At the end of thirty-three years, when the poem was completed, the grand vizier, after counting its sixty-thousand couplets, concluded not to pay for it in gold, and sent instead sixty thousand small pieces of silver.  On receiving so inadequate a reward, Firdusi became so angry that, after distributing the money among the bearers and writing an insulting poem to the king, he fled first to Mazinderan and then to Bagdad, where he lingered until shortly before his death, when he returned to Tous.  Tradition claims that the Shah; hearing he had come home,—­and having meantime discovered the trickery of his minister,—­immediately sent Firdusi sixty thousand pieces of gold, but that the money arrived only as his corpse was being lowered into the tomb!  As the poet’s daughter indignantly refused to accept this tardy atonement, another relative took the money and built the dike which Firdusi had longed to see.

We know that Persian monarchs made sundry attempts to collect the annals of their country, but these collections were scattered at the time of the Arabian conquest, so that only a few documents were brought back to Persia later on.  Although the poem of Firdusi claims to be a complete history of Persia, it contains so many marvels that, were it not for its wonderful diction, it would not have survived, although he declares he has written,

  “What no tide
  Shall ever wash away, what men
  Unborn shall read o’er ocean wide."[38]

The poem opens with the description of a ruler so prosperous that the Spirit of Evil sent a mighty devil (deev) to conquer him.  Thanks to the effort of this demon, the king’s son was slain, and, as the monarch died of grief, it was his grandson who succeeded him.  During a forty-centuries reign this king gave fire to his people, taught them irrigation and agriculture, and bestowed names on all the beasts.

His son and successor taught mortals how to spin and weave, and the demons, in hopes of destroying him, imparted to him the arts of reading and writing.  Next came the famous Persian hero Jemshid, who is said to have reigned seven hundred years, and to have divided the Persian nation into four classes,—­priests, warriors, artisans, and husbandmen.  During his reign, which is the Age of Gold of Persia, the world was divided into separate parts, and the city of Persepolis founded, where two columns of the ruined royal palace still bear the name of the monarch who instituted the national festival of Persia (Neurouz).

Having accomplished all these wonderful things, Jemshid became so conceited that he wished to be worshipped, whereupon a neighboring volcano vomited smoke and ashes and innumerable snakes infested the land.  Then Prince Zohak of Arabia was sent by the Evil Spirit to drive away Jemshid and to take possession of his throne.  Although at first Zohak was very virtuous, the Evil Spirit, having gotten him in his power, began to serve him in guise of a cook.  Once, having succeeded in pleasing him, he begged permission as reward to kiss the king between his shoulders.  But no sooner had this demon’s lips touched the royal back than two black serpents sprang up there, serpents which could not be destroyed, and which could only be kept quiet by being fed with human brains.