" But he
said: "Do not lie to me. The Wazir is thy father, not mine! Who then
is my father? Except thou tell me the very truth I will kill myself
with this hanger."
When his mother heard him speak of his father she wept,
remembering her cousin and her bridal night with him and all that
occurred there and then, and she repeated these couplets:
"Love in my heart they lit and went their ways,
And all I love to furthest lands withdrew,
And when they left me sufferance also left,
And when we parted Patience bade adieu.
They fled and flying with my joys they fled,
In very constancy my spirit flew.
They made my eyelids flow with severance tears
And to the parting pang these drops are due.
And when I long to see reunion day, ruth I sue.
My groans prolonging sore for ruth I sue.
Then in my heart of hearts their shapes I trace,
And love and longing care and cark renew.
O ye whose names cling round me like a cloak,
Whose love yet closer than a shirt I drew,
Beloved ones, how long this hard despite?
How long this severance and this coy shy flight?"
Then she wailed and shrieked aloud and her son did the like, and
behold, in came the Wazir, whose heart burnt within him at the sight
of their lamentations and he said, "What makes you weep?" So the
Lady of Beauty acquainted him with what happened between her son and
the schoolboys, and he also wept, calling to mind his brother and what
had past between them and what had betided his daughter and how be had
failed to find out what mystery there was in the matter.
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