It does not have you in the world the richest country of Persia in heroic legends. - Italo Pizzi

If the Homeric poems are a faithful mirror of the heroic life of the Greeks, of the feelings and ideas of that age, the Book of Kings is no less the faithful image of the soul, heart and ingenuity of the Persian people. (pp. X-XI)

Firdusi describes the miserable state of Iran under the scepter of Dahàk. Every guilt, every sad work, was lawful then, while every virtue was persecuted.

Dahaka means the snake that bites. In the naturalistic sense, it is the aerial monster that, according to the primitive concepts of a naturalistic religion, contends the celestial spaces to the Gods of light, and yet rejoins his brother of the Rigveda who is the serpent Ahi. L<nowiki>'</nowiki>Avesta', adjoining the frightening and horrible traits due to the imagination of the vulgar, designates it from time to time as the worst and most eliitial Drugia that Anra Mainyu has created, and describes it with three heads, with three jaws, with six eyes; but then, rising