al-Nahar. But none came. He passed the night in his own house and, when dawned the day, he walked to Ali bin Bakkar's lodging and went in and found him thrown on his bed, with his friends about him and physicians around him prescribing something or other, and the doctors feeling his pulse. When he saw Abu al-Hasan enter he smiled, and the visitor, after saluting him, enquired how he did and sat with him till the folk withdrew, when he said to him, "What plight is this?" Quoth Ali bin Bakkar, "It was bruited abroad that I was ill and my comrades heard the report; and I have no strength to rise and walk so as to give him the lie who noised abroad my sickness, but continue lying strown here as thou seest. So my friends came to visit me; say, however, O my brother, hast thou seen the slave-girl or heard any news of her?" He replied, "I have not seen her, since the day we parted from her on Tigris' bank;" and he presently added, "O my brother, beware thou of scandal and leave this weeping." Rejoined Ali, "O my brother, indeed, I have no control over myself;" and he sighed and began reciting:—
She gives her woman's hand a force that fails the hand of me, ○ And with red dye on wrist she gars my patience fail and flee:
And for her hand she fears so sore what shafts her eyes discharge, ○ She's fain to clothe and guard her hand with mail-ring panoply:[1]
The leach in ignorance felt my pulse the while to him I cried, ○ "Sick is my heart, so quit my hand which hath no malady:"
Quoth she to that fair nightly vision favoured me and fled, ○ "By Allah picture him nor add nor 'bate in least degree!"
Replied the Dream, "I leave him though he die of thirst," I cry, ○ "Stand off from water-pit and say why this persistency."
Rained tear-pearls her Narcissus-eyes, and rose on cheek belit ○ She made my sherbet, and the lote with bits of hail she bit.[2]
And when his recital was ended he said, "O Abu al-Hasan, I am smitten with an affliction from which I deemed myself in perfect surety, and there is no greater ease for me than death." Replied he, "Be patient, haply Allah will heal thee!" Then he went out from him and repairing to his shop opened it, nor had he sat long, when suddenly up came the handmaid who saluted him. He returned
- ↑ The hands being stained with Henna and perhaps indigo in stripes are like the ring rows of chain armour. See Lane's illustration (Mod. Egypt, chaps. i.).
- ↑ She made rose-water of her cheeks for my drink and she bit with teeth like grains of hail those lips like the lotus-fruit, or jujube: Arab. "Unnab" or "Nabk," the plum of the Sidr or Zizyphus lotus.
