English
On the Errors of Iran's Historians
Sometimes they call the king a champion, sometimes they push one era into another's place.
Sometimes they name a whole country as a single king, sometimes one person stands for an entire people.
Sometimes a battle's name becomes a hero, sometimes they speak of demons and immortal spirits.
They give one man a thousand years on the throne, and crown the father in his own son's seat.
What a pity that history, in those days, was like the moon hidden behind a cloud.
Few monuments survived, and no one could read the ancient scripts.
Of Assyria, Babylon, and Lydia, of Elam, Hattusa, and Media,
of Greece, of Egypt, and the Phoenician people, the legend-writer knew nothing at all.
And so the unknowing poet sang his lines, measuring one thing against another by guesswork.
The ages of the kings are all tangled together; the words of history are utterly vague.
When Kay Qobad reigns a hundred years, no one recalls Tus and Arash by name.
Faribarz, who was a king of Media, never shone with the glory of God upon him.
When Kavus issues his many commands, no one remembers the Achaemenids.
When Lohrasp reigns for so long a time, Zarir is sent as envoy to Greece.
When Goshtasp is the one and only king, Esfandiar is left without the throne.
When Ardeshir reigns for fifteen years, no trace of a second Ardeshir comes through.
When Rostam lives for long, long years, in every battle he himself sets the fight.
When Garshasp again sits upon the throne, Zal of the golden hair, the Parthian, grows fortunate.
When Cyrus is said to recite the Zend and Avesta, the year and month of Zoroaster come out wrong.
When Zahhak's reign runs a thousand years, the Chaldeans are not even counted.
When Fereydun reigns five hundred years, how can the throne ever reach the settled peoples?
When Afrasiyab is the Khaqan of the Turks, and Shideh is his great and eldest son,
when Ilagu came from the people of Turan, Rud-Karen was reckoned a champion,
when Iraj was the son of Fereydun, Shalmaneser and Tur become muddled and reversed.
When Assyria becomes Sarv, the king of Yemen, the city of Nineveh takes the name of a meadow.
When Sagsar becomes the name of Mazandaran, the Wolf-Heads too are placed within it.
When the realm of Media is the plain of Dagho, they bring a fair daughter from Garsivaz.
When Armenia too becomes the frontier of Tur, wild boars raise an uproar in that land.
If Iraj is the same as the war of Arash, just as Siyuz is the name of Siyavash,
then a certain group's hero was no champion, and Forud was no brave young warrior.
Piran-e Vise is not the king's vizier, for he himself was an immortal army.
The Alans are nothing but the realm of Elam, which the Shahnameh names a fortress.
Pashang is a certain group of Tatars, who once stood for war against the Medes.
The black Huns are the Gahargahanis, and Qarakhan was of the army of Turan.
Balashan is nothing but the partner people, like Bizhan, who is a legend of the wifeless one.
Pashan itself was the war of Nuranias, whose foundation was laid in Palaneh.
Of this kind there are many errors, of which no one was ever aware.
Until this blessed age at its root, when those ancient secrets came to light.
What a shame that today the Iranians do not know the history of their forebears.