Vis and Ramin

CHAPTEK LVI
THE NINTH LETTER OF VIS TO RAMIN
"I HAVE a heart full of fire and a soul full of smoke, a form
wasted to the thinness of a hair, and a face tinted yellow
as gold. Every night I lay rny face on the ground before
God, and thus I bewail my fate: my crying mounts to
heaven ; the stars hear my sighing. I weep like a cloud in
I am washing
out with my tears the darkness of night. I make the earth
2
into clay as far as the back of the fish upon which the
world stands, 3 and I am agitated like the sea by the wind.
I tremble like a willow 4 in the breeze. 5
I sigh so pained in
spring; I cry out like a rock partridge. 1
heart that the moon loses its way in the sky for pity of me.
sad heart that from moun-
812 So much smoke rises from my |
tain to mountain dark smoke and cloud lies.
" Thus shamed, oppressed, wretched, woe-stricken, with
weeping eyes and sallow face, dusty lips, I am saddened,
and : say
'
Creator, without beginning, merciful, Auto-
and meek Thou art the strength of the
crat, 6 mighty !
weak, Thou art the Help and Succour of the poor
oppressed. Save Thee, there is no one to whom I
and
can
entrust my secret.
how I am afllicted.
I beseech Thine aid. Thou knowest
Thou knowest how my tongue is tied.
I entreat Thee, and from Thee I seek solace. Save my
soul
7
from the abyss. Lift from my heart the fetters of
1
Cacabi, 205, 296.
2
Var., davst'hkliri (dug out) for davafhiklilieb.
3 The Georgian popular belief is that the earth stands upon the
back of a fish.
* Tirip'hi, 23, 36, 92, 349.
7
PirVhagan from the jaws.
278
5 Niavi, 318. Nebiero.