Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 4.djvu/166

 a pearl unthridden and a filly unridden. So I rejoiced in her and repeated these couplets,

'O Night here stay! I want no morning light; * My lover's face to     me is lamp and light: As ring of ring-dove round his necks my arm; * And made my palm his mouth-veil, and, twas right. This be the crown of bliss, and ne'er we'll cease * To clip, nor care to be in other plight.'

And I abode with her a whole month, forsaking shop and family and home, till one day she said to me, 'O light of my eyes, O my lord Mohammed, I have determined to go to the Hammam to day; so sit thou on this couch and rise not from thy place, till I return to thee.' 'I hear and I obey,' answered I, and she made me swear to this; after which she took her women and went off to the bath. But by Allah, O my brothers, she had not reached the head of the street ere the door opened and in came an old woman, who said to me, 'O my lord Mohammed, the Lady Zubaydah biddeth thee to her, for she hath heard of thy fine manners and accomplishments and skill in singing.' I answered, 'By Allah, I will not rise from my place till the Lady Dunya come back.' Rejoined the old woman, 'O my lord, do not anger the Lady Zubaydah with thee and vex her so as to make her thy foe: nay, rise up and speak with her and return to thy place.' So I rose at once and followed her into the presence of the Lady Zubaydah and, when I entered her presence she said to me, 'O light of the eye, art thou the Lady Dunya's beloved?' 'I am thy Mameluke, thy chattel,' replied I. Quoth she, 'Sooth spake he who reported thee possessed of beauty and grace and good breeding and every fine quality; indeed, thou surpassest all praise and all report. But now sing to me, that I may hear thee.' Quoth I, 'Hearkening and obedience;' so she brought me a lute, and I sang to it these couplets,

'The hapless lover's heart is of his wooing weary grown, * And hand of sickness wasted him till naught but skin and bone Who should be amid the riders which the haltered camels urge, * But that same lover whose beloved cloth in the litters wone: To