I’d win good will of every one, but whoso envies me ✿ Will not be won on any wise and makes mine office hard: How gain the gree of envious wight who coveteth my good, ✿ When naught will satisfy him save to see my good go marr’d?
Then he gave each a concubine that had not her like, and eunuchs and servants and slaves white and black, of each kind forty. He also gave each of them fifty steeds all thoroughbreds and they got them guards and followers; and he assigned to them revenues and appointed them solde and stipends and made them his assistants, saying to them, “O my brothers, I and you are equal and there is no distinction between me and you twain,”——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
Now when it was the Nine Hundred and Eighty-eighth Night,
She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Abdullah assigned stipends to his brothers and made them his assistants, saying, “O my brothers, I and you are equal and there is no distinction between me and you twain, and after Allah and the Caliph, the commandment is mine and yours. So rule you at Bassorah in my absence and in my presence, and your commandments shall be effectual; but look that ye fear Allah in your ordinances and beware of oppression, which if it endure depopulateth; and apply yourselves to justice, for justice, if it be prolonged, peopleth a land. Oppress not the True Believers, or they will curse you and ill report of you will reach the Caliph, wherefore dishonour will betide both me and you. Go not therefore about to violence any, but whatso ye greed for of the goods of the folk, take it from my goods, over and above that whereof ye have need; for ’tis not unknown to you what is handed down in the Koran of prohibition versets on the subject of oppression and Allah-gifted is he who said these couplets:—
Oppression ambusheth in sprite of man ✿ Whom naught withholdeth save the lack of might: The sage shall ne’er apply his wits to aught ✿ Until befitting time direct his sight: The tongue of Wisdom woneth in the heart; ✿ And in his mouth the tongue of foolish wight. Who at occasion’s call lacks power to rise ✿ Is slain by feeblest who would glut his spite. A man may hide his blood and breed, but aye ✿ His deeds on darkest hiddens cast a light. Wights of ill strain with ancestry as vile ✿ Have lips which never spake one word aright: And who committeth case to hands of fool ✿ In folly proveth self as fond and light; And who his secret tells to folk at large ✿ Shall rouse his foes to work him worst despight. Suffice the generous what regards his lot ✿ Nor meddles he with aught regards him not.