Page:Tales from the Arabic, Vol 2.djvu/279

255 [sang and] presently returned to the passage that he had shown her; and he said, ‘By Allah, thou singest better than I!’ As for Tuhfeh, it was made manifest to her that her former usance was all of it wrong and that what she had learnt from the Sheikh Aboultawaïf Iblis was the origin and foundation [of all perfection] in the art. So she rejoiced in that which she had gotten of [new skill in] touching the lute far more than in all that had fallen to her lot of wealth and raiment and kissed the Sheikh’s hand.

Then said Queen Es Shuhba, ‘By Allah, O Sheikh, my sister Tuhfeh is indeed unique among the folk of her time, and I hear that she singeth upon all sweet-scented flowers.’ ‘Yes, O my lady,’ answered Iblis, ‘and I am in the utterest of wonderment thereat. But there remaineth somewhat of sweet-scented flowers, that she hath not besung, such as the myrtle and the tuberose and the jessamine and the moss-rose and the like.’ Then he signed to her to sing upon the rest of the flowers, that Queen Es Shuhba might hear, and she said, ‘Hearkening and obedience.’ So she took the lute and played thereon in many modes, then returned to the first mode and sang the following verses:

One of the host am I of lovers sad and sere For waiting long drawn out and expectation drear. My patience underneath the loss of friends and folk With pallor’s sorry garb hath clad me, comrades dear.