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Then he rose and looking on the queen’s face, cried out with a great cry, for stress whereof the palace was like to fall on those who were therein. Then he swooned away again and the old woman tended him till he revived, when she asked him what ailed him and he said, ‘This queen is either my wife or else the likest of all folk to her.’ Night dcccxi.Quoth Nour el Huda to the old woman, ‘Out on the, O nurse! This stranger is either mad or disordered in mind, for he stareth me in the face with wide eyes and saith I am his wife.’ ‘O queen,’ answered Shewahi, ‘indeed he is excusable; so blame him not, for the proverb says, “There is no remedy for the sick of love, and he and the madman are alike.” And Hassan wept sore and recited the following veses:
I see their traces and pine for longing pain; My tears rain down on the empty dwelling-place;
And I pray to God, who willed that we should part, Once more to grant us reunion of His grace.
Then said he to the queen, ‘By Allah, thou art not my wife, but thou art the likest of all folks to her!’
Nour el Huda laughed till she fell backward and turned over on her side. Then said she to him, ‘O my friend, take thy time and observe me attentively: answer me at thy leisure what I shall ask thee and put away from thee madness and confusion and perplexity, for relief is at hand.’ ‘O mistress of kings and refuge of all, rich and poor,’ answered Hassan, ‘when I looked on thee, I was distracted, seeing thee to be either my wife or the likest of all folk to her; but now ask me what thou wilt.’ Quoth she, ‘What is it in thy wife that resembles me?’ ‘O my lady,’ replied he, ‘all that is in thee of beauty and elegance and amorous grace, such as the symmetry of thy shape and the sweetness of thy speech and the redness of thy cheeks and thy swelling breasts and so forth, resembleth her and
