Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 2.djvu/86

 64 Alf Laylah wa Laylah. Erst was (I wot) the spray made thin of leaf o O Cassia-spray ! Unlief thy sin I see : * The hart erst hunted I : how is 't I spy o The hunter hunted (fair my hart !) by thee ? Wondrouser still I tell thee aye that I o Am trapped while never up to trap thou be ! Ne'er grant my prayer ! For if I grudge thyself o To thee, I grudge my me more jealously ; And cry so long as life belong to me, o Rare beauty how, how long this wrong to me ? They abode in this state a long time, and fear kept Ghanim aloof from her. So far concerning these two ; but as regards the Lady Zubaydah,when,in the Caliph's absence she had done this deed by Kut al-Kulub she became perplexed, saying to herself, " What shall I tell my cousin when he comes back and asks for her ? What possible answer can I make to him ? " Then she called an old woman, who was about her and discovered her secret to her saying, " How shall I act seeing that Kut al-Kulub died by such untimely death ? " " O my lady," quoth the old crone, " the time of the Caliph's return is near ; so do thou send for a carpenter and bid him make thee a figure of wood in the form of a corpse. We will dig a grave for it midmost the palace and there bury it : then do thou build an oratory over it and set therein lighted candles and lamps, and order each and every in the palace to be clad in black. 2 Furthermore command thy handmaids and eunuchs as soon as they know of the Caliph's returning from his journey, to spread straw over the vestibule-floors and, when the Commander of the Faithful enters and asks what is the matter, let them say: Kut al-Kulub is dead, and may Allah abundantly compensate thee for the loss of her ! 3 ; and, for the high esteem in which she was held of our mistress, she hath buried her in her own palace. , When he hears this he will weep and it shall be grievous to him ; then will he cause perlections of the Koran to be made for her and he It is hard to preserve these wretched puns. In the original we have " O spray (or branch) of capparis-shrub (ardki) which has been thinned of leaf and fruit (tujna, i.e., whose fruit, the hymen, has been plucked before and riot by me) I see thee (ardkd) against me sinning (tajnl). Apparently the writer forgets that the Abbaside banners and dress were black, originally a badge of mourning for the Ima"m Ibrahim bin Mohammed put to death by the Ommiade Caliph Al-Marwan. The modern Egyptian mourning, like the old Persian, is indigo-blue of the darkest ; but, as before noted, the custom is by no meaas universal.
 * Koran, chapt. iv. In the East as elsewhere the Devil quotes Scripture. ,-