Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 1.djvu/108

70 Alf Laylah wa Laylah. forth tears there is little profit." "Thwart me not," answered she, "in aught I do, or I will lay violent hands on myself!" So I held my peace and left her to go her own way; and she ceased not to cry and keen and indulge her affliction for yet another year. At the end of the third year I waxed aweary of this longsome mourning, and one day I happened to enter the cenotaph when vexed and angry with some matter which had thwarted me, and suddenly I heard her say, "O my lord, I never hear thee vouchsafe a single word to me! Why dost thou not answer me, O my master?" and she began reciting:―

O thou tomb! O thou tomb! be his beauty set in shade? * Hast thou darkened that countenance all-sheeny as the noon? O thou tomb! neither earth nor yet heaven art to me; * Then how cometh it in thee are conjoined my sun and moon?

When I heard such verses as these rage was heaped upon my rage; I cried out, "Well-away! how long is this sorrow to last?" and I began repeating:―

O thou tomb! O thou tomb! be his horrors set in blight? * Hast thou darkened his countenance that sickeneth the soul? O thou tomb! neither cess-pool nor pipkin art to me; * Then how cometh it in thee are conjoined soil and coal?

When she heard my words she sprang to her feet crying, "Fie upon thee, thou cur! all this is of thy doings; thou hast wounded my heart's darling and thereby worked me sore woe, and thou hast wasted his youth so that these three years he hath lain abed more dead than alive!" In my wrath I cried, "O thou foulest of harlots and filthiest of whores ever embraced by negro slaves who are hired to have at thee¹!" Yes indeed it was I who did this good deed"; and snatching up my sword I drew it and made at her to cut her down. But she laughed my words and mine intent to scorn, crying, "To heel, hound that thou art! Alas² for the past which shall no more come to pass nor shall any one avail the dead to raise. Allah hath indeed now given into the latter dynasty and especially to the great King Anushirwan. They must not be confounded with "Khusrau" (P. N. Cyrus, Ahasuerus? Chosroes?); and yet the three seem to have combined in "Cæsar," Kaysar and Czar. For details especially connected with Zoroaster, see vol. i. p. 380 of the Dabistan or School of Manners, translated by David Shea and Anthony Troyer, Paris, 1843. The book is most valuable, but the proper names are so carelessly and incorrectly printed that the student is led into perpetual error. ¹ The words in the original are the very lowest and coarsest; but the scene is true to Arab life. ² Arab. "Hayhat": the word, written in a variety of ways, is onomatopoetic, like our "heigh-ho!" it sometimes means "far from me (or you) be it!" but in popular usage it is simply "Alas."