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wilt find thyself in a garden, all adorned with trees and fruits. Thence do thou fare on some fifty cubits in the path thou wilt find before thee and thou wilt come to a dais,[1] with[2] a stair of some thirty steps. Above the dais thou[3] wilt find a lamp hung up; take it and pour out the oil that is therein and put it in thy sleeve;[4] and fear not for thy clothes therefrom, for that it[5] is not oil. And as thou returnest, thou mayst pluck from the trees what thou wilt, for that it is thine, what while the lamp abideth in thy hand.”
When the Maugrabin had made an end of his speech, he drew from his finger a ring and putting it on Alaeddin’s finger, said to him, “And this ring, O, my son, shall deliver thee from all hurt and all fear that may betide thee, provided thou observe all that I have said to thee.
- ↑ Liwan, i.e. an estrade or recessed room, raised above the level of the ground and open in front.
- ↑ Lit. “in it” (fihi); but the meaning is as in the text, i.e. connected with it or leading thereto. This reading is confirmed by the terms in which the stair is afterwards mentioned, q.v. post, p. 83, and note.
- ↑ Night DXXVI.
- ↑ Ubb. Burton, “breast-pocket,” the usual word for which is jeib. Ubb is occasionally used in this sense; but it is evident from what follows (see post, p. 85, “Alaeddin proceeded to pluck and put in his pockets (ajyab, pl. of jeib), and his sleeves” (ibab), and note) that ubb is here used in the common sense of “sleeve.”
- ↑ i.e. “that which is in the lamp.”
