burton--1001-nights--sample

I am distraught, yet verily His ruth abides with me, * Tho’ round me
gather hosts of ills, whence come I cannot see:
Patient I’ll be till Patience self with me impatient wax; * Patient for
ever till the Lord fulfil my destiny:
Patient I’ll bide without complaint, a wronged and vanquisht man; *
Patient as sunparcht wight that spans the desert’s sandy sea:
Patient I’ll be till Aloe’s self unwittingly allow * I’m patient under
bitterer things than bitterest aloë: 59
No bitterer things than aloes or than patience for mankind; * Yet
bitterer than the twain to me were Patience’ treachery:
My sere and seamed and seared brow would dragoman my sore * If
soul could search my sprite and there unsecret secrecy:
Were hills to bear the load I bear they’d crumble ’neath the weight, *
’Twould still the roaring wind, ’twould quench the flame-tongue’s
flagrancy,
And whoso saith the world is sweet certès a day he’ll see * With more
than aloes’ bitterness and aloes’ pungency.
Then I journeyed through many regions and saw many a city intending
for Baghdad, that I might seek audience, in the House of Peace, 60 with
the Commander of the Faithful and tell him all that had befallen me.
I arrived here this very night and found my brother in Allah, this first
Kalandar, standing about as one perplexed; so I saluted him with
“Peace be upon thee,” and entered into discourse with him. Presently
59
These lines are hardly translatable. Arab. “Sabr” means “patience” as well as
“aloes,” hereby lending itself to a host of puns and double entendres more or less
vile.
60
Every city in the East has its specific title: this was given to Baghdad either on
account of its superior police or simply because it was the Capital of the Caliphate.
The Tigris was also called the “River of Peace (or Security).”
191