بخش 24

When the king learned that his son had come wearing the Kayanian crown, he summoned the great and the small—the reciters of scripture and all the mobeds—and seated the priests upon the dais; then he called for that sword-bearing prince. Esfandiyār came, hands folded, and stood in service before his father. The king addressed the mobeds and the captains: You are free-born and trained in hardship. When a king has a son, the monarch’s heart rejoices; he entrusts him to a nurse, sets a golden crown upon his head, keeps him until he grows adept, teaching him to eat and to mount; a noble man endures great toil and makes the youth battle-tested. When the free-born reaches manhood—like gold that comes bright from the mine—seekers look for him and poets praise him; he becomes a fine rider, victorious in war, a chief at assemblies, in battle and in feast. When he becomes strong, tall as a cypress with boughs, the father grows old and sits in the palace; the world empties of him; the regal throne no longer befits him; the father keeps only the name of the throne, sitting in the portico as a ward of gear; the son has the world, the banner, and the army; the father but a crown and a golden cap. Then men will not be of one mind with that son, and champions will approve such a tale; for the sake of a crown and diadem, the son would turn his father’s body from his head; with his army he would make for him, with his heart set on war against him. What say you, elders—what is good for a father to do with such a son? The chosen men replied: O king, this can never be accounted right; while the father lives, let no son seek the throne. The world-king said: Behold the son who intends his father’s place; but I shall strike him with a rod so that all take heed; I shall bind him with bonds such as no man has ever borne. The son said: O king of noble nature, I never desire your death; I know no guilt; by your life, if you suspect ill in my heart, then sever my head; yet you are the king and the command is yours; I am yours—bond and prison are yours; now order chains, or if you wish, kill me; my heart is steadfast and my mind composed. The king of kings declared: Bring chains; bind him and do not depart from this command. The smiths were brought—fetters, shackles, heavy chains. In that assembly no one spoke in petition against the world-king. They bound his head, his hands, and his feet before the world-ruler; they fastened a collar upon his neck and ordered him carried out of the gate. Bring, he said, a male elephant—fleet and swift, like a bird on wing. They brought a blue-black elephant and tied him upon its back. As they led him away from his fortunate father, his eyes filled with tears and his face grew wet. He was sent toward the domed fortress, surrounded before and behind by commanders. In pain they took him up the mountain and raised four great iron pillars, their heads in the sky, their bases in the earth. There they bound him fast; they cast him down from his throne and his fortune turned. A guard was set over him—the champion-born, seared and in sorrow—and in that narrowness he lived, weeping bitterly from time to time.