Thousand & One Nights: 89th Night

On the eighty ninth night Shahrazad said:

I heard, O happy king, Ja'far said to the Caliph:

When Ajib heard the insulting remarks of the children and the monitor, he left at once and came crying to his mother Sit al-Husn. When she saw him, her heart was on fire for him, and she asked him, "Son why do you cry? May God never let you cry again!" Sobbing he told her what had happened; then he asked her, "Who, then is my father?"
She replied, "Your father is the vizier of Cairo"
He said, "You are lying, the vizier is your own father, he is my grandfather. Who, then is my father?
When Sit al-Husn heard him speak of his father, her cousin and husband Badr al-Din Hasan, she recalled her wedding night, she wept bitterly and recited the following verses:

Lit the love in me and went  away, 
Here I am empty hearth and heart.
His shrine is too distant to visit, 
Long distance that kept us apart.
When he left, my patience left
So did my endurance and control.
He took with him my joy and peace 
He left me my unhappy tears
When I long to see him once more
I trace his image in my heart.

She wept and made her son weep. The vizier came in. He saw them weep, and asked, "Why do you weep?" His daughter told him what had happened to her son, and when the vizier remembered his brother and the present station of his daughter and nephew, he too wept with them.

He went at once to the king. Kissing the ground before him begged him leave, so to go eastward to the city of Basra, in search of his nephew. He also begged the king for royal edicts to all provinces and cities, authorising him to take custody of Badr al-Din Hasan, wherever he found him. He wept before the king who took pity on him, and wrote letters and edicts to all the provinces and cities. The vizier rejoiced, thanked the king, and invoked God's blessings on him. He returned at once to his house, and after he made preparations for the journey, he took his daughter and nephew with him and departed.

The day broke and Shahrazad stopped her story telling.








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