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a year: but I remained awake, till it was three quarters spent and the cocks cried out and I became sore an hungred for long watching. So I went up to the table and ate my fill, whereupon my head grew heavy and I was on the point of falling asleep, when I espied a light making towards me from afar. So I sprang up and washed my hands and mouth and roused myself; and before long, up came the lady, accompanied by ten damsels, in whose midst she shone, like the full moon among the stars. She was clad in a dress of green satin, embroidered with red gold, and she was as says the poet:
She lords it over her lovers in garments all of green, With open vest and collars and flowing hair beseen.
“What is thy name?” I asked her, and she replied, “I’m she Who burns the hearts of lovers on coals of love and teen.”
I made my moan unto her of passion and desire; “Upon a rock,” she answered, “thy plaints are wasted clean.”
“Even if thy heart,” I told her, “be rock in very deed, Yet hath God made fair water well from the rock, I ween.”
When she saw me, she laughed and said, “How is it that thou art awake and that sleep hath not overcome thee. Now that thou hast passed the night without sleep, I know that thou art in love, for it is the mark of a lover to watch the night for stress of longing.” Then she signed to her women and they went away, whereupon she came up to me and strained me to her bosom and kissed me and sucked my upper lip, whilst I kissed her and sucked her lower lip. I put my hand to her waist and pressed it and we came to the ground at the same moment. Then she undid her trousers and they fell down to her anklets and we fell to clipping and toying and clicketing and speaking softly and biting and intertwining of legs and going round about the House and the corners thereof,[1]
- ↑ An audacious parody of the consecrated expression used to describe the ceremonious circumambulation of the Kaabeh at Mecca.
