Thousand Nights And A Night






The Sleeper and the Waker.[FN#1]




It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that there was once at
Baghdad, in the Caliphate of Harun al-Rashid, a man and a
merchant, who had a son Abu al-Hasan-al-Khali'a by name.[FN#2]
The merchant died leaving great store of wealth to his heir who
divided it into two equal parts, whereof he laid up one and spent
of the other half; and he fell to companying with Persians[FN#3]
and with the sons of the merchants and he gave himself up to good
drinking and good eating, till all the wealth[FN#4] he had with
him was wasted and wantoned; whereupon he betook himself to his
friends and comrades and cup-companions and expounded to them his
case, discovering to them the failure of that which was in his
hand of wealth. But not one of them took heed of him or even
deigned answer him. So he returned to his mother (and indeed his
spirit was broken) and related to her that which had happened to
him and what had befallen him from his friends, how they had
neither shared with him nor required him with speech. Quoth she,
"O Abu al-Hasan, on this wise are the sons[FN#5] of this time: an