Nay; ’ware of slips and turn from sin aside ✿ And ken that bane and bale are worldly laws:
How oft high Fortune falls by least mishap ✿ And all things bear inbred of change a cause!
Know that I entered Bassorah in yet iller case and worse distress than this man, for that he entered Cairo with his shame hidden by rags; but I indeed came into his town with my nakedness uncovered, one hand behind and another before; and none availed me but Allah and this dear man. Now the reason of this was that the Arabs stripped me and took my camels and mules and loads and slaughtered my pages and serving-men; but I lay down among the slain and they thought that I was dead, so they went away and left me. Then I arose and walked on, mother-naked, till I came to Bassorah where this man met me and clothed me and lodged me in his house; he also furnished me with money, and all I have brought back with me I owe to none save to Allah’s goodness and his goodness. When I departed, he gave me great store of wealth and I returned to the city of my birth with a heart at ease. I left him in competence and condition, and haply there hath befallen him some bale of the banes of Time, that hath forced him to quit his kinsfolk and country, and there happened to him by the way the like of what happened to me. There is nothing strange in this; but now it behoveth me to requite him his noble dealing with me and do according to the saying of him who saith:—
O who praisest Time with the fairest appraise, ✿ Knowest thou what Time hath made and unmade?
What thou dost at least be it kindly done,[[461]] ✿ For with pay he pays shall man be repaid.
As they were talking and telling the tale, behold, up came Obayd as he were Consul[[462]] of the Merchants; whereupon they all rose to salute him and seated him in the place of honour. Then said Kamar al-Zaman to him, “O my friend, verily, thy day[[463]] is blessed and fortunate! There is no need to relate to me a thing that befel me before thee. If the Arabs have stripped thee and robbed thee of thy wealth, verily our money is the ransom of our bodies, so let not thy soul be troubled; for I entered thy city naked and thou clothedst me and entreatedst me generously, and I owe thee many a kindness. But I will requite thee.——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
Now when it was the Nine Hundred and Seventy-eighth Night,
She resumed, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Kamar al-Zaman said to Master Obayd the jeweller, “Verily I entered thy city naked and thou clothedst me and I owe thee many a kindness. But I will requite thee and do with thee even as thou didst with me; nay, more: so be of good cheer and eyes clear of tear.” And he went on to soothe him and hinder him from speech, lest he should name his wife and what she had done with him; nor did he cease to ply him with saws and moral instances and verses and conceits and stories and legends and console him, till the jeweller saw his drift and took the hint and kept silence concerning the past, diverting himself with the tales and rare anecdotes he heard and repeating in himself these lines:—
On the brow of the World is a writ; an thereon thou look, ✿ Its contents will compel thine eyes tears of blood to rain:
For the World never handed to humans a cup with its right, ✿ But with left it compelled them a beaker of ruin to drain.