The hunt of the seven champions

Ferdowsi opens with the saying of a minstrel who once fought a lion: if you want a name for courage, do not shy away from danger, for when your day comes caution will not save you. Then he tells a story of Rostam at his ease.

Rostam holds a feast at Navand, a place of high palaces where, the poet says, the fire of Azar Barzin later burned. The great men of Iran are there with their followers: Tus, Gudarz, Bahram, Giv, Gorgin, Zangeh son of Shavaran, Gostahm, Kharrad, Barzin and Gorazeh. They play polo, hunt and drink, until one day Giv, a little drunk, proposes a hunt in Afrasiab's own preserve in Turan, something for the world to remember. Rostam agrees.

They ride to the river Shahd and the Turanian king's hunting ground, with sand on one side, water on another, Sarakhs on a third and the desert ahead. The plain fills with their tents. For a week they hunt and drink, until the game lies in heaps and the lions have fled. On the eighth morning Rostam warns that Afrasiab must have heard of them, and Gorazeh rides out as a lookout. Afrasiab has indeed heard. If he can take these seven, he tells his chiefs, he will straiten the world for Kavus, and he sets out with thirty thousand men.

Gorazeh sees the dust and the black banner and gallops back to find the company at wine. Rostam laughs. Fortune is with them, he says; Afrasiab has no more than a hundred thousand, and any one of them is worth a thousand Turks. He calls for wine and drinks to Kavus, wishing his land always flourishing, and then to Tus. The others beg off: not even Iblis could keep pace with him. His brother Zavareh drains the next cup.

The fight at the bridge

Giv rides to hold the bridge so that the others can arm, but Afrasiab is already across. When Afrasiab sees Rostam in his armour, he loses heart. Giv lays about him with his mace; Piran is sent in with ten thousand men, and Rostam's sword cuts down two-thirds of them. Afrasiab calls for Alkus, a champion who liked to boast in his cups that he would fight Rostam. Alkus mistakes Zavareh for Rostam and knocks him from his horse with a mace, and is getting down to cut off his head when Rostam's shout stops him. Rostam spears Alkus through the chest, lifts him from the saddle on the point and dashes him to the ground. Then the seven charge together.

Rostam goes after Afrasiab on Rakhsh, urging him on until it seems the horse has grown wings, and throws his lasso. The noose falls on Afrasiab's helmet; he ducks his head, his horse leaps away like fire, and he escapes, dry-mouthed and running with sweat. The Iranians take rich spoil, horses with golden bridles, helmets, swords in golden scabbards. They write to Kavus that not one of them was killed; only Zavareh fell from his horse. They stay two more weeks on the hunting ground and then ride home.

The poem calls them the seven champions, though it names more than seven. Ferdowsi closes with a reflection on how one man lives at ease and another in trouble, and turns to the story of Rostam and Sohrab.