A comparative study of the invulnerability of Esfandiar and Achille in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh and homer's Iliad

الملخص EN

Death, the oldest human fear, is one of the most frequent and meaningful themes in epic texts which is tied to the lives of the heroes from the beginning of the stories.

Myths and epics of all nations were looking for a way to escape the clutches of death and discover its mystery and man's immortality is the result of his fear of destruction.

When death evokes a sense of destruction and annihilation, on the other hand, man turns to fantasizing and finding a way to survive and immortality.

The creation of heroes such as Esfandiar and Achille is an example of the efforts of predecessors to achieve immortality and escape from death.

Although man, with all his efforts, could never solves this problem.

Achille's heel and Esfandiar's eye are a common embodiment of human weakness in the face of death, as their invulnerability is a common embodiment of the desire to be invulnerable to nature.

In addition to the main common denominator, the two heroes have similarities in mother, father, invulnerability, manner of death, cause of death, and behavioral characteristics.

The aim of this study is to identify the common roots of these invulnerable heroes and examines the points of commonalities and differences between them up to the points of unity and differences of human thoughts about death and the special attitude of the two great epic works of Shahnameh and Homer's Iliad should be analyzed.

Key words: Esfandiar, Achille, invulnerability, Shahnameh, Iliad.