Seeking Mate or Mate Seeking: A Suggestion for the Edition of a Line of Shahnameh

Document Type : Research Article

Author

• Mohammad Hasan JalalianChaleshtari

University of Tabriz

10.22067/jls.v49i2.45713

Abstract

1. Introduction
Thebeginning of the reign of Kavus coincides with the battle of Mazandaran. The exordium of the story is as follows: Kavus and his heroes are drinking wine and celebrating his enthronement. The Div (Ahreman) made himself like a musician and demanded the chamberlain to let him play before the king.As soon as thechamberlain brings him to the presence of the king, he starts playing lute and singing about the beauties of Mazandaran. In this description of Mazandaran, there are some ambiguities that need particular considerations. Among the verses of the description there are two verses which are consecutive in all the manuscripts. The following verses are based on Shahnameh edited by KhaleghiMothagh:
Nivāzandebolbol be bāghandarun
Gorāzandeāhu be rāghandarun
Hamišenayāsāyadazjoft-juy
Hamesāleharjāy rang-ast o buy
(Shahnameh, vol.2, pp. 4-5, verses 28-29)
2. Methodology
Mohl has recorded the first hemistich of the second verse as hamišebiyāsāyadazjost o juy; the editors of the Moscow edition have registered it as hamišebiyāsāyadazxoft o xuy; Dabir-Siaghi and Kazzazi as hamišenayāsāyadazjost o juy; Jeihuni as hamišenayāsāyadazxoft o xuy, and Revaghi as hamišebiyāsāyadazxoft o xuy.
Kazzazi has explained his record as the strutting gazelle never stops running and leaping in the meadow. Though he has statedthat the two variants ofxoft o xoy and joft o juy,are not applicable and appropriate, at the end of his comment, he has declared joft o juy as companionwhilementioning that juy in this word might be a kind of partial reduplicative for the emphasis of the meaning ofjoft. The underlying reason is Th’alebi’sexplanationofthis part: its birds are coupled.
KhaleghiMotlagh has explained the last word of the first hemistich of the second verse as:
Joft-juy in the aforementioned verse might be an agentive noun,while it can be an abstract noun in the sense ofmating. The gazelle (also the nightingale) does not rest from coupling even a moment.Herein, it may be an agent noun: “the gazelle does not restbeacause ofcoupling (male) gazelle”.However, the first concept is more probable. Anyway, this complexity has caused joftjuy to change into joft o juyin some manuscripts.
3. ResultandDiscussion
Three forms have attracted the scholars more than other forms: jost o juy, xoft o xuy, and joftjuy. The form xoft o xuy which is recorded just in two manuscripts is not valid. To the researcher’s best knowledge, the scholars who have chosen this term have not made any attempt to prove it. Semantically, the nearest word to this form is xoft o xiz whichis more frequent in shahnameh. It is possible that the complexity of the verse along with thesemantic concept of the scribes have caused the emergence of xoft o xuy. However,the combinationof xoftand xuy is seen nowhere and potentially it is not possible at all.
Although it is has been recorded in five manuscripts, the form jost o juy which is interpreted as leaping and runningby Kazzazihas no weightsinceeven if its meaning was established, the verse itself would have no logical meaning. The singing nightingale in the garden and the leaping gazelle in the meadow never rest from searching and investigating!It seems that Kazzazi in this case has mixed the terms jostand jast.
The first idea which Khaleghi has proposed is more notable. The fact that some of the words made by the present stem might have infinitival meaning is totally accepted. Some words such asdast-bus, dast-cin,etc. are examples of such compounds. However,the problem is that thousands of such compounds with the same construction do not have the infinitival meaning and the existence of compounds with such meaning will not guarantee the extension of such meaning to other compounds,especially, when all the instances of joftjuy in other texts as well asShahnameh have the function of agent noun. Another point which should be taken into account is that though joftjuy with the agentive role does not grant a suitable meaning to the verse, is not a difficult form which might cause so many disagreements in the manuscripts. If this form were the original one, the scribes most probably might have recorded it in the same formsincethere are no disagreements across seven otherverses of shahnameh in which this word is used.
None of the editors of Shahnameh has considered joft-o-juy as the correct form. Even Khaleghi, who has great regards to the manuscript of Florence has not tried to justifythis form as itis recorded in hismanuscript as well.Khaleghi’ssuggestionis to consider just this latter form as the accurate one and analyze it as a compound word with the infinitival meaning based on the present and past stem of the verb. These compounds have some varieties in Persian asone of their constructions is to conjoin the present and past stem of the same verb by addingo. goft-o-guy andpoxt-o-paz are examples of this group of compounds. Although none of the present and past stems of this hypothetical verb is recorded in Persian texts, it is possible to find a trace of the past stem (=joft) in the history of Persian, i.e. Middle Persian. In fact, on the basis of thepast stem along with the phonological processes and sound changes,one can reconstruct its present stem, too.
The Middle Persian verb juxtanto intercourseis from the root yaog- to bind, to yoke.There are so many derivatives based on this root in Old and Middle Iranian languages. The old past participle of this root which is also preserved in Avesta is yuxta-. This form has been reached to Middle and New Persian, respectively as juxt and joft. Since the primary past stems in Middle Persian are the remnants of the past participles, one can simply assume juxt as the past stem in this language. Beside this past stem it is possible to reconstruct the present stem. For instance, one of the present stem forms ofyaog in Avesta is the root-stem yaog-. The result of this present stem in Middle Persian cannot be anything other than jōy-. Although this present stem has not been seen in any text yet, it has appeared as the second component of the joft-o-juy in the verse in question. This word is also recorded in an Interpretation of Holy Quran (i.e.,TafsireQuran-e Pak) as Joft-o-jur. This latter case is justified by taking into account the evolution of šost-o-šuy to šost-o-šur. Relying on the proposed idea, the two verses in question can be interpreted asthe singing nightingale in the garden and the leaping gazelle in the meadow do not rest from mating and always are in the work of intercourse and reproduction.

Keywords

• Shahnameh
• Present stem
• Past stem
• Infinitive
• compound

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