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of God. O my father, replied Hassan, through thy prayers
for me, the grace of God will come to me. Then he entered his
own palace and was met by his wife and her mother and their
attendants, who kissed his hands and gave him joy of his
advancement, saying, This is a blessed day. Then he went in
to his father and mother, who rejoiced with an exceeding joy in
that which God had vouchsafed him of his advancement to the
kingship, and his father exhorted him to the fear of God and to
affectionate solicitude in his dealings with his subjects. He
passed the night in joy and gladness, and on the morrow, having
prayed the appointed prayers, concluding with the customary
recitation of part of the Koran, he repaired to the Divan,
whither came all his officers and dignitaries. He passed the
day in dispensing justice among his subjects, enjoining to
beneficence and forbidding from iniquity and appointing and
displacing, till nightfall, when the Divan broke up, after the
goodliest fashion, and all present withdrew and went each his
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own way. Then he arose and went in to the palace, where he
found his father-in-law s sickness grown heavy upon him and
said to him, May no hurt befall thee! At this the old King
opened his eyes and said, O Hassan! At thy service, O my
lord, replied the young man. Quoth the old King, My last hour
is at hand: be careful of thy wife and her mother and look
thou fear God and honour thy parents, being still in awe of
the majesty of the Requiting King and remembering that He
commandeth to justice and beneficence. And Hassan replied,
I hear and obey.
The old King lingered three days after this and was then
received into the mercy of God the Most High. They paid him
the last offices and buried him and held over him readings and
recitations of the Koran, to the end of the [customary] forty
days. And King Hassan, son of the Vizier, reigned in his stead,
and his subjects rejoiced in him and all his days were gladness.
Moreover, his father ceased not to be his chief Vizier on his
right hand, and he took to himself another Vizier, to be at his
left hand. His reign was a prosperous one and he abode long
King in Baghdad. God blessed him, by the old King s daughter,
with three sons, who inherited the kingdom after him; and they
abode in the enjoyment of all delight and solace of life, till
there came to them the Destroyer of Delights and the Sunderer
of Companies. And glory be to Him who is eternal and in whose
hand are annulment and confirmation!
THE PILGRIM AND THE OLD WOMAN WHO DWELT
IN THE DESERT.
A man of the pilgrims once slept a long sleep and awaking,
found no trace of the caravan. So he arose and walked on, but
lost his way and presently came to a tent, at whose door he saw
an old woman and a dog by her, asleep. He went up to the tent
and saluting the old woman, sought of her food. Go to yonder
valley, said she, and catch thy sufficiency of serpents, that
I may broil of them for thee and give thee to eat. I dare not
catch serpents, answered the pilgrim; nor did I ever eat
them. Quoth the old woman, I will go with thee and catch
them; fear not. So she went with him, followed by the dog, to
the valley, and catching a sufficient number of serpents,
proceeded to broil them. He saw nothing for it but to eat, for
fear of hunger and exhaustion; so he ate of the serpents.
Then he was athirst and asked for water to drink. Go to the
spring and drink, answered she. So he went to the spring and
found the water thereof bitter; yet needs must he drink of it,
for all its bitterness, because of the violence of his thirst.
Then he returned to the old woman and said to her, O old
woman, I marvel at thy choosing to abide in this place and
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putting up with such meat and drink! And how is it then in
thy country? asked she. In my country, answered he, are
wide and spacious houses and ripe and delicious fruits and
sweet and abundant waters and goodly viands and fat meats and
plentiful flocks and all things pleasant and all the goods of
life, the like whereof are not, save in the Paradise that God
the Most High hath promised to His pious servants. All this,
replied she, have I heard: but tell me, have you a Sultan who
ruleth over you and is tyrannical in his rule and under whose
hand you are, who, if one of you commit a fault, taketh his
goods and undoth him and who, when he will, turneth you out of
your houses and uprooteth you, stock and branch? Indeed, that
may be, answered the man. Then, by Allah, rejoined she,
these your delicious viands and dainty life and pleasant
estate, with tyranny and oppression, are but a corroding
poison, in comparison wherewith, our food and fashion, with
freedom and safety, are a healthful medicine. Hast thou not
heard that the best of all boons, after the true Faith, are
health and security?
Now these[FN204] [quoth he who tells the tale] may be by the
just rule of the Sultan, the Vicar of God in His earth, and the
goodness of his policy. The Sultan of times past needed but
little awfulness, for that, when the people saw him, they
feared him; but the Sultan of these days hath need of the most
accomplished policy and the utmost majesty, for that men are
not as men of time past and this our age is one of folk
depraved and greatly calamitous, noted for folly and hardness
of heart and inclined to hatred and enmity. If, therefore, the
Sultan that is set over them be (which God the Most High
forfend) weak or lack of policy and majesty, without doubt,
this will be the cause of the ruin of the land. Quoth the
proverb, A hundred years of the Sultan s tyranny, rather than
one of the tyranny of the people, one over another. When the
people oppress one another, God setteth over them a tyrannical
Sultan and a despotic King. Thus it is told in history that
there was, one day, presented to El Hejjaj ben Yousuf[FN205] a
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