Then the gardener gave a bunch to another and he recited these two couplets,

"Take, O my lord, to thee the Rose * Recalling scent by mush be shed.

Like virginette by lover eyed * Who with her sleeves[FN#415]

enveileth head."

Then he gave a bunch to a third who recited these two couplets,

"Choice Rose that gladdens heart to see her sight; * Of Nadd recalling fragrance exquisite.

The branchlets clip her in her leaves for joy, * Like kiss of lips that never spake in spite."

Then he gave a bunch to a fourth and he recited these two couplets,

"Seest not that rosery where Rose a-flowering displays * Mounted upon her steed of stalk those marvels manifold?

As though the bud were ruby-stone and girded all around * With chrysolite and held within a little h.o.a.rd of gold."

Then he gave a posy to a fifth and he recited these two couplets,

"Wands of green chrysolite bare issue, which * Were fruits like ingots of the growing gold.[FN#416]

And drops, a dropping from its leaves, were like * The tears my languorous eyelids railed and rolled."

Then he gave a sixth a bunch and he recited these two couplets,

"O Rose, thou rare of charms that dost contain * All gifts and Allah's secrets singular, Thou'rt like the loved one's cheek where lover fond * And fain of Union sticks the gold dinar."[FN#417]

Then he gave a bunch to a seventh and he recited these two couplets,

"To Rose quoth I, 'What gars thy thorns to be put forth * For all who touch thee cruellest injury?'

Quoth she, 'These flowery troops are troops of me * Who be their lord with spines for armoury.'"

And he gave an eighth a bunch and he recited these two couplets,

"Allah save the Rose which yellows a-morn * Florid, vivid and likest the nugget-ore; And bless the fair sprays that displayed such fowers * And mimic suns gold-begilded bore."

Then he gave a bunch to a ninth and he recited these two couplets,

"The bushes of golden-hued Rose excite * In the love-sick lover joys manifold: 'Tis a marvel shrub watered every day * With silvern lymph and it fruiteth gold."

Then he gave a bunch of roses to the tenth and last and he recited these two couplets,

"Seest not how the hosts of the Rose display * Red hues and yellow in rosy field?

I compare the Rose and her arming thorn * To emerald lance piercing golden shield."

And whilst each one hent bunch in hand, the gardener brought the wine-service and setting it before them, on a tray of porcelain arabesqued with red gold, recited these two couplets,

"Dawn heralds day-light: so wine pa.s.s round, * Old wine, fooling sage till his wits he tyne: Wot I not for its purest clarity * An 'tis wine in cup or 'tis cup in wine."[FN#418]

Then the gardener filled and drank and the cup went round, till it came to Nur al-Din's turn, whereupon the man filled and handed it to him; but he said, "This thing I wot it not nor have I ever drunken thereof, for therein is great offence and the Lord of All-might hath forbidden it in His Book." Answered the gardener, "O my Lord Nur al-Din, an thou forbear to drink only by reason of the sin, verily Allah (extolled and exalted be He!) is bountiful, of sufferance great, forgiving and compa.s.sionate and pardoneth the mortalest sins: His mercy embraceth all things, Allah's ruth be upon the poet who saith,

'Be as thou, wilt, for Allah is bountiful * And when thou sinnest feel thou naught alarm: But 'ware of twofold sins nor ever dare * To give G.o.d partner or mankind to harm.'"

Then quoth one of the sons of the merchants, "My life on thee, O my lord Nur al-Din, drink of this cup!" And another conjured him by the oath of divorce and yet another stood up persistently before him, till he was ashamed and taking the cup from the gardener, drank a draught, but spat it out again, crying, "'Tis bitter." Said the young gardener, "O my lord Nur al-Din, knowest thou not that sweets taken by way of medicine are bitter? Were this not bitter, 'twould lack of the manifold virtues it possesseth; amongst which are that it digesteth food and disperseth cark and care and dispelleth flatulence and clarifieth the blood and cleareth the complexion and quickeneth the body and hearteneth the hen-hearted and fortifieth the s.e.xual power in man; but to name all its virtues would be tedious. Quoth one of the poets,

'We'll drink and Allah pardon sinners all * And cure of ills by sucking cups I'll find: Nor aught the sin deceives me; yet said He * 'In it there be advantage[FN#419] to mankind.'"

Then he sprang up without stay or delay and opened one of the cupboards in the pavilion and taking out a loaf of refined sugar, broke off a great slice which he put into Nur al-Din's cup, saying, "O my lord, an thou fear to drink wine, because of its bitterness, drink now, for 'tis sweet." So he took the cup and emptied it: whereupon one of his comrades filled him another, saying, "O my lord Nur al-Din, I am thy slave," and another did the like, saying, "I am one of thy servants," and a third said, "For my sake!" and a fourth, "Allah upon thee, O my lord Nur al-Din, heal my heart!" And so they ceased not plying him with wine, each and every of the ten sons of merchants till they had made him drink a total of ten cups. Now Nur al-Din's body was virgin of wine-bibbing, or never in all his life had he drunken vine-juice till that hour, wherefore its fumes wrought in his brain and drunkenness was stark upon him and he stood up (and indeed his tongue was thick and his speech stammering) and said, "O company, by Allah, ye are fair and your speech is goodly and your place pleasant; but there needeth hearing of sweet music; for drink without melody lacks the chief of its essentiality, even as saith the poet,

'Pa.s.s round the cup to the old and the young man, too, And take the bowl from the hand of the shining moon,[FN#420]

But without music, I charge you, forbear to drink; I see even horses drink to a whistled tune.'"[FN#421]

Therewith up sprang the gardener lad and mounting one of the young men's mules, was absent awhile, after which he returned with a Cairene girl, as she were a sheep's tail, fat and delicate, or an ingot of pure silvern ore or a dinar on a porcelain plate or a gazelle in the wold forlore. She had a face that put to shame the shining sun and eyes Babylonian[FN#422] and brows like bows bended and cheeks rose-painted and teeth pearly-hued and lips sugared and glances languishing and breast ivory white and body slender and slight, full of folds and with dimples dight and hips like pillows stuffed and thighs like columns of Syrian stone, and between them what was something like a sachet of spices in wrapper swathed. Quoth the poet of her in these couplets,

"Had she shown her shape to idolaters' sight, * They would gaze on her face and their G.o.ds detest: And if in the East to a monk she'd show'd, * He'd quit Eastern posture and bow to West.[FN#423]

An she crached in the sea and the briniest sea * Her lips would give it the sweetest zest."

And quoth another in these couplets,

"Brighter than Moon at full with kohl'd eyes she came * Like Doe, on chasing whelps of Lioness intent: Her night of murky locks lets fall a tent on her * A tent of hair[FN#424] that lacks no pegs to hold the tent; And roses lighting up her roseate cheeks are fed * By hearts and livers flowing fire for languishment: An 'spied her all the Age's Fair to her they'd rise *

Humbly,[FN#425] and cry 'The meed belongs to precedent!'"

And how well saith a third bard,[FN#426]

"Three things for ever hinder her to visit us, for fear Of the intriguing spy and eke the rancorous envier; Her forehead's l.u.s.tre and the sound of all her ornaments And the sweet scent her creases hold of ambergris and myrth.

Grant with the border of her sleeve she hide her brow and doff Her ornaments, how shall she do her scent away from her?"

She was like the moon when at fullest on its fourteenth night, and was clad in a garment of blue, with a veil of green, overbrown flower-white that all wits amazed and those of understanding amated.--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying his permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Sixty-seventh Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the gardener brought a girl whom we have described, possessed of the utmost beauty and loveliness and fine stature and symmetrical grace as it were she the poet signified when he said,[FN#427]

"She came apparelled in a vest of blue, That mocked the skies and shamed their azure hue; I thought thus clad she burst upon my sight, Like summer moonshine on a wintry night."

And how goodly is the saying of another and how excellent,

"She came thick veiled, and cried I, 'O display * That face like full moon bright with pure-white ray.'

Quoth she, 'I fear disgrace,' quoth I, 'Cut short * This talk, no shift of days thy thoughts affray.'

Whereat she raised her veil from fairest face * And crystal spray on gems began to stray: And I forsooth was fain to kiss her cheek, * Lest she complain of me on Judgment-Day.

And at such tide before the Lord on High * We first of lovers were redress to pray: So 'Lord, prolong this reckoning and review' * (Prayed I) 'that longer I may sight my may.'"

Then said the young gardener to her, "Know thou, O lady of the fair, brighter than any constellation which illumineth air we sought, in bringing thee hither naught but that thou shouldst entertain with converse this comely youth, my lord Nur al-Din, for he hath come to this place only this day." And the girl replied, "Would thou hadst told me, that I might have brought what I have with me!" Rejoined the gardener, "O my lady, I will go and fetch it to thee." "As thou wilt," said she: and he, "Give me a token." So she gave him a kerchief and he fared forth in haste and returned after awhile, bearing a green satin bag with slings of gold. The girl took the bag from him and opening it shook it, whereupon there fell thereout two-and-thirty pieces of wood, which she fitted one into other, male into female and female into male[FN#428] till they became a polished lute of Indian workmanship. Then she uncovered her wrists and laying the lute in her lap, bent over it with the bending of mother over babe, and swept the strings with her finger-tips; whereupon it moaned and resounded and after its olden home yearned; and it remembered the waters that gave it drink and the earth whence it sprang and wherein it grew and it minded the carpenters who made it their merchandise and the ships that shipped it; and it cried and called aloud and moaned and groaned; and it was as if she asked it of all these things and it answered her with the tongue of the case, reciting these couplets,[FN#429]

"A tree whilere was I the Bulbul's home * To whom for love I bowed my gra.s.s-green head: They moaned on me, and I their moaning learnt * And in that moan my secret all men read: The woodman fell me falling sans offence, * And slender lute of me (as view ye) made: But, when the fingers smite my strings, they tell * How man despite my patience did me dead; Hence boon-companions when they hear my moan * Distracted wax as though by wine misled: And the Lord softens every heart of me, * And I am hurried to the highmost stead: All who in charms excel fain clasp my waist; * Gazelles of languid eyne and Houri maid: Allah ne'er part fond lover from his joy * Nor live the loved one who unkindly fled."

Then the girl was silent awhile, but presently taking the lute in lap, again bent over it, as mother bendeth over child, and preluded in many different modes; then, returning to the first, she sang these couplets,

"Would they [FN#430] the lover seek without ado, * He to his heavy grief had bid adieu: With him had vied the Nightingale[FN#431] on bough * As one far parted from his lover's view: Rouse thee! awake! The Moon lights Union-night * As tho' such Union woke the Morn anew.

This day the blamers take of us no heed * And lute-strings bid us all our joys ensue.