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The historian emphasizes drama over accuracy

and seems to be more interested in telling a good

story than in telling a truthful one. Therefore, al-

though his writings are the best source of informa-

tion on the Catilinian conspiracy, many of its

details are questionable.

Furthermore, as Sallust had been deeply in-

volved in politics himself, his own personal feel-

ings clearly interfered with his presentation of

historical facts. As he had been allied with Caesar,

his depiction of Caesar’s opponents is highly neg-

ative, aside from the famous statesman Cato,

whom Sallust seems to have respected. Sallust’s

style betrays a feeling of resentment toward those

with views different from his own, and much of

the material in his monograph seems to be simple

moralizing rather than historical reconstruction.

Sallust’s other important work, less famous than

Catiline, is another monograph called War against

Jugurtha, also known as History of the Jugurthine

War. Jugurtha was a North African king against

whom Rome fought a bitter and difficult war from

111 to 105 B.C., and it is through Sallust’s writings

that modern historians have a good understanding

of this war’s events. Nevertheless, as with the Cati-

line, the account and details are biased.

Sallust’s writings are important for their his-

torical and literary significance. Despite their inac-

curacies, his works provide much valuable

information on the Roman world during a highly

confusing period. Sallust’s literary style, based

largely on earlier Greek writers such as Thucy-

dides, greatly influenced later authors. The Roman

historian TACITUS, in particular, clearly took much

of his stylistic inspiration from Sallust.

English Versions of Works by Sallust

Histories. Edited by Patrick McGushin. Oxford: Ox-

ford University Press, 1992.

The Jugurthine War and the Conspiracy of Catiline.

Translated by S. A. Hanford. New York: Penguin

Classics, 1978.

Works about Sallust

Syme, Ronald. Sallust. Berkeley: University of Cali-

fornia Press, 2002.

Wilkins, Ann Thomas. Villain or Hero: Sallust’s Por-

trayal of Catiline. New York: Peter Lang Publishers,

1994.

Sappho of Lesbos (fl. ca. 610–ca. 580 B.C.)

lyric poet

Sappho was born on the prosperous Aegean island

of Lesbos, a seat of intellectual and cultural activ-

ity, and spent most of her life in Mytilene, its

largest city. Her father, Skamandronymos, and her

mother, Kleïs, were of the aristocracy and also had

a son, Charaxos. Sappho married Kerkylas of An-

dros, a prosperous businessman with whom she

had a daughter named Kleïs, after Sappho’s

mother. Near the end of her life, it is believed she

may have been exiled to Sicily.

On Lesbos, the poet established a school to in-

struct the daughters of well-to-do families in the

arts of poetry and music. Sappho, with her

pupils—who had little contact with men until they

were betrothed—formed a cult devoted to

Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love. Based

on the scant evidence found in her poetry, it ap-

pears Sappho taught her young students, not inap-

propriately, to luxuriate in their loveliness and to

look forward to matrimony. In “Song of the Wed-

ding Bed,” for example, she espouses the emotional

and carnal pleasures of marriage:

Bride, warm with rose-

colored love, brightest

ornament of the Paphian,

come to the bedroom now,

enter the bed and play

tenderly with your man.

May the Evening Star

lead you eagerly

to that instant when you

Sappho of Lesbos 271

will gaze in wonder

before the silver throne

of Hera, queen of marriage.

Sappho’s poems were originally collected in nine

books, of which only a few fragments and one com-

plete poem (“Prayer to Aphrodite”) still exist. The

last of her nine books comprised “Epithalamia,”

lyric nuptial odes sung at different phases of wed-

ding ceremonies. She wrote in the Lesbian-Aeolian

dialect, and her themes were primarily of personal

relationships (often with other women) and love.

It is tempting to believe the much-perpetrated

legend that the passionate poetess ended her life by

flinging herself from a cliff into the sea because her

love for a beautiful youth, Phaon, was unrequited.

However, this tale probably arose from a misinter-

pretation or mistranslation of some ancient work,

for the facts of Sappho’s death simply are not known.

Critical Analysis

Sappho’s poetry arose from oral tradition, in which

poems were sung or recited, often to the accompa-

niment of music (see ORAL LITERATURE/TRADITION).

Unlike her predecessors, however, Sappho experi-

mented with rhythm, meter, and monody, a tech-

nique characterized by a single line of melody. She

invented, or at least perfected, the so-called Sapphic

strophe, a complex, rigorous, and challenging four-

line verse later adapted by Roman poets.

Sappho dedicated many of her poems to her

pupils, of whom she clearly had favorites. Her de-

votion to them and her anguish when they left the

school, withdrew their love from her, or trans-

ferred their affections to others, is obvious. In “To

Atthis,” she addresses this torment:

Love—bittersweet, irrepressible—

loosens my limbs and I tremble.

Yet, Atthis, you despise my being.

To chase Andromeda, you leave me.

And in “To Anaktoria,” she expresses her sorrow at

a loved one’s departure:

Some say cavalry and others claim

infantry or a fleet of long oars

is the supreme sight on the black earth.

I say it is

the one you love. And easily proved.

Didn’t Helen—who far surpassed all

mortals in beauty—desert the best

of men, her king,

and sail off to Troy and forget

her daughter and dear kinsmen? Merely

the Kyprian’s gaze made her bend and led

her from her path;

these things remind me now

of Anaktoria who is far,

and I

for one

would rather see her warm supple step

and the sparkle of her face—than watch all

the

dazzling chariots and armored

hoplites of Lydia.

In “Prayer to Aphrodite,” we see Sappho’s dedica-

tion to and the manner of her dependence on the

goddess:

On your dazzling throne, Aphrodite

sly eternal daughter of Zeus,

I beg you: do not crush me with grief,

but come to me now . . . and free me

from fearful agony.

In other lines from the poem, we see an external

outpouring of Sappho’s thoughts and beliefs con-

cerning her loves, losses, and evidence of

Aphrodite’s aid. “...Come to me now,”Sappho

begs, “as once / you heard my far cry, and yielded.”

Aphrodite replies, “What does your mad heart de-

sire? / Whom shall I make love you, Sappho, / who

is turning her back on you?” And upon agreeing

to make Sappho’s loved one love her in return,

272 Sappho of Lesbos

Aphrodite warns, “She will love you, though un-

willingly.”

Sappho has been censured throughout history

for her erotic expressions of affection for her

pupils, but it is entirely possible that what is trans-

lated as “I” was originally written to denote “we.”

This means poems that appear to express the ex-

quisite longing of a single individual were actually

written to be performed in public by choruses

made up of Sappho’s young students. In addition,

modern readers must take into account that the af-

fection Sappho reveals in her poetry may have

been the norm in her time and culture.

In other poems, such as “Kleïs,” we see not only

Sappho’s simplicity of style and skillful use of

words, but also her love for her daughter:

I have a small daughter who is beautiful

like a gold flower. I would not trade

my darling Kleïs for all Lydia or even

for lovely Lesbos.

Critic Daniel Mendelsohn writes, “With a direct-

ness seemingly unmediated by vast stretches of

time, Sappho seems to speak to us quite clearly

today . . .” Centuries after Sappho flourished, Plato

wrote, “Some say nine Muses—but count again. /

Behold the tenth: Sappho of Lesbos.” What comes

to us of Sappho’s simple yet evocative and

provocative verse—by turns witty, graceful, and

fraught with passion—has a radiant vitality that

still resonates with modern audiences.

English Versions of Works by

Sappho of Lesbos

If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho. Translated by

Anne Carson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.

Sappho’s Lyre: Archaic Lyric and Women Poets of An-

cient Greece. Translated by Diane Rayor. Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1991.

Works about Sappho of Lesbos

Mendelsohn, Daniel. “In Search of Sappho.” The New

York Re v iew of Books L, no. 13 (August 14, 2003):

26–29.

Reynolds, Margaret. The Sappho History. New York:

St. Martin’s Press, 2003.

Sei Sh¯onagon (ca. 965–unknown)

memoirist, poet

Sei Sh¯onagon was born to a father named Moto-

suke, a member of the Kiyo-wara family, who

worked as an imperial official and was also a

scholar and poet. Some historians believe that Sei

Sh¯onagon was briefly married to a government of-

ficial named Tachibana no Norimitsu, with whom

she had a son. It is known for certain that she

served as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Sadako

until Sadako’s death in 1000. After her service with

the empress ends, nothing more about Sei’s life is

known, including the date of her death. Tradition

has it that she died lonely and in poverty, but this

may be the invention of those who disapproved of

her worldly ways.

Her name may be a title obscuring her given

name: Sh¯onagon means “minor counselor,” and Sei

refers to her father’s family. However, her contem-

porary and fellow court writer

MURASAKI SHIKIBU,

who wrote The Tale of Genji, mentions Sei Sh¯on-

agon in the context of “those Chinese writings of

hers that she so presumptuously scatters about the

place . . . full of imperfections.” Murasaki calls her

a “gifted woman, to be sure,” but utterly frivolous.

This scorn perhaps reflects a competitive spirit

prevalent at a court where Sei’s intelligence, wit,

sensitivity to beauty, observation of detail, and oc-

casional intolerance and callousness were per-

ceived as a threat.

What is known about Sei Sh¯onagon’s life sur-

vives in the Makura no Soshi, or Pillow Book, which

she began writing in 994 and continued for more

than 10 years. The Pillow Book is a miscellany of

lists, vignettes, descriptions, thoughts, and poems.

None of the 300 selections in the book are longer

than a few pages, and they are arranged in no ob-

vious order. During the Heian period in Japan,

both upper-class men and women were educated

and literate, and many frequently recorded

thoughts and informal notes that they kept in their

Sei Sh ¯onagon 273

sleeping quarters, possibly in the drawers of their

wooden pillows. Sei’s book makes reference to the

works of at least a dozen other authors, only one of

whose manuscripts survives.

Sei is remembered as a snob for the occasional

derision she shows to those of the lower classes; she

is equally critical of people with poor grooming

habits or unattractive appearances. Nonetheless,

the minute detail, rhythmic language, and frank

tone of her work provide a varied and engaging

look at court life in imperial Japan.

Sei’s Pillow Book established a tradition of zui-

hitsu, or “random notes,” which continues to the

present day and represents some of the most valu-

able works of Japanese literature. Despite Murasaki

Shikibu’s criticism Sei’s language is pure Heian

Japanese, with very few Chinese words or inflec-

tions. Historians appreciate the wealth of informa-

tion her work provides about life in Japan over

1,000 years ago.

In her writing, Sei Sh¯onagon’s approach to life is

primarily aesthetic. Her frequent use of the words

okashi (charming) or medetashi (splendid) not

only serve as descriptive terms but also create a

repetitive, incantatory writing style that can prove

difficult to translate into modern English. Sei eval-

uates things by the feelings they provoke and

thoughtfully analyzes the qualities of both ugliness

and beauty. Among her many lists are those things

that give a feeling of heat (such as a very fat, hairy

person or a coppersmith at work) and a list of un-

pleasant things (including people who show off

their children, mosquitoes who appear just when

one is about to sleep, and having a story inter-

rupted by someone who has just entered the

room).

Other sections of the Pillow Book recount

events at court or offer vignettes of Sei’s life and

observations, showing her keen awareness of the

transient nature of life. Although not sexually ex-

plicit, the Pillow Book also speaks candidly of

Sei’s—and others’s—love affairs.

The original manuscript of the Pillow Book dis-

appeared, and the earliest manuscript that survives

was compiled 500 years after the period during

which Sei Sh¯onagon wrote. The work was popular

enough to be recopied many times, but copyists

frequently made changes that have led to several

different existing versions, many with the sections

arranged in varying order. The Pillow Book was is-

sued as a printed book in the 17th century and has

become a revered classic in Japan.

English Versions of a Work by Sei Sh¯onagon

The Pillow Book of Sei Sh¯onagon. Translated by Ivan

Morris. New York: Columbia University Press,

1991.

The Pillow Book of Sei Sh¯onagon. Translated by Arthur

Waley. New York: HarperCollins, 1979.

A Work about Sei Sh¯onagon

Blensdorf, Jan. My Name is Sei Sh¯onagon. New York:

Overlook Press, 2003.

Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca, “Seneca

the Younger”)

(ca. 4 B.C.–A.D.65)

philosopher, orator, essayist, dramatist,

nonfiction writer

Of Spanish descent, Seneca was born in Cordova

into a distinguished family of some means. As a

young boy, he went to Rome to pursue an educa-

tion. His father, Seneca the Elder, was of the

wealthy equestrian class and spent a great deal of

time in Rome. A renowned orator, Seneca the

Elder counted among his intimates the outstand-

ing rhetoricians of the time. In his declining

years, at the urging of his three sons, he penned

his memoirs, basing them on recollections of his

eminent colleagues. He was also an exacting dis-

ciplinarian who planned his sons’ education to

prepare them for prominent political positions

in Rome.

Seneca’s mother, Helvia, was a woman of excep-

tional intelligence with a profound interest in phi-

losophy. She might have pursued formal study if

her husband, 30 years her senior, had not opposed

it. However, she played an influential role in her

son Seneca’s career.

274 Seneca

Seneca was frail and perpetually dogged by ail-

ments, but he overcame his frailty and compen-

sated for his physical limitations by exercising his

mind. A self-disciplined and enthusiastic pupil, he

received instruction in language, literature, and

rhetoric, for which he proved to have a natural

flair. His teachers of philosophy included Attalus

the Stoic and representatives from the Cynic sect

and the Pythagorean school.

Having spent his early adulthood visiting

Egypt, Seneca returned to Rome in the year 31 to

launch his political career. His aunt, into whose

care he had been entrusted in Rome, was married

to the governor of Egypt and used her influence to

get Seneca elected to the quaestorship (a financial

administrative position); later, he became a mag-

istrate of public works. As a lawyer, Seneca’s

trenchant oratory and pithy observations secured

his reputation and earned him a private fortune.

Regrettably, these orations, and all his works prior

to 41, have been lost.

The emperor Caligula was jealous of Seneca’s

fame and talent and would have condemned him

to death if a courtesan had not persuaded Caligula

that Seneca was in poor health and soon to die.

Ironically, this brush with mortality prompted

Seneca to abandon his profession in favor of writ-

ing and philosophical study. During Claudius’s

reign, though, the milieu of political intrigue

nearly undid him once again when the emperor’s

third wife, Messalina, unjustly charged Seneca with

illicit goings-on in the company of the princess. An

execution was ordered, but his sentence was later

commuted to banishment, and Seneca spent eight

years in Corsica.

In Ad Helviam Matrem de Consolatione (Conso-

lation to Helvia), Seneca uses his rhetorical elo-

quence to entreat his mother not to lament his fate,

making the Stoic argument that the mind is bound-

less, infinite, beyond time and place, and incapable

of being “exiled.” He goes on to explain that while he

may be banished physically, he still possesses the

knowledge of nature’s beauty and his own goodness.

Ad Polybium was also written and published

during this period. Addressed to one of the em-

peror’s freedmen, it is written in a spirit very dif-

ferent from the philosophy with which Seneca

consoled his mother. The exile describes his abject

misery and heaps extravagant praise upon the at-

tendant in an effort to have his expulsion retracted.

Though these appeals were fruitless, Seneca was

eventually recalled from Corsica in 49 by Agrip-

pina, Emperor Claudius’s fourth wife, to tutor her

son, Nero, in rhetoric and etiquette.

Five years later, Agrippina poisoned Claudius,

and Nero acceded to the throne. For the next five

years, under the tutelage of Seneca and Burrus, the

young emperor’s prefect, Nero administered the

public affairs in Rome with integrity and benevo-

lence. Seneca recognized Nero’s brutal nature,

however, and wished to instill in him a sense of

mercy and forbearance. Agrippina, on the other

hand, scorned moral instruction and, as a result,

Seneca retired from public life.

During his retirement, Seneca wrote a multi-

tude of works, but his writing ended when, in the

year 65, he was accused of complicity in a conspir-

acy to assassinate Nero, who subsequently ordered

him to commit suicide, an order he obeyed with

stoic courage.

Critical Analysis

Although Seneca dabbled in diverse schools of

philosophical thought, he was particularly influ-

enced by Stoicism, the creed of the Roman aristo-

crat, which found its way into even his courtroom

discourse. Stoicism held that nature is governed

by divine reason, and since humans should strive

to coexist in concert with nature, living a life illu-

minated by reason is the ultimate virtue. Those

who conduct themselves in this way have no fear of

ill fortune, nor should they be tempted by good

fortune, for they are masters of their inner domain.

Seneca also believed that when he encountered

vice in others, it was his obligation to attempt re-

form. These tenets must have provided no small

comfort to him when he was expelled to Corsica,

particularly his self-assurance of his own virtue.

Seneca’s Epistulae morales, a collection of 124

moral essays, largely reflect and promote Stoic

Seneca 275

ethics, morals, and social outlook, with numerous

asides providing an insider’s glimpse into Roman

political life in the mid-first century. They include

De Providentia (On Fortune), which explores why

bad things happen to good people; and De Ira (On

Anger), which conveys Seneca’s aversion to anger

and the blood lust and unbridled violence that it

engenders. He argues that greatness exists only in

tranquillity; that people of character may choose

not to act impulsively; and that by cherishing oth-

ers, people can set aside real and imagined abuses.

De Clementia (On Mercy), another moral essay,

was intended as instruction for Nero. Mercy,

Seneca says, means refraining from retaliation or

punishment when one has the power to inflict it.

In one particularly persuasive passage, he reminds

Nero of an incident in which the emperor demon-

strated leniency. Burrus was about to execute two

outlaws and produced paper on which Nero was to

seal their fate, but the emperor cried out, “Would

that I had not learned to write.” Seneca praises

Nero lavishly for his response:

What an utterance! All nations should have

heard it....What an utterance! It should have

been spoken before a gathering of all mankind,

that unto it princes and kings might pledge al-

legiance. What an utterance! Worthy of the

universal innocence of mankind....

Seneca also suggests that if Nero continues to be-

have in such a manner, his greatness will be as-

sured:

That kindness of your heart will be recounted,

will be diffused . . . throughout the whole body

of the empire, and all things will be molded

into your likeness....There will be citizens,

there will be allies worthy of this goodness, and

uprightness will return to the whole world....

(De Clementia, Book II)

Throughout the centuries, Seneca has inspired

thinkers and artists—Romantics, transcendental-

ists, absurdists, existentialists, and more—who

have been attracted by the Stoic belief in self-

reliance, the notion that God is present in both the

natural and the rational, the refusal to become em-

broiled in a civilization gone mad while maintain-

ing a sense of responsibility to society and

humankind, and the fascination with the questions

of death and suicide. As Anna Lydia Motto writes

in her work Seneca:

Among the outstanding personalities of impe-

rial Rome there is no one who can more read-

ily arouse our interest and admiration than

Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Tutor, guardian, min-

ister, victim of Nero, author of tragedies, scien-

tific treatises, philosophical essays, and moral

epistles, he was a man to honor—and to

serve—any age....

From Seneca’s Epistulae morales and other sur-

viving works, it can be deduced that his philo-

sophical and literary training served him well. His

Naturales quaestiones (Natural Questions) is a

seven-book scientific discourse on the natural uni-

verse, most notably cosmology. Apocolocyntosis

divi Claudii (The Pumpkinification of the Divine

Claudius) is a satire, and his 10 tragedies—includ-

ing Phaedra, Agamemnon, Oedipus, Medea,

Thyestes, and Hercules Enraged—are adaptations of

Greek myths and legends (see

MYTHOLOGY, GREEK

AND ROMAN). These works, as scholar Kenneth J.

Atchity points out, reflect “the hope and despair

of a progressively decadent empire” and reveal

Seneca’s knowledge of “the darkest recesses of the

human heart.” Perhaps this is why Seneca holds a

significant place in the body of world literature, for

despite the passage of time, the heart of the matters

upon which he expounded remain timeless.

English Versions of Works by Seneca

Hercules. Translated by Ranjit Bolt. New York: The-

atre Communications Group, 1997.

Moral and Political Essays. Translated by John M.

Cooper. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University

Press, 1995.

276 Seneca

Oedipus of Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Translated by

Michael Elliot Rutenberg. Wauconda, Ill.: Bol-

chazy-Carducci, 2001.

Seneca: Tragedies: Hercules, Trojan Women, Phoeni-

cian Women, Medea, Phaedra, Vol. 1. Edited by

John G. Fitch. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer-

sity Press, 2002.

Works about Seneca

Henderson, John. Morals and Villas in Seneca’s Letters:

Places to Dwell. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Uni-

versity Press, 2004.

Mayer, Roland. Seneca: Phaedra. London: Gerald

Duckworth & Co., 2003.

Motto, Anna Lydia. Seneca. New York: Twayne Pub-

lishers, 1973.

Pratt, Norman T. Seneca’s Drama. Chapel Hill: Uni-

versity of North Carolina Press, 2001.

Veyne, Paul. Seneca: The Life of a Stoic. Translated by

David Sullivan. London: Taylor & Francis, 2002.

Sextus Empiricus (ca. 150–ca. 225)

philosopher

Sextus Empiricus was a Greek physician most

likely connected with one of the great schools in

Athens,Alexandria, or Rome. The ideas set forth in

his Outlines of Pyrrhonism form the basis of our

understanding of the philosophy of skepticism as

founded by Pyrrho (ca. 360–270

B.C.). The

philosophies of SOCRATES, PLATO, and ARISTOTLE,

though not strictly Pyrrhonian in practice, also

rest on the exercise of doubt and inquiry to ad-

vance knowledge and discover truth. For Sextus,

the practice of skepticism required setting one

judgment against another, or contrasting one ap-

pearance with another, to successively undermine

the validity of any form of knowledge and finally

reach a suspension of judgment. Only in this man-

ner could one avoid dogmatism. The ultimate goal

of skeptical inquiry was to achieve ataraxia, a state

of unperturbedness equated with peaceful living

and tranquility. Two other contemporary philoso-

phies, those of the Stoics and of

EPICURUS, sought

the same end but through slightly different means.

In total, 11 books by Sextus survive, in which he

applies his trademark skeptical methodology to

the fields of logic, physics, natural philosophy, and

ethics. Against the Physicists (sometimes translated

as Against the Mathematicians) and Against the Lo-

gicians (also known as Against the Dogmatists, or

Against the Professors) have been translated and

studied by generations of scholars. The rediscovery

of Sextus’s works in Europe in the 16th century in-

fluenced other skeptics such as Michel de Mon-

taigne and René Descartes.

English Versions of Works by

Sextus Empiricus

Against the Ethicists. Translated by Richard Bett. Ox-

ford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Against the Grammarians. Translated by David L.

Blank. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Outlines of Pyrrhonism: Sextus Empiricus. Translated

by R. G. Bury. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books,

1990.

Works about Sextus Empiricus

Bailey, Alan. Sextus Empiricus and Pyrrhonian Skepti-

cism. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 2002.

Floridi, Luciano. Sextus Empiricus: The Transmission

and Recovery of Pyrrhonism. Oxford: Oxford Uni-

versity Press, 2002.

Hallie, Philip P., ed. Sextus Empiricus: Selections from

the Major Writings on Scepticism, Man, & God. In-

dianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Publishing, 1985.

Shahnameh (Shah-nama, Shahname,

The Epic of Kings, The Book of Kings)

(10th century) Persian epic

The Shahnameh, an EPIC poem, is not only a mas-

terpiece of Persian literature but also an impor-

tant work for Persian national identity. It was

written in the 10th century, after three centuries of

Arab yoke, when Persian nationalism was slowly

reviving.

The Shahnameh, was created by Ab¯u ol-Q¯asem

Mans¯ur, later known as FIRDAWS¯I, a highly educated

Persian intellectual who lived in the late 10th and

Shahnameh 277

early 11th centuries. In the text of the Shahnameh,

Firdaws¯ı repeatedly emphasizes that his role as au-

thor is minor, that all he did was versify the myths

and narratives of the ORAL LITERATURE/TRADITION

of his people. Yet his accomplishment is profound.

The Shahnameh contains approximately 50,000

couplets that contain multiple stories and a host

of heroes.

The first two-thirds of the Shahnameh include

ancient myths, legends, and historical figures, such

as Alexander the Great, dating back to the sixth

century B.C. The last third of the poem contains

fictionalized stories about historical people, king-

doms, and events, including the Parthian and Sas-

sanian dynasties, ending around the middle of the

A.D. seventh century.

The Shahnameh’s themes are as varied as its sto-

ries. They include fate, immortality, filicide, and

God’s preference for Persia (modern-day Iran)

above other nations. Indeed, the poem ends when,

in 652, Persia’s ruler, Shah Yazdegerd III, is killed.

The theme that holds all of the stories together

concerns the Persian belief in the role of kings; as

long as the kings survive, so does Persia.

Many of the characters in the Shahnameh are

ancient Persian heroes—generals and command-

ers who defended the country against its enemies.

In vivid and eloquent verse, Firdawzi tells of a mul-

titude of battles and other challenges to Persian

sovereignty. His central character is Rostam, called

Jahan-Pahlavan (“Champion of the World”), the

guardian of the divine right of kingship in Persia

and a symbol of the king’s sovereignty.

Perhaps the most compelling story in the

Shahnameh is “The Story of Sohrab and Rostam,”

in which Rostam kills his son Sohrab for assault-

ing the ruling shah (king). The story is fast-paced,

with battles, romance, and inherent conflicts. In

addition, the tragic scene in which Rostam real-

izes the wrongness of what he has done is one of

the most poignant scenes ever written in verse.

When Rostam removes Sohrab’s armor and dis-

covers the man he has mortally wounded is his

son, he says:

“Oh, brave and noble youth, and praised

among

All men, whom I have slain with my own

hand!”

He wept a bloody stream and tore his hair;

His brow was dark with dust, tears filled his

eyes.

Sohrab then said, “But this is even worse.

You must not fill your eyes with tears. For

now

It does not good to slay yourself with grief.

What’s happened here is what was meant

to be.”

(“The Death of Sohrab,” ll. 71–78)

Thus, Sohrab’s death underscores the poem’s

theme of God-chosen rulers. By attacking the

shah, Sohrab goes against the “natural order” of

the world; in turn, Rostam goes against the same

when he kills his own son. Yet none can deny that

the king Sohrab attacked continues to live for a

reason: It is God’s will.

Yet another important aspect of the Shahnameh

is its language. In the 10th century, when the epic

was written, the dominant language of literature

and culture was Arabic. Persian was deeply affected

by this dominance, and more and more Arabic

words were entering the Persian language. In his

epic, Firdawzi made a conscious effort to avoid

words of Arabic origin, using Middle and Modern

Persian instead.

The only complete English translation of the

Shahnameh was published in 1925 by Arthur

George and Edmond Warner, while Reuben Levy

wrote a prose translation of select verses in 1967,

titled The Epic of the Kings. The Shahnameh, writ-

ten in rich, expressive language, is considered to

be a great masterpiece of world literature and the

embodiment of the Persian national spirit.

English Versions of the Shahnameh

The Epic of the Kings; Shah-nama, the National Epic

of Persia. Translated by Reuben Levy. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1967.

278 Shahnameh

Robinson, B. W. Persian Book of Kings: An Epitome of

the Shahnama of Firdawsi. London: Taylor & Fran-

cis, 2002.

The Tragedy of Sohrab and Rostam from the Persian

National Epic, the Shahname of Abol-Qasem Fer-

dowsi. Translated by Jerome W. Clinton. Seattle:

University of Washington Press, 1996.

Works about the Shahnameh

Davidson, Olga M. Poet and Hero in the Persian Book of

Kings. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994.

Davis, Dick. Epic and Sedition: The Case of Firdawzi’s

Shahname. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas

Press, 1992.

Hillenbrand, Robert. Shahnama: The Visual Language

of the Persian Book of Kings. Aldershot, Hamp-

shire, U.K.: Ashgate Publishing, 2003.

Shikishi, Princess (d. 1201) poet

Princess Shikishi was a 12th-century Japanese poet

who wrote in the TANKA form. Like many women

in the imperial court, little is known about her life.

She was the third daughter of Go-Shirakawa, who

became Japan’s 77th emperor in 1155. Early in her

life she was selected to become a high priestess of

the Kamo Shrines, but illness required her resigna-

tion. Sometime during the 1190s, she became a

Buddhist nun and acquired the Buddhist name

Shonyoho.

Shikishi was well known for her poetry, much

of which centers on her isolation. Fifteen of the 21

imperial anthologies include 155 of her poems,

and 399 poems altogether have been recovered.

The majority of her work appears in 100-poem se-

quences called hyakushu-uta, which translator Hi-

roaki Sato described as a “mosaic describing the

changing of the seasons, love, and other matters.”

In Go-Kuden, a treatise on poetics, Emperor Go-

Toba (1180–1239) calls Shikishi one of the most

outstanding poets of their time. Her seasonal poems

show great sensitivity and creativity in addressing

traditional tanka themes, such as the arrival of

spring and the scattering of cherry blossoms:

Though warblers

have not called,

in the sound of cascades

pouring down rocks

spring is heard.

Her poems about love, on the other hand, focus

more on the psychological impact of love than on

the meditation of natural images:

My sleeves’ hue

Is enough to make folk ask—

I care not!

The depth of my love—

If only you would believe in it . . .

Shikishi’s poetry is important in that it provides

a rare glimpse of a woman’s perspective in 12th-

century Japan and because it reflects a spiritual di-

mension that offers several layers of meaning. In

addition, Shikishi shows a clear understanding of

the Buddhist way of life, full of compassion and

detachment from earthly pursuits. Its role in her

poetry rivals the animistic themes and passionate

passages.

An English Version of Works by

Princess Shikishi

String of Beads: Complete Poems of Princess Shikishi.

Translated and edited by Hiroaki Sato. Honolulu:

University of Hawaii Press, 1993.

Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) poet,

historian

A descendant of the poet and hero of Egils Saga,

Egill Skallagrimsson, Snorri Sturluson was born

in Iceland and brought up at Oddi in the home of

Jon Loptsson, the most powerful chieftain of his

time, from whom he gained a deep appreciation

of Icelandic tradition. In 1199 Snorri married an

heiress and began to acquire land and power, set-

tling in Reykjaholt, where he wrote most of his

works, between 1223 and 1235. He also served as

Snorri Sturluson 279

“lawspeaker,” or president, of the Icelandic com-

monwealth for many years. In 1218, he traveled to

Norway as a guest of King Haakon IV. As a result of

this visit, he became entangled in various political

intrigues that ultimately led to his assassination.

Snorri wrote prolifically on a wide range of top-

ics. He is best known for two works, both vast in

their scope. The first is the Prose Edda (also known

as Younger Edda), a handbook of poetics that re-

counts the various legends of Norse mythology (see

MYTHOLOGY, NORSE) and catalogs the variety of po-

etic meters used in Icelandic verse. He also wrote the

Heimskringla (ca. 1220–35), a history of Norwegian

kings beginning with their legendary descent from

Odin, the Norse warrior-god up to 1177.

Much of the information detailed in Snorri’s

histories was gathered from ORAL LITERATURE/TRA-

DITION transmitted from the times of the actual

events. His genius lay in his ability to utilize his

firsthand knowledge of 13th-century politics to il-

luminate the past. As Magnus Magnusson and

Hermann Palsson state in their introduction to

Snorri Sturluson’s King Harald’s Saga, “It is pri-

marily the vastness of the conception of Heim-

skringla, the sweep and range of its scope, that

marks it out from all the many other Icelandic

saga-histories....No one,before or after,at-

tempted anything on such a grand scale.”

English Versions of Works by

Snorri Sturluson

Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway. Trans-

lated by Lee M. Hollander. Austin: University of

Texas Press, 1991.

King Harald’s Saga: Harald Hardradi of Norway.

Translated by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann

Palsson. New York: Penguin, 1966.

Prose Edda: Tales from Norse Mythology. Translated by

Jean I. Young. Berkeley: University of California

Press, 2002.

Works about Snorri Sturluson

Bagge, Sverre. Society and Politics in Snorri Sturlu-

son’s Heimskringla. Berkeley: University of Cali-

fornia Press, 1991.

Byock, Jesse L. Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and

Power. Berkeley: University of California Press,

1988, 32, 53, 54, 71, 73, 74, 78, 89, 99, 133.

Ciklamini, Marlene. Snorri Sturluson. Farmington

Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group, 1978.

Socrates (ca. 469–399 B.C.) philosopher,

teacher

Socrates was born in an Athenian township, the

child of Sophroniscus, who may have been a sculp-

tor or stoneworker, and Phaenarete, a midwife. The

family must have had some financial resources but

were certainly not wealthy, for Socrates would later

serve with the hoplites, heavily armed foot soldiers

who defended the Greek city-states. (According to

regulations, citizens who could afford the equip-

ment—helmet, shield, armor, weapons—but could

not afford horses served as hoplites.) Socrates dis-

tinguished himself numerous times during the

course of the Peloponnesian War between Athens

and Sparta (431–404

B.C.), a monumental conflict

that ultimately stripped Athens of its empire.

The arts, sciences, culture, and civilization of

ancient Greece were at their zenith in Socrates’

time. The Greek city-states had defeated the

mighty Persian Empire in two wars, heroic con-

flicts that were immortalized as history by

HERODOTUS and as drama by AESCHYLUS. SOPHOCLES,

EURIPIDES, THUCYDIDES and ARISTOPHANES also

flourished during the fifth century B.C.

Socrates was a product of his time, a philoso-

pher who sought to understand the inner self and

human behavior, rather than to explain the phe-

nomena of the outside world. Originally, he stud-

ied cosmological and natural philosophical

theories, but he found them confusing and contra-

dictory. Moreover, he was disappointed that they

did not address the issues of selfhood and human

morality that had begun to preoccupy him.

There is an often-told—and probably true—

tale accounting for Socrates’ transformation into

a wry and sardonic interrogator. According to the

story, Chaerephon, a friend and follower, asked

the Oracle at Delphi whether any living man was

280 Socrates