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And of a third:
Black women, white of deeds, are like indeed to eyne That, though jet-black they be, with peerless splendours shine.
If I go mad for her, be not amazed; for black The source of madness is, when in the feminine.[1]
’Tis as my colour were the middle dark of night; For all no moon it be, yet brings it light, in fine.
Moreover, is the companying together of lovers good but in the night? Let this quality and excellence suffice thee. What protects lovers from spies and censors like the blackness of the shadows? And nought gives them cause to fear discovery like the whiteness of the dawn. So, how many claims to honour are there not in blackness and how excellent is the saying of the poet:
I visit them, and the mirk of night doth help me to my will And seconds me, but the white of dawn is hostile to me still.
And that of another:
How many a night in joy I’ve passed with the belovéd one, What while the darkness curtained us about with tresses dun!
Whenas the light of morn appeared, it struck me with affright, And I to him, ‘The Magians lie, who worship fire and sun.’
And saith a third:
He came forth to visit me, shrouding himself in the cloak of the night, And hastened his steps, as he wended, for caution and fear and affright.
Then rose I and laid in his pathway my cheek, as a carpet it were, For abjection, and trailed o’er my traces my skirts, to efface them from sight.
But lo, the new moon rose and shone, like a nail-paring cleft from the nail, And all but discovered our loves with the gleam of her meddlesome light.
And then there betided between us what I’ll not discover, i’ faith: So question no more of the matter and deem not of ill or unright.
And a fourth:
Foregather with thy lover, whilst night your loves may screen; For that the sun’s a telltale, the moon a go-between.
- ↑ Sauda, feminine of aswed (black), syn. black bile (melancholia).
