The Tale of Nushzad and Khosrow

Whether you are a king or a servant, or a pure-hearted man who worships God, know this: there is no escaping a wife, for clothing, food, and a hidden home. If she is virtuous and gives good counsel, she is a scattered treasure of a woman. Especially if she is tall of stature, with dark, flowing hair down to her feet, wise, alert, thoughtful and modest, her speech lovely and her voice soft. The king had a noble wife like this, tall as a cypress and lovely as the moon. This moon-faced woman followed the faith of Christ, and the whole city buzzed with talk of her beauty. She bore him a child with a face like the sun, brighter in the sky than the planet Venus. They named the famous child Nushzad; so cherished he was that not even a harsh wind reached him. He grew like a slender cypress, gifted and worthy of a king of kings. He came to know hell and the road to heaven, the ways of Christ and the path of Zoroaster. The Zend prayers did not sit right with him; he washed both cheeks in the water of Christ. He left his father's faith and took his mother's creed, and the age stood amazed at him. The king grew so heartsick over him, for the rose had yielded nothing but thorns. They shut him in his palace and blessed hall and made it his prison. His place of confinement was Gundishapur, far from Iran and from the West. Many prisoners in chains and full of wounds shared that prison there with him. When the king returned from Rome, he groaned from the strain and hardship of the road. He grew so weak that his body failed him, and from sickness he could no longer bear the weight. Someone carried the news to Nushzad, that the royal glory had grown dim. The whole world would now fall into turmoil, and everywhere men would be led astray to evil. The vigilant lord of the world, Khosrow, is dead; he has left time and earth to another. Nushzad rejoiced at his father's death, so may the name Nushin never rest on him. An old man drew a lesson from this tale: if you rejoice at a death, may you never die. A son who turns away from his father's path, we call him a tyrant, if not a fool. If the root is that of bitter colocynth, wet or dry, its branch cannot bear fragrant musk. Why should it change from the very nature the gardener planted in it at the first? If it leans instead toward the soil, it cuts itself off from sun, wind, and earth. No fruit will it give, nor leaves; its life and death come from the dust. I have told a tale of Nushzad; take heed, so that you never turn your face from justice. If the wheel of fate needed a chief minister, then surely Kasra himself would be its minister. Why should a son turn his head from his father's path? Why should he sit and scheme to seize his throne? Hear this story from me, from beginning to end; I will tell you, my son, every part of it. When I dressed up the words of the old sage, I wished to leave a mark of myself in them, So that such a keepsake would remain of me, and win the blessing of those who bless. After my death, I who am the teller of this will still be sought after through this lasting name. So spoke the Persian teller of tales, when more than a hundred and twenty years had passed: That anyone who is the enemy of the just is not of human stock but is a demon. This story too comes down about Noshzad, remembered from the words of ancient times. When Kasra's son heard that the throne had been emptied of that royal tree, The king's son threw open the palace, and a great army gathered around him. Everyone who had broken free from the bonds of reason, whom Nushinravan had shut in prison, He unlocked the chains from the prisons, and the whole city struck their heads in grief over him. Everyone in the city who was a Christian, whether bishop or overseer of the church, He gathered many of them around himself, defiant horsemen who wielded the sword. Some thirty thousand came to him, all lancers and swingers of daggers. He wrote a letter to a friend of his, in the manner of the Caesar's dark faith: That you are the chief over Gundeshapur, and share the Caesar's voice and creed. The whole city turned full of sinners through him; the head of fallen fortune was roused and awake. News of this reached the city of Ctesiphon, of what had come to light from Kasra's son. The guardian of Ctesiphon's frontier sent a rider on the road toward the king. He told him everything he had heard; how could such news be kept hidden? The messenger, swift as running water, came before Nushinravan. He told what he had heard and handed over the letter, the words that had come out about Noshzad. The king listened to him and read the letter; he grew grieved by that affair and fell into gloom. The ruler of the world sat with his proud high priest, and they spoke together for a while in secret. When that matter settled deep in his heart, he ordered the scribe to come before him. He wrote a letter full of anguish and pain, his face lined with grief, his lips full of cold sighs. First he spread out praise for the One who created the sphere, and time, and the earth, The painter of the sun, Saturn, and moon, the kindler of glory, crown, and throne. From worthless straw to lion and elephant, from the trail of an ant's foot to the river Nile, all of it lies under God's command, even the mute stone and the anvil. His command has no visible limit, and no one can strip His sovereignty from Him. I understood from this unwelcome letter how much harm has come from my own son, and from those guilty men who broke from prison and gathered together with Nushzad. If a man expects a day like this, it is fitting that he not linger long in the world; for no one was born from a mother except for death, from Khosrow at the beginning down to Nushzad. None escape the claw and beak of death, not gnat and ant, not elephant and rhinoceros. If the earth were to reveal its secret and measure out its beginning and its end, its lap would be full of crowned kings, its breast full of the blood of horsemen. Its skirt would be full of wise men, its collar full of lovely faces. Whatever crown you set on your head, whatever helmet, the arrow of death will pierce right through it. The band that sides with Nushzad keeps nothing in mind but Khosrow's death. Even if you yourself survive this evil day, it befits you to be glad at another's death? And besides, no one recalls the death of kings with joy except a man of base blood. Nushzad's head turned away from reason, and such a demon fell into tune with him. This talk will not stand firm for him; what he raised so high he wanted only to bring down to ruin. He should not have squandered, in his blindness, the power he held near us, with this recklessness. If the throne had been emptied of Khosrow, he himself would have been worthy of kingship. This was fitting to his own creed, and deserving of his ill-wishing soul. There is no worry or fear in my heart over this, even if my son's faith is not pure. Nor over those who conspired along with him and emptied their hearts of respect for me; nor over the wealth he laid to waste, which in my heart counts as nothing at all. They are ill-minded, useless, and base by nature; they do not suit even this lowly station. On this account their affair is trivial to me; do not let their deeds trouble your heart. My fear and dread are of the Judge of the world, who stands above the knowledge of even the highest. My soul must not stand ungrateful before God, the one who recognizes goodness. He granted me victory and divine splendor, abundance and the crown of kingship. If I gave thanks worthy of such giving, He would grant me still more increase. If a single drop of water left my loins, it found its resting place somewhere else. When the enemy woke and came against me, I feared the trouble had begun with me. And if the king of the world is not in a rage, I have no worry over such a matter. As for those who joined ranks with him, they are all wretched and worthless in my eyes. And from that letter Caesar sent to him, muddy water began to flow into the stream. Anyone who shares his voice and his faith, they imagine Caesar is one of their own. A man whose reason falls short does not look back to his own ancestors. When a heavy fool turns his head away from justice, you must not open your lips to curse him. For a curse against him is truly a curse against us, since he is of our lineage, blood, and body. So marshal your army and prepare for war, but show restraint and take your time. And if it comes to a tight corner, do not act with any harshness in the fighting. To capture him is better than to kill him, in the hope that he turns back from his sin. From the water where the free cypress grew, it is fitting not to wash away with dust. But if he treats a noble body cheaply, and lowers the face of the tall cypress into the dirt, if he lifts his head from the pillow of ease, then do not hold back the mace or the sword from him. One dear to us who longs for his own disgrace cannot be parted from his own nature. A noble one dies debased when he wages war against the king of the world. Have no fear then of killing him, once his own blood is claimed by the earth. He keeps leaning toward Caesar's faith, and turns his head away from our crown. A dear one became wretched, debased, and broken, though chosen for kingship by the lofty heavens. A servant named Mehrnosh, wise and clad in wool, offered up this saying. That whoever rejoiced at his father's death, may he have no comfort and no life. Do not seek brightness out of darkness, for with fire the water pours into the stream. No one ever found ease without hardship; the bright world is simply built this way. Do not make friends with the turning heavens, for one moment you are its kernel, the next its husk. Why seek color and scent from its deeds? It means to snatch away what it has shown. The danger of pain and harm is greatest just when the turning sky lifts you high. The army that stands with Noshzad, why do they turn their heads so far from justice? Know it as nothing but wind and mere play, the boasting of babblers and the counsel of the wicked. Everyone in his army who is a Christian turns his head only for the sake of that faith. Such is the faith of the Messiah: you speak a sharp word, and someone is left dejected by it. He cared nothing for the counsel of Christ; in the end his enemy's emblem was the cross. The rest are all scattered wretches: bad teachers, ill-wishers, and mere servants. Not one of them has any sounder judgment; their opinion is worth no more than a puff of wind. If Nushzad is captured in the fighting, do not so much as mention any of these matters to him. For the veiled women in his household would, in secret, bring their own lives to an end over the shame of it. Make his palace itself his prison, along with all who carried out his commands. Do not close the treasury against him at all, even though, once honored, he is now brought so low. In the matter of the veiled women, of food, of furnishings and of bedding, let him lack for nothing; he must not go without anything he needs. And of these Iranian frontier lords, every one who bound himself in alliance with him, once you are victorious, do not mince words: cut them in two through the waist with the sword. Anyone who is an enemy of the king, it is right to feed to the jaws of the crocodile. But apart from Nushzad, whoever is our enemy at heart springs from the seed of cruelty, of the devil's own stock. They will not remember the good we have done; the lesson of Nushzad is warning enough for you. Any onlooker who cursed us, who let his tongue wag against Nushzad, who deliberately wished insult upon us and made ready their slanders when the moment came, do not consent to this either: that our ill-wisher should tell such a tale. Even if he has proven worthless, he is still of our own blood, and our heart bears witness to this truth. The tongue of anyone who spoke evil, and by whom injustice was done to Nushzad, brand it all in front of the assembly: let him have neither tongue nor mouth. Whoever waits and watches for the day the king's body grows weak, who works crookedness and hatred, malice and the devil's creed, he has no right to this kingship, which is our glory, our head, our crown, and our very face. They set the king's seal upon the letter, and the messenger turned and set off swiftly on the road. When he had come from the road to Ram Borzin, he told all he had heard from King Kasra. When that had been said, he handed over the letter, with the command the king had given concerning Nushzad: to raise an army and prepare for war, and to clear his mind of any tenderness toward him. When the old man had read that letter and heard some words from the messenger, at the hour when the cock's cry rises, the sound of the war drum rose from the court. A great army set out from Ctesiphon, and Ram Borzin marched swiftly to the war. Then word reached Noushzad; he gathered his troops and paid them their wages. They were all Christian bishops and men of Rome, natives of that prosperous frontier. At their head marched the commander Shammas, leading an army with hands already washed in blood. A roar rose from Noushzad's gate, and the army stirred like a sea churned by the wind. They poured out of the city onto the open plain, their hearts full of war, spite, and poison. When Ram Barzin saw the dust of the army, he sounded the brass trumpets and drew up his ranks. From the dust of the armored horsemen and the swinging of heavy maces, the heart of solid stone was torn apart; no one could see the shining sun's face. At the center of the army stood Noushzad, a Roman helmet set upon his head. There was an army of Roman bishops so dense that the ground could not be seen beneath the hooves. You would think the earth itself had begun to boil, and the sky above it had begun to roar. A bold warrior in mail came forward, a man whose name was Piruz-Shir. He cried out: 'Renowned Noushzad, what has turned your head so far from justice? You have abandoned the faith of Kayumars, and the path of Hushang and Tahmuras. The deceiving Messiah was himself killed, once his head was turned from God's religion. Do not seek vengeance for the sake of one who did not even know how his own affairs would end. If the divine glory had shone upon him, how could a Jew have found a way against him? Your father, that free and noble world-ruler, you have heard what he did to Rome and its Caesar. And now you wage war against him, raising your head toward the sky. With a face like the moon and this radiance and majesty, with these shoulders, this arm, and this mace, I see no wisdom left in you; your darkened soul has grown so foolish. What a pity for that noble stature, crown, name, and lineage that you are now casting to the wind. You are no match for King Kasra, nor are you a roaring elephant or lion. Yet, O prince, in no royal hall have I seen a form like your hand upon the rein, like your foot in the stirrup and your neck, this fury and your arm and your club. No painter of China ever painted such a figure; time itself has never seen a king like you. In your youth, do not scorch King Kasra's heart; do not darken this world-brightening water of life. Dismount from your horse and beg for mercy; throw down this mace and Roman helmet. For if, far from here, one cold wind should settle dark dust upon your face, the king's heart would burn for you, and the sun would weep at the sight of your face. Do not sow the seed of harshness anywhere in the world; hostility does not become a king. If you turn away from my counsel, you may reach for greatness and try to play the hero. But then Piruz's advice will come back to you, and so will your own bitter words. Nushzad answered him: 'You worn-out old man, your head full of empty wind, do not beg protection for me from the army; make me proud, for I am the king's son. I have no need of Kasra's faith; my heart leans toward my mother's. Her religion is that of the Messiah; I will not turn from her glory and her faith. If the faithful Messiah was slain, still the divine glory did not leave him. That pure spirit rose to the pure God; he found no greatness in this dark earth. If I too am killed, there is no fear in it; where is the poison of death without its antidote?' He said this to old Piruz, and then the sky's face was veiled with arrows. The champions of the army moved out; the roar of drums and trumpets rose up. The commander spurred his horse like fire and charged forward like lightning. He broke the left wing of the Iranian king's forces; no warrior stood before his advance. He killed many men of the army, and this made Ram Barzin turn fierce. He ordered a rain of arrows, so the air was like the hail of spring. In the swirl of dust Nushzad was wounded, and he thought often of Piruz's advice. He came to the heart of the army, full of pain, his body torn by arrows, his face pale with agony. He said before the brave men of Rome: 'War against a father is wretched, shameful, and cursed.' He wept and called the bishop to him, and poured out all that was in his heart. He told him: 'This grim fate has brought so many cruelties upon me, from my own hand. Now when my head sinks into the dust, send a rider to my mother. Tell her that Nushzad has left this world; his days of good and evil are over. Do not let your heart grieve for me, for this is the way of this fleeting house. This is my share of that dark day, though my heart was once glad and the world was bright to me. A living creature is born only to die; if you understand death, do not mourn for me. My head is not stained with the smoke of killing; my father is worse than I, for he is never content. Make no tomb, no throne, no long labor for me; in the way of the Messiah, dig me a simple grave. No camphor is needed, no musk, no perfume, for I have been killed by an arrow from this world.' He said this and closed his lips together, and the famous lion-hearted Nushzad was gone. When the army learned that their king was dead, they scattered from that field of battle. When the enemy heard the champion had fallen, they rushed, wailing, to his bedside. From that battlefield no one killed anyone more; they took no joy and carried off no spoils. They found him slain, cast down and abandoned, with the Roman bishop cradling his head. The whole field filled with cries because of him, and the heart of Ram-Barzin was full of grief and anguish. He asked the bishop: of Noshzad's dying words, what of the prince's testament do you remember? The bishop answered: no one but his mother should see him naked, laid before her. When he saw his body wounded by the arrow, he ordered no tomb, no musk, no perfume. No crown, no Roman silk, no throne, since from the slaves he had seen a dark and bitter fate. In the way of the Messiah, let his mother now prepare his shroud, his grave, and his covering. Now his soul is one with the Messiah; this wounded man is not one for the gallows. Every Christian who was in the city, not one of them left their face unscratched in mourning. A cry rose from the city, men and women alike; all of them gathered together as one. The body of that brave and youthful prince, the heart and eye of King Nushirvan the Just, they lifted in his coffin from where he lay and carried it three leagues by hand. When his mother heard those words, her head and her crown sank down into the dust. She came out onto the road, bare of her veil, while crowds thronged the marketplace around her. They pitched a great tent around him, and a whole world poured dust upon their heads in grief. They gave him to the earth, and Noshzad was gone: he came from the wind, and suddenly to the wind returned. The whole host of Shapur broke into weeping; their hearts burned with sorrow for the prince. Why do you writhe, blind in the grip of greed, when you know you will not stay here long? Seek only your passage on, and do not chase this world so; its roses hold poison, so do not sniff too deep. Do not turn your face from faith and from honesty, for God's wrath brings only ruin and loss. When you hear this, draw your heart back from sorrow; do not set your lips ablaze with grieving. If you have a cup of wine, ask for it, golden; do not count joy of heart among your sins. Seek delight and gladness, and do not grow slack; do not waste the marrow of your words on idle talk. If there is any love of Ali in your heart, on the Day of Judgment that saint will intercede for you.