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686. The sun-like one said: "All my heart's desire is fulfilled: first thou art come in safety having found that which was lost, then the love implanted by me in thee has grown, I have found balm for my heart hitherto burned.
687. "Fate treats every man like the weather, sometimes there is sunshine and sometimes the sky thunders forth in wrath; hitherto grief has been upon me, now this gladness is my lot; since the world has joy in it why should any be sad!
688. "Thou dost well not to break the oath thou didst swear; it is necessary to fulfil strong love for a friend, to seek for his cure, to know the unknown.[1] (But) tell me, what shall I, luckless, do if the sun of my heaven be hidden!"
689. The knight replied: "By nearness (to thee) I have united to seven woes eight.[2] Vain is it for one who is frozen to blow on water to warm himself therewith; vain is the love, the kiss from beneath, of the sun at its setting.[3] If I be near thee, once is it woe, and if I go far from thee a thousandfold woe.
690. "Woe is me if I wander where, alas! the simoom[4] burns the roamer; my heart is the target of an arrow, a dart is shot to pierce it[5]; the term of my life seems by this day to be shortened to one-third[6]; I long for a refuge,[7] but the time is past for seeking shelter against troubles.
- ↑ Uiitzisa. Car. suggests ui itzisu, and interprets, "(all this) requires knowledge, and is accompanied by grief." Ch. reads uvitzisa: "the ignorant must have knowledge to seek," etc.
- ↑ ? or, "an eighth"; or, "more new woe than the sum of the old." Cf. 622, 633, 1563.
- ↑ Or, "vain is love when it is necessary to kiss basely (lowly) the sun which is lofty" (?).
- ↑ Samali; some read sam ali, three tlames. Car. suggests sadme ali: "somewhere (everywhere) is a flame." The four samali's with which the lines end furnish material for conjecture.
- ↑ Or, "a dart may perchance pierce it."
- ↑ Mr. Giorgidze (in Iveria, March 6, 1899) interprets: "Alas that I should go away, and the flame (of love) burn me elsewhere afar! My heart is the butt of an arrow which Satan shoots at me. The time of my life till to-day is a third.…" In the Svan folk-tales, Satan is called Samal (Samuel), and this seems to give some ground for Mr. Giorgidze's reading of line 2.
- ↑ Or, "I would (willingly) hide (dissimulate) it."
