1.
Men of gold, and men of silver!
When a fool about a thoman
Talks, of silver he is speaking,
And he means a silver thoman.
In a prince’s mouth, however,
Or a shah’s, a thoman’s always
Golden, for a shah will only
Give and take in golden thomans.
Worthy people have this notion,
And Ferdusi thought so also,
The composer of the famous
And immortal work Schah Nameh.
This divine heroic poem
At the Shah’s command composed he,
Who for every verse a thoman
Promised to bestow upon him.
Seventeen times bloom’d the roses,
Seventeen times did they wither,
And the nightingales sang sweetly
And were silent seventeen times,—
And meanwhile the bard was sitting
At the loom of thought, composing
Day and night, and nimbly weaving
His sweet numbers’ giant-carpet,—
Giant-carpet, where the poet
Interwove with skill his country’s
Chronicles from times of fable,
Farsistan’s primeval monarchs,
Fav’rite heroes of his nation,
Knightly deeds, adventures wondrous,
Magic beings, hateful demons,
Intertwined with flowers of fable.
All were blooming, all were living,
Bright with colours, glowing, burning,
With the heavenly rays illumin’d
From the sacred light of Iran,
From the godlike light primeval,
Whose last pure and fiery temple,
Spite of Koran and of Mufti,
In the poet’s heart flam’d brightly.
When at last the work was finish’d,
Then the manuscript the poet
Sent to his illustrious patron,
E’en two hundred thousand verses.
It was in the public bath room,
In the bathing place at Gasna,
That the Shah’s black messengers
Found at last the bard Ferdusi.
Each a bag of money carried,
Which before the poet’s feet he
Kneeling placed, to be the guerdon
To reward his minstrel labours.
Hastily the poet open’d
Both the bags, his eyes to gladden
With the gold so long kept from him,—
When he saw with consternation
That the bags contain’d within them
Silver only, silver thomans,
Some two hundred thousand of them;—
Bitterly then laugh’d the poet.
Laughing bitterly, the money
He divided in three equal
Portions, and a third part gave he
To the two black messengers,
Each a third, to be his guerdon
For the message, and the third part
Gave he to the man who waited
On his bath, as drinking-money.
Then his pilgrim staff he straightway
Grasp’d, and left at once the city,
And before the gate the dust he
From his very shoes rejected.
2.
“Had he been, like other men,
“Heedless of his words once spoken,
“And his promise merely broken,
“I had not been angry then.
“Suffer this? I never will!
“His deceit my heart amazes,
“Both his double-meaning phrases,
“And his silence, falser still.
“He was noble, fair to see,
“Proud his gestures were, and stately;
“Other men excell’d he greatly,
“Every inch a king was he.
“Firelike did his glance once meet me,
“As the sun in yonder heaven
“He, truth’s haughty image even—
“And he yet hath deign’d to cheat me.”