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cannot do away this conceit from his wit, for that the love of her hath gotten possession of his vitals, so that he saith to me, ‘Know, O mother mine, that, except I attain my desire, assuredly I am a dead man.’ Wherefore I crave Thy Grace’s clemency and hope that thou wilt pardon me and my son this effrontery neither be wroth with us therefor.”
When the King heard her story, he fell a-laughing, of his clemency,[1] and asked her, “What is that thou hast with thee and what is that bundle?”[2] Whereupon she, seeing that he was not angered at her words, but laughed, opened the handkerchief forthright and proffered him the dish of jewels. When the Sultan saw the jewels (and indeed, whenas she raised the handkerchief from them, the Divan became as it were all illumined with lamp-clusters and candlesticks), he was amazed and confounded at their radiance and fell a-marvelling at their lustre and
- ↑ Lit. “having regard to his clemency, he took to laughing and asked her.” Burton, “He regarded her with kindness, and laughing aloud, asked her.”
- ↑ Surreh, lit. purse and by extension, as here, anything tied up in bag-shape.
the Prophet and other high spiritual dignitaries. They are often, but erroneously, rendered “thy majesty”; a title which does not exist in the East and which is, as is well known to students of history, of comparatively recent use in Europe.
