Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 4.djvu/214



'By Allah, wine shall not disturb me, while my soul * Join body, nor while speech the words of me explain: No day will I be thralled to wine-skin cooled by breeze * Nor choose a friend save those who are of cups unfair.'

This, then, is my charge to thee; bear it before thine eyes, and Allah stand to thee in my stead." Then he swooned away and kept silent awhile; and, when he came to himself, he besought pardon of Allah and pronounced the profession of the Faith, and was admitted to the mercy of the Almighty. So his son wept and lamented for him and presently made proper preparation for his burial; great and small walked in his funeral-procession and Koran readers recited Holy Writ about his bier; nor did Ali Shar omit aught of what was due to the dead. Then they prayed over him and committed him to the dust and wrote these two couplets upon his tomb,

'Thou west create of dust and cam'st to life, * And learned'st in     eloquence to place thy trust; Anon, to dust returning, thou becamest * A corpse, as though ne'er taken from the dust."

Now his son Ali Shar grieved for him with sore grief and mourned him with the ceremonies usual among men of note; nor did he cease to weep the loss of his father till his mother died also, not long afterwards, when he did with her as he had done with his sire. Then he sat in the shop, selling and buying and consorting with none of Almighty Allah's creatures, in accordance with his father's injunction. This wise he continued to do for a year, at the end of which time there came in to him by craft certain whoreson fellows and consorted with him, till he turned after their example to lewdness and swerved from the way of righteousness, drinking wine in flowing bowls and frequenting fair women night and day; for he said to himself, "Of a truth my father amassed this wealth for me, and if I spend it not, to whom shall I leave it? By Allah, I will not do save as saith the poet,

'An through the whole of life * Thou gett'st and gain'st for self; Say, when shalt thou enjoy * Thy gains and gotten pelf?'"