122
Calm thy heart, believe me, I cannot take thee! I cannot! I cannot!
765. "Since I am a lover I must run mad alone in the fields.[1] Should not one with blood-stained tears roam alone! Errantry is the business of lovers; how can one wait till he is grown old? This world is such, be thou assured thereof and submit.
766. "When I am far from thee, think of me, love me.[2] I fear not my foes; I shall take care of myself.[3] A brave man[4] must be of good cheer, he must not mope in grief; I hate when a man hesitates at no shameful deed.[5]
767. "I am such an one as will not gather cucumbers in this world as an old man,[6] one to whom death for a friend seems a sport and a play. I have left my sun, she grants me leave, why should I linger! Then, if I can bear to go from mine own home, whose can I not bear (to leave)?
768. "Now I give thee my testament addressed to Rosten. I will confide thee to him, and entreat him to care for thee as befits one brought up by me. Should I die, slay not thyself; do not the deed of Satan;[7] weep thereupon, fill the channel[8] of the eyes."
XXI
THE TESTAMENT OF AVT'HANDIL TO KING ROSTEVAN WHEN HE STOLE AWAY
769. He sat down to write the will, thus piteously inditing: "O king! I have stolen away in quest of him I must seek. I cannot remain sundered from him, the
- ↑ M., xii. 38.
- ↑ "Hold (fast) to my love!"
- ↑ T'havi monad momimondes, as a slave I shall do for myself the duty of a slave.
- ↑ Mamatzi, hero.
- ↑ Ara, ar, two negatives.
- ↑ berad—? i.e., toothless, and unable to chew them.
- ↑ The deed done by Satan; for suicide cf. 728, 815, 854, 1169, 1278a, 1279.
- ↑ Mili, irrigation canal. This word is found in the Alarodian cuneiform inscriptions as pili, 284, 1435; "put a channel in the eyes."
