Soon as the Visir observes the contest, He is fill’d with sorrow and with anger; Rushes on the falcon of Prince Marko, Flings him fiercely ’gainst a verdant fir-tree, And he breaks the falcon’s dexter pinion. Marko’s noble falcon groans in suffering, As the serpent hisses from the cavern. Marko flies to help his favourite falcon, Binds with tenderness the wounded pinion, And with stifled rage the bird addresses: “Woe for thee, and woe for me, my falcon! I have left my Servians—I have hunted With the Turks—and all these wrongs have suffer’d.” Then the hunters in their course pass’d by him— Pass’d him by, and left him sad and lonely. There his falcon’s wounds to heal he tarried— Tarried long amidst the mountain-forests. When the wounds were heal’d, he sprung on Sharaz, Spurr’d his steed, and gallop’d o’er the mountain; Sped as swiftly as the mountain Vila. Soon he leaves the mountain far behind him: Reaching then the gloomy mountain’s borders; On the plain beneath him, with his heroes— Turkish heroes twelve, the princely Marko The Visir descries, who looks around him, Sees the princely Marko in the distance, And thus calls upon his twelve companions: “Ye, my children! ye, twelve Turkish heroes! See ye yonder mountain-mist approaching, From the darksome mountain travelling hither? In that mountain-mist is princely Marko; Lo! how fiercely urges he his courser! God defend us now from every evil!” Soon the princely Marko reach’d the Moslems, From the sheath he drew his trusty sabre, Drove that arm’d Visir and all his warriors— Drove them from him—o’er the desert scatters, As the vulture drives a flock of sparrows. Marko soon overtakes the flying warriors, From his neck their chieftain’s head he sever’d; And the dozen youths his trusty sabre Into four-and-twenty halves divided. Then he stood a while in doubtful musing; Should he go to Jedren {95a} to the sultan— Should he rather seek his home at Prilip? {95b} After all his musings he determined: “Better is it that I seek the sultan; And let Marko tell the deeds of Marko— Not the foes of Marko—not the Moslems!”