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jure thee, O my son, to take patience, so haply God may do away this affliction from thee and bring thee complete relief: as quoth one of the poets:
It may be Fate at last shall draw its bridle-rein And bring us happy chance; for Fortune changes still;
And things shall happen yet, despite the things fordone, To further forth my hopes and bring me to my will.
And now, O my son,’ added he, ‘I am certified that thou art not mad; but thy case is a strange one, none can unravel it for thee but God the Most High.’ ‘By Allah, O my father,’ cried the prince, ‘deal kindly with me and seek out this damsel and hasten her coming to me; else I shall die of grief.’ And he repeated the following verses, in a voice that betrayed the ardour of his passion:
An if thy very promise of union prove untrue, Let but in sleep thy favours the longing lover cheer.
“How can the phantom visit a lover’s eyes,” quoth they, “From which the grace of slumber is banned and banished sheer?”
And he sighed and wept and groaned aloud from a wounded heart, Night cxcii.whilst the tears streamed from his eyes. Then turning to his father, with submission and despondency, he said to him, ‘By Allah, O my father, I cannot endure to be parted from her even for an hour.’ The King smote hand upon hand and exclaimed, ‘There is no power and no virtue but in God, the Most High, the Sublime! There is no device can profit us in this affair!’ Then he took his son by the hand and carried him to the palace, where Kemerezzeman lay down on the bed of languor and the King sat at his head, weeping and mourning over him and leaving him not night or day, till at last the Vizier came in to him and said, ‘O King of the age and the time, how long wilt thou remain shut up with thy son and deny thyself to thy troops? Verily, the order of thy realm is like to be deranged, by reason of thine absence from thy grandees and officers of state. It behoves the man of
