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‘O princess,’ said the vizier’s daughter, ‘let not thy breast be straitened, but come with me straightway to the lattice; for there is with us in the stable a comely young man, slender of shape and sweet of speech, and meseemeth he is a lover separated [from his beloved].’ ‘And by what sign knowest thou that he is a separated lover?’ asked Meryem. And she answered, ‘O queen, I know it by his reciting odes and verses all tides of the day and watches of the night.’ Quoth the princess in herself, ‘If what the vizier’s daughter says be true, these are the traits of the wretched, the afflicted Ali Noureddin. Can it indeed be he of whom she speaketh?’ At this thought, love-longing and distraction redoubled on her and she rose at once and going with the maiden to the lattice, looked down upon the stables, where she saw her love and lord Noureddin and fixing her eyes on him, knew him but too well, albeit he was sick, of the greatness of his love for her and of the fire of passion and the anguish of separation and yearning and distraction. Emaciation was sore upon him and he was reciting and saying as follows:
My heart a bondslave is; mine eyes rain tears for e’er: With them, in pouring forth, no rain-cloud can compare.
My weeping’s manifest, my passion and lament, My wakefulness and woe and mourning for my fair.
Alas, my raging heat, my transport and regret! Eight plagues beset my heart and have their lodging there,
And five and five to boot thereafter follow on: Tarry and list, whilst I their names to thee declare.
Memory, solicitude, sighing and languishment, Love-longing in excess and all-engrossing care,
Affliction, strangerhood and passion and lament And griefs that never cease to stir me to despair.
Patience and fortitude desert me for desire, Whose hosts, when patience fails, beset me everywhere.
Yea, passion’s troubles wax for ever on my heart. O thou that ask’st what is the fire at heart I bear,
