They cut his navel and blackened his
eyelids with kohl[FN#66] and committed him to the nurses, naming
him Agib. His day was as a month and his month as a year, and
when seven years had passed over him, his grandfather sent him to
school, bidding the master teach him to read the Koran and give
him a good education; and he remained at the school four years,
till he began to bully the little ones and beat them and abuse
them, saying, "Which of you is like me? I am the son of the
Vizier of Egypt." At last the children came, in a body, to
complain to the monitor of Agib's behavior to them, and he said,
"I will tell you how to do with him, so that he shall leave
coming to the school and you shall never see him again. It is
this: when he comes to-morrow, sit down round him and let one of
you say to the others, 'By Allah, none shall play at this game
except he tell us the names of his father and mother; for he who
knows not his parents' names is a bastard and shall not play with
us.'" So next day, when Agib came to the school, they all
assembled round him, and one of them said, "We will play a game,
in which no one shall join except he tell us the names of his
father and mother." And they all said, "By Allah, it is good."
Then said one of them, "My name is Majid, my mother's name is
Alawiyeh and my father's Izeddin." And the others said the like,
till it came to Agib's turn and he said, "My name is Agib, my
mother is the Lady of Beauty and my father Shemseddin, Vizier of
Egypt.
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