Page:Man in the Panther's Skin.djvu/165

 and worried me with its blood-shedding paws. I could bear no more; with enraged heart I killed it too.

892. "However much I soothed it, the panther became not calm. I grew angry, I brandished it, dashed it on the ground, shattered it. I remembered how I had striven with my beloved. (Yet) my soul tore not itself altogether out of me. Why, then, art thou astonished that I shed tears!

893. Behold, brother! I have told the woes that grieved me. Life itself befits me not. Why didst thou wonder that I am thus fordone? I am sundered from life, death is become shy of me." So the knight ended his story, sighed, and wept aloud. 



894. Avt'handil also wept with him and shed tears. He said: "Be patient, die not, rend not altogether thy heart. God will be merciful in this, though sorrow hath not shunned thee; if He had willed to part you, He would not first have united you.

895. "Mischance pursues the lover, embitters life for him; but to him who at first bears woe it yields joy at last. Love is grievous, for it brings thee nigh unto death; it maddens the instructed, it teaches the untaught."

896. They wept and went on; they wended their way to the cave. When Asmat'h saw them she rejoiced indeed; she met them, she wept, her tears wore channels in the rocks. They kissed and wept aloud; each pressed the other to tell his news again.

897. Asmat'h said: "O God, Thou who canst not be