Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 3.djvu/182

162 Kemerezzeman and know not what is come of him,; [sic] wherefore I see nothing for it but to hold my peace and consent and abide here, till God accomplish what is to be.’ So she raised her head and made submission to King Armanous, saying, ‘I hear and obey,’ whereat he rejoiced and bade make proclamation, throughout the Ebony Islands, to hold high festival and decorate the houses. Then he assembled his chamberlains and Amirs and Viziers and other officers of state and the Cadis of the city, and putting off the kingship, invested Budour therewith and clad her in the royal robes. Moreover, the Amirs and grandees went in to her and did her homage, nothing doubting but that she was a young man, and all who looked on her berayed their hose for the excess of her beauty and grace; then, after the lady Budour had been made Sultan and the drums had been beaten, in announcement of the joyful event, Armanous proceeded to equip his daughter for marriage, and in a few days, they brought Budour in to her, when they seemed as it were two moons risen at one time or two suns foregathering. So they entered the bridal-chamber and the doors were shut and the curtains let down upon them, after the attendants had lighted the candles and spread the bed for them. When Budour found herself alone with the princess Heyat en Nufous, she called to mind her beloved Kemerezzeman and grief was sore upon her. So she wept for his loss and absence and repeated the following verses:

O ye who went and left my heart to pine alone fore’er, No spark of life remains in me, since ye away did fare! I have an eye that doth complain of sleeplessness alway; Tears have consumed it; would to God that sleeplessness would spare! When ye departed, after you the lover did abide; But question of him what of pain in absence he doth bear. But for the ceaseless flood of tears my eyes pour forth, the world Would at my burning all catch fire, yea, seas and lands and air.