19
well that the Messiah would throw him into my hands here in this monastery, that I might go forth to him in the habit of a man and pull him from his saddle and take him prisoner and lay him in fetters.” Night xlviii.When Sherkan heard this, pride and heat and warlike jealousy overcame him and he was minded to discover himself and lay violent hands on her but her beauty held him back from her, and he repeated the following verse:
Their charms, whatever fault the fair commit, A thousand intercessors bring for it.
So she went up, and he after her; whilst he looked at her back and saw her buttocks smiting against each other, like the billows in the troubled sea; and he recited the following verses:
In her face an advocate harbours, who blots out her every fault From the hearts of mankind, for he is mighty to intercede.
Whenas I look at her face, I cry in my wonder aloud, “The moon of the skies in the night of her full is risen indeed!”
If the Afrit of Belkis[1] himself should wrestle a fall with her, Her charms would throw him forthright, for all his strength and speed.
They went on till they reached a vaulted gate, arched over with marble. This she opened and entered with Sherkan into a long vestibule, vaulted with ten arches from each of which hung a lamp of crystal, shining like the rays of the sun. The damsels met her at the end of the vestibule, bearing perfumed flambeaux and having on their heads kerchiefs embroidered with all manner jewels and went on before her, till they came to the inward of the monastery, where Sherkan saw couches set up all around, facing one another and overhung with curtains spangled with gold. The floor was paved with all kinds of variegated
- ↑ Quoth he (Solomon), “O chiefs, which of you will bring me her throne?” (i.e. that of Belkis, queen of Sheba) . . . . . . . “I,” said an Afrit of the Jinn, “will bring it thee, ere thou canst rise from thy stead, for I am able thereto and faithful!”—Koran xxvii. 38, 39.
