Rostam and Sohrab

Kay Kavus reads Gazhdaham's letter and sends Giv to Zabolestan: Rostam must come at once. Rostam laughs at the news. A rider like Sam among the Turks? He has a son by the princess of Samangan, he says, but the boy is still a child. He keeps Giv feasting for three days, and when they reach the court Kavus, furious at the delay, orders Tus to hang them both. Rostam knocks Tus aside and rides away. Only Gudarz brings him back, by warning him that people will say Rostam fears the Turk, and the Shah apologises.

The army camps before the White Castle. At night Rostam slips into the castle in Turkish dress and watches Sohrab at his feast. Zhendeh-Razm, the warrior Tahmineh sent to point out the father, catches the stranger and dies from one blow of Rostam's fist. In the morning Sohrab takes the captive Hojir up a height and asks who owns each tent and banner. When he comes to a green enclosure with a dragon banner and a tall man beside a huge horse, Hojir, afraid that Sohrab will seek out and kill Iran's champion, says it is an ally from Chin whose name he does not know. Rostam, he says, must be feasting in Zabolestan.

I am not Rostam

Sohrab charges the camp and tears down the Shah's tent. None of the Iranians will face him. Rostam rides out, and speaks to him gently. Sohrab's heart stirs. "I think you are Rostam," he says. "I am not Rostam," comes the answer, "nor of the seed of Sam." They fight with spears, swords and maces until the weapons break, then with bows, then each tries to drag the other from the saddle by the belt. Neither yields. Ferdowsi breaks in: beasts know their young, as do fish in the sea and wild asses on the plain, but a man in his greed cannot tell a son from an enemy.

Next morning Sohrab, who has seen in this man the signs his mother described, offers peace: let them sit down and drink, and let the old warrior tell him his name. Rostam refuses. They wrestle, and Sohrab throws Rostam and sits on his chest with a dagger. Rostam says that among his people a man does not take a head at the first fall, only at the second. Sohrab lets him go and rides off hunting. Human tells him he has freed a lion from the trap. Rostam washes in a stream and prays for victory.

The token

When they wrestle again, Rostam seizes Sohrab by the chest and neck, throws him, and, knowing he will not stay down, draws his dagger and tears open his son's side. "This came to me from myself," Sohrab says. "Fate gave you my key." Wherever his killer hides, as a fish in the sea or a star in the sky, his father Rostam will take revenge. Rostam asks what sign he has of Rostam. Sohrab tells him to open his armour. Rostam sees the mohreh on his son's arm, tears his clothes and covers his head with dust, and the chiefs stop him from killing himself.

Rostam sends Gudarz to Kay Kavus to ask for the nushdaru, the healing elixir in the royal treasury. Kavus refuses. If Sohrab lives, he says, he and Rostam together will be too strong for any king; did Rostam not once ask "Who is Kavus?" Rostam sets out to plead himself, but a rider overtakes him. Sohrab has gone from the world, and asks for a coffin, not a palace.

Rostam burns his tents and carries his son home to Zabolestan, walking ahead of the coffin with his clothes torn, while Zal weeps and the chiefs pour dust on their heads. He opens the coffin to show them his son, closes it again, and builds him a tomb shaped like a horse's hoof. Ferdowsi calls it a story full of tears, one that makes a tender heart angry with Rostam.