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surpassing beauty and symmetry, unequalled for grace and loveliness. When she saw him, she raised her face-veil and winked to him and ogled him, reciting the following verses:
Afar, I saw thee coming and cast mine eyes down straight, As if, O loveling slender, thou wert the very sun.
Indeed, thou art the fairest of all beholden; yea, Even than thyself thou’rt fairer, since yesterday was done.
Were beauty but allotted, to every one his due, One-fifth of it were Joseph’s or but a part of one,
And all the rest were surely thine own and only thine; May all men be thy ransom, yea, every mother’s son!
When he heard this, his heart inclined to her and the hands of love sported with him: so he winked to her in answer and repeated the following verses:
Over the rose of the cheek, the thorns of the eyelashes rise; So who shall adventure himself to gather the flowery prize?
Lift not your hands to the rose, for long have the lashes waged war And poured on us battle, because we lifted to it-ward our eyes.
Tell her the tyrant who plays and yet is temptation itself, (Though still more seductive she’d be, if she dealt but in loyaller wise),
I see that, for beauty like thine, exposure’s the surest of guards, For the veiling thy face but augments its seductions and adds to our sighs;
Like the sun, on whose visage undimmed the eye still refuses to look, And yet we may gaze at our ease, when the thinnest of clouds o’er it lies.
The honey’s protected, forsooth, by the sting of the bees of the hive: So question the guards of the camp why they stay us in this our emprise.
If my slaughter be what they desire, let them put off their rancours and stand From between us and leave her to deal with me and my life at her guise;
For, I wot, not so deadly are they, when they set on a foe with their swords, As the eyes of the fair with the mole, when her glances upon us she plies.
At this she sighed deeply and signing to him again, repeated the following verses:
