A Tale of a Warrior Friend

In Isfahan I once had a friend, a warrior, bold and sharp as a rogue. His hand and dagger were always stained with blood; the enemy's heart roasted on his fire like meat on a spit. I never saw a day he didn't strap on his quiver, when fire didn't fly from his steel arrowhead. A brave man with a grip strong as a bull; even lions trembled at the sight of him. When challenged, he loosed his arrows so well that he could pierce each one, one by one, dead center. No thorn ever sank into clay the way his arrowhead sank through paired shields. He struck a warrior's skull with the brick so hard that helmet and head fused into one. In battle he was a sparrow on the day of the locust: killing a man or a sparrow was all the same to him. Had he charged at Fereydun himself, he'd have given him no chance to draw a blade. By his crushing grip he brought leopards down, sinking his claws into the brains of lions. If he seized the war belt of any fighter, he'd tear him up though he were a mountain rooted in place. He'd strike an armored man like a battle-axe, cleaving through the rider and into the saddle. In courage and in humanity alike, no one ever heard of a second man like him in the world. He never let me out of his sight for a moment, for he kept the company of honest, upright souls. Then travel suddenly tore me from that land, for my time to live there had run out. Fate carried me from Iraq to Syria, and I found the stay in that pure soil pleasant. In short, I lingered there a while, through hardship and ease, through hope and fear. At last my cup of Syria was full, and longing drew me back toward home. Fate arranged it so that once again my road ran through Iraq. One night I sank into thought, and that skilled friend of mine crossed my mind. It reopened the old wound in me, for I had shared salt and bread with that man. So I went to Isfahan to see him, seeking him out with love and longing. But I found the young man aged by the turning of the world: his poplar-red youth withered pale, his bow slack. His head white as a snow-capped mountain, and from that snow of age the water of tears ran down his face. The heavens had laid a strong hand on him and twisted the arm of his manhood back. The world had driven the pride out of his head, bending the head of weakness down to his knee. I said to him, 'You who once seized lions, what has worn you down like an old fox?' He laughed and said, 'On the day of battle with the Tatars, I finally drove that fighting spirit out of my head. I saw the ground bristling with spears like a reed-bed, and the banners rising in it like flames. I raised the dust of battle like smoke, but when fortune is absent, what good is daring? I am the one who, when I charged, could lift a ring off a hand with the tip of my lance. But when my star gave me no help, they circled me the way a stone is set in a ring. I counted flight the wiser course, for only a fool sharpens his fist against fate. What use my helmet and my mail, when my bright star refused to aid me? When the key of victory is not in your hand, you cannot break open triumph by brute strength. A host that fells leopards, strong as elephants, men clad in iron down to their horses' hooves. The moment we saw the army's dust, we made our shirts of mail and our caps of helmets. We spurred our Arab horses on like storm clouds and poured down our polished blades like rain. The two armies crashed together from ambush; you'd have thought the sky had struck the earth. With arrows falling like hail, a storm of death rose up in every corner. To hunt the fierce lions eager for the fray, the lasso opened its dragon's jaws. The earth turned to a dark sky with dust, and in it the flash of sword and helmet gleamed like stars. When the enemy's horsemen overtook us, on foot we wove shield into shield. We split hairs with arrow and lance-point, but when fortune failed, we turned our faces to flee. What strength can a man's straining fist bring, when the arm of divine favor lends no aid? It was not that the heroes' swords were dull; it was that fate had turned fierce against us. No one came out of that battle from our ranks except with his war-coat soaked in blood. Like a hundred grains gathered in one ear of grain, we fell, each grain scattered to its own corner. Helplessly we surrendered to one another, like a fish caught on the hook while still in its armor. The arrow of others could not pierce even silk, though I had sworn my arrows could stitch through an anvil. When fortune had turned its face from us, a shield was nothing before the arrow of fate. Now hear a stranger truth than this: without luck, all effort isn't worth two barleycorns.'