Page:Man in the Panther's Skin.djvu/153

 what thinkest thou I shall find joy! I would slay myself but that I doubt it would displease thee, but it would grieve thee to hear I was no longer living. Come (then) and let us living give our eyes to the shedding of tears."

816. He said: "O sun, who art said to be the image of the sunny night of Him who is One in unity of being and Everlasting, whom the heavenly bodies obey to the jot of a second, turn not away my good fortune; hear my prayer till our meeting, mine and hers!

817. "Thou whom former philosophers addressed as the image of God, aid me, for I am become a captive, iron chains bind me! I, seeker of crystal and ruby, have lost coral and glass; formerly I could not endure nearness, now I regret absence."

818. Thus he lamented and cried out; like a candle he melted. The fear of being too late made him hasten; he wandered on. When night fell, he found delight in the rising of the stars; he compared them to her, he rejoiced, he gazed on them, he held converse with them.

819. He says to the moon: "I adjure thee in the name of thy God, thou art the giver of the plague of love to lovers; thou hast the balm of patience to make them bear it; hear my prayer to unite me with the face fair, through thee, like thine own."

820. Night rejoiced him, day tortured him, he awaited the sunset. When he saw a stream he dismounted; he gazed on the rippling of the water, with it he united the rivulet of blood from the lake of tears; again he set out, he hasted onward on his road.

821. Alone he lamented; he who was like the aloe-tree in form wept. He killed a goat in the plain where he came to a rocky place, roasted and ate of it and went on,