Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 4.djvu/102

78 For she for love of thee’s distraught, as needs must be the case; Her eyes are ever void of sleep; she weeps and wails apace.” If he show favour and incline to grant the wished-for grace, ’Tis well and good; but, if ye still read anger in his face, Dissemble then with him and say, “We know her not, not we.”

Quoth I to myself, “Verily, if the owner of this voice be fair, she unites beauty of person and eloquence and sweetness of voice.” Then I drew near the door, and raising the curtain little by little, beheld a damsel, white as the moon, when it rises on its fourteenth night, with joined eyebrows and languorous eyelids, breasts like twin pomegranates and dainty lips like twin corn-marigolds, mouth as it were Solomon’s seal and teeth that sported with the reason of rhymester and proser, even as saith the poet:

And as saith another:

In fine, she comprised all manner of loveliness and was a ravishment to men and women, nor could the beholder satisfy himself with the sight of her beauty; for she was as the poet hath said of her: