You shall be for a warning, O hoopoe. I had given you more than gold-wages
If you had believed we not only had ears, I and Allah, but eyes!
"'Yet giving is fraught with forgiveness. Now therefore the crown you did covet
Is gone. You are healed of your pride; you shall live till the Angel of Death errs
From Allah's command. By my Ring-of-most-Magic the gold is transmuted.
Go forth! He has set for a sign on your brow a tiara of feathers.'
"So the hoopoe went forth in the glory of plumes that he won in this wise
And wears. Then the hunters, assembled from the uttermost quarters of Sham, should
Have shot, but did not, for they said: 'What a head! We will not waste an arrow
On sport of this sort. We are sold! We were told it was gold and....'"