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So the days and nights went by, whilst Kanmakan lay tossing upon coals of fire, till he reached the age of seventeen: and indeed his beauty was now come to perfection and his wit had ripened. One night, as he lay awake, he communed with himself and said, “Why should I keep silence, till I consume away, and see not my love? My only fault is poverty: so, by Allah, I will go out from this land and wander afar in the plains and valleys; for my condition in this city is one of misery and I have no friend nor lover in it to comfort me; wherefore I will distract myself by absence from my native land, till I die and am at peace from abasement and tribulation.” And he repeated the following verses:
Though my soul weary for distress and flutter fast for woe, Yet of its nature was it ne’er to buckle to a foe.
Excuse me; for indeed my heart is like a book, whereof The superscription’s nought but tears, that aye unceasing flow.
Behold my cousin, how she seems a maid of Paradise, A houri come, by Rizwan’s grace, to visit us below!
Who seeks the glances of her eyes and dares the scathing stroke Of their bright swords, shall hardly ’scape their swift and deadly blow.
Lo, I will wander o’er the world, to free my heart from bale And compensation for its loss upon my soul bestow!
Yea, I will range the fields of war and tilt against the brave And o’er the champions will I ride roughshod and lay them low.
Then will I come back, glad at heart and rich in goods and store, Driving the herds and flocks as spoil before me, as I go.
So he went out in the darkness of the night, barefoot, wearing a short-sleeved tunic and a skull-cap of felt seven years old and carrying a cake of dry bread, three days stale, and betook himself to the gate El Arij of Baghdad. Here he waited till the gate opened, when he was the first to go forth; and he went out at random and wandered in the deserts day and night. When the night came, his mother sought him, but found him not, whereupon the world, for all its wideness, was straitened upon her and she
