The Thousand and One Nights Volume IV Part 16

The lover is drunken with love of his fair; In longing and heat he redoubles fore'er.

Love-maddened, confounded, distracted, perplexed, No dwelling is pleasant to him and no fare.

For how, to a lover cut off from his love, Can life be delightsome? 'Twere strange an it were.

I melt with the fire of my pa.s.sion for her And the tears down my cheek roll and never forbear.

Shall I ever behold her or one from her stead, With whom I may solace my heart in despair?

And he wept till he wet the ground; after which he rose and fared on again over deserts and wilds, till there came out upon him a lion, with a neck buried in hair, a head the bigness of a dome, a mouth wider than the door [thereof] and teeth like elephants' tusks. When Uns el Wujoud saw him, he gave himself up for lost and turning towards Mecca, p.r.o.nounced the professions of the faith and prepared for death.

Now he had read in books that whoso will flatter the lion, beguileth him, for that he is lightly duped by fair words and glorieth in praise; so he began and said, 'O lion of the forest and the waste! O unconquerable warrior! O father of heroes and Sultan of wild beasts! Behold, I am a desireful lover, whom pa.s.sion and severance have undone. Since I parted from my beloved, I have lost my reason; wherefore, do thou hearken to my speech and have ruth on my pa.s.sion and love-longing.' When the lion heard this, he drew back from him and sitting down on his hind-quarters, raised his head to him and began to frisk his tail and paws to him; which when Uns el Wujoud saw, he recited these verses:

Wilt slay me, O lord of the desert, before My enslaver I meet with, e'en her I adore?

No fat on me is; I'm no booty for thee; For the loss of my loved one hath wasted me sore.

Yea, my love's separation hath worn out my soul, And I'm grown like a shape, with a shroud covered o'er.

Give the railers not cause to exult in my woe, O prince of the spoilers, O lion of war!

A lover, all sleepless for loss of my dear, I'm drowned in the tears from mine eyelids that pour; And my pining for her in the darkness of night Hath robbed me, for pa.s.sion, of reason and lore.

When he had finished, the lion rose and coming softly up to him, with his eyes full of tears, licked him with his tongue, then walked on before him, signing to him, as who should say, 'Follow me.' So he followed him, and he led him on till he brought him, over a mountain, to the farther side, where he came upon the track of a caravan and knew it to be that of Rose-in-bud and her company. When the lion saw that he knew the track and set himself to follow it, he turned back and went his way; whilst Uns el Wujoud followed the foot-marks, till they brought him to a surging sea, swollen with clas.h.i.+ng billows. The trail led down to the water's edge and there broke off; whereby he knew that they had taken s.h.i.+p there and had continued their journey by sea. So he lost hope of finding his beloved and repeated the following verses, weeping sore:

Far's the place of visitation and my patience faileth me For my love; but how to reach her o'er the abysses of the sea?

When, for love of her, my vitals are consumed and I've forsworn Slumber, sleep for wake exchanging, ah, how can I patient be?

Since the day she left the homesteads and departed, hath my heart Burnt with never-ceasing anguish, all a-fire with agony.

Oxus and Jaxartes, running like Euphrates, are my tears; More than rain and flood abounding, run like rivers to the sea.

Ulcerated are my eyelids with the running of the tears, And my heart on fires of pa.s.sion's burnt and wasted utterly.

Yea, the armies of my longing and my transport on me pressed, And the hosts of my endurance did before them break and flee.

Lavishly my life I've ventured for the love of her; for life Is the lightest to a lover of all ventures, verily.

Be an eye of G.o.d unpunished that beheld the beauteous one, Than the moon how much more splendid, in the harem's sanctuary!

Struck was I and smitten prostrate by wide-opened eyes, whose shafts, From a bow all stringless loosened, pierced the hapless heart of me.

By the soft and flexile motions of her shape she captived me, Swaying as the limber branches sway upon the ca.s.sia-tree.

Union with her I covet, that therewith I may apply Solace to the pains of pa.s.sion, love and care and misery.

For the love of her, afflicted, as I am, I have become; All that's fallen on me betided from the evil eye, perdie.

Then he wept, till he swooned away, and abode in his swoon a long while. When he came to himself, he looked right and left and seeing none in the desert, was fearful of the wild beasts; so he climbed to the top of a high mountain, where he heard a man's voice speaking within a cavern. He listened and found it to be that of a devotee, who had forsworn the world and given himself up to pious exercises. So he knocked thrice at the cavern door; but the hermit made him no answer, neither came forth to him; wherefore he sighed heavily and recited the following verses:

What way is open unto me, to my desire to get And put off weariness and toil and trouble and regret?

All pains and terrors have combined on me, to make me h.o.a.r And old of head and heart, whilst I a very child am yet.

I find no friend to solace me of longing and unease' Nor one 'gainst pa.s.sion and its stress to aid me and abet.

Alas, the torments I endure for waste and wistful love!

Fortune, meseems, 'gainst me is turned and altogether set.

Ah, woe's me for the lover's pain, unresting, pa.s.sion-burnt, Him who in parting's bitter cup his lips perforce hath wet!

His wit is ravished clean away by separation's woe, Fire in his heart and all consumed his entrails by its fret.

Ah, what a dreadful day it was, when to her stead I came And that, which on the door was writ, my eyes confounded met!

I wept, until I gave the earth to drink of my despair; But still from friend and foe I hid the woes that me beset.

Then strayed I forth till, in the waste, a lion sprang on me And would have slain me straight; but him with flattering words I met And soothed him. So he spared my life and succoured me, as 'twere He too had known love's taste and been entangled in its net.

Yet, for all this, could I but win to come to my desire, All, that I've suffered and endured, straightway I should forget.

O thou, that harbour'st in thy cave, distracted from the world, Meseems thou'st tasted love and been its slave, O anch.o.r.et!

Hardly had he made an end of these verses when, behold, the door of the cavern opened and he heard one say' 'Alas, the pity of it I' So he entered and saluted the hermit, who returned his greeting and said to him, 'What is thy name?' 'Uns el Wujoud,'

answered the young man. 'And what brings thee hither?' asked the hermit. So he told him his whole story, whereat he wept and said' 'O Uns el Wujoud, these twenty years have I dwelt in this place, but never beheld I any here, till the other day, when I heard a noise of cries and weeping, and looking forth in the direction of the sound, saw much people and tents pitched on the sea-sh.o.r.e. They built a s.h.i.+p, in which they embarked and sailed away. Then some of them returned with the s.h.i.+p and breaking it up, went their way; and methinks those, who embarked in the s.h.i.+p and returned not, are they whom thou seekest. In that case, thy trouble must needs be grievous and thou art excusable; though never yet was lover but suffered sorrows.' Then he recited the following verses:

Uns el Wujoud, thou deem'st me free of heart, but, wel-a-way!

Longing and transport and desire fold and unfold me aye.

Yea, love and pa.s.sion have I known even from my earliest years, Since at my mother's nursing breast a suckling babe I lay.

I struggled sore and long with Love, till I his power confessed. If thou enquire at him of me, he will me not unsay.

I quaffed the cup of pa.s.sion out, with languor and disease, And as a phantom I became for pining and decay.

Strong was I, but my strength is gone and neath the swords of eyes, The armies of my patience broke and vanished clean away.

Hope not to win delight of love, without chagrin and woe; For contrary with contrary conjoined is alway.

But fear not change from lover true; do thou but constant be Unto thy wish, and thou shalt sure be happy yet some day: For unto lovers pa.s.sion hath ordained that to forget Is heresy, forbidden all its mandates that obey.

Then he rose and coming to the youth, embraced him, and they wept together, till the hills rang with their crying and they fell down in a swoon. When they revived, they swore brotherhood in G.o.d the Most High, and the hermit said to Uns el Wujoud, 'This night will I pray to G.o.d and seek of Him direction what thou shouldst do to attain thy desire.'

To return to Rose-in-bud. When they brought her into the castle and she beheld its ordinance, she wept and exclaimed, 'By Allah, thou art a goodly place, save that thou lackest the presence of the beloved in thee!' Then, seeing [many] birds in the island, she bade her people set snares for them and hang up all they caught in cages within the castle; and they did so. But she sat at a window of the castle and bethought her of what had pa.s.sed, and pa.s.sion and transport and love-longing redoubled upon her, till she burst into tears and repeated the following verses:

To whom, of my desire complaining, shall I cry, To whom, for loss of loves and parting's sorrow, sigh?

Flames rage within my breast, but I reveal them not, For fear lest they my case discover to the spy.

I'm grown as thin as e'er a bodkin's wood, so worn With absence and lament and agony am I.

Where is the loved one's eye, to see how I'm become Even as a blasted tree, stripped bare and like to die?

They wronged me, when they shut me prisoner in a place, Wherein my love, alas I may never come me nigh.

Greetings a thousandfold I beg the sun to bear, What time he riseth up and setteth from the sky, To a beloved one, who puts the moon to shame, For loveliness, and doth the Indian cane outvie.

If the rose ape his cheek, "Now G.o.d forfend," I say, "That of my portion aught to pilfer thou shouldst try."

Lo, in his mouth are springs of limpid water sweet, Refreshment that would bring to those in flames who lie.

How shall I one forget who is my heart and soul, My malady and he that healing can apply?

Then, as the shadows darkened upon her, her longing increased and she called to mind the past and recited these verses also:

The shadows darken and pa.s.sion stirs up my sickness amain And longing rouses within me the old desireful pain.

The anguish of parting hath taken its sojourn in my breast And love and longing and sorrow have maddened heart and brain.

Pa.s.sion hath made me restless and yearning consumes my soul And tears discover my secret, that else concealed had lain.

I know of no way to ease me of sickness and care and woe; Nor can my weak endeavour reknit Love's severed skein.

My heart is a raging furnace, because of the heat whereof My entrails are racked with anguish, that nothing can a.s.sain.

O thou, that thinkest to blame me for what is fallen on me, Enough, I suffer with patience whatever the Fates ordain.

I swear I shall ne'er find comfort nor be consoled for them, The oath of the children of pa.s.sion, whose oaths are never in vain!

Bear tidings, O night, to my dear ones and greet them and witness bear That thou knowest in thee I sleep not, but ever to wake am fain.

Meanwhile, the hermit said to Uns el Wujoud, 'Go down into the valley and fetch me palm-fibre.' So he went and returned with the palm-fibre, which the hermit took and twisting into ropes, made therewith a net, such as is used for carrying straw; after which he said to the youth, 'O Uns el Wujoud, in the heart of the valley grows a gourd, which springs up and dries upon its roots. Go thither and fill this net therewith; then tie it together and casting it into the water, embark thereon and make for the midst of the sea, so haply thou shalt come to thy desire; for he, who adventureth not himself, shall not attain that he seeketh.' 'I hear and obey,' answered Uns el Wujoud and bidding the hermit farewell after he had prayed for him, betook himself to the hollow of the valley, where he did as he had counselled him and launched out upon the water, supported by the net.

Then there arose a wind, which drove him out to sea, till he was lost to the hermit's view; and he ceased not to fare on over the abysses of the ocean, one billow tossing him up on the crest of the wave and another bearing him down into the trough of the sea, and he beholding the while the terrors and wonders of the deep, for the s.p.a.ce of three days, at the end of which time Fate cast him upon the Mount of the Bereft Mother, where he landed, weak and giddy as a fledgling bird, for hunger and thirst; but, finding there streams running and birds warbling on the branches and fruit-laden trees, growing in cl.u.s.ters and singly, he ate of the fruits and drank of the streams. Then he walked on till he saw some white thing alar off, and making for it, found that it was a strongly-fortified castle. So he went up to the gate and finding it locked, sat down by it.

He sat thus three days and on the fourth, the gate opened and an eunuch came out, who seeing Uns el Wujoud seated there, said to him, 'Whence comest thou and who brought thee hither?' Quoth he, 'I come from Ispahan and was travelling by sea with merchandise, when my s.h.i.+p was wrecked and the waves cast me upon this island.' When the eunuch heard this, he wept and embraced him, saying, 'G.o.d preserve thee, O [thou that bringest me the] fragrance of the beloved! Ispahan is my own country and I have there a cousin, the daughter of my father's brother, whom I loved and cherished from a child; but a people stronger than we fell upon us and taking me among other booty, docked me and sold me for an eunuch, whilst I was yet a lad; and this is how I come to be what I am.' Then he carried him into the courtyard of the castle, where he saw a great basin of water, surrounded by trees, on whose branches hung cages of silver, with doors of gold, and therein birds warbling and singing the praises of the Requiting King. In the first cage he came to was a turtle dove which, seeing him, raised her voice and cried out, saying, 'O Bountiful One!'[FN#79] Whereat he fell down in a swoon, but, presently coming to himself, sighed heavily and recited the following verses:

O turtle, art thou mad for love, as is my case? Then sing, 'O Bountiful!' and seek the Lord His grace!

Tell me, doth thy descant in joyance tale its rise Or in desireful pain, that in thy heart hath place?

If for desire thou moan'st of bygone loves or pin'st For dear ones that have gone and left thee but their trace, Or if thou'st lost thy love, like me, ah, then, indeed, Severance long-felt desire discovereth apace.

G.o.d guard a lover true! Though my bones rot, nor time Nor absence from my heart her image shall efface.

Then he fainted again and presently coming to his senses, went on to the second cage, wherein he found a ring-dove. When it saw him, it sang out, 'O Eternal, I praise thee!' and he sighed and recited these verses:

I heard a ring-dove say in her plaintive note, "Despite of my woes, O Eternal, I praise Thee still!"

And G.o.d, of His grace, reunion of our loves, in this my travel, may yet to us fulfil.

She visits me oft,[FN#80] with her dusk-red honeyed lips, And lends to the pa.s.sion within me an added thrill.