Mahmood

When King Kay Khosrow dissolved into the realm of the unseen after bathing in the holy spring, the noble champions who had refused to turn back halted by the waters. They consumed what little provisions remained and soon succumbed to heavy slumber. Suddenly, a monstrous cloud swept over the skies, bringing forth a tempest of blinding snow. The icy gales piled white drifts so vast that even the towering lances of the legendary heroes vanished beneath the frozen blanket. One by one, the champions struggled helplessly in the deep, treacherous abyss of snow until their strength gave way, and their sweet souls departed their freezing frames.

Meanwhile, atop the high mountain ridge, Rostam, Zal, the aged Gudarz, and a remnant of horsemen waited faithfully for three days. On the fourth morning, as the sun illuminated the frozen peaks, dread settled into their hearts. They pondered whether the King had been swept away like the mountain wind and wondered why their companions had failed to heed Khosrow's warnings. They tarried upon the ridge for an entire week until starvation and grief drove them to absolute despair. Gudarz tore his white hair, clawed at his cheeks, and wept aloud, grieving that his entire noble bloodline—his heroic sons and grandsons who had fought tirelessly to avenge Prince Siyavash—had now been utterly consumed by this tragedy.

Zal offered words of profound wisdom, invoking the eternal justice of God and pointing out that remaining on the barren, foodless peak meant certain death. Reluctantly, the tearful survivors descended the mountain, mourning their kin and their vanished King. And so the poet reflects upon the harsh nature of the cosmos: a fleeting realm that exalts one from the dark dust to the heavens, only to drag another down from the royal throne of the Kianians.