she sat down thereon and taking the lute, tuned it and sang to it these couplets,
"When shall disunion and estrangement end? * When shall my bygone
joys again be kenned?
Yesterday we were joined in same abode; * Conversing heedless of
each envious friend:[1]
Trickt us that traitor Time, disjoined our lot * And our waste
home to desert fate condemned:
Wouldst have me, Grumbler! from my dearling fly? * I find my
vitals blame will not perpend:
Cease thou to censure; leave me to repine; * My mind e'er findeth
thoughts that pleasure lend.
O Lords[2] of me who brake our troth and plight, * Deem not
to lose your hold of heart and sprite!"
When the false Caliph heard the girl's song, he cried out with a loud outcry and rent his raiment,—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
When it was the Two Hundred and Ninetieth Night,
She said, When the false Caliph heard the girl's song, he cried with a loud outcry and rent his raiment and fell to the ground fainting; whereupon they would have let down the curtain over him, as of custom; but its cords stuck fast and Harun al-Rashid, after considering him carefully, saw on his body the marks of beating with palm-rods and said to Ja'afar, "By Allah, he is a handsome youth, but a foul thief!" "Whence knowest thou that, O Commander of the Faithful?" asked Ja'afar, and the Caliph answered, "Sawest thou not the whip-scars on his ribs?" Then they let fall the curtain over him and brought him a fresh dress, which he put on and sat up as before with his courtiers and
- ↑ Arab. "Hásid" = an envier: in the fourth couplet "Azúl" (Azzál, etc.) = a chider, blamer; elsewhere "Lawwám" = accuser, censor, slanderer; "Wáshí,"=whisperer, informer; "Rakib"=spying, envious rival; "Ghábit"=one emulous without envy; and "Shámit"= a "blue" (fierce) enemy who rejoices over another's calamities. Arabic literature abounds in allusions to this unpleasant category of "damned ill-natured friends;" and Spanish and Portuguese letters, including Brazilian, have thoroughly caught the trick. In the Eastern mind the "blamer" would be aided by the "evil eye."
- ↑ Another plural for a singular, "O my beloved!"
