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 wouldst fight?
Rash boy, men look on Rustum’s face and flee.’”
Then follows the combat, Homerically intermingled with a great deal of talk between the champions, until Sohrab falls mortally wounded by his father’s spear. Then come the explanations, and Rustum knows that he has slain his son.
“And with a heavy groan, Rustum replied:—
‘Oh that its waves were flowing over me!
Oh that I saw its grains of yellow silt
Roll tumbling on the current o’er my head!’
“And with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied: