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Bijan Fights the Wild Boars

Bijan Fights the Wild Boars

From C2.3, Bijan Goes to Fight the Wild Boars. It illustrates C2.3.24–34:

  • C2.3.24
    Then lion-like into the wood he passed;The bold man strung his bow and held it fast.
  • C2.3.25
    He roared like springtime thunder, harsh and loud;Leaves fell around him raining from the cloud.
  • C2.3.26
    Like a mad elephant he chased the boars,With tempered khanjar drawn amid their roars.
  • C2.3.27
    They charged him all together for the fight;Their tusks tore up the earth to left and right.
  • C2.3.28
    Their tusks struck fire out; and it seemed the worldWas burning where those blazing tusks were hurled.
  • C2.3.29
    A boar came on like Ahriman; it toreAnd ripped the jowshan Bijan’s body wore.
  • C2.3.30
    Like a steel file that grates on flinty stone,It sharpened on a trunk each tusk of bone.
  • C2.3.31
    They raised the very fire of battle high,And from that meadow smoke went up the sky.
  • C2.3.32
    He drove the khanjar to its head, straight through;Its elephant body was cleft in two.
  • C2.3.33
    Those bold beasts turned fox-like before the blade,Their bodies bloodied and their war-heart stayed.
  • C2.3.34
    He cut their heads off with the khanjar’s blow,And bound them to Shabrang’s proud saddle-bow.

In the picture

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