Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 2.djvu/21

 Nur al-Din Alt ana the Damsel Ants al-Jalis. 5 Locks of the Zanj l and golden glint of hair ; Sweet gait and form a spear to have and hold : Ah ! hard of heart with softest slenderest waist, o That evil to this weal why not remould ? 3 Were thy form's softness placed in thy heart, o Ne'er would thy lover find thee harsh and cold : Oh thou accuser ! be my love's excuser, o Nor chide if love-pangs deal me woes untold ! I bear no blame ; 'tis all ray heart and eyne ; o So leave thy blaming, let me yearn and pine. Now the handsome youth knew not the affair of the damsel ; and his father had enjoined her closely, saying, " Know, O my daughter, that I have bought thee as a bedfellow for our King, Mohammed bin Sulayman al-Zayni ; and I have a son who is a Satan for girls and leaves no maid in the neighbourhood without taking her maidenhead; so be on thy guard against him and beware of letting him see thy face or hear thy voice." " Hearkening and obedience," said the girl ; and he left her and fared forth. Some days after this it happened by decree of Destiny, that the damsel repaired to the baths in the house, where some of the slave women bathed her ; after which she arrayed herself in sumptuous raiment; and her beauty and loveliness were thereby redoubled. Then she went in to the Wazir's wife and kissed her hand ; and the dame said to her, " Naiman ! May it benefit thee, 3 O Anis al-Jalis! 4 Are not our baths handsome ? " " O my mistress," she replied, " I lacked naught there save thy gracious presence." Thereupon the lady said to her slave-women, " Come with us to the Hammam, at Paris during the Empire, when a man had by mistake pinched a very high personage : " Ah, Madame ! if your heart be as hard as (what he had pinched) I am a lost man." " Na'iman " is said to one after bathing or head-shaving : the proper reply, for in the East every sign of ceremony has its countersign^ " Allah benefit thee! " (Pilgrimage i. ii, iii. 285 ; Lane M. E. chapt. viii. ; Caussin de Perceval's Arabic Grammar, etc., etc.). I have given a specimen (Pilgrimage i., 122) not only of sign and countersign, but also of the rhyming repartee which rakes love. Hanien I (pleasant to thee I said when a man drinks). Allah pleasure thee (Allah yuhannik which Arnauts and other ruffians perverted to Allah yanik, Allah copulate with thee); thou drinkest for ten /I am the cock and thou art the hen! (i.e. & passive catamite) Nay, I am the thick one (the penis which gives pleasure) and thou art the thin ! And so forth with most unpleasant pleasantries. In the old version she is called " The Fair Persian," probably from the owner : her name means " The Cheerer of the Companion."
 * The negroids and negroes of Zanzibar.
 * i.e. Why not make thy heart as soft as thy sides ! The converse of this was reported