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Quoth the Khalif, ‘Thou confessest to having divorced her and Merwan hath done the like; so now we will give her her choice. If she choose other than thee, we will marry her to him, and if she choose thee, we will restore her to thee.’ ‘Be it so,’ replied the Arab. So Muawiyeh said to her, ‘What sayst thou, O Suad? Which dost thou choose? The Commander of the Faithful, with his power and glory and dominion and palaces and treasures and all else thou seest at his command, or Merwan ben el Hekem, with his violence and tyranny, or this Arab, with his hunger and poverty?’ So she recited the following verses:
This man, for all he be in hunger and distress, Dearer to me than folk and neighbour is, nathelesse;
Yea, he is more to me than he who wears the crown, Merwan his governor and all who wealth possess.
Then said she, ‘O Commander of the Faithful, I will not forsake him by reason of the shifts of fortune or the perfidies of Fate, for there is between us old companionship, that may not be forgotten, and love beyond proof; and indeed it is but just that I should have patience with him in his stress, even as I shared fair fortune with him in better days.’ The Khalif marvelled at her wit and love and constancy and ordering her ten thousand dirhems, delivered her to the Arab, who took his wife and went away.
THE LOVERS OF BASSORA.
The Khalif Haroun er Reshid was sleepless one night; so he sent for El Asmaï and Hussein el Khelia[1] and said to them, ‘Tell me a story and do thou begin, O Hussein.’
- ↑ Abou Ali el Hussein surnamed El Khelia [the Wag] on account of his gay and licentious humour, a well-known poet of the Court of the early Abbaside Khalifs. He was a native of Bassora and a boon-companion of Abou Nuwas; but his introduction here is an anachronism as he did not make his appearance at court till the succeeding reign, that of Er Reshid’s son El Amin.
