The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 03 (of 10) — John Shaqi
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 03 (of 10)
General
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 03 (of 10)
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the Wazir Dandan
continued to Zau al-Makan: And the father of Taj al-Muluk spake to him
on this wise, "O my son, her father is a King whose land is far from
ours: so put away this thought and go into thy mother's palace where
are five hundred maidens like moons, and whichsoever of them pleaseth
thee, take her; or else we will seek for thee in marriage some one of
the King's daughters, fairer than the Lady Dunya." Answered Taj
al-Muluk, "O my father, I desire none other, for she it is who wrought
the gazelles which I saw, and there is no help but that I have her;
else I will flee into the world and the waste and I will slay myself
for her sake." Then said his father, "Have patience with me, till I
send to her sire and demand her in marriage, and win thee thy wish as I
did for myself with thy mother. Haply Allah will bring thee to thy
desire; and, if her parent will not consent, I will make his kingdom
quake under him with an army, whose rear shall be with me whilst its
van shall be upon him." Then he sent for the youth Aziz and asked him,
"O my son, tell me dost thou know the way to the Camphor Islands?" He
answered "Yes"; and the King said, "I desire of thee that thou fare
with my Wazir thither." Replied Aziz, "I hear and I obey, O King of the
Age!"; where upon the King summoned his Minister and said to him,
"Devise me some device, whereby my son's affair may be rightly managed
and fare thou forth to the Camphor Islands and demand of their King his
daughter in marriage for my son, Taj al-Muluk." The Wazir replied,
"Hearkening and obedience." Then Taj al-Muluk returned to his dwelling
place and his love and longing redoubled and the delay seemed endless
to him; and when the night darkened around him, he wept and sighed and
complained and repeated this poetry,
"Dark falls the night: my tears unaided rail * And fiercest
flames of love my heart assail:
Ask thou the nights of me, and they shall tell * An I find aught
to do but weep and wail:
Night long awake, I watch the stars what while * Pour down my
cheeks the tears like dropping hail:
And lone and lorn I'm grown with none to aid; * For kith and kin
the love lost lover fail."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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