The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 15 - Sir Richard Francis Burton (world best books to read txt) 📗

I for the love of you am bye-word grown, * My lords, and driven to the Desert-side;

While you in heart of me are homes, your home; * And the heart-dweller kens what there may bide.

When Prince Yusuf had finished his improvisation and the poetry which he produced, Princess Al-Hayfa bussed him upon the brow, and he seeing this waxed dazed of his wits and right judgment fled him and he fell fainting to the floor for a while of time.

And when he came to himself he pondered how she had entreated him and his Passion would have persuaded him to do with her somewhat but Reason forbade and with her force he overcame himself. After his improvising Al-Hayfa again saluted him on the front and cried, “Indeed thou hast done well in thy words, O thou with Crescent’s brow!” Presently she came for the table of wine and filling a cup drank it off; then she crowned another goblet and passed it to Yusuf who took it and kissed it while she improvised some couplets as follows,

“Thy seduction of lips ne’er can I forbear * Nor deny love-confession for charms so rare:

O thou aim of my eyes, how my longing stay? * O thou tall of form and long wavy hair?

Thy rose-hued cheek showeth writ new-writ[FN#212] * Dimming wine my cups in their rondure bear.”

And presently she added,[FN#213]

“I hid his phantom, by the Lord, but showed * My looks the blush his scented cheek had sent:

How veil the joy his love bestows, when I * To blood-red[FN#214]

tears on cheek give open vent,

When his uplighted cheek my heart enfires * As though a-morn in flame my heart were pent?

By Allah, ne’er my love for you I’ll change * Though change my body and to change consent.

And when Al-Hayfa had finished her improvisation and her poetry, Yusuf drained the goblet and after kissing it returned it to her; but he was as one a-swoon. Then she took it from him and he recovered and presently declaimed for her the following couplets, “A maiden in your tribe avails my heart with love to fire[FN#215]

* And how can I a-hidden bear the love my eyes declare?

The branches of the sandhill tree remember and recall What time she softly bent and showed a grace beyond compare; And taught me how those eyne o’erguard the roses of her cheek

And knew to ward them from the hand to cull her charms would dare.”

As soon as Yusuf had finished his improvisation and what of poetry he had produced, Al-Hayfa took seat by his side and fell to conversing with him in sweetest words with softest smiles, the while saying, “Fair welcome to thee, O wonder of beauty and lovesome in eloquence and O charming in riant semblance and lord of high degree and clear nobility: thou hast indeed illumined our place with the light of thy flower-like forehead and to our hearts joyance hast thou given and our cares afar hast thou driven and eke our breasts hast made broad; and this is a day of festival to laud, so do thou solace our souls and drain of our wine with us for thou art the bourne and end and aim of our intent.” Then Al-Hayfa took a cup of crystal, and crowning it with clear-strained wine which had been sealed with musk and saffron, she passed it to Prince Yusuf. He accepted it from her albeit his hand trembled from what befel him of her beauty and the sweetness of her poetry and her perfection; after which he began to improvise these couplets,

“O thou who drainest thy morning wine * With friends in a bower sweet blooms enshrine�

Place unlike all seen by sight of man * In the lands and gardens of best design—,

Take gladly the liquor that quivers in cup * And elevates man, this clean aid of the Vine:

This goblet bright that goes round the room * Nor Chosro�s held neither Nu’uman’s line.

Drink amid sweet flowers and myrtle’s scent * Orange-bloom and Lily and Eglantine,

And Rose and Apple whose cheek is dight * In days that glow with a fiery shine;

‘Mid the music of strings and musician’s gear * Where harp and pipe with the lute combine;—

An I fail to find her right soon shall I * Of parting perish foredeemed to die!”

Then Al-Hayfa responded to him in the same rhyme and measure and spake to him as follows,

“O thou who dealest in written line * Whose nature hiding shall e’er decline;

And subdued by wine in its mainest might * Like lover drunken by strains divine,[FN#216]

Do thou gaze on our garden of goodly gifts * And all manner blooms that in wreaths entwine;

See the birdies warble on every bough * Make melodious music the finest fine.

And each Pippet pipes[FN#217] and each Curlew cries And Blackbird and Turtle with voice of pine; Ring-dove and Culver, and eke Haz�r, And Kat� calling on Quail vicine;

So fill with the mere and the cups make bright * With bestest liquor, that boon benign;—

This site and sources and scents I espy * With Rizwan’s garden compare defy.”

And when Al-Hayfa had ended her improvisation and what she had spoken to him of poetry, and Yusuf had given ear to the last couplet, he was dazed and amazed and he shrieked aloud and waxed distraught for her and for the women that were beside and about her, and after the cry he fell fainting to the ground. But in an hour[FN#218] he came to, when the evening evened and the wax candles and the chandeliers were lighted, his desire grew and his patience flew and he would have risen to his feet and wandered in his craze but he found no force in his knees. So he feared for himself and he remained sitting as before.—And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and fell silent and ceased saying her permitted say. Then quoth her sister Dunyazad, “How sweet and tasteful is thy tale, O sister mine, and how enjoyable and delectable!” Quoth she, “And where is this compared with that I would relate to you on the coming night an the Sovran suffer me to survive?” Now when it was the next night and that was The Six Hundred and Seventy-eighth Night, Dunyazad said to her, “Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short the watching of this our latter night!” She replied, “With love and good will!” It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that when Yusuf remained sitting as before, Al-Hayfa asked him saying, “How art thou hight, O dearling of my heart and fruit of my vitals?” Hereupon he told her his name and the name of his sire, and related to her the whole of what had befallen him, first and last, with the affair of the concubine and his faring forth from his own city and how he had sighted her Palace and had swum the stream and shot the shaft that carried the paper, after which he recited to her these couplets,

“I left my home for a fair young maid * Whose love my night with its light array’d;

Yet wot I not what her name may be * Thus ignorance mating with union forbade.

But when of her gifts I was certified * Her gracious form the feat easy made;

The King of Awe sent my steps to her * And to union with beauty vouchsafed me aid:

Indeed disgrace ever works me shame * Tho’ long my longing to meet I’m afraid.”

When Al-Hayfa heard his name her great love to him waxed greater.

Then she took the lute upon her lap and caressed it with her finger-tips when it sighed and sobbed and groaned and moaned[FN#219] and she fell to singing these verses, “A thousand welcomes hail thy coming fain, * O Yusuf, dearling son of Sahl’s strain:

We read thy letter and we understood * Thy kingly birth from sand that told it plain:[FN#220]

I’m thine, by Allah, I the loveliest maid * Of folk and thou to be my husband deign:

Bruit of his fair soft cheek my love hath won * And branch and root his beauty grows amain:

He from the Northern Realms to us draws nigh * For King Mihrjan bequeathing ban and bane;

And I behold him first my Castle seek * As mate impelled by inspiration fain.

The land upstirs he and the reign he rules * From East to West, the King my father slain;

But first he flies us for no fault of ours * Upon us wasting senseless words and vain:

E’en so Creation’s Lord hath deigned decree, * Unique in Heaven—glorified be He!”[FN#221]

Now when Yusuf heard the words of Al-Hayfa he rejoiced with exceeding joy and she was gladdened in like manner, after which he gifted her with all that was upon him of gear and in similar guise she doffed what dress was upon her and presented it to him.[FN#222] Then she bade the slave-girls bring her an especial suit and they fetched her a second bundle and she clothed Yusuf with what was therein of sumptuous clothes. After this the Prince abode with Al-Hayfa as an inmate of her palace for a term of ten days in all the happiness of life, eating and drinking and enjoying conjugal intercourse.[FN#223] Presently Almighty Allah (be He extolled and exalted!) decreed that, when all tidings of Yusuf son of Sahl were lost, his sire sent in search of him Yahy�,[FN#224] his cousin and the son of his maternal aunt, amongst a troop of twenty knights to track his trail and be taught his tidings until Allah (be He glorified and magnified!) guided him to the pages who had been left upon the river-bank.

Here they had tarried for ten days whilst the sunshine burnt them and hunger was exterminating them; and when they were asked concerning their lord, they gave notice that he had swum the stream and had gone up to yonder Castle and had entered therein.

“And we know not (they ended) whether he be alive or dead.” So the lord Yahya said to them, “Is there amongst you any will cross the current and bring us news of him?” But not one of them would consent and they remained in silence and confusion. So he asked them a second time and a third time yet none would rise up before him and hearten him to attempt the dangers of the stream, whereupon he drew forth his ink-case of brass and a sheet of paper and he fell to writing the following verses, “This day I have witnessed a singular case * Of Yusuf scion to Sahl’s dear race:

Since he fared at undurn his sire was grieved * And the Palace remained but an empty place:

I liken the youth to full moon ‘mid stars * Disappeadng and darkening Earth’s bright face.

‘Tis my only fear that his heart is harmed, * Brent by Love-fires lacking of mercy and grace:

By Allah, albeit man’s soul thou rule * Among stranger folk thou art but an ace!”

Presently he took a reed and grasping it thrust thereinto the twisted and folded paper, after which he stopped the hole with wax; then, lashing it to the surface of the shaft, he set it upon the bow-handle and drew the string and shot the bolt in the direction of the Castle, whither it flew and fell at the foot of the staircase