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and to thee, and belike the people of the islands will hear of it, and we shall become a byword amongst them; wherefore it befits that thou return us an answer with speed.’
Then she delivered the letter to a courier and he carried it to the king, who, when he read it, was exceeding wroth with his daughter Menar es Sena and wrote to Nour el Huda, saying, ‘I commit her case to thee and give thee power over her life; so, if the thing be as thou sayest, put her to death, without consulting me.’ When the queen received her father’s letter, she sent for Menar es Sena and they brought her, drowned in her blood and pinioned with her hair, fettered with heavy shackles of iron and clad in hair-cloth; and she stood before her, abject and cast down. When she saw herself in this condition of humiliation and exceeding abasement, she called to mind her former high estate and wept sore and recited the following verses:
O Lord, my foes do cast about to slay me and conceive I cannot anywise escape from out the snares they weave.
But, lo, in Thee I put my trust, their works to bring to nought; For Thou the fearful’s refuge art, the hope of those that grieve.
Then she wept, till she fell down in a swoon, and presently coming to herself, repeated the following verses:
Troubles familiar with my heart are grown and I with them, Erst shunning; for the generous are sociable still.
Not one mere kind alone of woe doth lieger with me lie; Praised be God! There are with me thousands of kinds of ill.
Night dcccxx.And also these:
Full many a sorry chance doth light upon a man and fill His life with trouble; yet with God the issue bideth still.
His case is sore on him; but, when its meshes straitened are To utt’rest, they relax, although he deem they never will.
