Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 4.djvu/279

 As for thee, O blonde, thy colour is that of leprosy and thine embrace is suffocation; and it is of report that hoar-frost and icy cold are in Gehenna for the torment of the wicked. Again, of things black and excellent is ink, wherewith is written Allah's word; and were it not for black ambergris and black musk, there would be no perfumes to carry to Kings. How many glories I may not mention dwell in blackness, and how well saith the poet,

'Seest not that musk, the nut brown musk, e'er claims the highest price * Whilst for a load of whitest lime none more than dirham bids? And while white speck upon the eye deforms the loveliest youth, * Black eyes discharge the sharpest shafts in lashes from their lids.'