THE KING AND THE HANDMAIDEN
7
Whoever heals her that is my life will bear away with him my
treasure and pearls, large and small[1]."
They all answered him, saying, "We will hazard our lives[2] and summon all our intelligence and put it into the common stock.
Each one of us is the Messiah of a world (of people): in our hands is a medicine for every pain."
In their arrogance they did not say, "If God will"; therefore God showed unto them the weakness of Man.
I mean (a case in which) omission of the saving clause is (due to) a hardness of heart; not the mere saying of these words, for that is a superficial circumstance.
How many a one has not pronounced the saving clause, and so yet his soul is in harmony with the soul of it!
The more cures and remedies they applied, the more did the illness increase, and the need was not fulfilled.
The sick girl[3] became (thin) as a hair, (while) the eyes of the king flowed with tears of blood, like a river.
By Divine destiny, oxymel produced bile, and oil of almonds was increasing the dryness.
From (giving) myrobalan constipation resulted, relaxation ceased; and water fed the flames, like naphtha.
How it became manifest to the king that the physicians were unable to cure the handmaiden, and how he turned his face towards God and dreamed of a holy man.
When the king saw the powerlessness of those physicians, he ran bare-footed to the mosque.
He entered the mosque and advanced to the mihráb (to pray): the prayer-carpet was bathed in the king's tears.
On coming to himself out of the flood of ecstasy (fand) he opened his lips in goodly praise and laud,
Saying, "O Thou whose least gift is the empire of the world, what shall I say, inasmuch as Thou knowest the hidden thing?
O Thou with whom we always take refuge in our need, once again we have missed the way.
But Thou hast said, 'Albeit I know thy secret, nevertheless declare it forthwith in thine outward act.'"
When from the depths of his soul he raised a cry (of supplication), the sea of Bounty began to surge.
Slumber overtook him in the midst of weeping: he dreamed that an old man appeared
And said, "Good tidings, O king! Thy prayers are granted. If to-morrow a stranger come for thee, he is from me.