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not nor draw near to her.’ ‘Why so?’ asked he, and she answered, ‘Because her body is full of elephantiasis and I fear lest she infect thy fair youth.’ Quoth he, ‘I have no need of her.’ Moreover, she went to the lady and said the like to her of Alaeddin; and she replied, ‘I have no need of him, but will let him lie alone, and on the morrow he shall go his way.’ Then she called a slave-girl and said to her, ‘Take him the tray of food, that he may sup.’ So the maid carried him the tray of food and set it before him, and he ate his fill; after which he sat down and fell to reciting the chapter called Ya-sin[1] in a sweet voice. The lady listened to him and found his voice as melodious as the psalms of David, which when she heard, she exclaimed, ‘Beshrew the old hag that told me that he was affected with leprosy! Surely, that is a lie against him, for this is not the voice of one who hath such a disease.’ Then she took a lute of Indian workmanship and tuning it, sang the following verses, in a voice, whose music would stay the birds in mid-heaven:
I am enamoured of a fawn with black and languorous eyes; The willow-branches, as he goes, are jealous of him still.
Me he rejects and others ’joy his favours in my stead. This is indeed the grace of God He gives to whom He will.
As soon as he had finished his recitation, he sang the following verse in reply:
My salutation to the shape that through the wede doth show And to the roses in the cheeks’ full-flowering meads that blow!
When she heard this, her inclination for him redoubled and she rose and lifted the curtain; and Alaeddin, seeing her, repeated these verses:
She shineth forth, a moon, and bends, a willow-wand, And breathes out ambergris and gazes, a gazelle.
Meseems as if grief loved my heart and when from her Estrangement I abide, possession to it fell.
- ↑ The 36th chapter of the Koran.
