Then the midwives took the newborn child and cut the navel cord and darkened his eyelids with Kohl powder[FN#466] and named him Táj al-Mulúk Khárán.[FN#467] He was suckled at the breast of fond indulgence and was reared in the lap of happy fortune; and thus his days ceased not running and the years passing by till he reached the age of seven. Thereupon Sulayman Shah summoned the doctors and learned men and bade them teach his son writing and science and belle-lettres. This they continued to do for some years, till he had learnt what was needful; and, when the King saw that he was well grounded in whatso he desired, he took him out of the teachers' and professors' hands and engaged for him a skilful master, who taught him cavalarice and knightly exercises till the boy attained the age of fourteen; and when he fared abroad on any occasion, all who saw him were ravished by his beauty and made him the subject of verse; and even pious men were seduced by his brilliant loveliness.—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
When it was the One Hundred and Tenth Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, That when Taj al-Muluk Kharan, son of Sulayman Shah, became perfect in riding craft and excelled all those of his time, his excessive beauty, when he fared abroad on any occasion, caused all who saw him to be ravished and to make him the subject of verse; and even pious men were seduced by his brilliant loveliness. Quoth the poet of him,
"I clipt his form and wax'd drunk with his scent, * Fair branch to whom Zephyr gave nutriment:
Nor drunken as one who drinks wine, but drunk * With night draught his lips of the honey-dew lent:
All beauty is shown in the all of him, * Hence all human hearts he in hand hath hens:
My mind, by Allah! shall ne'er unmind * His love, while I wear life's chains till spent:
If I live, in his love I'll live; if I die * For pine and longing, 'O blest!' I'll cry
When he reached the eighteenth year of his age, tender down[FN#468] sprouted, on his side face fresh with youth, from a mole upon one rosy cheek and a second beauty spot, like a grain of ambergris adorned the other; and he won the wits and eyes of every wight who looked on him, even as saith the poet,
"He is Caliph of Beauty in Yúsufs lieu, * And all lovers fear when they sight his grace:
Pause and gaze with me; on his cheek thou'lt sight * The Caliphate's banner of sable hue."[FN#469]
And as saith another,
"Thy sight hath never seen a fairer sight, * Of all things men can in the world espy,
Than yon brown mole, that studs his bonny cheek * Of rosy-red beneath that jet black eye."
And as saith another,
"I marvel seeing yon mole that serves his cheeks' bright flame * Yet burneth not in fire albeit Infidel[FN#470]
I wonder eke to see that apostolic glance, * Miracle working, though it work by magic spell:
How fresh and bright the down that decks his cheek, and yet * Bursten gall bladders feed which e'en as waters well."