"Four things which ne'er conjoin, unless it be ○ To storm my vitals and to shed my blood:
Brow white as day and tresses black as night ○ Cheeks rosy red and lips which smiles o'erflood.
And also quoth another:—
A Moon she rises, Willow wand she waves, ○ Breathes Ambergris, and gazes, a Gazelle:
Meseems that sorrow woes my heart and wins○ And, when she wendeth hastes therein to dwell!
And when Kamar al-Zaman saw the Lady Budur, daughter of King Ghayur, and her beauty and comeliness, she was sleeping clad in a shift of Venetian silk, without her petticoat-trousers, and wore on her head a kerchief embroidered with gold and set with stones of price: her ears were hung with twin earrings which shone like constellations and round her neck was a collar of union pearls, of size unique, past the competence of any King. When he saw this, his reason was confounded and natural heat began to stir in him; Allah awoke in him the desire of coition and he said to himself, "Whatso Allah willeth, that shall be, and what He willeth not shall never be!" So saying, he put out his hand and, turning her over, loosed the collar of her chemise; then arose before his sight her bosom, with its breasts like double globes of ivory; whereat his inclination for her redoubled and he desired her with exceeding hot desire, He would have awakened her but she would not awake, for Dahnash had made her sleep heavy; so he shook her and moved her, saying, "O my beloved, awake and look on me; I am Kamar al-Zaman." But she awoke not, neither moved her head; where-upon he considered her case for a long hour and said to himself, "If I guess aright, this is the damsel to whom my father would have married me and these three years past I have refused her; but Inshallah!—God willing—as soon as it is dawn, I will say to him:—Marry me to her, that I may enjoy her."--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
Now when it was the One Hundred and Eighty-fourth Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Kamar al-Zaman said to himself, "By Allah, when I see dawn I will say to my sire,—Marry me to her that I may enjoy her; nor will I let half
