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blood scattered by the way on all sides. When the King saw this, he cried out from his inmost heart, saying, ‘Alas, my son!’ and buffeted his face and tore his beard and rent his clothes, doubting not but his son was dead. Then he gave himself up to weeping and wailing, and the troops also wept for his weeping, being assured that the prince had perished. They wept and lamented and threw dust on their heads till they were nigh upon death, and the night surprised them whilst they were thus engaged. Then the King repeated the following verses, with a heart on fire for the torment of his despair:
Blame not the mourner for the grief to which he is a prey, For yearning sure sufficeth him, with all its drear dismay.
He weeps for dreariment and grief and stress of longing pain, And eke his transport doth the fires, that rage in him, bewray.
Alas, his fortune who’s Love’s slave, whom languishment hath bound Never to let his eyelids stint from weeping night and day!
He mourns the loss of one was like a bright and brilliant moon, That shone out over all his peers in glorious array.
But Death did proffer to his lips a brimming cup to drink, What time he left his native land, and now he’s far away.
He left his home and went from us unto calamity; Nor to his brethren was it given to him farewell to say.
Indeed, his loss hath stricken me with anguish and with woe; Yea, for estrangement from his sight my wits are gone astray.
Whenas the Lord of all vouchsafed to him His Paradise, Upon his journey forth he fared and passed from us for aye.
Night ccxii.Then he returned with the troops to his capital, giving up his son for lost and deeming that wild beasts or highwaymen had set on him and torn him in pieces, and made proclamation that all in the Khalidan Islands should don black in mourning for him. Moreover, he built a pavilion in his memory, naming it House of Lamentations, and here he was wont to spend his days, (with the exception of Mondays and Thursdays, which he devoted to the busi-
