When great Asfandiyár had taken vengeance,
And saddled him the charger of Zarír,

He rode back proudly to the battlefield,
Formed three divisions of the Kaian host,
And gave one to the warrior Nastúr
Of glorious birth—the lustre of the troops;
The second—all Íránian warriors
And chieftains—he entrusted to his brother,
And kept the third beneath his own command,
Whose voice was as it were a thundering cloud.
Nastúr of stainless birth, the exalted chief,
And Núsh Ázar, the valiant paladin,
Both bound themselves together solemnly:—
“Although the foeman's sword shall cleave the earth
We will not come back from the fight alive,
And let those miscreants escape our grasp.”
When they had spoken thus and made secure
Their saddle-girths they went forth to the battle.
Now, as they urged their chargers from the lines,
The heroes and the young men of Írán
All came on too and decked the world with mail.
They slew so many horsemen that they cramped
The battlefield. The mill-wheels turned in blood
That streamed from hill and plain. Arjásp, beholding,
Advanced with his own chiefs and warriors.
Asfandiyár, the hero-slayer, couched
His lance against those dívs of Turkman race,
And sewed them breast to back till he had slain
Full many a haughty chief. Although the Khán
Saw none to aid, and none who dared oppose
Asfandiyár, but that his troops withdrew
Demoralised, he kept his post till eve
Amid the rout, then fled toward the waste.
The Íránians pressed the countless troops of Chín,
And slaughtered them in numbers everywhere,
For, strange to tell! not one showed pity there!