He spoke; and as he ceased, he wept aloud,
Thinking of her he left, and his own death. 
He spoke; but Rustum listen’d, plunged in thought. 
Nor did he yet believe it was his son 605
Who spoke, although he call’d back names he knew;
For he had had sure tidings that the babe,
Which was in Ader-baijan born to him,
Had been a puny girl, no boy at all—­
So that sad mother sent him word, for fear 610
Rustum should seek the boy, to train in arms—­
And so he deem’d that either Sohrab took,
By a false boast, the style deg. of Rustum’s son; deg.613
Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame. 
So deem’d he; yet he listen’d, plunged in thought 615
And his soul set to grief, as the vast tide
Of the bright rocking Ocean sets to shore
At the full moon; tears gather’d in his eyes;
For he remember’d his own early youth,
And all its bounding rapture; as, at dawn, 620
The shepherd from his mountain-lodge descries
A far, bright city, smitten by the sun,
Through many rolling clouds—­so Rustum saw
His youth; saw Sohrab’s mother, in her bloom;
And that old king, deg. her father, who loved well deg.625
His wandering guest, and gave him his fair child
With joy; and all the pleasant life they led,
They three, in that long-distant summer-time—­
The castle, and the dewy woods, and hunt
And hound, and morn on those delightful hills 630
In Ader-baijan.  And he saw that Youth,
Of age and looks deg. to be his own dear son, deg.632
Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand;
Like some rich hyacinth which by the scythe
Of an unskilful gardener has been cut, 635
Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed,
And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom,
On the mown, dying grass—­so Sohrab lay,
Lovely in death, upon the common sand. 
And Rustum gazed on him with grief, and said:—­ 640

“O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son
Whom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have loved. 
Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else men
Have told thee false—­thou art not Rustum’s son. 
For Rustum had no son; one child he had—­ 645
But one—­a girl; who with her mother now
Plies some light female task, nor dreams of us—­
Of us she dreams not, nor of wounds, nor war.”

But Sohrab answer’d him in wrath; for now
The anguish of the deep-fix’d spear grew fierce, 650
And he desired to draw forth the steel,
And let the blood flow free, and so to die—­
But first he would convince his stubborn foe;
And, rising sternly on one arm, he said:—­

“Man, who art thou who dost deny my words? 655
Truth sits upon the lips of dying men,
And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine. 
I tell thee, prick’d upon this arm deg.  I bear deg.658
That seal which Rustum to my mother gave,
That she might prick it on the babe she bore.” 660