Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 8.djvu/228

216 assigned him three learned men and bade them relax not from teaching him day and night and look that there was no kind of knowledge but they instructed him therein, so he might become versed in all sciences. Moreover, he commanded them to sit with him one day in each of the rooms in turn and write on the door thereof that which they had taught him therein of various kinds of knowledge and report to himself every seven days what he had learnt. So they went in to the prince and stinted not from teaching him day nor night, withholding from him nought of that which they knew; and there was manifest in him quickness of wit and excellence of apprehension and aptness to receive instruction such as none had shown before him. Every seventh day his governors reported to the king what his son had learnt and mastered, whereby JelyaadWird Khan [sic] became proficient in goodly learning and fair culture; and they said to him, ‘Never saw we one so richly gifted with understanding as is this boy, may God bless thee in him and give thee joy of his life!’

When the prince had completed his twelfth year, he knew the better part of all sciences and excelled all the sages and learned men of his day. So his governors brought him to his father and said to him, ‘God solace thine eyes, O king, with this happy youth! We bring him to thee, after he hath learnt all manner of knowledge, and there is not one of the learned men of the time who hath attained to that whereto he hath attained [of proficiency].’ The king rejoiced in this with an exceeding joy and prostrated himself in gratitude to God (to whom belong might and majesty), saying, ‘Praised be God for His mercies that may not be told!’ Then he called his chief vizier and said to him, ‘Know, O Shimas, that the governors of my son are come to tell me that he hath mastered all kinds of knowledge and there is nothing but