Page:The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 05.djvu/47



At one time he is detached to charge the enemy with the lance, and at another he joins the large host with their bows tightly strung.

He who was present in the battle will inform you that verily I rush into battle, but I abstain at the time of taking the booty.

I see spoils, which, if I want I would win; but my bashfulness and my magnanimity hold me back from them.

And many a fully-armed one, whom the warriors shunned fighting with, neither a hastener in flight, nor a surrenderer;

My hands were generous to him by a quick point with a straightened spear strong in the joints; Inflicting a wound wide of its two sides, the sound of the flow of blood from it leads at night the prowling wolves, burning with hunger.

I rent his vesture with a rigid spear, for the noble one is not forbidden to the spears.

Then I left him a prey for the wild beasts, who seize him, and gnaw the beauty of his fingers and wrist.

And many a long, closely-woven coat of mail, I have split open the links of it with a sword, off one defending his rights, and renowned for bravery.

Whose hands are ready, with gambling arrows when it is winter, a tearer-down of the signs of the wine-sellers, and one reproached for his extravagance.

When he saw that I had descended from my horse, and was intending killing him, he showed his teeth, but without smiling.

My meeting with him was when the day spread out, and he was as if his fingers and his head were dyed with indigo.

I pierced him with my spear, and then I set upon him with my Indian sword pure of steel, and keen. A warrior, so stately in size as if his clothes were on a high