111
Palaces. There I saw a daughter of his, than whom God hath made none fairer in her time,—I cannot picture her to thee, for my tongue would fail to describe her aright; but I will name to thee somewhat of her charms, by way of approximation. Her hair is like the nights of estrangement and separation and her face like the days of union; and the poet hath well described her when he says:
She took up three locks of her hair and spread them out one night And straight four nights discovered at once unto my sight.
Then did she turn her visage up to the moon of the sky And showed me two moons at one season, both burning clear and bright.
She hath a nose like the point of the burnished sword and cheeks like purple wine or blood-red anemones: her lips are like coral and cornelian and the water of her mouth is sweeter than old wine, its taste would allay the torments of Hell. Her tongue is moved by abounding wit and ready repartee: her breast is a temptation to all that see it, glory be to Him who created it and finished it! and joined thereto are two smooth round arms. As says of her the poet El Welhan:
She hath two wrists, which, were they not by bracelets held, I trow, Would flow out of their sleeves as brooks of liquid silver flow.
She has breasts like two globes of ivory, the moons borrow from their brightness, and a belly dimpled as it were a brocaded cloth of the finest Egyptian linen, with creases like folded scrolls, leading to a waist slender past conception, over buttocks like a hill of sand, that force her to sit, when she would fain stand, and awaken her, when she would sleep, even as saith of her the poet:
Her slender waist a pair of buttocks overlies, The which both over her and me do tyrannize.
For they confound my wit, whenas I think on them, And eke enforce her sit, whenas she fain would rise.
