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end of which was a great estrade, carpeted with various kinds of silk, and round it open lattices giving upon trees and streams. About the place were figures, so fashioned that the air entered them and set in motion instruments of music within them, and it seemed to the beholder as if they spoke. Here sat the young lady, looking on the figures; but when she saw Sherkan, she sprang to her feet and taking him by the hand, made him sit down by her and asked him how he had passed the night. He blessed her and they sat talking awhile, till she said to him, “Knowest thou aught touching lovers and slaves of passion?” “Yes,” replied he; “I know some verses on the subject.” “Let me hear them,” said she. So he repeated the following verses:
Pleasure and health, O Azzeh, and good digestion to thee! How with our goods and our names and our honours thou makest free!
By Allah, whene’er I blow hot, she of a sudden blows cold, And no sooner do I draw near, than off at a tangent flies she!
Indeed, as I dote upon Azzeh, as soon as I’ve cleared me of all That stands between us and our loves, she turns and abandons me;
As a traveller that trusts in the shade of a cloud for his noontide rest, But as soon as he halts, the shade flits and the cloud in the distance doth flee.
When she heard this, she said, “Verily Kutheiyir[1] was a poet of renown and a master of chaste eloquence and attained rare perfection in praise of Azzeh, especially when he says:
- ↑ Kutheiyir ibn Ali Juma, a well-known poet of the seventh and eighth centuries at Medina. He was celebrated for his love of Azzeh, in whose honour most of his poems were written. The writer (or copyist) of this tale has committed an anachronism in introducing these verses, as Kutheiyir was a contemporary of the Khalif Abdulmelik ben Merwan before whose time Sherkan and his father (both imaginary characters) are stated( see supra, p. 1) to have lived; but the whole narrative is full of the grossest anachronisms, too numerous, indeed, to notice.
