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 when King
Shahriman had ended his verses, he returned with the troops to his
capital, giving up his son for lost, and deeming that wild beasts or
banditti had set upon him and torn him to pieces; and made proclamation
that all in the Khalidan Islands should don black in mourning for him.
Moreover, he built, in his memory, a pavilion, naming it House of
Lamentations; and on Mondays and Thursdays he devoted himself to the
business of the state and ordering the affairs of his levies and
lieges; and the rest of the week he was wont to spend in the House of
Lamentations, mourning for his son and bewailing him with elegiac
verses,[FN#324] of which the following are some:—
"My day of bliss is that when thou appearest; *
My day of bale[FN#325] is that whereon thou farest:
Though through the night I quake in dread of death; *
Union wi' thee is of all bliss the dearest."
And again he said,
"My soul be sacrifice for one, whose going *
Afflicted hearts with sufferings sore and dread:
Let joy her widowed term[FN#326] fulfil, for I *
Divorced joy with the divorce thrice-said."[FN#327]
Such was the case with King Shahriman; but as regards Queen Budur
daughter of King Ghayur, she abode as ruler in the Ebony Islands,
whilst the folk would point to her with their fingers, and say, "Yonder
is the son-in-law of King Armanus." And every night she lay with Hayat
al-Nufus, to whom she lamented her desolate state and longing for her
husband Kamar al-Zaman; weeping and describing to her his beauty and
loveliness, and yearning to enjoy him though but in a dream: And at
times she would repeat,
"Well Allah wots that since my severance from thee, *
I wept till forced to borrow tears at usury:
'Patience!' my blamer cried, 'Heartsease right soon shalt see!' *
Quoth I, 'Say, blamer, where may home of Patience be?'"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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