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Forslain of love-longing for you he is, and of the dead He’d reckoned be, but for the groans wherewith his breast is torn.
Think not that separation’s light to him; nay, grievous ’tis Unto the longing; death itself were easier to be borne.
Then he rose and went round about the house, weeping and lamenting and bemoaning himself, five days, without tasting meat or drink. His mother came to him and conjured him, till he broke his fast, and besought him to leave weeping; but he hearkened not to her and continued to weep and lament, whilst she strove to comfort him and he heeded her not. Then he recited the following verses:
My soul for love a burden bears, so great, All strength that it would fail beneath its weight.
I’m all amazed and sore my languor is; Alike are night and morn to this my strait.
Indeed, till now I went in fear of death, But death to-day a remedy I rate.
He abode thus till daybreak, when his eyes closed and he [fell asleep, for sheer weariness, and] saw [in a dream] his wife weeping and repentant for that which she had done. So he started up from sleep, crying out and reciting the following verses:
Their image is never absent a breathing-while from my breast: I have made it within my bosom the place of the honoured guest.
But that I hope for reunion, no instant more would I live, And but that I see them in slumber, I would not lie down to rest.
He abode thus a whole month, weeping-eyed and mournful-hearted, wakeful by night and eating little, till he bethought him to repair to his sisters and take counsel with them in the matter of his wife, so haply they might help him to regain her. So he summoned the dromedaries and loading fifty of them with rarities of Irak, committed the house to his mother’s care and deposited all his goods in safe keeping, except some few he left with her. Then
