Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 8.djvu/117

105 with Cairene motitations and Yemani wrigglings and Abyssinian sobbings and Hindi torsions and Nubian lasciviousness and Rifi leg-liftings and Damiettan gruntings and Upper Egyptian heat and Alexandrian languor, and this damsel united in herself all these attributes, together with excess of beauty and amorous grace; and indeed she was even as saith of her the poet:

So Noureddin lay with the damsel in solace and delight, clad in the strait-linked garments of embracement, secure against the accidents of night and day, and they passed the night after the goodliest fashion, fearing not, in love-delight, abundance of talk and prate. As says of them the right excellent poet:

Cleave fast to her thou lov’st and let the envious rail amain; For calumny and envy ne’er to favour love were fain. Lo, the Compassionate hath made no fairer thing to see Than when one couch in its embrace enfoldeth lovers twain, Each to the other’s bosom clasped, clad in their own delight, Whilst hand with hand and arm with arm about their necks enchain.