THE PERSIAN THE PERSIAN OF A HISTORY FOR MATERIALS e-ISSN 2610-9468 Filologie medievali e moderne 19 ISSN 2610-9476 Serie orientale 4 — Materials for a History of the Persian Narrative ORSATTI Tradition Two Characters: Farha¯d and Turandot Paola Orsatti Edizioni Ca’Foscari Materials for a History of the Persian Narrative Tradition Filologie medievali e moderne Serie orientale Serie diretta da Antonella Ghersetti 19 | 4 Filologie medievali e moderne Serie occidentale Direttore | General editor Eugenio Burgio (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Comitato scientifico | Advisory board Massimiliano Bampi (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Saverio Bellomo † (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Marina Buzzoni (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Serena Fornasiero (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Tiziano Zanato (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Serie orientale Direttore | General editor Antonella Ghersetti (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Comitato scientifico | Advisory board Attilio Andreini (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Giampiero Bellingeri (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Piero Capelli (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Emiliano Bronislaw Fiori (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Daniela Meneghini (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Antonio Rigopoulos (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Bonaventura Ruperti (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) e-ISSN 2610-9476 ISSN 2610-9468 URL http://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/it/edizioni/collane/filologie-medievali-e-moderne/ Materials for a History of the Persian Narrative Tradition Two Characters: Farhād and Turandot Paola Orsatti Venezia Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing 2019 Materials for a History of the Persian Narrative Tradition. Two Characters: Farhād and Turandot Paola Orsatti © 2019 Paola Orsatti per il testo © 2019 Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing per la presente edizione cb Quest’opera è distribuita con Licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione 4.0 Internazionale This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Qualunque parte di questa pubblicazione può essere riprodotta, memorizzata in un sistema di recupero dati o trasmessa in qualsiasi forma o con qualsiasi mezzo, elettronico o meccanico, senza autorizzazione, a condizione che se ne citi la fonte. Any part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission provided that the source is fully credited. Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia Dorsoduro 3246, 30123 Venezia http://edizionicafoscari.unive.it | [email protected] 1a edizione ottobre 2019 ISBN 978-88-6969-354-0 [ebook] ISBN 978-88-6969-355-7 [print] Certificazione scientifica delle Opere pubblicate da Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing: tutti i saggi pubblicati hanno ottenuto il parere favorevole da parte di valutatori esperti della materia, attraverso un processo di revisione doppia- mente anonima sotto la responsabilità del Comitato scientifico della collana. La valutazione è stata condotta in aderenza ai criteri scientifici ed editoriali di Edizioni Ca’ Foscari. Scientific certification of the works published by Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digi- tal Publishing: all essays published in this volume have received a favourable opinion by subject-matter experts, through a double anonymous peer review process under the responsibility of the Scientific Committee of the series. The evaluations were conducted in adherence to the scientific and editorial criteria established by Edizioni Ca’ Foscari. Materials for a History of the Persian Narrative Tradition. Two Characters: Farhād and Turandot / Paola Orsatti — 1. ed. — Venezia: Edizioni Ca’ Fosca- ri - Digital Publishing, 2019. — 116 p.; 23 cm. — (Filologie medievali e moderne; 19, 4). — ISBN 978-88-6969-355-7. 44 URL http://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/it/edizioni/libri/978-88-6969-355-7/ DOI http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-354-0 5Materials for a History of the Persian Narrative Tradition Two Characters: Farhād and Turandot Paola Orsatti Abstract This book gathers together two essays. The first deals with the origins of the character of Farhād, the unlucky lover of Shīrīn, who ‒ in the Persian narrative tradition ‒ digs a route through Mount Bīsutūn and accomplishes other admira- ble works. The essay suggests that Farhād, as we know him from long narrative poems, historical chronicles, and reports by geographers and travelers, is the issue of a conflation between the legendary character of the Master of Mount Bīsutūn and a historical personage, Farrahān, the general-in-chief of the Sasanid king Khusraw II Parvīz’s army (r. 590-628 EC), as this figure was re-elaborated in a number of later legends. The second essay identifies a character named ‘Būrān-dukht’ as the prototype from which Turandot, the heroine of the tale well-known in Europe from Puccini’s opera (1926), springs. Two historical personages, both called Būrān or Būrān- dukht, are relevant in this line of development: the first is the daughter of the Sasanid king Khusraw II Parvīz (r. 580-628 CE), who was queen of Persia for a short period (630-631 CE); the other is the daughter of Ḥasan b. Sahl, wife of Caliph al-Maʾmūn (813-833 CE). Keywords Persian narrative tradition. Origins of literary characters. Turandot. Farhād. Farrahān Shahr-barāz. Niẓāmī. Būrān-dukht. The Turandot tale. To my husband Mansoor Farahpoor from Hamadan painter and sculptor, and to all my Iranian family 9Materials for a History of the Persian Narrative Tradition Two Characters: Farhād and Turandot Paola Orsatti Table of Contents Preface 11 PART Ι FARHĀD, FARRAHĀN, AND THE KING OF SYRIA 1 19 Farhād the Master 19 1 Introduction. – 2 The Backdrop of the Character and His Name. – 3 Farhād in the Sources. – 4 Farhād and Ṭāq-i Bustān. – 4.1 Ṭāq-i Bustān and the Master in the Romantic Tradition. – 4.2 Ṭāq-i Bustān and the Master in the Historical and Geographical Tradition. – 5 Farhād as a Constructor of Channels. – 6 Farhād and Mount Bīsutūn. – 7 Farhād as Enamoured of Shīrīn. – 8 Farhād as a Foreigner: His Social Status and Fatherland. – 9 Conclusions. 2 General ‘Farhād’ 41 1 Introduction. – 2 Towards a Second Farhād: Farhād in the Mujmal al-Tavārīkh. – 3 The Hypotheses on the Origins of the Character of Farhād. – 4 Farrahān Shahr- barāz. – 5 Farrahān Between History and Legend. – 6 Legendary Developments of the Figure of Farrahān Shahr-barāz; the King of Syria. – 7 Conclusions. PART ΙΙ THE ORIGINS OF TURANDOT: THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CHARACTER FROM SHĪRĪN TO BŪRĀN-DUKHT 1 The Turandot Tale 63 1 Introduction: the Misogamist Woman and Her Riddles. – 2 The Eastern Prose Turandot Tales. – 3. Niẓāmī’s Tuesday Tale. 2 Shīrīn and Other Figures of the Misogamist Woman in Persian Literature 69 1 Shīrīn, the Lady of the Castle. – 2 Shīrīn’s Aunt Mihīn Bānū. – 3 Shīrīn and the Misogamist Handmaiden. – 4 Shīrīn and the Interdiction Against Sexual Intercourse Due to a Prediction. 3 75 Būrān, the Daughter of Khursraw Parvīz 75 1 Shīrīn and Būrān. – 2 Būrān, the Wise and Combative Queen. 4 79 Būrān, the Wife of Caliph al-Maʾmūn 79 1 Būrān’s Historical Figure. – 2 The Development of the Character: the Postponement of the Union Due to the Bride’s Indisposition. 5 85 Būrān-dukht Back to Persia, and Her Association with Riddles and Enigmatic Expressions 85 1 Non-Verbal Riddles Though Objects: Niẓāmī’s Tuesday Tale and the Pearls as Symbols. – 2 Niẓāmī ʿArūżī’s Anecdote on Maʾmūn and Būrān in the Čahār Maqāla. – 3 Maʾmūn and Būrān in ʿAwfī’s Collection of Anecdotes. 6 The93 Turandot Tale in Europe: Origins of the Name ‘Turandot’ 93 1 The Name ‘Turandot’. – 2 From Būrān-dukht to Tūrān-dukht. – 3 Conclusions: the Anecdote of Maʾmūn and Būrān and the Turandot Tale. 99 Appendix 99 A Summary of the Turandot Tale in two Persian Sources 101 Bibliography 101 Index 111 Materials for a History of the Persian Narrative Tradition Two Characters: Farhād and Turandot Paola Orsatti Preface I gather here and publish together two essays relating to the study of characters in medieval Persian narrative literature. The first essay deals with the origins of the character of Farhād, the unlucky lover of Shīrīn, who – in the Persian tradition – digs a route through Mount Bīsutūn and accomplishes other works whose remains are located in the area surrounding the ancient route linking Hama- dan, in western Iran, with Qaṣr-i Shīrīn and Baghdad. In this study it is suggested that the literary character of Farhād is the issue of a confla- tion between the legendary character of the Master of Mount Bīsutūn and a historical personage, Farrahān, the general-in-chief of the Sasa- nid king Khusraw II Parvīz’s army (r. 590-628 CE), as this figure was re-elaborated in a number of later legends. The second essay identi- fies a character named ‘Būrān-dukht’ as the prototype from which the Turandot of European tales (or at least her name) springs; and indi- viduates two historical personages, both called Būrān or Būrān-dukht, as the historical-legendary figures from which Būrān-dukht /Turandot took her name and some of her features: the first is the daughter of Khusraw Parvīz, who became queen of Persia for a short period (630- 631 CE); the other is the daughter of Ḥasan b. Sahl, wife of Caliph al- Maʾmūn (813-833 CE). Both studies have been conducted with the same method, and rep- resent two parallel upshots of the same stream of research focus- ing on the transformation of historical or semi-historical figures into literary characters. Indeed, many of the literary characters studied here can be considered, at least in part, as transformations of histor- ical figures – though it should not be forgotten that the treatment of ‘historical’ figures in medieval works is not exempt from legendary or ideologically-oriented re-elaborations, from the very beginning of their written transmission. Unlike other researches aiming at recon- 11 Orsatti Preface structing a supposed ‘historical kernel’ from ancient legends, this re- search starts from literary characters and their possible historical or legendary kernel in order to understand their literary function in Per- sian literature.