Sohrab and Rustum: An Episode is a narrative poem

Narrative poetry

Narrative poetry is poetry that has a plot. The poems that make up this genre may be short or long, and the story it relates to may be simple or complex. It is usually nondramatic, with objective regular scheme and meter. Narrative poems include epics, ballads, idylls and lays.Some narrative...

 with strong tragic themes

Tragedy

Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...

 first published in 1853 by Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...

. The poem retells a famous episode from Ferdowsi's

Ferdowsi

Ferdowsi was a highly revered Persian poet. He was the author of the Shahnameh, the national epic of Iran and related societies.The Shahnameh was originally composed by Ferdowsi for the princes of the Samanid dynasty, who were responsible for a revival of Persian cultural traditions after the...

 Persian epic Shahnameh relating how the great warrior Rustum

Rostam

Rostam is the national hero of Greater Iran from Zabulistan in Persian mythology and son of Zal and Rudaba. In some ways, the position of Rostam in the historical tradition is parallel to that of Surena, the hero of the Carrhae. His figure was endowed with many features of the historical...

 unwittingly slew his long-lost son Sohrab

Sohrab

Sohrāb or Suhrāb is a character from the Shahnameh, or the Tales of Kings by Ferdowsi in the tragedy of Rostam and Sohrab. He was the son of Rostam, who was an Iranian warrior, and Tahmineh, the daughter of the king of Samangam, a neighboring country. He was slain at a young age by his father...

 in single combat. Arnold, who was unable to read the original, relied on summaries of the story in John Malcolm

John Malcolm

Major-general Sir John Malcolm was a Scottish soldier, statesman, and historian-Early life:Born at Burnfoot, Dumfriesshire, Malcolm was the son of George Malcolm, a gentleman farmer of Eskdale and Burnfoot. Jock, as he was then known, was one of the four Malcolm brothers who attained knighthoods...

's History of Persia and Sainte-Beuve

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve was a literary critic and one of the major figures of French literary history.-Early years:...

's review of a French prose translation of Ferdowsi. In Sohrab and Rustum, Arnold attempted to imitate the "grandeur and rapidity" of Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

's style which he was to discuss in his lectures On Translating Homer (1861). The poem consists of 892 lines of blank verse

Blank verse

Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the sixteenth century" and Paul Fussell has claimed that "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse."The first...

.

Synopsis

The armies of the Persians and the Tartars have met on a plain by the River Oxus. The young warrior Sohrab, who is fighting for the Tartars, asks the Tartar general Peran-Wisa to delay the battle so he can challenge the Persian lords to single combat. He hopes that the fame he will win from this feat will reach the ears of his long-lost father Rustum ("I seek one man, one man, and one alone - /Rustum, my father..."). Peran-Wisa is reluctant to let Sohrab risk his life in such a way and tells him he would be better to seek Rustum far away in Seistan, where the old warrior is living in retirement with his father Zal. Nevertheless, he reluctantly agrees to Sohrab's request and challenges the Persians to choose a champion to fight with the young man. The Persians are at a loss who to send, but Gudurz learns that Rustum has arrived in the camp the night before and goes to Rustum's tent to try to persuade him to take up the challenge. Rustum at first refuses, claiming he is too old and battle-weary and feels unappreciated by the young Persian king Kai Khosroo. Unaware of the young man's true identity, he says he wishes he had a son like Sohrab. Gudurz eventually persuades Rustum to fight but Rustum only agrees on condition that he meets Sohrab incognito, wearing plain armour ("Let not men say of Rustum, he was match'd / In single fight with any mortal man.")

Sohrab and Rustum face each other between the two armies. Rustum is moved to pity at the sight of the youth and offers to take him back to Seistan to live as his son if he will give up the fight. Sohrab has an intuition that the man is his father and asks him if he is indeed Rustum. Rustum fears that this is simply a trick so the lad can boast of having challenged the great warrior and refuses to reveal his identity. The combat begins.

Rustum misses Sohrab with his club, giving his opponent the opportunity to spear him. Instead, Sohrab offers Rustum a truce. Rustum angrily refuses, calling Sohrab a "girl", and the fight continues with ever greater intensity. Finally, as he is about to deliver a mighty blow, Rustum shouts out the battle cry "Rustum!" Hearing the name so unexpectedly confuses Sohrab and he drops his guard, allowing Rustum to deal him a mortal wound. As Sohrab lies dying, he proudly declares his ancestral lineage, promising that his own father - Rustum - will somehow hear of his demise and revenge him.

Admiring the lad's spirit - but frankly disbelieving his words - the victorious Rustum demands certain proofs to establish Sohrab's claim. Sohrab readily complies - finally revealing a heraldic emblem tattooed upon his upper arm by his mother when still a child. Rustum - recognising his own heraldry - and convinced too late of the truth of Sohrab's words - drops his arms and tears his hair, wailing in grief and shame. Holding his only son - whom he had never before met, and whom he has now unwittingly slain - Rustum disdains any further part in the warfare, and the opposing armies withdraw in peace.

External links

• Sohrab and Rustum (from Archive.org)