“But this is what we thought, · as our Maker knows above: That the child might gain more knowledge, · and with it gain our love, To show him all our shepherd’s craft, · as with flocks and herds we move;-- But still the power is thine to grant, · and thine to disapprove.” And then they said so much · with words so smooth and fair, And promised him so faithfully · with words of pious care, That he gave them up his child; · but bade them first beware, And bring him quickly back again, · unharmed by any snare.[153] [153] The passage I have translated is in Coplas 5-7, in the original manuscript, as it now stands, imperfect at the beginning. Dijieron sus filhos: · “Padre, eso no pensedes; Somos diez ermanos, · eso bien sabedes; Seriamos taraidores, · eso no dubdedes; Mas, empero, si no vos place, · aced lo que queredes. “Mas aquesto pensamos, · sabelo el Criador; Porque supiese mas, · i ganase el nuestro amor, Enseñarle aiemos las obelhas, · i el ganado mayor; Mas, enpero, si no vos place, · mandad como señor.” Tanto le dijeron, · de palabras fermosas, Tanto le prometieron, · de palabras piadosas, Que el les dió el ninno, · dijoles las oras, Que lo guardasen a el · de manos enganosas. Poema de José, MS. When the brothers have consummated their treason, and sold Joseph to a caravan of Egyptian merchants, the story goes on much as it does in the Koran. The fair Zuleikha, or Zuleia, who answers to Potiphar’s wife in the Hebrew Scriptures, and who figures largely in Mohammedan poetry, fills a space more ample than usual in the fancies of the present poem. Joseph, too, is a more considerable personage. He is adopted as the king’s son, and made a king in the land; and the dreams of the real king, the years of plenty and famine, the journeyings of the brothers to Egypt, their recognition by Joseph, and his message to Jacob, with the grief of the latter that Benjamin did not return, at which the manuscript breaks off, are much amplified, in the Oriental manner, and made to sound like passages from “Antar,” or the “Arabian Nights,” rather than from the touching and beautiful story to which we have been accustomed from our childhood. Among the inventions of the author is a conversation which the wolf--who is brought in by his false brethren, as the animal that had killed Joseph--holds with Jacob.[154] Another is the Eastern fancy, that the measure by which Joseph distributed the corn, and which was made of gold and precious stones, would, when put to his ear, inform him whether the persons present were guilty of falsehood to him.[155] But the following incident, which, like that of Joseph’s parting in a spirit of tender forgiveness from his brethren[156] when they sold him, is added to the narrative of the Koran, will better illustrate the general tone of the poem, as well as the general powers of the poet.