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to him a sturdy horseman, and the young man said to him, ‘Tell me thy name and thy father’s name, for I have sworn to fight with none whose name and whose father’s name tally with mine and my father’s, and if it be thus with thee, I will give thee up the girl.’ ‘My name is Bilal,’[1] answered the other; and the young man repeated the following verses:
Thou liest when thou talkest of “benefits”; for lo, Thou comest with mischief and malice and woe!
So, an thou be doughty, heed well what I say: I’m he who the braver in the battle lays low
With a keen-cutting sword, like the horn of the moon; So look (and beware) for a hill-shaking blow!
Then they ran at one another, and the youth smote his adversary in the breast, that the lance-head issued from his back. With this, another came out, and the youth repeated the following verses:
O dog, that art noisome of stench and of sight, What is there of worth that to come by is light?
’Tis only the lion, of race and of might Right noble, recks little of life in the fight.
Nor was it long before he left him also drowned in his blood and cried out, ‘Who will come out to me?’ So a third horseman pricked out, reciting the following verses:
I come to thee, with a fire in my breast that blazes free, And call on my comrades all to the fight to follow me.
Though thou hast slain the chiefs of the Arabs, yet, perdie, Thou shalt not ’scape this day from those that follow thee!
When the youth heard this, he answered him, saying:
Thou com’st, like a right evil fiend that thou art, With a lie on thy lips and a fraud at thy heart;
This day shalt thou taste of a death-dealing dart And a spear that shall rid thee of life with its smart.
Then he smote him on the breast, that the spear-point
- ↑ i.e. benefits.
