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ful! Hear two words from me.’ ‘Say on,’ replied the Khalif. Quoth Ibn el Caribi, ‘Mesrour made it a condition with me that, whatsoever might come to me of the bounties of the Commander of the Faithful, one-third thereof should be mine and the rest his; nor did he agree to leave me so much as one-third save after much haggling. Now thou hast bestowed on me nothing but beating; I have had my share and here stands he, ready to receive his; so give him the two other blows.’
When the Khalif heard this, he laughed till he fell backward; then calling Mesrour, he gave him a blow, whereat he cried out and said, ‘O Commander of the Faithful, one-third sufficeth me: Night cccci.give him the two-thirds.’ The Khalif laughed at them and ordered them a thousand dinars each, and they went away, rejoicing.
THE DEVOUT PRINCE.
The Khalif Haroun er Reshid had a son, who, from the time he attained the age of sixteen, renounced the world and walked in the way of ascetics and devotees. He was wont to go out to the tombs and say, ‘Behold, ye that lie here once possessed the world, but that was no deliverer for you [from death], and now are ye come to your graves! Would God I knew what ye say and what is said to you!’ And he wept, as one weeps that is troubled and fearful, and repeated the words of the poet:
Whene’er the funerals pass, my heart with fear is torn, And the wailing of the mourners maketh me to mourn.
One day, as he sat among the tombs, according to his wont, his father passed by, in all his state, surrounded by his viziers and grandees and the officers of his household, who saw the Khalif’s son, with a gown of woollen stuff on his body and a cowl of the same on his head, and said to
