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Publications By Hamiit Qliji Berai |
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From Sidar Ikbal Ali Shah's 'Afghanistan of the Afghans'
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At last people thought to devise a plan to acquaint the Princess of the stone-cutter's love. She saw him once, and love which lived in his bosom also began to breathe in hers. But she dared not a mean laborer aspire to win the hand of a princess? It was not long, however, before the Shah himself heard some rumor of this extraordinary exchange of sentiment. He was naturally indignant at the discovery, but as he had no child other then Shirin, and Shirin was also pining away with love, he proposed to his daughter that her lover, being of common birth, must accomplish a task such as no man may be able to do, and then, and only then, might he be recommended to his favor. |
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The task which he skillfully suggested was that Shirin should ask her lover to dig a canal in the rocky land among the hills. The canal must be six lances in width and three lances deep and forty miles long! The Princess had to convey her father's decision to Farhad, who forthwith shouldered his spade and started off to the hills to commence the gigantic task. He worked hard and broke the stones for years. He would start his work early in the morning when it was yet dark and never ceased from his labor till, owing to darkness, no man could see one yard on each side. |
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The Viziers suggested that an old woman should be set to Farhad to tell him that Shirin was dead; then, perhaps, Farhad would become disheartened and leave off the work.
I weep for a deceased, she said, and for you. For a deceased and for me? asked the surprised Farhad. And how do you explain it? Well, by brave man, said the pretender sobbingly, you have worked so well, and for such a long time, too, but you have labored in vain, for the object of you devotion is dead!
"What!" cried the bewildered man, "Shirin dead?"
Such was his grief that he cut his head with the sharp taysha(spade) and died under the carved streamed into his canal was his own blood. When Shirin heard this she fled in great sorrow to the mountains where lay her wronged lover; it is said that she inflicted a wound in her own head at the precise spot where Farhad had struck himself, and with the same sharp edge of the spade which was stained with her lover's gore. No water ever flows into the canal, but two lovers are entombed in one and the same grave. |
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Shirin secretly visited him and watched the hard working Farhad sleeping with his taysha(spade) under his head, his body stretched on the bed of stones. She noticed, with all the pride of a lover, that he cut her figure in the rocks at each six yards and she would sigh and return without his knowing. Farhad worked for years and cut his canal; all was in readiness but his task was not yet finished, for he had to dig a well in the rocky beds of the mountains. He was half- way through, and would probably have completed it, when the Shah consulted his courtiers and sought their advice. He is artifice had failed. Farhad had not perished in the attempt, and if all the conditions were in the attempt, and if all the conditions were in the attempt, and if all the conditions were fulfilled as they promised to be soon, his daughter must go to him in marriage. |
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