[25] An instrument like a guitar.

[26] The song in which the bard praises the beauty of Chandud-Chanum is wanting.  A certain carelessness is seen generally in the rest of the narrative.

David departed straightway and went by way of Sassun and the Heights of Zoezmak.  He found a plough[27] standing in his way.  He freed the oxen, seized the plough-chain, mounted his horse, and dragged the plough down.  And it fell from the summit of the Black Mountain plump into the aqueduct of the village of Marnik.

[27] The Armenians use, in ploughing, a kind of plough which is drawn by from five to ten pairs of buffaloes or oxen.

He drew on and perceived that a buffalo had got loose and run along the road and left its dung there.  David looked at the dung and said:  “If evil befalls me he is guilty of it who left the dung there; if not, it is also his work that it befalls me not.”

From a side-path appeared a buffalo, and David had never seen the like before.  He lifted his club to slay him when from the opposite side a shepherd came and began to scold the buffalo.  David thought the shepherd was scolding him and said, “Fellow, what have I done to you that you rail at me?”

The shepherd answered:  “Who are you?  Ah, you are a Sassun brawler who has seen nothing of the world!  I spoke to my buffalo.”

“Don’t be angry, youngster!  It is a shame, indeed, that in my country I have never seen the like.  Are there many such creatures in these parts?”

The shepherd said, “Come, and I will show you.”

And they went to the field of Ausut, where the peasants hitched their buffaloes and drove them.  David found the buffaloes with tongues lolling from the heat as they drew the plough.  David felt pity for them; he unhitched them and drove them to the pond.

The ploughman began to curse him, and he said:  “Ploughman, curse me not; only give me the chain into my hand.”

He seized the chain and began to draw; the ploughman guided the plough and David ploughed nine furrows.  Then the shepherd said to David:  “That is not thy strength.  Leave thy horse and then draw.  We shall see whether it is thine or thy horse’s strength.”

David left his horse and ploughed nine furrows alone.

The shepherd then said to David:  “It is already noon.  Come now and eat, then thou canst go on thy way!”

David answered:  “No, I will ride on.  Thy children want to eat, and if I come nothing will remain for them.”

However, they sat down and when the dinner was set out David crumbled all the bread and the vessels all at once, and the shepherd said:  “Here, hide yourselves or he will devour us also.”

David said:  “Surely, brother, he who drags the plough must eat bread.  How could it be otherwise?”

And he went his way to the city where Chandud-Chanum dwelt.

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