And like an infant strained them to her breast.
Day after day, night after night, she gave way to her helpless grief. Unceasingly she raved and wept by turns for one long year, then nature gave way, and she found rest in the arms of Death—“the great Consoler.”
CHAPTER XIII.
ISFENDIYĀR.
THE HEFT-KHĀN OF ISFENDIYĀR—THE BRAZEN FORTRESS—THE CONFLICT WITH RUSTEM—THE FALL OF THE WARRIORS.
“Rustem had seven great labors—wondrous power
Nerved his strong arm in danger’s needful hour.
And now Firdusī’s legend strains declare
The seven great labors of Isfendiyār.”
When the old Persian king, Kai-Khosrou, abdicated in favor of his successor, he gave to Rustem the dominions of Zabūl, and Kabūl and Nimruz, and in course of time Gushtāsp,[[258]] the Constantine of the Fire-worshippers, came to the throne of Persia. This monarch had two sons. One of them was Bashūtān, and the other was Isfendiyār, a knight whose valor was only second to that of Rustem. He had led his father’s armies in many a long campaign—had invaded Hindūstān and Arabia, and several other countries, and had, to a greater or less extent, established the religion of the Fire-worshippers in them all. But Arjasp, a demon king, had invaded the Persian empire, and carried captive two daughters of Gushtāsp. The fair prisoners were confined in a brazen fortress on the top of an almost inaccessible mountain, which was also the palace home of Arjasp, and he required the most servile labor from the Persian maidens.