And that of yet another:[1]—
He thou trusted most is thy worst unfriend; ○ 'Ware all and take heed with whom thou wend:
Fair opinion of Fortune is feeble sign; ○ So believe her ill and her Ills perpend!"
Quoth the fox, "Verily mistrust and ill opinion of others are not to be commended in every case; nay trust and confidence are the characteristics of a noble nature and the issue thereof is freedom from stress of fear. Now it behoveth thee, O thou wolf, to devise some device for thy deliverance from this thou art in, and our escape will be better to us both than our death: so quit thy distrust and rancour; for if thou trust in me one of two things will happen; either I shall bring thee something whereof to lay hold and escape from this case, or I shall abandon thee to thy doom. But this thing may not be, for I am not safe from falling into some such strait as this thou art in, which, indeed, would be fitting punishment of perfidy. Of a truth the adage saith:—Faith is fair and faithlessness is foul.[2] So it behoveth thee to trust in me, for I am not ignorant of the haps and mishaps of the world; and delay not to contrive some device for our deliverance, as the case is too close to allow further talk." Replied the wolf, "For all my want of confidence in thy fidelity, verily I knew what was in thy mind and that thou wast moved to deliver me whenas thou heardest my repentance, and I said to myself:—If what he asserteth be true, he will have repaired the ill he did; and if false, it resteth with the Lord to requite him. So, look'ee, I have accepted thy proposal and, if thou betray me, may thy traitorous deed be the cause of thy destruction!" Then the wolf stood bolt upright in the pit and, taking the fox upon his shoulders, raised him to the level of the ground,
- ↑ From Al-Tughrái, the author of the Lámiyat al-Ajam, the "Lay of the Outlander;" a Kasidah (Ode) rhyming in Lám (the letter "l" being the ráwi or binder). The student will find a new translation of it by Mr. J. W. Redhouse and Dr. Carlyle's old version (No. liii.) in Mr. Clouston's "Arabian Poetry." Muyid al-Din al-Hasan Abu Ismail nat. Ispahan ob. Baghdad A.H. 182) derived his surname from the Tughrá, cypher or flourish (over the "Bismillah" in royal and official papers) containing the name of the prince. There is an older "Lamiyat al-Arab" a pre-Islamitic L-poem by the "brigand-poet" Shanfara, of whom Mr. W. G. Palgrave has given a most appreciative account in his "Essays on Eastern Questions," noting the indomitable self-reliance and the absolute individualism of a mind defying its age and all around it. Al-Hariri quotes from both.
- ↑ The words of the unfortunate Azízah, vol. ii., p. 323.
