And then he turn’d, and sternly
spake aloud:—
“Rise! wherefore dost thou vainly
question thus
Of Rustum? I am here, whom thou
hast call’d
By challenge forth; make good thy vaunt,
or yield.
Is it with Rustum only thou would’st
fight? 365
Rash boy, men look on Rustum’s face
and flee.
For well I know, that did great Rustum
stand
Before thy face this day, and were reveal’d,
There would be then no talk of fighting
more.
But being what I am, I tell thee this;
370
Do thou record it in thine inmost soul,
Either thou shalt renounce thy vaunt,
and yield;
Or else thy bones shall strew this sand,
till winds
Bleach them, or Oxus with his summer floods,
Oxus in summer wash them all away.”
375
He spoke; and Sohrab answer’d, on
his feet:—
“Art thou so fierce? Thou
wilt not fright me so.
I am no girl, to be made pale by words.
Yet this thou hast said well, did Rustum
stand
Here on this field, there were no fighting
then, 380
But Rustum is far hence, and we stand
here.
Begin: thou art more vast, more dread
than I,
And thou art prov’d, I know, and
I am young,—
But yet success sways with the breath
of heaven,[33]
And though thou thinkest that thou knowest
sure 385
Thy victory, yet thou canst not surely
know.
For we are all, like swimmers in the sea,
Pois’d on the top of a huge wave
of Fate,
Which hangs uncertain to which side to
fall.
And whether it will heave us up to land,
390
Or whether it will roll us out to sea,
Back out to sea, to the deep waves of
death,
We know not, and no search will make us
know:
Only the event will teach us in its hour.”
[Sohrab avoids Rustum’s blow. Rustum falls on the sand, and has his life spared by his son.]
He spoke, and Rustum answer’d not,
but hurl’d 395
His spear: down from the shoulder,
down it came,
As on some partridge in the corn a hawk
That long has tower’d in the airy
clouds
Drops like a plummet;[34] Sohrab saw it
come,
And sprang aside, quick as a flash:
the spear 400
Hiss’d, and went quivering down
into the sand,
Which it sent flying wide: then Sohrab
threw
In turn, and full struck Rustum’s
shield: sharp rang,
The iron plates rang sharp, but turn’d
the spear.
And Rustum seiz’d his club, which
none but he 405
Could wield; an unlopp’d trunk it
was, and huge,
Still rough; like those which men in treeless
plains
To build them boats fish from the flooded
rivers,
Hyphasis or Hydaspes,[35] when, high up
By their dark springs, the wind in winter-time
410
Has made in Himalayan forests wrack,[36]
And strewn the channels with torn boughs;