thee great after rearing thee with the best of rearing and I educated thee so thou mightest become mine heir in lore and contrivance and in worldly good.  But thou soughtest my ruin and destruction and thou desiredst for me doom of death; however, the Lord, knowing me to be a wronged man, delivered me from thy mischief, for God hearteneth the broken heart and abaseth the envious and the vain-glorious.  O dear my son,[FN#80] thou hast been as the scorpion who when she striketh her sting[FN#81] upon brass would pierce it.  O dear my son, thou hast resembled the Sajalmah-bird[FN#82] when netted in net who, when she cannot save herself alive, she prayeth the partridges to cast themselves into perdition with her.  O dear my son, thou hast been as the cur who, when suffering cold entereth the potter’s house to warm himself at the kiln, and when warmed barketh at the folk on such wise that they must beat him and cast him out, lest after barking he bite them.  O dear my son, thou hast done even as the hog who entered the Hammam in company with the great; but after coming out he saw a stinking fosse a-flowing[FN#83] and went and therein wallowed.  O dear my son, thou hast become like the old and rank he-goat who when he goeth in leadeth his friends and familiars to the slaughter-house and cannot by any means come off safe or with his own life or with their lives.  O dear my son, a hand which worketh not neither plougheth, and withal is greedy and over-nimble shall be cut off from its armpit.  O dear my son, thou hast imitated the tree whom men hew down, head and branch, when she said, ’Had not that in your hands been of me,[FN#84] indeed ye would not have availed to my felling.’  O dear my son, thou hast acted as did the she-cat to whom they said, ’Renounce robbing that we make thee collars of gold and feed thee with sugar and almond cake!’ But she replied, ’As for me, my craft is that of my father and my mother, nor can I ever forget it.’  O dear my son, thou art as a dragon mounted upon a bramble-bush, and the two a-middlemost a stream, which when the wolf saw he cried, ’A mischief on a mischief and let one more mischievous counsel the twain of them.’  O dear my son, with delicate food I fed thee and thou didst not fodder me with the driest of bread; and of sugar and the finest wines I gave thee to drink, while thou grudgedst to me a sup of cold water.  O dear my son, I taught thee and tendered thee with the tenderest of tending and garred thee grow like the lofty cedar of Lebanon, but thou didst incriminate me and confine me in fetters by thine evil courses.[FN#85] O dear my son, I nourished a hope that thou wouldst build me a strong tower wherein I might find refuge from mine adversary and foil my foes; but thou hast been to me as a burier, a grave-digger, who would thrust me into the bowels of the earth:  however, my Lord had mercy upon me.  O dear my son, I willed thee well and thou rewardedst me with ill-will and foul deed; wherefore, ’tis now my intent to pluck out thine eyes and hack away thy