THE SCENE: After a Demon kills his son in single combat, the aging King Kayumars raises a mighty army and, with the help of his brave grandson Hushang, sets out for vengeance.
THE ACTION: He gathered together fairies, leopards and lions, savage wolves and fearless tigers, birds and domestic animals, and this army was led by the intrepid young prince. Kayumars was in the rear, his grandson Hushang in the van. The black demons came fearlessly forward, and the dust of his forces rose into the heavens, but the king’s fury and the wild animals’ magnificence rendered the demons’ claws harmless. When the two groups met, the demons were defeated by the animals; like a lion, Hushang caught the black demon in his grip, cleaving his body in two and severing his monstrous head. He laid him low in the dust and flayed his wretched body of its skin. When Kayumars had achieved the vengeance he desired, his days came to an end, and the world was deprived of his glory.
“The world was his while he remained alive,
He showed men how to prosper and to thrive:
But all this world is like a tale we hear–
Man’s evil, and their glory, disappear.”
Hushang toiled and spread justice, and consumed his due of the world’s goods, and then departed, leaving behind nothing but his good name. In his time he struggled mightily, planning and inventing innumerable schemes, but when his days were at an end, for all his sagacity and dignity, he departed. The world will not keep faith with you, nor will she show you her true face.
– The Shanameh, Abolqasem Ferdowsi, 10th Century AD
