When it was the Two Hundred and Twenty-eighth Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when As'ad found himself bound and beaten and sore with beating he recalled his whilome condition of honour and prosperity and dominion and lordship, and he wept and groaned aloud and recited these couplets,
"Stand by the ruined stead and ask of us; * Nor deem we dwell there as was state of us: The World, that parter, hath departed us; * Yet soothes not hate-full hearts the fate of us: With whips a cursed slave girl scourges us, * And teems her breast with rancorous hate of us: Allah shall haply deign to unpart our lives, * Chastise our foes, and end this strait of us."
And when As'ad had spoken his poetry, he put out his hand towards his head and finding there the crust and the cr
