Pagina 542 de 1116

The professor brought him up in his father's palace teaching him

reading, writing and cyphering, theology and belles lettres. His

grandfather the old Wazir had bequeathed to him the whole of his

property when he was but four years of age. Now during all the

time of his earliest youth he had never left the house, till on a

certain day his father, the Wazir Nur al-Din, clad him in his

best clothes and, mounting him on a she-mule of the finest, went

up with him to the Sultan. The King gazed at Badr al-Din Hasan

and marvelled at his comeliness and loved him. As for the

city-folk, when he first passed before them with his father, they

marvelled at his exceeding beauty and sat down on the road

expecting his return, that they might look their fill on his

beauty and loveliness and symmetry and perfect grace; even as the

poet said in these verses:-