The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 02

Excerpt

When it was the Forty-ninth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the damsel ceased not to drink and ply Sharrkan with drink till he took leave of his wits, for the wine and the intoxication of love he bore her. Presently she said to the slave girl, "O Marjanah[FN#188]! bring us some instruments of music!" "To hear is to obey," said the hand maid and going out, returned in the twinkling of an eye with a Damascus lute,[FN#189] a Persian harp, a Tartar pipe, and an Egyptian dulcimer. The young lady took the lute and, after tuning each several string, began in gentle undersong to sing, softer than zephyr's wing and sweeter than Tasmin[FN#190] spring, with heart safe and secure from everything the couplets following,

"Allah assain those eyne! What streams of blood they shed! * How
     many an arrowy glance those lids of thine have sped.
I love all lovers who to lovers show them cure; * 'Twere wrong to
     rue the love in wrong head born and bred:
Haply fall hapless eye for thee no sleeping kens! * Heaven help
     the hapless heart by force of thee misled!
Thou doomest me to death who art my king, and I * Ransom with
     life the deemster who would doom me dead."

Thereupon each and every of the maidens rose up and taking an instrument, played and recited couplets in the Roumi tongue; then their mistress sang also and seeing Sharrkan in ecstasies asked him, "O Moslem, dost thou understand what I say?"; and he answered, "Nay, my ecstasy cometh from the beauty of thy finger sips." She laughed and continued, "If I sing to thee in Arabic what wouldst thou do?" "I should no longer," quoth he, "be master of my senses." Then she took an instrument and, changing the measure, began singing these verses,

"The smack of parting's myrrh to me, * How, then, bear patience'
     aloë?
I'm girt by ills in trinity * Severance, distance,
     cruelty!
My freedom stole that fairest she, * And parting irks me
     bitterly."

When she ended her verse, she looked at Sharrkan and found him lost to existence, and he lay for a while stretched at full length and prone among the maidens.[FN#191] Then he revived and, remembering the songs, again inclined to mirth and merriment; and the twain returned to their wine and wassail, and continued their playing and toying, their pastime and pleasure till day ceased illuminating and night drooped her wing. Then the damsel went off to her dormitory and when Sharrkan asked after her they answered, "She is gone to her sleeping chamber," whereto he rejoined, "Under Allah's ward and His good guard!" As soon as it was morning, a handmaid came to him and said to him, "My mistress biddeth thee to her." So he rose and followed her and, as he drew near her lodging, the damsels welcomed him with smitten tabrets and songs of greeting, and led him through a great door of ivory studded with pearls and jewels. Thence they passed with him into a tall and spacious hall, at the upper end of which was a wide dais carpeted with all kinds of silks, and round it open lattices commanding a view of trees and streams....