Vis and Ramin

22 VISRAMIANI
the king became yellow and he was wroth. His coral-like
face became saffron-coloured with anger and affliction ;
quivered with enmity and rage like a willow in the
wind and like a sunbeam in water. He said to his
brother :
" Didst thou see with thine eyes what thouhast told me,
or hast thou heard it with thine ears from others ? Tell
me what thou hast seen, and not what thou hast heard.
24 Hiikumafhi 1 : The tidings are not like truth, | nor is it con-
ceivable that it has been seen.
" Tell me nothing thou hast heard, but relate to me
what thou didst plainly see."
His brother replied thus :
" Exalted 2 monarch ! I am not one of those who tell
what they have not seen, and speak superfluity. With
mine eyes have I seen what I have told thee, and much
of what I heard with my ears have I hidden. Hitherto
Shahro has seemed to me as my mother and Viro also as
my brother. Now I have no eyes to behold them, for I
am their foe for your sake. My head and body need no
heart. If
soul, if love and service to you be lacking in my
thou comrnandest and desirest, I will swear to thee by God
and your sun that I saw the wedding with mine eyes ;
but there have I neither eaten nor drunken because their
then-time drinking, merrymaking, and singing seemed to
me war against me and ; their palace decked like Paradise
(by your sun and goodness !) seemed to me a dark dungeon ;
the voice of the minstrels sounded to me in wrath like
an insult. 3 What I have seen that have I told you, and as
you command and counsel, we are slaves and earth,
hearkeners and followers of your command."
When Shah Moabad was a second time assured of the
truth of this story, load upon load of grief was heaped on
his back. Sometimes he twisted like a serpent with a
bruised head, and sometimes his heart bubbled like a jar
The magnates who were before
25 full of sweet (new) wine. |
1
8, 21.
8 Maghalo, 122 ; maghlisa, E., 32, 1198, 1240.
3 Or perhaps, "like an insult in wrath."
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