After this, the life of Kai Khosru is consumed in battles fought by his heroes against the Turanians. Only towards the end of his days does he become a penitent king; he will no longer allow his subjects to fight, and his only occupation is prayer; he takes leave of his people and his daughters in peace, ascends a mountain, and disappears in a tempest, leaving no trace of himself. In a similar manner the heroes Yudhishṭhiras, Cyrus, and Romulus disappear (not to speak of the biblical Moses, still less of Christ, as we do not wish to complicate a comparison of which the materials are already so extensive, by mixing up the Aryan elements with those of Semitic origin; although the legends of the serpent, of Noah, of Abraham and his regained wife, of Abraham and his son Isaac, of Joseph and his brethren, of Joshua, of Job, and other and more recent biblical heroes, by their mythical or astronomical import, present numerous analogies with the Indo-European legends); in a similar manner, the old sun, weary of reigning in the heavens and fighting for his life, becomes invisible every evening on the mountain-peaks.
The Shahname contains numerous other legends besides those which we have thus far briefly described; and one of the most notable is, beyond a doubt, that of Isfendiar, who goes with his brother Bishutem to deliver his two sisters, imprisoned in a fortress by the Turanian king Ardshasp. The seven adventures of Isfendiar, i.e., his meeting with the wolf, the lion, the dragon, the witch (who makes herself beautiful, but who is no sooner bound with the enchanted necklace of Isfendiar [the solar disc] than she becomes old and ugly again), the gigantic bird, the tempest and the river, all of which dangers he victoriously overcomes, are reproductions, in an analogous form too, of the seven adventures of Rustem.
Finally, the legend of Iskander or Iskender (the name of Alexander of Macedon), full of extraordinary adventures, became exceedingly popular in Persia, and thence, no doubt, passed with all its charms into Europe. The audacity and good fortune, the glory and the power of the great conqueror were the reasons why there grouped round his name so many extraordinary stories, which wandered dispersedly through the world without epic unity. To make up one glorious and never-to-be-forgotten hero, were combined together the achievements of many anonymous or nearly forgotten ones. The Persian Iskendername of Nishâmi, is, as its name denotes, entirely taken up with the celebration of the deeds of the Macedonian hero, of which the most illustrious are the liberation of the princess Nushâbe (taken prisoner by the Russians), and the voyage in search of the fountain of life and immortality, which, however, Iskander cannot find. From Persia the same legend afterwards passed, with new disguises, into Egypt, Armenia, and Greece, whence it was diffused during the middle ages over almost the whole of Western Europe.[310]
As a bridge of transition between the Hindoo and Persian, and the Turk or Tartar traditions, we shall make use of three works: the Turkish version[311] of the Persian Tuti-Name, itself a translation and in part a paraphrase of the Hindoo Çuka-Saptatî, i.e., the seventy (stories) of the parrot; the Mongol stories of Siddhi-kûr, and the Mongol history of Ardshi-Bordshi Khân,[312] the first being a paraphrase of the Hindoo Vetâla-Pańćavinçatî, i.e., the twenty-five of the Vetâla (a kind of demon), and the second of the Hindoo Vikrama-ćaritram (the heroic action).
We have seen in the Âitareya Brahmânam the father who prepares to offer up his son, and in the Mahâbhâratam, the son who forfeits youth that his father may live. In the Tuti-Name,[313] the faithful Merdi Gânbâz prepares to sacrifice his wife and sons, and afterwards himself, to prolong the life of the king; but his devotion and fidelity being proved, he is arrested by God before he can accomplish the cruel sacrifice, and receives numberless benefits from the king.
In the story of the goldsmith and the woodcutter, the Tuti-Name[314] reproduces the two brothers or friends, of whom one is wicked, rich, and avaricious, while the other is defrauded of the money due to him, because, though, in reality intelligent, he is supposed to be an idiot. The woodcutter avenges himself upon the goldsmith by a plan which we shall find described in the legend of the bear, and recovers, thanks to his craftiness, the gold which his brother or friend had kept from him.
In the interesting story of Merhuma,[315] we read of the wife who is persecuted by the seducer her brother-in-law. To avenge her refusal, he causes her to be stoned during the absence of his brother; being innocent, she rises again from under the stones; being sheltered by a Bedouin, a monster of a slave seduces her; being repulsed, he accuses her of the death of the Bedouin's little son, whom he had himself killed; the beautiful girl flees away; she frees a youth who was condemned to death, and who in his turn seduces her. She then embarks in a ship; while she is at sea all the sailors become enamoured of her and wish to possess her; she invokes the god who caused Pharaoh to be drowned and who saved Noah from the waters. The waves begin to move; a thunderbolt descends and burns to ashes all who are in the ship, with the exception of the beautiful girl, who lands safe and sound upon the shore (it is the aurora coming out of the gloomy ocean of night, and the monsters who persecute her are burned to ashes by the thunderbolts and the sun's rays); she thence escapes into a convent, in which she ministers to the unfortunate, cures the lame, and gives eyesight to the blind. Among the latter is her persecutor, the brother of her husband; she pardons him and gives him back his eyesight; in the same way she cures all her other persecutors. It is scarcely necessary for me to remind the reader how this oriental tale, which developed itself from the myth of the persecuted and delivering aurora which we have seen in the Vedic hymns, reappears in numerous very popular western legends, of which Crescentia and Geneviève are the most brilliant types.
The aurora comes out of the gloomy ocean and is espoused by the sun; these heavenly nuptials in proximity to the sea gave rise to the popular tale[316] of the king who wishes the sea with its pearls to be present at his nuptials; the pearls of the bride-aurora are supposed to come out of the sea of night. The sea sends as gifts to the king a casket of pearls, a chest of precious dresses, a horse that goes like the morning wind, and a chest full of gold.
The wise aurora figures again in the story of the ingenious princess[317] who discovers, by means of a story-riddle, the robbers who, during the night, stole the precious gem destined for the king.
The aurora imparts splendour and eyesight to the blinded sun. The story of the three-breasted princess who, while she meditates poisoning the blind man, in order that she may enjoy unrestrained the affections of her young and handsome lover, relents and gives him back his sight, reappears in a rather incomplete form in the Tuti-Name.[318]