Thou thinkest to overtake them, while thou bearest
Follies, which slay thee whatso way thou farest.
Didst wot their worth thou hadst all honour showed,
And tears in streamlets from thine eyes had flowed.
To catarrh-troubled men flowers lack their smell;
And brokers ken for how much clothes can sell;
So haste and with thy Lord reunion sue,
And haply Fate shall lend thee aidance due,
Rest from rejection and estrangement-stress,
And Joy thy wish and will shall choicely bless.
His court wide open for the suer is dight:—
One, very God, the Lord, th' Almighty might.'"
And they also tell a tale of
THE QUEEN OF THE SERPENTS.[FN#507]
There was once, in days of yore and in ages and times long gone before, a Grecian sage called Daniel, who had disciples and scholars and the wise men of Greece were obedient to his bidding and relied upon his learning. Withal had Allah denied him a man child. One night, as he lay musing and weeping over the lack of a son who might inherit his lore, he bethought him that Allah (extolled and exalted be He!) heareth the prayer of those who resort to Him and that there is no doorkeeper at the door of His bounties and that He favoureth whom He will without compt and sendeth no supplicant empty away; nay He filleth their hands with favours and benefits. So he besought the Almighty, the Bountiful, to vouchsafe him a son to succeed him, and to endow him abundantly with His beneficence. Then he returned home and carnally knew his wife who conceived by him the same night.—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
When it was the Four Hundred and Eighty-third Night,