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Iranian Studies, Volume 43 Issue 3, 2010

Published on behalf of the International Society for Iranian Studies

ISSN: 1475-4819 (electronic) 0021-0862 (paper)

Publication Frequency: 5 issues per year

Subject: Middle East Studies;

Publisher: Routledge

Original Articles

Stones from Bavaria: Iranian Lithography in its Global Contexts

Nile Green

Pages 305 – 331

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Iran’s Role in Europe’s Energy Security: An Assessment

Gawdat Bahgat

Pages 333 – 347

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Government-Sponsored Iranian Medical Students Abroad (1811–1935)

Mohammad Hossein Azizi ;Farzaneh Azizi

Pages 349 – 363

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A Study of Transsexuality in Iran

Fatemeh Javaheri

Pages 365 – 377

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Factors Associated with Married Iranian Women’s Contraceptive Use in Turku, Finland

Filio Degni ; Ansa Ojanlatva ;Birgitta Essen

Pages 379 – 390

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The Islamic Republic of Iran and the South Caucasus Republics

Elaheh Koolaee ;Mohammad Hossein Hafezian

Pages 391 – 409

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Reviews

Women Make Movies: Documentary Films by Iranian Women (Review Essay)

Reza Poudeh

Pages 411 – 417

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Islands and International Politics in the Persian Gulf: Abu Musa and the Tunbs in Strategic Perspective

Jalil Roshandel

Pages 418 – 420

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Mongols, Turks and Others: Eurasian Nomads and the Sedentary World

David Durand-Guédy

Pages 420 – 424

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Qissa-yi hussein-i kurd-i shabistarī, bar asās-i rivāyat-i nāshinākhta mausūm bih husseinnāma

Evangelos Venetis

Pages 424 – 426

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Helvetias guter Draht zum Pfauenthron. Die Beziehungen der Schweiz zu Iran (1946–1978)

Cyrus Schayegh

Pages 426 – 428

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Ahmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader

Katajun Amirpur

Pages 428 – 432

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Iranian Cinema: a Political History & Iran Cinema and the Islamic Revolution

Agnès Devictor

Pages 432 – 436

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Performing Islam: Gender and Ritual in Iran


Norma Claire Moruzzi

Pages 436 – 438

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Who is Knowledgeable is Strong: Science, Class, and the Formation of Modern Iranian Society, 1900–1950

Amir A. Afkhami

Pages 438 – 441

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The Secret of Laughter: Magical Tales from Classical Persia

Margaret A. Mills

Pages 441 – 443

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Between Foreigners and Shi‘is: Nineteenth-Century Iran and its Jewish Minority


Dominic Parviz Brookshaw

Pages 443 – 446

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Sun, 23 May, 2010 2:06:40 AM
[ISIS] Symposium on Bahram Beyzaie (Two Plays and Four Papers)]
From: S. R. Talajooy

Add to Contacts
To: Iranian Studies

1163715765.txt (1KB)

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

This is to invite you to a symposium on Bahram Beyzaie’s cinema and

theatre at University College London on Saturday 12th June from 13.00 to

21.00. The symposium is entitled Mythologising the Transition: Bahram

Beyzaie’s Cinema and Theatre. It includes the presentation of four papers and the performance of two of his plays, ‘Arash’ and ‘Death of Yazdgerd’in English.

There will be a Q & A session after each event. The symposium is ndians

by the UCL Mellon Programme and supported by Iran Heritage Foundation.

The venues are

13.00-18.00

Wilkins Haldane Room, South Cloister, UCL, GOWER STREET, LONDON, WC1E 6BT
&
18.30-21.00

UCL Garage Theatre, Gordon Street, London, WC1E 6BT (The Narrow Passage

Opposite Union Building)

ADMISSI IS FREE, BUT SINCE SEATS ARE LIMITED PLEASE EMAIL SAEED TALAJOOY

FOR BOOKING. PRIORITY IS GIVEN TO THOSE WHO ATTEND THE WHOLE SYMPOSIUM.



Email: s.talajooy@ucl.ac.uk

For full details, Poster and Programme, please visit:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/mellon-program/seminars/2009-2010

Please pass the message around to those who might be interested.

Regards,
Saeed Talajooy

Dr Saeed Talajooy
Fellow in Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies
VP Office (South Cloister)
University College London
London WC1E 6BT
Webpage: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/mellon-program/fellows/saeed/index.htm

Telephone: +44 2076797458

خاستگاه: رایان پیام‌هایی از دکتر هما کاتوزیان (ویراستار) و دکتر سعید طلاجوی

۹. یادی از «سُمبات دِر کیورغیان» هم‌میهن ِ ارمنی و نگارگر ِ نامدار ِ روزگارمان

زن ارمنی در جامه و زیور سنّتی

اثری از سمبات

در باره‌ی این هنرمند، در این جاها، بخوانید و تصویر ِ نمونه‌هایی از کارهایش و نیز فیلمی کوتاه از او در هنگام ِ کار را ببینید. ↓

http://www.jadidonline.com/story/30042010/frnk/sumbat_profile

http://www.jadidonline.com/story/30042010/frnk/sumbat_profile

http://www.bing.com/search?q=Sumbat&form=MS8TDF&pc=MS8TDF&src=IE-SearchBox

خاستگاه: رایان پیامی از داریوش کارگر

۱۰. یادداشتی روشنگر از استاد «علی اکبر جعفری» در باره‌ی ِ یک کلیدواژه‌ی ِ کهن ِ ایرانی ...

Good Thoughts! Good Words! Good Deeds!

Dear All,

Ushta (The true meaning is known only by the Sahebs (an Arabic word of post-Sassanian time meaning “companion”) of Mount Damavand!

While, we with all our knowledge of philology, archeology, anthropology, history and culture of the Indo-Iranians and more, weave “fables,” some tell us the “facts” that need no proof at all, and one has to believe them without any question.

Thanks for “enlightening” the readers of Facts and Fables, especially by using the English “King and Kingship” against the Greek “democracy” and the correct modern Persian “Shahnshah Shah Behram Varjavand.” (Incidentally, it cannot have any connection with what we falsely state “Varechanghvant – Brilliant and Verethraghna –Victory Yazata,” one quoted for five time and the
other scores of times in Avesta and “Varchavand and Varhran/Vahram” in Pahlavi.)

Ali A. Jafarey


Buena Park, Southern California

خاستگاه: رایان پیامی از علی اکبر جعفری

۱۱. «شجریان»، پژواک ِ ندای ِ روزگار: مثنوی‌خوانی‌ی ِ استاد در «قونیّه»، آرامگاه ِ «جلال الدّین مولوی»، همراه با بیان زندگی‌نامه‌ی ِ ایشان در گفت و شنودی یک ساعته با بی. بی. سی.

در این جا ↓

http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2010/05/100510_l50_shajarian_promo.shtml

خاستگاه: رایان پیامی از احمد رنّاسی

۱۲. گفتار ِ «دکتر محمود امیدسالار» در پاسخ به پُرسمان ِ "چرایی‌ی ِ کشته‌نشدن ِ اژی دهاک (/ ضحّاک) بر دست فریدون و کاوه" در اسطوره و حماسه‌ی ِ ایران

پیش از این نوشتم که پژوهش ِ ارزنده‌ی ِ استاد دکتر محمود امنیدسالار را به سبب آن که با ساختار پی. دی. اف. فرستاده‌شده‌بود، نتوانستم در این تارنگاشت، نشردهم. اکنون، روایتی از همان گفتار را با ساختار ِ وُرد – که دوست ِ گرامی‌ام بانو دکتر حَورا یاوری، به خواهش من از دفتر دانشنامه‌ی ِ ایرانیکا در نیویورک، برایم فرستاده اند – با سپاس فراوان از ایشان، در این جا می آورم تا به وعده‌ی ِ خود، وفاکرده باشم.

درآمدن ِ فریدون به کاخ ضحّاک

از دست نوشتی از شاهنامه

برگرفته از ویکیپیدیا

The Dragon Fight in the National Persian Epics

The Shahnameh, or The Book of Kings, is an epic poem of considerable length (nearly 60, 000 verses) which was versified, from a now lost prose original, by a poet called Firdowsi (d.1020 or 1025 A.D.). The Shahnameh contains the legendary history of Iran from the first king to the Moslem conquest of the country in the seventh century A.D.

The narrative of the Shahnameh may be divided into three parts. The mythological section, which begins with the reign of the first king, deals with a dynasty of primordial rulers who function as creator-kings or culture-heroes (motif A500ff).

That is, they either invent some useful item or teach men a new craft (cf. Bascom, 1965). This group of kings is quite possibly based on a more ancient class of pre-Zoroastrian Indo-Iranian gods.

The second part of the epic deals with a series of kings whose rule constitutes the purely legendary section of the Shahnameh. The reigns of this second class of monarchs are filled with great wars and lofty deeds of heroes and kings.

The third and final part of the epic is the semihistorical section. It narrates an idealized version of the reign of historical monarchs who ruled Iran from roughly the sixth century B.C. to the advent of Islam in the seventh century A.D.

This paper concerns the symbolic content of one of the stories of the mythological part of the epic.

Among the primordial kings of the epic, is a three-headed dragon-king called Zahhak, who is overcome and put in chains by a young king called Fereydun. The tale of Fereydun and Zahhak contains the Iranian version of the motif of the three-headed dragon. This motif is quite common throughout the mythologies of other Indo-European peoples (cf. Dumézil, 1939). It should therefore be taken into account in all serious comparative studies of the Indo-European groups.

I have presented my own translation of the Persian text of the story as it appears in the Moscow critical edition of the epic. The Roman numerals in my references indicate the volume number. The two sets of the Arabic numerals refer to the page number and the verse number respectively. All motif numbers are taken from Stith Thompson’s Motif-Index of Folk-Literature. Needless to say, I have been as literal in my translations as possible, sacrificing style to accuracy.

The story of Fereydun and his fight with Zahhak came to the attention of psychoanalysis when this discipline was still in its infancy. It was first studied by Otto Rank in 1909. Although the analysis offered by Rank still holds true in the general outlines (Rank, 1914, pp. 65–95), it needs to be revised and elaborated in the light of both Iranian philology and folklore.

Later, Ernest Jones published his Hamlet and Oedipus, in which he briefly considered this legend (Jones, 1949, pp. 132-4).

I will refer to both of these works in the course of my presentation.

The aim of this analysis is not so much to present a ‘new’ or ‘original’ interpretation of the tale. Those familiar with psychoanalytic folkloristics know that there cannot be much originality in this endeavour, as most symbolic manifestations in tales refer to merely a handful of instinctive wishes and their fulfilment (Jones, 1916, p. 120). My intention is, rather, to build upon the conclusions suggested by Rank and Jones, not by sheer psychoanalytical insight – as in their case – but by a meticulous and careful use of the available data. Therefore, what justifies the present study is not so much its psychoanalytical arguments, but rather the folkloristic and textual documentation. The only refinement I have made in my essay is a consideration of the oedipal conflict from the point of view of the superego, and a consideration of the symbolic fulfilment of the superego wishes in the narrative (cf. Omidsalar, 1983), (1984a), (1985).

Both in the Shahnameh, and in extra Shahnameh texts, whether Middle or New Iranian, the stories of Jamshid or Jam-Zahhak, and Fereydun form a triad with distinct, but interrelated parts. For this reason, I must present the outline of the story of Jamshid and Zahhak, before providing the text of the tale of Fereydun and Zahhak as it occurs in the Shahnameh.



JAMSHID



Jamshid is the fourth king in the list of primordial rulers of Iran. In the Zoroastrian scriptures called the Avesta, he is called ‘Yima the brilliant’, and is said to possess good pastures. The narrative of the Shahnameh makes him the most potent and active of the creator kings or culture heroes of the primordial period. He is possessed of the ‘royal glory’ (Christensen, 1934), (1936), by means of which he orders the world in accordance with some implicitly divine scheme. He is a priest, as well as a king (Sh, I:30:6). He teaches many crafts to mankind, and is the first to ndians medicine (Sh, I:41:43). During his rule, for 300 years, there is no death or sickness among his subjects. He subdues demons, and reduces them to a state of servitude (Sh, I:42, pp. 555–6).

Towards the end of his reign, vanity overcomes him, and he claims to be the creator of all things. Having made this forbidden claim, his ‘royal glory’ (a power bestowed on the legitimate rulers of Iran to ensure order in nature and society), departs, and the realm falls into chaos (Sh, I:43:70). The last part of his reign is a period of strife and internal struggle. It is at this period in Jamshid’s rule that a foreign prince, named Zahhak, is transformed into a three-headed monster.



ZAHHAK



Towards the end of Jamshid’s rule, the Shahnameh speaks of a pious Arab vassal of Jamshid, by the name of Mardas, who has a son called Zahhak. Zahhak is not yet a dragon or a king. That is to happen later. The only information we are given about him is that he is a brave, foolhardy, evil youth, possessed of 10, 000 horses (Sh, I:44:82–5).

One day the devil appears to Prince Zahhak and deceives him saying:

… Why should there be

A lord together with you in the house?

Why should a father who has a son like you keep

on living?

Verily, you must listen to a word of advice from me (Sh, I:44, 93–4).

He goes on to say that King Mardas will live long, unless Zahhak kills him. Zahhak agrees after minimal objections, and the devil goes on to devise and carry out a plan, by means of which he kills Mardas, making him fall into a pit dug on his path (Sh, I:45–6:108–11).

After Zahhak succeeds his slain father, the devil appears to him once again, this time as a cook, who offers to prepare especially delectable dishes for him. Zahhak agrees, and assigns him to the royal kitchen. People at that time were vegetarians, but the devil decides to train Zahhak’s palate to appreciate the taste of meat. He intends to nurture the king on blood, in order to make him more aggressive and bold (Sh, I:47:133). To this end, he begins to carnivorize his master. He first serves him dishes made of egg yolk. The next step involves the introduction of game hens on to the royal menu. The king is served chicken, lamb, and veal in the days to follow. His new menu so thoroughly delights the king that he offers to reward his skilful chef. The devil, however, asks only for the honour of being permitted to kiss his majesty’s shoulders.

Zahhak gladly grants this wish. The devil proceeds to kiss the monarch’s shoulders, and then he immediately disappears.

However, two black snakes grow out of the king’s shoulders where the devil’s lips have touched (Sh, I:48:152-4).

Zahhak, understandably distressed by this development, seeks help from the skilled physicians of his realm, but none of their cures, including surgical removal of the snakes, can improve the monarch’s sorry state. Once again, the devil appears to the king in the guise of a physician, ndians y him to feed his serpents on human brains, in the hope that they might simply die of this diet (Sh, I:48:160–2). Zahhak, who is at the end of his wits, accepts his advice.

Structurally, in the course of this section of the tale, a vegetarian is transformed to a carnivore, through the mediation of the egg-yolk dishes. This carnivorous man is further changed into a three-headed cannibalistic monster, by the mediation of his favourite meat dishes and the snakes which grow on his shoulders. The gradual change in the diet of the king, and the gradual increase in his ferocity, move parallel to one another. The process: Egg-yolk (very tender)/Game hens (tender)/Chicken and lamb (less tender)/Veal (rougher)/Human brains (very rough), is paralleled by the move from son to parricide to usurper king to three-headed cannibalistic monster. The changes in Zahhak follow a path of increasing horror, justified by his diet.

Now, while Zahhak’s cannibalization is taking place, Jamshid’s realm in Iran is falling into chaos because he too has degenerated from an all powerful culture-hero into a wretched man overcome by his own vanity. The two processes of transformation operating on Jamshid and Zahhak have different directions but the same results. Jamshid loses his powers as a great creator king, a priest, and a protector of people. He devolves into a wretched monarch, ruling over a country besieged by internal strife and claimants to the throne (Sh, I:49:165–9). He has lost fierceness and power, but since the nature of his power was positive, its loss constitutes an increase in evil and misery. Zahhak, on the other hand, has increased in fierceness and power. But, his power being of diabolical origin, he too is devolved by means of losing his humanity, by being gradually transformed from man into monster. The metaphor is clear: loss of good equals acquisition of evil.

To return to our story, the nobles of Iran, having heard of Zahhak’s fame, set out for the land of the Arabs to offer the throne of Iran to the dragon-king. Accepting their request, Zahhak comes to Iran, and ascends the throne (Sh, I:49:172–5).

Meanwhile, Jamshid goes into hiding and spends a hundred years evading Zahhak’s agents. Finally, however, he is seized by Zahhak’s men and is horribly put to death by being sawn in half (Sh, I:49 183).

Zahhak goes on to take over Jamshid’s two daughters, Shahrnaz and Arnavaz. He teaches them witchcraft and evil, and makes them his wives. Meanwhile, he continues to feed his serpents on human brains. This time, the victims are his new subjects, the Iranians.

We are told that if Zahhak heard of a shapely maiden in the household of any one of his subjects, he would kill the man, and take possession of the woman (Sh, I:53:38–41; and cf. Denkart, Bk. IX:Ch. 21, p. 13 in West, 1965a, p. 215). Thus, the dragon-king ruled over Iran until one night, some 40 years before the end of his dominion, he had a nightmare while sleeping with Arnavaz. In his nightmare, he saw three warriors of kingly race who had come to him. The younger one smote Zahhak with his bull-headed mace, and putting him in chains, took him to Mount Damavand and bound him there. Zahhak woke up with a frightened scream (Sh, I:53–4:43–50). His two wives, awakened by his cries of terror, ndians that Zahhak should ask the learned men of the realm to interpret his dream. He followed their advice and consulted the wise men who told him that the interpretation of his dream was as follows: Someone by the name of Fereydun, who was not yet born, will overthrow him. He was told that when Fereydun is born, he will grow to heroic stature rapidly, and using his bull-headed mace, he will smite and bind the king. Zahhak asked about the reason for Fereydun’s enmity and the wise men answered that he seeks ndians for the blood of his father and his wet-nurse, a magical cow, both of whom will be slain by Zahhak (Sh, I:56:97–100). After Zahhak hears this interpretation, he begins a relentless search for Fereydun.

A long time passed after Zahhak’s dream, and Fereydun was finally born. Simultaneous with his birth, a magical cow called Barmaye was also born (motif T589.7.1). Meanwhile, Fereydun’s father, Abtin, who was a fugitive from Zahhak, was finally captured and taken to the dragon-king, who killed him and served his brains to his snakes. Fereydun’s mother Faranak, however, took her infant to the forest residence of Barmaya, and spoke to the animal’s attendant as follows:

Take this infant from me,

And keep him in your protection for a time,

Accept him like a father from his mother,

And nurture him on the milk of this fine cow, ‘

(Sh, I:58:126–7; my italics.)

The fame of the magic cow had spread far and wide. Faranak, who feared Zahhak’s agents, decided to move her son from his present hiding place to one more safe in India. She therefore brought her son to Mount Alburz, to an ascetic who lived there. Leaving her son in his care, she said to him:

‘O holy man!

I am a mourner from the land of Iran.

My noble son, seeking ndians for the injustice

that made me a widow,

will become a great ruler, but now you must be

his guardian,

Always anxious to protect his life like a father.’

(Sh, I:59:140–2; my italics.)

Meanwhile, Zahhak, having found the where-abouts of the cow Barmaya, attacked and killed her, laying her sanctuary to waste (Sh, I:59:144–8).

When Fereydun was about 16, he descended from the mountain, came to his mother, and asked her about his lineage.

Faranak told her son the whole story of his birth and life. The hero was enraged and sought to avenge his father and his animal nurse, but his mother ndians patience, to which the hero agreed.

Meanwhile, Zahhak decided that all of his subjects should sign a document testifying to his just rule. Everyone agreed to do this, out of fear, except a blacksmith named Kava. The reason for Kava’s disagreement was that Zahhak’s agents had killed several of his sons and had prepared their brains for the serpents. Now Kava’s last son was arrested for the same purpose, and the smith, much distressed by this development, went to Zahhak’s court, seeking justice from the dragon-king himself.

When Zahhak heard the blacksmith’s pleas, he ordered that his son be returned to him; however, he demanded that Kava should in return sign the document testifying to his just rule. Kava refused to be a party to this false testimony, and tore up the document, took his son, and left the court in anger. All through Kava’s angry and rude ndians , Zahhak sat dazed and motionless (Sh, I:63:210–18). The courtiers, seeing their king’s passivity in the face of the smith’s impertinence, asked him why he had not ordered the man killed:

The famous king quickly answered:

A wonderous thing must be heard from me.

As soon as Kava appeared through the

court gates,

And my two ears heard his call,

Verily, it was as though between me and him

A mountain grew from the floor of the court,

And when be brought his hands upon his head as

a sign of oppression,

Wonder of wonders, a fear entered and

overwhelmed my heart.

(Sh, I:64:223–225 and note 3.)

Thereafter, Kava rebelled and called the people to join him, and offer their allegiance to Fereydun. The people followed Kava, found Fereydun, and joined him.

After a while, Fereydun decided to make his move against Zahhak. He first summoned the blacksmiths and ordered them to make a bull-headed mace for him (Sh, I:65–6: 255–68). Then he led his great army toward Zahhak’s abode and conquered it. Seating himself on the dragon-king’s throne, he ordered that Zahhak’s wives be taken out of the harem and purified. Then the two daughters of Jamshid, who were the favourite wives of Zahhak, praised him and asked his lineage.

When he revealed his identity, princess Arnavaz recognized him as the one about whom Zahhak had his nightmare. She informed the hero that it was predestined that he should be the dragon-king’s vanquisher (Sh, I:70:330–33). Hearing these words, Fereydun assured the women that he would destroy Zahhak, and asked of his whereabouts. The sisters informed him that Zahhak had gone to India.

Meanwhile, one of the dragon-king’s chamberlains brought the news of Fereydun’s conquest to the king. At first Zahhak dismissed the news saying that Fereydun might very well be only a guest, enjoying the hospitality of the king in his absence. The chamberlain, however, responded:

If this bold man is your guest,

Then what business does he have in your harem?

Why sits he with the daughters of King Jamshid?

Heeding their advice in every affair?

Why takes he the cheeks of Shahrnaz in one hand,

While fondling Arnavaz’s ruby-red lips with

the other?

When the night falls he does even worse,

He lays his head on a pillow of musk,

That musk-scented hair of your two beloveds

Who were always most desirable to you.

He holds them in his arms when he is half-drunk.

Such a guest is indeed a novelty.

(Sh, I:73:380–91).

Blinded with jealousy and rage, Zahhak immediately set out for his palace. Clad in armour from head to toe, he attacked the imperial court. There, he saw Fereydun in the company of his two wives. His jealous rage made him rush forth to kill the women, but Fereydun quickly came up to him and struck him on the head with his mace, shattering his war-helmet. At this moment, an angel of the Lord appeared, and stopped Fereydun from killing Zahhak. He instructed the hero to take the dragon-king to a certain mountain. Fereydun obeyed, and brought the bound Zahhak to the mountain, where he once again moved to cut his head off. The angel appeared again, and whispered in his ear that he should take Zahhak to Mount Damavand, and bind him in a deep cave (Sh, I:77:462–3). Once Zahhak’s defeat and imprisonment was effected, Fereydun assumed the throne and proclaimed the day when he overcame Zahhak a great festival. He married the vanquished king’s wives, and ruled for five hundred years.



THE ANALYSIS



A consideration of the oedipal content of this tale is possible only through a careful study of the traits of the dramatis

personae involved. Such a study provides important clues for solving the complex symbolic content of the tale. Therefore, we shall look at the main characters of this tale, isolating those elements which prove helpful for our analysis.



ZAHHAK



The name Zahhak is the New Persian form, via Arabic, of the name of the Avestan monster azhi-dahaka (zh is pronounced like the sound of the letter s in the word pleasure), a three-headed serpent created by the Evil Spirit for the destruction of the world. Zahhak’s name has been translated as ‘hominoid serpent’ or ‘snakeman’ (Schwartz, 1980, pp.123–4) and (cf. Omidsalar, 1984b, p. 132, n.9).

In the Shahnameh, he has been anthropomorphized into a king with two snakes on his shoulders. The Shahnameh version of Zahhak’s tale speaks of his parricide, but does not mention the reason why he wants to kill his father. We are only told that the devil deceives and encourages him to kill his father. According to the Shahnameh, it is not Zahhak himself who actually commits parricide, but rather the devil, who devises the plan and carries it out with Zahhak’s agreement (Sh, I:45:100–101, and 45–46:108–11). There is no mention of Zahhak’s mother in the text. Thus, in the Shahnameh version of why Zahhak kills his father, what is lacking is the presence of the mother as reward for the act of parricide. Other versions, like the textual Middle Persian variants and the New Persian oral variants, fill this gap quite nicely. In Middle Persian literature, Zahhak’s closeness to his mother is repeatedly mentioned. For instance, the Middle Persian text of Menok-I Xrad, (chapter 57:25) refers to him with a ndians y: vadakan shah, ‘king of the line of Vadak’, (West, 1965b, p. 103). Furthermore, Zahhak’s mother, Vadak, is repeatedly referred to as an adulterous and sexually I demoness (Pahlavi Vendidad, 18:70; and Bundahishn, 31:6; and West, 1965a, pp. 212–3, n.5). In the Dadastan-I Denig, (72:5) she is not only accused of adultery, but of committing incest with her own son: ‘Vadak, the mother of Dahhak (i.e. Zahhak), by whom adultery was first committed, and by it all lineage was disturbed, control was put an end to, and without the authority of the husband an intermingling of son with son occurs’ (West, 1977, p. 217; my italics). Note that the word adultery in this passage does not refer merely to the practice of adultery, but one of an incestuous character. The statement ‘and by it all lineage is disturbed’, makes the point amply clear. The matter is much more forcefully stated in the Dadastan-I Denig, 78:2, ‘It is adultery, heinous and vicious, which first Dahak used to commit, and he is known by the illicit intercourse which was his desire with Vadak, who was his mother, in the lifetime of Aurvadasp, who was his father, without the authority of Aurvadasp, who was the husband of Vadak, whose ndians y of sin, unauthorized and unjudicious, was itself heinous and very frequent’ (West, 1977, p. 228; my italics).

Several points are made clear by the wording of the passage. First, Vadak and Zahhak had ‘illicit intercourse’. Second, Vadak was Zahhak’s mother. Third, this incestual liaison went on during the lifetime of the father, and behind his back.

Fourth, that Aurvadasp, Zahhak’s father in the Middle Persian literature, was at the same time Vadak’s husband. Thus, the text sets up a nuclear family within which mother-son incest is committed, and goes on to condemn it as ‘adultery (read:incest), heinous and vicious’. It should be noted that the sexual liaison between Zahhak and his mother was not a case of xwaetavadatha (the Avestan term for incestual marriages). It was not a marriage but sexual contact between mother and son. Therefore, so far as the Middle Persian texts are concerned, Zahhak, whom we know from the Shahnameh to be a parricide, was actually amorous for, and incestuous with, his mother. Indeed, it was this very incestuous affair between the mother and her son that motivated the son to kill his father. This last point is quite elaborately stated in the oral folk tradition.

A version of the story of Zahhak in the oral tradition is as follows: It is said that Zahhak was originally called dah Hak, that is to say he had ten apparent faults and defects, and he was so ugly and bad looking that even his brothers and father hated to look at him. Zahhak’s father was the master of horse for King Jamshid, and he had a very pretty wife. They say that Zahhak fell in love with his step-mother, and every day when he would take the horses to pasture, he would go and sit somewhere and cry on account of his love for her. But, fearing his father, he never dared say anything. Until one day the accursed Satan turned himself into an old man and appeared in front of him and said, ‘O Zahhak, why are you distressed?’ Zahhak answered, ‘O old man, leave me alone, there is no remedy for my pain’. Satan said ‘If you will tell of your heart’s pain, I will find a cure for it’. And Zahhak began to talk, and the devil said, ‘O Zahhak, as long as your father is alive you can’t do anything’. Zahhak said, ‘well, I know that already’. Satan said, ‘O Zahhak, if you want to gain your beloved, today when you go home, you will find your father sleeping. Pick up a stone, and hit him on the head with it hard, and after you kill your father, go to your step-mother, and marry her’. Zahhak found this to be a wonderful plan. He got up, and returned home earlier than usual, and he saw that, sure enough, his father was sleeping like a log. He did not dawdle, but picked up a big stone, and hit his father’s head very hard and killed him. Then he began to scream and moan and the people gathered and picked up the father’s corpse, and buried it.

After several days, Zahhak went to his step-mother, and revealed his love to her. She, knowing what a son-of-a-bitch he was, began to use delaying tactics and said, ‘If you go to the court of King Jamshid, and get your father’s office from him, then I will consent to be your wife’. She was thinking to herself all the time that as soon as Jamshid set eyes on his ugly face, he would certainly call the executioner and have him beheaded. Then she would be off the hook (Anjavi, 1975, pp. 301-2).

Her conclusions are incorrect, however, as Zahhak gets the job, and returns to insist on sleeping with her. But the chaste woman commits suicide before agreeing to marry her step-son.

According to a variant, the reason Zahhak falls in love with his step-mother is that ‘one day he entered her room unannounced, while she was putting on her clothes. As soon as he laid eyes on her face and naked body, he fell hopelessly in love with her’ (Anjavi, 1975, p. 306). In this tale, when Zahhak comes back from the court asking for the step-mother’s hand in marriage, she pleads with him, saying: ‘But I am like your mother, how could you want such a thing from me?’

Zahhak, answers, ‘All of these words are nonsense, I am in love with you, and I must sleep with you’ (Anjavi, 1975, p. 308; my italics).

Thus, in the folk legends as in the Middle Persian texts, we have clear evidence of the ‘romantic triangle’ so characteristic of the oedipal phase.

In his discussion of the Oedipus Rex, Sigmund Freud wrote: ‘Being in love with the one parent and hating the other are among the essential constituents of the stock of psychical impulses which is formed [in early childhood] … It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father. Our dreams convince us that that is so’ (Freud, 1900, pp. 260–2).

The tales of Zahhak’s parricide, whether oral or literary, clearly demonstrate the elements of intense love for the mother and jealousy and hatred for the father, both of these elements being the essential building blocks of the male Oedipus complex.

Before continuing our analysis of Zahhak’s character, a general point should be made regarding the Oedipus complex, and its manifestations in oral and literary narratives. It seems that there are at least two dimensions to the classic oedipal situation. One, primarily directed toward the parent of the opposite sex, is quite loving and tender. The other, directed against the parent of the same sex, is aggressive and violent. For Zahhak, the aggression against the father does not cease with parricide. He goes on to direct his violence against a father surrogate,Jamshid. His parricide evolves into regicide.

According to some classical Persian texts, like Mujmal-al-Tawarikh wa-al-Qisas, Jamshid was Zahhak’s maternal uncle, or in another version preserved in the same text, his grandfather. Thus Zahhak’s regicide is cast in an even more clearly oedipal context. When Zahhak finally seized the deposed King Jamshid, he ordered that Jamshid be killed by being sawn in half.

The sawing of the victim, as demonstrated by the miniatures used to decorate the Shahnameh manuscripts, as well as verses found in the epic tradition of the folk (Anjavi, 1975, p. 304), and literary texts (Sh, I:49:183), is longitudinal. That is, the

victim was made to kneel, and the executioner put the saw on his head, working his way down toward his mid-section. This obviously depicts a displacement upwards of the act of castration. It is probably not entirely conjectural to assume that people condemned to die in this horrible way were supposed to feel great pain. On the other hand, it does not require a great deal of knowledge to realize that if one starts with the head, the victim will soon lose consciousness and feel nothing beyond the pain of the head injury. But if the executioner starts in an area of the body which is far from the head, they are quite likely to feel all the excruciating pain of their slow and tortuous death. This, it seems, was Zahhak’s aim in ordering Jamshid sawn in half. Second, we know that the head, the feet, and the phallus are all allomotifs and thus perfectly substitutable in traditional narrative. This point has already been demonstrated by Dundes (1982). Further, it is a common motif in myths and legends of various peoples for a vanquished god/ruler to be castrated by the victor. One could point to the case of Zeus and Chronos in Greek mythology, among others.

The narrative of the Shahnameh depicts Zahhak not only as a character with an obvious Oedipus complex; but also as the personification of the id unleashed. A glance at the structure of the tyrant’s tragic life proves my contention. First, Zahhak kills his own father. Having killed the father, Zahhak assumes his place. But now he has transgressed one of the supreme taboos of human culture. Once this taboo is broken, all else may also be violated. It is not sheer accident that the killing of the father preceeds Zahhak’s metamorphosis into a three-headed dragon-king. His violence and convetousness are unleashed upon the society at large. He kills and pillages mercilessly, seizing whatever women and property that pleases him. He has become the id out of control with the three heads on his shoulders symbolizing his virility (cf. Dundes, 1982).

Now, if Zahhak is the personification of the instinctive impulses of the unconscious, and an important component of these impulses is the oedipal aggression, then it logically follows that the dragon-king must repeat his parricide again and again. The murders of Jamshid and Fereydun’s father support this interpretation.

Zahhak’s tyrannical ndians is always unopposed except in one instance. That is when he faces Kava, a mere blacksmith, in his own court. Kava, utterly oppressed by the king, defies him in his royal palace, heaps insults on his nobles, and tears up an important document. Yet this rude and bold ndians is not met by the swift and violent retribution that Zahhak is known and feared for. Instead, the king freezes in his place, and remains inactive until Kava leaves.

The dragon-king later explains his odd ndians by saying that fear came into his heart when the smith walked into the court.

The reason for Zahhak’s strange passivity in the face of Kava’s aggression should be sought in two sources. First, the nature of the blacksmith as a symbol in traditional narrative and the unconscious. Second, in the vicissitudes of the Oedipus complex, and the punitive role of the superego in repressing oedipal desires. Let us first consider the case of the blacksmith as a symbol.

Blacksmiths, a source of great fascination and speculation (Robinson, 1953), figure prominently in folk literature.

Indeed, they appear with remarkable regularity in the training of dragon-slaying heroes (Roheim, 1925). Among these, one may point to Indra (Oldenburg, 1894, pp. 234–5), Sigfried (Panzer, 1912, p. 42), etc. It is usually from these smiths that the hero obtains his weapons, and it is quite often these smiths who fall victim to hero’s wrath. Roheim writes, ‘Primitive people usually regard smiths as uncanny or supernatural (Andree, 1878, p. 153) ; (Schrader, 1906: II, p. 13) ; and (Macdougal & Calder, 1910, p. 17) and it is very probable that the quality is derived from the awe felt by the child before the mystery of its own origin, the life-giving sexual act.

‘For primitive mankind all objects are endowed with life and therefore to make a tool is the same thing as making, i.e. procreating a new human being. This is how the smith becomes a representative of the father’ (Roheim, 1925, p. 86).

Further, the smith, as the producer of weapons (phallic symbols), is at the same time a very apt paternal symbol. His knowledge of ‘mounting’ the blade on the heft, a major technological feat, is itself another statement of the sexual knowledge possessed by the magical smith. If the above argument is correct, then one may suggest that the smith Kava is here the symbol of the father. He is the wrathful punitive father of the superego, who inhibits and savagely punishes the least transgression of the child. His castrating presence renders Zahhak immobile and passive. It might be asked that if Zahhak is such a wild committer of parricide, then why should he be so affected by the presence of a father figure? The answer to this objection has to do with the nature of oedipal aggression.

It is not the case that oedipal aggression against the father may be manifested without any checks or balances in narratives. If that were so, most narratives would be no more than a series of parricides. In fact, there are two facets to the aggressive ndians of the oedipal episodes in traditional narratives. The first is directed against the father, and is motivated by a monopolizing love for the mother. The second is turned inward, and is directed against the individual himself because he dared to have aggressive death wishes against his father. The source of this second impulse is the superego; the introjected punitive father of infantile fantasy (cf. Freud, 1923, p. 34) ; and (Jones, 1926, pp. 33–47). It is a common feature of the oedipal type narratives to have the symbolic fulfilments of two contradictory wishes superimposed upon one another in the same episode of a given tale (cf. Omidsalar, 1983). Thus, whereas committing parricide and incest satisfies the libidinal component of the Oedipus complex, being punished for these acts fulfils the wishes of the superego, the masochistic-aggressive components of the same complex.

The presence of Kava in this narrative, and Zahhak’s passivity in the face of his aggressive ndians , is understandable only as a symbolic statement of Zahhak’s dread of the punitive father of the superego. The superego version of the paternal imago has a further symbolic manifestation in the story of Zahhak. I suggest that the snakes which grow on his shoulders, torturing him (Sh, I:48:154–8), are the symbols of the introjected father. That the snakes cause Zahhak a great deal of trouble is explicitly stated in the text (Sh, I:70–1 and 345–6). Other evidence from Indo-Iranian cultural groups may be presented as support for this interpretation.

In a sixteenth-century Tamil text, called Tiruvilaiyatala-puranam, the soul of the slain father of a parricide sticks to him interrupting all his daily activities with its cries (Ramanujan, 1983, p. 224). The Kannada temple legend of Piriyapattna speaks of a slain ndians (father figure) who becomes a demon and torments his slayer by attaching himself to him(Ramanujan, 1983, p. 246). It is interesting that Zahhak’s snakes grow after he has committed parricide. These snakes symbolically express the punitive activities of the introjected paternal imago, which gives the parricide no rest. They are the reptilian equivalents of the bloodstain on Lady Macbeth’s hands, or the haunting spirit of Hamlet’s father.

Let us now consider a second oddity, which appears in the tale’s structure and not in Zahhak’s character. We know that in the Shahnameh, when an enemy king is defeated, he is typically killed by his vanquisher. But of all these slain kings, none is as cruel or as deserving of death as Zahhak. Yet he is the only one who is defeated but not put to death after his defeat. What is even more surprising is that Zahhak’s life is not spared by Fereydun who defeats him, but by God himself. After Fereydun

overcomes the dragon-king, he actually moves to kill him in two instances (see above). But each time an angel intercedes on the despot’s behalf and saves his life. The question is why, of all the kings in the Shahnameh, is the most evil and cruel saved from certain death by divine intervention? After all, the text is clear that it was not Fereydun’s idea to spare Zahhak’s life.

The Middle Persian texts offer a partial solution. I will quote the account of one of these texts, namely that of the Denkart, Bk. IX, ch.21, pp. 8-10:

8-About the smiting by Fereydun, for the sake of killing Dahak (Zahhak); the striking of his club upon the nape of the neck, the heart, and even the skull; and Dahak’s not dying from that beating.

9-Then smiting him with a sword, and the formation of noxious creatures of many kinds from the body of Dahak, at the first, second, and third blow.

10-The exclamation of the creator Auhrmazd to Fereydun thus: ‘Thou should not cut him who is Dahak, because, if thou shouldst cut him, Dahak would be making this earth full of serpents, toads, scorpions, lizards, tortoises and frogs. Punish him with the mode of binding him with awful fetters, in the most grievous punishment of confinement’ (West, 1965a, p. 177).

Thus, so far as the Middle Persian legendary literature is concerned, the reason Zahhak was spared was that if his body were to be cut, all manner of repugnant insects and reptiles would creep out of it and the whole earth would be covered by them. These creatures, called by the generic term xrafstra in the sacred Avestan literature of ancient Iran, are singularly detested by the Zoroastrians as obnoxious miscreations of the Evil Spirit. The serpent azhi, the ancient Iranian prototype of the Zahhak of the Shahnameh, was also a xrafstra, except that he was a very large one.

The Middle Persian passage cited above makes it clear that to slay Zahhak was not only impractical, but also impossible. Injury to the three-headed dragon, or serpent’s body, would have only turned loose multitudes of smaller detestable creatures contained within his body, thus he would have continued his serpentine existence in a similar but miniature form. Thus, the Middle Persian texts do not offer an answer to our original question, they merely provide a rationalization. The answer, I believe, lies in the nature of Zahhak as a symbol.

Early in my analysis of his character, I called him ‘the personification of the id unleashed’. If Zahhak is the symbolic statement of the unconscious instinctive drives; then and only then, does it become clear why he is not killed but only chained in a cave. One cannot destroy the instinctive drives. One can only repress them. Thus, Zahhak, as the embodiment of all which is taboo and repulsive (symbolized by the xrafstra in his body as well as by his repugnant conduct), can only be repressed, pushed down in some deep dark abyss, and enchained there. Therefore, the cave, where Fereydun imprisons the monster, is nothing but the recesses of the mind, and the chains that he uses to bind the monster with, are the symbolic representations of ego defences.

This brings us to the matter of Fereydun. That is, if Zahhak is the personification of the repressed, then what does the hero Fereydun symbolically represent?



FEREYDUN



In the Avesta (the sacred scripture of ancient Iran), the name Fereydun occurs in the form thraetaona. Thraetaona may be derived either from the Proto-Iranian form * trita-wan, an adjective meaning ‘possessed of three’, or perhaps ‘tripartite’; or from a thematacized form * tri-tavan-a, ‘possessed of three powers’ (Schwartz, personal communication and cf. Mayerhoffer, 1977, pp. 81-2). The appearance of the number three is not limited only to Fereydun’s name. This number constantly manifests itself in other aspects of his life. For instance, he has three fathers, the first being his biological father Abtin of the Shahnameh, who is slain by Zahhak. The other two are the two ascetics who accept him into their charge, and care for him while he is a child. Both ascetics are called upon to care for the infant hero explicitly as fathers (Sh, I:58–126 and 59–142). He has three sons for whom he divides his realm into three parts, giving one part to each son. There are three important women in his life; his mother Faranak, and his two wives, formerly the wives appeared. It is

of Zahhak. Thus, it is not strange for the name of such a hero to mean ‘tripartite’, or ‘possessed of three powers’.

Another interesting feature of Fereydun’s character is that in a curious way he is the positive side, a heroic manifestation, of his archenemy Zahhak. This point was recognized by Ernest Jones in his short but brilliant study of the tale. Discussing the mechanisms of myth formation, Jones wrote:

The most interesting of these mechanisms of myth formation is that known as ‘decomposition’, which is the opposite of the ‘condensation’ so characteristic of dreams. Whereas in the latter process attributes of several individuals are fused together in the creation of one figure, much as in the production of a composite photograph, in the former process various attributes of a given individual are disunited, and several other individuals are invented, each endowed with one group of the original attributes. In this way one person of complex character is dissolved and replaced by several, each of whom possessed a different aspect of the character which in a simpler form of the myth was combined in one being … Zahhak, who kills Fereydun’s father Abtin, is a substitute for Fereydun … so that the figure of the ‘tyrant’ in this exceedingly complex variant of the myth is really a compromise-formation representing at one and the same time the hated father and the murderous son. On the one side he is identified with the primordial father, being hated by the young hero who ndians y triumphs over him; on the other with the young hero himself, in that he kills the hero’s father (Jones, 1949, p. 131 and 134).

That Fereydun is a positive side or a civilized representation of Zahhak, may be deduced from the fact that he is the only other monarch in the epic that assumes the form of the dragon. The Shahnameh is quite explicit about this. Once when Fereydun wants to test his three sons, he appears to them as a dragon with fire emanating from his mouth (Sh, I:256–7).

The Middle Persian text of the Denkart supports the version of the Shahnameh, so injudiciously assigned to the addenda section of the Moscow critical edition. The Denkart however, speaks of Fereydun’s draconic appearance in another context. That story involves the encounter between the hero Fereydun and the inhabitants of Mazandaran, demons of gigantic size. The Mazandaranians, who were upset by Fereydun’s smiting of Zahhak, come to Iran, wanting to settle there.

The hero, however, chases them out of his domain. They flee, and ‘the victorious Fereydun pursued them to the farmost upland and his nostrils flamed upon it’ (West, 1965a, p. 218). That Fereydun and Zahhak share the feature of the dragon in their adventures and appearances demonstrates the decomposition process to which Jones refers.

Here an unpleasant but necessary digression is called for. The Western, or generally the Semitic/Indo-European, dragon is a gruesome and evil serpent associated with death, destruction, and apocalyptic episodes. The ndians dragon, in contrast to its Western counterpart, is possessed, not only of devastating strength, but also of good will (Williams, 1932, p. 131). It is a divine creature, endowed with magical powers. He has control over the rain, bringing or withholding it. He has control over prosperity and peace on the one hand, and hunger and war on the other (Werner, 1922). His earthly manifestation is the Emperor himself (Hayes, 1922). Having brought all of the data together, Wolfgang Lederer, in his brilliant study of juvenile delinquency offers a solution to the puzzle of the dual character of the dragon in Chinese mythology (Lederer, 1964, pp. 3–7). In his view, Strength is an indispensable attribute of a god; without strength, without power, he could not be protective. Now the gentle, fertilizing rain of the spring (produced by the dragon), while life-giving and indispensable, is not very impressive in terms of power. But the storm is impressive, the typhoon, the flood—there the dragon flexes his muscle. If the dragon could not bring a storm, he could not be relied on to bring the rain either. It is his very excess of power, manifested in a burst of destructiveness, that makes him reliable as a protector (Lederer, 1964, p. 6).

The same may be said of the father. He is not only the creator and protector—much as the Chinese dragon—but he is also the dreadful and oppressive tyrant of the infantile mind. He is the giant who can destroy, kill, or castrate at will.

Keeping this in mind, let us now go back to our consideration of the character of Fereydun. In so far as he is also a dragon-king, like Zahhak, he is possessed of ferocity. In so far as he is the good king, he is the protector-father of his subjects. Here he stands in opposition to Zahhak. Indeed, Fereydun, at least on one level, is the positive representation of Zahhak. One may even conclude that, as an overdetermined symbol, he is of necessity the personification of the ego (i.e. the anti-id). It has already been demonstrated that Zahhak is the id unleashed. His activities are at last curtailed and controlled by the intervention of the hero Fereydun. It is Fereydun who succeeds in binding and imprisoning (repressing) Zahhak (the id). He must therefore be the manifestation of the ego and civilized conduct.

That he is possessed of three powers, symbolically represents the mature and well integrated ego of the civilized man.

The Dragon Fight in the National Persian Epics He has mastered the three stages of psychosexual development, namely the oral, the anal, and the phallic phases. Having

achieved control over those instinctive drives which gratify the wild wishes of the unconscious, he has succeeded in subduing the id by successful repression of instinctive anti-social desires. Since all traditional tales may have an educational

function in addition to being merely symbolic wish fulfilments (cf. Bascom, 1981), the episode of Fereydun’s victory over, and binding of, Zahhak is the final civilizing statement of the tale.



CONCLUSION



The story of Fereydun and Zahhak may be psychoanalytically viewed as an interplay of three sets of various Oedipus complexes; emphasizing either the aggressive parricidal, or the libidinal-incestual sides of the complex. The first of these sets is that of Jamshid, the second that of Zahhak, and the third, that of Fereydun.

In Jamshid’s case we see the violation of the taboo of rebelling against the father (authority). Jamshid claims divinity, rebels against God the father, and pays by castration and death. That he pays for his rebellion with his life is only a personal punishment. The appearance of Zahhak is the punishment that the society must suffer, a society which dares to tolerate oedipal aggression, a society that goes to Zahhak (the parricide), asking him to come and assume the reins of power. It is as

though God the father says to all his rebellious sons, ‘Do you want a taste of what life would be with the parricide in control? I will show you’. And he unleashes Zahhak upon them. Zahhak, who is the incestuous slayer of the father.

Zahhak’s life history is an enactment of the oedipal wishes in their aggressive, as well as libidinal contents. He is the personification of all repressed tendencies. At the same time, Zahhak’s greed and unrestrained tyranny is society’s punishment and its education. It is the process through which it becomes civilized again.

The third set involves the three progressive stages of Fereydun’s maturation. The first phase, symbolized by his being nursed by the magic cow, is the oral phase. He completes that phase; leaving it behind and moving to Mount Damavand, where he is put under the care of a mountain ascetic. Here, he is not being nursed any more, but he learns. He learns to repress and to control his impulses. The fact that he has experienced such training is implicitly demonstrated by two features of his story. First, unlike the earlier part of his life, when he was left in the company of both the nursing magic cow (mother), and her guardian (father); this time he is entrusted to the care of the ascetic (father) alone. There is no mother to distract him, to spoil him, and to protect him against the paternal ‘thou shalt nots’. That he has learned the controls, so characteristic of the anal phase of psychosexual development, becomes apparent when he goes to his mother, saying that he wishes to move against Zahhak. His mother forbids him from attempting this premature act of aggression. Obeying his

mother’s counsel, he shows that he has successfully learned the controls of the anal stage. His mother has only told him what life tells us all: it takes time and patience to grow up. No one can successfully face the world before he has mastered the phallic phase and has attained the experiences which go with that phase. Karl Abraham wrote:

The individual is able to fill his place and exercise his powers fully and satisfactorily in his social environment only if his libido has attained the genital stage … the first function of this third stage [i.e. the genital stage] in the formation of character is of course to get rid of the remaining traces of the more primitive stages of development, in so far as they are unfavourable to the social ndians of the individual (Abraham, 1926, p. 408). Fereydun has just begun his phallic phase. He is far from completing it. The symbol of his completion of this phase is Kava’s rebellion against Zahhak. The smith, having begun a revolution against Zahhak, places his leather apron upon a staff, and comes to Fereydun at the head of an army of rebellious citizens.

Then he hands that makeshift banner to the hero. Thus the hero receives the paternal phallus. He gains authority. It is as though Kava, the father, has transmitted the necessary sexual information to the maturing boy. Fereydun, the boy, now becomes Fereydun the man. This new Fereydun now comes to the mother with his belt fastened, and his helmet on his head. This time, he does not ask her permission, but only informs her that he is going to fight Zahhak, and that she should pray for his victory (Sh, I:64–5:235–50).

I have suggested elsewhere that a phallic attack on one father figure must of necessity be conducted with the blessing of another paternal imago. Furthermore, even symbolic sexual access to the maternal persona may only be achieved if the individual is invested with paternal phallic authority (Omidsalar, 1984a, 1985). Such is the case of Fereydun. The hero will not only overcome Zahhak, but will also take possession of his two queens. Therefore, he must become invested with a paternal authority even greater than that of Zahhak. If the tyrant is a king/father only functionally, the hero must become the father both functionally and morally. He must attain the moral upper hand over his antagonist. It is for this reason that the

smith Kava (the father in his most magically potent form), invests him with the paternal phallus by giving him the lion-hide banner.

That Fereydun acts under paternal control, that he has internalized this paternal control, and is therefore civilized and mature, is further demonstrated when he is twice stopped from slaying Zahhak. He knows the extent of his authority, he is not out of control.

The character of Fereydun, in the context of the overall structure of this tale, only narrates the successful passage through, and repression of, the Oedipus complex—a process that all mature, civilized humanity must go through. It furthermore stands in direct contrast to the character of the neurotic Jamshid, the good son gone bad, the ego overcome by the id, as well as to the uncontrolled instinctive ndians of Zahhak, the id gone wild, the phallic aggression in charge, with no controls.

The same pattern which I have demonstrated in this study underlies every I of the oedipal conflict in the Shahnameh. Indeed, it is absolutely impossible for the uncontrolled, and unpunished, oedipal wishes to be gratified in any narrative, at any time, and among any people at all. If such a gratification is ever shown in a narrative, one which clearly violates the double taboos of parricide and incest without the punishment of castration or death also stated, then such a demonstration is no doubt a case of under-analysis and sloppy scholarship. Parricide and incest are symbolically possible if and only if some sort of paternal authority (or identification with the father) precedes and justifies them.

It is based on this theoretical posture that I find no need to limit my conclusions to the story at hand, but instead to claim universality for them. After all, they are primarily concerned with the fact and the repression of the Oedipus complex.

In other words, they concern human culture rather than the specific form of that culture namely the Iranian culture, which served here as the main datum. The Oedipus complex is, has always been, and will always remain universal regardless of all ill-informed objections of the psychoanalytically innocent anthropologists, or the coyness of the anthropologically I psychoanalysts. What should rightly concern applied psychoanalysis is not to prove the fact of this complex’s existende, but rather to study its form, range, and cultural consequences.



SUMMARY



Through a consideration of textual, linguistic, and folkloristic data, this paper argues that the legend of Fereydun and Zahhak in the national epic of Iran, is a symbolic statement of the manifestation of the Oedipus complex in three epic characters: the neurotic Jamshid, the psychopathic Zahhak, and the well-adjusted Fereydun.

The paper further argues that the manifestation of oedipal wishes in all traditional narratives, must result in one of two conditions. Either the gratification of these wishes is punished by castration and/or death, or the wishes are vicariously gratified by an identification with the father and are rendered culturally harmless. Thus, any analysis of an Oedipus type tale in Folklore or Myth, which shows the transgression without describing its punishment is a case of under-analysis. Ironically, the gratification of these punitive wishes, rooted in the savagery of the superego, is the civilizing final statement of all Oedipus type traditional narratives. The odd couple superego and human culture always have the final word.



REFERENCES



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WARNING! This text is printed for the personal use of the subscriber to PEP Web and is copyright to the Journal in which it originally

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۱۳. پُرسمان ِ پایان ِ ‌کارِ ِ اژی دهاک / ضحاک در باورهای ایرانی



رضا مرادی غیاث آبادی

↓

http://www.ghiasabadi.com/zahhak.html

۱۴."ضحّاک" به مثابه‌ی ِ دَجّال: سنجش ِ اسطوره‌ی ِ ایرانی‌ی ِ "اَژَی دَهاکَ" (/ ضحّاک) با روایت‌های سامی‌ی ِ "دَجّال" (پی‌گیری‌ی ِ گفتمان ِ "چرایی‌ی ِ کشته نشدن ِ ضحّاک بر دست ِ فریدون")

روایت ِ مسیحی‌ی ِ پدیداری‌ی ِ "دجّال"

اثر ِ نگارگر ِ آلمانی "آلبرکت دورِر" (۱۴۷۱- ۱۵۲۸ م.

پژوهش ِ یاغش کاظمی را در این جا، بخوانید. ↓

http://www.asha.blogsky.com/1389/02/31/post-116/

۱۵. نگاهی به وضعیّت ِ موزه و موزه‌داری در ایران : گفتاری انتقادی در باره ی ِ بخش ِ مهمّ و ناورزیده‌مانده‌ای از خویش-کاری‌ی ِ فرهنگی در میهن ِ ما

http://www.nationalmuseumofiran.ir/WebForms/Fa/General/Default.aspx

در این جا، بخوانید. ↓

http://ghiasabadi.com/blog/index.php/1389/03/01/1448/

خاستگاه: رایان پیامی از رضا مرادی غیاث آبادی

افزوده ی ویراستار:

در باره ی ِ موزه ی ملّی ی ایران ↓

http://www.nationalmuseumofiran.ir/WebForms/Fa/General/Default.aspx

و

http://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%85%D9%88%D8%B2%D9%87_%D9%85%D9%84%D9%8A_%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86

۱۶. شناختنامۀ «آنا آخماتووا» شاعربانوی ِ بزرگِ‌ روس و جهان و قربانی‌ی‌ خودکامگی و دیگراندیش‌ستیزی‌ی ِ مدّعیان ِ دروغین ِ "آزادی" و "مردم‌سالاری" در آستانه‌ی ِ نشر

Anna Akhmaatovaa

این شناخت نامه به   کوشش   علی دهباشی  است که در 742 صفحه توسط نشر کتاب نیک روانۀ بازار نشر می شود و از روز شنبه 8 خرداد ماه در دسترس علاقمندان خواهد بود. دهباشی در یادداشت آغازین خود بر این مجموعه چنین می گوید:

« آنا آندرییونا گارنیکو ( Anna Andreevna Gorenko ) که با نام شاعری آنا آخماتووا می¬شناسیم بدون تردید در کنار ماندلشتام، پاسترناک، مایاکوفسکی، تسوتایوا و ... از شاعران بزرگ روس و جهان به شمار می¬آید. آخماتووا در یازدهم ژوئن 1889 در شهر اودسا در خانواده یک مهندس نیروی دریایی متولد می-شود. نخستین شعر خود را دوران دبستان می¬سراید و نخستین شعری که از او چاپ می¬شود پس از دوران دبیرستان است. در سال 1920 با گومیلف شاعر ازدواج می¬کند و به پاریس سفر می¬کنند. در سال 1921 شوهرش به اتهام فعالیت¬های ضدانقلابی به دستور استالین اعدام می¬شود. در این سالها آخماتووا دو مجموعه شعر منتشر می¬کند و به مطالعه در آثار پوشکین می¬پردازد که حاصلش چندین مقاله دربارۀ پوشکین است. همچنین در این سالها فرزند او را چندین بار بازداشت می¬کنند. در سال 1946 از شورای نویسندگان اخراج می¬شود. رفقا دیگر متوجه شده بودند که آخماتووا به آرمانهای رفیق استالین پایبند نیست. با این حال آخماتووا موفق شد از دوران مخوف « محاکمات بزرگ» جان سالم به در ببرد.

اشعار آخماتووا بیش از سی سال در اتحاد شوروی ممنوع بود. تا نیمه دهه 1950 بسیاری از مردم داخل و خارج کشور حتی نمی¬دانستند که او هنوز زنده است. هیچ سردبیری جرأت نداشت آثار او را برای چاپ و نشر بپذیرد. او همانند بسیاری دیگر از نویسندگان آن دوره به نوشتن ادامه می¬داد منتهی برای « کشوی میزش». بعد از اخراج آخماتووا از اتحادیه نویسندگان روسیه از مزایای ضروری اجتماعی نیز محروم شد. در 1949 پسرش دوبار دستگیر شد و به 15 سال تبعید و کار اجباری محکوم شد.

آخماتووا با همکاری شش شاعر دیگر که عبارت بودند از همسرش گومیلف، سرگی گوردوتسکی، اوسیپ ماندلشتام و دو شاعر دیگر گروه « آکمه¬ایسم» را به وجود آوردند. این گروه اثر عمیقی بر شعر روسیه گذاشت. این گروه مورد حمله قرار گرفت و دولت از آن به عنوان « ادبیات اشراف و زمینداران» یاد کرد ولی ماندلشتام با شهامتی که جانش را بر سر آن گذاشت در سال 1937 اعلام داشت که آکمه¬ایسم « حسرت فرهنگ جهانی» است. سردمدار حمله به این گروه ژدانف بود. آخماتووا در محاصرۀ ژدانف و مأموران استالین قرار می¬گیرد. شعر « رکوییم» حاصل این دوران است که به بهانۀ یورش به خانه و بازداشت و حبس فرزندش سروده شده است. این شعر بلند مرثیه¬ای است در احوال مادرانی که در عزای پسران خود نشسته¬اند.

در سال 1964 دانشگاه آکسفورد دکترای افتخاری به آخماتووا می¬دهد و همچنین جایزه¬ای در ایتالیا به او تعلق می¬گیرد و سرانجام در پنجم مارس 1966 آنا آخماتووا در بیمارستانی در حوالی مسکو چشم از جهان فرو می¬بندد و در لنینگراد به خاک سپرده می¬شود.

پس از انتشار ویژه¬نامۀ بخارا دربارۀ زندگی شاعر نامدار روس اوسیپ ماندلشتام ( شمارۀ 49، بهار 1385) و برگزاری شبی به یاد او در اردیبهشت 1385، و ویژه¬نامۀ آنا آخماتووا شاعرۀ بزرگ روس ( شمارۀ 61) و برگزاری شبی برای او در سالروز تولدش، اینک شناختنامۀ آنا آخماتووا را با افزودن مطالب جدیدی به آن تقدیم خوانندگان عزیز می¬کنیم . خوشحالیم که توانسته¬ایم در این مدت دو تن از شاعران بزرگ روس را، که از شاعران نامدار قرن بیستم نیز هستند، معرفی کنیم. امیدواریم این قدم آغازگر معرفی شاعران و نویسندگان بزرگ دیگر روس باشد. »

و با هم فهرست این مجموعه را مرور می¬کنیم :

یادداشتی دربارۀ این مجموعه ـ علی دهباشی ، 11

سالشمار و زندگی آنا آخماتووا

سالشمار آنا آخماتووا ـ احمد پوری ، 17

زندگی من ـ ترجمۀ احمد پوری ، 21

آنا آخماتووا ـ یوسیف برودسکی ، ترجمۀ محبوبۀ مهاجر ، 26

آخماتووا ـ سام درایور ، ترجمۀ محمد مختاری ، 48

خاطراتی از آنا آخماتووا

خاطراتی از آنا آخماتووا ـ فرزانه قوجلو ، 109

پاسترناک، سالتیکف و هرزن ـ لیدیا چوکفسکایا ، ترجمۀ گلبرگ برزین ، 112

دربارۀ دوئل پوشکین ـ لیدیا چوکفسکایا، ترجمۀ لیلی کافی، 134

شکسپیر را فراموش کردند ـ لیدیا چوکفسکایا، ترجمۀ شیوا مقانلو، 169

سالهای تیره ـ لیدیا چوکفسکایا، ترجمۀ سیما سلطانی، 182

بخت بزرگ و مشترک ما ـ لیدیا چوکفسکایا، ترجمۀ هاشم بناءپور، 201

نگاه تولستوی رذیلانه است ـ لیدیا چوکفسکایا، ترجمۀ احسان لامع، 227

زنان رؤیا بافند، مثل غنچه¬های کوچک ـ لیدیا چوکفسکایا، ترجمۀ رامین مستقیم، 244

هنر کلاسیک و معاصرـ لیدیا چوکفسکایا، ترجمۀ هستی نقره¬چی، 259

مردم روسیه و شعرـ لیدیا چوکفسکایا، ترجمۀ ناهید طباطبایی، 272

مرگ مجازات ترس است! لیدیا چوکفسکایا، ترجمۀ لاله خاکپور، 299

عشق اسطوره¬ای ـ لیدیا چوکفسکایا، ترجمۀ ماریا بنیاتیان، 317

پاسترناک را بازخوانی می¬کنم ـ لیدیا چوکفسکایا، ترجمۀ نرگس صاحبی، 334

آخماتووا در چیستویل ـ لیدیا چوکفسکایا، ترجمۀ سیما سلطانی ، 344

دشمنان مردم ـ لیدیا چوکفسکایا، ترجمۀ پگاه احمدی، 355

خاطراتی از آخماتووا ـ لیدیا چوکفسکایا، ترجمۀ فرزانه قوجلو، 362

دیدار با آنا آخماتووا و...

مهمانی از آینده ـ احمد پوری ، 344

دیدار با آنا آخماتووا ـ آیزایا برلین، ترجمۀ عبدالله کوثری، 374

آخماتووا، ماندلشتام و پاسترناک ـ نادژدا ماندلشتام، ترجمۀ فرزانه قوجلو، 407

آمادئو مودیلیانی و آنا آخماتووا ـ ترجمۀ عباس صفاری، 414

دربارۀ ماندلشتام، پاسترناک ، تسوتایوا، آنا آخماتووا، ترجمۀ احمد پوری، 425

آمادئو مودیلیانی به روایت آنا آخماتووا، ترجمۀ غلامحسین میرزا صالح، 428

آخماتووا به روایت ویکتور تراس، علی بهبهانی ، 442

وداع ـ ولفانگ هستر، ترجمۀ یلدا چوپانکاره ، 454

سروده¬هایی از آنا آخماتووا

دلیری ـ سیروس طاهباز ، 465

5 شعر از مجموعه « سفالگری» ـ آنا آخماتووا، ترجمۀ احمد پوری ، 466

گزیده شعرهای عاشقانه ـ آنا آخماتووا، ترجمۀ احمد پوری، 469

در جاده ـ ترجمۀ عبدالعلی دست¬غیب ، 480

چند شعر از آنا آخماتووا ـ ترجمۀ اسماعیل خویی ، 481

دیدار شبانه ـ آنا آخماتووا، ترجمۀ حشمت جزنی، 484

مرثیه ـ آنا آخماتووا، ترجمۀ احمد اخوت ، 485

دربارۀ آنا آخماتووا

به یاد گومیلف ـ ولادیمیر ناباکوف ، ترجمۀ درخشندۀ ره¬گوی، 499

تقبیح استالین ، جسی دیویس، ترجمۀ محمد علی آتش¬برگ، 500

دربارۀ پاسترناک، آخماتووا، آندره¬یی سینیاوسکی، ترجمۀ ابراهیم یونسی، 508

طرحی از یک چهرۀ تراژیک ، ترجمۀ احمد پوری، 518

نامه¬ها و نوشته¬¬ها

نامه¬های آخماتووا ـ ترجمۀ غلامحسین میرزا صالح، 527

آمادئو مودیلیانی به روایت آنا آخماتووا ـ ترجمۀ محمد علی آتش برگ، 555

دربارۀ آثار آنا آخماتووا

آکمه¬ایسم ـ رضا سید حسینی، 571

شب هنگام، من شاعره نیستم ، ولفانگ هستر ، ترجمۀ خشایار نبوی¬پور، 578

بار هستی، ترجمۀ مهشید نونهالی، 596

پشت صحنۀ چند شعر از آخماتووا ـ احمد پوری، 598

منظومۀ بدون قهرمان ، ولفانگ هستر، ترجمۀ آزاده شریفان ، 607

دیوها و دلبر ـ آلن فینستین، ترجمۀ رضا رضایی، 612

یادداشتی بر مجموعه اشعار آخماتووا ـ ریچارد مک¬کین، نوشین مهاجرین، 616

ساختار شعر آنا آخماتووا ـ پروین سلاجقه، 624

بزرگترین شاعرۀ روس ـ علی بهبهانی، 636

درون¬مایه¬های بنیادین شعر آخماتووا ـ مهدی عاطف راد، 639

آنا آخماتووا و تئاتر

آخماتووا ـ نمایشنامه¬نویس ـ آبتین گلکار، 663

سرانجام آنا آخماتووا

واپسین سالهای زندگی ـ ولفانگ هستر، ترجمۀ سعید فیروزآبادی، 677

شبی با آخماتووا

گزارش شب آنا آخماتووا ـ ترانه مسکوب ، 689

تصاویر، 693

خاستگاه: رایان پیامی از علی دهباشی

posted by Jalil Doostkhah @ 9:39 AM