The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 07

Excerpt

I went one year on the pilgrimage to the Holy House of Allah, and when I had accomplished my pilgrimage, I turned back for visitation of the tomb of the Prophet, whom Allah bless and keep! One night, as I sat in the garden,[FN#80] between the tomb and the pulpit, I heard a low moaning in a soft voice; so I listened to it and it said,

"Have the doves that moan in the lotus-tree * Woke grief in thy
     heart and bred misery?
Or doth memory of maiden in beauty deckt * Cause this doubt in
     thee, this despondency?
O night, thou art longsome for love-sick sprite * Complaining of
     Love and its ecstacy:
Thou makest him wakeful, who burns with fire * Of a love, like
     the live coal's ardency.
The moon is witness my heart is held * By a moonlight brow of the
     brightest blee:
I reckt not to see me by Love ensnared * Till ensnared before I
     could reck or see."

Then the voice ceased and not knowing whence it came to me I abode perplexed; but lo! it again took up its lament and recited,

"Came Rayya's phantom to grieve thy sight * In the thickest gloom
     of the black-haired Night!
And hath love of slumber deprived those eyes * And the
     phantom-vision vexed thy sprite?
I cried to the Night, whose glooms were like * Seas that surge
     and billow with might, with might:
'O Night, thou art longsome to lover who * Hath no aid nor help
     save the morning light!'
She replied, 'Complain not that I am long: * 'Tis love is the
     cause of thy longsome plight!'"

Now, at the first of the couplets, I sprang up and made for the quarter whence the sound came, nor had the voice ended repeating them, ere I was with the speaker and saw a youth of the utmost beauty, the hair of whose side face had not sprouted and in whose cheeks tears had worn twin trenches.—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Six Hundred and Eighty-first Night,

She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Abdullah bin Ma'amar al-Kaysi thus continued:—So I sprang up and made for the quarter whence the sound came, nor had the voice ended repeating the verses, ere I was with the speaker and saw a youth on whose side face the hair had not sprouted and in whose cheeks tears had worn twin trenches. Quoth I to him, "Fair befal thee for a youth!"; and quoth he, "And thee also! Who art thou?" I replied, "Abdullah bin Ma'amar al-Kaysi;" and he said, "Dost thou want aught?" I rejoined, "I was sitting in the garden and naught hath troubled me this night but thy voice. With my life would I ransom thee! What aileth thee?" He said, "Sit thee down." So I sat down and he continued, "I am Otbah bin al-Hubáb bin al-Mundhir bin al-Jamúh the Ansári.[FN#81] I went out in the morning to the Mosque Al-Ahzáb[FN#82] and occupied myself there awhile with prayer-bows and prostrations, after which I withdrew apart, to worship privily. But lo! up came women, as they were moons, walking with a swaying gait, and surrounding a damsel of passing loveliness, perfect in beauty and grace, who stopped before me and said, 'O Otbah, what sayst thou of union with one who seeketh union with thee?' Then she left me and went away; and since that time I have had no tidings of her nor come upon any trace of her; and behold, I am distracted and do naught but remove from place to place." Then he cried out and fell to the ground fainting....