Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 3.djvu/351

Rh his sons' clothes and weeping, it so came to pass that he found, in the pocket of his son As'ad's raiment, a letter in the hand of his wife enclosing her hair strings; so he opened and read it and understanding the contents knew that the Prince had been falsely accused and wrongously. Then he searched Amjad's parcel of dress and found in his pocket a letter in the handwriting of Queen Hayat al-Nufus enclosing also her hair-strings; so he opened and read it and knew that Amjad too had been wronged; whereupon he beat hand upon hand and exclaimed, "There is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great! I have slain my sons unjustly." And he buffeted his face, crying out, "Alas, my sons! Alas, my long grief!" Then he bade them build two tombs in one house, which he styled "House of Lamentations," and had graved thereon his sons' names; and he threw himself on Amjad's tomb, weeping and groaning and lamenting, and improvised these couplets:—

O moon for ever set this earth below, ○ Whose loss bewail the stars which stud the sky! O wand, which broken, ne'er with bend and wave ○ Shall fascinate the ravisht gazer's eye; These eyne for jealousy I 'reft of thee, ○ Nor shall they till next life thy sight descry: I'm drowned in sea of tears for insomny ○ Wherefore, indeed in Sáhirah-stead I lie.

Then he threw himself on As'ad's tomb, groaning and weeping and lamenting and versifying with these couplets,

Indeed I longed to share unweal with thee, ○ But Allah than my will willed otherwise: My grief all blackens 'twixt mine eyes and space, ○ Yet whitens all the blackness from mine eyes: Of tears they weep these eyne run never dry, ○ And ulcerous flow in vitals never dries: Right sore it irks me seeing thee in stead ○ Where slave with sovran for once levelled lies.

And his weeping and wailing redoubled; and, after he had ended his