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to me, “Sit, O elder.” So I sat down again, and she gave me a scroll, wherein was written, in characters of the utmost beauty, with straight Alifs,[1] big-bellied Has[1] and rounded Waws,[1] the following: “We would have the Sheikh (whose days God prolong) to know that we are three maidens, sisters, sitting in friendly converse, who have laid down each a hundred dinars, on condition that whoso recites the best and most agreeable line of verse shall have the whole three hundred dinars; and we appoint thee judge between us: so decide as thou seest best, and peace be on thee!” Quoth I to the girl, “Bring me inkhorn and paper.” So she went in and returning after a little, brought me a silvered inkhorn and gilded pens, with which I wrote the following verses:
I’ve heard of young beauties once that sat in converse frank and free And talked the talk of a man who’s seen and proved all things that be;
Three like the dawnings of new-born day, they ravished every heart; Yea, tormentful to the yearner’s soul were they, these maidens three.
They’d cloistered them, where no vision lewd their modesty might affront; The eyes of the spy were shut in sleep and none was there to see.
So they discovered the secret thoughts in their breasts that hidden lay And then to making of verse they fell, for pastime, in their glee.
Quoth one of them thus,—a loveling rare, fulfilled of amorous grace, Her teeth for the sweet of her speech did smile at every word spake she,—
“By Allah, I should delight in him, if in dreams to my couch came he! But, an he visited me on wake, ’twould yet more marvellous be.”
And when she had ended that which she gilt with smiles, the second sighed And warbled these words with a trilling note, like a bird upon a tree:
“Only his image, in very deed, in slumber visited me, And, “Welcome,” straightway quoth I to him, “a welcome fair and free!”
But the third did better than th’ other twain, for, answering, thus said she, With a word of her own that was sweeter still and goodlier, perdie,
