(CALLED "OF RAHBAH")[25]
Al Harith, son of Hammam, related: The summoning of desire called me
to Rahbah, the city of Malik, son of Towk, and I obeyed it, mounted on
a fleet camel, and unsheathing an active purpose. Now when I had cast
my anchors there, and fastened my ropes, and had gone forth from the
bath after shaving my head, I saw a boy cast in the mold of comeliness,
and clothed by beauty in the garb of perfection; and an old man was
holding on to his sleeve, asserting that he had slain his son; but the
boy denied knowledge of him and was horror-struck at his suspicion;
and the contention between them scattered its sparks, and the crowding
upon them was made up of good and bad. Now after their quarreling had
been excessive, they agreed to refer to the Governor of the town; so
they hastened to his court with the speed of Sulayk in his career; and
when they were there the old man renewed his charge and claimed help.
So the Governor made the boy speak, for the boy had already fascinated
him by the graces of his bright brow, and cloven his understanding by
the disposition of his forelocks. And the boy said, "It is the lie of
a great liar against one who is no blood-shedder, and the slander of
a knave against one who is not an assassin." Then said the Governor
to the old man, "If two just Moslems testify for thee, well; if not,
demand of him the oath." Said the old man, "Surely he struck him down
remote from men, and shed his blood when alone; and how can I have a
witness, when on the spot there was no beholder? But empower me to
dictate an oath that it may appear to thee whether he speaks true or
lies." He said to him, "Thou hast authority for that; thou with thy
vehement grief for thy slain son." Then said the old man to the boy:
"Say, I swear by him who hath adorned foreheads with forelocks, and
eyes with their black and white, and eyebrows with separation, and
smiling teeth with regularity, and eyelids with languor, and noses
with straightness, and cheeks with flame, and mouths with purity, and
fingers with softness, and waists with slenderness, that I have not
killed thy son by negligence, nor of wilfulness, nor made his head a
sheath to my sword; if it be otherwise, may God strike my eyelid with
soreness, and my cheek with freckles, and my forelocks with dropping,
and my palm-shoot with greenness, and my rose with the ox-eye, and my
musk with a foul steam, and my full moon with waning, and my silver
with tarnishing, and my rays with the dark."
Then said the boy, "The scorching of affliction be my lot rather than
to take such an oath! let me yield to vengeance rather than swear as
no one has ever sworn!" But the old man would naught but make him
swallow the oath which he had framed for him, and the draughts which
he had bittered. And the dispute ceased not to blaze between them, and
the road of concord to be rugged. Now the boy, while thus resisting,
captivated the Governor by his motions, and made him covet that he
should belong to him; until love subdued his heart and fixed in his
breast; and the passion which enslaved him, and the desire which he
had imagined tempted him to liberate the boy and then get possession
of him, to free him from the noose of the old man, and then catch him
himself. So he said to the old man, "Hast thou a mind for that which
is more seemly in the stronger and nearer to god-fearing?" He said,
"Whither art thou pointing that I should follow and not delay?" He
said, "I think it well that thou cease from altercation and be content
with a hundred denars, on condition that I take on myself part of it,
and collect the rest as may be." Said the old man, "I refuse not; but
let there be no failure to thy promise." Then the Governor paid him
down twenty and assigned among his attendants the making up of fifty.
But the robe of evening grew dim, and from this cause the rain of
collection was cut short. Then he said, "Take what is ready and leave
disputing; and on me be it to-morrow to accomplish that the rest be
doled to thee and reach thee." Said the old man, "I will do this on the
condition that I keep close to him to-night, that the pupil of my eye
guard him, until when on the dawning of the morn he has made up what
remains of the sum of reconciliation, shell may get clear of chick, and
he may go guiltless as the wolf went guiltless of the blood of the son
of Jacob." Then said to him the Governor, "I think that thou dost not
impose what is immoderate or ask what is excessive."
Said Al Harith, son of Hammam: Now when I perceived that the pleadings
of the old man were as the pleadings of Ibn Surayj, I knew him to be
the Glory of the Serujis: and I delayed until the stars of the darkness
glittered, and the knots of the crowd dispersed: and then I sought the
Governor's courtyard; and lo! the old man guarding the youth. And I
adjured him by God to say whether he was Abu Zayd: he said, "Yes, by
him who hath permitted the chase." I said, "Who is this boy, after
whom the understanding darts?" He said, "In kin he is my chick, and in
making gain my springe." I said, "Wilt thou not be satisfied with the
graces of his make, and spare the Governor temptation by his forelock?"
He said, "Were it not that his forehead put forth its ringlets, I
should not have snatched the fifty." Then he said, "Pass the night near
me that we may quench the fire of grief, and give enjoyment its turn
after separation. For I have resolved to slip away at dawn, and to burn
the Governor's heart with the flame of regret." Said Al Harith, Then I
spent the night with him in conversation more pleasant than a garden
of flowers, or a woodland of trees: until when the Wolf's Tail lighted
the horizon, and the brightening of the daybreak came on in its time,
he mounted the back of the highway, and left the Governor to taste
burning torment. And he committed to me, in the hour of his departure
a paper firmly closed, and said, "Hand it to the Governor when he has
been bereft of composure, when he has convinced himself of our flight."
But I broke the seal as one who would free himself from a letter of
Mutelemmis, and behold there was written in it:
Tell the Governor whom I have left, after my departure, repenting,
grieving, biting his hands,
That the old man has stolen his money and the young one his heart; and
he is scorched in the flame of a double regret.
He was generous with his coin when love blinded his eye, and he has
ended with losing either.
Calm thy grief, O afflicted, for it profits not to seek the traces
after the substance is gone.
But if what has befallen thee is terrible to thee as the ill-fate of
Al Hosayn is terrible to the Moslems;
Yet hast thou gotten in exchange for it understanding and caution; and
the wise man, the prudent, wishes for these.
So henceforth resist desires, and know that the chasing of gazelles is
not easy;
No, nor does every bird enter the springe, even though it be
surrounded by silver.
And how many a one who seeks to make a prey becomes a prey himself,
and meets with naught but the shoes of Honayn!
Now consider well, and forecast not every thundercloud: many a
thundercloud may have in it the bolts of death:
And cast down thine eye, that thou mayest rest from a passion by which
thou wouldest clothe thyself with the garment of infamy and disgrace.
For the trouble of man is the following of the soul's desire; and the
seed of desire is the longing look of the eye.
Said the narrator, But I tore the paper piecemeal, and cared not
whether he blamed or pardoned me.