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this plight!” So she drank it off before him and taking the lute, swept the strings and sang the following verses:
Thou that wast absent from my stead, yet still with me didst bide, Thou wast removéd from mine eye, yet still wast by my side.
Thou left’st unto me, after thee, languor and carefulness; I lived a life wherein no jot of sweetness I espied.
For thy sweet sake, as ’twere, indeed, an exile I had been, Lone and deserted I became, lamenting, weeping-eyed.
Alack, my grief! Thou wast, indeed, grown absent from my yiew, Yet art the apple of mine eye nor couldst from me divide.
When she had made an end of her song, she wept and Noureddin wept also. Then she took the lute and improvised and sang the following verses:
God knows I ne’er recalled thy memory to my thought, But still with brimming tears straightway mine eyes were fraught;
Yea, passion raged in me and love-longing was like To slay me; yet my heart to solace still it wrought.
Light of mine eyes, my hope, my wish, my thirsting eyes With looking on thy face can never sate their drought.
When Noureddin heard these his slave-girl’s verses, he fell a-weeping, what while she strained him to her bosom and wiped away his tears with her sleeve and questioned him and comforted his mind. Then she took the lute and sweeping its strings, played thereon, after such a wise as would move the phlegmatic to delight, and sang the following verses:
