The luxury of grief seems common to mankind all the world over, and the mourning of the Mohurrum finds its counterpart in the old lamentation for the slain Adonis, the emotional tale of Sohrab's death at the hand of his sire Rustom, and the long-drawn sorrow of the Christian Passion.

One of the few Cuchullin tales found in Scotland is that which relates his conflict with his son, and bears a striking similarity to the legend of Sohrab and Rustum.

It is a hundred years ago that a certain physician in the employment of the East India Company, who then represented British supremacy in Bengal and Calcutta, published the "Story of Sohrab," a poem in heroic couplets, being a translation of the most pathetic episode in the "Sháh Námeh."

The publication of "Sohrab" was nevertheless the revelation of a new world to London coteries, and the influence of Mr. Atkinson's work can be traced as well in the Persian pastorals of Collins as in the oriental poems of Southey and Moore.

This metrical version of "Sohrab" is the only complete episode of the Sháh Námeh contained in the present collection.

The language of his Sohrab recalls the pathos of Vergil's Nisus and Euryalus, and the paternal love and despair of Dante's Ugolino.

Of Arnold's narrative poems the two best known are Balder Dead (1855), an incursion into the field of Norse mythology which is suggestive of Gray, and Sohrab and Rustum (1853), which takes us into the field of legendary Persian history.

While he was gone his son Sohrab was born, grew to manhood, and became the hero of the Turan army.

Each army chose a champion, and Rustum and Sohrab found themselves matched in mortal combat between the lines.

At this point Sohrab, whose chief interest in life was to find his father, demanded to know if his enemy were not Rustum; but the latter was disguised and denied his identity.

On the first day of the fight Rustum was overcome, but his life was spared by a trick and by the generosity of Sohrab.

Sohrab died, the war ceased, and Rustum went home to a life of sorrow and remorse.

The classic influence on Sohrab and Rustum is especially noticeable in Arnold's use of materials.

Sohrab and Rustum, edited by Trent and Brewster, in Standard English Classics.

Read Sohrab and Rustum and write an account of it, having in mind the story, Arnold's use of his material, the style, and the classic elements in the poem.

Sohrab and Rustam and Balder Dead are Arnold's finest narrative poems.

Read Dover Beach, Memorial Verses, Stanzas in Memory of the Author of "Obermann" and Sohrab and Rustum (Page's British Poets of the Nineteenth Century, Bronson, IV., Manly, I.).

Wadd and Sohrab.

A description of one village will suffice for all, while the country between these two places is nothing but bare, stony desert, varied by occasional ranges of low rocky hills, and considerable tracts of cultivated land surrounding the villages of Gidar, Sohrab, and Rodingo, at each of which we were well received by the natives.

With the exception of a strike among our camel-drivers, which fortunately lasted only a few hours, and a dust-storm encountered a few miles from Sohrab, nothing worthy of mention occurred to break the monotony of the voyage till, on the morning of the 9th of April, we sighted the flat-roofed houses, mud ramparts, and towering citadel of the capital of Baluchistán.

Sohrab | 26 | Road difficult. Passed several steep, but not lofty, ranges of hills.

Fine, light south-east breeze 81° 86° April 7 Sohrab.

Father and son fight together unwittingly in "The Lay of Milon"; but Rustum had striven with Sohrab long before in far Persia, and Cuchulain with his child in Ireland.

Sohrab and Rustum.

Sohrab and Rustum.