Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp | Page 8

kingship and the sultanate, beseeching God to grant him continuance of glory and prosperity without end.
When [FN#35] Zein ul Asnam saw himself in this great might and wealth, and he young in years, he inclined unto prodigality and to the converse of springalds like himself and fell to squandering vast sums upon his pleasures and left governance and concern for his subjects. The queen his mother proceeded to admonish him and to forbid him from his ill fashions, bidding him leave that manner of life and apply himself governance and administration and the ordinance of the realm, lest the folk reject him and rise up against him and expel [FN#36] hira; but he would hear not a word from her and abode in his ignorance and folly. At this the people murmured, for that the grandees of the realm put out their hands unto oppression, whenas they saw the king's lack of concern for his subjects; so they rose up in rebellion against Zein ul Asnam and would have laid violent hands upon him, had not the queen his mother been a woman of wit and judgment and address, and the people loved her; so she appeased the folk and promised them good. Then she called her son Zein ul Asnam to her and said to him, "See, O my son; said I not to thee that thou wouldest lose thy kingship and eke thy life, an thou persistedst in this thine ignorance and folly, in that thou givest the ordinance of the sultanate into the hands of raw youths and eschewest the old and wastest thy substance and that of the realm, squandering it all upon lewdness and the lust of thy soul?"
Zein ul Asnam hearkened to his mother's rede and going out forthright to the Divan, committed the manage of the realm into the hands of certain old men of understanding and experience; save that he did this only after Bassora had been ruined, inasmuch as he turned not from his folly till he had spent and squandered all the treasures of the sultanate and was become exceeding poor. Then he betook himself to repentance and to sorrowing over that which he had done, [FN#37] so that he lost the solace of sleep and eschewed meat and drink, till one night of the nights,--and indeed he had spent it in mourning and lamentation and melancholy thought until the last of the night,-- his eyes closed for a little and there appeared to him in his sleep a venerable old man, who said to him, "O Zein ul Asnam, grieve not, for that nought followeth after grief save relief from stress, and an thou desire to be delivered from this thine affliction, arise and betake thee to Cairo, where thou wilt find treasuries of wealth which shall stand thee in stead of that thou hast squandered, ay, and twofold the sum thereof." When he awoke from his sleep, he acquainted his mother with all that he had seen in his dream, and she fell to laughing at him; but he said to her, "Laugh not, for needs must I journey to Cairo." "O my son," answered she, "put not thy trust in dreams, for that they are all vain fancies and lying imaginations." And he said to her, "Nay, my dream was a true one and the man whom I saw is of the Friends of God [FN#38] and his speech is very sooth."
Accordingly, he left the sultanate and going forth a-journeying one night of the nights, took the road to Egypt [and fared on] days and nights till he came to the city of Cairo. So he entered it and saw it a great and magnificent city; then, being perished for weariness, he took shelter in one of its mosques. When he had rested awhile, he went forth and bought him somewhat to eat; and after he had eaten, he fell asleep in the mosque, of the excess of his weariness, nor had he slept but a little when the old man appeared to him in his sleep and said to him, "O Zein ul Assam, [FN#39] thou hast done as I said to thee, and indeed I made proof of thee, that I might see an thou wert valiant or not; but now I know thee, inasmuch as thou hast put faith in my rede and hast done according thereto. So now return to thine own city and I will make thee a king rich after such a measure that neither before thee nor after thee shall [any] of the kings be like unto thee." So Zein ul Asnam arose from his sleep and said, "In the name of God. the Compassionate, the Merciful! What is this old man who hath wearier me, so that I came