús and Kai Khusrau, in the long wars But the later compilers introduced into the chronicl what was originally quite extraneous matter, the story