Then
said the Khalif, 'O Alaeddin, why hast thou absented thyself from
the Divan?' And he replied, 'Because of my mourning for my wife
Zubeideh, O Commander of the Faithful.' 'Put away grief from
thee,' rejoined the prince. 'She is dead and gone to the mercy of
God the Most High, and mourning will avail thee nothing.' But
Alaeddin said, 'O Commander of the Faithful, I shall never leave
mourning for her till I die and they bury me by her side.' Quoth
Haroun, 'With God is compensation for every loss, and neither
wealth nor device can deliver from death. God bless him who said:
Every son of woman, how long soe'er his life be, Must one day be
carried upon the bulging bier.
How shall he have pleasure in life or hold it goodly, He unto
whose cheeks the dust must soon adhere?'
Then, when he had made an end of condoling with him, he charged
him not to absent himself from the Divan and returned to his
palace. On the morrow, Alaeddin mounted and riding to the court,
kissed the ground before the Khalif, who rose from the throne, to
greet and welcome him, and bade him take his appointed place in
the Divan saying, 'O Alaeddin, thou art my guest to-night.' So
presently he carried him into his seraglio and calling a slave-
girl named Cout el Culoub, said to her, 'Alaeddin had a wife
called Zubeideh, who used to sing to him and solace him of care
and trouble; but she is gone to the mercy of God the Most High,
and now I desire that thou play him an air of thy rarest fashion
on the lute, that he may be diverted from his grief and
mourning.
Pages:
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415