_Stanza 3._—When God had created man and made him wiser than the angels,
he bound him to himself by a solemn treaty. “Am I not thy Lord who has
created thee?” he demanded, and man answered “Yes.” But the Arabic word
_bala_, which signifies assent, means also sorrow, and they say that the
first of our fathers knew full well what a terrible gift was that life
which he had received from his Lord, and sealed the treaty with a seal
of grief. Therefore since the earliest day, life and sorrow have gone
hand in hand, bound together by the first great pact between God and
man.
_Stanza 4._—Compare François Villon’s rough and powerful treatment of
the same theme:—
“Où sont de Vienne et de Grenobles
Le Dauphin, les preux, les senés?
Où de Dijon, Sallin et Dolles,
Les sires et les fils aînés?
Où autant de leurs gens privés,
Hérauts, trompettes, poursuivants?
Ont-ils bien bouté sous le nez?...
Autant en emporte le vent!”
Solomon, the type of human greatness, is the King whose mastery has left
nothing behind. He harnessed the wind as a steed to his chariot, he
spoke with the birds in their own tongue, and the wise and magnificent
Assaf was his minister. Upon his seal was engraved the name of God which
is unknown to men and before which the Jinn and the Angels must bow
down. It was with this seal that he fastened up the bottles in which he
imprisoned the Jinn—those bottles which the fishermen in the “Arabian
Nights” pull up in their nets.