XVII

A ragged dervish accompanied us along with the caravan for Hijaz, and a certain Arab prince presented him with a hundred dinars for the support of his family. Suddenly a gang of Khafachah robbers attacked the caravan, and completely stripped it. The merchants set up a weeping and wailing, and made much useless lamentation and complaint:—"Whether thou supplicatest them, or whether thou complainest, the robbers will not return thee their plunder":—all but that ragged wretch, who stood collected within himself, and unmoved by this adventure. I said: "Perhaps they did not plunder you of that money?" He replied: "Yes, they took it; but I was not so fond of my pet as to break my heart at parting with it. We should not fix our heart so on any thing or being as to find any difficulty in removing it."

I said: "What you have remarked corresponds precisely with what once befell myself; for in my juvenile days I took a liking to a young man, and so sincere was my attachment that the Cabah, or fane, of my eye was his perfect beauty, and the profit of this life's traffic his much-coveted society:—Perhaps the angels might in paradise, otherwise no living form can on this earth display such a loveliness of person. By friendship I swear that after his demise all loving intercourse is forbidden; for no human emanation can stand a comparison with him.

"All at once the foot of his existence stumbled at the grave of annihilation; and the sigh of separation burst from the dwelling of his family. For many days I sat a fixture at his tomb, and, of the many dirges I composed upon his demise, this is one:—'On that day, when thy foot was pierced with the thorn of death, would to God the hand of fate had cloven my head with the sword of destruction, that my eyes might not this day have witnessed the world without thee. Such am I, seated at the head of thy dust, as the ashes are seated on my own:—whoever could not take his rest and sleep till they first had spread a bed of roses and narcissuses for him: the whirlwind of the sky has scattered the roses of his cheek, and brambles and thorns are shooting from his grave.'

"After my separation from him I came to a steady and firm determination, that during my remaining life I would fold up the carpet of enjoyment, and never re-enter the gay circle of society:—Were it not for the dread of its waves, much would be the profits of a voyage at sea; were it not for the vexation of the thorn, charming might be the society of the rose. Yesterday I was walking stately as a peacock in the garden of enjoyment; to-day I am writhing like a snake from the absence of my mistress."

XVIII.

To a certain king of Arabia they were relating the story of Laila and Mujnun, and his insane state, saying: "Notwithstanding his knowledge and wisdom, he has turned his face towards the desert, and abandoned himself to distraction." The king ordered that they bring him into his presence; and he reproved him, and spoke, saying: "What have you seen unworthy in the noble nature of man that you should assume the manners of a brute, and forsake the enjoyment of human society?"

Mujnun wept and answered:—"Many of my friends reproach me for my love of her, namely Laila. Alas! that they could one day see her, that my excuse might be manifest for me!—Would to God that such as blame me could behold thy face, O thou ravisher of hearts! that at the sight of thee they might, from inadvertency, cut their own fingers instead of the orange in their hands:—Then might the truth of the reality bear testimony against the semblance of fiction, what manner of person that was for whose sake you were upbraiding me."

The king resolved within himself, on viewing in person the charms of Laila, that he might be able to judge what her form could be which had caused all this misery, and ordered her to be produced in his presence. Having searched through the Arab tribes, they discovered and presented her before the king in the courtyard of his seraglio. He viewed her figure, and beheld a person of a tawny complexion and feeble frame of body. She appeared to him in a contemptible light, inasmuch as the lowest menial in his harem, or seraglio, surpassed her in beauty and excelled her in elegance. Mujnun, in his sagacity, penetrated what was passing in the royal mind, and said: "It would behoove you, O king, to contemplate the charms of Laila through the wicket of a Mujnun's eye, in order that the miracle of such a spectacle might be illustrated to you. Thou canst have no fellow-feeling for my disorder; a companion to suit me must have the self-same malady, that I may sit by him the livelong day repeating my tale; for by rubbing two pieces of dry fire-wood one upon another they will burn all the brighter:—had that grove of verdant reeds heard the murmurings of love which in detail of my mistress's story have passed through my ear, it would somehow have sympathised in my pain. Tell it, O my friends, to such as are ignorant of love; would ye could be aware of what wrings me to the soul:—the anguish of a wound is not known to the hale and sound; we must detail our aches only to a fellow-sufferer. It were idle to talk of a hornet to him who has never during his life smarted from its sting. Till thy condition may in some sort resemble mine, my state will seem to thee an idle fable. Compare not my pain with that of another man; he holds salt in his hand, but I hold it on a wounded limb."

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