Text
Firdausi, Book of Kings II 40-41:
Everyone was small before Kaūs, and those who wore crowns formed his retinue. … He built a residence on Mount Elburz and wore out the dīvs by this work. He ordered them to cut into the cliffs and to construct two palaces on top of them, each ten versts across. He had stables hewn in the rock where all the bars were of steel, all the pillars of hard stone, and to them were tied his war horses and his dromedaries for racing and carrying. He built a palace of crystal which he incrusted with emeralds: this was the venue of his festivals and feasts, the place where he took the nourishment that sustained his body. He set up a cupola of onyx from Yemen in which a Mobad of high renown had to live; he had this edifice built so that knowledge would never leave the palace. Thereafter he constructed two more of them to house his weapons, and he built them with silver ingots. Finally he erected a palace of gold to live in. It was 120 palms high, covered with figures encrusted with turquoises, with a reception hall decorated with rubies. … The dīvs were so worn out by these labors that they could no longer do evil. Ill fortune lay dormant, so great were the goodness and justice of the master who chained the dīvs up by his works and afflicted them by his punishments.
al-Thaˁālibī, History of the Persian Kings (ed. Zotenberg), 165:
Kay Kaūs, when God had raised his fame and prestige very high, had placed under his power all the regions and the greatest of his servants, and had caused him to acquire an opulence the like of which had never been known among his predecessors, established his residence in Iraq and had constructed in Babylon that high tower that contained compartments of stone, iron, brass, copper, lead, silver, and gold, and presents and tribute were brought to him from Rum, India, and China.
Sources (list of abbreviations)
Firdausi, Book of Kings II 40-41
al-Thaˁālibī, History of the Persian Kings (ed. Zotenberg), 165
Bibliography
| Dumezil 1986, 47-48 | Dumezil, Georges. The Plight of a Sorcerer. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press 1971. |
Amar Annus
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