306
father and his people on her account, she will kill herself, and I shall die for love of her; for I can never live after her.’ ‘And what then thinkest thou to do, O my son?’ asked the King. ‘I mean to go on my own errand,’ answered the prince. ‘I will don a merchant’s habit and cast about how I may win to the princess and compass my desire of her.’ Quoth Seif al Aazem, ‘Art thou determined upon this?’ And the prince said, ‘Yes, O my father;’ whereupon the King called his Vizier and said to him, ‘Do thou journey with my son, the darling of my heart, and help him to his desire and watch over him and guide him with thy sound judgment and stand to him in my stead.’ ‘I hear and obey,’ answered the Vizier; and the King gave his son three hundred thousand dinars in gold and great store of jewels and precious stones and goldsmiths’ ware and stuffs and other things of price. Then Ardeshir went in to his mother and kissed her hands and asked her blessing. She blessed him and opening her treasuries, brought out to him necklaces and trinkets and apparel and all manner of other precious things laid up from the time of the bygone kings, whose price might not be evened with money. Moreover, he took with him of his servants and slaves and cattle all that he needed for the road and clad himself and the Vizier and their company in merchants’ habits.
Then he bade his parents and kinsfolk and friends farewell and setting out, fared on over deserts and wastes all tides of the day and watches of the night; and whenas the way was long with him, he recited the following verses:
Passion and longing and unease are heavy on my spright, Nor is there one to succour me ’gainst destiny’s unright.
Arcturus and the Pleiades I watch, as ’twere for love A servant of the stars I’d grown; yea, all the tides of night
Still for the morning-star I look, till, when at last it comes, I’m yearning-maddened and my pain redouble for its sight.
