15
willow-wand or a bamboo-cane, followed by a black slave-girl, bearing the lute. When she came to the young man, she saluted him and sat down by his side. Then she took the lute from the slave-girl and tuning it, smote thereon in four-and-twenty modes, after which she returned to the first mode and sang the following verses:
Unto me the world’s whole gladness is thy nearness and thy sight; All incumbent thy possession and thy love a law of right.
In my tears I have a witness; when I call thee to my mind, Down my cheeks they run like torrents, and I cannot stay their flight.
None, by Allah, ’mongst all creatures, none I love save thee alone! Yea, for I am grown thy bondman, by the troth betwixt us plight.
Peace upon thee! Ah, how bitter were the severance from thee! Be not this thy troth-plight’s ending nor the last of our delight!
Therewithal the young man was moved to delight and exclaimed, “By Allah, thou sayest well, O Sitt el Milah! Let me hear more.” Then he handselled her with fifty dinars and they drank and the cups went round among them; and her seller said to her, “O Sitt el Milah, this is the season of leave-taking; so let us hear somewhat on the subject.” Accordingly she struck the lute and avouching that which was in her heart, sang the following verses:
I am filled full of longing pain and memory and dole, That from the wasted body’s wounds distract the anguished soul.
Think not, my lords, that I forget: the case is still the same. When such a fever fills the heart, what leach can make it whole?
And if a creature in his tears could swim, as in a sea, I to do this of all that breathe were surely first and sole.
