Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/372

342 sleep not nor is there a dearer to her than he. She tenders him more than her parents and they lie down to sleep in each other’s arms, with his hand under her neck and her hand under his neck, even as saith the poet in the following verses:

Then he kisses her and she kisses him; and I have heard that a certain king, when his wife fell sick and died, buried himself alive with her, submitting of his own accord to death, for the love of her and the strait companionship that was between them. Moreover, a certain king sickened and died, and when they were about to bury him, his wife said to her people, “Let me bury myself alive with him: else will I slay myself and my blood will be on your heads.” So, when they saw she would not be turned from this thing, they left her, and she cast herself into the grave with her dead husband, of the greatness of her love and tenderness over him.’ And she ceased not to ply the princess with anecdotes of [mutual fidelity] between men and women, till there ceased that which was in her heart of aversion to the male sex; and when she saw that she had succeeded in renewing in her [the natural] inclination [of women] to men, she said to her, ‘It is time to go and walk in the garden.’ So they went out and walked among the trees.

Presently the prince chanced to turn and his eyes fell on Heyat en Nufous; and when he saw the justness of her shape and her rosy cheeks and the blackness of her eyes and her exceeding grace and loveliness and her excelling beauty and elegance and her abounding perfection, his reason was confounded and he could not take his eyes off her. His judgement failed him for passion and love