Thousand & One Nights: 174th Night: The Wealthy Man & The Slave Girl -4

I heard, O happy king, that the young ladies stood by the door, while another group just like them walked in, and among them walked Shams al-Nahar.  The young ladies clung to her, while she moved, scarved with her abundant hair, dressed in a delicate gold embroidered blue robe that revealed the clothes and precious stones she wore underneath.  She advanced, as the sun emerges from the clouds, with a proud and coquettish gait until she reached the couch and seated herself there, while the young man gazed on her and bit the tips of his fingers until he nearly cut them off.  He turned to the druggist and said, "A man needs no explanation after seeing, nor harbours doubt after knowing."  Then he recited these verses:
She, she alone, the source of my pain
My unrequited love and its moan.
Since I saw her enchanting face,
Restless my soul, peace unknown. 
O, Poor soul, rest in peace, 
And let my body lie alone.

Then he said to the druggist, "You would have dealt more kindly with me and done me a great favour to have forewarned me of the situation, so that I might have prepared and taught myself to be patient," and he wept bitterly and stood helpless.  Abu al-Hasan replied, "I meant you nothing but good, but I did not tell you the truth about her.  I thought your love and longing for her was so overpowering as to hinder you from meeting her.  But be brave and cheerful, be sensible; cherish her and think well of her, and do not reproach her, for she is well disposed to you."

Nur al-Din Ali asked, "Who is she?"
Abu al-Hasan replied, "She is Shams al-Nahar, a slave girl of Harun al-Rashid, and this place where you are now is his new palace, known as the palace of Paradise.  I plotted and found a way to bring two of you together.  The outcome is in the hands of Almighty God.  Let us pray him for happy ending."  Ali ibn Bakkar stood speechless for a while and then said, "Excessive caution drives us to love ourselves and crave to preserve it.  But I am already in peril, and it is all the same to me whether I am destroyed by almighty love or a mighty king." Then he remained silent.

Suddenly, as he stood at the window, Shams al-Nahar looked at him.  Their faces flushed with rapture and their movements expressed their hidden, overwhelming passion, and even though they were speechless, they spoke with the language of love and disclosed their secrets to each other.
For a long time she gazed on him and he gazed on her; then she bade the first group of damsels to return to their couches and sit down, and they did so.  Then she signalled to the maids, and each of them brought a couch and placed it before one of the windows of the room in which we were.  Then she bade the girls who were standing in attendance to sit down on these couches and when they did so, she returned to one of them, and said, "Sing a song" and the girl tuned her lute and sang:

As lover yearned for love,
Hearts beating as one,
They drank love's sweet river,
When the two were done,
On love's shore they stood, and said, 
With bitter tears 'above,
Of this the fates are guilty 
Not those below who love.

The girl sang a melody, that excited even the meek and healed the sick, a melody that moved Nur al-Din Ali ibn Bakkar, who turned to her and said, "Sing these lines."
My unrequited love 
Has drowned my eyes with tears.
O my joy, my idol
O wish of all my years, 
Have pity on a man
Who mourns alone, 
Who keeps his love, 
And moans of lost love.

But morning overtook and Shahrazad lapsed into silence.








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