English
Section 6: The Envy of the Brothers
A long time passed over these days,
and fate held a secret hidden in its heart.
The wise Fereydun grew old;
the spring of his life gathered dust.
This is how everything ends:
when a thing grows old, its strength gives out.
When darkness crept into his affairs,
the noble ones seized on arrogance.
Salm's heart stirred and shifted from its place;
his manner and his thinking turned different.
His heart drowned in greed,
and he sat in thought with a counselor.
His father's division did not please him,
for he had given the golden throne to the youngest son.
With hatred in his heart and a frown on his face,
he sent a messenger to the king of China.
He sent word to his brother:
May you live forever, joyful and content.
Know this, great king of the Turks and China:
our bright hopes have been cut off from the best of things.
It seems you accept loss instead of good,
a lowly spirit while you stand tall as a cypress.
Now hear a tale from me
the likes of which you have never heard from ancient times.
We were three sons worthy of the throne;
one, the youngest of us, rose up by fortune.
Though I am greater in years and wisdom,
fate has come to suit me with its favor.
Setting me aside, the crown and throne and diadem
suit no one but you, my king.
It is right that we should both remain grieved,
for our father has wronged us this way.
For he gives Iran, the plain of heroes, and Yemen
to Iraj, and Rome and the West to me,
and hands you the land of the Turks and China,
while the command of Iran is denied you.
In this division I find no footing;
there was no sound judgment in our father's mind.
The messenger's swift camel set out
and came before the lord of Turan.
He recited well all that he had memorized,
and filled the empty head of Tur with wind.
When brave Tur heard this secret,
he suddenly flared up like a lion.
He answered thus: Say this to the king,
and keep these very words in mind:
In our youth our father deceived us
in just this way, O you who call yourself just.
This is a tree he planted with his own hand,
whose water is blood and whose leaves are bitter poison.
Now, over this matter, you and I
must turn to meet face to face.
We must plan soberly, watch closely,
and send a swift camel to the king.
An eloquent, smooth-tongued speaker among us
must be sent to the king of the world.
In place of weakness and in place of trickery,
the bold king must find no chance to breathe easy.
No delay at all suits this affair;
what comfort can there be in hesitation?
When the messenger brought back the answer, the face that had hidden its secret was laid bare.
One brother set out from Rome, the other from China, honey mixed with poison in their hearts.
They came together at last, and spoke of everything, openly and in secret.
Then they chose a shrewd, sharp priest: eloquent, clear-sighted, and quick to remember.
They cleared the place of strangers and began to weigh every kind of plan.
Salm was the first to speak; shame before his father washed over his eyes.
He told the messenger: cross the road so fast that not even wind or dust can catch you.
When you dismount at Fereydoun's palace, first give greetings from both his sons.
Then tell him: the fear of God should guide a man in this world and the next.
A young man can hope for old age to come, but hair once turned white never turns black again.
Why linger in this narrow place, when the house of delay has grown too tight for you?
The pure God gave you the whole world, from the shining sun down to the dark earth.
But you shaped every custom and path to your own desire; you paid no heed to God's command.
You sought nothing but crookedness and wrong; you brought no fairness into your division.
You had three sons, wise and brave; the eldest of us was clear of mind and alert.
You saw no greater merit in any one of us that would make another bow his head to him.
Yet you cast one into the dragon's jaws, and lifted another up to the clouds.
And on one you set a crown beside your pillow, and through him your eyes rejoiced in the world.
We are not less than him in mother or father, nor unworthy of the royal throne.
O just king of the earth, on such a judgment let there never be any blessing.
If the crown is taken from that worthless head, and the world is freed of him,
and you hand him some corner of the world, where he may sit hidden and wounded as we have,
then good. If not, the riders of the Turks and China, and the champions of Rome, hungry for vengeance,
I will gather a mace-bearing army from every land, and wipe Iraj out of Iran entirely.
When the priest heard this harsh message, he kissed the ground and turned to go.
He set his foot in the stirrup as swiftly as fire leaps up when the wind stirs it.
He reached the court of King Fereydoun and saw a tower whose top vanished from sight.
Its height reached into the clouds, its breadth stretched from mountain to mountain.
Nobles sat at its gate, and behind the curtains were the seats of the great.
On one side lions and leopards were bound, on the other, mighty war elephants.
From so many precious, daring warriors a roar went up like the voice of a lion.
You would have thought the palace was the sky itself, with a mighty army standing all around it.
The alert watchmen went and spoke to the king of the world.
They said, A messenger has come before the king, a proud man of high rank and standing.
The king ordered the curtain drawn aside, and they let his horse pass through from the gate.
When his eyes fell upon Fereydoun's face, his whole gaze and heart were filled with the king.
Tall as a cypress, his face bright as the sun, his hair like camphor scattered over a red rose.
Both lips full of smiling, both cheeks full of modesty, a royal tongue full of gentle speech.
At once Fereydoun raised him from where he stood and gave him a fitting place beside himself.
First he asked about his two dear sons, whether they were happy in heart and sound in body.
Then he said, You have grown weary from a long, distant road, through valleys and over heights.
The messenger said, O precious king, may no one ever see this royal court without you.
Whoever you ask about lives under your favor; all live gloriously by your name.
I am a servant unworthy of the king, and toward myself I have been thoughtless in this.
I have brought a harsh message to the king; the sender is full of rage, but I am innocent.
I will speak, when the king commands me, the message of the two rash young men.
Then the king ordered him to open his mouth, and he recited all he had heard, from beginning to end.
Fereydoun opened his ears wide to him, and when he heard, his mind boiled with fury.
He said to the messenger, O clever one, you have no need to apologize now.
For this is exactly what I expected from them; I had already turned it over in my heart.
That no greatness comes from bad seed, my heart had given me this warning.
Tell those two foul and worthless men, those two demons with rotted minds:
Bravo, you have shown your true nature; a greeting like this was just what you deserved.
If your minds are empty of my counsel, then you had no awareness of wisdom at all.
You have no shame and no fear of God; it seems this is truly all your judgment amounts to.
Once my hair was black as pitch, my body straight as a cypress, my face like the moon.
The turning sky that bent my back is not itself brought low; it still turns in its place.
This same passage of time will bend you too; it does not endure like this for long.
By the highest name of the pure God, by the shining sun and the dark earth,
by the throne, the crown, by Venus and the moon: I never once looked on you with ill intent.
I gathered a council of the wise, of astronomers and priests.
This took a long stretch of time; I did not divide the earth on a whim.
In all this I sought only what was right; crookedness has neither a clear head nor foundation.
The fear of God was present throughout; I wanted only justice in the world.
When they handed me a flourishing world, I did not look to break its harmony apart.
I said instead: let me pass on this prosperous throne to my three fortunate sons.
Now if the demon has dragged your hearts off my path into crookedness and darkness,
consider whether the exalted Creator will ever find such conduct pleasing in you.
Let me tell you a saying, if you will hear it: you reap exactly what you sow.
Thus the guiding word once told us: our lasting home is elsewhere than this world.
Greed has climbed onto the throne of your reason; why has such a demon become your partner?
I fear that in the grip of this dragon your souls will slip free of their bodies.
For me the time to leave this world is near; this is no time for rage and turmoil.
Yet this is what that old man says, the one who had three freeborn sons:
when greed is emptied out of the heart, what difference is there between plain dirt and the imperial crown?
Whoever sells his brother for a handful of earth deserves not to be counted among the pure.
The world has seen many like you and will see more; it will not stay tame for anyone.
So all that you can learn about the Creator, know it: salvation comes on the day of reckoning.
Seek it, and make it your provision for the road; strive to make your suffering brief.
The messenger listened to his words, kissed the ground, and turned to go.
He left Feridun's presence so fast you would say he had joined forces with the wind.