HASSAN
(Rapturously) Oh, you are beautiful!
YASMIN Prince of poets, is that all you have to say! Not a stanza, not a trope, not a turn, not a twist, not even a hint that the heavens are opened, or that there are two moons in the sky together?
HASSAN
There is but one.
YASMIN
Well confectioned, my confectioner! And now, Good-night.
HASSAN O stay, Yasmin, you are too beautiful, and I too bold. I am nothing, and you are the Queen of the Stars of Night. But the thought of you is twisted in the strings of my heart; I burn with love of you, Yasmin. Put me to the proof, my lady; there was nothing I could not do for your bright eyes. I would cross the salt desert and wrest a cup of the water of life from the Jinn that guards it; I would walk to the barriers of the world and steal the roc's egg from its diamond nest. I would swim the seven oceans, and cross the five islands to rob Solomon ben Dawud of his ring in the palace where he lies sleeping in the silence and majesty of uncorrupting death. And I would slip the ring on your finger and make you mistress of the spirits of the air— but would you love me? Could you love me, do you love me, Yasmin?
YASMIN
There is love and love and love.
HASSAN
(Passionately) Oh, answer me!
YASMIN I think I have been enchanted, Hassan; how, I cannot tell. Till this afternoon the thought of your appearance made my heart narrow with disgust. But since I ate your present of comfits— and they were admirable comfits, and I ate them with speed— my heart is changed and inclined toward you, I know not why or how, except it be through magic.
HASSAN
(Aside) She is mine, and magic rules the world!
(Aloud) Yasmin, shall I possess you, O Yasmin?
YASMIN
Am I not the desert waiting for the rain? Was I not born for passion,
Hassan? Is not my bosom burning for kisses? Were not these arms
made smooth and hard to fight the battle of love?