Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 4.djvu/268

 I bring low my proper worth while raising yours so high? *     By Allah had you me eke I had honoured you! But now uprooting severance I will fain console my heart, * And wring my fingers clean of you for evermore to part!'

Quoth I, 'By Allah, O my lady, between him and death there is but the reading of this letter!' So I tore it in pieces and said to her, 'Write him other than these lines.' 'I hear and obey answered she and wrote the following couplets,

'Indeed I am consolèd now and sleep without a tear, * And all that happened slandering tongues have whispered in mine ear: My heart obeyed my hest and soon forgot thy memory, * And learnt mine eyelids 'twas the best to live in severance sheer: He lied who said that severance is a bitterer thing than gall: * It never disappointed me, like wine I find it cheer: I learnt to hate all news of thee, e'en mention of thy name, * And turn away and look thereon with loathing pure and mere: Lookye! I cast thee out of heart and far from vitals mine; * Then let the slanderer wot this truth and see I am sincere.'

Quoth I, 'By Allah, O my lady, when he shall read these verses, his soul will depart his body!' Quoth she, 'O Ibn Mansur, is passion indeed come to such a pass with him that thou sayest this saying?' Quoth I, 'Had I said more than this verily it were but the truth: but mercy is of the nature of the noble.' Now when she heard this her eyes brimmed over with tears and she wrote him a note, I swear by Allah, O Commander of the Faithful, there is none in thy Chancery could write the like of it; and therein were these couplets,

'How long shall I thy coyness and thy great aversion see? * Thou hast satisfied my censurers and pleased their enmity: I did amiss and wot it not; so deign to tell me now * Whatso they told thee, haply 'twas the merest calumny. I wish to welcome thee, dear love, even as welcome I * Sleep to these eyes and eyelids in the place of sleep to be. And since 'tis thou hast made me drain th' unmixèd cup of love, * If me thou see with wine bemused heap not thy blame on me!'

And when she had written the missive,—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Three Hundred and Thirty-third Night,