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with his son by his side, that he might divert himself by gazing on the folk, as they ate from the tables. Every night Abdurrehman illuminated the street and the quarter with lamps and there came all the mimes and jugglers and mountebanks and played all manner sports; and indeed it was a peerless wedding. On the last day he invited the poor and needy, far and near, and they came in troops and ate, whilst the merchant sat, with his son by his side.
Presently, behold, Ubeid the jeweller entered, with a company of poor folk, and he was naked and weary and bore on his face the marks of travel. When Kemerezzeman saw him, he knew him and said to his father, ‘Look, O my father, at yonder poor man that is but now come in.’ So he looked and saw him clad in worn clothes and on him a patched gown worth two dirhems: his face was pale and he was covered with dust and was as he were an offcast of the pilgrimage.[1] He was groaning as groans the sick man and the needy, walking with a tottering gait and swaying right and left, and indeed there was realized in him the saying of the poet:
Lack-gold abaseth man and doth his worth away, Even as the setting sun that pales with ended day.
He passeth ’mongst the folk and fain would hide his head; And when alone, he weeps with tears that never stay.
Absent, none taketh heed to him or his concerns; Present, he hath no part in life or pleasance aye.
By Allah, whenas men with poverty are cursed, But strangers midst their kin and countrymen are they!
And that of another:
All to the poor man’s contrary, a hindrance and a woe; The whole world shuts its doors on him, wherever he doth go.
Thou seest him in abhorrence held, though he no culprit be; He sees hostility, the cause whereof he may not know.
- ↑ i.e. one who from weariness or illness has broken down midway on the pilgrimage and has been left behind by the caravan.
