§ 33 How Gív slew Tazháv in Revenge for Bahrám

When bright Sol showed its back, Gív, heart-oppressed
About his brother, spake thus to Bízhan:—
“Joy of my heart! my brother cometh not!

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We must go forth and ascertain his case;
Let us not have to sorrow for the slain.”
The valiant pair departed swift as dust
Toward the battlefield—the place of strife.
They sought him everywhere and, having found him,
Rushed anxiously toward him, shedding tears
Of blood. He lay—a wreck of gore and dust;
One hand was severed; all was over with him.
The gallant Gív fell from his charger's back,
And roared out like a lion. At the sound
Bahrám moved, turned, and gaining consciousness
Spake thus to Gív: “O seeker after fame!
When thou hast shrouded me upon my bier
Avenge me on Tazháv; that Bull may not
Withstand the Lion. From the first Pírán,
The son of Wísa, proved a friend to me,
Unlike the chiefs of Chín who sought revenge,
And then Tazháv, the injurious, gave these wounds,
Forgetting birth and rank.”

Gív, when Bahrám

Had spoken this, wept tears of gall and said:—
“I swear by God the Judge Omnipotent,
By white day and by azure night that till
I shall avenge Bahrám my head shall see
No covering save a Rúman helm.”

All vengeance

And grief he mounted, Indian sword in hand.

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Now when the world's face dusked Tazháv returned
From outpost duty. Spying him afar
Brave Gív rode toward him with a freer breath
On seeing him thus parted from the host,
No chiefs or warriors near. Gív loosed his lasso,
And caught the foe about the waist forthwith,
Then placed the lasso 'neath his thigh, wheeled round,
And lightly dragged Tazháv from saddle-back,
Flung him to earth disgraced and all forlorn,
And springing from the saddle bound his hands.
Gív, mounting, like a madman haled Tazháv
Along the ground who begged for mercy, saying:—
“No fight is left in me, thou valiant man!
What have I done that of this countless host
Thou givest me to-night a glimpse of Hell?”
Gív struck him with the whip two hundred times
Across the head, and answered thus: “No words!
Dost thou not know, thou wretch! that thou hast set
A fresh tree in the garden of revenge—
One that will reach to heaven, one whose trunk
Is fed on blood while daggers are its fruit?
Since thou must hunt Bahrám thou shalt explore
The Crocodile's strait gullet, for the ill
That robbed Bahrám of life wrung Gív's heart too.”
“Thou art the eagle and the lark am I,”
Tazháv replied. “I bore Bahrám no grudge,
Nor caused his death; the cavaliers of Chín
Had slain him ere I came.”

“Pernicious wretch!”

Said Gív, “spare thine excuse and futile words.”

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Gív dragged him to Bahrám, the wounded Lion.
And said: “Behold this faithless head! I pay
The savage with the meed of savagery.
I thank the Maker, the Omnipotent,
That fate hath granted to me time enough
To take thy foeman's life before thine eyes.”
Tazháv begged quarter, saying: “That hath been
Which was to be. How will it profit thee
To take my head?”

Then wallowing in the dust

Before Bahrám he cried: “O noble man!
I will be thy soul's slave and wait upon
The keeper of thy tomb.”

Then said Bahrám

To Gív: “Whoever liveth hath to die.
Though he hath done me hurt he need not taste
The pangs of death, so spare his guilty head
That he may keep my memory alive.”
But Gív, who saw his brother with such wounds,
And him that did the hurt a captive, seized
Tazháv's beard with a shout and headed him
As 'twere a lark! Bahrám wept blood and marvelled
At heaven's processes, then raised a cry
Whose like, so strange it was, none ever heard:—
“If I shall slay, or thou slay in my presence,
My brothers or my kinsmen will be slain!”
This said, the brave Bahrám gave up the ghost.
'Tis ever thus with this world! He that would
Obtain the reins must bathe his hands in blood,
Slay or be slain! Shun thou ambition's mood.

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Brave Gív wailed o'er Bahrám and strewed dark dust
On his own head, then, having bound his brother
Upon Tazháv's steed, mounted presently.
He brought the body from the battlefield,
And had a royal sepulchre prepared.
He filled the skull with spicery and musk,
Enwrapped the corpse in silk of Chín, and set it
In royal state upon an ivory throne
To sleep, suspending over it a crown,
And painting the tomb's portal red and blue:
Thou wouldst have said: “Bahrám hath never been.”
The famous warriors were absorbed in grief
For fortune changed, and for Bahrám their chief.