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to him, “Know, O King, that this babe will become a renowned brave,[1] but he shall happen in his time upon certain travail and tribulation; yet, an he endure with fortitude against that which shall befall him, he shall become the richest of the kings of the world.” And the King said to them, “Since the babe shall become valiant as ye avouch, the toil and travail which will befall him are nought, for that tribulations teach the sons of kings.”
Accordingly, after a few days, the queen gave birth to a male child, extolled be the perfection of Him who created him surpassing in grace and goodliness! His father named him Zein ul Asnam, and he was as say of him certain of his praisers[2] in verse:[3]
- ↑ Sheji nebih. Burton, “Valiant and intelligent.”
- ↑ Syn. “his describers” (wasifihi).
- ↑ Wa huwa kema calou fihi bads wasifihi shiran. Burton (apparently from a different text), “and presently he became even as the poets sang of one of his fellows in semblance.”
Faith) [he] of the Images, Zein (adornment) not being a name used by the Arabic-speaking races, unless with some such addition as ud-Din (“of the Faith”), and the affix ul Asnam (“[He] of the Images”) being a sobriquet arising from the circumstances of the hero’s after-life, unless its addition, as recommended by the astrologers, is meant as an indication of the latter’s fore-knowledge of what was to befall him thereafter. This noted, I leave the name as I find it in the Arabic MS.
