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“O father mine, give me leave to go to her, so I may look upon her; else shall I depart the world, without fail.” The king his father wept and answered, saying, “O my son, I builded thee a bath, that it might divert thee from leaving me, and behold it hath been the cause of thy going forth; but the commandment of God is a foreordained[1] decree.”[2]
Then he wept again and El Abbas said to him, “Fear not for me, for thou knowest my prowess and my puissance in returning answers in the assemblies of the land and my good breeding[3] and skill in rhetoric; and indeed he whose father thou art and whom thou hast reared and bred and in whom thou hast united praiseworthy qualities, the repute whereof hath traversed the East and the West, thou needest not fear for him, more by token that I purpose but to seek diversion[4] and return to thee, if it be the will of God the Most High.” Quoth the king, “Whom wilt thou take with thee of attendants and [what] of good?” “O father mine,” replied El Abbas, “I have no need of horses or camels or arms, for I purpose not battle, and I will have none go forth with me save my servant Aamir and no more.”
As he and his father were thus engaged in talk, in came his mother and caught hold of him; and he said to her,
