-
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- Tariel’s Aid to P’hridon,
and Their
- Victory Over Their Foes
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- 612
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- "HE was healed, and able to fight and use horse and
- armour. We prepared galleys and the number of a host of
- troops; it needed a man to pray to God for some aid for
- those who gazed upon them.—Now will I tell thee of that
- knight's battle, the punisher of his adversaries.
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- 613
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- "I PERCEIVED their design, and saw them donning their
- headgear. Ships met me, I know not if there were eight in
- all; swiftly I threw myself upon them; they began to row;
- I struck one of the ships with my heel and upset it; like
- women they bewailed themselves.
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- 614
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- "I BETOOK myself to yet another, and seized the prow of
- the ship with my hand; I drowned them in the sea, I slew
- them; they had no opportunity for battle. The rest fled
- from me, they made for their harbour; all who saw me
- marvelled, they praised me, they hated me not.
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- 615
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- "WE crossed the sea, we landed. Mounted they threw
- themselves on us. Again we engaged; there began the
- vicissitudes of battle. P'hridon's bravery and agility
- pleased me then; in warfare a lion, in face a sun, that
- aloe-tree fought.
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- 616
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- "WITH his sword he cast down both his cousins, he cut
- their hands clean off; thus he crippled them; he led them
- away bound by the arms; the one did not abandon the two.
- He made their knights to weep, his knights to vaunt themselves.
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- 617
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- "THEIR soldiers fled from us, we threw ourselves upon
- them, we scattered them; swiftly we seized the city, we
- wasted not time; we broke their legs with stones, we tanned
- their skin to leather. Kill me, if it was possible to empty the
- treasure both by lading and stowing!
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- 618
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- "P'HRIDON inspected the treasures and put his seals
- upon them; he himself led away his two vanquished
- cousins; he shed their blood in exchange for his, and
- poured it out on the fields. Of me he said: 'Thanks to God
- who has planted aloe-trees!'
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- 619
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- "WE went back to P'hridon's. The triumph exhibited by
- the citizens was heard; jugglers there laid hold on the heart
- of beholders. All uttered praise to me and Nuradin, in a
- panegyric; they said to us: 'Through the strength of your
- right arms their blood still flows !'
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- 620
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- "THE soldiers acclaimed P'hridon as king and me as king
- of kings, themselves as subjects and me as sovereign of
- them all. I was gloomy, they could never find me culling
- roses; they knew not my story, there it was not lightly
- spoken of."
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