sheep-fat

Updated: May 15, 2025

What dost thou here, alone in the night and the cold? And she answered, 'Lord, I am making this water to boil, that my children may drink, who perish of hunger and cold; but for the misery we have to bear Allah will surely one day ask reckoning of Omar the Khalif. And the Khalif, who was in disguise, was much moved, and he said to her, 'But dost thou think, O woman, that Omar can know of thy wretchedness, since he does not relieve it? And she answered, 'Wherefore then is Omar the Khalif, if he be unaware of the misery of his people and of each one of his subjects? Then the Khalif was silent, and he said to Aslam Abou-Zeid, 'Let us go quickly from hence. And he hastened until he had reached the storehouse of his kitchens, and he entered therein and drew forth a sack of flour from the midst of the other sacks, and also a jar that was filled to the brim with sheep-fat, and he said to Abou-Zeid, 'O Abou-Zeid, help thou me to charge these on my back. But Abou-Zeid refused, and he cried, 'Suffer that I carry them on my back, O Commander of the Faithful. And Omar said calmly to him, 'Wilt thou also, O Abou-Zeid, bear the weight of my sins on the day of resurrection? And Abou-Zeid was obliged to lay the jar filled with fat, and the sack of flour, on the Khalif's back.

Maurice Maeterlinck - The Buried Temple