8
donned a costly suit of Yemen stuff, worth an hundred dinars. Then he put in his sleeve[1] a thousand mithcals[2] of gold and sallied forth a-walking and swaying gracefully as he went. His gait confounded all those who beheld him, as he shamed the branches with his shape and belittled the rose with the redness of his cheeks and his black eyes of Babylonian witchcraft; indeed, thou wouldst deem that whoso looked on him would surely be preserved from calamity; [for he was] even as saith of him one of his describers in the following verses:
Thy haters say and those who malice to thee bear A true word, profiting its hearers everywhere;
“The glory’s not in those whom raiment rich makes fair, But those who still adorn the raiment that they wear.”
So he went walking in the thoroughfares of the city and viewing its ordinance and its markets and thoroughfares and gazing on its folk. Presently, Abou Nuwas met him. (Now he was of those of whom it is said, “They love the fair,”[3] and indeed there is said what is said concerning him.[4] When he saw Noureddin Ali, he stared at him in amazement and exclaimed, “Say, I take refuge with the Lord of the Daybreak!”[5] Then
- ↑ Lit. he loaded his sleeve with.
- ↑ A mithcal is the same as a dinar, i.e. about ten shillings.
- ↑ Masculine.
- ↑ He was a noted debauchee, as well as the greatest poet of his day. See my “Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night,” Vol. IV p. 205, and Vol. IX. p. 332.
- ↑ See ante, Vol. II. p. 240. note.
