In the Shahnameh (The Book of Kings) by Abolqasem Ferdowsi, monarchs and tyrants rule alike. Among the tyrant kings, some are so evil that the boundary separating deed from appearance becomes blurred, giving birth to the monsters of myth. Zahhak of the Shahnameh is one such king.
“I’m Kaveh, and a blacksmith, sire,” he said,
And as he spoke his clenched fists struck his head.
“It’s you whom I accuse, you are the one
Whose fire’s destroyed all that I’ve ever done.
A king then, or a monster? Which are you?
Tell, your majesty, which of the two? If you reign over seven kingdoms, why
Must our fate be to suffer and to die?
Acquit yourself then, let me weigh your worth,
And let your words astonish all the earth;
And when we’ve heard you out we’ll see
The evils that the world has done to me,
And why it is my son’s brains have to feed
Your snakes’ insatiable and monstrous greed.” (Ferdowsi, 2005, p. 47-49)
Zahhak is an Arabian King, who with the help of the devil, Eblis, steals the throne from his father before him. True to form, Eblis curses Zahhak shortly after he is crowned, causing two snakes to grow from his shoulders. To appease the snakes, Zahhak feeds them the brains of two young men every night. The passage above describes the blacksmith Kaveh, finally calling out Zahhak for being the evil tyrant that he is. To better understand how Zahhak was perceived from the Shahnameh, I compare his literary depiction to an artifact depiction of a bowl from the twelfth to thirteenth century.