King Anushirwan and the Owls, from the Khamsa of Nizami

Writing in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the Persian poet Nizami achieved fame with five epic poems known collectively as the Khamsa (Quintet). The most popular works in the quintet are the three romantic epics. The least popular and most difficult is the opening book, the Makhzan al-Asrar (Treasury of Mysteries). This particular text, an enigmatic pseudomystical poem, deals with issues of governance and universal justice presented as a series of moralizing discourses. The story of the great Sasanian king Anushirwan and the owls, shown here, is one of the most frequently illustrated episodes in the Makhzan al-Asrar. The monarch (reigned 531–79) and his advisor, on horseback, have become separated from their hunting party and approach a deserted village that is falling into ruin. Working in the painting style of the imperial Sasanian court, the artist provided details including crumbling candy-colored tile work, melting corncob-shaped walls, a snake emerging from a crack in a wall, and a pair of lizards scrambling on the rocks. The king hears two owls hooting— they sit on a disintegrating wall just to the left of center—and wonders what they are saying. The advisor explains that one of the birds is giving his daughter away to the other and asked for an appropriate bride-price—for example, the ruined village and one or two others. The other owl replies that if the present king’s policies didn’t change, he could give his father-in-law a hundred thousand abandoned villages. Anushirwan was an accomplished warrior, but according to this anecdote, he was not just a ruler, and his people were suffering.