thee; yea, in pieces I will rend thee and into the deserts cast thee, that to stay at home and wayfarer an example thou be!" Quoth Dahnash, "O my lady, I will do thy behests, for I know forsure that my mistress is the fairer and the sweeter." So saying the If rit flew away and Maymunah flew with him to guard him. They were absent awhile and presently returned, bearing the young lady, who was clad in a shift of fine Venetian silk, with a double edging of gold and purfled with the most exquisite of embroidery having these couplets worked upon the ends of the sleeves:—
Three matters hinder her from visiting us, in fear ○ Of hate-full, slandering envier and his hired spies:
The shining light of brow, the trinkets' tinkling voice, ○ And scent of essences that tell whene'er she tries:
Gi'en that she hide her brow with edge of sleeve, and leave ○ At home her trinketry, how shall her scent disguise?[1]
And Dahnash and Maymunah stinted not bearing that young lady till they had carried her into the saloon and had laid her beside the youth Kamar al-Zaman.And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
Now when it was the Hundred and Eighty-first Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the Ifrit Dahnash and the Ifritah Maymunah stinted not bearing Princess Budur till they descended and laid her on the couch beside Kamar al- Zaman. Then they uncovered both their faces, and they were the likest of all folk, each to other, as they were twins or an only brother and sister; and indeed they were a seduction to the pious, even as saith of them the poet Al-Mubín:—
- ↑ Strong perfumes, such as musk (which we Europeans dislike and suspect), are always insisted upon in Eastern poetry, and Mohammed's predilection for them is well known. Moreover the young and the beautiful are held (justly enough) to exhale a natural fragrance which is compared with that of the blessed in Paradise. Hence in the Mu'allakah of Imr al-Keys:—
Breathes the scent of musk when they rise to rove, ● As the Zephyr's breath with the flavour o'clove.
It is made evident by dogs and other fine-nosed animals that every human being has his, or her, peculiar scent which varies according to age and health. Hence animals often detect the approach of death.
