befallen. He told them all the mournful tale, and they mixed their tears with his. He enjoined a cessation of war with the Turks, and sent his brother Sewâreh to Hoomân, to say that they might depart in peace. He menaced Hoomân, whose artifices, he said, had caused the death of Soohrâb; but the Turk threw all the blame on Hejeer, whom Roostem would have slain, but for the surrounding chiefs.

Roostem returned to his dying son, attended by the chiefs of the Iranian host. They all strove in vain to console him he drew his sword, and would have slain himself, but the chiefs caught hold of him, and the words of Gûders brought him to composure. He then prayed Gûders to go to the Shah, and ask him to send some of his precious balsam, so efficacious in the cure of wounds, and with it a cup of wine. Gûders

hasted to the Shah; but Kâoos said, “If the youth recover, he will slay Roostem; and then who is there to defend me, against whom all his vengeance is directed? Thou heardest how he shouted out,'Who is this Kâoos?' and how he swore, 'With this lance will I slay him.' He doth evil who sustaineth his foe. I will never do aught to benefit him." Gûders brought the words of the Shah to Roostem; and the hero himself was on the way to him, when a messenger overtook him, with tidings that his son had expired. "A coffin, not a throne, he now asks of thee: he sought his father, gave a deep sigh, and closed his eyelids."

When the Pure One heard these words, he tore his cheeks and hair, he flung himself from his horse, and cast dust on his head. He lamented for his son, and deplored his own hard fate, who had done a deed unheard of on earth,—a deed to cover his name with infamy, and draw on him the reproaches of his parents, the noble Zâl and the prudent Roodâbeh.

Roostem returned, and clad his son in a royal robe he ordered the ivory car to be brought, and a coffin to be prepared: he then returned to the camp. They kindled a fire, and burned the tent, the throne, and the saddle of Soohrâb, and all the host cast dust on their heads, and uttered loud cries of grief. The Pahluwâns sat by Roostem, and mingled their tears with his: their cheeks were pallid with mourning: they assayed to console the Pure One in his affliction. They said, "How long wilt thou consume thyself? It is the will of Heaven in one hand the crown, in the other the noose; settest thou that on thy head, this quickly snatches thee away. War is like the sea; now it yields pearls, now stones and sand. Destiny never gives an account of the how and the wherefore." The Shah, when he heard of the death of Soohrâb, came and beheld Roostem lying on the ground, with his garments rent. He said, "From Mount Elburz unto the ocean, all befalls as Destiny has decreed: one endeth sooner, another later; in the end, we all are Death's. And wert thou to draw the heaven down to earth, and

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cast fire into the world, still thou wouldst never bring back the departed: his immortal part is in yonder world. Alas! for these arms and this breast! from afar I beheld them, and was amazed that such a warrior should be among the Turks. Long did he fight against our host: at length he fell before thee. The evil is come by the decree of Fate how long wilt thou weep for the departed?"

At the desire of Roostem, the Shah drew off the host of Irân, and suffered the Turks to retire unmolested, and the Pure One set forth for Sâbulistan with the corse of his son. When Zâl beheld the coffin from afar, he dismounted from his horse, and shed tears for the untimely fate of the youth. Roostem placed the coffin in his palace; he raised the lid, and displayed to Zâl and Roodâbeh the beauty and the size of Soohrâb; and they wept, and all their attendants with them, and the palace was filled with mourning, as if the noble Zâl lay on his bier. Roostem said, "I will raise him a golden monument:" and he made a vault under the ground, and placed him in it, and again they lamented the renowned youth, and closed over him the tomb. 'Thus is it decreed for this world; the riddle will never be solved; never wilt thou find the key, for no one may open that which is closed.'

Hoomân led back his host to Toorân, and the mother of Soohrâb heard of the fate of her son. She wrang her hands, she tore her hair, she burned