The Book Of The Thousand Nights And A Night, Vol 1 Page-210

The Book Of The Thousand Nights And A Night, Vol 1

A plain and literal translation of the arabian nights entertainments

hair and cheeks delicately fair; and teeth shown in sweet smiling and breasts firm rising and crowning sides of the softest and waist of the roundest. And in this second suit she was as a certain master of high conceits saith of the like of her:— She came apparrelled in an azure vest, * Ultramarine, as skies are deckt and dight; I view’d th’ unparrellel’d sight, which show’d my eyes * A moon of Summer on a Winter-night. Then they changed that suit for another and, veiling her face in the luxuriance of her hair, loosed her lovelocks, so dark, so long that their darkness and length outvied the darkest nights, and she shot through all hearts with the magical shaft of her eye-babes. They displayed her in the third dress and she was as said of her the sayer:— Veiling her cheeks with hair a-morn she comes, And I her mischiefs with the cloud compare: Saying, “Thou veilest morn with night!” “Ah, no!” Quoth she, “I shroud full moon with darkling air!” Then they displayed her in the fourth bridal dress and she came forward shining like the rising sun and swaying to and fro with lovesome grace and supple ease like a gazelle-fawn. And she clave all hearts with the arrows of her eyelashes, even as saith one who described a charmer like her:— The sun of beauty she to sight appears * And, lovely-coy, she mocks all loveliness; And when he fronts her favour and her smile * A-morn, the Sun of day in clouds