Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 2.djvu/41

 Nur a!- Din Alt and the Damsel An is al-Jalis. 23 of the Road, 1 and the decrees of Destiny have thrown them here. I will uncover their faces and look at them." So he lifted up the mantilla from their heads and said, " They are a handsome couple ; it were not fitting that I should beat them." Then he covered their faces again and, going to Nur al-Din's feet, began to rub andt shampoo them, 2 whereupon the youth opened his eyes and, seeing! an old man of grave and reverend aspect rubbing his feet, he was^i ashamed and drawing them in, sat up. Then he took Shaykh Ibrahim's hand and kissed it, Quoth the old man, " O my son, whence art thou ? " ; and quoth he, " O my lord, we two are strangers," and the tears started from his eyes. " O my son," said Shaykh Ibrahim, " know that the Prophet (whom Allah bless and preserve !) hath enjoined honour to the stranger ;" and added, " Wilt not thou arise, O my son, and pass into the garden and solace thy self by looking at it and gladden thy heart ? " " O my lord," said Nur al-Din, "to whom doth this garden belong? ;" and the other replied, " O my son, I have inherited it from my folk." Now his object in saying this was to set them at their ease and induce them to enter the garden. So Nur al-Din thanked him and rose, he and the damsel, and followed him into the garden ; and lo ! it was a garden, and what a garden ! The gate was arched like a great hall and over walls and roof ramped vines with grapes of many colours ; the red like rubies and the black like ebonies ; and beyond it lay a bower of trelliced boughs growing fruits single and composite, and small birds on branches sang with melodious recite, and the thousand-noted nightingale shrilled with her varied shright ; the turtle with her cooing filled the site ; the blackbird whistled like human wight 3 and the ring-dove moaned like a drinker in grievous plight. The trees grew in perfection all edible growths and fruited all manner fruits which in pairs were bipartite; with the camphor-apricot, the almond-apricot and the apricot " Khorasani " hight ; the plum, like the face of beauty, smooth and Wayfarers, travellers who have a claim on the kindness of those at home : hence Abd al-Rahman al-Burai sings in his famous Ode : He hath claim on the dwellers in the places of their birth, Whoso wandereth the world, for he Jacket h him a home. It is given in my " First Footsteps in East Africa" (pp. 53-55). The good old man treated the youth like a tired child. In Moslem writings the dove and turtle-dove are mostly feminine, whereas the femalt bird is always mute and only the male sings to summon or to amuse his mate.