But time passed over him, as if he had never been, and
Kanmakan's estate was changed; for the people of Baghdad set him
aside and put him and his family in a place apart. When his
mother saw this, she fell into the sorriest of plights and said,
"Needs must I go to the Grand Chamberlain, and I hope for the
favour of the Subtle, the All-Wise One!" Then she betook herself
to the house of the Chamberlain, who was now become Sultan, and
found him sitting upon his couch. So she went in to his wife
Nuzhet ez Zeman and wept sore and said, "Verily, the dead have no
friends. May God never bring you to need and may you cease not to
rule justly over rich and poor many days and years! Thine ears
have heard and thine eyes have seen all that was ours aforetime
of kingship and honour and dignity and wealth and goodliness of
life and condition; and now fortune hath turned upon us, and fate
and the time have played us false and wrought hostilely with us;
wherefore I come to thee, craving thy bounties, I that have been
used to confer favours; for when a man dies, women and girls are
brought low after him." And she repeated the following verses:
Let it suffice thee that Death is the worker of wonders and know
That the lives which are gone from our sight will never
return to us mo'.
The days of the life of mankind are nothing but journeys, I wot,
whose watering-places for aye are mixed with misfortune and
woe.
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