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So he mounted a mule and the other young men mounted mules and asses, and they all rode till they came to a garden, wherein was all the soul desireth and that charmeth the eye. It was high walled and had a vaulted gateway, with a portico like a saloon and a sky-blue door, as it were one of the gates of Paradise. Moreover, the name of the door-keeper was Rizwan,[1] and over the gate were trained a hundred trellises of grapes of various colours, the red like coral, the black like negroes’ faces and the white like pigeons’ eggs, Night dccclxiv growing in clusters and singly, even as saith of them the poet:
Grapes, as the taste of wine their savour is, I trow: The black thereof in hue are as the corby-crow,
And shining midst the leaves, like women’s fingers dipped In henna or the like of dye, the white grapes show.
And as saith another:
Grape-clusters, that show, on their stalks as they sway, Like my body for languishment wasted away.
Like honey and water in vases are they And their juice becomes wine, after sourness, one day.
Then they entered the arbour [that led into the garden] and saw there the gate-keeper sitting, as he were Rizwan, guardian of Paradise, and on the door were written these verses:
A garden watered was of God, until its clusters leant And dangled all and for excess of drink, its branches bent.
When in the Eastern zephyr’s hand its saplings dance and sway, The clouds with fresh pearls handsel[2] them for very ravishment.
- ↑ The name of the gate-keeper of Paradise.
- ↑ A play upon the double meaning to spot and to handsel) of the Arabic word neket. In its second sense, it is almost exclusively used to signify the giving of money to dancing and singing women on festive occasions and in this acceptation is practically equivalent to the English phrase “to mark (or cross) the palm with silver.”
