Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 16.djvu/349

 beneficence, and we have entered thine abode, and eaten of thy provision; and the poet hath said,

Had I wept before she did, in my passion for So'da, I had healed my soul before repentance came.

But she wept before I did: her tears drew mine; and I said, The merit belongs to the precedent.

Then Salih said, If we stood serving thee, O King of the age, a thousand years, regarding nothing else, we could not requite thee, and our doing so would be but a small thing in comparison with thy desertThe King therefore thanked him eloquently. And Salih remained with the King, he and his mother and the daughters of his uncle, forty days; after which he arose and kissed the ground before the King, the husband of his sister. So the King said to him, What dost thou desire, O Salih? And he answered, O King of the age, thou hast conferred favours upon us, and we desire of thy goodness that thou wouldst grant us a boon, and give us permission to depart; for we have become desirous of seeing again our family and our country and our relations and our homes. We will not, how-ever, relinquish the service of thee, nor that of my sister nor the son of my sister; and by Allah, O King of the age, to quit you is not pleasant to my heart; but how can we act, when we have been reared in the sea, and the land is not agreeable to us?So when the King heard his words, he rose upon his feet, and bade farewell to Salih of the Sea and his mother and the daughters of his uncle, and they wept together on account of the separation. Then they said to the King, In a short time we shall be with you, and we will never relinquish you, but after every period of a few days we will visit you. And after this, they flew towards the sea, and descended into it, and disappeared.

The King treated Jullanar with beneficence, and honoured her exceedingly, and the little one grew up well; and his maternal uncle, with his grandmother and the daughters of his uncle, after every period of a few days used to come to the residence of the King, and to remain with him a month, and two months, and then return to their places. The boy ceased not, with increase of age, to increase in beauty and loveliness until his age became fifteen years; and he was