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 Kamar
la-Zaman opened the two bundles and fell to turning over his sons'
clothes and weeping, it so came to pass that he found, in the pocket of
his son As'ad's raiment, a letter in the hand of his wife enclosing her
hair strings; so he opened and read it and understanding the contents
knew that the Prince had been falsely accused and wrongously. Then he
searched Amjad's parcel of dress and found in his pocket a letter in
the handwriting of Queen Hayat al-Nufus enclosing also her
hair-strings; so he opened and read it and knew that Amjad too had been
wronged; whereupon he beat hand upon hand and exclaimed, "There is no
Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great! I
have slain my sons unjustly." And he buffeted his face, crying out,
"Alas, my sons! Alas, my long grief!" Then he bade them build two tombs
in one house, which he styled "House of Lamentations," and had graved
thereon his sons' names; and he threw himself on Amjad's tomb, weeping
and groaning and lamenting, and improvised these couplets,
"O moon for ever set this earth below, *
Whose loss bewail the stars which stud the sky!
O wand, which broken, ne'er with bend and wave *
Shall fascinate the ravisht gazer's eye;
These eyne for jealousy I 'reft of thee, *
Nor shall they till next life thy sight descry:
I'm drowned in sea of tears for insomny *
Wherefore, indeed in Sáhirah-stead[FN#374] I lie."
Then he threw himself on As'ad's tomb, groaning and weeping and
lamenting and versifying with these couplets,
"Indeed I longed to share unweal with thee, *
But Allah than my will willed otherwise:
My grief all blackens 'twixt mine eyes and space, *
Yet whitens all the blackness from mine eyes:[FN#375]
Of tears they weep these eyne run never dry, *
And ulcerous flow in vitals never dries:
Right sore it irks me seeing thee in stead[FN#376] *
Where slave with sovran for once levelled lies."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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