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For the uses of food I was fashioned and made; The hands of the noble me wrought and inlaid.
My maker reserved me for generous men And the niggard and sland’rer to use me forebade.
So eat what I offer in surety and be The Lord of all things with thanksgiving repaid!
So they ate and Tuhfeh looked at the two kings, who had not changed their favour and said to Kemeriyeh, ‘O my lady, what is yonder wild beast and that other like unto him? By Allah, mine eye brooketh not the sight of them.’ Kemeriyeh laughed and answered, ‘O my sister, that is my father Es Shisban and the other is Meimoun the Sworder; and of the pride of their souls and their arrogance, they consented not to change their [natural] fashion. Indeed, all whom thou seest here are, by nature, like unto them in fashion; but, on thine account, they have changed their favour, for fear lest thou be disquieted and for the comforting of thy mind, so thou mightest make friends with them and be at thine ease.’ ‘O my lady,’ quoth Tuhfeh, ‘indeed I cannot look at them. How frightful is yonder Meimoun, with his [one] eye! Mine eye cannot brook the sight of him, and indeed I am fearful of him.’ Kemeriyeh laughed at her speech, and Tuhfeh said, ‘By Allah, O my lady, I cannot fill my eye with them!’[1] Then said her father Es Shisban to her, ‘What is this laughing?’ So she bespoke him in a tongue none understood but they [two] and acquainted him with that which Tuhfeh
- ↑ i.e. I cannot look long on them.
