midnight
`` I mean not reference to thy father -- nor to the Christian Princess , thy mother , -- nor to thy history , which is of an obedient son and brave soldier , -- nor to thy education , unusual in those born inheritors of royal power -- I mean none of these , for they are in mouths everywhere , even of the beggars nursing their sores by the waysides ... . In thy father 's palace there was a commotion one night -- thou wert about to be born . A gold-faced clock stood in the birth chamber , the gift of a German King , and from the door of the chamber eunuchs were stationed . Exactly as the clock proclaimed midnight , mouth and mouth carried the cry to a man on the roof -- ` A Prince is born ! A Prince is born ! Praised be Allah ! ' He on the roof was seated at a table studying a paper with the signs of the Zodiac in the usual formulary of a nativity .