Eskandar and Dara

Every year Rum sent Iran its tribute, a hundred thousand eggs of gold. When Filqus, the Caesar of Rum, died and his grandson Eskandar took the throne, Dara's envoy came to collect it as usual. Eskandar sent him home with an answer: the bird that laid the golden eggs was dead, and the tribute had died with it.

Ferdowsi has already let the reader into a secret. Eskandar's mother, Nahid, had been married to Dara's father, Darab, who tired of her because of her bad breath and sent her back to Rum without knowing she was pregnant. Filqus raised the boy as his own heir. The war that follows is fought between half-brothers.

The envoy who kept the cups

Eskandar marched through Misr (Egypt), and Dara led an army from Estakhr to the Euphrates. Before the battle Eskandar rode into Dara's camp with ten companions, posing as his own envoy. Dara, struck by his bearing, asked whether he was not Eskandar himself. The visitor denied it. At the feast he slipped every gold cup he emptied into his lap, and when asked why, said that in his country the cups were the envoy's due. Dara laughed and gave him a cup full of jewels. Then the men who had gone to Rum for the tribute walked in and recognised him. Eskandar waited for dusk, mounted at the tent door and galloped away, and showed his men the cup as an omen of victory.

There were three battles. After the third, Dara fled to Kerman and Eskandar took Estakhr, promising safety to all who asked for it. Dara wrote offering the treasures of Goshtasp and Esfandiyar for peace and asking for his captive family. Eskandar answered gently that the throne was Dara's if he came back. Dara could not bring himself to submit. He begged Fur (Porus) of Hind for help and led out a last army, which gave way without a fight.

One root

As Dara fled with three hundred riders, his two ministers, Mahyar and Janushyar, decided he was finished. On a stormy night Janushyar stabbed him in the chest, and the pair went to Eskandar for their reward. Eskandar had them held, dismounted, took Dara's head into his lap, lifted off his crown and opened his armour. He promised doctors from Hind and Rum and the return of the throne. "We are of one branch, one root, one garment," he said. "Why should we tear up our own stock for the sake of more?"

Dara told him that death was nearer than the throne, and that good and ill both come from God. Then he gave his last wishes. Eskandar was to protect his family and marry his daughter Roshanak. Perhaps she would bear a son who would renew the name of Esfandiyar, keep the fire of Zardosht, the feasts of Sadeh (the midwinter fire festival) and Nowruz, and the old faith. Eskandar promised. Dara pressed Eskandar's palm to his mouth, commended him to God and died.

Eskandar tore his clothes, built a dakhmeh (a royal tomb) in keeping with Dara's faith and walked on foot before the golden bier. He hanged the two ministers alive, and soldiers stoned them on the gibbets. Seeing this, the Iranians began to praise him.

He wrote to Dara's widow, Dilarai, in Isfahan, and to Roshanak. Dilarai answered that he now stood in Dara's place. Eskandar sent his own mother with gifts to fetch the bride, and Roshanak came in a golden litter through cities hung with decorations. After a week with her, the poem says, he found in her only dignity, good sense and modesty.