They Sent For Him

This is the turn the retellings drop. In the Shahnameh, Jamshid loses the royal Grace through pride, and his own nobles, hearing that there is an awe-inspiring king of dragon aspect in Arabia, go to him and offer him their allegiance. He does not invade. He is invited, and he accepts, and the crown of Iran is handed across. Jamshid runs, hides for a hundred years, and is found at last by the sea; Zahhak has him sawn in two. The poem has already spent its sympathy on a king who threw away seven hundred years of good rule, and it lets the sentence land on the people who went looking for a replacement.