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leave of our lord the Vizier, I have something to say.’ ‘Speak,’ said the Vizier: and the slave-dealer said, ‘If thou wilt be ruled by me, thou wilt not carry the damsel to the King to-day, for she is newly off a journey; the change of air has affected her and the journey has fretted her. But let her abide in thy palace ten days, that she may recover her good looks. Then send her to the bath and dress her in the richest of clothes and go up with her to the Sultan, and this will be more to thy profit.’ The Vizier considered the man’s advice and approved it; so he took her to his palace, where he appointed her a separate lodging and a daily allowance of meat and drink and so forth, and she abode thus awhile.
Now the Vizier Fezl had a son like the rising full moon, with shining visage, red cheeks covered with a tender down and a mole like a grain of ambergris; as says of him the poet and therein errs not:
A moon,[1] whose glances slay the folk, on whom he turns his eye; A branch, whose graces break all hearts, as he goes stately by.
Slack as the night his browlocks are, his face the hue of gold; Fair is his person, and his shape the spear-shaft doth outvie.
Ah me, how hard his heart, how soft and slender is his waist! Why is the softness not transferred from this to that, ah why?
Were but the softness of his sides made over to his heart, He’d ne’er to lovers be unjust nor leave them thus to sigh.
O thou that blam’st my love of thee, excuse me rather thou, Nor chide me, if my body pine for languor like to die.
The fault, indeed, lies not with me, but with my heart and eye; So chide me not, but let me be in this my misery.
Now he knew not the affair of the damsel, and his father had lessoned her, saying, ‘Know, O my daughter, that I have bought thee for the bed of the King Mohammed ben Suleiman ez Zeini, and I have a son who leaves no girl in the quarter but he has to do with her; so be on thy guard against him and beware of letting him see thy face or hear
- ↑ The moon is masculine in Arabic.
