The Hunt with the Harpist

He cared for nothing but the polo field and the hunt: sometimes the strike of the mallet, sometimes the chase. So it happened that one day, without any company, he went to the hunting ground with a harp player. The name of that free-spirited Roman girl was Azadeh, whose cheeks had lent their color to wine. He mounted his galloping steed, that free and slender cypress with a harp in her hand at his side. She was his comfort and his heart's desire; he always carried her name on his lips. On hunting days she would ask for the camel-horse whose back she draped in fine brocade. Four stirrups hung down from it, and he rode it hard up the heights and down the slopes. Two of its stirrups were gold, two silver, and every one of them was studded with jewels. Beneath his quiver he kept clay pellets for the bow; the brave man was skilled in every art. A pair of gazelles came into his path, and the young man said, laughing, to Azadeh: My moon, once I string the bow and knot the thumb-guard tight, which gazelle would you have me bring down with an arrow? The doe is young, and her mate is old. Azadeh said to him: Brave lion of a man, men do not seek battle with a gazelle. Turn that doe into a buck with your arrow, and make the old buck a doe with your shot. Then spur the steed on hard, and when the gazelle takes flight from you, cast a clay pellet so it lifts a hoof, careless, up to its ear on its shoulder. The moment the pellet makes its ear itch, it will raise its foot to its shoulder without pain. Pin its head, its foot, and its ear together with a single shaft, if you want me to call you the light of the world. Bahram Gur strung his bow and stirred up a storm across the quiet plain. In his quiver he had one arrow tipped with two heads, kept for the hunt out on the plain. The instant the gazelle turned to flee, the warrior aimed at the sharp horns of that buck. With that twin-headed arrow he cut the horns clean off its head, and the girl was left astonished at him. In one moment the buck became a doe; its head went smooth and dark where the horns had been. Then that huntsman drove two arrows into the doe's brow in the very same way, two shafts standing like horns from her head, her chest turned ruby-red with blood. He galloped the steed toward the other pair and fitted pellet after pellet to the bend of his bow. He struck one gazelle in the ear, and it landed well, right where it should. At once the gazelle scratched at its ear, and the sorcerer's bow brought it into range of the arrow. He pinned its head, ear, and foot with the shaft, and Azadeh's heart burned with pity for the gazelle. Bahram raised his hand, and knocked her from the saddle, flinging her headlong to the ground. He drove the camel-horse over that moon-faced girl, and its hooves and claws splashed her in blood. He said: You witless harp player, why did you have to test me for a slip? If my aim had been clumsy, my noble name would have been shamed by these shots. Once he had trampled her beneath the steed's feet, he never again took a girl along to the hunt.