[193-20] Sole means solitary, alone.
[193-21] Glass her means reflect her as in a mirror.
[195-22] He sees that this young men, as far as age and appearance are concerned, might be a son of his.
[196-23] Again Arnold departs from the Persian tale, in which Sohrab wears a bracelet or amulet on his arm. Arnold’s work gives a more certain identification.
[196-24] The griffin spoken of in note 13.
[200-25] The Persian tradition is that over the spot where Sohrab was buried a huge mound, shaped like the hoof of a horse, was erected.
[201-26] It is said that shortly after the death of Sohrab the king himself died while on a visit to a famous spring far in the north, and as the nobles were returning with his corpse all were lost in a great tempest. Unfortunately for Sohrab’s prophecy, Persian traditions do not include Rustum among the lost.
[204-27] This beautiful stanza makes a peculiarly artistic termination to the poem. After the storm and stress of the combat and the heart-breaking pathos of Sohrab’s death, the reader willingly rests his thought on the majestic Oxus that still flows on, unchangeable, but ever changing. The suggestion is that after all nature is triumphant, that our pains and losses, our most grievous disappointments and greatest griefs are but incidents in the great drama of life, and that, though like the river Oxus, we for a time become “foiled, circuitous wanderers,” we at last see before us the luminous home, bright and tranquil under the shining stars.