Now when the Sultan heard the mournful voice he sprang to his feet; and, following the sound, found a curtain let down over a chamber-door. He raised it and saw behind it a young man sitting upon a couch about a cubit above the ground; and he fair to the sight, a well shaped wight, with eloquence dight; his forehead was flower-white, his cheek rosy bright, and a mole on his cheek-breadth like an ambergris-mite; even as the poet doth indite:— A youth slim-waisted from whose locks and brow ✿ The world in blackness and in light is set. Throughout Creation's round no fairer show ✿ No rarer sight thine eye hath ever met: A nut-brown mole sits throned upon a cheek ✿ Of rosiest red beneath an eye of jet.[113] The King rejoiced and saluted him, but he remained sitting in his caftan of silken stuff purfled with Egyptian gold and his crown studded with gems of sorts; but his face was sad with the traces of sorrow. He returned the royal salute in most courteous wise adding, "O my lord, thy dignity demandeth my rising to thee; and my sole excuse is to crave thy pardon."[114] Quoth the King, "Thou art excused, O youth; so look upon me as thy guest come hither on an especial object. I would thou acquaint me with the secrets of this tarn and its fishes and of this palace and thy loneliness therein and the cause of thy groaning and wailing." When the young man heard these words he wept with sore weeping;[115] till his bosom was drenched with tears and began reciting:— Say him who careless sleeps what while the shaft of Fortune flies ✿ How many doth this shifting world lay low and raise to rise? Although thine eye be sealed in sleep, sleep not th' Almighty's eyes ✿ And who hath found Time ever fair, or Fate in constant guise? Then he sighed a long-fetched sigh and recited:— Confide thy case to Him, the Lord who made mankind; ✿ Quit cark and care and cultivate content of mind; Ask not the Past or how or why it came to pass: ✿ All human things by Fate and Destiny were designed!