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failed to cure her malady and her case was a puzzle to the men of science and the magicians. And as her longing and passion redoubled and love and distraction were sore upon her, she poured forth tears and repeated the following verses:
My longing after thee, my moon, my foeman is; The thought of thee by night doth comrade with me dwell.
I pass the darksome hours, and in my bosom flames A fire, for heat that’s like the very fire of hell.
I’m smitten with excess of ardour and desire; By which my pain is grown an anguish fierce and fell.
Then she sighed and repeated these also:
My peace on the belovéd ones, where’er they light them down! I weary for the neighbourhood of those I love, full sore.
My salutation unto you,—not that of taking leave, But greetings of abundant peace, increasing evermore!
For, of a truth, I love you dear and love your land no less; But woe is me! I’m far away from that I weary for.
Then she wept till her eyes grew weak and her cheeks pale and withered: and thus she abode three years. Now she had a foster-brother, by name Merzewan, who was absent from her all this time, travelling in far countries. He loved her with an exceeding love, passing that of brothers; so when he came back, he went in to his mother and asked for his foster-sister the princess Budour. ‘Alas, my son,’ answered she, ‘thy sister has been smitten with madness and has passed these three years, with an iron chain about her neck; and all the physicians and men of science have failed of curing her.’ When he heard this, he said, ‘I must needs go in to her; peradventure I may discover what ails her, and be able to cure her.’ ‘So be it,’ replied his mother; ‘but wait till to-morrow, that I may make shift for thee.’ Then she went to the princess’s palace and accosting the eunuch in charge of the door, made him a present and said to him, ‘I have a married
