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kinds and other things of price, beyond the competence of the kings of the earth. So they did as I bade them and when they had laid all the treasure before me, I said to them, “Can ye ransom me with all this treasure or buy me therewith one day of life?” But they could not; so I resigned myself to fore-ordained fate and submitted to the judgment of God, enduring patiently that which He decreed unto me of affliction, till he took my soul and made me to dwell in my grave. And if thou ask of my name, I am Koush, the son of Sheddad, son of Aad the Greater.’
An thou wouldst know my name, who lived so long ago, After the shifts of time and fortune’s changes, know
I’m Sheddard’s son, who held dominion o’er mankind And over all the earth was monarch, high and low.
The stubborn peoples all abased themselves to me And all the North was mine from Adnan to Cairo.
In glory still I reigned; the nations of the earth My mischief feared and I their kings did overthrow.
Yea, armies I beheld and tribes beneath my hand; The world and all therein did dread me, friend and foe.
When I took horse, I saw the number of my troops A million cavaliers on neighing steeds arow;
And treasures, too, were mine, past reckoning or count, The which I garnered up ’gainst fortune’s sudden blow.
Fain had I bought my life with all my wealth, although For but a moment’s space to lengthen it; but no,
God would have nought but that He willed should come to pass; So I abode alone, cut off my brethren fro’,
And death came to me, death that sunders all mankind, And from my state I passed unto the stead of woe.
There found I all I’d wrought of old, for which in pledge I now abide; and I a sinner was, I trow.
Bethink thee, on a brink that standest, and beware The chances of events and fortune’s overthrow.
The Amir Mousa wept till he swooned away, for what he saw of the slaughtering-places of the folk; then, as they went about the palace, viewing its sitting-chambers and pleasaunces, they came upon a table of yellow onyx, up-
