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servants and bade shut the doors, after which he said to the jeweller, ‘By Allah, O my brother, I have not closed my eyes since I saw thee last; for the slave-girl came to me yesterday with a sealed letter from her mistress Shemsennehar;’ and went on to tell him all that had passed, adding, ‘Indeed, I am perplexed concerning mine affair and my patience fails me: for Aboulhusn was of comfort to me, because he knew the girl.’ When the jeweller heard this, he laughed and Ali said, ‘Why dost thou laugh at my words, thou in whom I rejoiced and to whom I looked for succour against the shifts of fortune?’ Then he sighed and wept and repeated the following verses:
Many an one laughs at my weeping, whenas he looks on my pain. Had he but suffered as I have, he, also, to weep would be fain.
No one hath ruth on the smitten, for that he is doomed to endure, But he who alike is afflicted and long in affliction hath lain.
My passion, my yearning, my sighing, my care and distraction and woe Are all for a loved one, whose dwelling is in my heart’s innermost fane.
He made his abode in my bosom and never will leave it again; And yet with my love to foregather I weary and travail in vain.
I know of no friend I can choose me to stand in his stead unto me, Nor ever, save him, a companion, to cherish and love have I ta’en.[1]
When the jeweller heard this, he wept also and told him all that had passed betwixt himself and the slave-girl and her mistress, since he left him, whilst Ali gave ear to his speech, and at every fresh word his colour shifted ’twixt white and red and his body grew now stronger and now weaker, till he came to the end of his tale, when Ali wept and said to him, ‘O my brother, I am a lost man in any event. Would my end were near, that I might be at rest from all this! But I beg thee, of thy favour, to be my helper and comforter in all my affairs, till God accomplish
- ↑ These verses apparently relate to Aboulhusn, but it is possible that they may be meant to refer to Shemsennehar, as the masculine is constantly used for the feminine in Oriental love-poetry.
