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the second dress. They clad her in a dress of surpassing goodliness, and veiled her face to the eyes with her hair. Moreover, they let down her side locks and she was even as saith of her one of her describers in the following verses:
Bravo for her whose loosened locks her cheeks do overcloud! She slays me with her cruelty, so fair she is and proud.
Quoth I, “Thou overcurtainest the morning with the night;” And she, “Not so; it is the moon that with the dark I shroud.”
Then they displayed Dinarzad in a second and a third and a fourth dress and she came forward, as she were the rising sun, and swayed coquettishly to and fro; and indeed she was even as saith the poet of her in the following verses:
A sun of beauty she appears to all who look on her, Glorious in arch and amorous grace, with coyness beautified;
And when the sun of morning sees her visage and her smile, O’ercome, he hasteneth his face behind the clouds to hide.
Then they displayed Shehrzad in the third dress and the fourth and the fifth, and she became as she were a willow-wand or a thirsting gazelle, goodly of grace and perfect of attributes, even as saith of her one in the following verses:
Like the full moon she shows upon a night of fortune fair, Slender of shape and charming all with her seductive air.
She hath an eye, whose glances pierce the hearts of all mankind, Nor can cornelian with her cheeks for ruddiness compare.
