Three days and nights the opposing hosts—all men
Of name and eager for the fight—remained
Embattled face to face: thou wouldst have said:—
“No one's lip moveth!” Quoth Gúdarz: “If I
Yield to the foe my station, and advance,
They will assail my rear; I shall but grasp
The wind.”

Both night and day before the host

He stood in quest of favourable signs
From sun and moon. “Which is the auspicious hour,”
He thought, “for action when the wind of battle
Will blow and blind the Turkman horse with dust?
Then haply I may get the upper hand,
And lead the army onward like a blast.”
Pírán on his side waited anxiously
Until Gúdarz should seethe at heart with rage,
And by advancing leave his rear exposed
To those in ambush.

Came Gív's son, Bízhan,

The fourth day, from the rearward to the centre,
Came to his father's presence with his clothes
Rent, flinging up the dust to heaven and crying:—
“Why tarriest thou thus indelently here,
My veteran sire? The fifth day now approacheth,
Yet all is peace by day and night. The sun
Beholdeth not our warriors' scimitars,
And no dust riseth to obscure the sky.
Our cavaliers are in cuirass and helm,
And yet the blood hath stirred in no man's veins!
Once, after famous Rustam, in Írán
No cavalier was equal to Gúdarz;
But ever since the battle of Pashan,
And all the carnage of that mighty field,
When at Ládan he saw so many sons
Slain and Íránian fortune overturned,
He hath been liver-stricken, all distraught,
And indisposed to see another fight.
We must consider that the man is old,
And that his head is turned toward heaven above,
As one who counteth not his followers,
But reckoneth the stars around the moon.
Know that he now is bloodless and hath grown
Too feeble for the battles of the brave.
I wonder not at veteran Gúdarz,
Whose heart is no more set upon this world,
My wonder, O my father! is at thee,
From whom fierce Lions seek accomplishment.
Two hosts are looking at thee. Rouse a little
Thy brain to action and display thy wrath.
Now when the world is warm and air serene
The army should be ordered to engage,
For when this pleasant season shall be gone,
And earth's face bound as hard as steel with frost,
What time the hand is frozen to the spear,
With war in front of us and snow behind,
What warrior will come before the host
To challenge combat on this battlefield?
While if thou art afraid of ambushes,
Then of the soldiers and the men of war

Thou shouldst commit to me a thousand horse
Of mine own choosing, apt for fight, and we
Will raise our foemen's ambuscade in dust,
And send their heads cascading o'er the moon.”
Gív smiled to hear Bízhan, praised his brave son,
And said to God: “I give Thee thanks that Thou
Hast granted me a son so excellent,
And made him strong, God-serving, and discreet,
Versed in affairs and eager for the fray.
In this brave youth restored to me*

I have
The typic offspring of a paladin.
Thus said the lion to the lioness:—
‘Suppose our cub should prove a coward, we
Will own no love or consanguinity,
His dam shall be the dust, his sire the sea.’
Yet, O my son, impetuous in thy speech!
Loose not thy tongue against thy grandsire thus,
For he is wiser and experienced,
And is the leader of this noble host.
The veteran needeth not in aught a teacher.
If our own cavaliers have much to bear
The Turkmans are not very bright and fresh,
But luckless and dejected, with their eyes
Suffused with tears and livers full of blood.
This ancient veteran would have the Turkmans
Advance to battle. When they leave the hills
He will attack in force, and thou shalt see
How he will ply the whole march with his mace.
He watcheth too the aspects of the sky,
And, when the auspicious time shall come, will void
Earth's face of Turkmans.”

“Chief of paladins!”

Bízhan said, “if my glorious grandsire's purpose
Be such we need not carry Rúman mail.
I will depart, put off my fighting-gear,
And make my shrunken face rose-red with wine,
But when the chief of paladins hath need
Of me I will return in battle-weed.”