Explore "Shahnameh" by Abolqasem Ferdowsi on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A night as black as coal bedaubed with pitch, / A night of ebony, a night on which / Mars, Mercury, and Saturn would not rise. / Even the moon seemed fearful of the skies: / Her face was three-fourths dimmed, and all the night / Looked gray and dusty in her pallid light.
On plain and mountainside dark henchmen laid / Night's raven carpet, shade on blacker shade; / The heavens seemed rusted iron, as if each star / Were blotted out by tenebrous, thick tar; / Dark Ahriman appeared on every side / Like a huge snake whose jaws gape open wide.