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the door, read the verses aforesaid written thereon. At this sight, his senses failed him; fire was kindled in his vitals and he returned to his lodging, where he passed the rest of the day in ceaseless trouble and anxiety, without finding ease or patience, till night darkened upon him, when his transport redoubled. So he put off his clothes and disguising himself in a fakir’s habit, set out, at a venture, under cover of the night, distraught and knowing not whither he went.
He wandered on all that night and next day, till the heat of the sun grew fierce and the mountains flamed like fire and thirst was grievous upon him. Presently, he espied a tree, by whose side was a spring of running water; so he made towards it and sitting down in the shade, on the bank of the rivulet, essayed to drink, but found that the water had no taste in his mouth. Then, [looking in the stream,] he saw that his body was wasted, his colour changed and his face grown pale and his feet, to boot, swollen with walking and weariness. So he shed copious tears and repeated the following verses:
The lover is drunken with love of his fair; In longing and heat he redoubles fore’er.
Love-maddened, confounded, distracted, perplexed, No dwelling is pleasant to him and no fare.
For how, to a lover cut off from his love, Can life be delightsome? ’Twere strange an it were.
I melt with the fire of my passion for her And the tears down my cheek roll and never forbear.
Shall I ever behold her or one from her stead, With whom I may solace my heart in despair?
And he wept till he wet the ground; after which he rose and fared on again over deserts and wilds, till there came out upon him a lion, with a neck buried in hair, a head the bigness of a dome, a mouth wider than the door [thereof] and teeth like elephants’ tusks. When Uns el Wujoud saw him, he gave himself up for lost and turning
