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the making of every entreaty. How know I not that it is not a time to converse with this sun!'
1121. "I led away that sun-faced one, (already) praised, I cannot call her unpraised.[1] By the longing I have for her, and by her sun (life), I hardly could hide the ray of that sun! I enveloped her in many folds of heavy brocade, not thin stuff."[2] The tear hails down, the rose is frost-bitten, from the lashes blows a snowy blast.
1122. "I led into my home that sun-faced one, an aloe-tree in form. For her I furnished a house, therein I put her very secretly, I told no human being, I kept her privily, with precaution; I caused a negro to serve her; I used to enter, I saw her alone.
1123. "How, alas! can I tell thee of her strange behaviour! Day and night weeping unceasing and flowing of tears! I entreated her: 'Hush!' For (but) one moment would she submit. Now without her how do I live; alas! woe is me![3]
1124. "(When) I went in, pools of tears stood before her; in the inky abyss (of her eyes) were strewn jetty lances (eyelashes), from the inky lakes into the bowls[4] full of jet there was a stream, and between the coral and cornelian[5] (of her lips) glittered the twin pearls (rows of teeth).[6]
1125. "By reason of the ceaseless flow of tears I could not find time for inquiry. If I asked even, 'Who art thou? what brought thee into this plight?'[7] like a fountain, a
- ↑ 968.
- ↑ Subuki, P.
- ↑ Meva for me va.
- ↑ Rubebi, bowls, goblets. But M. adopts an Arabic etymology, "spears"; alternatively he suggests P. rud—i.e., Georg, ru, ruvi, channel, canal—which would give, "from the inky lakes poured streams full of dark coral (blood)."
- ↑ Aqiqi, A.; Abul., s.v.
- ↑ Professor Marr's rendering (t. xii. 25): "Whenever I went in to her, before her stood pools of tears; in the inky abyss weltered jetty spears, from the inky lakes upon the saturated coral spears poured streams, and between the purple (of one lip) and the jacinth (of the other lip) shone the twin pearls." For line 2 an alternative reading (op. cit., p. 18) is: "The spears of her eyelashes are satiated in dark red coral (blood)." Sat'hi is usually rendered "jet" (Abul., s.v.), not "coral" (dzotsi). Some editions here insert another quatrain.
- ↑ Gasuli, became; 750.
