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followed him and threw himself upon him, saying, ‘O dervish, why wilt thou deny thyself the delight of my possession, seeing that my heart loveth thee?’ With this the dervish’s anger redoubled and he said, ‘An thou refrain not from me, I will call thy father and tell him of thee.’ Quoth Kemerezzeman, ‘My father knows my mind to thee and it may not be that he will hinder me: so heal thou my heart. Why dost thou hold off from me? Do I not please thee?’ ‘By Allah, O my son,’ answered the dervish, ‘I will not do this, though I be hewn in pieces with sharp swords!’ And he repeated the saying of the poet:
My heart the fair desireth, both wench and wight; I sigh For all I see: yet passion leads not my wit awry.
Nay, though I still behold them morning and eventide, Nor sodomite, believe me, nor whoremonger am I.
Then he wept and said, ‘Arise, open the door, that I may go my way, for I will lie no longer in this place.’ Therewith he rose to his feet; but the boy caught hold of him, saying, ‘Look at the brightness of my face and the redness of my cheeks and the softness of my sides and the daintiness of my lips.’ Moreover he discovered to him a leg that would put to shame wine and cupbearer[1] and gazed on him with looks that would baffle enchantment and enchanter; for he was surpassing of loveliness and full of tender blandishment, even as saith of him the poet:
I never can forget him, since of intent the fair A leg to me discovered, as flashing pearl it were.
So marvel not if on me the flesh should rise; for lo, the Day of Resurrection’s a day of shanks laid bare.[2]
- ↑ A play upon the words saki (oblique case of sac, leg) and saki, cupbearer.
- ↑ The Koran (lxviii. 42) calls the Judgment Day “a day [when] shanks shall be uncovered,” i.e. a day of preparation for great stress or travail, such as a battle or other emergency, to meet which men roll up their long wide trousers and tuck their skirts within their girdles. The meaning of the double-entendre in the text is sufficiently obvious.
