52
Then he sobbed and repeated these verses also:
Her traces on the encampment’s sands a robe of grace bestow: The mourner yearneth to the place where she dwelt whiles ago.
Towards her native land she turns; a camp in her doth raise Longing, whose very ruins now are scattered to and fro.
She stops and questions of the place; but with the case’s tongue It answers her, “There is no way to union, I trow.
’Tis as the lost a Levin were, that glittered on the camp Awhile, then vanished and to thee appeareth nevermo’.”
And he repented, whenas repentance availed him not, and wept and tore his clothes. Then he took two stones and went round the city, beating his breast with the stones and crying out, ‘O Zumurrud!’ whilst the children flocked round him, calling out, ‘A madman! A madman!’ and all who knew him wept for him, saying, ‘Yonder is such an one: what hath befallen him?’ This he did all that day, and when night darkened on him, he lay down in one of the by-streets and slept till morning. On the morrow, he went round about the city with the stones till eventide, when he returned to his house, to pass the night. One of his neighbours, a worthy old woman, saw him and said to him, ‘God keep thee, O my son! How long hast thou been mad?’ And he answered her with the following verse:
Quoth they, “Thou’rt surely mad for her thou lov’st;” and I replied, “Indeed the sweets of life belong unto the raving race.
My madness leave and bring me her for whom ye say I’m mad; And if she heal my madness, spare to blame me for my case.”
Therewith she knew him for a lover who had lost his mistress and said, ‘There is no power and no virtue but in God the Most High, the Supreme! O my son, I would have thee acquaint me with the particulars of thine affliction. Peradventure God may enable me to help thee against it, if it so please Him.’ So he told her all that had happened and she said, ‘O my son, indeed thou hast
