Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 4.djvu/223

193 [taking her for a Jinniyeh], and put out again to sea; but she cried out and made pressing signs to him to return, reciting the following verses:

When the fisherman heard this, he wept and sighed and lamented; then, recalling what had betided himself in the days of his youth, when love had the mastery over him and transport and love-longing and distraction were sore upon him and the fires of passion consumed him, replied with these verses:

Indeed, the lover’s excuse is manifest, Wasting of body and streaming tears, unrest, Eyes, in the darkness that waken still, and heart, As ’twere a fire-box, bespeak him love-oppress. Passion, indeed, afflicted me in youth, And I good money from bad learnt then to test. My soul I bartered, a distant love to win; To gain her favours, I wandered East and West;

VOL. IV.