Now when it was the Seven Hundred and Sixty-fifth Night,
She resumed, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Sayf al-Muluk would have cast himself into the main, his Mamelukes withheld him saying, “What will this profit thee? Thou hast done this deed by thyself, yet was it written from all eternity by the will of the Creator of Souls, that the creature might accomplish that which Allah hath decreed unto him. And indeed, at the time of thy birth, the astrologers assured thy sire that all manner troubles should befal thee. So there is naught for it but patience till Allah deliver us from this our strait.” Replied the Prince, “There is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great! Neither is there refuge nor fleeing from that which He decreeth!” And he sighed and recited these couplets:—
By the Compassionate, I’m dazed about my case, for lo! Troubles and griefs beset me sore; I know not whence they grow. I will be patient, so the folk, that I against a thing Bitt’rer than very aloes’ self,[400] endurèd have, may know.
Less bitter than my patience is the taste of aloes-juice; I’ve borne with patience what’s more hot than coals with fire aglow. In this my trouble what resource have I, save to commit My case to Him who orders all that is, for weal or woe?