She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Abu Mohammed Lazybones continued: "So I alighted and, saluting him, seated myself beside him, and my Mamelukes and negro-slaves stood before me. Said the Sharif, 'Haply, thou hast some business with us which we may have pleasure of transacting?' Replied I, 'Yes, I have business with thee.' Asked he, 'And what is it?'; and I answered, 'I come to thee as a suitor for thy daughter's hand.' So he said, 'Thou hast neither cash nor rank nor family;' whereupon I pulled him out a purse of a thousand dinars, red gold, and said to him, 'This is my rank[1] and my family; and he (whom Allah bless and keep!) hath said, The best of ranks is wealth. And how well quoth the poet,
'Whoso two dithams hath, his lips have learnt * Speech of all
kinds with eloquence bedight:
Draw near[2] his brethren and crave ear of him, * And him
thou seest haught in pride-full height:
Were 't not for dirhams wherein glories he, * Hadst found him
'mid man kind in sorry plight.
When richard errs in words they all reply, * "Sooth thou hast
spoken and hast said aright!"
When pauper speaketh truly all reply * 'Thou liest;' and they
hold his sayings light.[3]
Verily dirhams in earth's every stead * Clothe men with rank and
make them fair to sight
Gold is the very tongue of eloquence; * Gold is the best of arms
for might who'd fight!'
Now when the Sharif heard these my words and understood my verse, he bowed his head awhile groundwards then raising it, said, 'If it must be so, I will have of thee other three thousand gold pieces.' 'I hear and I obey,' answered I, and sent one of my Mamelukes home for the money. As soon as he came back with it, I handed it to the Sharif who, when he saw it in his
- ↑ Arab. "Hasab" (=quaneity), the honour a man acquires for himself; opposed to "Nasab" (genealogy) honours inherited from ancestry: the Arabic well expresses my old motto (adopted by Chinese Gordon), "Honour, not Honours."
- ↑ Note the difference between "Takaddum" ( = standing in presence of, also superiority in excellence) and "Takádum" (priority in time).
- ↑ Lane (ii. 427) gives a pleasant Eastern illustration of this saying.
