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me.’ ‘I hear and obey,’ answered she and carried the letter to her mistress, who kissed it and laid it on her head, then wrote at the foot of it these verses:
Harkye, thou whose heart is taken with my grace and loveliness, Have but patience, and right surely thou my favours shalt possess.
When we were assured the passion thou avouchedst was sincere And that that which us betided had betided thee no less,
Gladly had we then vouchsafed thee what thou sighedst for, and more; But our guardians estopped us to each other from access.
When night darkens on the dwellings, fires are lighted in our heart And our entrails burn within us, for desire and love’s excess.
Yea, for love and longing, slumber is a stranger to our couch And the burning pangs of fever do our body sore distress.
’Twas a law of passion ever, love and longing to conceal; Lift not thou the curtain from us nor our secret aye transgress.
Ah, my heart is overflowing with the love of yon gazelle; Would it had not left our dwellings for the distant wilderness.
Then she folded the letter and gave it to the nurse, who took it and went out to go to the young man; but as she went forth the door, her master met her and said to her, ‘Whither away?’ ‘To the bath,’ answered she; but, in her trouble, she dropped the letter, without knowing it, and one of the servants, seeing it lying in the way, picked it up. When she came without the door, she sought for it, but found it not, so turned back to her mistress and told her of this and what had befallen her with the Vizier.
Meanwhile, the latter came out of the harem and seated himself on his couch. Presently, the servant, who had picked up the letter, came in to him, with it in his hand, and said, ‘O my lord, I found this paper lying on the floor and picked it up.’ So the Vizier took it from his hand, folded as it was, and opening it, read the verses above set down. Then he examined the writing and knew it for his daughter’s hand; whereupon he went in to her mother, weeping so sore that his beard was drenched. ‘What makes thee weep, O my lord?’ asked she; and
