Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 7.djvu/84

66 pass and needs must a thousand solaces betide him from this day to that.’ So he paid no heed to their words, but bestowed on them dresses of honour, as well upon all who were present, and dismissed them; when, behold, in came the vizier, rejoicing, and kissed the earth before the king, saying, ‘Good tidings, O king! My wife hath but now given birth to a son, as he were a piece of the moon.’ ‘O vizier,’ replied Aasim, ‘go, bring thy wife and child hither, that she may abide with my wife, and they shall bring up the two boys together in my palace.’ So Faris fetched his wife and son and they committed the two children to the nurses.

After seven days had passed over them, they brought them before the king and said to him, ‘What wilt thou name them?’ Quoth he, ‘Do ye name them.’ But they replied, ‘None nameth a boy but his father.’ So he said, ‘Name my son Seif el Mulouk, after my grandfather, and the vizier’s son Saïd.’ Then he bestowed dresses of honour on the nurses and said to them, ‘Be ye tender over them and rear them after the goodliest fashion.’ So they reared the two boys diligently till they reached the age of five, when the king committed them to a schoolmaster, who taught them to read the Koran and write. When they were ten years old, King Aasim gave them in charge to masters, who taught them horsemanship and archery and spear and ball play and the like, till, by the time they were fifteen years old, they were proficient in all manner of martial exercises, nor was there one to vie with them in horsemanship, for each of them would do battle with a thousand men and make head against them alone.

So, when they came to years of discretion, whenever King Aasim looked on them, he rejoiced in them with an exceeding joy; and when they had attained their twentieth year, he took his vizier apart one day and said to him, ‘O vizier, I wish to take counsel with thee concerning