The Shāh-Nāmah or Book of Kings is an epic containing the legendary and actual early history of Persia (Iran). Collected in the main in about 1000 CE by the poet Firdausi, it is a compilation of his own work as well as later added material and ancient histories and tales composed long before his time. In some sixty thousand couplets, the epic covers the period between the rule of the invading Aryan (See Aryans) Keyumars to the historical emergence of Islam (See Islam) in 651. Popular segments include the story of the rule of the evil tyrant Zahhak and his defeat at the hands of the dragon king hero Feridun, the coming of Zoroaster (Zardosht or Zarathustra, See Zoroaster), and the tale of the giant hero Rostam, who, defending the Shah Key Kavus, unwittingly kills his own son, Sohrab. It is this story of Rostam that was used by Matthew Arnold in his poem “Sohrab and Rustam” in 1853.
