Firdausí, or FIRDUSÍ, the takhallus or nom de plume (the term signifies both 'garden' and 'paradise') of Abú-'l Kásim Mansúr, the greatest of Persian poets, was born about the year of the Flight 328 (939-940 A.D.), at Shadáb, a dependent township of Tús, in Khurásán, of a stock of dhikans, or petty landholders. He spent the greater part of his life on the paternal estate, wedded to his studies. From his grand epic, the Shah Náma, or Book of Kings, he has been styled by European savants 'the Homer of Persia.' Among the spoils gained by the Arabs at the downfall of ancient Irán was a complete history of Persia, compiled by order of Yazdajird, the last of the Sassanian dynasty, by the most learned historians, which was presented as a valuable gift to the Calif Omar—the reputed destroyer of the famous Alexandrian library. The calif caused this work to be rendered into Arabic, and luckily did not order its destruction, but left it to its chance among the general plunder, when it fell into the hands of a common soldier. The history of this Pahlaví work for some centuries is obscure, but at length it came into the possession of Mahmúd, sultan of Ghazní, whose court was crowded with the most eminent men of learning from all quarters. Mahmúd ordered Dakíki, the most illustrious poet at his court, to render the work into Persian verse, but he had not proceeded far with his task when he came to a tragic end. In his fifty-eighth year Firdausí resolved to visit the court of Mahmúd, but it was not easy to gain admission to the presence; yet, in spite of the resentment of the sultan's favourites at the intrusion of a stranger, he contrived, by means of a friend with whom he lodged, to convey to the sultan a specimen of his epic (he had been for years engaged upon the work which the death of Dakíki had left undone), and the result was an invitation to court. Mahmúd ordered his vazir to pay Firdausí a thousand gold dinars (about £500) for every thousand finished couplets; but the poet, having from early youth had the ambition to construct a canal-dam (bund) on his patrimonial estate for the benefit of his townsmen, preferred to receive the accumulated amount when he had completed his poem. The vazir of Mahmúd was secretly inimical to Firdausí, and accused him to the sultan of a decided leaning to the doctrines of Zoroaster; but his efforts as well as those of the other courtiers to undermine Mahmúd's confidence were of no avail, and Firdausí continued to enjoy the royal patronage.
Portions of the Shah Náma as they were written were often transcribed and circulated and admired far and wide. It is said that he was offered rich presents from the neighbouring princes, which he constantly declined. The later years of Firdausí's life in Ghazní—he seems to have dwelt some twelve years there altogether—were darkened by the death of his son in early manhood, whom he pathetically laments towards the end of his great epic.
At length, after thirty years' toil, the Shah Náma was finished in 398 A.H. (1008 A.D.), and the poet presented his monumental work to Sultan Mahmúd, who at once ordered his vazir to pay Firdausí 60,000 gold dinars—but no copy of the epic extant comprises more than 56,600 couplets, and some of these are evidently interpolations. The envious minister, however, despatched the same number of silver dirhams instead (the value of a dirham is about sixpence) in sealed bags. The poet was in the bath when the messenger arrived. 'On opening the bags, his lofty spirit felt all the indignity which he imagined the sultan intended to load him with. He immediately gave 20,000 to the keeper of the baths (hammámí), the same sum to the sherbet-seller, and the remainder to the slave who had brought the money.
"I wrote for fame," said he to the slave, "not for the attainment of riches." When the slave told the whole affair to Mahmúd, he was enraged at the insolence of his vazir, and said: 'This action will not only irritate the poet, but mankind will reprobate a sordid parsimony injurious to my fame. I ordered gold dinars to be sent, and you have substituted silver dirhams.' To this the wily vazir rejoined that whatever the sultan gives confers honour on the recipient, and it was insolent in Firdausí to treat any donation of his majesty with contempt. These and other insinuations ultimately aroused Mahmúd's indignation, and the poet, fearing the consequences, fled on foot from Ghazní, but not before he had composed and left behind him a most scathing satire on the sultan. Tidings of Firdausí's flight and the cause soon spread throughout Asia, and the sultan's conduct was severely condemned by the noble and the learned everywhere. For some time the poet was protected by the Nasir Al-Mutasim of Kolishán, but, he being a dependant of Mahmúd, Firdausí was again compelled to flee, first to Mazandarán and then to Baghdád. The sultan, however, hearing where the poet was residing, ordered him to be sent a prisoner to Ghazní; but the calif, unwilling to deliver Firdausí up to the tender mercies of Mahmúd, and being powerless to withstand the sultan, wrote to Mahmúd to the effect that Firdausí had been at his court and was now gone to El-Yaman; and it was with unspeakable grief that he saw the venerable poet once more become a fugitive. But instead of going to Arabia, Firdausí proceeded to Tús, his native place, where he hoped to pass the remaining years of his life in tranquillity.
The wrath of Mahmúd was at length softened into pity, and he ordered the 60,000 gold dinars to be carried to Firdausí at Tús. 'One day, while the poet was walking in the market-place, as a boy was reciting a verse from his satire on the sultan, he fainted, and was carried to his house, where he expired (411 A.H. : 1020 A.D.), without uttering a word. As his remains were being carried to the grave, the present from the sultan arrived at Tús. It was presented to the poet's daughter, who, contrary to the advice of her aunt, declined its acceptance, saying that, as her father did not receive the present in his lifetime, it would ill become her to accept what he declined.'
The Shah Náma, while probably based upon actual historical events, is for the most part composed of mythological and purely fanciful incidents, but these are adorned with all the glowing imagery of the Eastern imagination; while true descriptions of human nature and pathetic scenes are of frequent occurrence—such as, for instance, the fine episode of Rustam (the Hercules of Persia, and the chief hero of the epic) and Súhráb, which is unexcelled in its kind in the poetry of any country. We have an admirable example of fairy lore in Rustam's seven labours to slay the White Demon, in which the hero's horse Raksh ('lightning') plays no unimportant part. The following lines, which occur in the Shah Náma—
Choose knowledge,
If thou desirest a blessing from the universal Provider;
For the ignorant man cannot raise himself above the earth,
And it is by knowledge that thou must render thy soul praiseworthy—
find their very echo in Shakespeare's saying, that
Ignorance is the curse of God;
Knowledge, the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.
Besides his immortal epic Firdausí wrote a number of shorter pieces, kasidas, ghazals, &c., which are preserved in several Persian anthologies. He was the first, apparently, to compose a poem on the wife of Potiphar and Joseph, under the title of Yúsuf ü Zulaykhá, a subject which has been a great favourite with many later poets, Turkish as well as Persian.
See Atkinson's epitome of the Shah Náma, with numerous passages done into English verse; Sir Gore Ouseley's Biographical Notices of Persian Poets; Miss Zimmer's Epic of Kings; Robinson's Persian Poetry for English Readers (1883); the works of Von Hamner, Wahl, Görres; and Dr Ethé, Sitzungsberichte der bayrischen Akademie (1872).—There are many beautifully illuminated manuscripts of the Shah Náma preserved in the great European libraries, and the complete text was edited by Turner Macan (4 vols. Calcutta, 1829). In 1811 Luinsden, of the college of Fort William, Calcutta, published a portion of the text. There is a complete French translation by Professor Julius Mohl, with the Persian text on the opposite page (7 vols. fol. Paris, 1838-78; in 7 vols. 12mo, 1876-78). Another edition, based upon seven MSS., entitled Firdusii Liber Regum qui inscribitur Shahname, by Joannes Augustus Vullers, was continued after his death by S. Landauer (vols. i.-iii. Paris, 1877-84).