But if he write fair
and scholarly, I will adopt him as my son, for surely I never yet
saw a more intelligent and well-mannered monkey than he. Would
Heaven my real son were his match in morals and manners!"
I took the reed and, stretching out my paw, dipped it in ink and
wrote, in the hand used for letters, these two couplets:
Time hath recorded gifts she gave the great,
But none recorded thine, which be far higher.
Allah ne'er orphan men by loss of thee
Who be of Goodness mother, Bounty's sire.
And I wrote in Rayhani or larger letters elegantly curved:
Thou hast a reed of rede to every land,
Whose driving causeth all the world to thrive.
Nil is the Nile of Misraim by thy boons,
Who makest misery smile with fingers five.
Then I wrote in the Suls character:
There be no writer who from Death shall fleet
But what his hand hath writ men shall repeat.
Write, therefore, naught save what shall serve thee when
Thou see't on Judgment Day an so thou see't!
Then I wrote in the character of Naskh:
When to sore parting Fate our love shall doom,
To distant life by Destiny decreed,
We cause the inkhom's lips to 'plain our pains,
And tongue our utterance with the talking reed.
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