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books of the Shafiyi[1] sect and the Traditions of the Prophet, I am well read in grammar and can argue with the learned and discourse of all manner of sciences. Moreover I am skilled in logic and rhetoric and mathematics and the making of talismans and calendars and the Cabala, and I understand all these branches of knowledge thoroughly. But bring me ink-horn and paper, and I will write thee a letter that will profit thee at Baghdad and enable thee to dispense with passports.” When the merchant heard this, he cried out, “Excellent! Excellent! Happy he in whose palace thou shalt be!” Then he brought her ink-horn and paper and a pen of brass and kissed the earth before her, to do her honour. She took the pen and wrote the following verses:
“What ails me that sleep hath forsaken my eyes and gone astray? Have you then taught them to waken, after our parting day!
How comes it your memory maketh the fire in my heart to rage? Is’t thus with each lover remembers a dear one far away?
How sweet was the cloud of the summer, that watered our days of yore! ’Tis flitted, before of its pleasance my longing I could stay.
I sue to the wind and beg it to favour the slave of love, The wind that unto the lover doth news of you convey.
A lover to you complaineth, whose every helper fails. Indeed, in parting are sorrows would rend the rock in sway.
“These words are from her whom melancholy destroys and whom watching hath wasted; in her darkness there are no lights found, and she knows not night from day. She tosses from side to side on the couch of separation and her eyes are blackened with the pencils of sleeplessness; she watches the stars and strains her sight into the darkness: verily, sadness and emaciation have consumed her and the setting forth of her case would be long. No helper hath she but tears and she reciteth the following verses:
- ↑ One of the four great Muslim sects or schools of theology, taking its name from the Imam es Shafi (see post, p. 131, note).
