Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 4.djvu/236

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desire to the graceful bending of their shapes, even to what saith the poet:

Two beardless youths I happened on one day And said “I love you.” “Hast thou pelf?” asked they.
“Yes,” answered I, “and liberality.” “Then is the matter easy,” did they say.

Now Abou Nuwas was on this wise given and loved to sport and make merry with the fair and cull the rose from every fresh-flowered cheek, even as saith the poet:

Full many a graybeard is amorous and loves Fair faces and music and dalliance and glee:
From Mosul, the country of pureness,^[1] he comes, Yet nought but Aleppo^[2] remembereth he.

So he accosted them with the salutation, and they returned his greeting with all honour and civility and would have gone their way; but he stayed them, repeating these verses:

To none but me your footsteps steer; For I have store of all good cheer;
Wine that the heart of convent monk Would glad, so bright it is and clear;
And flesh of sheep, to boot, have I And birds of land and sea and mere.
Eat ye of these and drink old wine, That doth away chagrin and fear.

Night ccclxxxii.The boys were beguiled by his verses and consented to his wishes, saying, ‘We hear and obey.’ So he carried them to his lodging, where they found all ready that he had set forth in his verses. They sat down and ate and drank and made merry awhile, after which they appealed to Abou Nuwas to decide which was the handsomest and most shapely of them. So he pointed to one of them, after having kissed him twice, and recited the following verses:

1. Mosul is called the land of purity, in a religious sense, it having never been polluted with idolatrous worship.
2. The people of Aleppo seem to have been noted for debauchery.