Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 5.djvu/175

 were succeeded by other ten maidens, as they were sparkling stars, clad in flowered silk embroidered with red gold and girt with jewelled zones. They sat down and sang various motives; and the Caliph asked one of them, who was like a wand of willow, "What is thy name, O damsel?"; and she answered, "My name is Rashaa, [FN#221] 0 Commander of the Faithful." "Sing to us, O Rashaa," quoth he; so she played a lively measure and sang these couplets,

"And wand-like Houri, who can passion heal *         Like young gazelle that paceth o'er the plain:    I drain this wine cup on the toast, her cheek, *         Each cup disputing till she bends in twain    Then sleeps the night with me, the while I cry *         'This is the only gain my Soul would gain!' "

Said the Caliph, "Well done, O damsel! Sing us something more." So she rose and kissing the ground before him, sang the following distich,

"She came out to gaze on the bridal at ease *         In a shift that reeked of ambergris."

The Caliph was highly pleased with this couplet and, when the slave girl saw how much it delighted him, she repeated it several times. Then said al-Maamun, "Bring up 'the Flyer,'" being minded to embark and depart: but Ali bin Hisham said to him, "O Commander of the Faithful, I have a slave girl, whom I bought for ten thousand diners; she hath taken my heart in whole and part, and I would fain display her to the Commander of the Faithful. If she please him and he will accept of her, she is his: and if not, let him hear something from her." Said the Caliph, "Bring her to me;" and forth came a damsel, as she were a branchlet of willow, with seducing eyes and eyebrows set like twin bows; and on her head she wore a crown of red gold crusted with pearls and jewelled, under which was a fillet bearing this couplet wrought in letters of chrysolite,

"A Jinniyah this, with her Jinn, to show *         How to pierce man's heart with a stringless bow!"