135
joy and said, “Since the Sultan hath promised for[1] three months [hence], true, it[2] is long, but in any case my joy is great.” Then he thanked her for her kindness and the pains she had taken[3] and said to her, “By Allah, O my mother, it is as I were in a tomb and now thou hast raised me up therefrom; and I praise God the Most High, for I am presently certified that there is none richer or happier than I in the world.” Then he waited till two of the three months were past, when his mother went out one day of the days, at sundown, to buy oil, and saw the markets closed and the city all decorated and the folk setting candles and flowers in their windows and saw troops, horse and foot, and mounted eunuchs drawn up in state, with cressets and lustres burning. At this wonder took her;[4] so she went to an oilman’s shop there open
- ↑ Lit. “to” (ila), as before.
- ↑ i.e. the delay.
- ↑ Lit. “he thanked his mother and thought (or made) much of her goodness (istekthera bi-kheiriha, a common modern expression, signifying simply ‘he thanked her’) for her toil.” Burton, “Then he thanked his parent, showing her how her good work had exceeded her toil and travail.”
- ↑ Lit. “Wonder took her at this wonder and the decoration.” Burton amplifies, “She wondered at the marvellous sight and the glamour of the scene.” Me judice, to put it in the vernacular, she simply wondered what the dickens it was all about.
