(A.D. 600), the
Chronicles of the Persian Kings. If we are to trust Baisonghur's preface
to the "Shah Nameh," there were various efforts made from time to time
to put together a complete story of the nation's history, by Farruchani,
Ramin, and especially by the Dihkan Danishwar (A.D. 651). The work of
this Danishwar, the "Chodainameh" (Book of Kings), deserves to be
specially singled out. It was written, not in neo-Persian and Arabic
script, but in what scholars call middle-Persian and in what is known as
the Pahlavi writing. It was from this "Chodainameh" that Abu Mansur,
lord of Tus, had a "Shah Nameh" of his own prepared in the neo-Persian.
And then, to complete the tale, in 980 a certain Zoroastrian whose name
was Dakiki versified a thousand lines of this neo-Persian Book of Kings.

In this very city of Tus, Abul Kasim Mansur (or Ahmed) Firdusi was born,
A.D. 935. One loves to think that perhaps he got his name from the
Persian-Arabic word for garden; for, verily, it was he that gathered
into one garden all the beautiful flowers which had blossomed in the
fancy of his people. As he has draped the figures in his great epic, so
has an admiring posterity draped his own person. His fortune has been
interwoven with the fame of that Mahmud of Ghazna (998-1030), the first
to bear the proud title of "Sultan," the first to carry Mohammed and the
prophets into India. The Round Table of Mahmud cannot be altogether a
figment of the imagination. With such poets as Farruchi, Unsuri,
Minutsheri, with such scientists as Biruni and Avicenna as intimates,
what wonder that Firdusi was lured by the splendors of a court life! But
before he left his native place he must have finished his epic, at least
in its rough form; for we know that in 999 he dedicated it to Ahmad ibn
Muhammad of Chalandsha. He had been working at it steadily since 971,
but had not yet rounded it out according to the standard which he had
set for himself. Occupying the position almost of a court poet, he
continued to work for Mahmud, and this son of a Turkish slave became a
patron of letters. On February 25, 1010, his work was finished. As poet
laureate, he had inserted many a verse in praise of his master. Yet the
story goes, that though this master had covenanted for a gold dirhem a
line, he sent Firdusi sixty thousand silver ones, which the poet spurned
and distributed as largesses and hied him from so ungenerous a master.

It is a pretty tale. Yet some great dis