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‘O my son,’ said the old man, ‘meseems thou weepest for the damsel who sailed yesterday with the Frank?’ When Noureddin heard his words, he fell down in a swoon and lay awhile without life; then, coming to himself, he wept passing sore and recited the following verses:
Is union after severance with her past hoping for And will the perfectness of cheer return to me no more?
Anguish and love have taken up their lodging in my heart: The prate and gabble of the spies and railers irks me sore.
I pass the day long in amaze, confounded, and anights To visit me in dreams of sleep her image I implore.
Never, by God, a moment’s space am I for love consoled! How should it be so, when my heart the envious doth abhor?
A loveling, soft and delicate of sides and slim of waist, She hath a beaming eye, whose shafts are lodged in my heart’s core.
Her shape is as the willow-wand i’ the gardens and her grace For goodliness outshames the sun and shines his splendour o’er.
Feared I not God (extolléd be His majesty!) I’d say, ‘Extolléd be Her majesty, the fair whom I adore!
The old man looked at him and noting his beauty and grace and symmetry and the eloquence of his tongue and the seductiveness of his charms, took compassion on him and his heart mourned for his case. Now he was the captain of a ship, bound to the damsel’s city, and in this ship were a hundred Muslim merchants: so he said to Noureddin, ‘Have patience and all shall yet be well; God willing, I will bring thee to her.’ Night dccclxxxi.‘When shall we set out?’ asked Noureddin, and the other said, ‘Come but three days more and we will depart in peace and prosperity.’ Noureddin was mightily rejoiced at the captain’s words
The usual form of the name (see Vol. III. p. 309) is Husn Meryem, i.e. the beauty of Mary. It would seem to have been manufactured by the Arab story-tellers after the pattern of their own names (e.g. Noureddin, light of the faith, Tajeddin, crown of the faith, etc.), for the use of their imaginary Christian female characters.
