The seven labours of Esfandiyar

A courtier called Gorazm, who hates Esfandiyar, tells Goshtasp that his son is gathering men and means to bind his father and take the throne. Goshtasp believes him. He sends Jamasp to fetch the prince from the hunt, has Esfandiyar loaded with chains, tied on an elephant and taken to the fortress of Gonbadan, where he is fastened to four iron pillars. Esfandiyar says only that he has done no wrong, and that the king may chain him or kill him.

Goshtasp goes to Sistan to teach the Zand and Avesta and stays two years as Rostam's guest. A spy tells Arjasp that Balkh is guarded by Lohrasp and seven hundred priests. Here Ferdowsi takes up the story from Daqiqi. Arjasp's son Kohram rides in, and old Lohrasp leaves his place of prayer, puts on armour and fights so fiercely that the Turks take him for Esfandiyar. They surround him, bring him down with arrows, and only when they lift off his helmet do they see the white hair. Then they sack Balkh, burn the Zand and Avesta and kill eighty priests before the fire, whose blood puts it out, and they carry off the king's daughters, Homay and Beh-Afarid.

The broken chains

In the battle that follows thirty-eight of Goshtasp's sons are killed, his son Farshidvard is cut down, and the king is trapped on a mountain. Jamasp tells him the only way out is to free Esfandiyar, and Goshtasp admits he chained his son on an enemy's word. Jamasp slips through the Turkish lines in Turkish dress. At first Esfandiyar refuses: none of his brothers remembered him in his chains. When Jamasp tells him that Farshidvard is dying, he gives way. The smiths file too slowly; he strains with his feet and hands, breaks every chain, and faints. He buries Farshidvard under a tree, lassoes Arjasp's champion Gorgsar in the battle, and drives Arjasp back to Turan. But his sisters are still captives, and Goshtasp tells him: free them, and the crown is yours.

Seven stages

Of three roads to Arjasp's fortress, Ruyin Dezh, the Brazen Hold, Esfandiyar takes the shortest: seven days through seven perils. Gorgsar is his guide, and each night he is given three cups of wine and asked what comes next. Esfandiyar kills two wolves as big as elephants, then a lion and a lioness. For the dragon he has a wooden chariot built, its sides set with blades, with a box on top to sit in; the dragon swallows horses, chariot and all, the blades lodge in its throat, and he climbs out and splits its skull, then faints from its venom. A witch comes to him as a beautiful girl while he sings to his lute by a spring; he throws over her a steel chain that Zardosht had brought from paradise, and she turns into a lion, then an old hag, and he kills her. The Simorgh swoops on the bladed chariot and dies on it. A snowstorm buries the army for three days until the troops pray. Last, the cry of cranes gives away the water Gorgsar had kept quiet about; he shows them the ford, then curses Esfandiyar once too often and is cut in two.

The Brazen Hold has iron walls so wide that four horsemen can ride abreast on top. Esfandiyar goes in as a merchant called Kharrad, with chests that hide a hundred and sixty of his men, while his brother Pashutan brings up the army under Esfandiyar's banner. Two water-carriers come to ask the merchant for news of Iran: his sisters. He shouts at them from under his cloak, and Homay knows his voice and says nothing. He gives a feast on the battlements and lights a great fire there, the signal for Pashutan. While the Turks march out to meet the army, he opens the chests, kills Arjasp in his palace and sends his sisters to safety. At dawn Arjasp's head is thrown down from the walls, and the poem says that this time Esfandiyar gave no quarter. He burns the hold and comes home with the treasure and his sisters.