Bahram Gur and Azadeh

In the eighth year of Yazdegerd's reign, on the day of Hormozd in the month of Farvardin, a son was born and named Bahram. Two astrologers, Sorush, an Indian, and Hushyar, a Persian, read his stars: he would be king of the seven climes, glad of heart and devout. The priests and ministers were pleased and worried at once. If the boy took after his father, whom they found harsh, he would ruin the land. They advised the king to have him raised abroad, among people known for their wisdom.

Envoys went to Rum, Hind, Chin and the Arabs, and scholars came from everywhere hoping for the post. Monzer and his son No'man came too. "We are horsemen," Monzer said, "not astrologers or geometers, but we love the king." Yazdegerd gave him the boy. In the poem Monzer is king of Yaman (Yemen), and men, women and children came out to meet him on his return.

Monzer chose four noble nurses, two Arab and two Persian, who nursed Bahram for four years. At seven the boy demanded teachers. Monzer said he was too young, and Bahram told him he had the years but less sense. Three mobeds were fetched: one taught him to write, one hawking and hunting with cheetahs, one polo, archery and horsemanship. At eighteen he sent them home with gifts. He chose two horses from a hundred and asked for slave girls. Of forty girls from Rum he chose two, and one of them played the chang, the Persian harp. Her name was Azadeh.

The hunt

Azadeh was his darling. One day he rode out with her alone on a racing camel, saddled with brocade and hung with four stirrups, two of silver and two of gold. They came on a pair of deer. "Which shall I shoot?" he asked. "The doe is young and her mate is old."

"Men do not fight with deer," said Azadeh. "Turn the doe into a buck and the old buck into a doe. Then, as the buck runs, flick its ear with a pellet from your bow, so that it lifts a hoof to scratch, and pin its head, ear and foot together with one arrow. Then I will call you the light of the world."

Bahram strung his bow. With a two-headed arrow he shot away the buck's horns, so that it looked like a doe. He put two arrows into the doe's head where horns would grow. He flicked the buck's ear with a clay pellet, and as it raised its foot to scratch, one arrow stitched head, ear and foot together. Azadeh's heart went out to the deer. Bahram knocked her from the saddle and drove the camel over her, so that her hands, breast and harp were smeared with blood. "Fool of a harpist," he said, "if my shot had failed, my lineage would have been shamed." After that he never took a girl hunting again.

A week later he shot a lion and the onager it was mauling with one arrow, pinning the lion's back to the onager's heart. Before Monzer and the Arab nobles he pierced four running ostriches, each shot exactly level with the last. Monzer had painters set it all down on silk, the camel, the bow, the lion, the deer, the onager and the ostriches, and sent the picture to Yazdegerd.