Good sooth my bones, whenas they hear thy name, ✿ Quail as birds quailed when Nisus o'er them flew:[[72]]
Ah! say to them who blame my love that I ✿ Will love that face, fair cousin, till I die.
And when he had ended his verses he said to his mother, "I have no longer a place in my aunt's house nor among these people, but I will go forth from the palace and abide in the corners of the city." So he and his mother left the court; and, having sought an abode in the neighbourhood of the poorer sort, there settled; but she used to go from time to time to King Sasan's palace and thence take daily bread for herself and her son. As this went on Kuzia Fakan took her aside one day and said to her, "Alas, O my naunty, how is it with thy son?" Replied she, "O my daughter, sooth to say, he is tearful-eyed and heavy-hearted, being fallen into the net of thy love." And she repeated to her the couplets he had made; whereupon Kuzia Fakan wept and said, "By Allah! I rebuked him not for his words, nor for ill-will to him, but because I feared for him the malice of foes. Indeed my passion for him is double that he feeleth for me; my tongue may not describe my yearning for him; and were it not for the extravagant wilfulness of his words and the wanderings of his wit, my father had not cut off from him favours that besit, nor had decreed unto him exclusion and prohibition as fit. However, man's days bring nought but change, and patience in all case is most becoming; peradventure He who ordained our severance will vouchsafe us reunion!" And she began versifying in these two couplets:—
O son of mine uncle! same sorrow I bear, ✿ And suffer the like of thy cark and thy care;
Yet hide I from man what I suffer for pine; ✿ Hide it too, and such secret to man never bare!
When his mother heard this from her, she thanked her and blessed her: then she left her and acquainted her son with what she had said; whereupon his desire for her increased and he took heart, being eased of his despair and the turmoil of his love and care. And he said, "By Allah, I desire none but her!"; and he began improvising:—
Leave this blame, I will list to no flout of my foe! ✿ I divulged a secret was told me to keep:
He is lost to my sight for whose union I yearn, ✿ And I watch all the while he can slumber and sleep.
So the days and nights went by whilst Kanmakan lay tossing upon coals of fire,[[73]] till he reached the age of seventeen; and his beauty had waxt perfect and his wits were at their brightest. One night, as he lay awake, he communed with himself and said, "Why should I keep silence till I waste away and see not my lover? Fault have I none save poverty; so, by Allah, I am resolved to remove me from this region and wander over the wild and the wold; for my position in this city is a torture and I have no friend nor lover therein to comfort me; wherefore I am determined to distract myself by absence from my native land till I die and take my rest after this shame and tribulation." And he began to improvise and recited these couplets:—
Albeit my vitals quiver 'neath this ban; ✿ Before the foe myself I'll ne'er unman!