Then Miriam wept passing sore wherethan naught could be more, making sure of separation, and cried to the druggist’s wife, “O my mother, said I not to thee that my lord Nur al-Din had been tricked into selling me? I doubt not but he hath sold me this night to yonder Frank, albeit I bade him beware of him; but deliberation availeth not against destiny. So the truth of my words is made manifest to thee.” Whilst they were talking, behold, in came Nur al-Din, and the damsel looked at him and saw that his colour was changed and that he trembled and there appeared on his face signs of grief and repentance: so she said to him, “O my lord Nur al-Din, meseemeth thou hast sold me.” Whereupon he wept with sore weeping and groaned and lamented and recited these couplets[[493]]:—
When e’er the Lord ’gainst any man,
Would fulminate some harsh decree,
And he be wise, and skilled to hear,
And used to see;
He stops his ears, and blinds his heart,
And from his brain ill judgment tears,
And makes it bald as ’twere a scalp,
Reft of its hairs[[494]];
Until the time when the whole man