Vis and Ramin

RAMLYS REIGN 393
times in Khuzistan and Baghdad. Wherever he built castles
and cities, in every one of them he caused springs to flow.
One of the towns built by him is Ahvaza. 1 Then it was
called Ramin-Ahvarukmia, and now they call it Avaza.
There had not been a sovereign victorious like Ramin, nor
one so prudent He was so merry
that he first invented
2
the harp, as which none has invented from then till now
so pleasant a means of rejoicing. And on account of his
having first invented it they called it Ramin's harp. Ramin
was such in glory that there appeared none disobedient to
him.
Vis presented him with two sons, lovely as their mother
they became wise heroes. One was called
and father, | and
Khorshed, and the other Djimshed. They became desired
of all monarchs, and faultless in good qualities. The land
of Khavar was presented to Khorshed by his parents, and
the land of Bzot'har 3 to Djimshed. Khuarasan and
Khvarazmi 4 were assigned to one, and they gave to the
second the land of Sham, 6 of Egypt, and Qiroan. 7
They
kept for themselves Aran, Somkhit'hi, 8 and the whole of
Adrabadagan.
Ramin reigned long in glory, and all his desires and
prayers were fulfilled by God. They lived so long that they
saw their children's children.
Wlien Vis had been beside Ramin for eighty-one years,
she lost her strength through old age; she rejoiced at
death, for she had nothing more to desire save this inevitable
thing. She became bent like a bow, she withered and
became ugly. To one who has no enemy to try him Fate
itself suffices as a foe. However much Fate allots to a man,
at the last it acts towards him as his enemy could not act.
However much a man leans his back on Fate and trusts it.
at last it breaks his back with hopelessness. Though Via
liu'l found her heart's desire from Fate, at the end it so
befell, and Fate played the dastard, so that her seven
1 Ah waat.
*
Changi. BtoChar (?). Cf. 218.
4
Khvarazmi, 4, 6, 26. R., 889, 1648. 412. ? Daiuwciw.
T
160. ? Kairwan.
Eguipti, 284.
Armenia, 2, 120, 199.
' Idtabuna.