answer:—Verily thy sons salute thee and say to thee, Thou knewest not if we were innocent or guilty, yet hast thou put us to death and hast not certified thyself of our sin nor looked into our case. Then do thou repeat to him these two couplets:—
Women are Satans made for woe o' men; ○ I fly to Allah from their devilish scathe:
Source of whatever bale befel our kind, ○ In wordly matters and in things of Faith."
Continued Amjad, "We desire of thee naught but that thou repeat to our sire these two couplets."And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
Now when it was the Two Hundred and Twenty-second Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Amjad added, speaking to the treasurer, "We desire of thee naught but that thou repeat to our sire these two couplets which thou hast just now heard; and I conjure thee by Allah to have patience with us, whilst I cite to my brother this other pair of couplets." Then he wept with sore weeping and began:—
"The Kings who fared before us showed ○ Of instances full many a show:
Of great and small and high and low ○ How many this one road have trod!"
Now when the treasurer heard these words from Amjad, he wept till his beard was wet, whilst As'ad's eyes brimmed with tears and he in turn repeated these couplets:—
- ↑ i.e. but also for the life and the so-called "soul."
- ↑ Arab. "Layáli"=lit. nights which, I have said, is often applied to the whole twenty-four hours. Here it is used in the sense of "fortune" or "fate;" like "days" and "days and nights."
- ↑ Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr a nephew of Ayishah, who had rebuilt the Ka'abah in A.H. 64 (A.D. 683), revolted (A.D. 680) against Yezid and was proclaimed Caliph at
