The Shame of the Prodigal. 
69 
thy feet.  Thou art no longer cheerful ;  Laila in the 
night bade me observe that in thy song, which 
thou sangest to the eunuchs, there was a note of 
pain.  Is it because thou hast not eaten for three 
days that thou hast lost thy good spirits ?  Or wast 
thou ashamed, shooting the peppercorns ?3  No, by 
Allah, for thou hast no shame.  It may be because I 
have clothed the male ass of Abdullah the tailor in 
costly trappings and made him pass throughout 
the whole city in charge of the pimp Mohammed 
Shaib the Maghraby4 saying :  “ I go to fetch Habib 
from the House of El Qahar as a beautiful bride to 
this my master Khar-i-zakar-i-asal.5 
The people of this city are laughing, Habib ;  it is 
at thee !  Even thy Nubian called out in the ba-
zaar :  “ Beware, O presumptuous one !  Remember 
the ass that fell into the pit ! ”6 
I love thee, Habib ;  and that none the less that 
thou hast cured me of my folly for thee. 
I am the master, and thou the slave.  See to it 
that thou be the slave of love7 ;  then wilt thou live 
ever happily with El Qahar, the despiser of Sha-
hrava.8 
 
 
 
1.  This passage is a clever parody on a well 
known Ghazal of Hafiz. 
2.  That is to say, phenomena are all alike to 
who perceives the Noumenon.  
3.  To amuse oneself at the expense of another, 
one may fill his rectum with peppercorns, and ap-
ply a pinch of pepper to the nose. This causes the 
peppercorns to shoot forth, often noisily. 
4.  The Shaib are of the famous Riff tribe.  The 
Moors are considered a very wild and boisterous 
crew, but very good-tempered. They are the Irish of 
Islam. Burton is, I think, a little hard on them 
when he writes :  “ What conscience has the mur-