“Easy, O Fate! how long this wrong, this injury, *
     Robbing each morn and eve my brotherhood fro’ me? 
Is’t not time now thou deem this length sufficiency *
     Of woes and, O thou Heart of Rock, show clemency? 
My friends thou wrongedst when thou madst each enemy *
     Mock and exult me for thy wrongs, thy tyranny: 
My foeman’s heart is solaced by the things he saw *
     In me, of strangerhood and lonely misery: 
Suffice thee not what came upon my head of dole, *
     Friends lost for evermore, eyes wan and pale of blee? 
But must in prison cast so narrow there is naught *
     Save hand to bite, with bitten hand for company;
And tears that tempest down like goodly gift of cloud, *
     And longing thirst whose fires weet no satiety. 
Regretful yearnings, singulfs and unceasing sighs, *
     Repine, remembrance and pain’s very ecstacy: 
Desire I suffer sore and melancholy deep, *
     And I must bide a prey to endless phrenesy: 
I find me ne’er a friend who looks with piteous eye, *
     And seeks my presence to allay my misery: 
Say, liveth any intimate with trusty love *
     Who for mine ills will groan, my sleepless malady? 
To whom moan I can make and, peradventure, he *
     Shall pity eyes that sight of sleep can never see? 
The flea and bug suck up my blood, as wight that drinks *
     Wine from the proffering hand of fair virginity: 
Amid the lice my body aye remindeth me *
     Of orphan’s good in Kazi’s claw of villainy: 
My home’s a sepulchre that measures cubits three, *
     Where pass I morn and eve in chained agony: 
My wines are tears, my clank of chains takes music’s stead, *
     Cares my dessert of fruit and sorrows are my bed.”

And when he had versed his verse and had prosed his prose, he again groaned and complained and remembered he had been and how he had been parted from his brother.  Thus far concerning him; but as regards his brother Amjad, he awaited As’ad till mid-day yet he returned not to him:  whereupon Amjad’s vitals fluttered, the pangs of parting were sore upon him and he poured forth abundant tears,—­And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

        When it was the Two Hundred and Thirtieth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Amjad awaited his brother As’ad till mid-day and he returned not to him, Amjad’s vitals fluttered; the pangs of parting were sore upon him and he poured forth abundant tears, exclaiming, “Alas, my brother!  Alas, my friend!  Alas my grief!  How I feared me we should be separated!” Then he descended from the mountain-top with the tears running down his cheeks; and, entering the city, ceased not walking till he made the market.  He asked the folk the name of the place and concerning its people and they said, “This is called the City of the Magians, and its citizens are mostly given