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God have thee in His safeguard!” Quoth she, “Is it fair of any one to missay of my charms?” And he answered, “How shall any missay of thy charms, and thou the sun of loveliness?” Then said she, “Hath any the right to say of me that I am lophanded?” And tucking up her sleeves, showed him forearms, as they were crystal; after which she unveiled to him a face, as it were a full moon breaking forth on its fourteenth night, and said to him, “Is it lawful for any to missay of me [and avouch] that my face is pitted with smallpox or that I am one-eyed or crop-eared?” And he answered her, saying, “O my lady, what is it moveth thee to discover unto me that lovely face and those fair members, [of wont so jealously] veiled and guarded? Tell me the truth of the matter, may I be thy ransom!” And he recited the following verses:
A white one, from her sheath of tresses now laid bare And now again concealed in black, luxuriant hair;[1]
As if the maid the day resplendent and her locks The night that o’er it spreads its shrouding darkness were.
“Know, O my lord,” answered she, “that I am a
- ↑ Comparing her body, now hidden in her flowing stresses and now showing through them, to a sword, as it flashes in and out of its sheath.
