Pagina 813 de 1116

But all my life long have I dealt thus nobly with mankind, and

they requite me the foulest and evillest requital!" When the

Caliph heard my words and knew that I was a man of exceeding

generosity and of very few words, one in whom is no forwardness

(as this youth would have it whom I rescued from mortal risk and

who hath so scurvily repaid me), he laughed with excessive

laughter till he fell upon his back. Then said he to me, "O

Silent Man, do thy six brothers favour thee in wisdom and

knowledge and spareness of speech?" I replied, "Never were they

like me! Thou puttest reproach upon me, O Commander of the

Faithful, and it becomes thee not to even my brothers with me;

for, of the abundance of their speech and their deficiency of

courtesy and gravity, each one of them hath gotten some maim or

other. One is a monocular, another palsied, a third stone blind,

a fourth cropped of ears and nose and a fifth shorn of both lips,

while the sixth is a hunchback and a cripple.