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Love Gone Wrong, Then Right Again: Male/Female Dynamics in the Bahrām Gūr–Slave Girl Story

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Alyssa Gabbay
Alyssa Gabbay*
Affiliation:
University of Washington's Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization
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Abstract

This article examines male/female dynamics in three versions of the classical story of the Sassanian prince Bahrām Gūr and his lyre-playing slave girl: that of the Shāhnāma of Firdawsī, the Haft Paykar of Nizāmī Ganjavī, and the Hasht Bihisht of Amīr Khusraw. It argues that each version provides progressively more positive depictions of intergender dynamics, ones that are contingent upon more egalitarian understandings of the male/female dichotomy. The later authors destabilize the categories of “male” and “female,” equalizing and even uniting the dichotomous pairs, so that men and women draw nearer to each other in qualities rather than remaining in their usual polarized positions. In the Hasht Bihisht, moreover, we witness a reversal of hierarchies in which traditionally feminine qualities receive preference over masculine virtues—an act that suggests fresh possibilities for harmonious interactions between the sexes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 5: Special Issue: Love And Desire in Pre-Modern Persian Poetry And Prose , December 2009 , pp. 677 - 692
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 The International Society for Iranian Studies

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Footnotes

I am very grateful to the many readers who supplied valuable comments on this article, including Heshmat Moayyad, Frank Lewis, Dominic Parviz Brookshaw, Smadar Winter and Grace Huang.

References

1 Studies comparing two or more versions of the story include Meisami, Julie, “Fitnah or Azadah? Nizami's Ethical Poetic,” Edebiyāt, I, no. 2 (1989): 41–75Google Scholar, Ja‘far Maḥjūb, Muḥammad, “Hasht Bihisht” va “Haft Paykar” (Tehran, 2523/[1976]), 7, 11Google Scholar, Bürgel, J. C., “The Romance,” Persian Literature, ed. Yarshater, Ehsan (New York, 1988), 166–170Google Scholar, Moayyad, Heshmat, “Dar madār-i Nizāmī: Hasht Bihisht-Haft Akhtar,” Irānshināsī, 1 (1990): 135–159Google Scholar, and Talattof, Kamran, “Nizami's Unlikely Heroines: A Study of the Characterizations of Women in Classical Persian Literature,” The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi: Knowledge, Love, and Rhetoric, ed. Talattof, Kamran and Clinton, Jerome W. (New York, 2000), 56–57, 66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Jacques Derrida, Positions, trans. by Alan Bass (Chicago, 1981), 42.

3 Firdawsī, , Shāhnāma-yi Firdawsī, ed. by Birtils, Y. A.(Moscow, 1960–71), 7: 272, l.151.Google Scholar

4 See Meisami, “Fitnah or Azadah,” 55.

5 Firdawsī, , Shāhnāma, 7: 272–3Google Scholar, ll.150–156; 7: 273, l.168.

6 The verb justan signifies to seek something with the intention of acquiring it; Bahrām Gūr clearly intends to kill the deer and to acquire its carcass.

7 Firdawsī, , Shāhnāma, 7: 274Google Scholar, ll.177–182.

8 Firdawsī, , Shāhnāma, 7: 275Google Scholar, n.11 (emphasis added); 7: 275, ll.194–197; 7: 275, l.198.

9 Firdawsī, , Shāhnāma, 7: 275Google Scholar, ll.189, 195.

10 It must be remembered that Firdawsī's account may simply have been a faithful rendering of the narratives he found in his sources. But that he included the tale without passing judgment upon it is significant.

11 Firdawsī, , Shāhnāma, 7: 271–272Google Scholar. ll.125–144.

12 As Marshall Hodgson observes, the masculine hero of heroic and romantic epics had to be “watchful of his honour—his right to precedence—against all attacks; this honour could be sullied either through his own weakness—if he let a challenge go without silencing the challenger—or through his women, if his presumed sexual jealousy were offended.” Hodgson, , The Venture of Islam (Chicago, 1974), 2: 301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Gurdiya's wisdom is lauded on numerous occasions and compared favorably with that of men, and her character's appearance in the text provides a platform for an exposition on the numerous positive qualities of women, including their eloquence, purity, piety, and their ability to provide both comfort and good counsel. See Firdawsī, , Shāhnāma, 9: 172Google Scholar, ll.2768; 9: 173, ll.2783–84, 9: 171, ll.2746–48.

14 See Firdawsī, , Shāhnāma, 2: 184–190Google Scholar, ll.197–273.

15 Firdawsī, , Shāhnāma, 3: 15Google Scholar, l.165; 7: 433, ll.2251–52.

16 Meisami has pointed out that the episode has been received “as exemplifying the heroic ethos” by the remarkable degree to which it has been illustrated and rewritten. As she writes, The Preliminary Index of Shah-Nameh Illustrations, compiled by Norgren, Jill and Davis, Edward (Ann Arbor, 1969)Google Scholar, “records a total of 49 illustrations of the story (especially of the trampling), a figure exceeded only by representations of heroic exploits and scenes of ritual significance such as enthronements or mourning ceremonies.” Meisami, “Fitnah or Azadah,” 65–66, n.18.

17 Scott Meisami, Julie, Medieval Persian Court Poetry (Princeton, 1987), 78–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Ganjavī, Nizāmī, The Haft Paykar: A Medieval Persian Romance, trans. by Scott Meisami, Julie (Oxford, 1995), 76–77Google Scholar, ll.16–17; 77, l.19.

19 Nizāmī, Haft Paykar, 81, l.2.

20 As Meisami notes, the story elevates the slave girl from “the status of one of the king's chattels to one analogous and complementary to his own.” “Fitnah or Azadah,” 47.

21 Nizāmī,Haft Paykar, 77, ll.30–31.

22 Nizāmī, Haft Paykar, 78, l.38; 78, l.46.

23 Nizāmī, Haft Paykar, 84–85, ll.68–70; 85, ll.71–74.

24 Nizāmī, Haft Paykar, 85, l.80; 85–86, ll.88–89; 86, l.91; 86, l.100.

25 Bürgel, “The Romance,” 174.

26 Meisami, “Fitnah or Azadah,” 61.

27 Nizāmī, Haft Paykar, 86, ll.94–95.

28 Meisami, “Fitnah or Azadah,” 57.

29 Nizāmī, Haft Paykar, 80, ll.94–95.

30 Meisami, “Fitnah or Azadah,” 55.

31 Nizāmī, Haft Paykar, 85, l.81.

32 Khusraw Dihlavī, Amīr, Hasht Bihisht, ed. by Iftikhār, Ja‘far (Moscow, 1982), 49–50Google Scholar, ll.478–479. All translations from the Hasht Bihisht in this article are my own.

33 Amīr Khusraw, Hasht Bihisht, 50, l.481.

34 Amīr Khusraw, Hasht Bihisht, 50, l.483, 51, l.491.

35 Amīr Khusraw, Hasht Bihisht, 52–53, ll.501–506. Likewise, in the Haft Paykar, Bahrām Gūr refrains from slaying onagers under four years of age.

36 Amīr Khusraw, Hasht Bihisht, 55, ll.525–527; 56, l.529.

37 Amīr Khusraw, Hasht Bihisht, 57, l.544; 57, ll.546–547.

38 Amīr Khusraw, Hasht Bihisht, 58, l.552. . To capture lions—shīrgīrī kardan—can also mean to be bold and daring; or, in Dilārām's case, impudent. The bayt also plays on an alternate meaning for āhū, or deer: defect or fault.

39 Amīr Khusraw, Hasht Bihisht, 58, ll.554–555.

40 Amīr Khusraw, Hasht Bihisht, 59, ll.556–558. Dragons are typically depicted as guardians of great treasures.

41 Amīr Khusraw, Hasht Bihisht, 59–60, ll.561–565.

42 Amīr Khusraw, Hasht Bihisht, 61, ll.576–583.

43 Amīr Khusraw, Hasht Bihisht, 64, ll.609–611.

44 The skills demonstrated by the dihqān and taught to Dilārām are reminiscent of those demonstrated in a tale widely circulated about the great philosopher Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī (d. 950). It is said that he played various songs that caused members of a gathering to cry, to laugh, and to sleep. Amīr Khusraw may have based his story on that tale. See Maḥjūb, “Hasht Bihisht” va “Haft Paykar,” 21.

45 Amīr Khusraw, Hasht Bihisht, 64, l.613. The wording of this phrase leaves the slave girl's action open to a degree of ambiguity. It plays on the term parda, which can mean both musical scales as well as veil, and also denotes the protective covering that sheltered Muslim women from the gaze of outsiders, as well as any protection or covering for secrets or mistakes—an analogue for the more well-known word “purdah” in Western culture. To leave the parda—az parda raftan—means to make public; but to fall outside the parda—az parda uftādan—as it is stated here, can mean to lose one's reputation. Given the musical connotations of the word as well it could also imply that Dilārām is going out of tune.

46 Amīr Khusraw, Hasht Bihisht, 64, l.614.

47 Amīr Khusraw, Hasht Bihisht, 65, ll.622–632.

48 Amīr Khusraw, Hasht Bihisht, 68, l.647.

49 Amīr Khusraw, Hasht Bihisht, 69, ll.654–655.

50 Amīr Khusraw, Hasht Bihisht, 69–70, ll.656–659.

51 Amīr Khusraw, Hasht Bihisht, 70, l.664.

52 As Bürgel notes, Amīr Khusraw's version is “even superior to Nezāmi's version in one respect, namely, in avoiding the somewhat incongruous vision of a girl with the muscles of a heavyweight champion and in endowing the girl with an art which is spiritually superior to that of the king: captivating animals by the tones of a lute alone is certainly subtler than changing the sex of animals by such coarse means as an arrow shot.” “The Romance,” 174–175.

53 In particular, the desire to acquire new mates: he takes on multiple spouses through the course of the poem.