How Hushang Founded Blacksmithing and Other Crafts

Once he understood iron, he made smithing his trade, and from that craft he fashioned the saw and the axe. When this was done, he found a way to bring water, guiding rivers down from the seas. He opened channels for the waters in streams and rivers, and with good fortune he cut short the labor of fetching it. By this he expanded the pastures of the people, then scattered seed, and taught them to plant and to reap. So each person earned their own bread by toil, worked the land, and came to know how to run their own life. With that divine glory and the royal splendor of kings, from the game of the wild ass and the fierce deer he set apart the ox, the donkey, and the sheep, and put to useful work whatever was of benefit. Of the roaming beasts, every one with fine fur he hunted and stripped the skin from its back. Such as the fox and the ermine, the soft squirrel, and fourth the sable, whose fur is warm. In this way, from the hides of roaming beasts, he clothed the bodies of speaking men. He toiled, he spread the feast of life, he enjoyed it and passed it on; he departed and carried away nothing but a good name. He endured much hardship in those days, with countless schemes and endless thought. When good times finally came his way, the throne of majesty was left behind as an orphaned inheritance. Time granted him not a moment's delay; that keen mind of Hushang, with all its glory and worth, was gone. The world will neither keep its love bound to you, nor will it openly show you its true face.