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And his eyes ran over with tears and he repeated these verses also:
Who loves not the necks and the eyes of the fair and pretends, forsooth, To know the delight of the world, God wot, he speaks not the truth
For in love is a secret meaning that none may win to know Save he who has loved indeed and known its wrath and ruth.
May God not lighten my heart of passion for her I love Nor ease my eyelids, for love, of wakefulness in my youth!
Then he sang the following:
Avicenna pretends, in his writings renowned, That the lover’s best medicine is song and sweet sound
And dalliance with one of his sex like his love And drinking, with waters and fruits all around.
I took me another, to heal me for thee, And fate was propitious and grace did abound
Yet I knew love a mortal disease, against which Avicenna his remedy idle I found.
Taj el Mulouk was pleased with his verses and wondered at his eloquence and the excellence of his recitation, saying, ‘Indeed thou hast done away from me somewhat of my concern.’ Then said the Vizier, ‘Of a truth there occurred to those of times past what astounds those who hear it.’ ‘If thou canst recall any fine verse of this kind,’ quoth the prince, ‘I prithee let us hear it and keep the talk in vogue.’ So the Vizier chanted the following verses:
Methought thy favours might be bought and thou to give consent To union won by gifts of gold and grace and blandishment:
And eke, for ignorance, I deemed thy love an easy thing, Thy love in which the noblest souls for languor are forspent;
Until I saw thee choose one out and gratify that one With sweet and subtle favours. Then, to me ’twas evident
Thy graces never might be won by any artifice; So underneath my wing my head I hid incontinent
And in the nest of passion made my heart’s abiding-place, Wherein my morning and my night for evermore are pent.
Meanwhile the old woman remained shut up in her house,
