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A merchant came to visit us, whose eye Did with its glance my heart still stupefy.
Quoth he, ‘What ails thee to be thus amazed?’ ‘On thine account, O merchant,’ answered I.
He had a son called Ali Noureddin, as he were the full moon whenas it waxeth on its fourteenth night, a marvel of beauty and grace, elegant of shape and accomplished in symmetry, who was sitting one day in his father’s shop, selling and buying and giving and taking, as was his wont, when the sons of the merchants encompassed him about and he was amongst them as the moon among stars, with flower-white forehead and rosy cheeks, covered with tender down, and body like alabaster, even as saith of him the poet:
A fair one said, ‘Describe me well;’ And I, ‘In grace thou dost excel.
Yea, speaking briefly, all in thee Is lovely and acceptable.’
And as saith of him one of his describers:
A mole on ’s cheek he hath, as ’twere a grain Of ambergris on alabaster plate,
And swordlike glances that proclaim aloud Against Love’s rebels, ‘Allah is Most Great!’[1]
The young merchants invited him [to go with them], saying, ‘O my lord Noureddin, we wish thee to go this day a-pleasuring with us in such a garden.’ And he answered, ‘[Wait] till I consult my father, for I cannot go without his consent.’ As they were talking, up came Tajeddin, and his son turned to him and said, ‘O my father, the sons of the merchants have invited me to go a-pleasuring with them in such a garden. Dost thou give me leave to go?’ ‘Yes, O my son,’ answered his father; ‘go with them;’ and gave him money.
- ↑ Allah akber! the well-known war-cry of the Muslim against the infidel.
