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father till such time as he went forth the place to meet a customer[1] or on some other occasion, when he would flee forth incontinent and go out to the gardens with the good-for-nothing lads like himself. This, then, was his case,[2] and he would not obey his parents, nor would he learn a craft. His father sickened of his grief and chagrin for his son’s perversity and died, whilst Alaeddin abode on that his wise. When his mother saw that her husband had departed this life[3] and that her son was a scapegrace and a good-for-nought, she sold the shop and all she found therein and fell to spinning cotton and feeding herself and her graceless son Alaeddin with her toil. The latter, seeing himself quit of his father’s danger,[4] redoubled in his gracelessness and his perversity and would not abide in their house save eating-whiles; and his poor wretched mother supported him[5] by the spinning of her hands till he came to fifteen years of age.
One[6] day of the days, as he sat in the street, play-
- ↑ Zeboun.
- ↑ Burton adds here, “Counsel and castigation were of no avail.”
- ↑ Lit. “had been recalled” (tuwouffia), i.e. by God to Himself.
- ↑ This old English and Shakspearean expression is the exact equivalent of the Arabic phrase Khelesza min sherr walidihi. Burton, “freed from [bearing] the severities of his sire.”
- ↑ Kanet tuayyishuhu. Burton, “lived only by.”
- ↑ Night DXV.
