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out, and the Vizier said to the overseer, ‘O my lord, verily the bath is the Paradise of this world.’ ‘May God vouchsafe it^[1] to thee,’ replied the overseer, ‘and health to thy sons and guard them from the evil eye! Do you remember aught that the poets have said in praise of the bath?’ ‘Yes,’ said Taj el Mulouk and repeated the following verses:

The life of the bath is the pleasantest part of life, Except that the time of our sojourn there is slight.
A heaven, wherein ’tis irksome to us to bide: A hell, into which we enter with delight.

‘And I also,’ said Aziz, ‘remember some verses in praise of the bath.’ Quoth the overseer, ‘Let us hear them.’ So he repeated the following:

I know a house, wherein flowers from the sheer stone blow; Most goodly, when the flames about it rage and glow.
Thou deem’st it hell, and yet, in truth, ’tis Paradise And most that be therein are sun and moons, I trow.

His verses pleased the overseer and he wondered at their grace and eloquence and said, ‘By Allah, ye possess both beauty and eloquence! But now listen to me.’ And he chanted the following verses:

O pleasaunce of hell-fire and paradise of pain! Bodies and souls therein indeed are born again.
I marvel at a house, whose pleasantness for aye Doth flourish, though the flames beneath it rage amain.
A sojourn of delight to those who visit it It is; the pools on them their tears in torrents rain.

Then he fed his eyes on the gardens of their beauty and repeated the following verses:

I went to the bath-keeper’s house and entered his dwelling-place And found no door-keeper there but met me with smiling face.
I sojourned awhile in his heaven^[2] and visited eke his hell^[3] And thanked both Malik^[4] and Rizwan^[5] for solace and kindly grace.

1. i.e. Paradise.
2. The cold room of the bath.
3. The hot room.
4. The door-keeper of hell.
5. The door-keeper of Paradise.