His heart to take a gift, and let thee go.
And then that all the Tartar host would praise
Thy courage or thy craft, and spread thy fame,
To glad thy father in his weak old age.
Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man!
Dearer to the red jackals shalt thou be
Than to thy friends, and to thy father old.''
And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab
plied:-

And pierce him like a stab, and make him leap
To arms, and cry for vengeance upon thee.
Fierce man, bethink thee, for an only son!
What will that grief, what will that vengeance
be?

Oh, could I live, till I that grief had seen!
Yet him I pity not so much, but her,

590

re540

My mother, who in Ader-baijan dwells
With that old king, her father, who grows gray
With age, and rules over the valiant Koords.
Her most I pity, who no more will see

"Unknown thou art; yet thy fierce vaunt is vain.

Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful Sohrab returning from the Tartar camp,
man!

No! Rustum slays me, and this filial heart.
For were I matched with ten such men as thee,
And I were that which till to-day I was,
They should be lying here, I standing there.
But that belovèd name unnerved my arm-
That name, and something, I confess, in thee,
Which troubles all my heart, and made my
shield

550

With spoils and honour, when the war is done.
But a dark rumour will be bruited up,
From tribe to tribe, until it reach her ear;
And then will that defenceless woman learn
That Sohrab will rejoice her sight no more,
But that in battle with a nameless foe,
By the far-distant Oxus, he is slain.’’

600

He spoke; and as he ceased, he wept aloud, Thinking of her he left, and his own death.

Nor
Who

thought.

did he yet believe it was his son

spoke, although he called back names he knew;

Fall; and thy spear transfixed an unarmed He spoke; but Rustum listened, plunged in
foe.
And now thou boastest, and insult 'st my fate.
But hear thou this, fierce man, tremble to hear
The mighty Rustum shall avenge my death!
My father, whom I seek through all the world,
He shall avenge my death, and punish thee!''
As when some hunter in the spring hath
found

A breeding eagle sitting on her nest,
Upon the craggy isle of a hill-lake,
And pierced her with an arrow as she rose,
And followed her to find her where she fell 560
Far off;-anon her mate comes winging back
From hunting, and a great way off descries
His huddling young left sole; at that, he checks
His pinion, and with short uneasy sweeps
Circles above his eyry, with loud screams
Chiding his mate back to her nest; but she
Lies dying, with the arrow in her side,
In some far stony gorge out of his ken,
A heap of fluttering feathers-never more
Shall the lake glass her, flying over it;
Never the black and dripping precipices
Echo her stormy scream as she sails by—
As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss,
So Rustum knew not his own loss, but stood
Over his dying son, and knew him not.

570

For he had had sure tidings that the babe,
Which was in Ader-baijan born to him,
| Had been a puny girl, no boy at all-
So that sad mother sent him word, for fear 610
Rustum should seek the boy, to train in arms.
And so he deemed that either Sohrab took,
By a false boast, the style of Rustum's son;
Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame.
So deemed he; yet he listened, plunged in
thought.

And his soul set to grief, as the vast tide
Of the bright rocking Ocean sets to shore
At the full moon; tears gathered in his eyes;
For he remembered his own early youth,
And all its bounding rapture; as, at dawn, 620
The shepherd from his mountain-lodge descries
A far, bright city, smitten by the sun,
Through many rolling clouds-so Rustum saw
His youth; saw Sohrab's mother, in her bloom;
And that old king, her father, who loved well
His wandering guest, and gave him his fair
child

And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom,
On the mown, dying grass-so Sohrab lay,
Lovely in death, upon the common sand.
And Rustum gazed on him with grief, and
said:-
640

"O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son Whom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have loved.

Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else men
Have told thee false-thou art not Rustum's

son.

For Rustum had no son; one child he had-
But one-a girl; who with her mother now
Plies some light female task, nor dreams of

us

Of us she dreams not, nor of wounds, nor war." But Sohrab answered him in wrath; for now The anguish of the deep-fixed spear grew fierce, 650

O boy-thy father!—and his voice choked there.
And then a dark cloud passed before his eyes,
And his head swam, and he sank down to earth.
But Sohrab crawled to where he lay, and cast
His arms about his neck, and kissed his lips,
And with fond faltering fingers stroked his
cheeks,

And he desired to draw forth the steel.
And let the blood flow free, and so to die—
But first he would convince his stubborn foe;
And, rising sternly on one arm, he said:-
"Man, who art thou who dost deny my Came back to Rustum, and he oped his eyes,
words?

Truth sits upon the lips of dying men,

Trying to call him back to life; and life

And they stood wide with horror; and he seized
In both his hands the dust which lay around,

And falsehood, while I lived, was far from And threw it on his head, and smirched his mine.

hair,

701

If thou show this, then art thou Rustum's The doom which at my birth was written down "" son. In Heaven, and thou art Heaven's unconscious hand.

671

Then, with weak hasty fingers, Sohrab loosed His belt, and near the shoulder bared his arm, And showed a sign in faint vermilion points Pricked; as a cunning workman, in Pekin, Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase,

An emperor's gift-at early morn he paints, And all day long, and, when night comes, the lamp

710

Surely my heart cried out that it was thou,
When first I saw thee; and thy heart spoke too,
I know it! but fate trod those promptings
down

Under its iron heel; fate, fate engaged
The strife, and hurled me on my father's spear.
But let us speak no more of this! I find
My father; let me feel that I have found!

Lights up his studious forehead and thin | Come, sit beside me on this sand, and take

hands

So delicately pricked the sign appeared
On Sohrab's arm, the sign of Rustum's seal.
It was that griffin, which of old reared Zal,
Rustum's great father, whom they left to die,
A helpless babe, among the mountain-rocks; 681

My head betwixt thy hands, and kiss my cheeks, And wash them with thy tears, and say: My son!

720

Quick! quick! for numbered are my sands of life,

And swift; for like the lightning to this field

When they saw Rustum's grief; and Ruksh, the
horse,
730
With his head bowing to the ground and mane
Sweeping the dust, came near, and in mute woe
First to the one, then to the other moved
His head, as if inquiring what their grief
Might mean; and from his dark, compassionate
eyes,

The big warm tears rolled down, and caked the
sand.*

They followed me, my hope, my fame, my star. But Rustum chid him with stern voice, and Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace. said:

"Ruksh, now thou grievest; but, O Ruksh,
thy feet

Should first have rotted on their nimble joints,
Or ere they brought thy master to this field!''
But Sohrab looked upon the horse and
said:-
741
"Is this, then, Ruksh? How often, in past
days,
My mother told me of thee, thou brave steed,
My terrible father's terrible horse! and said,
That I should one day find thy lord and thee.
Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane!
O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I;
For thou hast gone where I shall never go,
And snuffed the breezes of my father's home,
And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan,
And seen the River of Helmund, and the Lake
Of Zirrah; and the aged Zal himself

But me thou must bear hence, not send with
them,

But carry me with thee to Seistan,
And place me on a bed, and mourn for me,
Thou, and the snow-haired Zal, and all thy
friends.

790

And thou must lay me in that lovely earth,
And heap a stately mound above my bones,
And plant a far-seen pillar over all.
That so the passing horseman on the waste
May see my tomb a great way off, and cry:
Sohrab, the mighty Rustum's son, lies there,
Whom his great father did in ignorance kill!
And I be not forgotten in my grave."

And, with a mournful voice, Rustum re-
plied:-

750Fear not! as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son, So shall it be; for I will burn my tents,

And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me,

Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee And carry thee away to Seistan,
food,

Corn in a golden platter soaked with wine,
And said: O Ruksh! bear Rustum well!—but I
Have never known my grandsire's furrowed
face,

Nor seen his lofty house in Seistan,

Nor slaked my thirst at the clear Helmund stream;

760

But lodged among my father's foes, and seen
Afrasiab's cities only, Samarcand,
Bokhara, and lone Khiva in the waste,
And the black Toorkmun tents; and only drunk
The desert rivers, Moorghab and Tejend,

802

And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee,
With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends,
And I will lay thee in that lovely earth,
And heap a stately mound above thy bones,
And plant a far-seen pillar over all,
And men shall not forget thee in thy grave.
And I will spare thy host; yea, let them go!
Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace!
What should I do with slaying any more?
For would that all that I have ever slain
Might be once more alive; my bitterest foes, 810
And they who were called champions in their
time,

have

Kohik, and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep, And through whose death I won that fame I
The northern Sir; and this great Oxus stream,
The yellow Oxus, by whose brink I die."

And I were nothing but a common man,
A poor, mean soldier, and without renown,
So thou mightest live too, my son, my son!

- Compare the action of the horse of Achilles, Or rather would that I, even I myself,

Iliad, xix, end.

Might now be lying on this bloody sand,
Near death, and by an ignorant stroke of thine,
Not thou of mine; and I might die, not thou;
And I, not thou, be borne to Seistan; 820
And Zal might weep above my grave, not thine;
And say: O son, I weep thee not too sore,
For willingly, I know, thou met'st thine end!
But now in blood and battles was my youth,
And full of blood and battles is my age,
And I shall never end this life of blood."

His house, now 'mid their broken flights of
steps

Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side-
So in the sand lay Rustum by his son.

And night came down over the solemn waste,
And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair,
| And darkened all; and a cold fog, with night,
Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose
As of a great assembly loosed, and fires
Began to twinkle through the fog; for now 870

Then, at the point of death, Sohrab re- Both armies moved to camp, and took their

plied:"A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful man! But thou shalt yet have peace; only not now, Not yet! but thou shalt have it on that day, When thou shalt sail in a high-masted ship, 831 Thou and the other peers of Kai Khosroo, Returning home over the salt blue sea, From laying thy dear master in his grave. ' And Rustum gazed in Sohrab's face, and said:

meal;

The Persians took it on the open sands
Southward, the Tartars by the river marge;
And Rustum and his son were left alone.
But the majestic river floated on,
Out of the mist and hum of that low land,
Into the frosty starlight, and there moved,
Rejoicing, through the hushed Chorasmian
waste,

880

Under the solitary moon;-he flowed
Right for the polar star, past Orgunjè,2
Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands
begin

To hem his watery march, and dam his streams,
And split his currents; that for many a league
The shorn and parcelled Oxus strains along
Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles—
Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had
In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere,
A foiled circuitous wanderer-till at last
The longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wide
His luminous home of waters opens, bright 890
And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed
stars

Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.

How thick the bursts come crowding through And cold, besides, his blue blood ran,

I see the tail, like bracelet twirled,
In moments of disgrace uncurled,
12 Then at a pardoning word re-furled,
A conquering sign;