English
The Choosing of Bahram
Bahram spoke: You elders and chiefs, you leaders who have seen the world and grown old,
the throne is mine, father to father through the line. Why is the giving of it now in your hands?
The Iranians answered aloud: Do not make us endure more loss with your patience.
We do not want you as our king, nor you as an army over our land and soil.
For from this bloodline we are scarred by fire, by smoke, by grief, day and night in torment and cold winds.
Bahram said: Deafness is fair enough, whim rules over every heart like a king.
But if you refuse me without my consent, then why set anyone else in my place?
The mobed said: By the way of justice, neither a king nor a man of lower birth should flee his duty.
Be one of us, and choose a king that everyone will bless and praise.
Three days the matter dragged on, as they searched Iran for a single ruler.
Then they wrote down a hundred famous names, men worthy of the crown, the throne, and the royal belt.
Among those hundred, one name was Bahram, a heart's comfort in his rule.
From the hundred they came back to fifty, full of scheming and full of need.
Among the fifty Bahram stood first, whether or not he had followed his father's path.
From fifty they narrowed it to thirty, of Iranian, Roman, and Persian blood.
Among the thirty too Bahram led, both crowned and a young lion.
From thirty the wise mobed chose four, and of these four Bahram was the ruler.
When talk of kingship narrowed to the end, every elder among the Iranians
said: We do not want Bahram, that reckless, headstrong, willful man.
An uproar rose among the chiefs, and every heart grew sharp with argument.
Mundhir said to the Iranians: I want to know, for good or ill,
why, for the sake of a young king untested by years, you are all so full of pain and darkened in spirit.
The great men prepared their reply, and summoned many a wounded, broken-hearted Persian.
All those whom Yazdgerd had maimed in Iran, one by one they gathered on that plain.
One had both hands and both feet cut off; one was left in place, his life barely clinging.
Another had both hands, both ears, and his tongue cut away, like a body without a soul.
One had both shoulders torn from his body; Mundhir was left astonished at these people.
One had both eyes gouged out with a nail; when Mundhir saw it, his anger flared.
Bahram was sickened, stricken by that sight, and said to his father's grave: You ill-fated man,
if you sewed shut the eyes of your own joy, why did you burn your soul in fire?
World-seeking Mundhir said to Bahram: This wrong done to them must not be hidden.
You have heard their words, now answer them, for harshness does not suit a king.