Shahnameh satin tie

This satin tie features an image from the story of Khosrow and Shirin.

The romance of Sasanian King Khosrow II and Shirin appears in the Shahnameh and was further elaborated in Nizami’s Khamseh and other literary works written by later Persian poets.

In the Shahnameh Shirin’s origin is unknown but obviously not dignified. Khosrow’s decision to marry her is met with no enthusiasm by his entourage. In the beginning she is depicted as a cunning murderess of his Christian wife but once she becomes the Queen the proves to be the most dedicated wife to Khosrow. When he is murdered by his son Shiruy who wants to marry her, Shirin commits suicide by the dead body of her husband.The scene depicted on the tie is not from the Shahnameh but from Nizami’s Khosrow and Shirin, where Shirin is an Armenian Princess whom Khosrow sees accidentally for the first time when she is bathing in a pool.

The picture on the tie is a pastiche of several illustrations on the Safavid period put together