ter, could I ever bring it to an end? In short, the king was mad for this child and beside himself through the force of his ardent affection. This excellent and all-powerful king became like the crescent moon because of the love he felt for this full moon. He was so absorbed in this feeling that he was not conscious of his own existence. If he remained away from him for a moment, his troubled heart made a stream of blood flow from his eyes. Without him, he had not a moment’s repose; and, apart from his love, he had no patience for the shortest space of time. Not an instant passed without him, by day or night; he was his intimate companion day and night. He made him sit beside him all day until nightfall, and told his secrets to that moonlike face. The black night might come, but neither sleep nor rest existed for the king. This child slept before the king, and the king gazed in admiration at his beautiful face. All night he was illumined by the torch of this charming being. So the king gazed upon this moonlike face and shed tears of blood each night. Now he cast roses upon his face, now he brushed the dust from his hair. Now, through the force of his amorous sorrow, he let abundant tears fall upon his cheeks, like rain from the clouds above. Now he celebrated this moon, now he jested pleasantly with it. He did not let it go from him for a moment, for its presence was necessary to him.
It is astonishing that this child could have remained thus beside the king, but it was because his foot was bound, as it were, by fear of Khosroës. Indeed, had he for a moment left his girdle, the king, out of jealousy, would have severed his head from his body. If this child’s father or mother wished to see him for a moment, they dared not do so, lest they displease the king and incur the repeated remarks to which their visit might give rise.
Now there was, in the king’s household, a young girl with a sun-bright face, as beautiful as a painting. The very young man fell in love with her; he was ardent as fire toward her. One night he contrived to spend the night with her, and prepared a feast as beautiful as her face. He sat with her in secret, without the king; for, as it happened, the king was drunk that night. At midnight, the king, still half-drunk, rose from his bed, a dagger in his hand. He sought the young man and did not find him. At last he came to where he was with the young girl, and easily understood that they were in love with one another. At this sight, the fire of jealousy burst into the heart of that renowned king. At that moment, he, a great monarch, drunk and in love, astonished that this child could love anyone other than him, said to himself: “Since he has chosen this person in preference to a king such as I, he is a fool. All that I have done for him, no one has ever done for anyone; and this is how he repays the good I have done him. Schirin acted likewise, preferring Koh-kan. The keys to my treasures are in his hands; the greatest people in the world are beneath him; he is ever my confidant and intimate: he knows my sorrows and their remedy, and now here he sits in secret with a beggar woman; but I shall this very moment rid the world of him.” The king spoke thus and ordered that the young man be bound fast. His silver-bright complexion, amid the dust of the road, from the blows of the king’s staff, became like…
Then the king ordered the scaffold to be erected and the young man put to death in the midst of the platform. “First tear off his skin,” he said, “then impale him upside down, so that henceforth, when anyone has been admitted to the king’s intimacy, no one else will ever again be given any heed.” At first they searched for the young man in vain; but at last they found him where he was and carried him away, wretched and forlorn, to drive his drunken head upon the stake.
The vizier, having learned of his son’s plight, cast dust upon his head and said: “O soul of thy father! What mischance has befallen thee on thy path? By what strange coincidence has the king become thine enemy?”
Now ten young slaves of the king had been charged with carrying out the sentence.
The vizier, having learned of his son’s plight, cast dust upon his head and said: “O soul of thy father! What mischance has befallen thee on thy path? By what strange coincidence has the king become thine enemy?”
Now ten young slaves of the king had been charged with carrying out the sentence.
On Death. The vizier arrived, his heart sorrowful and broken; he gave each of them a diamond, so beautiful that it could serve as a lamp during the night. “The king was drunk tonight,” he said to them, “and this young man is not guilty as he believes himself to be. When this illustrious sovereign comes to his senses, he will repent of having given this order, and will be greatly troubled. Will he then leave alive a single one of the hundred slaves who might have helped carry it out?” But they said: “If the king comes and finds no one to obey his orders, he will immediately make a stream of our blood flow, and then set us on the stake, head downwards.”
Then the vizier brought a murderer out of prison, and had his skin flayed as one peels a clove of garlic. He tied him upside down to the stake, and with his blood made the earth rose-coloured. He had the young man (the object of the king’s animosity) hidden until good fortune (of the world?) should once more appear to him from behind the curtain.
Then the vizier brought a murderer out of prison, and had his skin flayed as one peels a clove of garlic. He tied him upside down to the stake, and with his blood made the earth rose-coloured. He had the young man (the object of the king’s animosity) hidden until good fortune (of the world?) should once more appear to him from behind the curtain.
The next day, when the king had recovered from his drunkenness, his heart was nevertheless still burning with anger. He therefore summoned the young executioners and said to them: “How did you treat this dog?”—“We have,” they replied, “firmly impaled him in the middle of the platform. We have completely flayed him, and he is now upside down on the stake.”
When the king had heard the answer of these ten young slaves, he was pleased. He gave each of them a fine robe of honour, promoted them in rank, and bestowed distinctions upon them. Then he said: “Leave the guilty man for some time longer on the stake, in the degrading and wretched state in which he is, so that his contemporaries may take warning from what has befallen this impure and worthless servant.”
No sooner had the people of the city heard the tale of this event than they were overcome with sorrow. They came in great numbers to see the sufferer, but no one recognised him. They saw a bloodstained body, flayed and impaled upside down. All who saw him in this state, great and small, shed tears of blood in abundance, like rain. The mourning for this handsome young man lasted all day until night; the city was filled with grief, regret, and sighs.
When the king had heard the answer of these ten young slaves, he was pleased. He gave each of them a fine robe of honour, promoted them in rank, and bestowed distinctions upon them. Then he said: “Leave the guilty man for some time longer on the stake, in the degrading and wretched state in which he is, so that his contemporaries may take warning from what has befallen this impure and worthless servant.”
No sooner had the people of the city heard the tale of this event than they were overcome with sorrow. They came in great numbers to see the sufferer, but no one recognised him. They saw a bloodstained body, flayed and impaled upside down. All who saw him in this state, great and small, shed tears of blood in abundance, like rain. The mourning for this handsome young man lasted all day until night; the city was filled with grief, regret, and sighs.
After a few days, the king, deprived of his friend, repented of his deed. His anger abated, and his love grew more intense. Love made an ant of that lion-hearted king. Such a king, with such a youth resembling Joseph, seated night and day in pleasant tête-à-tête, that king, I say, who was ever merry with the wine of union—how could he have remained in the dreadful intoxication of absence? At last he could not contain himself another instant, and thenceforth did nothing but weep continually. He consumed his soul with the pain of absence; he was impatient and restless because of the desire that filled his heart. He gave himself over to the bitterest repentance; he filled his eyes with blood and cast the dust of the road upon his head. He took blue garments (of mourning) and pressed them to his breast. He sat amid ashes and blood. From that time, he neither ate nor drank, and sleep forsook his bloodshot eyes. When night came, the king went out and had the strangers removed from around the stake. He went alone beneath the gallows of the youth, reflecting on what had happened. When the memory of that unhappy affair came back to him in every detail, his sighs rose (as it were) from the tip of every hair. Boundless grief seized his heart; at every moment a new sorrow befell him. He wept much over the head of that youth whom he had caused to die, and repeatedly rubbed his face with the youth’s blood. He threw himself to the ground and with one hand tore the back of his other hand. Had anyone been able to count his tears, he would have seen that they were far more numerous than the drops of water in a hundred rain showers. Thus he remained alone all night until daybreak, like a candle, in tears and burning. When the morning breeze blew, the king withdrew with his confidants. He withdrew from amidst the dust and ashes, in unceasing grief. After forty days and forty nights, the king, of eminent
In dignity, he appeared like Moses! and did not cease going beneath the gallows, sick as he was with anxiety. No one dared, during those forty days and forty nights, to open his mouth to speak to him. After forty nights and forty days spent without drinking or eating, he saw in a dream that young man whose face, like the moon, was bathed in tears, and whose body was covered with blood from head to foot.
“O charming young man!” said the king to him, “you whose sight enlarges my soul, why are you thus plunged in blood from head to foot?” — “I am in blood,” he replied, “because of your friendship—or rather, because you have been unfaithful to it. You had me flayed alive, though I was innocent. Is this how one is faithful in friendship, O king? Does a friend act thus toward his friend? I would be unfaithful if ever any unfaithful one had acted as you have. What have I done to be impaled, to have my head cut off and be hung upside down? I now turn my face away from you, and until the resurrection I shall seek justice against you. When the tribunal of supreme justice is opened, the Most High will demand that justice be done to me against you.”
“O charming young man!” said the king to him, “you whose sight enlarges my soul, why are you thus plunged in blood from head to foot?” — “I am in blood,” he replied, “because of your friendship—or rather, because you have been unfaithful to it. You had me flayed alive, though I was innocent. Is this how one is faithful in friendship, O king? Does a friend act thus toward his friend? I would be unfaithful if ever any unfaithful one had acted as you have. What have I done to be impaled, to have my head cut off and be hung upside down? I now turn my face away from you, and until the resurrection I shall seek justice against you. When the tribunal of supreme justice is opened, the Most High will demand that justice be done to me against you.”
When the king had heard the discourse of that moon, his heart awoke at once, all bleeding. Emotion held sway over his heart and soul; at every moment his grief grew keener. At last he lost his reason and understanding, became languid, and sorrow never left him again. He opened the house of madness and began to heave many a sigh. “O thou,” said he, “who art the object of my fruitless affection! my mind and my heart have been made to bleed because of thee. O thou who madest me lose my reason, and who afterwards wast sadly put to death at my command! Who has struck himself as I have? Who has done with his own hand what I myself have done? It is meet that I be plunged in blood, since I caused the object of my love to perish. Look now where thou art, O my child! and draw not a line of ink across my friendship. Return not evil for the evil I did thee, for in truth I did it to myself. I am bewildered and sorrowful because of thee; I scatter dust upon my head as I stand upon the dust of the road where I lost thee. O my life! where shall I seek thee? Have compassion on my bewildered heart. Though I treated thee cruelly, and though I was faithless to thee, thou who art faithful, deal not harshly with me. If in my folly I caused the blood of thy body to flow, how many times hast thou not caused the blood of my heart to flow, O my child? I was drunk when I committed this crime; how came it that fate drove me to such a deed? Now that thou hast suddenly vanished from before me, how shall I live in the world without thee? Since, deprived of thee, I am no longer myself, I have but a few moments left to live. Deprived of thee, the king brings his soul to the brink of his lips, to offer it as the price of thy blood. I fear not death, but I fear the misfortune into which I have plunged myself. Were I to beg forgiveness for this crime forever, I would not dare hope to obtain it. Would to God that my throat were cut with a scimitar, and that the grief and affliction I endure might depart from my heart!
“O my Creator! my soul hath burned in this deep distress; it hath been utterly consumed by grief. I have neither the strength nor the courage to endure separation; therefore my soul burneth with longing. Take my life out of compassion, O dispenser of justice! for I can bear it no longer.”
The king spoke thus, then kept silence and fell fainting in the midst of his silence. At last the messenger of divine favour arrived, and thanksgiving could follow lamentation. For the vizir was concealed in the very place where the king gave himself up to a grief beyond all bounds. He had kept the young man ready for this eventuality, and, at the moment he deemed favourable, brought him before the king of the world. The youth came forth from behind the curtain like the moon from beneath the cloud, and presented himself before the king in his tunic and with his sword. He prostrated himself upon the ground before the king, and shed tears as abundant as rain.
The king spoke thus, then kept silence and fell fainting in the midst of his silence. At last the messenger of divine favour arrived, and thanksgiving could follow lamentation. For the vizir was concealed in the very place where the king gave himself up to a grief beyond all bounds. He had kept the young man ready for this eventuality, and, at the moment he deemed favourable, brought him before the king of the world. The youth came forth from behind the curtain like the moon from beneath the cloud, and presented himself before the king in his tunic and with his sword. He prostrated himself upon the ground before the king, and shed tears as abundant as rain.
How shall I depict the moment when the king saw that moon? He fell into the dust, and the young man into his blood. Who can know how these astonishing things came to pass? All that I might say further should no more be spoken than the pearl lying at the bottom of the abyss can be pierced. For when the king was thus delivered from the pain of separation, he entered with his slave into a secluded chamber. No one now knows of the secret things that pass between them, for rivals have no access to that place. Only a blind man could have seen, and a deaf man could have heard. Who am I to unfold what the one said and the other heard, and to set forth for the mind the explanation of this story? How should I expound the matter, I who have not attained the highest degree of knowledge? I strike my body, wearied by this pursuit, while, if my spiritual masters so willed, they would give me this explanation.
I have now finished my discourse; I have nothing more to say. Farewell.