Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 8.djvu/79

67

Therein is healing for the sick and thereanent to us A saying^[1] of the Prophet pure tradition hath conveyed.
Yea, and a word most eloquent, written in the Book,^[2] thereof God (may His majesty fore’er be magnified!) hath said.^[3]

There were apples, sugar and musk and Damani, amazing the beholder, whereof saith the poet:

The apple in itself two hues, that image to the sight The cheeks of lover and belov’d foregathering, doth unite;
Upon the boughs like two extremes of wonder they appear, This dark and swarthy^[4] to behold, and ruddy that and bright.
Whenas they clipped, a spy appeared and frighted them; so this Flushed for confusion and that paled for passion and despite.

There also were apricots of various kinds, almond and camphor and Jilani and Antabi, whereof says the poet:

The almond-apricot most like a lover is, To whom his loved one came and dazed his wit and will.
The traits of passion’s slave that mark it are enough; Its outward’s yellow,^[5] and its heart is broken still.^[6]

And saith another and saith well:

In the apricot’s flowerage whole gardens there be: Consider them straitly, their brightness thou’lt see.
When the boughs bloom in spring-time, it blossoms with them, Like the soft-shining stars, midst the leaves on the tree.

1. Mohammed is fabled, in a tradition of doubtful authenticity, not found in the Mishcat el Mesabih, to have said that every pomegranate contains a seed from Paradise.
2. i.e. the Koran.
3. “And the pomegranate, alike and unlike, consider its fruit, when it fruiteth, and the ripening thereof: verily, therein ye have signs for a people that believe.”—Koran vi. 99.
4. Lit. black (aswea), but the Arabs constantly use this word in the sense of green and vice versâ.
5. Syn. pale.
6. i.e. Every one who eats an almond-apricot (see note, Vol. VI. p. 67 cracks the stone, to get at the sweet kernel.