Now between me and him there was an olden grudge, the cause of which was this: I was fond of shooting with the stone bow, and it befell one day, as I was standing on the terrace roof of the palace, that a bird lighted on the top of the Wazir's house when he happened to be there. I shot at the bird and missed the mark, but I hit the Wazir's eye and knocked it out, as fate and fortune decreed. Now when I knocked out the Wazir's eye, he could not say a single word, for that my father was King of the city, but he hated me ever after, and dire was the grudge thus caused between us twain. So when I was set before him hand-bound and pinioned, he straightway gave orders for me to be beheaded. I asked, "For what crime wilt thou put me to death?" Whereupon he answered, "What crime is greater than this?" pointing the while to the place where his eye had been. Quoth I, "This I did by accident, not of malice prepense," and quoth he, "If thou didst it by accident, I will do the like by thee with intention." Then cried he, "Bring him forward," and they brought me up to him, when he thrust his finger into my left eye and gouged it out, whereupon I became one-eyed as ye see me.
Then he bade bind me hand and foot, and put me into a chest, and said to the sworder, "Take charge of this fellow, and go off with him to the wastelands about the city. Then draw thy scimitar and slay him, and leave him to feed the beasts and birds." So the headsman fared forth with me, and when he was in the midst of the desert, he took me out of the chest (and I with both hands pinioned and both feet fettered) and was about to bandage my eyes before striking off my head. But I wept with exceeding weeping until I made him weep with me and, looking at him I began to recite these couplets:
"I deemed you coat o'mail that should withstand
The foeman's shafts, and you proved foeman's brand.
I hoped your aidance in mine every chance,
Though fail my left to aid my dexter hand.
Aloof you stand and hear the railer's gibe
While rain their shafts on me the giber band.
But an ye will not guard me from my foes,
Stand clear, and succor neither these nor those!"
And I also quoted:
"I deemed my brethren mail of strongest steel,
And so they were- from foes to fend my dart!
I deemed their arrows surest of their aim,
And so they were- when aiming at my heart!"