When he heard the poet singing,
Then the Moor’s bile straight flow’d over,
And the sweetness of the songs was
Bitter wormwood to this base one.
He enticed his hated rival
To his house one night, and slew him
There, and then the body buried
In the garden in its rear.
But behold! from out the spot
Where the body had been hidden,
Presently there grew a fig-tree
Of the most enchanting beauty.
All its fruit was long in figure,
And of strange and spicy sweetness;
He who tasted it, sank into
Quite a dreamy state of rapture.
’Mongst the people on the subject
Much was said aloud or whisper’d,
Till at length the rumour came to
The illustrious Caliph’s ears.
He with his own tongue first tasted
This strange fig-phenomenon,
And then form’d a strict commission
Of inquiry on the matter.
Summarily they proceeded;
On the owner of the tree’s soles
Sixty strokes of the bamboo they
Gave, and then his crime confess’d he.
Thereupon they tore the tree up
By its roots from out the ground,
And the body of the murder’d
Man Gabirol was discover’d.
He was buried with due honour,
And lamented by his brethren;
And the selfsame day they also
Hang’d the Moor at Cordova.