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quails and pigeons and mutton and chickens and the most delicate of fish, for one of the young men had given the people of his house a charge of this, before coming forth to the garden. So, the tray being set before them, they fell to and ate their fill; and when they had made an end of eating, they rose from meat and washed their hands with pure water and soap scented with musk, and dried them with napkins embroidered with silk and bugles; but to Noureddin they brought a napkin laced with red gold, on which he wiped his hands.
Then coffee was served up and each drank what he would, after which they sat talking, till presently the keeper of the garden went away and returning with a basket full of roses, said to them, ‘What say ye to flowers, O my masters?’ Quoth one of them, ‘They are welcome,[1] especially roses, which are not to be refused.’ ‘It is well,’ answered the gardener: ‘but it is of our wont not to give roses but in exchange for some contribution to the general amusement; so whoso would have aught thereof, let him recite some apposite verses.’ Now they were ten in number; so one of them said, ‘Agreed: give me [of them], and I will recite thee somewhat of verse apt to the case.’ So the gardener gave him a bunch of roses and he recited these verses:
The rose I honour over all, Because its beauties never pall.
All fragrant flowers are troops and it Their Amir most majestical.
When it’s away, they’re proud; but if It come, straightway they own them thrall.
Then he gave another a bunch and he recited the following verses:
Glory to thee my lord the rose! The scent Of musk recalls the fragrance thou dost shed.
Thou’rt like a maid, on whom her lover looks And with her sleeves[2] she covers up her head.
