Letter from Schemselnihar to Ali Ebn Becar, Prince of Persia.
The person who carries this letter will give you a better account concerning me than I can do, for I have not been myself since I saw you: deprived of your presence, I sought to divert myself by entertaining you with these ill-written lines, as if I had the good fortune to speak to you.
It is said that patience is a cure for all distempers; but it sours mine instead of sweetening it. Although your picture be deeply engraven in my heart, my eyes desire constantly to see the original; and their sight will vanish if they are much longer deprived of that pleasure. May I flatter myself that yours have the same impatience to see me? Yes I can; their tender glances discovered it to me. How happy, prince, should you and Schemselnihar both be, if our agreeable desires were not crossed by invincible obstacles, which afflict me as sensibly as they do you!
Those thoughts which my fingers write, and which I express with incredible pleasure, and repeat again and again, speak from the bottom of my heart, and from the incurable wound which you have made in it; a wound which I bless a thousand times, notwithstanding the cruel torments I endure for your absence. I would reckon all that opposes our love nothing, were I only allowed to see you sometimes with freedom; I would then enjoy you, and what more could I desire?
Do not imagine that I say more than I think. Alas! whatever expressions I am able to use, I am sensible that I think more than I can tell you. My eyes, which are continually watching and weeping for your return; my afflicted heart, which desires nothing but you alone; the sighs that escape me as often as I think on you, that is, every moment; my imagination, which represents no other object than my dear prince; the complaints that I make to Heaven for the rigour of my destiny; in a word, my grief, my trouble, my torments, which give me no ease ever since I lost the sight of you, are witnesses of what I write.
Am not I unhappy to be born to love, without hope of enjoying him whom I love? This doleful thought oppresses me so much, that I should die, were I not persuaded that you love me: but this sweet comfort balances my despair, and preserves my life. Tell me that you love me always; I will keep your letter carefully, and read it a thousand times a day; I will endure my afflictions with less impatience. I pray Heaven may cease to be angry at us, and grant us an opportunity to say that we love one another without fear; and that we may never cease to love! Adieu. I salute Ebn Thaher, who has so much obliged us.
The prince of Persia was not satisfied to read the letter once; he thought he had read it with too little attention, and therefore read it again with more leisure; and as he read, sometimes he uttered sighs, sometimes he wept, and sometimes he discovered transports of joy and affection, as one who was touched with what he read. In a word, he could not keep his eyes off those characters drawn by so lovely a hand, and therefore began to read it a third time. Then Ebn Thaher told him that the confident could not stay, and he ought to think of giving an answer. Alas! cried the prince, how would you have me answer so kind a letter? In what terms shall I express the trouble that I am in? My spirit is tossed with a thousand tormenting things, and my thoughts destroy one another the same momunt they are conceived, to make way for more; and so long as my body suffers by the impressions of my mind, how shall I be able to hold paper, or a reed [Footnote The Arabians, Persians, and Turks, when they write, hold the paper ordinarily upon their knees with their left hands, and write with their right, with a little reed or cane cut like our pens; this cane is hollow, and resembles our reeds, but is harder.], to write? Having spoken thus, he took out of a little desk paper, cane, and ink.
The prince of Persia, before he began to write, gave Schemselnihar's letter to Ebn Thaher, and prayed him to hold it open while he wrote, that, by casting his eyes upon it, he might see the better what to answer. He began to write; but the tears that fell from his eyes upon the paper obliged him several times to stop, that they might trickle down the more freely. At last he finished his letter, and giving it to Ebn Thaher, Read it, I pray, said he, do me the favour to see if the disorder of my mind has allowed me to give a reasonable answer. Ebn Thaher took it, and read as follows:
The Prince of Persia's Answer to Schemselnihar's Letter.
I was swallowed up with mortal grief before I received your letter, at the sight of which I was transported with unspeakable joy; and the view of the characters written by your lovely hand enlightened my eyes more sensibly than they were darkened when yours were closed on a sudden at the feet of my rival. Those words which your courteous letter contains, are so many rays of light, which have dispelled the darkness with which my soul was obscured; they show me how much you suffer by your love to me, and that you are not ignorant of what I endure for you, and thereby comfort me in my afflictions. On the one hand, they make me shed tears in abundance; and, on the other, they inflame my heart—with a fire which supports it, and hinders my dying of grief. I have not had one moment's rest since our cruel separation. Your letter only gave me some ease. I kept a sorrowful silence till the moment I received it, and then it restored me to speech. I was buried in a profound melancholy, but it inspired me with joy, which immediately appeared in my eyes and countenance. But my surprise at receiving a favour which I had not deserved was so great, that I knew not which way to begin to testify my thankfulness for it. In a word, after having kissed it as a valuable pledge of your goodness, I read it over and over, and was confounded at the excess of my good fortune. You would have me to signify to you that I always love you. Ah! though I did not love you so perfectly as I do, I could not forbear adoring you, after all the marks you have given me of a love so uncommon: yes, I love you, my dear soul, and shall account it my glory to burn all my days with that sweet fire you have kindled in my heart. I will never complain of the brisk ardour with which I find it consumes me; and how rigorous soever the grief be which I suffer, I will bear it corageously, in hopes to see you some time or other. Would to Heaven it were today; and that, instead of sending you my letter, I might be allowed to come and assure you that I die for love of you! My tears hinder me from saying any more. Adieu.