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went him and pushed on before, whilst the eunuch ran after him, saying, ‘Out on thee! Hasten not to destroy thyself. By Allah, never yet saw I astrologer so eager for his own destruction: Night cciv.thou knowest not the calamities that await thee.’ But Kemerezzeman turned away his face and repeated the following verses:
A learnéd man, I’m ignorant before thy beauties bright; Indeed, I know not what I say, confounded at thy sight.
If I compare thee to the sun, thou passest not away, Whilst the sun setteth from the sky and fails anon of light.
Perfect, indeed, thy beauties are; they stupefy the wise Nor ev’n the eloquent avail to praise thy charms aright.
The eunuch stationed Kemerezzeman behind the curtain of the princess’s door and the prince said to him, ‘Whether of the two wilt thou liefer have me do, cure thy lady from here or go in and cure her within the curtain?’ The eunuch marvelled at his words and answered, ‘It were more to thine honour to cure her from here.’ So Kemerezzeman sat down behind the curtain and taking out pen and inkhorn and paper, wrote the following: ‘This is the letter of one whom passion torments and whom desire consumes and sorrow and misery destroy; one who despairs of life and looks for nothing but death, whose mourning heart has neither comforter nor helper, whose sleepless eyes have none to succour them against affliction, whose day is passed in fire and his night in torment, whose body is wasted for much emaciation and there comes to him no messenger from his beloved:
I write with a heart devoted to thee and the thought of thee And an eyelid, wounded for weeping tears of the blood of me.
And a body that love and affliction and passion and long desire Have clad with the garment of leanness and wasted utterly.
I plain me to thee of passion, for sore hath it baffled me Nor is there a corner left me where patience yet may be.
Wherefore, have mercy, I prithee, show favour unto me, For my heart, my heart is breaking for love and agony.
