Stories from the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, Volume 2

Among the masterpieces of world literature, one of the least familiar to English readers is the Persian Book of Kings (Shahnameh in Persian). Composed 1,000 years ago, this prodigious national epic is a 60,000 couplet verse poem, which recounts Persia's history from the time of Creation to the 7th-century Arab conquest. The Lion and the Throne, volume I of our series recasts the first third of this epic in a mixture of English prose and verse for the contemporary reader. These tales follow Persia's civilization through a long line of rulers, heroes and heroines as they face love and lust, tragedy and treachery, war and peace, victory and defeat.Volume II of our series, Fathers and Sons, opens and closes with tales of tragic conflict between a king and his son: Prince Seyavash and Prince Esfandyar are both driven from the court by their foolish fathers to confront destiny and death in distant lands. Interwoven with Seyavash's story is the tale of his stepmother Sudabeh's lust for him, and of his escape from her wiles by the famous trial by fire. Esfandyar's story involves the last combat of the great Rostam, a fight to the death which leads to Rostam's own demise at the hands of his evil brother Shaghad. Between these two stories the reader travels through a wondrous landscape of romance "Bizhan and Manizheh", demons "the Akvan Div", heroic despair "The Story of Forud" and mystical renunciation of the world "The Occultation of Kay Khosrow". Breathtaking miniatures from the finest Persian Shahnameh manuscripts of the 16th and 17th centuries heighten the emotional impact of the text.