115
Even the dogs, when they behold a man of fortune, straight Do follow him and fawn on him and wag their tails, I trow;
But if, one day, they see a poor and miserable wight, They bark at him incontinent and eke their teeth they show.
And yet another:
So but a man be blessed with luck and power and sway, Calamities and woes still turn from him away.
The loved one to him comes without a rendezvous, Unsought, and eke the spy the pimp for him doth play.
The folk as singing rate the rumbling of his guts And when he letteth wind, “He smelleth sweet,” they say.
Night dcccclxxvii.‘O my son,’ said the merchant, ‘who is this?’ And Kemerezzeman replied, ‘This is Master Ubeid the jeweller, husband of the woman who is imprisoned with us.’ Quoth Abdurrehman, ‘Is this he of whom thou toldest me?’ ‘Yes,’ answered his son; ‘and indeed I know him well.’
Now the manner of Ubeid’s coming thither was on this wise. When he had taken leave of Kemerezzeman, he went to his shop, where there came to him a job of work and he wrought at it all day. At eventide he locked up his shop and going home, laid his hand on the door, whereupon it opened and he entered and found neither his wife nor the slave-girl, but saw the house in the sorriest of plights, realizing the saying of the poet:
Once was it as a beehive stocked and full of bees galore; But, when they left it, it became devoid of all its store.[1]
It seems to-day as if it ne’er had been inhabited Or as if Death had taken those who dwelt therein of yore.
When he saw the house empty, he turned right and left and went round about the place, like a madman, but found no one. Then he opened the door of his treasure-closet, but found therein nought of his money nor his treasures;
- ↑ See note, Vol. VI. p. 37.
