Khosrow and Shirin (Commentary)
Khosrow and Shirin
"Khosrow and Shirin" is the second poem of
Nizami's Khamseh and the first of his romantic
epics. Its protagonists are Khosrow II, the
last great Sasanian monarch, known as
Parviz, the Victorious, and his mistress Shirin; their love was recorded by
many historians, geographers, and travelers, among them the Muslims Tabari
(Bal'ami), Ibn Rustah, Ibn al-Faqih, Yaqut,
and the anonymous compiler of the Compendium of History. There are many descriptions of Khosrow's palace at Ctesiphon, the palace of Shirin, and especially the grotto rock-carving at Taq-e
Bustan, the figures of which were early associated in history and legend with Khosrow II, Shirin, and sometimes the engineer Farhad. The beautiful
equestrian sculpture was said to be
Khosrow mounted on the horse Shabdiz.'
These archeological sites are located in close proximity along the
ancient trade route to China, at the point
where the plain of Mesopotamia meets the Iranian plateau.
According to these and other sources, the long and turbulent reign of Khosrow Parviz (59o-628 A. D.) was characterized by a high, though
ultimately exhausting, degree of military
glory and courtly splendor. In return for
political and military assistance against the usurper Bahram Chubin, Khosrow ceded part of Armenia to the Emperor of Byzantium and was married to his daughter Maryam. Although Nizami portrays Shirin
as an Armenian princess, chroniclers did not consider her of royal blood. The name Shirin is a Persian word
meaning sweet, and she has been variously
claimed by Khuzistan and Syria.
Secondary figures in the epic also have some
historical basis. The engineering feats of the
herculean Farhad appear in several of the sources, and Barbad and Nikisa were the chief
musicians at Khosrow's court. Khosrow's fabulous
horse Shabdiz is also mentioned frequently.
The love of
Khosrow and Shirin was early a popular subject with
poets. Less than one hundred years after Khosrow's
death, the Arab poet Khalid ibn Fayyaz wrote of their
romance. According to literary tradition, the first
Persian love couplets were engraved on the walls of
Shirin's palace and were still legible and revered three centuries after she
died. The wonders of the horse Shabdiz are also figured in many ancient stories.
The great Ferdowsi devoted more
than four thousand couplets to Khosrow II's reign in his Shahnameh, or Book of Kings, composed at
the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century A. D. In this account,
from
which Nizami drew his inspiration, the youthful Khosrow took Shirin as his mistress and forgot her when he became
king. Later, while on the way to hunting,
he saw her on the terrace of her house and was again enflamed by her beauty. Despite opposition from
the aristocracy and religious leaders
because she was a commoner, they were married. Shirin then secretly poisoned Khosrow's first wife, the Byzantine princess
Maryam. This horrific act embittered
Khosrow and Maryam's son Shiruyeh
and, afraid of retaliation, Khosrow imprisoned him. When, in a military coup, Shiruyeh was freed, he, in turn, imprisoned
Khosrow and had him assassinated. He spared
Shirin only because he wanted her as his wife. Shirin agreed to marry her stepson, but she demanded that she retain
control of her inherited wealth and be allowed to mourn at Khosrow's tomb. After distributing her assets among the poor and the
temples and contributing to constructing inns for travelers, she went to the grave, took strong
poison, and died at Khosrow's side.
Khosrow, Shirin, and Farhad are also celebrated in the poetry of Qatran, the eleventh-century court poet of Tabriz and Ganjeh. In the same era, Gurgani explored various aspects of love and passion in his Vis and Ramin, using a historical-legendary theme from ancient Eastern Iran. But Nizami was the first to fulfill all the prerequisites of romance—far-off times and places, with giants, dragons, and heroic exploits; sentimental and idealistic exaggerations that still preserved the individual events dear to the Near Eastern reader; and reflection on the human condition.
Most
important, Nizami gave this material a fundamental structural
unity. He created a romance of great dramatic intensity by infusing the story with his own profound
experience of love and expanding it with his thoughts on
religion, philosophy, and government. The story has a constant forward
drive with exposition, challenge, mystery,
crisis, climax, resolution, and, finally, catastrophe. The action increases in
complexity as the protagonists face
mounting complications. For instance, Khosrow
and Shirin are not able to meet for a long time, despite their untiring efforts and the help of their confidant. Then, after they meet, they are forced
apart by the political marriage of
Khosrow and Maryam. When Khosrow
promises Shirin to Farhad as a prize for completing a feat of daring and endurance, the story nearly comes to a premature conclusion.
After Maryam's death and Farhad's murder-suicide, it seems that all obstacles are
removed, and the lovers will be united. But Nizami
introduces an affair between Khosrow and a girl from
Isfahan that further complicates and delays his union with
Shirin. Finally,
on the lovers' wedding night, Nizami creates a bizarre episode, a humorous entr'act that gives the reader or listener a chance to take a deep breath
before the epic's tragic climax.
Khosrow gets drunk, and Shirin replaces
her presence in the nuptial chamber with that of a knotty, wizened old crone. Through these dramatic devices, Nizami makes a powerful commentary on human behavior, its follies, glories, struggles, and unbridled passions
and tragedies.
Nizami's deep
understanding of women is strongly expressed in "Khosrow and
Shirin." Shirin is the central character, and there is no question
that she is a poetic tribute to Nizami's wife, Afaq. She is
well-educated, independent, fearless, resourceful,
imaginative, erotic, and humorous. Her loyalty knows no bounds.
That she is a queen rather than a commoner gives the
story a stately quality. Her association with Armenia is,
perhaps, a reflection of its geographical proximity to
Ganjeh.
Shirin, like the Byzantine Maryam, was a
Christian. Nizami was a pious Muslim, but he
tolerated and respected other religions.
Shirin's sense of justice is so great that she forswears Khosrow's love until he should regain his throne, thus fulfilling his responsibility to his people. Even after they are married, she continues to exert a strong influence on Khosrow, educating him as always through example and love. As a result, the country flourished, justice was observed and strengthened, and science, religion, and philosophy thrived.
Shirin is democratic, companionable with the faithful painter-messenger Shapur, and sensible of the depth of Farhad's wordless devotion. Though she is prey to jealousy and loneliness, she is master of her passions and is capable of the ultimate renunciation, death for love.
In contrast, Khosrow is governed by his
predilection for sumptuous living and personal
expediency. He is selfish and vacillating. He basely
tricks Farhad, forcing him wittingly
to suicide. However, when he comes upon Shirin
bathing in a wilderness pool, he chivalrously averts his eyes; when he knows that his end is near, rather than wake the exhausted Shirin, he allows himself to bleed to death in silence. Nizami portrays this final act in such a way that it becomes a remission of
Khosrow's previous sins.
The tension between the strength of Shirin and
the weakness of Khosrow is enhanced dramatically
by Nizami's tight control of the plot and setting and in his development of the towering figure
of Farhad. Episodes of meeting and of missing, of searching and of waiting, are
richly entwined with scenes of the barren desert and of luxurious court life.
Asceticism vies with sensuality.
Nizami's use of allegories, parables, and words with double meanings raised the Persian language to a new height. Though always pure, Nizami's poetry is elaborate and flamboyant, playing on all senses simultaneously. The poem is written in the light, flowing, graceful Hazaj mussadas maqsur meter, deliberately imitating that used by Gurgani in Vis and Ramin.
-
Asrar, its exact date of completion is uncertain. The year 576 A. H./Ii8o A. D. is given in some manuscripts. Still, because of internal evidence, many scholars believe that it was finished after 581 A.H. / 1184 A. D. In an autobiographical passage woven into the text, Nizami says that he has lived for forty years. That must be construed as a conventional number, but, in any case, scholars disagree by six years, from 535--541 A.H./1140-1146 A.D., as to the date of his birth. Nor are the three dedicatory invocations—to Sultan Tughrol II and his regents, Atabeg Muhammad Jahan Pahlavan and Atabeg Qizil Arslan—useful in establishing a specific date. Although Atabeg Muhammad Jahan Pahlavan was the ruler of Ganjeh, where Nizami lived, and Atabeg Qizil Arslan gave Nizami title to a village, these dedications may well have been added by Nizami for political reasons or maybe later interpolations. The earliest extant text, dating from 763 A. H./1362 A.D., was written some one hundred and fifty years after Nizami's death and is suspected of containing many apocryphal verses.
Nizami may have written
"Khosrow and Shirin" to express his happiness during his
marriage to Afaq, but the idealization of womanly
chastity, purity, and devotion, the recurrent theme of
renunciation, and the tragic ending makes it seem more probable
that it was written as a memorial to her after her untimely death.
Its passages instructing their son Muhammad in the ways of virtue may
possibly be interpreted as a sign of Nizami's strong
affection and concern for a motherless boy. These exhortations
are contained mainly in the postscripts in which Nizami muses about the
transiency and vanity of life on earth. Only religion is
sure. As part of the conclusion, Nizami relates a dream Khosrow
had about the prophet Muhammad toward the end of his
reign; it impacted the king so much that he could not sleep for several months.
The great Persian authority on Nizami, Vahid Dastgerdi, calls "Khosrow and Shirin" "the best historical fable of love and chastity, the treasure of eloquence, counsel, and wisdom." The foremost Russian specialist, E. E. Bertels, believes that "Khosrow and Shirin" is "one of the great masterpieces, not only in the Azerbaijani but in world literature. For the first time in the poetry of the Near East, the personality of a human being has been shown with all its richness, with all its contradictions and ups and downs." J. Rypka, in his comprehensive study of Iranian literature writes of "Khosrow and Shirin": "It is the story of the love and sorrow of a princess and a woman and a wife, in its sincerity unequaled by any other work in Persian literature."
Comments
Post a Comment