Then he returned with the troops to his capital, giving up his son for lost and deeming that wild beasts or highwaymen had set on him and torn him in pieces, and made proclamation that all in the Khalidan Islands should don black in mourning for him. Moreover, he built a pavilion in his memory, naming it House of Lamentations, and here he was wont to spend his days, (with the exception of Mondays and Thursdays, which he devoted to the business of the state), mourning for his son and bewailing him with verses, of which the following are some:
My day of bliss is that whereon thou drawest near to me, And that, whereon thou turn'st away, my day of death and fear. What though I tremble all the night and go in dread of death, Yet thine embraces are to me than safety far more dear.
My soul redeem the absent, whose going cast a blight On hearts and did afflict them with anguish and affright! Let gladness then accomplish its purification-time,[FN#47] For, by a triple divorcement,[FN#48] I've put away delight.
Meanwhile, the princess Budour abode in the Ebony Islands, whilst the folk would point to her and say, 'Yonder is King Armanous's son-in-law;' and every night she lay with Heyat en Nufous, to whom she made moan of her longing for her husband Kemerezzeman, weeping and describing to her his beauty and grace and yearning to enjoy him, though but in a dream. And bytimes she would repeat these verses:
God knows that, since my severance from thee, full sore I've wept, So sore that needs my eyes must run for very tears in debt. "Have patience," quoth my censurer, "and thou shalt win them yet," And I, "O thou that blamest me, whence should I patience get?"