Note 389
TALE OF NUR AL-DIN AND HIS SON.
This naïve admiration of beauty in either sex characterised our chivalrous times. Now it is mostly confined to "professional beauties" or what is conventionally called the "fair sex"; as if there could be any comparison between the beauty of man and the beauty of woman, the Apollo Belvidere with the Venus de Medici.
And they blessed him aloud as he passed and called upon Almighty Allah to bless him. [FN#389] The Sultan entreated the lad with especial favour and said to his father, "O Wazir, thou must needs bring him daily to my presence;" whereupon he replied, "I hear and I obey." Then the Wazir returned home with his son and ceased not to carry him to court till he reached the age of twenty. At that time the Minister sickened and, sendin…
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