I am (when friend would raise a rage that mote ✿ Make spittle choke me, sticking in my throat)
His pardoner, and pardon his offence, ✿ Fearing lest I should live a friend without.
(Quoth Ibrahim), Now when I heard these words I scented mercy, knowing his disposition to clemency.[[158]] Then he turned to his son Al-Abbas and his brother Abu Ishak and all his chief officers there present and said to them, “What deem ye of his case?” They all counselled him to do me dead, but they differed as to the manner of my death. Then said he to his Wazir Ahmad bin al-Khálid, “And what sayest thou, O Ahmad?” He answered, “O Commander of the Faithful, an thou slay him, we find the like of thee who hath slain the like of him; but an thou pardon him, we find not the like of thee that hath pardoned the like of him.”——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
Now when it was the Two Hundred and Seventy-fifth Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Al-Maamun, Prince of the Faithful, heard the words of Ahmad bin al-Khalid, he bowed his head and began repeating:—
My tribe have slain that brother mine, Umaym, ✿ Yet would shoot back what shafts at them I aim:
If I deal pardon, noble pardon ‘tis; ✿ And if I shoot, my bones ‘twill only maim.[[159]]
And he also recited:—
Be mild to brother mingling ✿ What is wrong with what is right:
Kindness to him continue ✿ Whether good or graceless wight: