Shahnameh: the epic of Persian kings is the book I’m currently reading. I hope all of you are healthy and safe with your loved ones during this global pandemic! It has been a while that I didn’t post any stories or updates on my blog. Well, I’m sorry. First of all, I’ve been busy moving to a new place with my sister in June. Then we had to do a lot of shopping and running errands so that everything falls into its right place before we actually start living in our new home. I’m going to upload photos of it here as soon as I find some time!
Apart from this, as you may know I’ve been jobless for a couple of months due to the coronavirus outbreak in the world. Over the last 6 years, I have been working in tourism industry and I really loved it. And that’s why I don’t feel like looking for a new job in another field of career. It’s sad that the pandemic (and the political issues of Iran before that) put a halt to the business of all of us who work in this colorful industry. I really hope that we can resume our career before we have to start working in a different field which we don’t like perhaps!
Thus, I resumed tutoring English in July (after 3 months). That would be a suitable option for now. I also did some translating projects for an IT company and helped my sister in her bag studio over the last couple of months. Well, I hope I can keep it up this way until a cure/vaccine is found for covid-19. I really hope so!
Podcasts can be interesting
Meanwhile, now that I don’t go to work I found a lot of time to do what I always wanted to do. I’ve always loved epic fiction and poetry and I really enjoyed reading and listening to Shahnameh: the epic of Persian kings since I was a kid. How much do you know about this great book? Rostam is the greatest epic hero of Persians since ancient times. Ferdowsi immortalized this legendary warrior in Shahnameh. In Iran, we have learned about some of Rostam’s battles at high school. There was an exciting heroic tone in every story; the setting of battles, the breath-taking dialogue between the warriors before the battle, their self-praise, even the harmonic sound of the hoofs of war horses…
I remember that I had the same feeling when I was reading Iliad and Odyssey back in 2013. I loved the way Greek warriors had the upper hand in battle and defeated the Trojans in the end with the help of Athena. In my opinion, Trojans had no right to kidnap beautiful Helen but that was also pre-destined for Paris and Helen. Many brave warriors were killed in this bloody battle just because of the charms of a mortal woman. It’s not fair, if you ask me! Paris was the only one who should have paid the price of his ignorance and unjustifiable romance. But as we know both he and Helen were under the love spell of Aphrodite, weren’t they?
It makes me think how helpless and innocent we humans are in this vast cosmos around us. How life can go on in our favor at one moment or how it can take its wicked turns totally against our will and desires at the next one. How happy we can be at one moment and the most desperate the next moment. It can happen in any unit of time; a moment, a day, a week or over a year. No matter what happens in our life and what our destiny is, we are doomed to live it…
Insights on life
When I was younger I used to believe in free will. I believed that I can achieve anything just by taking the right decision at the right moment. As simple and easy as that! Can you believe it? Now that I’m older and I had been through the storms of life I’ve learned that life does not owe anything to anyone. And you should take whatever happens in your life just as it is. You should “cast a cold eye on life” as Yeats, the Irish poet, says. Do you think that I have a sad or disappointing attitude to life? My attitude to life is deterministic I know.
On the other hand, I should say that I think we are here for a reason. There should be an ultimate goal in the single life of each and every human being on earth! On a bigger level, there should be a goal in the life of every creature for that matter. And we are the ones who should fulfill this goal. We should experience this rather hard life on earth to get an insight/wisdom. We are here to suffer as well as to enjoy…
Ferdowsi, the great Persian epic poet, constantly reminds us of the transitory nature of our life in this world. Of all the turns and twists of this world. He wants to warn us against the illusions of it. That we should not be that happy about what we are given in life and we should not get that sad about what we lose on the other hand. Whatever we have here, it is given to us to be in our hands only for a short time. May it be a kingdom or victory in the battle.
About Shahnameh
Shahnameh The Epic of Persian Kings is the seminal work of Persian literature, an epic poem that recounts the history of pre-Islamic Persia or Iranshahr (Greater Iran). The Shahnameh contains 62 stories, told in 990 chapters with 50,000 rhyming couplets. It is divided into three parts—the mythical, heroic, and historical ages. Written in modern Persian, the Shahnameh is a work of poetry, historiography, folklore, and cultural identity and is a continuation of the ageold tradition of storytelling in the Near East.
Under the patronage of the Samanid dynasty, Hakīm Abul-Qāsim Firdawsī Tūsī (Ferdowsi) began his epic poem in 977, taking thirty-three years to complete it. The Shahnameh was written at a time when modern Persian had started to flourish and the structures and standards for the language were being set.
After its first appearance in 1010, Shahnameh The Epic of Persian Kings directly affected the epic and poetic works of all Persian speakers and writers for centuries. A number of scholars credit the continuity in modern Persian to the Shahnameh. It influenced not just Persian speakers but also the cultures of Turkic peoples in Central Asia, Azerbaijan, and the Ottoman Empire, as well as the Georgian, Kurdish, and Pashto literary traditions. The Shahnameh continues to be one of the primary pillars of the modern Persian language.