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it fell out; yet wouldst thou not hearken to me, but followedst thine own inclinations; albeit that whereof I gave thee to know I learnt not by means of divination nor augury nor dreams, but by eye-witness and very sight; for I saw the one-eyed vizier and knew that he was not come to Alexandria but in quest of me.’ ‘O my lady Meryem,’ replied he, ‘we seek refuge with God from the error of the intelligent!’[1] Then his affliction redoubled on him and he recited these verses:
Pardon his fault whose slipping feet caused him in error fall, And let the master’s clemency embrace his erring thrall.
All that an evildoer can is to repent his fault, Although too late repentance come to profit him at all.
Lo, by confession I have done what courtesy requires: Where then is that for which good grace and generous mercy call?
And they ceased not from lovers’ chiding, which to set out would be tedious, relating to each other that which had befallen them and reciting verses and making moan, one to the other, of the violence of passion and the pangs of longing and desire, whilst the tears ran down their cheeks like rivers, till there was left them no strength to say a word. Now the princess was clad in a green dress, inwoven with red gold and broidered with pearls and jewels, which added to her beauty and grace; and right well saith the poet of her:
Like the full moon she shineth in garments all of green, With loosened vest and collars and flowing hair beseen.
‘What is thy name?’ I asked her, and she replied, ‘I’m she Who roasts the hearts of lovers on coals of love and teen.
I am the pure white silver, ay, and the gold wherewith The bondmen from strait prison and dour releaséd been.’
Quoth I, ‘I’m all with rigours consumed;’ but ‘On a rock,’ Said she, ‘such as my heart is, thy plaints are wasted clean.’
‘Even if thy heart,’ I answered, ‘be rock in very deed, Yet hath God caused fair water well from the rock, I ween.’
- ↑ A saying of Mohammed.
