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The sable torrent of her locks falls down unto her hips; Beware the serpents of her curls, I counsel thee, beware!
Indeed her glance, her sides are soft; but none the less, alas! Her heart is harder than the rock; there is no mercy there.
The starry arrows of her looks she darts above her veil; They hit and never miss the mark, though from afar they fare.
Then they returned to Dinarzad and displayed her in the fifth dress and in the sixth, which was green. Indeed, she overpassed with her loveliness the fair of the four quarters of the world and outshone, with the brightness of her countenance, the full moon at its rising; for she was even as saith of her the poet in the following verses:
A damsel made for love and decked with subtle grace; Thou’dst deem the very sun had borrowed from her face.
She came in robes of green, the likeness of the leaf That the pomegranate’s flower doth in the bud encase.
“How call’st thou this thy dress?” quoth we, and she replied A word wherein the wise a lesson well might trace;
“Breaker of hearts,” quoth she, “I call it, for therewith I’ve broken many a heart among the amorous race.”
Then they displayed Shehrzad in the sixth and seventh dresses and clad her in youths’ apparel, whereupon she came forward, swaying coquettishly from side to side; and indeed she ravished wits and hearts and ensorcelled with her glances [all who looked on her]. She shook her sides and wagged her hips, then put her hair on the hilt of her sword and went up to King Shehriyar, who
