In the land of Tus, a young boy named Fer­dowsi, an adven­tur­ous spir­it, spent his days by the expan­sive Tus Riv­er, lost in nature and his poet­ic mus­ings. One day, he dis­cov­ered the ancient stone bridge had been claimed by the riv­er, sep­a­rat­ing fam­i­lies. Deter­mined to restore hope, he declared he would build a stronger bridge, despite the doubts voiced by the towns­peo­ple who deemed him too young, poor, and whim­si­cal to suc­ceed. Unde­terred, Fer­dowsi left for many years, hid­den from the world except for his fam­i­ly.

After sev­er­al qui­et years, Fer­dowsi re-emerged, claim­ing to have writ­ten the great­est poem Tus had ever seen. Despite the vil­lagers’ indif­fer­ence, he pressed on to deliv­er it to King Mah­mud, an ardu­ous jour­ney that left him exhaust­ed. Upon his arrival, the king, ini­tial­ly unim­pressed, was cap­ti­vat­ed by Ferdowsi’s flaw­less poem, which earned him recog­ni­tion as the great­est poet in Tus. The king com­mis­sioned a mon­u­men­tal piece of work chron­i­cling the his­to­ry of Per­sia, but Fer­dowsi insist­ed on writ­ing at home, offer­ing a sim­ple deal: one gold coin for each cou­plet, with pay­ment upon com­ple­tion.

As months turned into years, Fer­dowsi devot­ed him­self to his writ­ing and became a fig­ure of inspi­ra­tion for the vil­lagers, even meet­ing his wife Sara dur­ing this time. Tragedy struck when his son Sohrab drowned, yet he per­se­vered in his work. Final­ly, after four decades, he fin­ished the epic poem, “Shah­nameh,” filled with the tales of ancient kings and his son’s mem­o­ry.

How­ev­er, King Mah­mud, enraged by the lengthy wait and the sheer mag­ni­tude of the poem, ordered Fer­dowsi to be com­pen­sat­ed with cop­per coins. Laugh­ing at the king’s insult, Fer­dowsi dis­missed the coins, under­stand­ing their true worth. The king’s anger esca­lat­ed when a curse poem from Fer­dowsi remind­ed him of his grave mis­take and the impor­tance of the poet­’s work. A year lat­er, real­iz­ing his fol­ly, Mah­mud sent gold coins with inter­est.

Yet trag­i­cal­ly, the courtier dis­cov­ered that Fer­dowsi had passed away, lead­ing his daugh­ter Tah­mi­na to take the pay­ment with the inten­tion of build­ing a bridge, a last­ing trib­ute to her father. Con­se­quent­ly, the roy­al engi­neers con­struct­ed “The Poet’s Bridge,” which remains a sym­bol of Ferdowsi’s lega­cy.

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