When these
merchants return from their journey, I shall return with them, by
which time I shall have been a whole year absent; yet is my
sorrow greater than ever and my grief and affliction were but
increased by my visit to the Islands of Camphor and the Castle of
Crystal. The islands in question are seven in number and are
ruled by a king, Shehriman by name, who hath a daughter called
Dunya; and I was told that it was she who wrought these gazelles
and that this thou seest was of her broidery. When I knew this,
yearning redoubled on me and I became a prey to consuming languor
and drowned in the sea of melancholy thought; and I wept over
myself, for that I was become even as a woman, without manly gear
like other men, and that there was no recourse for me. From the
day of my departure from the Camphor Islands, I have been
tearful-eyed and sorrowful-hearted, and I know not whether it
will be given me to return to my native land and die by my mother
or not, for I am weary of the world.'
When the young merchant had made an end of telling his story, he
wept and groaned and complained and gazed upon the figures
wrought on the piece of linen, whilst the tears streamed down his
cheeks and he repeated the following verses:
'Needs must thy sorrow have an end,' quoth many an one 'and cease
And I, Needs must your chiding end and let me be at peace.'
'After awhile,' say they; and I, 'Who will ensure me life, O
fools, until the hands of grief their grip of me release?'
And also these:
God knows that, since my severance from thee, full sore I've
wept, So sore that needs my eyes must run for very tears in
debt!
'Have patience,' quoth my censurers, 'and thou shalt win them
yet.
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