It happened strangely that Afrásiyáb
Had sped forth like a blast to view his steeds,
And brought with him wine, harps, and warriors
To merrymake upon the watered plain
Where every year the herdsman loosed the herds.
The monarch on arriving saw them not.
Then suddenly rose clamour, horse on horse
Passed, and Afrásiyáb saw far away
The dust of Rakhsh, and other noble chargers.
The ancient herdsman rushed up franticly
In evil plight and wounded by an arrow,
Then in amazement told Afrásiyáb:—
“Though single-handed, Rustam hath borne off
Our horse-herds, killed no few of us, and gone!”
The Turkmans clamoured: “He is all alone,
And we must arm, for this is past a jest.
Have we become so wretched, weak, and frail
That one can shed our blood? The very herds
Will shame thereat! We cannot let it pass.”
The monarch with four elephants and troops
Went in pursuit of Rustam who, when they
Had overtaken him, took from his arm
His bow and charged against them furiously.
He rained upon them, as the clouds rain hail,
Shafts from his bow and strokes from his steel sword.
He dropped his arrows and his scimitar,
When sixty gallant chiefs had been o'erthrown,
And taking up his mace slew forty more.
Afrásiyáb in dudgeon showed his back
While Rustam took the four white elephants.
The warriors of Túrán were in despair,
For Rustam came behind them with his mace,
And, like a cloud in spring, for two leagues onward
Rained blows like hail and beat in helms and casques.
He turned back, driving off the elephants
And herds, and took the baggage-train withal,
Yet when he went back to the spring at leisure
His valiant heart was ready still for fight!
The dív Akwán again encountered him,
And said: “Art thou not surfeited with strife?
Thou hast escaped the ocean and the claws
Of crocodiles, and come back to the waste
To battle. Now shalt thou behold thy fate,
For never shalt thou seek to fight henceforth.”
The peerless Rustam, hearing what the dív
Said, roared out like a lion of the fray,
Released his twisted lasso from its straps,
Flung it, and caught the dív about the waist;
Then Rustam, turning in his saddle, raised
His mace as 'twere the hammer of a smith,
And smote the dív like some mad elephant
Upon his head and smashed it, brains and neck;
The hero lighted, drew his blue steel sword
And cut the dív's head off, then offered up
Thanksgivings to Almighty God through Whom
He had achieved the victory that day.
Know thou that every one that is the thrall
Of ill, and offereth not to God his praise,
And whosoever doth transgress the ways
Of manhood, is a dív, not man at all.
The wisdom that rejecteth what I tell
May miss the goodly inner sense as well:
If then a paladin be full of might—
A man of lusty limbs and lofty height—
Let him, and not Akwán, thy hero be,
And let thy tongue tell tales of chivalry.
What sayest thou, O man exceeding old,
Experienced much in this world's heat and cold?
Who knoweth what vicissitudes will here
Betide us often in time's long career,
Time which by virtue of its length alone
Will bear away all that we call our own?
Who knoweth what yon turning vault's decree
Assigneth him of war or revelry?