meeting our woes control!"

When she had ended her verses, she heard her son's voice at the
door, calling out, "O mother, mother ah! fortune hath been kind
and hath vouchsafed our reunion!" Hearing his cry she knew his
voice and went to the door, between belief and misbelief; but,
when she opened it she saw him standing there and with him his
wife and children; so she shrieked aloud, for excess of joy, and
fell to the earth in a fainting-fit. Hasan ceased not soothing
her, till she recovered and embraced him; then she wept with joy,
and presently she called his slaves and servants and bade them
carry all his baggage into the house.[FN#184] So they brought in
every one of the loads, and his wife and children entered also,
whereupon Hasan's mother went up to the Princess and kissed her
head and bussed her feet, saying, "O daughter of the Supreme
King, if I have failed of thy due, behold, I crave pardon of
Almighty Allah." Then she turned to Hasan and said to him, "O my
son, what was the cause of this long strangerhood?" He related to
her all his adventures from beginning to end; and when she heard
tell of all that had befallen him, she cried a great cry and fell
down a-fainting at the very mention of his mishaps. He solaced
her, till she came to herself and said, "By Allah, O my son, thou
hast done unwisely in parting with the rod and the cap for, hadst
thou kept them with the care due to them, thou wert master of the
whole earth, in its breadth and length; but praised be Allah, for
thy safety, O my son, and that of thy wife and children!" They
passed the night in all pleasance and happiness, and on the
morrow Hasan changed his clothes and donning a suit of the
richest apparel, went down into the bazar and bought black slaves
and slave-girls and the richest stuffs and ornaments and