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King o’er my soul I made him, his realm to keep; but me He ruined and his kingdom laid waste and desolate.
My life I have expended for love of him, alas! Would God I were requited for that my spent estate!
O fawn that in my bosom hast made thy nest, let that I’ve tasted of estrangement suffice thy wrath to sate.
Thou’rt he whose face uniteth all charms, on whose account I’ve parted with my patience and am disconsolate.
Within my heart I lodged him; woe on it fell, and I To that which I permitted submit without debate.
My tears flow on for ever, like to a swollen sea: Knew I the road to solace, I would ensue it straight.
I fear to die of sorrow, for he still ’scapes from me, Oft as I think to reach him, ah me unfortunate!
When Meryem heard her lover’s verses, they kindled a fire in her entrails and she recited the following, whilst her eyes ran over with tears:
I longed for him I love; but when I saw him, for surprise I was amazed and had no power to move or tongue or eyes.
Volumes of chiding and reproach I had prepared; but when We met, no syllable thereof unto my lips would rise.
When Noureddin heard her voice, he knew it and wept sore, saying, ‘By Allah, this is assuredly the voice of the Princess Meryem! Night dccclxxxix I wonder if my thought be true and if it be indeed she herself or another!’ And regrets redoubled upon him and he bemoaned himself and recited the following verses:
adopt the (to Western notions of delicacy) far more objectionable expedient of nominally addressing their amorous effusions to one of their own sex, whilst a female is well understood to be the object of love. To avoid mystification and confusion, I have, without remark, in most instances where this curious substitution of sex occurs in the verse-part of the present work, rendered the passage according to the understood sense, except in cases where (as in the text) it seems impossible to do so without altering the general construction.
