eyes but bowls of tears?' She weeps, and pushes them from her. 'Away! women, you are not good; away! I say, sit apart from me. Let my jewels be neglected; let my red and blue garments be thrown aside, and my hair be unkempt and dusty. I have no need of friends like you; for he who was the friend of my heart has been taken captive by the cursed Turks. The Mughal Turks have taken him, and shut him up in a dreary prison in the wealthy town of Harrand!
"When the daughters of the Rinds form a band,[1] and come wandering over the mountain slopes invoking blessings as they go, they break the red flowers from their stalks, and some put them in their bodices and some hang them in their earrings, and some keep them as a pledge of love. One I pick with a prayer for my heart's desire. I pluck it and keep it tight closed in my hand, that he may be saved from his bitter enemies. His sister and love says, stretching out her hands to heaven: 'May God bring back Malik Dostèn to his true love again, this Dostèn and not the other!
"'O chestnut mare, away down below in the plains, come swiftly, by long stages, bring my lord and chief. Let him see his father and mother, and the loving assembly of his brethren. Let Malik Dostèn come and appear to me again.'"
Shīrèn heard the song and knew him, and cried out: "It is Dostèn who is singing that song." Then they all asked him who he was, and he said: "I am Dostèn." Then the other Dostèn who was to be married to her came forward and said: "Now that you have come and are present yourself, Shīrèn is your bride; take her and marry her, for she said she would marry no other but Dostèn, and now the real Dostèn has come." He also gave Dostèn all that he had spent on the wedding; and Dostèn and Shīrèn were married, and all else is well.
Note.—A translation of the poem given above was published by me with the other Balochi Poems in "A Sketch of the Northern Balochi Language" (extra No. of the Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society for 1881). It is given here with some corrections in order to complete the story.
- ↑ It is the custom of the women among the Hill Baloches to wander about the mountains in bands unaccompanied by any men.
